The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman
- Original Airdate: 14 February 1993
Written by: Clive Exton
Directed by: Brian Farnham
Recurring cast: Captain Hastings, Inspector Japp, Miss Lemon
Tropes
- Absence of Evidence: Foscatini and Ascanio supposedly had a rather hearty dinner, but the plates at the murder scene are too clean to have been used at said dinner.
- Adaptation Expansion: Aside from the core story (which remains largely the same), two subplots are woven into the episode, which are Hastings buying a car from an Italian dealership that's more than meets the eye, and Miss Lemon dating a man named Edwin Graves.
- Almost Dead Guy: Count Foscatini gets to call his doctor right as he's being murdered. Subverted, in that his murderer called Dr Hawker in order to mislead the investigation.
- And This Is for...: Hastings decks Graves into the water for daring to break Miss Lemon's heart.Hastings:: That's for Miss Lemon.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Miss Lemon reveals that she had broken up with Edwin before the reveal of him being a murderer because he had opted to have Foscatini's cat put down instead of finding another home for it.
- Blackmail: Count Foscatini's source of income.
- Bludgeoned to Death: Count Foscatini took a nasty hit to the swede via a small statue.
- Canon Immigrant: Bruno Vizzini, owner of the car dealership Hastings is purchasing from, and Foscatini's blackmail victim, replacing the unnamed and unseen elite Italian of the short story.
- Chase Scene: Hastings and the police chase Graves in his car around Chichester.
- Cool Car: The "Eliso Freccia" Hastings purchases, in reality a rare Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 B Spider
. - "Eureka!" Moment: Poirot has one when he looks into a mirror. He realizes that they've been looking at the case the wrong way around — Foscatini was the blackmailer, and Ascanio was the one tasked to pay him.
- "Fawlty Towers" Plot: Edwin Graves is a man prone to lying about himself. He introduces himself as a personal secretary to an Italian nobleman rather than being merely his valet, he goes out with Miss Lemon while leaving out the fact that he's already married, he pretends his boss's boat is his. His web of lies proves to be too inconsistent to be believable, however, and this is what allows Poirot to uncover him as the killer.
- La Résistance: Foscatini is blackmailing Vizzini over the latter's ties to anti-fascist organizations in Italy, which would have endangered his position back home.
- The Precious, Precious Car: The car Hastings drives to pursue Graves naturally gets crashed in the process. Hastings apologizes to Vizzini, the car dealer who he believed owned it, and is dismayed to learn that it was the car he himself ordered, being used on an errand on its way to being delivered.
- Secret Test of Character: The reason Miss Lemon isn't too hung up about Graves' arrest is the fact that he failed one off-screen; when asked what to do about the cat that Foscatini kept as a pet, he proposed to have it destroyed, a fact that irked Miss Lemon hard enough for her to break their relationship off.
