Poirot (TV Series)

The Third Floor Flat (1989)

David Suchet: Hercule Poirot

Photos 

Quotes 

• [last lines] 

  Miss Lemon : I've got your Friar's Balsam for you.

  Hercule Poirot : My what?

  Miss Lemon : Your inhalant, for your cold.

  Hercule Poirot : Poirot does not have colds, Miss Lemon. It is well known that Poirot scorns all but the gravest afflictions.

  Miss Lemon : But yesterday you were...

  Hercule Poirot : Miss Lemon, yesterday was yesterday. My tisane, if you please.

• Hercule Poirot : [to Miss Patricia Matthews]  Mademoiselle Patricia, I once knew a beautiful English girl who resembled you greatly. But alas, she could not cook. So, our relationship withered.

• Jimmy : [Donovan Bailey has crashed into several trash cans, damaging Hastings' car; running towards the damaged car]  Oh my God! Donovan!

  Hercule Poirot : Monsieur Bailey! Monsieur Bailey!

  Hercule Poirot : [surveying the unconscious Donovan]  Is he badly hurt?

  Captain Hastings : [surveying his damaged car]  Oh my GOD!

• [Hercule Poirot is getting ready for the theater; he puts on his overcoat, his muffler and his hat. He anticipates a sneeze, reaching for his handkerchief, only to find the sneeze anticipation has gone away. He heaves a sigh of relief. He walks toward the door offscreen, when...] 

  Hercule Poirot : [sneezing]  AA-CHOO!

  [he clicks off the lights] 

• Hercule Poirot : You see, Hastings? I am still a force to be calculated.

  [sic] 

• [Poirot is sick with the cold. He goes out to post a letter, and is startled by Hastings arriving in his car, honking the horn] 

  Captain Hastings : [jovial]  How is the cold, old boy?

  Hercule Poirot : And now you try to give me the heart attack? I would not be surprised if riding in that car was responsible for my present malady.

  Captain Hastings : She's much too much of a lady to give anyone a cold. She's running like a bird since I fitted those new gaskets.

  Hercule Poirot : Birds do not run, Hastings. When you were little you should've paid more attention to your lessons in biology.

  Captain Hastings : You're really in a bad way, aren't you?

  Hercule Poirot : [wistfully]  Well, my friend... As one approaches the end, one begins to see life as it truly is.

• [Hercule Poirot is breathing his Friars Balsam inhalant for his cold; his face covered with a towel. After sneezing three times, he takes the towel off, looking very under the weather, sweaty and exhausted] 

  Hercule Poirot : [sotto voce]  Ah, Mon Deu! Ah, suffit!

  Miss Lemon : [walking into the room; matter-of-fact]  Nah, ah! Mr. Poirot, you only done seven minutes. You'll never cure your cold if you do not follow the instructions.

  Hercule Poirot : [congested]  I can't imagine a method so undignified can cure anything, Miss Lemon. And so now I've got the back ache too... Anything in the mail, Miss Lemon?

  Miss Lemon : [setting his tea down on the table]  Yes, and there's nothing for you. it's been only three weeks since your last case.

  Hercule Poirot : Three weeks? Three weeks is an eternity for a brain like mine!

  [very distressed and melodramatic] 

  Hercule Poirot : Without the constant stimulation, my little gray cells will starve and die! Already, you see, I am suffering the effects!

  [Poirot begins dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief as he whimpers softly] 

• Hercule Poirot : [after a night at the theater watching a mystery play]  And the theater has made my cold even worse!

• Hercule Poirot : [Poirot is looking through a trashcan at the crime scene, and he finds something]  Ah-HA! I thought so...

  [he pulls out the object, revealing to be a small bottle filled with mysterious liquid] 

  Hercule Poirot : Voila!

  [He sniffs the cork of the bottle] 

  Hercule Poirot : [turning to Mr. Donovan Bailey]  Pardon, I have a cold. Would you be so kind, Monsieur Donovan?

  [Donovan Bailey takes the bottle, smells the cork. Then he opens the lid and smells and passes out after one whiff of the aroma] 

  Hercule Poirot : [frantically shouting]  No, no,no,no, NO! Why did he take off the lid? That is stupid!

• Miss Lemon : It's only been three weeks since your last case.

  Hercule Poirot : Three weeks is an eternity to a brain like mine. Without the constant stimulation, my little grey cells will starve to death. Already you can see I am suffering the effects.

  [He has a cold] 

• Hercule Poirot : Hasting, my friend. Poirot is as magnanimous in defeat as he is modest in victory.

  Chief Inspector Japp : Oh, yes.

  Hercule Poirot : In view of the fact that you are going to need every penny you can get to restore this beautiful machine to health, I have decided to pay up and be content.

  [He hands him 10 quid from a wager] 

• 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?