'Moonflower Murders' Recap: Episode 2

Moonflower Murders airs Sundays at 8:00 pm and is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes. 
Recap and stream the previous series, Magpie Murders.
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Susan Ryeland believes she bears some responsibility for the disappearance of Cecily MacNeil. After all, she was the editor who suggested to Alan Conway that the murder of Frank Parris at the Branlow Hotel during Cecily’s wedding would make a good inspiration for his next Atticus Pünd novel; Cecily later read Atticus Pünd Takes the Case, told her father that it proved the innocence of Stefan Leonida and revealed Frank’s real murderer, and disappeared.

So Susan flies back to England and drives in her beloved red car to Branlow to help Cecily’s parents – the owners of the hotel – find her. The room where Frank was murdered – number 12 in the Moonflower wing – is now used only for storage. Susan’s room is nearby; she freshens up before having lunch with Cecily’s father Lawrence Treherne and his other daughter, Lisa, who can be uncomfortably direct, Lawrence warns Susan. She’s like her mother Pauline, who will not join them for lunch because she’s at home with worry over Cecily.

Indeed, Lisa thinks it’s a waste of money for her parents to pay Susan to find Cecily, who always has to be the center of attention – according to Lisa. Lisa’s not a fan of Cecily’s husband, Aiden, either: she thinks he barely works and has taken advantage of the money and job offered by the family into which he married. She also resents that he and Cecily moved into the cottage on the hotel grounds that she formerly occupied after they had a daughter, Roxana, soon after the wedding – Cecily was already pregnant when they got married. Lisa serves as the general manager of the hotel, Cecily managed the accounts, and Aiden did “PR,” Lisa sniffs.

After Lisa abruptly leaves the lunch, Lawrence apologizes for her behavior. Susan asks about the scar on her face – Melissa James, the murder victim in Atticus Pünd Takes the Case, has a similar scar. Lawrence explains that Cecily threw a glass at Lisa as a child.

Susan goes to speak to Aiden and sees Detective Inspector Locke leaving his cottage. She hides from Locke – she’s familiar with him from the investigation into the death of Alan Conway. Locke wants Aiden to appear on TV and appeal for information about Cecily, Aiden explains to Susan after the detective has left.

Aiden recounts the disappearance of Cecily for Susan. Cecily got Atticus Pünd Takes the Case secondhand and was offended by the depictions of her family in it – she wanted to sue. But Aiden thought it was all harmless. The morning she disappeared, she said she had found something in the chapter she had just read, but Aiden doesn’t know which it was. Aiden left for the day, and when he returned Cecily was gone.

Gwyneth Endicott, the mother of Branlow’s employee Derek, helps the MacNeils with their daughter Roxana, who corrects Susan when she calls her Roxy, even though Aiden uses that name. Gwyneth told Aiden that Cecily had gone out with her dog Chase. Aiden read a story to Roxana, then realized something was wrong when he heard Chase barking outside the door. The dog had his leash on, but Cecily wasn’t there.

When Susan asks Aiden what he did next, he suddenly says he can’t talk about it anymore, even though he had initially told her he wanted to talk about Cecily.

Back in the hotel, Susan speaks to Derek, who told the police eight years ago that he saw Stefan in the Moonflower wing late at night around when Frank was killed, despite Stefan’s assertion that he was in bed. Derek was at the night manager desk when he heard Chase barking upstairs from his bed located under a table with an antique Irish brooch that has always been on display in the hotel. Derek couldn’t find anything that triggered the barking, but he did see a shadowy figure in the Moonflower wing that he thought was Stefan since it was carrying his maintenance kit and had similar hair – although Derek couldn’t quite make out the face. When Derek went to look in the corridor, nobody was there.

Derek tells Susan that, while Lisa fired Stefan for stealing, the thefts were actually committed by the maid Natasha, who found Frank’s body. Every time she went in a room, something would disappear. She’s no longer in the country, however. Derek also recalls ordering a taxi for the rude Frank before his death. He keeps records of these things, and so is able to tell Susan that Frank went to see a lawyer, Sajid Khan – another person Susan knows from Alan’s murder investigation.

When Susan retires upstairs, she finds Chase barking in his bed under the table with the brooch. The bar manager, Liam, appears, and tells Susan that he thinks she’s wasting her time trying to find Cecily. Susan notes that Liam has an Australian accent – and Frank was visiting from Australia when he was murdered.

In Atticus Pünd Takes the Case, a foreign visitor also plays a role.

Edgar Schultz is a senior partner at the New York-based William Morris talent agency, which represented Melissa James. Schultz came to London as soon as he heard about Melissa’s death, in order to attend her funeral. He also wants Atticus Pünd to help the police investigate her murder, and so visits the detective at 11:00 am two days after Melissa’s death. Pünd’s go-getter assistant Madeline Cain convinces Pünd to take the case because it will raise his profile.

So Pünd and Madeline set off for the Moonflower hotel in Tawleigh. Inspector Chubb introduces himself as they check in, and drives them to Melissa’s house to examine the scene of the crime.

The evening she was killed in her bedroom, Melissa called her personal physician, Dr. Leonard Collins, at 6:28, according to Leonard’s wife Samantha, who answered the phone. When Leonard arrived at Melissa’s house ten minutes later, she was dead.

Melissa had bought the house, which had been broken into, at the same time she purchased the Moonflower hotel. She supposedly paid double its worth because she fell in love with it. Phyllis Chandler, the housekeeper, has worked there since, along with her son, Eric. They were visiting a relative when Melissa was killed.

Fifteen minutes after the Chandlers left the house, Melissa called Leonard to say she was terrified by a presence in the house. The police station is ten miles away, so Leonard was closer. She seems to have called from the downstairs living room, where some tear-soaked tissues were found next to the phone.

The phone in her bedroom has been torn from the wall – Chubb suspects its cord was used to strangle her, although she put up a fight, from the evidence of a broken lamp and bloodstain on the bed frame. Madeline faints while Chubb describes the grisly murder scene and knocks over a vase, shattering it. She has already noted some of the decoration in the house, like a wicked-looking Turkish dagger mounted on the wall that was a prop from one of Melissa’s films. (The Moonflower hotel has a room furnished with props from another film.)

Madeline stays back to recover herself while Pünd and Chubb interview Melissa’s husband, John Spencer, who has just returned to the house. He explains that he met Melissa six years ago, while she was shooting part of her last film on his father’s estate. He points the detectives to the Gardner couple who manage the hotel on behalf of Melissa as possible suspects. She was about to have her financial adviser Algernon Marsh audit the hotel because it was always been full but continues to lose money – perhaps the Gardners are stealing.

First, Pünd, Chubb, and Madeline go visit the Collinses. Outside, Pünd notices a damaged car – it’s owned by Algernon, who is also Samantha’s brother. Samantha complains that Melissa called Leonard at all hours and even showed up at their house sometimes. Leonard explains that Melissa was under stress with the hotel, and thought she was being watched at her house. She claimed small items were being taken from her bedroom.

When Melissa called before she was killed, she frantically told Leonard that, “He wants to kill me. He’s still here.” Leonard rushed over but was too late.

After the detectives leave, Samantha asks Leonard if they should have told the police about the fortune she just inherited. He says no. Samantha wants to use the money to leave town, and Leonard happily agrees to go with her and start a new life wherever she wants.

As Susan ponders Atticus Pünd Takes the Case and its relation to the disappearance of Cecily Treherne, her inner detective – Pünd – appears and tells her that she might be in danger. The feeling of evil he noticed in Tawleigh is also present in Branlow.