The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor

Hercule Poirot is asked by the Northern Union Insurance Company to investigate the case of Mr Maltravers, who died just a few weeks after insuring his life for fifty thousand pounds. Mr Maltravers was rumoured to be in financial difficulty and there is a suggestion that he paid the insurance premiums and then committed suicide for the benefit of his young wife. Poirot and Hastings travel to Marsdon Manor in Essex where the dead man was found in the grounds, with a small rook rifle by his side. They interview Mrs Maltravers but find nothing obviously amiss. When they are leaving, a young man, Captain Black, arrives. A gardener tells Poirot that Black visited the house the day before the death.

Later, Poirot interviews Black and, via a word association technique, discovers that he knew of someone who committed suicide with a rook rifle in East Africa. Poirot surmises that Black's story, which had been told at the dinner table the day before the tragedy, gave Mrs Maltravers the idea of how to kill her husband by making him demonstrate to her how the victim would have put the gun in his mouth, and that she then pulled the trigger.

A maid at Marsdon Manor claims to see Mr Maltravers standing in the hall. Shortly afterwards, the lights go out. The ghost of Mr Maltravers appears in the room, his index finger glowing and pointing at his wife's hand, which is now covered in blood. Terrified, she confesses to the murder. Poirot reveals that he hired an actor to impersonate the victim, and that he gripped Mrs Maltravers' hand to mark it with fake blood when the lights went out.