Marble Hall Murders

Eliot is the grandson of celebrated children’s author Miriam Crace. He is 32 and has “the sort of face that would look great on a back cover” (165). Eliot smokes and struggles with drug and alcohol addictions. He wrote two unsuccessful Dr. Gee mysteries for Cloverleaf Books; Charles met Eliot while working with Miriam. Michael commissions Eliot to write a new Atticus Pund novel as a way to please the Crace family and get the rights to a new Little People book. Eliot is good at imitating Alan’s writing style but bases his mystery on his own life. After his brother, Roland, slept with his wife, Eliot decided to reveal that Roland killed Miriam, as well as destroy the reputation of the Crace Estate. The character Cedric is a representation of an eight-year-old Eliot in his novel.

Eliot has “a Jekyll and Hyde personality […] charming but offensive, vulnerable but slightly dangerous” (354). He aligns himself with Elaine, Charles’s wife, at the beginning of the novel. This is an antagonistic move, and Eliot becomes increasingly hostile toward Susan as she learns more about his family. The night Eliot publicly fires Susan, he is killed in a hit and run accident. Eliot’s uncle, Frederick, kills him because Eliot threatens to reveal the identity of Miriam’s murderer. Frederick doesn’t know that Eliot believes Roland, not Frederick, murdered Miriam.

Charles was the CEO of Cloverleaf Books. In a previous book of Horowitz’s, Charles killed Alan and tried to kill Susan by burning down the publishing house. In Marble Hall Murders, Charles is in prison. Susan doesn’t recognize him at first; he is “sullen [and] angry” (453). This is a sharp contrast with the man who had dinner parties to discuss books and recorded himself playing piano for the doorbell of his house. He wants revenge on Susan for putting him in prison.

Elaine is Charles’s wife and is an antagonist of Marble Hall Murders. She seeks revenge on Susan for Charles by pretending to be Susan’s friend, then framing her for Eliot’s murder. Elaine plants evidence for the police to find on Susan’s car and makes anonymous calls that cast suspicion on Susan. Susan and Elaine are foils in their appearance. While Susan repeatedly mentions she looks messy, she repeatedly describes Elaine as “immaculate” (177, 535).

However, when Susan discovers Elaine framed her, and harmed her cat, Elaine stops her outward charade of friendship. An “impossible transformation came over her face. It was like a special effect on the cinema screen as layer after layer of her personality was wiped away, revealing the Fury beneath” (541). Elaine allows her anger for Susan to show for the first time. When Elaine physically attacks Susan, there is “a second transformation. It was only now that I realised Elaine wasn’t just vengeful, she was seriously out of her mind. What was left was this crazed woman in Dior and Estee Lauder brandishing a hideous carving knife in a way that was both improbable and terrifying” (544). Elaine’s polished facade disappears and her true nature as vengeful and violent is revealed. She is arrested at the end of the novel.

Atticus is a character created by Alan and picked up by Eliot. He is the protagonist of Eliot’s novel, Pund’s Last Case. Other characters describe Atticus as “probably the best detective in the world” (36), “quite unfathomable at times” (149), and “a remarkable man” (528). In Alan’s last Atticus Pund novel, Atticus is diagnosed with a brain tumor. In Eliot’s continuation, Atticus is in his mid-sixties and slowly dying. He speaks some French and was born in Germany but comes “from a family of Greek Jews” (270). Atticus spoke out against the Nazis, which landed him in a prison camp. After revealing that Robert is behind the murder of Margaret, Atticus declares he is retiring.

James Fraser is Atticus’s assistant. He is around 30 and “fair haired with a boyish face” (126). He is a way for the reader to connect with Atticus, asking questions that the reader might ask. James is always taking notes during Atticus’s investigation and manages all the mundane arrangements for the detective. A running joke in Pund’s Last Case is that James struggles with translating French and thinks Atticus might speak better French than he does.

Gillian is Eliot’s wife. She is in her late twenties and works as a nurse. Susan thinks Gillian “radiated calm and kindness” (197). However, Gillian cheated on Eliot with his brother Roland; this is why Eliot wants revenge on Roland. Eliot learns about the affair when Gillian reveals that she is pregnant; Eliot is infertile. He hits her when she divulges that she is pregnant, but she doesn’t go to the police or a hospital. She blames herself for Eliot’s abuse.

Alice is Gillian’s alter ego in Eliot’s novel. Their names are anagrams. Alice works for the lawyer in the novel, Lambert. She is in her twenties and “plain-looking” (137). Robert, Roland’s alter ego, seduces and kills Alice after using her in the plot to kill Margaret. Atticus talks with Alice’s parents, Tom and Elise, after she is killed.

Frederick is initially known as Miriam’s adopted son. At the end of the novel, it is revealed that he is her biological son from an extramarital affair. Frederick’s father, Bruno, was Miriam’s chauffeur. Miriam fired Bruno after Frederick was born, and Bruno died in poverty. Frederick killed Miriam to get revenge for his father’s death, making him an antagonist. Susan discovered Frederick is Miriam’s biological son through their shared left handedness and color blindness. Frederick got into a car accident because his color blindness caused him to miss a light. His injuries were severe; he has to wear an eyepatch, has scars across his face, and moves as if he is in constant pain. When Susan meets Frederick, he is 68 and managing Marble Hall. He claims that Miriam was good to him and that his spirit is happy there: “I might even come back and haunt the place!” (215), he says. When Eliot threatens to reveal who killed Miriam, Frederick kills Eliot in a hit and run. At the end of the novel, Frederick is arrested for both of the murders he committed.

Frederic is Frederick’s alter ego in Pund’s Last Case; they have the same physical disabilities. However, Frederic’s injuries were from a German hand grenade in WWII. He is a detective from the Surete investigating the murder of Margaret. His experience in the war caused him to hate Germans, so he is “hostile” (98) toward Atticus at first. Once Atticus reveals that he comes from a Greek Jewish family and was imprisoned for speaking out against the Nazis during the war, Frederic’s attitude toward him changes. Their work chemistry improves; Frederic’s “questions were exactly those Pund would have asked” (284), during interviews. He has a wife and son who live in another city in France.

Miriam is the author of a series about the Little People, who are “two inches tall” (22). She supposedly died of mitral stenosis many years before Marble Hall Murders begins, but Frederick murdered her. Prior to Eliot’s book, Miriam is beloved by the public and her estate squashed any attempts to say otherwise. However, she was cruel and promiscuous. Her affair with Frederick’s father, Bruno, was not her only one. Miriam was married to Kenneth, whose hobby was taxidermy. One of his taxidermy specimens contained the arsenic that Frederick used to kill Miriam.

Margaret is Miriam’s counterpart in Pund’s Last Case. They are foils in that Margaret was a kind person, not a cruel one. She is known for being “witty, clever, beautiful” (129), and outspoken. However, both Miriam and Margaret supposedly died from mitral stenosis. Margaret was murdered in her mid-sixties with aconitine in order to frame Elmer for her murder. This would ensure he could not inherit her money, and she was leaving most of it to him. Robert, Margaret’s stepson, was the mastermind behind Margaret’s murder.

Edward is Eliot’s father and Miriam’s son. In his sixties, Edward has a beard and white hair. These physical features are “the exact attributes that Eliot had given Elmer” (409) in his novel. Edward runs an art foundation: “a private club for art collectors and enthusiasts” (411). He appears in the novel after Eliot’s death, and regrets not breaking ties with Miriam because she was toxic.

Elmer is Edward’s counterpart, but he doesn’t play the role of Cedric’s father. Instead, Elmer is Margaret’s 67-year-old husband, the counterpart to Kenneth. Unlike the Chalfonts, Elmer is an American. He runs Galerie Werner-Weysmith with his son, Robert, and director Madame Dubois. Werner is Elmer’s business partner who lives in Zurich and deals in Nazi art. Elmer puts his work above everyone and everything. This, and ordering Robert to quit painting, causes Robert to take revenge on him. Robert also blames Elmer for the death of Robert’s mother, Elmer’s first wife, Marion. When Atticus reveals that Robert, not Elmer, is behind Margaret’s death, Elmer inherits her fortune.

Roland is Eliot’s brother. He is in his late thirties and “similar to Eliot but better looking” (242). His good looks are part of the reason why Gillian cheats on Eliot with Roland. Eliot believes Roland killed Miriam, but Roland threw out the poison Eliot saw him taking from their sister’s room. The three siblings planned to kill Miriam, but Robert prevented them from trying.

Robert is good looking like his alter ego Roland, and the main antagonist of Pund’s Last Case. He is 32 and Elmer’s son. Robert’s birth mother died when he was very young, and he blames Elmer for her death. This, and Elmer forbidding Robert from being a painter, caused Robert to mastermind the murder of Margaret: “He is the evil genius who concocted this entire plan” (521). Robert frames Elmer for the murder it to prevent him from inheriting her fortune. Robert works for Elmer’s art gallery. At the end of Pund’s Last Case, Robert is arrested for murder.

Julia is Eliot’s sister. She changed her last name to Wilson and works as a teacher. Because of genetic issues, Julia is “overweight [but has] beautiful skin and [an] air of resilience” (373). Miriam ruthlessly insulted Julia about her weight. This resulted in Julia staying away from the family and healing on her own.

Judith is Julia’s counterpart and has the same body type. She is Margaret’s daughter, and an ethnographer who focuses on Peru. She hopes Margaret will give her “money to fight the Peruvian government” (130) to save the Nazca Lines. Judith is married to Harry Lyttleton, a friend of Jeffrey’s. Harry’s name is a reference to Miriam’s Little People. He is failing to build a hotel. He gives Robert his picture to put in Alice’s purse. He pretends to be the one who seduced her, but Robert is the one who did.

Jonathan is Miriam’s son and runs the Crace Estate. He named his daughter, Jasmine, after one of Miriam’s characters. Jasmine dies in the same way Marion dies in the novel: jumping under a train. When he meets Susan, Jonathan takes on “the good-cop-bad-cop routine but played by the same person” (240). He is in denial about Miriam being a horrible person and threatens legal action against Susan when she begins investigating the family.

Jeffrey is Jonathan’s 37-year-old alter ego. They both have “bright red hair” (56) and are “short-tempered” (56). However, Jeffrey is the 7th Earl of the Chalfont family, while Jonathan is a businessman.

Leylah is Jonathan’s wife. She is Egyptian and broken by the loss of her daughter. Susan says she’s never “met anyone so broken and Eliot set the bar pretty high” (432). Leylah is willing to talk about Miriam’s awfulness after a few drinks; she has a problem with alcohol addiction.

Lola is Leylah’s 33-year-old alter ego. Both women are beautiful and dramatic. Lola is Cedric’s mother and a retired actress. She wants Margaret to fund a production that will be her return to the spotlight. Lola’s role in the murder of Margaret is to pretend to be Margaret on the phone and tell her lawyer that she wants to meet to change her will.

Dr. John Lambert is Miriam’s doctor. He is in his seventies and owns a “Jaguar” (227). He claims Miriam left him the money for the car and admits he can’t say much about her because he signed an NDA. At the end of the novel, it’s revealed that Frederick paid Lambert off to lie about Miriam’s cause of death.

Jean, John’s counterpart, is Margaret’s lawyer. He wears an “old-fashioned suit […] as if he was deliberately trying to model himself on a character in a novel by Dickens—or perhaps Zola” (138). Jean doesn’t know that Lola, not Margaret, called him to the house on the day she died.

In Pund’s Last Case, Beatrice is the housekeeper and cook for the Chalfont family. She avoids looking at the Cezanne painting because she worked in a Jewish home during the war and saw the painting get stolen by Nazis. She informs Harlan about Elmer having the painting.

Also in Pund’s Last Case, Harlan is an art historian who recovers art stolen by Nazis: “With his thinning hair and glasses, he was more like a teacher than a detective” (507). He is happy to help with Atticus’s investigation. Harlan thinks they are both “fighting for justice” (312).