Third Girl

Did You Know?

• The novel reintroduces Stillingfleet, a character from the short story The Dream first published in book form in the UK in The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding in 1960.
• Mr Goby, whose previous appearance had been in After the Funeral in 1953, also returns in this novel.
• In Chapter 4, Poirot makes reference to Colonel Race from novels such as Death on the Nile and Cards on the Table, as well as Inspector Giraud from Murder on the Links.

Plot summary

Norma Restarick seeks help from Poirot, believing she may have committed murder, but flees upon seeing him, saying he is too old. Poirot pursues the case, learning that Ariadne Oliver sent Norma to him, and he suspects a murder prompted Norma's fears. Poirot and Mrs Oliver gather information, visiting her parents’ home and her apartment building. Norma does not return home after a weekend visit to her father and stepmother.

Mrs Oliver finds her in a café by chance with her boyfriend David. Poirot meets Norma at the café, where she mentions the death again; after describing odd times where she cannot recall what has happened, she leaves in fear. Mrs Oliver trails David, ending up in the hospital after being coshed on the head upon leaving his art studio. Poirot arranges for psychiatrist Dr Stillingfleet to follow Norma; he pulls her to safety from a close call with speeding traffic and brings her to his place for treatment and safety.

Norma's father Andrew abandoned her and her mother Grace when Norma was about five years old, running off with a woman in a relationship that ended soon after. He travelled in Africa in financially successful ventures. Norma lived with her mother until Grace's death two and a half years before. Andrew returned to England after his brother Simon died a year earlier, to work in the family firm, arriving with a new young wife, Mary.

Norma can recognise nothing familiar in this man, but accepts him. Norma is the third girl in her flat in the fashion of young women advertising for a third girl to share the rent. The main tenant, Claudia, is secretary to her newfound father; the other girl, Frances, travels often for the art gallery that employs her. Mrs Oliver learns that a woman in the apartment building had recently died by falling from her window.

A week passes before she tells Poirot, who feels this is what bothers Norma. The woman was Louise Charpentier. Norma says that her father ran off with Louise Birell. Later, Mrs Oliver finds a piece of paper linking Louise Charpentier to Andrew.

Mary Restarick has been ill from poison in her food. Sir Roderick engages Poirot to find documents missing from his files which brings young Sonia under suspicion.

Characters

Hercule Poirot is the renowned Belgian detective. Ariadne Oliver is Poirot's friend, the celebrated author of detective stories. Miss Felicity Lemon is Poirot's secretary, and George is his valet. Chief Inspector Neele is Poirot's police source and investigator for the second murder.

Sergeant Conolly is a policeman in the case. Dr John Stillingfleet is a physician and psychiatrist. Mr Goby leads a network of people gathering data for Poirot. David Baker is Norma's boyfriend.

Miss Battersby is former principal of Meadowfield School. Robert Orwell is a man who met Andrew Restarick on a project in Africa and later poses as Andrew. Residing at Sir Roderick's home at Long Basing are Sir Roderick Horsfield, past age 65, once active in WWII intelligence, writing his memoirs, maternal uncle to brothers Simon and Andrew Restarick; Sonia, Sir Roderick's personal assistant, a young woman from Herzegovina; Andrew Restarick, Norma's father, not seen since she was five years old, apparently returned a year ago; and Mary Restarick, Andrew's young blonde second wife and Norma's stepmother.

Residing at Borodene Mansions are Claudia Reece-Holland, who holds the lease of flat #67 where Norma lives, secretary to her father, and daughter to an MP; Frances Cary, flatmate of Norma and Claudia; Norma Restarick, a young woman about 19 or 20 years old, the third girl in the flat; Mrs Louise Birell Charpentier, a woman in her mid-40s, recently died of a fall from #76; and Miss Jacobs, an older woman, neighbour to Claudia, who had the unit below that of Louise.

Adaptations for television

A 2008 British television adaptation of the novel was produced for the series Agatha Christie's Poirot, with David Suchet as Poirot and Zoë Wanamaker as Ariadne Oliver. Filmed in April and May of that year, it aired on ITV on 28 September. The script, by Peter Flannery, makes several major changes. The character of Dr. Stillingfleet is removed, and David survives, ending up with Norma.

The stepmother subplot is also cut. Claudia is reimagined as Andrew/Robert's secretary who hopes to marry him, and he turns her into an unwitting accomplice. Instead of being drugged to appear insane, Norma’s anxiety and PTSD—triggered by discovering her mother’s suicide as a child—are exploited by Frances and Robert/Andrew. The opening murder is of Norma’s old nanny, not Andrew’s mistress, though the motive remains the same.

The nanny’s death is staged as a suicide mimicking Norma’s mother’s, reviving Norma’s childhood trauma and guilt. Frances is ultimately revealed to be Norma’s half-sister. As with many later Poirot adaptations, the setting is kept deliberately vague rather than fixed in the 1960s. The novel was also adapted in 2017 as an episode of the French series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie.

Publication history

The novel was first published in hardcover by Collins Crime Club in London in November 1966, 256 pages, retailing at eighteen shillings. Dodd Mead and Company published the US hardcover edition in 1967, 248 pages, at $4.50. A large-print edition was issued by Ulverscroft in 1968, 230 pages. Fontana Books (an imprint of HarperCollins) released a paperback in 1968, 190 pages, as did Pocket Books in New York the same year.

A Greenway edition of collected works was published by William Collins in 1979. Harper paperbacks issued a 271-page edition in 2011. A condensed version of the novel appeared in the April 1967 issue of Redbook magazine (Volume 128, Number 6) with a photographic montage by Mike Cuesta. The novel has been translated into numerous languages, including Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.