A Caribbean Mystery

A Caribbean Mystery is a mystery novel in Agatha Christie's Miss Marple series. Jane Marple, an elderly Englishwoman with a sharp eye for human nature, arrives at the Golden Palm Hotel on the Caribbean island of St. Honoré. Her wealthy nephew Raymond West has sent her there to recover from pneumonia. Though grateful for the warm weather, she finds the tropical routine monotonous compared to the daily intrigues of her home village, St. Mary Mead. The hotel is run by Tim and Molly Kendal, a young couple. Molly is a golden-haired blonde in her early twenties. Notable guests include Major Palgrave, a garrulous retired military man with a glass eye; Mr. Rafiel, a very wealthy, semi-paralyzed elderly man attended by his secretary Esther Walters and his valet Arthur Jackson; and two couples who travel together: Colonel Edward Hillingdon and his wife Evelyn, and the American Gregory ("Greg") Dyson and his wife Lucky.

One afternoon, Palgrave tells Miss Marple a secondhand story about a murderer: A man's wife attempted suicide and was saved, only to die later of an overdose. A second doctor encountered an identical case under a different family name, and the two doctors concluded the husband was the same person. Palgrave offers to show Miss Marple a snapshot of the killer, taken accidentally while one of the doctors was photographing a hibiscus beside the man's front door. As he fumbles in his wallet, he suddenly looks up, his face going purple, and stuffs everything back, switching loudly to a story about elephant tusks. The Hillingdons and Dysons approach and join them. Miss Marple glances behind her right shoulder, where Palgrave appeared to be staring, but sees nothing of note.

The next morning, Palgrave is found dead in bed. A bottle of Serenite, a blood pressure medication, is found in his bathroom, and the local doctor issues a routine death certificate. Miss Marple finds the timing suspicious: Palgrave died the very night after he nearly showed her a murderer's photograph. She resolves to investigate.

She fabricates a story for Dr. Graham, a semi-retired physician at the hotel, claiming Palgrave accidentally pocketed a photo of her nephew. After the funeral, Graham reports that no such snapshot was found among Palgrave's belongings. Miss Marple concludes someone removed the incriminating photograph after killing him and suspects the Serenite bottle was planted to support the fiction that Palgrave had high blood pressure.

Through conversation, Miss Marple gathers background from fellow guests. Esther reveals that Greg's first wife died suddenly on one of the islands amid scandal, and Greg married Lucky, a relation of his first wife, barely a month later. Miss Prescott, another guest, adds that Lucky had been nursing the first wife and was having an affair with Greg. Meanwhile, Victoria Johnson, the hotel maid who cleaned Palgrave's bungalow, tells Molly that the Serenite bottle was not in Palgrave's bathroom before his death. Dr. Graham takes Victoria's claim seriously.

Mr. Rafiel contradicts the blood pressure story, saying Palgrave told him directly that his blood pressure was fine. Rafiel also heard a completely different murder tale from Palgrave, one about a golden-haired woman who killed her husband. This raises the possibility that Palgrave had multiple stories and the snapshot may not match the one he was telling Miss Marple. She confesses her deception to Dr. Graham and shares the truth about the vanished snapshot. Graham takes the matter to Daventry, a government official at the Administrator's office in Jamestown, and they agree to exhume Palgrave's body.

Events accelerate. Victoria approaches Greg, returns a bottle of his Serenite tablets found in Palgrave's room, and implies she knows who placed them there. That evening, Molly stumbles up from the beach with blood on her hands, having found Victoria stabbed to death. The police investigation casts suspicion on Molly when a kitchen worker testifies he saw her carrying a knife before dinner. Molly cannot account for her movements.

Molly's mental state deteriorates. She confides in Evelyn that she has been experiencing blackouts, memory gaps, and a feeling of being watched. In a private conversation, Edward confesses to Evelyn that Lucky has held power over him for years: She tricked him into unwittingly helping her poison Greg's first wife in Martinique and has used his guilt to bind him ever since. One night, Molly takes an overdose of sleeping pills and is revived. She says she acted out of fear.

While watching over Molly, Miss Marple discovers a book on nervous diseases hidden under the mattress, open to pages about persecution mania. She observes Jackson examining Molly's face cream and speaking knowledgeably about hallucinogens, and she pockets the jar. After the autopsy confirms Palgrave was poisoned, Miss Marple enlists Mr. Rafiel as an ally and presents her crucial theory: The killer's motive was not merely to suppress an old anecdote. The murderer has another killing planned, and if Palgrave's story drew attention to a pattern of wife-killing, the next murder would face scrutiny. The killer is a serial wife-murderer, and another wife is about to die.

The crisis comes at night. Tim raises the alarm that Molly has vanished. A body is found face down in the creek, golden hair spread over a pale green shawl. Everyone assumes it is Molly, but Miss Marple examines the hair and discovers dark roots: The dead woman is Lucky Dyson, who had bought an identical shawl. Edward appears from the shadows and admits he is glad Lucky is dead, a reaction rooted in years of her coercion.

As Miss Marple hurries away, the crucial detail clicks. Palgrave's left eye was glass. He could only see with his right. He was not looking over her right shoulder; he was looking to her left, where Tim sat beside a hibiscus bush, echoing the snapshot of a man beside a front door with a hibiscus.

Miss Marple wakes Rafiel, declares herself "Nemesis," and identifies Tim as the killer. Rafiel orders Jackson to obey her. They reach the bungalow as Tim offers the dazed Molly a drink. Jackson seizes the glass and restrains Tim. Miss Marple explains: Tim killed Palgrave to prevent identification, killed Victoria because she saw him planting the Serenite bottle, and drowned Lucky by mistake in the dark, thinking she was Molly. Now he is trying to poison Molly, intending her death to look like a suicide. Tim had gaslighted Molly by lacing her face cream with belladonna, a plant-derived substance that produces hallucinations and blackouts, and planted the book on mental illness to convince her she was losing her mind. His motive was financial: He had spent Molly's money on the hotel and planned to kill her and marry Esther, whom Jackson discovered would secretly inherit £50,000 from Rafiel's will. Tim had originally been a fiancé whom Molly's family rejected as unsuitable; he later reappeared under a new name with fabricated references. Esther rushes in and declares her love for Tim, but he turns on her viciously, confirming his guilt.

In the epilogue, Molly carries on running the hotel with support from one of Rafiel's associates. At the airport, Mr. Rafiel bids Miss Marple farewell with the Latin phrase of gladiators facing death, a quiet acknowledgment that his own end is near. Miss Marple understands his meaning, and they part.