Krishna
Agatha Christie set the standard for mysteries and detective work so we have reviewed quite a few of her works. For example see The Secret Adversary or Murder at the Vicarage. The latter is the book where Miss Marple investigates (as she does in this one)
Mrs Bantry, mistress of Gossington hall is slowly waking up from her pleasant dream when the maid Mary rushes in announces that ‘There is a body in the library!’ and runs out. Colonel Arthur was sleeping next to her at that time.
Once it is confirmed that the body of a young blonde woman was indeed in the library, Dolly calls her neighbour and friend Miss Marple and invites her to come visit ‘because you are so good with bodies and murder’.
The police meanwhile find that the girl or someone had jimmied the window to the library to gain entry.
Both Miss Marple and Colonel Bantry think that the young girl (blond with a lot of makeup) must have been connected with a young man called Basil Blake who is fond of parties and brings girls occasionally. Basil was known to move with the film crowd but held a junior position there. When the police (Melchett) goes to interview Basil, they find Dinah Lee his bimbo girlfriend with him and he insults the police out of his house. He is rather rude about it.
Josie, an exotic dancer at a hotel (Hotel Majestic) in a nearby county is called and identifies the victim as Ruby Keene, a fellow dancer who was missing for over a day.
Meanwhile Inspector Slack and Melchett go with Superintendent Harper to The Majestic and learn that an invalid man in a wheelchair, Conway Jefferson – a rich man – was fond of Ruby Keene in a platonic way.
Adelaide Jefferson, his daughter in law, was staying with him. So was the son in law Mark Gaskell. Conway freely admits that he was planning to adopt legally Ruby. She would have gotten about fifty thousand pounds – an enormous fortune those days. His wife and his two children (a boy and a girl, who married Adeleide and Mark respectively) were dead in an accident that also made Conway invalid. He said that he had divided his assets equally into three parts and had given two of these to his two children. Subsequently, with his portion, he made an even bigger fortune in business.
Meanwhile George Bartlett, who is a guest in the hotel – young and moderately well known – comes and tells them that his car has been stolen. He generally behaves like a complete airhead in this novel.
All the possible suspects – Mark, Adrienne, etc – have a solid alibi that could have independently verified. However, Melchett learns that both Mark and Adrienne are in financial difficulties (due to bad investment decisions and gambling respectively). They also learn that Josie suspected Ruby of having an affair with George on the sly – which would have ruined her chances of coming into Conway’s money through adoption.
Miss Marple is puzzled by two things – Usually people of Ruby’s age and profession wear their nails long. Why did she wear them short? Second, the dress was ‘all wrong’. If she was going on a secret assignation with a young man, why was she wearing an old dress?
They speak to Raymond Starr the dancer and the tennis professional; he is unhappy that his family, wealthy at one time, had come down in status.
Miss Maple at this time claims that she knows who killed Ruby.
When Miss Maple hears that there has been another crime where a young girl has been burnt in a car, she wonders if that is connected with the murder of Ruby Keene. It seems to be because the car that was burnt was George’s stolen car. She wonders if Pamela, the girl who died, was in the wrong place at the wrong time and heard or saw something she should not have. She had told friends that she was going shopping, and the route takes her directly near the Bantrys’ residence.
A friend of her confesses that Pamela was not going shopping but to meet a film producer who was offering a make up test, and if she was satisfactory, a chance at stardom.
Now Miss Marple goes and confronts Basil Blake who admits that he came home to find Ruby’s body in front of his fireplace. He was drunk and Dinah was to come shortly so in panic, he moved the body to the Bantrys’ library because ‘they always looked down their noses at me’. (Yes, it is Agatha Christie; you have to give her some literary license in these types of things).
Then she convinces Melchett, her friend Henry Clithering and Superintendent Harper on a trip to make a few things absolutely certain.
Meanwhile, Conway has called his son in law Mark and daughter in law Adelaide and told them that in the light of Ruby’s death, he is planning to make a new will and leave it all to a dancer’s charity.
That night, as Conway is sleeping peacefully in bed, a figure comes out of the curtains with a hypodermic needle and the murderer is caught red handed.
There is quite a twist to the story and many people do not seem to be what they are. In fact Ruby herself is not Ruby as seen by most people.
I will not go into details but Miss Marple explains it all, and ‘proves’ who the real person/ persons behind the murders are and how it was executed for the sake of financial gain.
Very satisfactory ending, even though you can argue that some of the details are kind of cinematic in their denouement; but most of Agatha Christie’s stories are this way.
I’d say a very satisfying experience to read a good mystery.
7/10
— Krishna