The remaining children are Cedric, an Ibiza-based bohemian painter Harold, a married businessman in the City of London Alfred, who engages in shady business dealings and Emma. Youngest daughter Edith ('Edie'), died four years before the novel begins, leaving a son, Alexander. The share of cash due to the living children rises as each sibling dies before their father.Įdmund, the firstborn son, died during World War II. After Luther's death, the capital is to be divided equally among Luther's surviving children, not unlike a tontine pension. Luther's father, not liking his son, wrote a will which left his property for his eldest grandson. Luther Crackenthorpe is a semi-invalid widower who lives at Rutherford Hall with his daughter Emma. Miss Marple sends Lucy Eyelesbarrow, a young professional cook and housekeeper of her acquaintance, to work at Rutherford Hall and find the body. With a good map and several rides by train to feel the effect of a sharp curve on standing passengers, she determines that the body is probably in the grounds of Rutherford Hall.

With no report of a body found in the next day's news, Miss Marple sets out to determine where the body is. Miss Marple believes her story, knowing her friend to be trustworthy in description. Mrs McGillicuddy describes the dying woman as having blonde hair and wearing a fur coat and the man as tall and dark, though she saw only his back. When arriving at Miss Marple's cottage, she tells her everything. She reports it to a sceptical ticket collector who passes the report for investigation. A blind in a compartment on the other train flies up, and she sees a man with his back to her strangling a woman. Her train passes another train running parallel and in the same direction as her train. Mrs Elspeth McGillicuddy is on her way from a shopping expedition to visit her old friend Jane Marple for Christmas.

The 1961 film Murder, She Said was based on this novel as were several television programmes. A later review by Barnard found the story short on clues, but favourably noted Lucy Eyelesbarrow as an independent woman character. Reviewers at the time of publication generally liked the novel, but would have liked more direct involvement of Miss Marple, and less consideration of her failing strength, using others to act for her. The novel was published in serial form before the book was released in each nation, and under different titles. This work was published in the United States at the same time as What Mrs. Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK editionĤ.50 from Paddington is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie, first published in November 1957 in the United Kingdom by Collins Crime Club.

Marple 4.50 from paddington