New year, new Christie! For my first case in 2024, I’ve decided to try to solve After the Funeral. My sister and I had lunch together to celebrate New Year’s Eve’s Eve, and then treated ourselves to a bit of book shopping afterwards, and this was my year-end treat.

I usually prefer Poirot’s earlier cases, but this turned out to be really good! Wealthy patriarch Richard dies suddenly, and his relatives all gather in his mansion after the funeral for the reading of his will. At the reading, Richard’s sister Cora carelessly comments, “He was murdered, wasn’t he?” The next day, Cora herself is murdered, and the family solicitor turns to Hercule Poirot for help.

I’m having an absolute blast with this story. There’s lots of family drama, and it’s all filtered wonderfully through Christie’s sly wit. There’s a whole cast of suspects — all of them have strong motives, and none of them have a solid alibi. There’s a great moment where a private investigator tells Poirot all he’s found about each of the suspects, and their respective motives and alibis. When they get to the final name, Poirot says, “And it was quite impossible for her to have left Enderby that day without the servants knowing? Say that is so, I implore you!” Alas, that particular suspect also had her whereabouts unaccounted for at the time of Cora’s death.

“Il ne manquait ça!” said Poirot with strong feeling. [p. 154]

I pretty much suspected every character at one point or another. In fact, I’d just settled on one suspect, simply because they seemed the least suspicious, only for them to be almost killed themselves. For another suspect, I decided on their innocence based on something I now fear is a red herring.

Still, Poirot is gathering the characters for his big reveal, and so it’s time to make my final accusation. Am I confident? Oddly, yes, but also, this is the kind of confidence that, from experience, often comes before the fall. So I’m locking in my answer and looking forward to learning how much I’ve gotten it wrong.

Did I Solve It?

YES I DID! YES I DID! AHHHHH!!! There was a delightful detail I did not at all guess, and a couple of clues I didn’t pick up on, but the whodunnit, as well as their motive and method, I totally did figure out!

Literary Treats 1, Agatha Christie 0. Fantastic victory to start the new year!

***SPOILERS BELOW***

My Verdict

Miss Gilchrist did it. She killed Cora for the paintings. My guess is that there really is a valuable painting in Cora’s collection, that Cora or possibly Miss Gilchrist covered up with bad art to hide its value. I don’t know why Miss Gilchrist wanted the green tea table, but possibly there’s some value in it as well, possibly related to the green malachite table in Enderby House that keeps popping back onto the scene. Her motive is money; she hates being a servant (or “paid companion”, as she’d prefer to term it), and would like the money to start up her tea shop again.

She’s the only one who would have known that Cora would’ve been alone in the house at the time; any of the other suspects would’ve run the risk of coming across both women at the house. Cora was also feeling tired and sleepy before the killing, and Miss Gilchrist is the only one who could’ve given her sedatives ahead of time.

I’m guessing Richard died of natural causes, but Cora’s words after the funeral gave Miss Gilchrist the opportunity to kill her and have a number of other suspects to share the blame. She also faked the whole nun thing, which she decided to make up as a red herring after she learned some nuns came to Richard’s house the day of his death.

She poisoned herself to draw suspicion off her, and possibly add to the impression that someone had killed Richard and was trying to cover it up. She deliberately ate only part of the cake to make sure she doesn’t take a lethal dose, and she also made sure Susan got her to the hospital in time.

She also managed to scheme her way into Timothy and Maude’s household, and later, into Enderby House to make sure suspicion continues to fall on the others. She acts really silly and twittery, but is actually scheming.

No idea what Helen saw in the mirror, nor what she realized she saw at that family gathering after the funeral. Possibly something that made her suspicious of Cora’s motives in making that comment? Maybe Cora had an evil smile on? She was acting kinda shady on her train ride home from the funeral, so maybe she had some mischief planned with what she said?

Other Suspects

• Maude was my first, and for the longest time, favourite suspect. She was physically strong, and was very much convinced that her husband Timothy would inherit the bulk of Richard’s wealth. As fiercely protective as she is of Timothy, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was also tired of him; she was quick to let Miss Gilchrist take on his day-to-day care. She could’ve poisoned Miss Gilchrist by mailing the cake or by taking it over herself (she could’ve been faking her broken ankle). Ultimately, I decided against her because she couldn’t have been the nun who’d scared Miss Gilchrist twice; she was on the phone with Helen when the second nun showed up. She could’ve been working with Timothy, who’s less of an invalid that he likes to seem, but I doubt it; their invalid/caregiver dynamic seems too entrenched for them to work together as partners.
• Helen was a strong suspect mainly because everyone keeps talking about how saintly she is. She’s the least likely family member to kill, and therefore high on my list. She also reacted violently when Poirot mentioned Gregory’s history of poisoning someone, which makes me wonder why she cares so much. She does need the money; her finances were severely constrained by the war, and she’s supporting a nephew and bunch of artists. She could also be after revenge; I sense there’s more tragedy in her backstory than we know. But I couldn’t make all the pieces about her fit together, and then she was bonked on the head and given a concussion, so she’s clearly not the bad guy.
• Susan and Gregory are other strong suspects. Susan is ruthless in her ambition to own a cosmetics store, and Gregory is a chemist who has poisoned someone before. I can imagine the phone call between Susan and Gregory in Cora’s house to be a signal from Susan to activate the next part of their plan, and I can imagine Gregory dressing up as the nun. Susan also asked Richard for a loan for her business, and he turned her down, so she could’ve killed him to get the money. But if this is the case, then why would Susan save Miss Gilchrist’s life? I don’t think Gregory would do this on his own, so I’m guessing they’re innocent.
• Rosamund hides her sharpness beneath a hazy, Luna Lovegood-like veneer, which makes me wonder what she’s hiding. She tells Michael of course she knows who killed Richard, which makes me think maybe it wasn’t her; maybe it was Michael, but she’s the one who killed Cora and tried to poison Miss Gilchrist to cover his tracks. She seems to no longer have romantic attachment to Michael (good for her!), but she’s definitely planning more than she shows. Still, this all feels pretty thin to me, so I’m moving her down my list.
• Timothy isn’t actually an invalid, and could easily have killed Cora if he wanted to. He believes himself entitled to the money, and is enough of a bombast to kill with a hatchet. But ultimately, I don’t think it’s him. For one, he’s not the type to kill by poison (Richard or Miss Gilchrist), and for another, I doubt he’d be considerate enough to kill Cora while she was sleeping so as to spare her any pain.
• Michael needs money, and had the opportunity to kill. But I think all his shadiness is just him cheating on Rosamund, and he’s not focused nor ambitious enough to actually kill for money.

The Actual Reveal

Miss Gilchrist did do it! She did want money for a tea shop, Cora did own a painting she didn’t realize was valuable, and Miss Gilchrist painted over that painting to fool others.

The details I missed:

• Turns out that it wasn’t Cora at all who attended the funeral, but Miss Gilchrist! No one had seen her for 20 years, so it was easy enough for Miss Gilchrist to disguise herself. She’d also drugged Cora to stay alone at home while Miss Gilchrist was off at the funeral. I did not guess this at all! And in hindsight, a lot of clues were there — people commenting on how changed Cora looked, “Cora” being unnamed in the chapter within her POV about her train ride home, “Cora” also being shady like she’d set some big plan in motion with what she’s said.
• What Helen saw was “Cora” tilting her head the wrong way. Poirot realized it’s because Miss Gilchrist saw Cora in reverse, like a mirror image.
• The solicitor Mr Entwhistle mentioned smelling oil paint when he visited Cora’s home. I totally skimmed over this clue.
• Miss Gilchrist tipped Poirot off when she mentioned the wax flowers on the malachite table. Which she couldn’t have seen except of the day of the funeral, because Helen dropped it during a conversation with Poirot before Miss Gilchrist arrived at the estate. I totally missed this, but I’m glad to know the reason for all the references to the table.