I began 2024 by trying to solve an Agatha Christie mystery (After the Funeral), and so fittingly, the year comes to a close with another attempt to outsmart the Queen of Crime. Best part: this story has a dog!

First and foremost: I’m having an absolute ball (pun intended) reading Dumb Witness! The set-up is fantastic: Miss Emily Arundell’s family comes to her home for Easter weekend. All of them have their reasons for needing money, and make valiant attempts to charm her into giving them some. But Miss Emily is a sharp woman, and has little patience for her nieces’ and nephew’s obvious sucking up.

Late one night, she trips at the top of the staircase, and only barely escapes serious injury. Her family members are quick to pin the blame on her dog Bob, a little terrier who loves to play by rolling his ball down the stairs and having someone toss it back up, but Miss Emily has her doubts. Sure, Bob’s ball was found at the spot where she tripped, but something about the scene doesn’t sit right with her, and she pens Hercule Poirot a letter asking for help.

Except Poirot doesn’t get the letter till a few weeks later, and by that point, Miss Emily is dead, and seemingly from natural causes. Even more puzzling, sometime between Easter weekend and her death, Miss Emily changed her will and left everything to her companion, Miss Wilhelmina Lawson, instead of the family members previously named in it.

Did Miss Emily truly die of natural causes, or was she murdered? Was her fall down the stairs another murder attempt, and did that culprit succeed in their second attempt? And if so, who killed her?

I admit, this was a head scratcher for me. I spent most of the book fixated on a single suspect, and was almost 100% confident in my suspicions. The one snag is that this person just seemed too obvious to be the killer, but then maybe Christie was just being extra devious in trying to make me second guess myself.

Fortunately (or maybe not?), later on in the book, another suspect emerged as being possibly a better fit for the killer. And again, I was almost completely confident I’d gotten it this time, with the only snag being that perhaps Christie was just being extra, extra devious and making me look at this new suspect when my original guess was right all along.

Either way, armed with hot coffee and plenty of holiday spirit, I’m at Chapter 25 and believe I’m ready to lock in my answer, and make my accusation. Typing it below the spoiler tag…

Update: Chapter 28, and I doubt myself. Could I be wrong? I’ll make my edits to the below, and then lock in my guess again.

Did I Solve It?

I did!!! I actually got most of the details right, with only minor gaps in terms of specifics and some minor errors in my theories about the details. But I totally got the killer’s identity, and the broad strokes of their motive and method. I’m especially proud of myself for not falling for the big red herring Christie dropped into the mix. Hah!

Best of all, the book ends with Hastings adopting Bob the dog! He and Bob had lots of fun playing together during the investigation, so this is the happiest of all happy endings indeed!

*** SPOILERS BELOW ***

My Verdict

I think Bella Tanios killed Miss Emily Arundell. That was my guess as of Chapter 25, and even though Chapter 28 made me doubt myself, I think my answer can still stand.

In Chapter 28, Bella dies of an overdose of sleeping pills. At first, I thought that meant the culprit was Dr. Tanios all along and he finally succeeded in killing her, but then I changed my mind. She killed Miss Emily, and Hercule Poirot outlined the details in the letter he gave her, so she then dies by suicide to avoid the consequences.

• The Clue that Pointed Me to Them: Miss Lawson thinks she saw Theresa Arundell place the tripwire that made Emily fall down the steps, because the woman wore a brooch that says TA. But she saw the woman through her reflection in a mirror, so the initials are actually AT, or Arabella “Bella” Tanios.
• Motive for Murder: Bella wants to get away from her husband, Dr. Jacob Tanios, and needs Miss Emily’s fortune to make her escape.
  • Why? It’s possible Dr. Tanios is abusive. (He told Poirot that Bella is paranoid and may say things about him being a bad person, and I think that makes him look super suspicious.) Or possibly she just wants to get out from under his thumb. He seems like a much more domineering personality, and she seems to want to emulate her more vivacious cousin Theresa, so she may need to get away from her husband to do that.
  • Or MAYBE Dr. Tanios is the one who put the trip wire, Bella realized what he did, and knew she had to escape before he eventually succeeded at killing Miss Emily and then killing Bella to get her share of the fortune. I kinda like this explanation the best, because it explains why Bella timed Miss Emily’s death the way she did. I considered if perhaps Bella set the trip wire as part of her scheme to frame her husband, but then if the trip wire had killed Miss Emily, the money would have gone to all three cousins and Bella wouldn’t have been able to keep it from her husband.
• Motive for Method: Bella wanted to make sure her husband and cousins won’t be able to get Miss Emily’s fortune. She knew Miss Lawson was very suggestible and could be convinced to give the money to her and no one else. 
• Method: Poison, and with the intention of framing Dr. Tanios for it. Bella administered the poison only after Miss Emily changed her will to leave everything to Miss Lawson, or possibly manipulated Miss Lawson into administering the poison herself. She also manipulated Miss Lawson into thinking that the new will was already sent on to the lawyer, so that Miss Emily couldn’t change it back even when she wanted to.
  • I don’t know what the poison was, but I’m pretty confident it was hidden in Miss Emily’s liver pills. Hastings said they reminded him of seasickness meds, and I know that’s significant somehow, but I don’t know why. Seriously, I even looked up contraindications for anti-nausea meds for people with liver disease and found nothing, but possibly the meds have changed since Christie’s time. Or possibly, the meds were wrong so poor Miss Emily’s jaundice wasn’t actually being treated like she thought.
  • Bella also made a huge deal about not knowing that Dr. Tanios visited Miss Emily on his own, so this tracks with her attempt to frame him. There’s also an odd clue about Miss Lawson and the two spiritualist sisters seeing “a halo” around Miss Emily’s head. No idea what this could be, but possibly a special effect that Bella added tried to manipulate Miss Emily?
• Opportunity: Bella took a lot of medicines and bought a lot of sleeping pills at one point, so she could have used any of that. She could easily have done so while at Miss Emily’s house, or manipulated Miss Lawson into doing so.

Other Suspects:

• Miss Lawson
  • She was my top pick for most of the book. She was too nice and too innocent-seeming, even when Miss Emily was really mean and contemptuous towards her. Plus, of course, when you ask “who benefits?” Miss Lawson is the clear answer.
  • I had this whole theory that she was actually a long-lost relative, likely the child of one of Miss Emily’s siblings whom they thought had died without having children. After all, the timing of Miss Lawson’s employment seems suspicious: she started working for Miss Emily after the latter recovered from a jaundice attack. Then shortly after she started in the job, Miss Emily got sick with jaundice again. Very suspicious!
  • But as the story went on, I think Bella seems the better culprit, and maybe Miss Lawson was just a red herring from Christie / potential stooge from Bella.
• Theresa
  • Why is she so adamant against Miss Emily’s body being exhumed? What’s she hiding? 
  • Also, when everyone ran to Miss Emily’s rescue when she fell, Theresa’s love interest, Dr. Rex Donaldson, was not at all in the scene. Why? Did he cause the fall? And since he works for Miss Emily’s doctor, could he be manipulating Miss Emily’s meds?
  • Ultimately, I still think Bella is the murderer, but Theresa is definitely hiding something. I’m guessing that she thinks Rex killed Miss Emily, as I think she would lie to protect him (or her brother Charles), but not Bella. 
• Charles
  • It would be hilarious if he were the murderer, because I don’t think it’s him at all. Sure he wants money, but none of the clues point strongly in his direction.

What Actually Happened

Bella poisoned Miss Emily with phosphorous. The “halo” that Miss Lawson and the two spiritualists saw around Miss Emily’s head was her breath being phosphorescent, which also mimics the symptoms of jaundice.

I was right about her motive to get away from her husband, and the reason was among my guesses: that she was tired of being the plain and frumpy wife and wanted her own life away from him. I was also right that she inserted the phosphorus into Miss Emily’s liver pills.

Bella was also the one who tried to kill Miss Emily with the trip wire. I was wrong in thinking that Dr. Tanios was at all involved in this or a danger to Bella. She was only after her share of the money, but then took her chance to get a bigger chunk when Miss Lawson ended up the heir.

And I was right that Bella did die by suicide.