July - The Blotter Magazine

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The B l o t t e rcontender for part of the family fortune.Miss Marple soon figures everythingout, and even tricks the murderer(no, I’m not telling) into a confession.Christie here is in her prime.The murder setup is clever, the paceand plotting competent. The charactersare still kind of archetypical:prickly patriarch, dutiful daughter,sons raffish, rebellious and respectable– but more fully drawn; they’re maybe2 ½ dimensional, and drawn fromeveryday English life rather thansilent-film melodrama. Miss Marple,a gentle, kind, shrewd little old lady,was always more credible as a characterthan Poirot, even after Christietoned him down in later books.There are even flashes of what, from adistance, could be seen as talent:[Harold] looked across at [his wife]. Shewas watching him. Just for a momentor two he wondered – he didn’t oftenwonder about Alice – exactly what shewas thinking. That mild gaze of herstold him nothing. Her eyes were likewindows in an empty house.There are still flashes ofnaiveté, though they too are toneddown. Harold is “a City gentlemanand a director of important companies,”whose firm’s office shows “prosperityand the acme of modern businesstaste.” It’s a false show: “therewere no rumours going around as yetabout his financial stability. All thesame, the crash couldn’t be delayedvery long.” Christie never tells uswhat exactly Harold and his companiesdo (finance? investments? propertymanagement? making windowblinds for British Rail trains?) or howthey got the financial shakes, becauseshe doesn’t know – andrealizes she doesn’t know –much about big business.(She once said “I don’t dominers talking in pubsbecause I don’t know whatminers talk about inpubs.)Lucy becomesthe book’s central character.(Miss Marple plays aconsultant role, sitting inher parlor and listening tothe information Lucybrings.) Like KatherineGrey, she’s a sensible, levelheadedperson.“I simply can’t make youout,” said CedricCrackenthorpe. He easedJuly & August * HUGE Group Show!September * Anna PodrisNov. & Dec. * 500 Under 50, Entire GalleryOpening / Receptions, First Fridays 7 - Midnight------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------------------------------107 W. Hargett Street, Raleigh; inside the Father & SonAntiques Building * Open 7 days a week and bya ppointment * 919 / 601 -3130www.myspace.com/KirkAdamwww.blotterrag.comhimself down on the decaying wall of along derelict pigsty and stared at Lucy.“What can’t you make out?”“What you’re doing here.”“I’m earning my living.”“As a skivvy?” He spoke disparagingly.“You’re out of date,” said Lucy. “Skivvy,indeed! I’m a Household Help, aProfessional Domestician, or an Answerto Prayer, mainly the latter.”“You can’t like all the things you do –cooking and making beds and whirringabout with a hoopla or whatever youcall it, and sinking your arms up to theelbows in greasy water.”Lucy laughed. “Not the details, perhaps,but cooking satisfies my creativeinstincts, and there’s something in methat really revels in cleaning up mess.”All the adult male Crackenthorpes hiton her – even old Luther, who assuresher there’s “lots of life in the old dogyet.” She doesn’t pick any of them,although Miss Marple hints at the endof the book that she will.That always bugged me a little:it implied that she’d be giving upher independent life and successful,profitable domestic-goddess racket. Ididn’t mind Katherine Grey gettinghitched, figuring she’d earned it in allthose dreary years as a poor-relationpaid companion; but I enjoyed Lucybecause she was smart and independentand thought up such a clevercareer scheme. (There was never anydoubt in my mind who’d play her in amovie version: Diana Rigg, in herAvengers / Mrs. Peel days.) I wonder ifthe creation of Lucy wasn’t a bit ofwishful thinking on Christie’s part.Her childhood home was fully staffedwith nanny, cook, gardener and avarying assortment of housemaids.Ruth Kettering and Mireille bothhave personal maids; Derek andHercule Poirot are each equipped withvalets; and Katherine has the followingconversation with Miss Vinerabout a housemaid:“…and tell Ellen she is not to have holesin her stockings when she waits atlunch.”“Is her name Ellen or Helen, MissViner? I thought –“Miss Viner closed her eyes. “I can soundmy h’s, dear, as well as anyone, but
Helen is not a suitable name for a servant.I don’t know what the mothers inthe lower classes are coming to nowadays.”But by 1956 when 4:50 waswritten, Christie was living with thesame sort of dilemma EmmaCrackenthorpe faced: trying to runlarge houses, designed for Edwardianera-sizedstaffs, in a postwar worldwhere willing, skilled, reliable servantswere rarer than snowballs in August,and had to be placated rather thaninstructed. Lucy goes to tell Emmaabout the freshly discovered body:“Can I speak to you a moment, MissCrackenthorpe?”Emma looked up, a shade of apprehensionon her face. The apprehension was,Lucy thought, purely domestic. In suchwords do useful household staffannounce their imminent departure…”Yes?”said Emma. “What is it?If you think there’s too much to do withthe boys here, I can help you and –“As in Blue Train, the murderer’sbehaviors as a character seem quiteunconnected from their doings as amurderer. For that matter, the survivingCrackenthorpes don’t show any ofthe psychological devastation onewould expect in people who’ve seentheir siblings nastily done in byarsenic. I think that just as Christiewas not an expert on Blue-Train-levelaristocrats, she likewise had no personalacquaintance with murder andits extended effects. (The “who” inher whodunits takes second place tothe “how” and “why”.) EverydayEnglish life is so much her strengththat the murder element can feel like abloodied intruder who’s blunderedinto a garden party, where everyone istoo polite and English to remark onhis incongruity. It’s no surprise thatChristie and Christie-esque mysteriesare sometimes called “the Cozyschool”.The two ladies had supper, discussing, asthey ate, various aspects of life as lived inthe village of St. Mary Mead. MissMarple commented on the general distrustof the new organist, related therecent scandal about the chemist’s wife,and touched on the hostility between theschoolmistress and the village institute.They then discussed Miss Marple’s andMrs. McGillicuddy’s gardens.“Paeonies,” said Miss Marple as she rosefrom table, “are most unaccountable.Either they do – or they don’t do. But ifthey do establish themselves, they arewith you for life, so to speak, and reallythe most beautiful varieties nowadays.”Yet at the end of 4:50 there is thisnotable passage: “’Everything he didwas bold and audacious and cruel andgreedy, and I am really very, verysorry,’ finished Miss Marple, lookingas fierce as a fluffy old lady can look,‘that they have abolished capital punishmentbecause I do feel that if thereis anyone who ought to hang, it’s [themurderer].’” (Who’d have thoughtthe old gal to have so much bloodlustin her?) Mysteries of the Christiecozyschool rarely go into the sordiddetails of trial and sentence. Themurderers just disappear from thestory after their arrest. There’s nomention of how the prisoner will betaken one morning to a tall buildingcalled the execution shed, given atranquilizer, fitted with a black hoodand a noose, and dropped through atrapdoor until the rope snaps theirneck, causing death by suffocation orshock or whatever it is. Instead, theclever detective and the nice manfrom Scotland Yard discreetly removethe bloodied figure, letting the gardenparty go on as if nothing untowardhad happened. But I think aboutthings like execution-sheds; and theirnon-mention leaves a dark psychicgap in the stories.I wonder what might have resulted ifChristie had set out to write a straightnovel with no mystery element, a sortof English Life Without Bloodshed.She had the material: family dynamics,village vignettes, a touch ofromance, servant situations; a fullrange of comfortable British archetypes,living in the England of thetimes: still a bit bruised from the War,muddling through as best it could in aworld where neither the pound northe Empire went as far as they oncedid. I think she had the chops to producequietly witty, observant lightsocial comedy, along the lines ofBarbara Pym’s novels. Perhaps a talewhere Katherine Grey, now ofmatronly years, hires LucyEyelesbarrow for a stint of housekeepery.They could trade domesticshoptalk about Katherine’s amateurpaid-companion days versus Lucy’sprofessional career. And noone wouldhave to be murdered: the Blue Trainand the 4:50 could whistle their separateways corpse-free.1 4:50 From Paddington has appearedat times under the dreadful Americannames Murder She Said and WhatMrs. McGillicuddy Saw! Silly Yankpublishers – those aren’t proper mysterytitles, they’re tabloid headlines.]July 2007page 13
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