Zachariah Osborne

Bertie Carvel as Zachariah Osborne

In the novel The Pale Horse, Zachariah Osborne is a pharmacist. He has a pharmacy on the corner of Barton Street in London. Osborne told police he saw a distinctive looking man following Father Gorman shortly before he was beaten to death. Partway through the story, he retired as a pharmacist and moved to a house in Bournemouth which he named Everest. From there he wrote to the police saying he had attended a village fete at Much Deeping and had met one Mr Venables fitting that description. The police later told him that Venables was disabled so couldn't have been the attacker, but Zachariah Osborne tried to give plausible explanations as to how Venables could have faked his disability.

The character is inspired by a pharmacist who trained Agatha Christie as a dispenser during WW1. She called him "Mr P." According to Christie, Mr P. once showed her that a lump of curare which he carried in his pocket. He told her it made him feel "powerful". Of Mr P., Christie relates that "He struck me, in spite of his cherubic appearance, as possible rather a dangerous man. His memory remained with me so long that it was still there waiting when I first conceived the idea of writing my book The Pale Horse--and that must have been, I suppose, nearly fifty years later."

Note that some sources, including Agatha Christie.com spell the name as "Zechariah Osbourne". for example.

SPOILERS AHEAD

He used the women at The Pale Horse, Mr Bradley and Customers' Reactions Classified to hide his actions. He was actually the murderer of the case and the person behind the "murder-for-payment" scheme which Jessie Davis had witnessed, and had confessed to Father Gorman.

Portrayals

Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie

In Le cheval pâle, the Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie adaptation of the novel, the parallel character is Lucien Cornille who similarily claims to have seen the killer of Père François.

Agatha Christie's Marple

In the Agatha Christie's Marple episode The Pale Horse, Mr Paul Osborne is portrayed by JJ Feild. He is also a resident of boarding house where Jessie Davis lives. It is not clear what his occupation is here. In one scene he is shown typing a sales report. In this portrayal Miss Marple reveals during the denouement that she has a backstory as someone who had murdered his stepfather at age twelve. He was committed but then released later.