Okay, first of all, I’m 86% into this novel, and absolutely LOVING it! One of my favourite scenes in an Agatha Christie, bar none, is Miss Marple’s entrance about 40% through. First, she swans onto the Fortescue estate in a taxi:

So charming, so innocent, such a fluffy and pink and white old lady was Miss Marple that she gained admittance to what was now practically a fortress in a state of siege far more easily that could have been believed possible. Though an army of reporters and photographers were being kept at bay by the police, Miss Marple was allowed to drive in without question, so impossible would it have been to believe that she was anyone but an elderly relative of the family. [41%]

And then she reveals that she’s there not to investigate the suspicious deaths of the wealthy Mr and Mrs Fortescue, but rather that of their nervous, “rabbity” maid, Gladys, whom it turns out Miss Marple herself trained for the service.

“It was the clothes-peg that really worried me,” said Miss Marple in her gentle voice.

“The clothes-peg?”

“Yes. I read about it in the papers. I suppose it is true? That when she was found there was a clothes-peg clipped onto her nose?”

Pat nodded. The colour rose to Miss Marple’s pink cheeks

“That’s what made me so very angry, if you can understand, my dear. It was such a cruel, contemptuous gesture. It gave me a kind of picture of the murderer. To do a thing like that! It’s very wicked, you know, to affront human dignity. Particularly if you’ve already killed.” [42%]

I just LOVE this image of an elderly woman managing to get past police barricades because of her fluffy pink and whiteness. And then, to have all that fluff pull back to reveal an avenging angel set to get justice for a dearly cared for servant girl. How wonderful it is that the main victims for this killer are presumably the super wealthy husband and wife, and yet it is the naive and innocent maid whose death will bring about their downfall! These passages are Christie’s masterful pen at work, and I loved every second of it.

Now for the case:

The wealthy Rex Fortescue dies at work after drinking a cup of tea. Yet the poison, taxine, is slow-acting, indicating he must have ingested it while still at home. Oddly, his pocket is full of cereal, rye to be exact.

At first, Inspector Neele suspects Rex’s much younger second wife, Adele, who is beautiful and glamorous, and also having an affair. Yet she’s the next to turn up dead, of cyanide poisoning in her tea. Then finally, Gladys’ body is found; she may have witnessed something about Rex’s murder.

Tying all three together is the nursery rhyme “Sing a Song of Sixpence,” which includes a pocket full of rye, a queen dead after eating bread and honey, and a maid whose nose is pecked off by a bird. The nursery rhyme also features blackbirds, which may provide a clue to the killer’s motive.

As for suspects, there’s a whole household full of them. There are Rex’s three children with his first wife: eldest son Percival, main heir to his father’s business; black sheep son Lancelot, who was summoned back home after Rex and Percival had a falling out, and daughter Elaine, who was in love with a man her father disapproved of. There are also the respective romantic partners: Percival’s quiet and lonely wife Jennifer; Lancelot’s independently wealthy wife Pat; and Gerald, Elaine’s communist ex-lover who left when Rex threatened to disinherit her, and returned after Rex was killed. And of course, the servants: cool and efficient head maid Mary Dove, whom Inspector Neele describes as almost performing her name; grouchy butler Mr Crump, and his grouchy wife, whose talent as a chef keeps them both employed. There’s also Vivian Dubois, the man Adele was having an affair with, and possibly the women working at Rex’s office.

Upon much reflection, I’ve narrowed down my suspect list to two key players. Per usual, I’ll type it out below, and check back in to see how I did!

Did I Solve It?

Kinda? I figured out the mastermind behind the murders, and I figured out their motive. But I got the method wrong, and my guess on an accomplice was totally off-base. There were a couple of clues that I skimmed past that turned out to be significant (or rather, I figured they may be important, but couldn’t figure out how, so I forgot about them); and at least one major clue I thought was significant but turned out to be nothing.

So, technically, this is a win, because I did figure out whodunnit and why. But I missed so many of the details that I feel only semi-victorious.

And, honestly, I’m happy about it. Because the big reveal I did not guess made me gasp out loud, and question everything I thought I knew about this case. And that, to me, is the hallmark of the most satisfying Christie mysteries.

Plus, of course, Miss Marple as a fluffy and pink and white avenging angel = sheer perfection!

*** SPOILERS BELOW ***

My Verdict

My gut says the killer is the younger son Lancelot. Yes, he was in Africa when Rex was poisoned, but the poison was administered to a jar of marmalade in the pantry that only Rex ate. Lance said he came back before the events of this novel to see for himself if his father was losing his mental faculties, so it’s possible he poisoned the marmalade then.

It’s also possible he had an accomplice. The most natural partner-in-crime would be his wife Pat, but oddly, I wonder if Percival’s wife Jennifer is involved. Right before the tea that killed Adele, Mary Dove noticed Jennifer coming into the house from the garden. Could Jennifer have been out killing Gladys? Lancelot was very adamant about keeping Pat away from the house, presumably to keep her safe from a killer, but also possibly to keep her away from his actions? Jennifer is also a nurse, so she would know about poisons.

As for motive, Lancelot seems very adamant about not really wanting any part of the business, but I don’t believe him. First, he tells Percival he wants to play a more active role in the business as a junior partner, but then admits to Pat and Inspector Neele that he’s just messing with his older brother’s head. Percival clearly doesn’t want to work with him, and so offers to buy him out, and at first Lancelot complains that Percival is so sneaky he’ll keep all the good stock options and leave Lancelot with the risky ones that’ll lose money. But then, later, in a fit of temper, Lancelot tells Percival he really doesn’t want to work in the business, and says to just go ahead and give him the bad stocks, including Blackbird Mine. (20 – 30 years ago, Rex and a Mr MacKenzie discovered Blackbird Mine together in East Africa, but Mr MacKenzie died before coming home, and Rex came home to say the mine was worthless.)

I think Lancelot wanted Blackbird Mine all along. It’s likely worth a lot of money, he figured it out while in Africa, and he manipulated Percival to turn over Blackbird Mine to him amongst their father’s lot of “bad investments.” After all, Lancelot’s the one who raised the possibility in the first place of Percival handing over all the bad stocks to him; I don’t think that was a fit of temper but rather a calculated bit of manipulation.

My # 2 Suspect

My other main suspect was Percival. He gains all his father’s businesses, and because his stepmother died less than a month after his father, the fortune never turned over to her. Inspector Neele ruled him out because he was away on business during Rex’s death, and his secretary attested that he was in the office during Adele and Gladys’ death.

But we saw right before the big confrontation between Lancelot and Percival that Percival could have left his office without his secretary knowing. Lancelot was surprised to see Inspector Neele at Percival’s desk rather than Percival himself, because the secretary said Percival was in, and both Lancelot and Inspector Neele found a side exit that Percival could have used without his secretary seeing.

Still, Lancelot is acting so shady about Blackbird Mine and other “bad investments” that my gut is going for him rather than Percival.

Final Loose End

The final loose end is the identity of Mr MacKenzie’s daughter Ruby. Mrs MacKenzie crossed her name out of the family Bible, so she must have done something really bad. Inspector Neele thinks she is Mary Dove, but I think there are three other women she could also be: Adele, Jennifer, or Pat. What would enrage Mrs MacKenzie more than her beloved daughter actually marrying into the family?

It can’t be Adele, because she was also killed, and I don’t think Ruby would’ve been dispatched so offhandedly. Part of me has a strong gut feeling it’s Pat, and maybe she and Lancelot are in it together. But then that made me think it could be Jennifer, because of her suspicious visit to the garden when Gladys died. And maybe she decided to team up with Lancelot to get Blackbird Mine because her own husband is too stupid or weak to actually deal with such scheming.

But if so, why would Mary Dove be so shifty when Inspector Neele accuses her of being Ruby? Perhaps she is Ruby. Perhaps she entered the household as a maid to take revenge on the family, but then changed her mind afterwards, which pissed her mom off. The problem with this is: why would she have changed her mind about taking revenge? It’s not like the family treated her extraordinarily well; in fact, she seems mostly contemptuous of them. But then deciding to be above such pettiness as revenge doesn’t seem like a Christie plot twist; Christie is more likely to have someone change their mind for love or some other gain. Could she be Lancelot’s accomplice?

Mary Dove does seem the most likely to be Ruby. I don’t think it can be Jennifer; I can imagine her being so pissed off at being ignored by Percival that she teams up with Lancelot to do shady things, but I don’t think she’s charismatic enough to have deliberately schemed her way into the Fortescue household. Pat is possible, but doesn’t seem like a necessary twist. So I’m going with Mary Dove as Ruby, and the whole Ruby thing being irrelevant to the murders.

The Actual Reveal

Augh… Okay, so I was right: it was Lancelot! And he was after money.

But I got so many of the other details wrong. He didn’t poison the marmalade himself; rather, he tricked Gladys into doing so, and that’s why she was so shifty. I also don’t know why Jennifer was in the garden when Gladys died, but Lance was the one who strangled Gladys and poisoned Adele.

And I was also wrong about Ruby’s identity: it was Jennifer. She nursed Percival to health once, then decided to take revenge by marrying him. But that was it. At least I was right about the whole Ruby thing being irrelevant to the murders!

Mary Dove is indeed shady. She had figured out that Jennifer was Ruby, and so asked for money in exchange for Mary pretending she could be Ruby. And her overall shadiness was just that she stole from her previous employers and was hoping to steal from the Fortescues until all the deaths happened.

Blackbird Mine did turn out to be wealthy, but only recently, because of a recent discovery of uranium in the area. Rex wasn’t lying decades ago when he said the mine was worthless. The whole blackbirds in a pie thing was Jennifer’s somewhat weird attempt at revenge, and Lance just jumped on that bandwagon with his rhyme.