In the novel Sparkling Cyanide, Ruth Lessing is the highly efficient secretary of George Barton, who considers her his right hand. Ruth was considered a member of the family and was frequently invited to the Bartons’ Elvaston Square house. During the evemts of the novel, Ruth is twenty-nine, but she had not changed from since she was twenty-three years old. Ruth would have wanted to marry George Barton despite he was already married, and thus had a motive for killing Barton’s wife Rosemary.
A week before the death of Mrs Barton, George Barton asked Ruth to visit Victor Drake.
Spoilers ahead[]
Ruth Lessing falls for Victor, and schemes and murders to gain the inherited wealth by killing all those in the list before Victor. She poisoned Rosemary Barton, and tried to kill Rosemary’s sister three times. If she died, the money would have passed to Lucilla Drake, Victor’s mother. Victor would have inherited indirectly because he always managed to obtain financial aid from his mother. However, George Barton died in the place of the intended victim Iris.
Name[]
Agatha Christie used the name Ruth Lessing as a pun for a ruthless female conspirator.
Portrayals[]
Ruth Lessing is one of the more "stable" characters whose back story and plot role does not need to change much from adaptation to adaptation to suit the setting or context. However her specific contributions in the various murders/attempted murders do vary.
Sparkling Cyanide (1983)[]
In the 1983 Warner Bros adaptation, like in the novel, Ruth planted the cyanide which killed Rosemary. Likewise, for the second murder, she planted the cyanide into Iris Marle's bag to incriminate her and the cyanide in the champagne is planted by Victor Drake in the guise of a fake waiter. She is also the one who knocks Iris out and tries to gas her. However she does not take part in the earlier attempt on Iris. In the book Ruth tried to run Iris down in a car. Here Drake is the one who tries to run Iris down with a boat while she is water-skiing.
Sparkling Cyanide (2003)[]
In ITV's 2003 adaptation of the novel, the killings are made more straightforward. Ruth plants the cyanide for the first killing. For the second killing, the fake waiter is done away with and it is Ruth who also plants the cyanide. Here the only difference is that the poison is in the wrong glass because of her own mistake. Iris's evening bag had fallen and a waiter had put it back on the table in the wrong place. Ruth puts the poison in the glass next to her bag which is actually Barton's glass. The guests come back from the dance and sit in their original positions and so Barton ended up being poisoned.
In this adaptation, Ruth is portrayed slightly more sympathetically. She is remorseful and wanted the killing to stop. She actually refused to do the second killing and argued with Drake outside the night club but Drake threatened to tell the police that she was the one who committed the first poisoning and thus forced her to proceed with the second.
In this adaptation, Drake is the one who makes the attempt to kill Iris (there is only one attempt). Ruth is present but she is unwilling to go ahead. Although told to keep out of sight, she bursts into the room to warn Iris not to drink something which Drake had just offered her. When Drake wants to take Iris away to fake a suicide, Ruth separates the two and pushes Drake out of the room. She holds the door closed for a while to give Iris a chance to escape through the window and fire exit. Part of the reason for Ruth's change of mind could be that here, Barton is not exactly keeping his distance and is softening towards her. She doesn't really need Drake's affection and she realised it might be false anyway.
Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie[]
In Meurtre au champagne, the 2012 French adaptation by Escazal Films, the parallel character is Babette.