Sad Cypress Trivia Quiz

Answer: Twelfth Night

The song in question is "Come Away, Death", sung by the clown Feste. The first verse of the song, which contains the novel's title, is as follows:
"Come away, come away, death
And in sad cypress let me be laid:
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it."

The song contains a bit of a clue to the mystery, since the murderer turns out to be a woman. Although Nurse Hopkins, who is described as "homely" in the novel, is not exactly a "fair maid", she is certainly cruel...and ruthless.

Answer: She regretted using Poirot in the novel.

"Sad Cypress" was one of a handful of novels which Christie felt had been spoiled by the introduction of Poirot (others included "Five Little Pigs", a.k.a. "Murder in Retrospect", and "The Hollow"). In the case of "Sad Cypress", she felt that Poirot's presence spoiled what was essentially a tragic love story.

Answer: An anonymous letter

Elinor had received an anonymous letter, ungrammatical and badly spelled, written on cheap pink paper. It warned her, in rather crude language, that someone- specifically a young woman- was "sucking up" to her aunt Laura Welman, and urging her and her cousin Roddy Welman to see to the matter, lest they be done out of their inheritance.

The letter is signed "Well-Wisher". The letter was, in fact, written by Nurse Hopkins in order to create bad feelings between Elinor and Mary Gerrard. Nurse Hopkins' plan is to do away with Mary after getting her to make out a will leaving her money to her mother's sister (who, unbeknownst to Mary, is Nurse Hopkins herself).

She also intends to frame Elinor for the crime, the motive being Elinor's supposed resentment of Mary and her fear of being done out of her inheritance.

Although the letter fails in this purpose, it does prompt Elinor and Roddy to visit their aunt. During this visit, Roddy becomes hopelessly infatuated with Mary, creating an even greater motive for the scapegoat Elinor than Nurse Hopkins had originally anticipated.

Answer: No

Mary was, apparently, not as captivated by Roddy as he was with her; furthermore, she was an honorable young woman who would not consider becoming romantically involved with someone who was already engaged to another person. Despite Mary's regard for Elinor's feelings, Elinor cannot help feeling bitterly resentful toward Mary for having alienated Roddy's affections, albeit unintentionally, and she has great difficulty in concealing her feelings.

Answer: No

It develops that Mary Gerrard was actually not the daughter of Eliza and Robert Gerrard, but was the illegitimate child of Laura Welman and Lewis Rycroft. Mrs. Welman had had an affair with Lewis after the death of her husband; they were in love, but he could not get a divorce from his wife, who was insane.

After her second stroke, Mrs. Welman indicated to Elinor that she wanted to contact her solicitor about making a provision for Mary in her will. She was not, however, planning to leave Mary everything; she felt that Mary would be happier having a career of her own, but she did want to give her financial assistance.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Welman died before she had the opportunity to consult with her solicitor. To Elinor's surprise, she had not drawn up a will and had died intestate, which meant that Elinor inherited her estate. Elinor dutifully carried out her aunt's wish and awarded Mary two thousand pounds; she little suspected that Mary was, in fact, Mrs. Welman's next of kin and, as such, entitled to everything.

Answer: He thought that Laura had committed suicide.

Laura Welman hated being a helpless invalid and repeatedly told Dr. Lord that she wanted to end her life. She also suggested that he give her an injection to put her out of her misery. When she died after her second stroke, Dr. Lord suspected that she had somehow carried out her plan, and he did not want to darken her memory by suggesting that she had possibly taken her own life.

In doing so, he unwittingly played into the killer's hands. A subsequent autopsy performed after Mrs. Welman was exhumed revealed that she had been given morphine, the same poison that was used on Mary.

The killer had to ensure that Mrs. Welman would die intestate, in which case her money would go to Mary Gerrard, as her next of kin.

Answer: She begins to laugh

Elinor is still in the grip of her unreasoning hatred of Mary and has been contemplating how much better it would be if Mary were suddenly to die. When Nurse Hopkins tells her that Mary is, in fact, making out a will, the irony of this coincidence strikes Elinor as strangely amusing and she begins to laugh uncontrollably.

This rather bizarre reaction tells against her during her subsequent trial for Mary's murder.

Answer: The Dream

"The Dream" relates the strange case of Benedict Farley, whose death had appeared to be a suicide. Poirot had been summoned to an interview at Farley's office not long before his death, and was told of a recurrent dream that Farley had supposedly had in which he put a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. Despite all appearances, Poirot deduces that Farley's death was not suicide, but murder, and brings the guilty parties to justice.
Dr. Peter Lord mentions this case when he calls upon Poirot to investigate the murder of Mary Gerrard. Lord has fallen in love with Elinor and is desperate to see her acquitted. He admits to Poirot that he doesn't care if she is innocent or guilty. Poirot agrees to investigate, but warns Dr. Lord that he will not suppress any evidence that he finds against Elinor. Lord tries clumsily to help matters along by planting a German matchbook near the scene of the crime (Mary had been to Germany not long before her death), a ruse which greatly amuses Poirot and which he teases Lord about afterward.
After Elinor's acquittal, Poirot credits Lord with having saved her; without his stubborn insistence, he (Poirot) would never have taken the case.

Answer: Mary Riley, Eliza's sister

The letter was addressed "To Mary, to be sent to her after my death". Nurse Hopkins tried to lead Poirot to believe that the letter had been intended for Mary Gerrard, but Poirot realized that, in fact, the import of the letter was that Mary Gerrard should not know of its contents. Also, the note directed that the letter be sent, not given; there would be no need to send the letter to Mary Gerrard since she lived at the lodge.

The letter was addressed to Mary Riley, Eliza's sister, who is actually Nurse Hopkins herself; she wanted it to come to light that Mary, not Elinor, had been Mrs. Welman's next of kin, hence Mrs. Welman's money should have gone to her and, subsequently, to Mary Riley.

Answer: Eleanor of Aquitaine

Elinor was imagining that the food she was about to serve to Mary was poisoned and that, when Mary ate her sandwich, she would die. She told Poirot that she had been thinking of her own namesake, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who had been the consort of King Henry II. According to a popular, but unsubstantiated legend, Eleanor had done away with her husband's mistress, the beautiful Rosamund Clifford.

She is said to have offered Rosamund the choice of a dagger or poison; Rosamund chose the poison. When Mary subsequently died, Elinor considered herself morally responsible for Mary's death, and very nearly ended up confessing to a crime she had not committed.

Answer: It has no thorns

Elinor noticed a scratch on Nurse Hopkins' arm, which she explained away by claiming that she had pricked herself on a thorn from the rosebush by the lodge. Elinor relates this incident to Poirot; she explains that the mention of the rosebush reminded her of a disagreement she had had with Roddy when they were children. Roddy preferred white roses, whereas Elinor loved red roses, they jokingly referred to this as the "War of the Roses". To Poirot, however, the story has a quite different meaning; he had inspected the rosebush himself and had found no thorns on it.

A horticultural expert eventually identifies the rose as being of the variety known as Zephyrine Droughin; its principal distinction is the complete absence of thorns. This seemingly insignificant detail causes Poirot to suspect Nurse Hopkins, who had previously struck him as being entirely trustworthy.

Answer: In the tea

Nurse Hopkins had made a pot of tea, which she served to both herself and Mary. The tea contained a lethal dose of morphine, however shortly afterward Nurse Hopkins gave herself an injection of apomorphine hydrochloride, a powerful emetic. This caused her to vomit up the morphine she had just consumed, so that she herself was not affected by it.

The tell-tale mark on her arm, which she claimed had been caused by a thorn, was in fact left by the hypodermic syringe.

Answer: The letter "m" was not capitalized

A chemist, Mr. James Littledale, testified that the label could not have come from a tube of morphine tablets, as had been previously supposed. If it had, the letter "m" would have been capitalized. Mr. Littledale positively identified the label as having come from a tube containing tablets of apomorphine hydrochloride.

Answer: Her husband and a wealthy patient

Poirot relates to Peter Lord after the trial that, while she was in New Zealand, one of Mary Riley's elderly patients had died shortly after leaving her a sizable legacy. The police were suspicious, and the woman's doctor was baffled, but there was not sufficient evidence for an indictment. Her husband had also died suddenly and unaccountably after having insured his life in her favor; unfortunately for her, he had never posted the check to the insurance company. Poirot describes her as "...a remorseless and unscrupulous woman", and suspects that other deaths may lie at her door.

Answer: Happy

The romantic denouement of this novel recalls Christie's own experiences in the realm of love and marriage. Christie's first husband had been Archibald Christie, whom she had loved passionately, but who proved to be aloof, emotionally unsupportive, and ultimately unfaithful (knowledge of one of his affairs is believed to have triggered the author's strange disappearance in 1926).

It is easy to see some traces of Archibald Christie in the character of Roddy Welman, who is hypersensitive regarding his own feelings, but quite spectacularly insensitive in his treatment of Elinor, for all his professed admiration for her (a female acquaintance of mine who read this book has said that, in Elinor's place, she would have flattened Roddy about a quarter of the way through the book.

She also regretted that he, instead of Mary, had not been the victim in the story). The solid, dependable, and quite devoted character of Peter Lord, on the other hand, suggests Christie's second husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan, to whom Christie remained happily married until her death in 1976.