A Murder is Announced

Setting:

Chipping Cleghorn (clearly meant to be a Cotswold village). "A large sprawling picturesque village (with) butcher, baker, grocer, quite a good antique shop, two tea-shops; self-consciously a beauty spot, caters for the motoring tourist" (p. 37). 1947/48 (p. 101) with postwar rationing (p. 25), shortages, unease as the old order of stability is crumbling, and you can no longer be 100% sure your neighbours really are who they claim to be (can you trust them? Excellent passage on p. 105). Early autumn (not clearly stated but the guests all comment on how early the central heating has been turned on by Miss Blacklock, p. 28). Everyone in village reads the Gazette avidly every Friday checking the Personal Column to see who is selling what, etc.

Plot:

An advert in the Gazette announces there will be a murder at Little Paddocks at 6.30pm later that day. All the neighbours gather. As the clock chimes half-past, the lights go out, and shots ring out. A masked man is found dead . . . Rudi Scherz is murdered. Dora Bunner is murdered. Miss Murgatroyd is murdered. Turns out Julia and Patrick are lovers, not siblings. Turns out Julia and Phillipa are Pip and Emma, but they did not know who the other was as they were separated when still infants. Turns out Letitia Blacklock died in Switzerland; Charlotte has been impersonating her sister to enjoy the fortune that she hopes will soon be hers. She murders the three because they realise who she really is (or in Miss M's case, that CB was not in the room when Rudi was killed). She is caught trying to drown Mitzi in the kitchen sink!

Cast:

The story explained . . .

There are two sisters neither of whom marries. Letitia Blacklock (LB) works for a rich financier called Randall Goedler (RG). Her sister Charlotte Blacklock (CB) lives in Cumberland, a recluse, ashamed of her appearance; she has had a goitre on her neck since her teens. Her pigheaded father is a doctor but does not believe in modern treatment. When he dies, LB leaves her job with RG to look after her sister.

A couple of years later RG unexpectedly dies before his wife Belle, who has always suffered from ill health. He leaves all his money to her, but says in his will that his fortune should go to LB after Belle's death.

LB and CB go to Switzerland to a sanatorium in Berne where CB is operated on to remove her goitre. They are prevented from returning to England by the outbreak of the Second World War.

The sisters receive news that Belle is not expected to live much longer, and CB looks forward to enjoying life once the Goedler fortune comes into her sister's hands.

Then calamity strikes: before they leave Switzerland to return to England, LB dies from pneumonia. CB sees her dreams disappear with her beloved sister's demise. But she has an idea: she assumes her sister's identity and tells the doctors that it is Charlotte who died. She returns to live in England, settling in the Cotswolds far away from anyone who might have known them before the war. While she waits for Belle to pass away and leave her the Goedler millions, she receives a begging letter from Dora Bunner, a childhood friend who has fallen on hard times. She takes Dora in (partly out of pity, but also out of loneliness) and lets her into her confidence. She regrets her decision as dozy Dora often unwittingly gives the game away.

To add to CB's worries, one day she is recognized by Rudi Scherz in a local hotel. He worked as an orderly in the sanatorium in Berne where she had her operation, and CB is afraid he will stumble upon her ruse and blackmail her. She decides to kill him but make it look as if he tried to kill her. She pays him to put the advert in the Gazette, and to stage the mock hold-up at her house, pretending it is all a big joke. Once she has killed him and successfully made it look like he shot at her, she thinks she is out of the woods. But then Miss Marple appears on the scene, staying with her niece who lives in the village.

Dora Bunner's erratic behaviour leads CB to the conclusion she must be killed too, before she gives the game away. CB invites all the neighbours around for a birthday party for Dora, before placing some poisoned aspirin by her own bed. Dora takes one of the tablets and is found dead in her bed the next morning.

The third and final murder takes place when CB overhears two of her neighbours going over the first murder scene. Amy Murgatroyd suddenly realizes that CB wasn't in the room when Rudi Scherz was killed, but before she has time to tell her companion Miss Hinchcliffe, the latter rushes off to the railway station to collect their dog. Murgatroyd is strangled while taking in the washing.

Miss Marple stages a grand finale (and a trap) at CB's house. She persuades Mitzi to say she saw CB killing Rudi Scherz. While the police pretend to rubbish the idea and accuse someone else, Mitzi is almost drowned by CB in the kitchen sink before Miss Marple steps out of the broom cupboard to apprehend the murderer.

Randall and Belle Goedler's son died at the age of two. RG had a sister Sonia who married Dmitri Stamfordis, and had (non-identical) twins Pip and Emma (both girls) born in 1922. After their marriage failed in 1925, they split up, each taking one of the children: Sonia took Pip, Dmitri took Emma. Both of the twins find out that Letitia Blacklock stands to inherit the Goedler fortune, so they try to gain her affections while keeping their real identities secret.

1922 Pip and Emma born
1925 Sonia and Dmitri split up
1935 LB and CB's father dies; LB quits her job to look after her sister
1937 Randall Goedler dies
1938 LB & CB go to Switzerland
1948 LB dies of pneumonia; CB takes on her sister's identity and returns to UK
1949 Rudi Scherz murdered

The three murders

  1. Rudi Scherz on p32
  2. Dora Bunner on p156
  3. Amy Murgatroyd on p184
  4. Mitzi (almost murdered) on p 212

Key scenes

Clues

Puns