Murder at the Vicarage

Miss Marple’s comment annoys Colonel Melchett and he disparages Miss Marple’s knowledge. He says she’s hardly been anywhere in life to know about it. Clement disagrees. He returns to the Vicarage to find Miss Cram visiting Griselda to hear the details of the murder. She declares that Lettice Protheroe is arrogant and spoiled and also that Dr. Stone is pleasant but forgetful. Miss Cram can’t understand why Mr. Redding would confess if he didn’t do it. After she leaves, Clement asks Mary if she heard a shot in the woods and Mary says yes, but it wasn’t a normal-sounding shot, and she doesn’t remember what time she heard it. Griselda and Clement disagree about whether they should keep Mary. Her work is poor, but it’s difficult to find new employees. Griselda points out Protheroe jailed Mary’s boyfriend for poaching.

Inspector Slack and Melchett disagree about whether or not Redding murdered Protheroe. Slack says he did and that they shouldn’t believe Haydock’s declared time of death because doctors can’t be trusted. Clement presents his information about the clock being set back 15 minutes and Slack is upset Clement didn’t tell him. Clement leaves the Inspector and Chief Constable to tell Redding and Mrs. Protheroe they are no longer suspects and later finds Miss Marple and Griselda talking about intuition and how the case reminds Miss Marple of other similar situations. She says the note is odd because if the inspector’s timeline were accurate, Colonel Protheroe would have started writing that he couldn’t wait after only waiting five minutes, and after he told Mary he had no problem waiting for Clement. They speculate that the date on the note may be in different handwriting than the rest and conclude someone tampered with it.

The police ask Clement to be present when they tell Redding, at the vicarage, that they don’t believe his confession. He admits he thought Anne did it after he discovered Protheroe dead, shot with Redding’s pistol. He said he touched nothing and couldn’t remember the last time he saw his gun. They invite Anne Protheroe in and she misidentifies where the body was shot. They tell her they don’t believe her story of killing her husband. Redding and Mrs. Protheroe leave, and Clement tells the police about Miss Marple’s idea with the letter. They pull it out and verify that she’s right about the handwriting. After Slack verifies when Mary hears the odd-sounding shot, they decide to interview Mrs. Price Ridley, who lives at the end of the lane, to see if she saw or heard anything. They run into Dennis as they leave, and he makes a joke about Clement’s breakfast comment that he wished Colonel Protheroe were dead. Clement is annoyed, and Inspector Slack doesn’t consider the boy funny. When they get to Mrs. Ridley’s, they are told she went to the police station.

Mrs. Price Ridley is furious. Colonel Melchett listens to her rant about an obscene phone call she got at 6:30 the previous evening. The caller said she was “a scandal-mongering old woman” (121). She doesn’t know if the caller was a man or a woman. She mentions the shot in the woods just after the call, which frightened her even more. Melchett thinks that since multiple people heard the shot, they should find out more about it. Slack determines to discover everyone’s movements, starting with Clement, who tells Slack he received a false phone call at 5:30 pm and that his wife was in London until 6:50 pm.

On his way home, Doctor Haydock asks Clement to come in to speak about Mr. Hawes. The doctor says Hawes has Encephalitis Lethargica, which sometimes changes an individual’s character. He is taking medication but is still in recovery. He goes on to say he thinks crime is the result of glandular secretions and that punishing people doesn’t seem fair if they are simply ill. He thinks in the future they will cure crime because it isn’t a moral deficiency but rather a physical problem that doctors can solve. They discuss if one should turn in or shield wrongdoers, and Haydock admits he isn’t sure what his responsibilities would be.

Clement arrives late for lunch and the family makes him tell all he’s found out. Dennis thinks the crank call to Mrs. Price Ridley was justifiable. He is sorry Inspector Slack didn’t realize he made a joke about Clement wishing Protheroe were dead before the murder. Clement says Slack has no sense of humor and is unlikeable, but he works hard and is probably highly successful in police work. Mary appears with a note from Mrs. Lestrange and says Mr. Hawes is in the drawing room.

Hawes looks nervous and unhealthy, and Clement is worried. Hawes wants to know if they have any other suspects and tries to persuade Clement that the murderer was Mary’s boyfriend, Archer, whom Colonel Protheroe sentenced severely for poaching. Clement refuses Hawes’s request to tell the police Archer is guilty. The curate’s distressed, ill, and nervous appearance alarms the vicar.

When Clement arrives at Mrs. Lestrange’s house, she tells him she needs advice, but before she can get into it, Slack arrives to get her movements during the day of the murder. She asks Clement to stay and tells Slack she was at home. He says someone knocked on the door and she didn’t answer, therefore she must be lying. She contradicts him, admitting she finds Miss Hartnell, who was knocking, boring, and she simply didn’t answer the door. She refuses to say what she and Colonel Protheroe discussed the night before his death, even though Slack tells her it’s not wise to withhold information. When Slack goes, she tells Clement she no longer needs advice.

Doctor Haydock arrives as Clement departs. Clement catches up with Slack. He confides he thinks there was blackmail between Protheroe and Mrs. Lestrange and that her presence is suspicious. Slack plans to interview the Protheroes’ chauffeur, and Clement gets a ride there to discuss funeral arrangements with Anne. The young chauffeur says he drove them to the village at 5:30 pm, left Mrs. Protheroe in the village at 6:15 pm, then returned to the Protheroe home directly because the couple wanted to walk back. Lettice appears, and Slack asks her about her movements. She says she played tennis but doesn’t know what time she left. Clement helps by saying she returned around 7:30 pm, and she remembers this is correct because she walked in to find Griselda comforting Anne. Clement goes inside to see Anne, who is surprised by the information about the handwriting on the note that is different from her husband’s and expresses she still can’t imagine who would kill him.

As he walks home, Clement detours to the path near the woods where he thinks he might find footprints or something they’ve missed. He runs into Lawrence Redding, who is carrying a large stone that he says is for Miss Marple’s Japanese garden and is his way to get in to speak with her. He wants to solve the crime and doesn’t trust Slack. He thinks Miss Marple sees everything, and together they talk to her. She says she didn’t hear servants or anyone else, other than what they already discussed. They discuss the shot from the woods. The conversation turns to what Mrs. Lestrange discussed with Colonel Protheroe the night before, and Mrs. Marple suggests a servant heard something and a charming man like Redding might get one to talk. Redding and Clement go looking in the woods again and find Slack doing the same. They determine the murderer couldn’t have come that way.