4

Mrs. Elspeth McGillicuddy, a short, stout woman returning from Christmas shopping, boards the 4:50 train from London's Paddington station to Brackhampton one December afternoon. She dozes off in her first-class compartment and wakes as another train draws alongside on a parallel track. When a window blind flies up in the adjacent carriage, she sees a man with his back to her strangling a woman whose face has turned purple. The woman's body goes limp before the other train pulls ahead and vanishes. Mrs. McGillicuddy reports what she saw to the skeptical ticket collector and leaves a written account at Brackhampton station before continuing to St. Mary Mead, where she tells her old friend Miss Jane Marple, an elderly, sharp-minded spinster, that she has just witnessed a murder.

Miss Marple believes her friend completely. They expect the crime to appear in the morning papers, but nothing is reported. The local police promise full inquiries but find no body, no matching woman at any hospital, and no woman seen leaving a station in distress. Mrs. McGillicuddy, preparing to leave for Ceylon to visit her son, is indignant. Miss Marple assures her she has done her duty, subtly implying that she herself is not yet finished.

Miss Marple investigates methodically. Through her great-nephew David West, who works in British Railways, she identifies the 4:33 slow train as the most likely parallel train, since it is a non-corridor train matching Mrs. McGillicuddy's observation. She rides the 4:33 herself and observes the railway curving sharply along a high embankment bordering a large, isolated property called Rutherford Hall. She theorizes that the murderer threw the body from the train at this curve, returned later to hide it, and must be someone who knew the estate intimately.

To search the grounds, Miss Marple recruits Lucy Eyelesbarrow, a brilliant Oxford-educated woman of 32 who has built a lucrative career as a professional domestic helper. Lucy takes a position at Rutherford Hall, where Emma Crackenthorpe, a pleasant, middle-aged woman, runs the household for her difficult father, Luther. The old man is gaunt, suspicious, and obsessed with economy, living in the decaying Victorian mansion his father Josiah built in 1884. Lucy learns the family structure: Edmund, the eldest son, was killed in the war; Cedric lives abroad and paints; Harold is a City businessman; Alfred is the family's disreputable member; Bryan Eastley is the widower of the late daughter Edith; and Alexander, Edith's young son, visits during school holidays.

Pretending to practice golf shots, Lucy searches the embankment and finds a broken thorn bush with a scrap of pale fur caught on it, matching the victim's light-colored fur coat, along with a cheap powder compact. Miss Marple directs her to search outbuildings. In the Long Barn, a stone building housing Mr. Crackenthorpe's statuary collection, Lucy notices a large stone sarcophagus. She returns alone with a crowbar, pries open the lid, and discovers the body of a dead woman inside.

Inspector Bacon arrives, and neither Emma, Dr. Quimper (the family's physician), nor old Mr. Crackenthorpe recognizes the woman. Her underclothing suggests foreign origin, and Scotland Yard is called in. Detective-Inspector Dermot Craddock takes charge. The family solicitor explains that the Crackenthorpe fortune is held in trust: Luther receives the income for life, and the capital will be divided among his children upon his death. The house goes to the eldest surviving son. If Edmund had left a legitimate child, that child would inherit a share of the trust and Rutherford Hall itself, which sits on valuable building land.

When told the dead woman may be French, Emma reacts sharply. She reveals that Edmund wrote during the war announcing he was marrying a French girl named Martine but was killed shortly after. Recently, Emma received a letter from someone claiming to be Martine, saying she was in England with her son. The return address proves to be a boarding-house accommodation address. A lead from Paris suggests the dead woman may be Anna Stravinska of the Ballet Maritski, a small touring company. Anna left before Christmas claiming she was going to live with her husband's family and was known for telling elaborate lies. Craddock checks alibis for December 20th, the likely day of the murder. Harold, Alfred, and Cedric all have gaps in their alibis, and all three are tall, dark men matching Mrs. McGillicuddy's description. Bryan Eastley also traveled by train to Brackhampton that day.

The case turns dangerous when everyone at Rutherford Hall falls violently ill after dinner. Tests confirm arsenic in the curry. Dr. Quimper, who confides that Emma means a great deal to him, suggests the poisoner intended to create the appearance of food poisoning before administering a lethal dose to the real target. Despite a nurse watching the patients, Alfred dies after drinking a cup of tea. Craddock is stunned: Alfred had been his prime suspect.

Lucy recalls a term Miss Marple mentioned: a tontine, a financial arrangement in which survivors inherit the shares of those who die. The parallel to the Crackenthorpe inheritance is unmistakable.

Lady Stoddart-West, mother of Alexander's school friend James, visits Emma with a revelation: She is the real Martine. She and Edmund fell in love during the war, but he was killed before they could marry. She never contacted the Crackenthorpe family, meaning someone else wrote that letter.

Harold returns to London and takes tablets apparently sent on Dr. Quimper's instructions. He dies; they contain aconite, a deadly poison, and the box is traced to Emma's sedative prescription with the contents switched at Rutherford Hall. A postcard arrives from Anna Stravinska in Jamaica, apparently alive. Craddock despairs.

Miss Marple questions whether the postcard is genuine, pointing out that anyone can arrange to have one sent from anywhere. She suggests that evidence may have been planted to redirect suspicion away from the true identification of the dead woman. Lucy visits Miss Marple in distress: Lady Stoddart-West recognized Bryan Eastley from behind by his stance and the set of his shoulders, recalling him from the French Resistance. Bryan, though fair-haired, could appear dark when his hair is slicked down. Miss Marple, however, steers Lucy to the question of motive, observing that each death increases the survivors' inheritance.

Miss Marple sets a trap at Rutherford Hall. At a tea party, she pretends to choke on a fish bone. Dr. Quimper comes to her aid, standing behind her with his hands at her throat and tilting her head back. At that moment, Mrs. McGillicuddy, newly returned from Ceylon, enters and identifies Quimper as the man she saw strangling the woman on the train. Quimper lunges at Miss Marple but is restrained, and Craddock arrests him.

Miss Marple explains the full solution. Quimper wanted to marry Emma, who would bring him a comfortable home and a large inheritance, but he already had a wife: Anna Stravinska, a devout Catholic who refused to divorce him. He lured her to England, traveled with her on the 4:33, strangled her, and threw her body from the train at the curve near Rutherford Hall, retrieving and hiding it in the sarcophagus that night. Before the murder, he wrote the letter pretending to be Martine, creating a false trail he later encouraged Emma to bring to the police. When the Anna Stravinska lead threatened to expose him, he arranged the fake postcard from Jamaica. He poisoned the family to eliminate Emma's brothers and increase her eventual inheritance: Alfred through poisoned tea while ill in bed, and Harold with aconite tablets disguised as a prescription. Mrs. McGillicuddy's identification succeeded because, though she never saw the killer's face, she recognized Quimper's posture from behind: his height, the set of his shoulders, and his stance over a woman's throat.