>> i'm a cook, sir. didn't they tell you at the house? >> my dear miss dunn. i had no idea. this is very unfortunate. >> will i have to lose the money, sir? and the house, sir? it's ever so nice, even if it is a bit out of the way. >> i believe i have it. we lawyers always know a thing to do. the way out here is for you to have left your employment before we met. >> but we have met, sir. i mean, and i haven't? >> haven't you? >> no. >> haven't you, miss dunn? >> no. oh, i see...yes.

>> you left your employment this morning, did you not, before we met? >> yes. i remember now. i did as a matter of fact. >> there. now it is imperative that you take position in the house by noon tomorrow. in order to do that, you must catch the night train from king's cross. >> oh. >> come along, miss dunn. i can advance you 10 pounds or so for the fare, and you can write a note to your employer at the station, which i shall personally deliver for you. [indistinct] >> and was everything as mr. crutchett had said? >> oh, yes. and more, sir. >> now, what about your luggage, all the things you had left at 88 prince albert road? >> mr. crutchett sent them on, like he said he would. but it was all done up in brown paperlike. i don't know. i suppose mrs. todd was angry

with me and grudged me my bit of luck and wouldn't let him have my box. >> but annie said the trunk was-- >> later, my friend. later. >> but there you said she never got my letter. well, i can't say as i blame her. >> i see. well, thank you, mademoiselle. >> oh. >> there have been, as you say, a little muddle about your trunk, which i will straighten out with mrs. todd, if you would permit me. >> oh, thank you very much, sir. >> come, hastings. we must return to london with impossible speed. is there nowhere you can contact the chief inspector japp? telephone him at his home. yes, of the greatest urgency. tell him he should not be looking for davis. he should be

looking for simpson. no, not davis, but simpson! [punching ticket] >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> why should japp want simpson all of a sudden? what's simpson supposed to have done? >> hastings, my friend, the little gray cells are not working today, eh? they take a little vacance, eh? >> it's to do with this eliza, isn't it? >> no. >> oh. >> we have moved beyond the

petty sphere of cooks from clapham, hastings. >> there is something to do with this australian fellow. >> there is no australian fellow. >> yes, there is. she told us about him. >> do you remember when we interviewed simpson? >> interviewed simpson. no. >> in his little room at the house in clapham. >> oh, right. the lodger, yes. >> do you remember i asked him if he took an interest in amateur theatricals? >> yes, i do, as a matter of fact. >> why do you think i asked him that? >> why? well, making conversation, i suppose. >> i asked him that because he had recently been wearing a false beard. he had a tiny trace of gum arabic in his-- what do you call it here? >> sideburn. >> sideburn. yes.

do you see? >> oh, right, yes. >> bon. >> the australian was simpson in a false beard. [indistinct voices] >> hey! [rings doorbell] >> who are you? >> i am hercule poirot. who are you?

>> sarge, there's some french gent at the door. >> no, no, no, no, no. i am not some french gent. i am some belgian gent. >> oh, well, well. if it isn't mr. poirot. >> it is. is the lady of the house in? >> the chief inspector's here. >> mr. poirot! >> ah, mrs. todd, good morning. >> i don't know how you have the impertinence to show your face here again. >> but, mrs. todd-- >> you were paid off, mr. poirot. you were paid off handsomely. >> well... >> and then look at this. we've got police who are crawling all over the house. >> you're not so popular in clapham this morning, poirot. a bit of a wild goose chase this. as far as we can ascertain, this mr. simpson of yours is a perfect and respectable young bank employee who happens to have gone home to his family. we have the shropshire constabulary checking that at the moment. >> i only wanted to ask-- >> no! >> well, perhaps you'll be interested to know-- >> no, i wouldn't! good day, mr. poirot. >> poirot.

>> annie, i need to ask you a question. can you help me? >> i'll try, sir. >> last friday, clotter-patterson came to collect eliza's trunk, yes? >> her box? yes, sir. >> you were here when he came? >> oh, yes, sir. i had to show them up to eliza's room for them to take the top. >> bon. >> it was ever so heavy, sir. it took 3 of them to get it down the stairs. you all right, sir? >> of course. tell me, annie, you said her box was already packed. >> oh, yes, sir. packed, locked,

and corded. quite a thick rope around it, and done up ever so tight. >> did it have a label on it? >> yes, it did, sir. >> with an address? >> just a name. miss eliza dunn, it said. twickenham station, to be called for. >> ah, very well, annie. thank you. au revoir. >> au revoir, sir. ha ha! >> ah, excellente. >> then why would crutchett want to perpetrate such an elaborate hoax? >> ah, that is a very good question, hastings. but eliza dunn has got her house. >> i shall be surprised if she finds she has more than a 6-months' lease. [rings bell] >> so what did crutchett want? >> crutchett? >> well, simpson then,

pretending to be crutchett. >> he wanted something that eliza dunn had. >> money. the australian legacy. >> he wanted a battered old tin trunk. >> the trunk? with nothing in it? but he could buy a trunk. >> no, but he did not want a new trunk, mon ami. he wanted a trunk of pedigree. a trunk of assured respectability. >> now look here, poirot. what would simpson want an old trunk for? >> to put the body in, of course. [train whistle blows] >> sent on to glasgow, guv, to a white collection there. >> but how do you know this? you have not consulted your records. >> i don't need to consult my records, guv, do i? >> what do you mean body? what body? >> is he with you? >> whose body? i mean, is there going to be bodies all over the place? >> hastings. all will be revealed to you. >> can we get on with the business in hand? >> by all means. >> i saw to it myself, didn't i?

yesterday morning, some cove with a beard-- >> crutchett! >> you spoke to this man? >> of course i spoke to him. >> did he give a name? >> no. he just said this eliza dunn was his aunt and she wanted the trunk sent on to glasgow. >> and it's gone? you sent it? >> no. every friday the southern railway pays me huge amounts of money so i won't do that sort of thing. >> i think he's being sarcastic, poirot. >> no. no, hastings. he's a good man. he's doing the job of great responsibility. thank you, monsieur. >> i'll tell you one thing, though. >> and what is that, monsieur? >> you're looking for this bloke or something? >> well, of course we're looking for him. >> i'm talking to the engineer, not the oil rag. >> now look here-- >> no, no, hastings. what is this one thing you will tell us,

monsieur? >> all right. i'll tell you. i'll tell you where he is. there. >> gone? >> well, at least where i think he is. >> ah, a bit less sure now. >> i bet he is--i bet he is where i say. >> and where do you say? >> bolivia. there. >> bolivia? >> that's in south america. >> and what is it that makes you think he is in bolivia? >> well, going there. at least on his way, like. he has to pay for his trunk to be sent on to glasgow, see. >> i see. >> he takes out a wad of notes. choke a cow or horse it would. there's a few english notes there, which he pays what he owes me with. but i couldn't help but notice most of the other notes were bolivian. >> hastings, this gentleman

is a genius. >> how do you know they were bolivian? >> well, one tiny, little thing was they had "bolivia" written all over them, didn't they? >> here we are. this week's sailings. nothing for bolivia today. >> bolivia is a landlocked country, hastings. >> ah, that explains it then. >> one sails to buenos aires and goes by train from there. >> what lovely names they all have. "queen of heaven" sailing for caracas. >> thank you, miss lemon. can we stick to buenos aires, please? ah, here we are. the s.s. nevonia from southampton at 1:00 a.m. >> well, let's go there. are we looking for simpson or the trunk? >> simpson, of course. the trunk is in glasgow, but

first, scotland yard. [horn honking] >> and of course you see some sinister point in all these arthur simpson's activities. >> oh, yes, of course, chief inspector. 6 months rent on the house, 150 pounds to miss dunn. it is not much to assure the success of his plan. >> and this famous plan is? i mean, we've heard a lot about it, mr. poirot, and i'm sure it's been very entertaining. >> we are wasting time, chief inspector. >> go on then. >> his plan, of course, is to steal 90,000 pounds worth of negotiable securities from the belgravian overseas bank. >> no. that's davis.

>> here it is, sergeant. [telephone rings] >> chief inspector japp speaking. oh, yes, sergeant. good. good. it's glasgow. they found the trunk. >> and? >> what do you mean "and?" >> have they opened it? >> sergeant henry, have you opened the trunk? ah, yes, i see. apparently they need a warrant up there. >> mon dieux. there is a body inhat trunk. >> a body. ah, look, sergeant. there seems to be the possibility there's a body in that trunk. yes, a dead body. you will?

all right. thank you. he thinks that may expedite matters. he's gonna ring me back. now then, what body? whose body? >> davis, of course. >> this is nonsense, poirot. davis stole those securities from the bank. davis is the one who disappeared the day... after. >> precisely. you think what simpson wanted you to think. listen, chief inspector, on wednesday, simpson disguised decoys a widow cook. now he has already removed the securities from the bank, but knows that this will not be discovered until thursday afternoon. now, he does not go to the bank on thursday. instead, he lies and waits for davis when he comes up to lunch and asks him to come to clapham with him. now, it is the maid's day out, mrs. todd is at the shops, there is no one in the house.

simpson kills davis. the one difficulty for a murderer is the disposal of the body. and that is why simpson wanted a trunk of miss eliza dunn. and now, if i am not much mistaken, my friends, it is here we will apprehend our murderer. have i got something wrong, chief inspector? >> no. no, poirot. you can't be right every time.

>> mon dieux, i am wrong. i am wrong. officer, where does the "queen of heavens" sail from tonight? >> why from pier 5, sir. over there. >> poirot! where are we going? >> the "queen of heavens" sails for caracas tonight. i remember it from the time. >> yes, but caracas isn't in bolivia, is it? >> what the porter saw in the banknote was not "bolivia." >> what was it then? >> it was "bolivar." and the bolivar is the unit of currency in venezuela. our friend is on his way to venezuela. simpson! >> stop that man!

[sighs] >> the middle. no, no, no, no, miss lemon. to the left. at least one centimeter to the left. that's better. voila. is there nothing to which hercule poirot cannot turn his finger? >> hand. "pay to hercule poirot the sum "of one guinea only. ernest todd." it is to me, hastings, a little reminder never to despise a trivial, eh, with the undignified. a disappearing domestic at one end, a cold-blooded murder at the other.

[captioning made possible by friends of nci] [captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--]

very simple, very elegant. it's "a table of all the receipts contained in this book." - so it's a recipe book. - yes. and it also has remedies for illnesses... - oh, really? - which, of course, were made, homemade. you didn't rush to the chemist for-- buy something over the counter. you had to make your own. you boiled them up in the kitchen? you made them in the kitchen. and so i think a lot of cookery books of this time did combine recipes and remedies. indeed. when do you think this was made? well, it came from a farmhouse in westmoreland which belonged to my husband's family. and it was passed on to us.

i don't know who mrs. buck, the authoress of the book, is. i think, from the look of the handwriting, we're looking at a manuscript made either at the very end of the seventeenth century or the beginning of the eighteenth century. it must have taken her a long time. - no rushing to a word processor. - absolutely. so she's telling us to preserve walnuts, to make good cheese, to preserve lemons or sweet ones. isn't that lovely? that's lovely. quince cream, spanish cream. these all sound absolutely delicious. what's surprising is the sheer variety of diet. i think we sometimes think that people just lived on bread and water at this time, but they didn't. - no, not a bit of it. - pickling cucumbers, marinating trouts. i'm fascinated by the medical side of this. as you say, it's the time before the family doctor. everything had to be done in the house. but there are some really quite extraordinary recipes here. this is one that caught my eye:

the snail water. what's snail water? you take "a peck of snails, newly gathered," and we put them in a large pipkin and let them stand for 12 hours with three handfuls of red sage. quite what we'd do with snail water, i don't know. does it say what it cures? if it does, it's a little bit difficult to read. you're putting me on the spot here. i hope it's a medicine, not a starter, don't you? i hope so. yes, i hope so. it might be quite delicious. one just doesn't know. my hunch is that some of these recipes were passed around. i think one woman would pass them to another woman, and that woman would copy them up in her book. and that's the way in which recipes were transmitted. this is before recipe books were printed. you're transmitting everything in manuscript. so it's a wonderful insight into the way in which people shared information about food.

you know, there's no jamie oliver, delia smith to tell us how to do it. but they were getting on and making the most wonderful things. when these things have come up to auction in the past, i guess they fetched somewhere between £600, 800, sometimes a little bit more. i find this one very attractive, i must say. and it's lovely to know who it's by. it's lovely to know that it's mrs. buck's. so perhaps we're talking a little bit more than that. - thank you very much. - thank you. this is one of the classic ceramic models of all time-- princess elizabeth on tommy the police horse, taking the "trooping the color" in 1947, when the king was ill she stepped in. this has got its plinth. it should have a plinth, of course. it stands off from the plinth like that. absolutely beautiful. it should have a certificate. - this is the certificate. - that is, yes. signed by joe jamison, who was the chairman of the company at the time.

it was modeled by one of the great modelers-- - doris lindner. - man: doris lindner, of course. doris lindner told me-- i knew doris as an old lady, she was an incredible character-- she had the princess pose for her to get all the costume, and everything right in the costume. and the horse posed for her as well. so everything was absolutely incredible-- incredibly accurate. doris said that when she'd finished her plasticine model to take it back to the factory, the king asked to see it because he wanted to approve it-- that it was right. she was terribly scared 'cause the king might disagree. but he expressed absolute firm approval of it. and there it is. it's an absolute marvelous model. and painted by harry davis. harry davis, my great idol at the worcester factory, went to buckingham palace to paint-- to copy the colors of the queen and the horse and everything. and the thing is absolutely perfect.

how did you come by it? before i bought it, it had been exhibited in new york in the royal worcester showroom for 23 years. - heavens. - a friend of mine who deals in china had the option to buy it and he bought it and sold it to me. - heavens. that's rather nice. - that was in about 1975. - you've had it since '75? - yes. there were 100 only made. an edition of 100, at a cost of 100 guineas. do you remember 100 guineas? £100, 100 shillings, isn't it, guineas? it was regarded as one of the great models. i think it's a tremendous thing. incredibly, these models went down in value some years ago. i don't know why. they seemed to drop down. but i have known a princess elizabeth on tommy go for £6,000 or 7,000... at stages. but in recent years, they have started to come back up again.

there've been two sold at auction recently, one last year and one this year. the one last year went for £2,600, and the one this year went for £2,800. - oh. - so i think they're heading up. so i think probably you might reckon that its value is perhaps £2,000, perhaps £3,000 or something like that. the one the queen has-- her own one-- she cleans it and dusts it herself only. no one else is allowed to touch it. i had that from her herself. so look after this, won't you? otherwise the queen will be after you. ( laughs ) yes.