Ah, the Queen of Golden Age Mysteries!

This is one of my favorites, I think because I could really relate to the main character, a woman who tries to be perfect, everything the man she loves wants from her.

Cool, calm, detached, rational.

Same thing your boss says they want you to be at work.

Elinor grew up with her man, was passionately in love with him since she was a tiny child. As a teen, she worked a few years abroad and, when she returned, he fell in love with her and proposed. Her aunt – her guardian – and her fiancé both praised her for her cool reason, for not losing her head in love. He thinks to himself, how easy she makes it to be in love with her.

Then an anonymous letter arrives, warning Elinor that a local girl is sucking up to her aunt, who has become bedridden and depressed after a stroke, trying to replace Elinor in the aunt’s heart and in her will. Elinor and her fiancé rush down and discover that the aunt has formed an attachment to the girl, who is just a few years younger than Elinor and grew up on the aunt’s estate. But it all seems fine – except that the fiancé, true to form, re-meets the girl after several years of not seeing her, and falls head over heels in love. Elinor, grasping tightly to the behavior that had made him fall in love with her, becomes calm and reasonable.

Then the aunt has another stroke, and Elinor and her fiancé rush down. The aunt asks Elinor to arrange for the lawyer to visit the next day to update her will. Elinor’s fiancé confesses he has fallen in love with the other girl, and Elinor releases him from their engagement. What else could she do? That night the aunt dies and it turns out, she has not made a will. Elinor as her closest relative inherits everything. Her fiancé, now conflicted, decides to go away for a while, and figure out his confused heart.

When Elinor gets an offer on her aunt’s house, she arranges to meet with the local girl, to clean personal items out of some of the estate buildings. The girl brings along a friend, a local nurse who had been one of two nurses attending the aunt when she died. Elinor, in a state of detachment, behaves oddly, laughing when the girl tells her that, inspired by the aunt’s death, she has made her own will – laughs because she has been secretly fantasizing about how convenient it would be if this young girl dies.

And then the girl does die.

She goes to sleep following a lunch in which Elinor made sandwiches and the friend makes tea, and never wakes up. They do an autopsy – the girl was poisoned. And then they dig the aunt up and test her – and she was also poisoned.

Elinor has motive, means, and opportunity in both cases.

She is arrested and charges are brought.

And then the local doctor hires Poirot to find evidence that will keep her from being convicted.

“You wish me to look into the facts? To find out the truth? To discover what really happened?”

“I want you to find any facts that will tell in her favor.”

The doctor persuades Poirot to take the case.

And, of course, Poirot solves the case.

And, as it turns out, Elinor is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, unable to speak up for herself, lost inside her memories, her thoughts, numb and disconnected.

This is what it feels like when you burn out, when the pressure becomes overwhelming, and you can’t bother fighting anymore. Brain-tired, you can’t fight anymore, you can’t hope anymore, you just let the bad things wash over you while you remain calm and rational on the outside while inside you are slowly dying.

There’s something here that we all can learn from: there is a time for calm; and there is a time for letting your emotions spur you into taking action on behalf of yourself.

So who dunnit? You’ll need to read to find out.