A Murder Is Announced

Inspector Craddock meets his colleague Sergeant Fletcher at Little Paddocks. They suspect that, on the day of the holdup, Scherz arrived by bus and entered the house through the unlocked front door. Fletcher is skeptical of Mitzi’s claim that the front door was locked that afternoon. The police officers agree she may have been working with Scherz.

Julia complains they are unlikely to get lunch, as Mitzi, terrified of the police, has locked herself in the kitchen. In the drawing-room, Inspector Craddock notes that the vase of dead violets stands out in the otherwise immaculate room.

When Inspector Craddock interviews Dora and Miss Blacklock, the former is agitated, while Miss Blacklock is calm and composed. Craddock notes that Miss Blacklock is conservatively dressed, and her choker of large fake pearls looks out of place. Dora describes the chaotic state of the drawing-room after the incident, as tables were toppled in the dark and someone burned a table with what was presumably a cigarette. Miss Blacklock tells Inspector Craddock about her recent encounters with Scherz: Three weeks earlier, he approached her at the Royal Spa Hotel, claiming that they had met before at the Swiss hotel where she and her sister stayed during the war, but Miss Blacklock had no recollection of him. Ten days later, Scherz turned up at Little Paddocks asking for money for his gravely ill mother in Switzerland, but Miss Blacklock did not believe his story and turned him away. She now suspects that Scherz came to stake out Little Paddocks for a burglary.

Miss Blacklock admits to never locking the front door during the day. However, she remembers locking the side door when she put the ducks to bed at 6:15pm. When Inspector Craddock notices a second door in the drawing-room, Miss Blacklock says it is “a dummy.” Dora recalls that when the lights went out, Miss Blacklock was standing by the table, holding the vase of violets, and there was “a flash”—but Miss Blacklock corrects her, insisting she was holding the cigarette box. Dora becomes distressed, but Miss Blacklock distracts her by asking her to take the dead violets away. Dora does so, expressing surprise that they have died unusually quickly. She reasons that she likely forgot to add water to the vase.

Miss Blacklock describes the members of her household to Inspector Craddock. First, there are Patrick and Julia Simmons, the children of her second cousin. Their mother asked if they could stay with Miss Blacklock, as Julia is training as a pharmacist nearby while Patrick is studying at the local university. There is then Phillipa—a lodger who, having lost her husband in the war, now works as a gardener at Dayas Hall to support her eight-year-old son at boarding school. Finally, there is Mitzi, a refugee whom Miss Blacklock hired as a domestic worker. Miss Blacklock warns Craddock that he will find Mitzi challenging, and he recalls Constable Legg’s belief that Mitzi is a “[l]iar.” Miss Blacklock agrees that, although at least one of Mitzi’s relatives died in the war, she exaggerates the atrocities suffered by her family.

Inspector Craddock interviews Julia, who seems undisturbed by recent events. She mimics the guests on the night of the holdup, complaining that they all commented on the central heating and the chrysanthemums. Though she is unsure where everyone was when the lights went out, she believes Miss Blacklock was fetching the cigarettes, and she confirms that the intruder moved the flashlight around as if searching for someone. She also claims that, following the three gunshots, the door closed of its own volition. Julia thinks it unlikely that Scherz wanted to kill Miss Blacklock, as it would have been easier to catch her alone than to shoot her in a crowded room.

Next, Craddock interviews Mitzi, who is hostile and suspicious and accuses him of intending to torture her. However, her protests are short-lived, and she reluctantly complies with his questioning. She says she saw Phillipa return from work through the side door on the evening of the holdup. Mitzi intensely dislikes Phillipa, describing her as “a Nazi.” At the time of the shooting, Mitzi was in the dining room, where she claims an unknown person had locked her. When she was let out, she saw blood on Miss Blacklock’s face, which reminded her of witnessing her little brother being killed.

Patrick is next to be interviewed. The young man does not appear to take the investigation seriously and reveals he has a reputation as a practical joker. He believes the intruder shot randomly when he opened the door and probably killed himself deliberately.

Inspector Craddock goes to Dyas Hall to interview Phillipa. The garden is overgrown, and the gardener, Old Ashe, shares that he had a team of men working for him before the war. He tells Craddock what the villagers are saying about the break-in: Many believe that Mitzi was in on it, and there is speculation about what the intruder wanted to steal. It has been suggested that Miss Blacklock’s “false pearls” could be genuine.

Phillipa is a well-spoken, fair-haired young woman, and Inspector Craddock reflects she would make a good “Rosalind” (a reference to the Shakespeare protagonist who disguises herself as a male shepherd). She confirms that on the day of the shooting, she returned to Little Paddocks in the evening, entering by the side door. However, she claims she locked the door after her and that she was standing by the mantel when the lights went out.

Inspector Craddock walks around the village, interviewing Miss Blacklock’s other guests. Mrs. Swettenham is excited about the incident but offers nothing helpful. Edmund Swettenham suggests that Phillipa was at the room’s far end when the lights went out. Colonel Easterbrook confidently asserts that the intruder shot randomly, and then panicked and killed himself. Miss Hinchcliffe states she was standing by the mantel when it happened, while Miss Murgatroyd claims she was standing behind the door and could not see the intruder. Mrs. Harmon says she saw nothing, as she shut her eyes from the flashlight’s dazzle.

Inspector Craddock discusses the case with Rydesdale, and Sir Henry joins them. Investigations have revealed that Scherz had a police record for small-time theft and fraud in Switzerland. However, Craddock is still not convinced that his motive was robbery, as there was no evidence of valuables in the house. It is also unclear why Scherz would want to kill Miss Blacklock. Inspector Craddock believes Mitzi might be involved but admits that he may be prejudiced. Rydesdale shares that he has received a letter from a guest at the Royal Spa Hotel who believes she can help with the case, and Sir Henry is delighted to discover the letter is from Miss Jane Marple—the old dear friend he was praising for her detective skills (in Chapter 4). Though Craddock is skeptical, they go to the hotel to talk to Miss Marple.

Miss Marple, who appears to be kind but scatterbrained, is in awe of the police officers. She makes light of Sir Henry’s praise of her. When questioned about Scherz, Miss Marple reveals that he altered a check from £7 to £17. She noticed the forgery when the bank returned it. Sir Henry asks if Scherz reminded Miss Marple of anyone, and she confirms his similarity to a man named Fred Tyler, who worked at the fish and chip shop and frequently added an extra figure to the bill. Miss Marple asserts that Scherz must have been acting for someone else as the crime did not fit his modus operandi; Scherz’s girlfriend, Myrna Harris, may know who talked Scherz into the holdup.

Rydesdale gives Miss Marple the transcripts of the witnesses’ interviews, saying that the case will be closed if no further information comes to light. Because Craddock is skeptical of Miss Marple’s competence, he tests her by stating that all the witnesses saw a man with a gun open the door—and she immediately corrects him, pointing out that the room was dark and the witnesses would have seen only the flashlight. Instead, she says, the witnesses only think they saw Scherz because they saw his dead body after the event. Miss Marple describes Scherz as the “fall guy” (or scapegoat), a term she learned from a Dashiell Hammett story. She hypothesizes that whoever paid Scherz to pose as a robber likely told him it was a joke. Moreover, despite the witness statements, Miss Marple is certain that Scherz did not have a gun—the guests could not have seen the gun in the dark but assumed he was holding it when they saw the weapon next to his body. Miss Marple suggests that someone else crept up behind Scherz, fired the shots over his shoulder, and then shot him. She declares they need to find out who wants Miss Blacklock dead.

Inspector Craddock reinterviews Myrna, and she admits that Scherz told her he had been paid to place an advertisement in a newspaper and then stage a fake holdup at a party. However, Scherz did not reveal who had paid him. When she learned how Scherz died, Myrna was worried the police would arrest her as an accomplice.

Returning to the police station, Rydesdale is unconvinced by Miss Marple’s theory and suggests closing the case, but Craddock wants to investigate further. He says someone may have crept up behind Scherz from the side door or the kitchen, and since many Englishmen returned from the war with German guns, the revolver may not have been Scherz’s. Rydesdale reveals that Miss Marple is a friend of Mrs. Harmon’s mother and will be staying at the Vicarage in Chipping Cleghorn. Craddock worries about the older woman’s safety.