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I Try to Solve an Agatha Christie Mystery | Towards Zero (Superintendent Battle)

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The detective with her book-inspired makeup look
Much needed detective fuel:
British-themed tea in an Agatha Christie mug!

Okay, I admit it, I’m completely lost. I decided to try solving this mystery because the BBC adaptation was coming to Canada via Britbox this month, and I wanted to try my hand at it before watching the show. I also haven’t written a blog post in a while, and figured that going head-to-head with the Queen of Crime was the perfect way to kick off my blogging year.

Now here I am, 87% in and right before the chapter with the big reveal, and I’m absolutely at a loss. So I’m afraid my 2025 series of Agatha Christie challenges will very much likely kick off with a loss, but on the bright side, I’ve really been enjoying this book, and highly recommend it to any fan of Christie or mysteries in general.

First, it has the elements I love most in Christie’s mysteries: it features a fairly small cast of characters, all of whom have complex relationships with each other, and enough drama amongst them to fuel whatever the motive for murder will turn out to be. At its heart is tennis player Neville Strange, his ex-wife Audrey, and his current, younger wife Kay. From the start, it seems clear that Neville isn’t fully happy with the divorce; he speaks highly of Audrey’s character, expresses guilt over causing her heartbreak, and seems impatient whenever Kay complains about something. The love triangle comes to a head when Neville decides that he and Kay will visit his elderly relative Lady Tressilian (Anjelica Huston in the adaptation!), at the same time as Audrey visits her every year. Instant drama!

Added to the mix are two other men who turn the love triangle into a much more complex polygon: Thomas Royde, a childhood friend of Audrey’s who has been secretly in love with her for years, and Ted Latimer, a dashing young man who is friendly and rather flirty with Kay. Then there’s Mary Aldin, companion and distant cousin to Lady Tressilian, and of course, Lady Tressilian herself, a formidable woman (Anjelica Huston!) who stays in her bed full-time and uses a rope bell to call her maid.

One evening, a visitor, Mr Treves, tells the story about a child he knows who got away with murder (literal, cold-blooded murder) many years ago. That child would now be an adult, and Mr. Treves said they had such a distinctive physical feature that he would surely recognize them even now. Mr. Treves later returns to his hotel, finds a sign saying the lift is broken, and so climbs the stairs to his top floor room. He dies of a heart attack from the climb.

Fast forward a few days (?), and Lady Tressilian is also found dead in her bed, struck in the head with an unknown blunt object. All the evidence points to one of the characters, but of course, the case is never that simple.

I had a vague suspicion of one of the characters from the beginning, honestly for no good reason other than they made the most sense to me for the big reveal. But then they later did something that made me realize they’re actually likely innocent. And then came a flurry of new clues and mini-reveals that seem to make everything clearer to Superintendent Battle, but honestly only made me even more confused than ever. I don’t think that re-reading past chapters, or even my notes and highlights will make anything any clearer for me, mostly because I already did that and I’m still confused, LOL! So, without further ado, I’m going to lock in my answer, and see how I do!

Was I right?

Ahahahaha! No, absolutely not, not even close. I named my choice of murderer below, and a bunch of other suspects I’d discarded as suspects for various reasons. Then I make a joke about how, at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was this one character I never suspected, and of course, that’s who it turned out to be. And of course, their motive makes total sense; I just didn’t see it at all.

So, well played, Dame Agatha Christie. The Queen of Crime has fooled me again. My ego would like to give myself partial credit for at least guessing the motive; I’d just assigned it to the wrong person. But, ultimately, no, I did not figure out whodunnit. So 2025 begins with Agatha Christie 1, Literary Treats 0, and a fun little mystery to kick off spring.

*** SPOILERS BELOW ***

My Verdict

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I Try to Solve an Agatha Christie Mystery | Dumb Witness (Hercule Poirot)

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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 ***

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I Try to Solve a Dorothy L Sayers Mystery | The Nine Tailors

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Hoping Sherlock Holmes tea will help me solve this case!

Ahh… I tried solving this for my blog, but gave up halfway through.

The Nine Tailors is beautifully written. The “tailors” in the title refers not to suit-makers, but rather to the nine bells in a small village church. The story begins with Lord Peter and his trusty valet Bunter getting stranded at a small village on New Year’s Eve, and taken in by the local priest. The church has planned an overnight performance of its bells to ring in the New Year, one of the bellringers has called in sick, and Lord Peter gets a chance to join in the bellringing himself. As the hours pass, he also gets to know more about the people in the village, and all the little bits of local gossip.

Fast forward a few months, and Lord Peter receives a call from the parish: a body has just been discovered in another person’s grave. Could he come over and help them figure out who it is, and how it got there? Lord Peter of course agrees immediately, and I was equally intrigued.

I also have a soft spot for my copy: I found it in a thrift shop, and there’s a lovely handwritten line pencilled in cursive, “from my mother, 2010”, plus an embossed snowflake name, “Natalie Neill.” So I like thinking about Natalie Neill, and her mother, and how they may have shared a love for old British mysteries and maybe even Dorothy Sayers in particular.

But as a mystery for me to solve, it was a bit too dense for me to really sink my teeth into. Who was the dead body in the churchyard? How did they die? Why were they tied up, and why were their hands taken? Parallel to this, and somewhat linked, is the mystery around a jewelry theft at a wealthy woman’s home years ago. How were the jewels actually stolen? Were the right persons charged with the crime? Where did the jewels go? Added to the mix is a whole cast of characters who may or may not be involved, a stranger who visited during New Years and also may or may not be involved, and a potentially coded message whose key may lie amongst the parish bells.

Lord Peter Wimsey does his best to solve the case, in his methodical way, but it seems each new answer only gives rise to more questions. There are also too many characters for me to keep straight, and as much as I tried to stay interested in the whole history behind the jewel theft, I just ended up making my head hurt. Probably around the halfway point, I decided to stop trying to figure things out, and just enjoy the ride.

My enjoyment of the story did increase after that, because then I could just enjoy how wonderfully Sayers crafts the atmosphere for her story. I loved imagining myself in this small village, and hearing the beautiful church bells for myself. Sayers describes the bells’ songs beautifully; I honestly had no idea how much music and harmony were involved in bellringing.

It turns out that letting go of the need to solve the mystery did in fact actually lead me to solving a key component of the case. I managed to guess the cause of death, and I honestly think I was only able to do so because I’d stopped worrying so much about tracking all the little details involved.

The rest of the big reveals were a surprise to me. I thought the story of how the victim ended up dead made sense, and I thought Sayers did such a great job at humanizing the people involved, so that the reveal evoked more of an emotional response beyond just an “aha!” moment. I actually felt for those involved in the death, and for how things turned out in the end.

Overall, a beautifully told story, and like I said, the mother-daughter connection gave me a soft spot for my copy. As a mystery, it wasn’t among my successes, nor, quite frankly, was it all that much fun to try. Possibly others will have more luck / enjoy the attempt more, but for me, I recommend simply sitting back with this, and letting yourself enjoy seeing the story unfold.