Poirot (TV Series)

The Third Floor Flat (1989)

Nicholas Pritchard: Donovan

Photos 

Quotes 

• [Donovan is stumbling through the darkness of a dark, seemingly vacant apartment] 

  Donovan : What on earth is Pat piping up to? Everything is the wrong bloody place!

  [Jimmy turns on the lights; revealing that they are not in the right apartment] 

  Donovan : This isn't Pat's flat.

  Jimmy : [excited whisper]  Jeepers!

  Donovan : [reading a letter on the table]  Mrs. Ernestine Grant...

  [beat] 

  Donovan : Oh, Lord! we're in *36B*, not *46B*!

  Jimmy : We better get out here before she finds us!

  [someone snoring sounds] 

  Jimmy , Donovan : [the two men burst into giggles] 

  [the two men are about to leave when Jimmy notices something shocking] 

  Jimmy : Look!

  [Donovan turns to see a pair of a woman's feet sticking out behind the packing cases in the flat] 

  Donovan : [genuinely shocked]  Good God!

  [They walk over and discover Mrs. Ernestine Grant's corpse concealed behind the curtain] 

  Patricia Matthews , Mildred : [singing in the background]  Life is just a bowl of cherries...

  [scene shifts to Hastings and Poirot watching Patricia and Mildred singing on the stairs] 

  Patricia Matthews , Mildred : [singing cont]  Life's too mysterious, life's too mysterious... You work, you play, you worry so/ But you can't get your dough/ while you glow, glow, glow!

  Donovan : [He and Jimmy walk out of the apartment; looking perturbed]  What do we do?

  Jimmy : [pause]  I don't know.

  Donovan : [to Patricia and Mildred]  Pat, Mildred. Something's happened.

  Patricia Matthews : What is it?

  Donovan : There's a dead woman down here.

  Mildred : [as she and Patricia rush down the stairs; unaware that Poirot is close by; shocked]  Oh my God!

• Donovan : [confessing his crime]  I wanted a divorce. I begged Ernestine, but she refused. She said she'll never let me free. After I fell in love with Pat, Ernestine started hounding me. Telephone me everyday, held it over me, threatening to tell Pat everything! Drove. Me. Mad.

  [pause] 

  Donovan : And then, she phoned me to tell me that she moved into the flat beneath Pat's. I couldn't believe it. By then, I knew she was crazy enough to do anything.

  Hercule Poirot : Tell me, what happened yesterday evening?

  Donovan : Ernestine called me in the afternoon...

  [Flashback; Donovan exists out of the elevator, looks around and walks towards the 36B flat] 

  Donovan : [voiceover]  She had written to Pat to arrange to see her; to tell her the truth about us. Normally, I assumed the worst. I knew I had to do something once and for all.

  [Donovan rings the doorbell of the flat] 

  Donovan : [voiceover cont]  I called into her flat around six.

  Mrs. Grant : [opening the door]  Oh, it's you! You better come in.

  [She lets Donovan in, she walks over to the liquor cabinet] 

  Mrs. Grant : [offering Donovan a drink of Sherry]  Drink?

  Donovan : [sternly]  You have no right to go around hounding Pat.

  Mrs. Grant : [chuckles; as she pours sherry into a shot glass]  I'm not hounding her my darling, I just going to tell what a rotten bound you are. Promising to marry her when you're *already* married to *me*.

  Donovan : We were married in Switzerland, Ernestine. If you remember... It doesn't count under the British law.

  Mrs. Grant : [dismissively]  So you keep telling me.

  Mrs. Grant : I've decided to test your little theory. I asked my solicitor a copy of our marriage certificate. He's telephoned me to say it is completely valid. And he's mailed me a letter to confirm it.

  Donovan : Show me.

  Mrs. Grant : I haven't received his letter yet, It might arrive in the evening post I expect.

  Mrs. Grant : [she giggles deviously] 

  Mrs. Grant : It's going to be all a shock for poor Miss Matthews.

  Donovan : [gravely]  I warning you Ernestine. If you approach Pat, so God help me, I'll kill you! I swear it!

  Mrs. Grant : [laughing; then spitefully]  Oh, Donovan! Don't make me laugh. Now run along and try to *impress* somebody else will you?Poor Miss Matthews. You really have let her down, Donovan.

  [She smiles haughtily and triumphantly; two gun shots ring out; Ernestine drops her shot glass that crashes and breaks on the floor as her smile is replaced with a look of slight alarm. She looks down to see two bullet wounds in her chest. She feels the spot where she has been hit, she looks at Donovan who is holding the revolver that shot her and she falls forward on the table, dead] 

  Donovan : [in present]  I warned her, you see... But she wouldn't listen. Afterwords, I went home and changed for the theater. I couldn't let her hurt Pat like that, could I?