Trying to solve The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side is a bit of a bittersweet experience. It’s the final Miss Marple novel I haven’t yet read or tried to solve. After a staunch almost life-long preference for Poirot, I’ve grown to prefer Miss Marple in recent years. I mean, really, how awesome is it for a little old lady with white hair and pink cheeks to be the most brilliant crime-solving mind around? And while Agatha Christie mysteries are always a pleasure to re-read, I admit I’ll miss matching wits with dear old Aunt Jane, and trying to solve the mystery before she does.

Still, as the very pragmatic Jane Marple herself would say, the end will have to come at some time, and all one can do is face it when it does. (Except of course, she would say it much more eloquently. Because my goodness, Agatha Christie, the writer you are!)

Mirror features one of my favourite elements in a murder mystery: the glamour of a movie being made! A famous film star, Marina Gregg, moves to St Mary Mead (Gossington Hall, to be exact, where Mrs. Bantry from The Body in the Library used to live!). She and her husband, Jason Rudd, throw a fete for the neighbourhood, and invite a select group of 30 or 40 local luminaries into their home for drinks.

Among the guests is Heather Badcock, a kindly, if rather thoughtless and self-centred, woman, who is totally starstruck by Marina. At the party, she excitedly tells Marina about how kind the actress was when they first met years ago. Marina is super polite and gracious until something over Heather’s shoulder catches her attention, and she gets a terrible look on her face that reminds Mrs. Bantry of The Lady of Shalott (where the book’s title comes from).

Later in the party, Heather dies from a poisoned daiquiri. Except it turns out that, due to a spilled drink, it was actually Marina’s daiquiri she drank. We also learn that Marina has received threatening letters, and that there are many people in her life with reasons to hold grudges. Whodunnit? Why? And can Miss Marple solve the case before the killer strikes again?

I have a really strong gut feel about the answer to this mystery, and I’m going to go ahead and lock it in.

Did I Solve It?

I did! I actually did!

Also, my goodness, those last couple of chapters were filled with other twists I DID NOT see coming. So, brava, Dame Agatha Christie! The title Queen of Crime is very much well-earned.

That’s it for me and Miss Marple on this blog then. Fortunately, I believe I still have quite a few Poirot mysteries as well as non-series mysteries that I can try to solve!

***SPOILERS BELOW***

My Verdict

I think Heather Badcock really was the intended victim, and Marina Gregg is the one who killed her.

Marina’s big tragedy in life is that she’s unable to have children. She was thrilled when she became pregnant 11 years ago, to the point that she dismissed her three adopted children (yikes!) to focus on her biological one (yikes!). But then the baby came out developmentally disabled. (He was sent to a sanatorium for professional care, which was an unfortunate product of the times, but also likely contributed to Marina’s grief.)

At the party, Heather told Marina about how they first met like 12 or 13 years ago. Heather was super sick with the flu, and the doctor told her to stay home, but she was so determined to meet her idol that she went to the event anyway. Marina chatted with her for three minutes, and gave Heather an autograph.

My immediate reaction to that story is that Heather might have infected her with whatever she had. And I’m guessing that whatever it was caused Marina’s baby’s condition, possibly through some complications with the pregnancy.

In terms of opportunity, Marina could have added the meds to her own daiquiri then spilled Heather’s drink to make sure she drank Marina’s instead. An eyewitness, Gladys, said that the drink was spilled on purpose, and it sounds like she meant that Heather did it, but she never actually mentions Heather by name, so I think it’s possible she meant Marina.

If I’m wrong and Marina really was the target, then there are a number of viable suspects: her husband, the older adopted son (who could be there in disguise as her adopted daughter was), her ex-lover, the ex-wife of one of her ex-husbands, and possibly her adopted daughter as well. Of all of these, I think the husband is the most likely, but overall, I don’t think there’s a really strong case against any of them. It seems more likely that Marina set up the threatening notes and attempted coffee poisoning herself to point suspicion away from the truth.

The Actual Reveal

Heather infected Marina with German measles, which caused complications early in her pregnancy that led to her baby having developmental disabilities. What Marina saw was an image of Madonna and Child, which made her think of her baby.

I admit that the main reason I even picked up on the vital clue at all is because of the pandemic. It’s made me much more sensitive to people going out when sick and exposing others to their germs, in this case for three whole minutes, yikes!

Twists I didn’t expect: Heather Badcock’s husband was actually Marina’s mysterious first husband, a realtor whom no one knew anything about! Also, Marina’s husband knew, or at least suspected, all along what she did, because he figured out the significance of the German measles. And finally, Marina dies at the end of an overdose, possibly by her own hand, but also possibly (likely?) given to her by her husband to free her from her suffering. YIkes!