This will be one of those posts in which only I have any inter­est what­so­ever. Sorry.

I adore David Suchet’s por­tray­als of Agatha Christie’s Bel­gian detec­tive for British satel­lite tele­vi­sion. Suchet has filmed nearly every Poirot story and hopes to fin­ish them out before retir­ing. Most of the short sto­ries were filmed in an hour-​​long episodic for­mat in the early and mid nin­ties. The longer sto­ries are shot as TV movies.

One of the longer sto­ries, Sad Cypress, first aired in late 2003. If you do not know the story and don’t want it spoiled, you should go away now. In Sad Cypress Elenor Car­lyle is accused of (and indeed tried for, con­victed of, and sen­tenced to die for) the mur­der of Mary Ger­ard, a roman­tic rival. The trial con­cluded that she had poi­soned a fish paste sand­wich with mor­phine, which she then fed to the unfor­tu­nate Miss Ger­ard. Miss Car­lyle did not press her defense very strongly, because she had actu­ally fan­ta­sized about killing Miss Ger­ard with the fish paste and felt, when Miss Ger­ard did in fact die, that her desire had made it happen.

In Poirot’s dénoue­ment, the sleuth proves that the fish paste was not the vec­tor for the poi­son­ing of Mary Ger­ard with the fol­low­ing expo­si­tion, which is one of my favorite scenes in all of the Suchet stores. It really has to be seen to be appre­ci­ated, but if you’d like to do that, you’ll need to get it from Net­flix.

POIROT: Now this per­son has the phial of mor­phine, and the chance, it comes! And this is what he finds.

Poirot unveils a plate of six small, tri­an­gu­lar fish paste sand­wiches, each wholly indis­tin­guish­able from the others.

POIROT: The sand­wiches. One of salmon paste, the other two of shrimp and crab. Alors, our mur­derer approaches the sand­wiches, and at once he observes that the color and the tex­ture are iden­ti­cal. So which one is the salmon paste, eh?

Poirot lifts the plate of sand­wiches and sniffs them delicately.

POIROT: Non, there’s no way on earth he could dis­tin­guish by smell. So, what can this per­son do? I am afraid that there is only one thing he can do.

Poirot pro­duces a tiny sil­ver spoon.

POIROT: He tastes.

Poirot pro­ceeds to taste the fish paste fill­ing of each sand­wich, pro­duc­ing a more pro­nounced facial expres­sion of dis­gust with each taste.

POIROT: It was bad enough the first time! But then, sud­denly I realised how stu­pid I had been! I, Her­cule Poirot, had fol­lowed my rea­son­ing, yes, but I had failed to take into account the mad­ness of the Eng­lish palette. For, gen­tle­men, what do we find? We find that we are enter­ing into the realms of lunacy. I do not care if our mur­derer had the palette of a mas­ter chef, he could never dis­tin­guish between these slur­ries! No, it is a fact. These sand­wiches are all but indis­tin­guish­able. So, I come to the con­clu­sion. I, Her­cule Poirot, do not care what was said at the trial! This could never, ever be the prac­ti­cal method of murder!

DR PETER LORD: So Elenor Car­lyle did not poi­son the sandwich?

POIROT: No she did not.

DR PETER LORD: Who did?

POIROT: Nobody.

TED HORLICK: So it was an accident?

POIROT: No, no, no, no, she was mur­dered. But not by these dis­gust­ing sandwiches.