The Woman in Question

Dirk Bogarde - Bob Baker
Jean Kent - Astra
Susan Shaw - Catherine
John McCallum - Murray
Hermione Baddeley - Mrs. Finch
Charles Victor - Pollard
Duncan Macrae - Supt. Lodge
Lana Morris - Lana
Vida Hope - Shirley
Joe Linnane - Inspector Butler

Alfie, son of Mrs Finch, discovers the strangled body of Astra. Scotland Yard is called in. Mrs Finch relates how Astra's sister Catherine, a self-centred girl, had recently quarrelled with Astra. Among the dead woman's other visitors had been Bob Baker, a vaudeville artist trying unsuccessfully to persuade Astra to team with him in a thought-reading act. The day before she died, Bob and Catherine had called on Astra, and left after a quarrel. Catherine's version of Astra and her life is then recounted: Astra's neglect of her bed-ridden husband, and Catherine's love for Bob Baker, who returned it but was waiting for a divorce that Astra was trying to obstruct.

Bob Baker's version is substantially the same, and the next person to be interviewed is Pollard, keeper of a nearby pet store. Pollard tells that he first met Astra when she brought her sick canary to him, and after that they became friends. The day before Astra died, he had proposed marriage to her and been accepted. The case takes a new twist with the arrival of Murray, an Irish sailor who had been in love with Astra, who tells how he came back to see her after a long voyage and found her with another man. But Pollard is finally found to be the murderer; Astra had not accepted him, as he claimed, and he killed her in a jealous rage.
Excerpt© 'Puffin Asquith' by R.J. Minney.