- A deck with a missing card provides Poirot with the clue he needs to solve the murder of the tyrannical head of a movie studio.
- After a visit to Parade film studios with his friend Captain Hastings, Poirot finds himself investigating the murder of Henry Reedburn, the head of the studio. Reedburn was something of a tyrant who had fired a veteran actor, taken over a major film from a young director and had recently blackmailed actress Valerie Saintclair into signing a new contract. Upon finding the body, Saintclair ran to a neighboring house to seek help, interrupting the Oglander family's bridge game in the process. However, the lack of a king of clubs on the card table provides Poirot with only clue he needs to solve the crime.—garykmcd
- Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings visit the stage set of a film. Later that evening the head of that studio, Harry Readburn, is found dead in his house. A young actress was apparently seen running from the house around the time of his death, and she is the prime suspect. Chief Inspector Japp thinks it is an open-and-shut case, but Poirot knows otherwise. His biggest clue is a missing card from a game of bridge...—grantss
- Movie opens with the famous movie director Henry Reedburn (David Swift) giving a hard time to actress Valerie SaintClair (Niamh Cusack) on the sets of his latest movie. He also asks whether she had thought about his "proposition" to her, to which she reacts disgustedly. Reedburn also fires an actor who is past his prime. The actor is seen that same night, utterly drunk & promising to take revenge on Reedburn for his humiliation.
The Oglander family was playing bridge in the drawing room of their house in Streatham last night when the French windows burst open and a woman staggered in, blood on her dress. She managed to say, "Murder!" and then collapsed. The family fetched both a doctor and the police who called at the next-door villa to find the body of Henry Reedburn, a famous movie director, dead in the library with his skull split open by some unknown weapon. The woman is Valerie Saintclair.
Poirot receives a visit from Prince Paul of Maurania (Jack Klaff), who wants to save Valerie. Reedburn was in love with Valerie although his feelings were not reciprocated. The prince is afraid that his family will not approve of Valerie if there is even a hint of a scandal involving her. Prince Paul and Valerie saw a clairvoyant the previous week who turned over the king of clubs in her pack of cards and said a man threatened danger to her. The prince is afraid that Valerie interpreted this to mean Reedburn and attacked him.
Poirot and Hastings visit the scene of the crime. The library runs the length of one side of the house. At either end are curtained recesses with French windows, one to the garden and the other to the drive. It was in the recess facing the garden that Reedburn was found. The dead man had a female visitor that night that he let into the house himself, but the servants did not see her. Poirot sees a marble seat in the recess whose arm-ends are carved in the form of lions' heads and wonders if they could have caused the wound to Reedburn's head. The doctor says there is no blood on the marble. Poirot is also concerned that Valerie decided to run to the Oglander's house instead of the house directly opposite, which was much nearer.
They proceed to the Oglander home, along the garden path. Inside the house Poirot notices a Oglander family picture with 3 kids in it. In the drawing room, the table with the cards for the interrupted bridge game is still in place. Miss Saintclair is still in the house, ill in bed. She tells them that Reedburn was in love with her & was threatening to divulge a secret of hers to The Prince unless she signed a 3 year contract with his company & agreed to his marriage proposal. She went to his house by prior appointment and was pleading with him when a man dressed like a tramp attacked him from behind the curtained recess. She fled from the house towards the lights of the Oglander house.
Returning to the drawing room Poirot notices that the king of clubs is missing from the cards on the bridge table. Poirot is told that the sacked actor was seen driving towards Reedborun's house, in a drunk state that night. They return to Reedburn's house and in the curtained recess that leads to the drive they find a twin of the marble seat, again with lion's head arms but this one has a faint bloodstain on it. Reedburn was killed here, and his body dragged to the recess facing the garden. Poirot has the missing king of clubs, having taken it from the card box before at the Oglander house. He returns there to assure Mrs. Oglander (Avril Elgar) that the police will not find out what happened. He returns the playing card to her, telling her it was their only slip-up.
He tells Hastings what happened. The bridge game was set up after the event as an alibi for the four members of the family (Mrs Oglander, son Ronnie, daughter Gerladine (Abigail Cruttenden) and one more). By mistake one card was left in the box. The son of the family Ronnie Oglander (Sean Pertwee) killed Reedburn when he went with Valerie to plead with Reedburn (Valerie's secret was that her father had turned to cooking up his company's books & was caught & thus had to leave country & settle in England under the name of Oglander. If Prince came to know of it, the marriage would be off), presumably when things escalated into violence. Valerie is the estranged daughter of the Oglander family. Despite the breach in the relationship, she turned to them in her moment of need. Her story of the tramp will stand, and she is free to marry Prince Paul.
This is one of the few cases (aside from Murder on the Orient Express) in which Poirot allows a guilty party to avoid punishment, particularly when there is a dead body involved. He argues that Ronnie punched Reedburn in the face, who fell backwards & hit his head on the marble & died. That's an accident & not murder.
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