Amy Folliat (Constance Cummings) quotes sixteenth century poet Edmund Spenser's work "The Faerie Queene": "Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas,/ Ease after war, death after life, doth greatly please." This verse is inscribed on Dame Agatha Christie's tombstone.
There is a reference to another Dame Agatha Christie Poirot case: Detective Inspector Bland (Kenneth Cranham) tells Poirot he "was present when you solved the ABC Murders" fifteen years earlier.
Of Peter Ustinov's three television appearances as Hercule Poirot, this is the only one to retain the original title of the Agatha Christie novel. Thirteen at Dinner (1985) was based on "Lord Edgware Dies" while Murder in Three Acts (1986) was based on "Three Act Tragedy".