60 pages • 2-hour read
The Body in the Library
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Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide features discussion of death, graphic violence, child death, and gender discrimination.
Chapter 1 Summary
Asleep in her ivy-covered mansion, the wealthy Mrs. Bantry savors a triumphant dream of winning a “First” at a village garden show. However, something troubles her sleep: The morning sounds of the house servants downstairs do not follow their usual patterns. Then, awakened by a sharp knock on her bedroom door, Mrs. Bantry recoils from the sobbing voice of her maid Mary, breathless and “hysterical,” telling her of “a body in the library” (2). Mrs. Bantry wakes her husband, Colonel Bantry, who is skeptical. But when he ventures downstairs, the butler calmly asks his permission to call the police, explaining that Mary, entering the library that morning, almost stumbled over a body.
As the Colonel phones Police-Constable Palk, Mrs. Bantry calls Miss Marple, a friend who has an affinity for solving mysteries. Marple is shocked to hear that a “beautiful blonde” has been found dead on the floor of her friend’s library. Bantry tells Marple she’s calling her not for “comfort” but for her detective skills. She adds that she finds the mystery rather thrilling.
Marple, who lives in the village of St. Mary Mead, a short drive from the Bantrys’ house, leaves at once to help her friends. Arriving at their mansion, Gossington Hall, Miss Marple is greeted by Dolly Bantry and the Colonel, who tries to offer her breakfast. Shooing her husband out of the way, Dolly guides Marple through the labyrinthine house to the library, where police guard the entrance. Constable Palk, always accommodating to the Bantrys, breaks regulations and lets Marple enter the room. The body sprawled on the hearthrug is of a girl with platinum hair, heavy makeup, and blood-red fingernails. The surreal “incongruity” of this garish figure, clad in cheap slippers, thick mascara, and a backless evening dress, in the stodgy, Victorian bastion of the Bantrys’ faded library, makes a deep impression on Marple. It seems obvious that a woman of her type would never be a guest in the Bantry house. The woman, by all appearances, has been strangled. Marple stares at her fingers, which still clutch at her dress, then discreetly withdraws from the room when she hears that Inspector Slack has arrived.
Slack enters the house with Colonel Melchett, the county’s Chief Constable, who’s a little taken aback to hear that Miss Marple has involved herself in the case. Both he and Inspector Slack remember Marple from another local case, the “murder at the vicarage,” in which her detective skills put theirs to shame. But this case, Slack predicts confidently, will find her out of her depth, since it involves the gentry, not common village intrigues. Colonel Bantry, meanwhile, denies ever having seen the murdered girl before, as does his entire household. Dolly asks Marple if she has had any brainstorms, and Marple says only that the body reminds her of a girl from the village, who also bit her nails and had protruding teeth. Another similarity is her taste for “cheap finery,” noting that the victim’s satin dress is of poor quality.
One of the library windows shows signs of having been forced, which puzzles Dolly, as the dead woman is clearly dressed for dancing, not burglary. Since the locals of St. Mary Mead are hardly known for their parties, Marple’s suspicions settle on Basil Blake, a wild young man who has recently moved to the village. Son of a close friend of Dolly’s, Basil has not endeared himself to the Colonel, who regards him as rude and disrespectful. Since Basil is notorious for his decadent parties, and has been seen around town with a young woman with platinum hair, Miss Marple sees him as the most likely connection between Gossington Hall and the dead blonde in the Bantrys’ library.
Chapter 2 Summary
Chief Constable Colonel Melchett doubts his friend Bantry’s claim that he doesn’t know the dead woman, advising him to confess his history with her. After all, she must have come to his house for a reason. Offended, Bantry protests angrily that he’s not “that sort” of a man. However, he lacks an alibi, since (he claims) he had a flat tire returning from a meeting the previous night, and had to let himself in at 11:45 pm. No one, he says, saw him come in, since his wife was already asleep. When Melchett suggests that one of his servants may have brought the woman into the house, Bantry vociferously denies it and instead proposes Basil Blake as a suspect. Hearing that Basil throws raucous parties every weekend, most recently with an unknown girl with platinum hair, Melchett’s interest is piqued.
Basil Blake’s “hideous” cottage is on the outskirts of St. Mary Mead, about a mile up the road from Gossington Hall. Though people initially thought he was a movie star, in truth he is barely a film technician. Only the town’s “censorious” gossips take much notice of him now. Melchett, knocking on his door, finds him to be a flashily dressed young man with longish dark hair. When Melchett introduces himself, Basil laughs in his face and snidely tells the constable that his “morals” are not a police matter. Hearing of the murder at Gossington Hall, he shows more amusement than shock, exclaiming, “Old Bantry! The dirty old man!” (23). As Melchett reddens with anger, a car pulls up. Its driver, a young woman with platinum hair, jumps out and berates Basil for leaving her all alone at a party the previous night. For a time, the two exchange insults and accusations. Finally, Basil introduces Melchett to the young woman, whose name is Dinah Lee, and says flippantly that since his own “blonde” is alive and well, the policeman is clearly wasting his time. Seething, Melchett warns him to watch himself, before leaving the less-than-happy couple to their quarreling.
Chapter 3 Summary
Back at his office, Colonel Melchett establishes a timeline for the previous night at Gossington Hall, which tells him little: No one in the house will admit to having entered the library after 10 o’clock in the evening. The butler went to bed at a 10:45 pm, and there are no credible reports of unusual sounds during the night. The forced window was an “amateur job,” likely done with an ordinary chisel. Death was by strangulation, probably with the waistband of the victim’s own dress, an act not requiring much strength. The police surgeon estimates the time of death to be between 10 o’clock and midnight. The victim, he says, was approximately 17 or 18 years old, and a virgin. The servants deny ever having seen her in the neighborhood, let alone the house. Nevertheless, Slack opines that a connection must exist between the Bantrys and the victim, and he touches gently on the fact that Melchett and Colonel Bantry are friends. Melchett takes exception to this, insisting that he’s looking at “every possibility.”
Slack consults a list of missing persons, but none seems to fit: Two are far too old, and the third, a 16-year-old girl, is a pigtailed Girl Guide (analogous to a Girl Scout in the US) who disappeared after attending a Girl Guide rally. Just then, a report comes in of a professional dancer who went missing from a nearby seaside resort. Named Ruby Keene, she seems a perfect match: 18 years old, platinum blonde hair, blue eyes, white evening dress with rhinestones, and silver sandal shoes. The hotel where she danced, in the fashionable coastal resort town of Danemouth, is about 18 miles away, in an adjacent county. Immediately, the energetic Slack drives up to Danemouth’s Majestic Hotel, asks around, and returns within the hour with Ruby’s closest known relative, a professional dancer in her late twenties named Josie Turner. Josie, an attractive, sensible-looking woman in an elegant dark suit and discreet makeup, identifies herself as Ruby’s cousin. Melchett notices that she doesn’t seem to be particularly grieved by her cousin’s death.
Josie positively identifies the body as Ruby Keene. Afterward, looking a bit sick, she says, “What swine men are” (31). Questioned about why she assumes the killer was a man, Josie admits that she doesn’t know of any particular man her cousin was seeing. She says Ruby’s real name was Rosy Legge, and that she has danced professionally ever since childhood. For the past three years, Josie herself has worked as a dancer and “bridge hostess” at the Majestic Hotel in Danemouth. A month ago, after she sprained her foot, she invited Ruby to fill in for some of her dancing. Ruby’s dancing, she says, was not the best, but Josie’s dance partner Raymond helped guide her through the routines. The previous night, Josie says, Ruby and Raymond did the first of two exhibition dances at 10:30 pm, and shortly afterward she saw Ruby dancing with a young man who was staying at the hotel. That was the last time she saw her cousin, who did not appear for the second exhibition dance at midnight. Josie checked her room, but she was not there. Apparently she’d changed before leaving: Her usual dancing clothes were hung over a chair. Melchett is puzzled by the anger in Josie’s voice.
Josie admits that when her cousin did not turn up that morning, she hesitated to call the police, fearing the possible scandal to the hotel. It was actually a hotel guest, Conway Jefferson, who reported her disappearance. As for the young man Ruby was dancing with, his name is George Bartlett; according to Josie, his story is that Ruby went off to “powder her nose” after their dance, and he never saw her again. Josie cannot think of anything to connect Ruby with St. Mary Mead, and she appears genuinely shocked to hear that her body was found in Gossington Hall. Soon after, Inspector Slack informs Melchett that Colonel Bantry dined at the Majestic Hotel just the previous week. Chagrined, Melchett rises to Slack’s challenge and asks Josie to accompany them to Gossington Hall to meet his friends (and now possible suspects), the Bantrys.
Chapter 4 Summary
In St. Mary Mead, the local gossips have been having a field day with garbled accounts of the body found in the Bantrys’ library, which many of them assume to be that of Basil Blake’s “peroxide blonde,” Dinah Lee. As word rapidly spreads, the identity of the killer is also assumed: “And Colonel Bantry—such a nice quiet man” (41). The story grows more lurid with each retelling, and soon the victim is described as “abandoned” (i.e., pregnant) and “completely unclothed.”
At Gossington Hall, Dolly Bantry tells Miss Marple that she hopes this incident won’t make her husband feel less comfortable about using the library, one of their favorite rooms. When she mentions that Melchett is bringing the dead girl’s cousin to the house, Marple immediately guesses that it’s so she can meet Colonel Bantry and see if she recognizes him. Dolly gets defensive, claiming there’s no possible way her husband could be involved—though he does sometimes get a “little silly” about attractive young girls. This, she says, is simply him being “avuncular.”
When Melchett and Slack arrive with Josie Turner, they find that Colonel Bantry has gone off to visit the pigs on his estate, which always calms him. To fill the time, Dolly takes Josie to the library to show her where the body was found. Marple concedes that the juxtaposition between the staid, genteel setting and Ruby’s nightclub attire is precisely what makes the case so “interesting.” Obscurely, she relates it to an incident in which the new village schoolmistress “went to wind up the clock and a frog jumped out” (46). Perplexed, Josie asks Mrs. Bantry if Marple is a “bit funny” in the head.
When Colonel Bantry arrives, Melchett is relieved that Josie seems not to recognize him. Dolly says that Conway Jefferson, the man who reported Ruby missing, is an old friend of theirs. However, she claims to have had no idea Conway was staying at the Majestic, calling it a coincidence. Josie adds that Conway and some of his relatives stayed the previous year as well. As they discuss the Jeffersons, Josie’s manner becomes reserved and unnatural, as if concealing something. This annoys Mrs. Bantry, who voices her concerns later with Marple when they’re alone. Marple notes that Josie seemed angry at her cousin rather than sad about her death. Dolly agrees and suggests that she and Marple move into the Majestic for the time being, to get as close as possible to the heart of the mystery. Conway, she says, is a “perfect dear” who suffered a terrible tragedy eight years ago: Flying home from France, his wife, son, and daughter were all killed in a plane crash. Conway survived, but lost both his legs. She adds that his son’s wife now lives with him, along with her young son from a previous marriage. His daughter’s husband, Mark Gaskell, spends most of his time with them as well. Marple suggests that Conway may have some special knowledge about Ruby’s disappearance, since it was he who called the police.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
In the Foreword, Christie acknowledges that a “body in a library” was already, at the time of her writing, a cliché of the popular detective story. The challenge she set for herself, then, was to work a fresh “variation on a well-known theme” (vii). From the very start, Christie toys with the conventions of the premise in what becomes a private joke between herself and the reader.
The title locates the mystery in a house big enough to have such a room, that is, a mansion—the classic setting of a “cozy” whodunnit, a longtime Christie specialty. Traditionally in these mysteries, the house in question, and the wealthy family that lives there, become the nucleus of the investigation, and the murder victim is someone well-known to them, often a relative. Christie’s mystery follows convention by opening in the mansion of an upper-crust couple, the Bantrys. Here, however, the usual hallmarks of the “country house murder” end, for Christie has subversively juxtaposed two disparate spheres of life (and death). As she writes in the Foreword, the library in her story “must be a highly orthodox and conventional library,” and the corpse, “a wildly improbable and highly sensational body” (vii). Colonel and Dolly Bantry are an elderly, somewhat dull couple who live by themselves with a small staff of servants, and their stuffy, Victorian-era library perfectly mirrors their sober, hidebound lives. By contrast, the body’s cheap, flashy appearance suggests it could only have come there through some extraordinary happenstance. In fact, its surreal incongruity is foreshadowed in the novel’s first pages, with Mrs. Bantry’s uncertainty about whether she’s awake or dreaming.
Christie’s focus on the sheer strangeness of this juxtaposition serves as a critique of the “cozy” mystery genre itself, wherein bodies seem to pop up more often in country mansions than in London alleyways. In a metafictional gesture poking fun at the genre, Colonel Bantry tells his wife, “Bodies are always being found in libraries in books. I’ve never known a case in real life” (4). Dolly Bantry’s unlikely “enjoyment” of the break-in and murder positions her as a stand-in for Christie’s readers. While not quite breaking the “fourth wall”—in theater, the imaginary wall separating the stage from the audience—Christie clearly means to have some fun with the conventions of her well-worn premise, which she takes in an entirely novel direction. Indeed, it eventually turns out that the girl’s murder has nothing to do with the Bantrys or their household.
In keeping with genre convention, Christie deploys misdirection to lead readers away from the mystery’s eventual solution: Dolly Bantry notes that her husband gets “a little bit silly about pretty girls,” though only in an “avuncular” way, she thinks (45). This admission hints that the colonel’s interest in “pretty girls” may be more nefarious than his wife realizes. Bantry also lacks an alibi, claiming he had a flat tire on the night of the murder and came home after everyone was asleep. Even Colonel Melchett, the local police inspector and an old friend of Bantry’s, doubts his story: “But, after all, she came here—to this house” (19). The presence of Ruby Keene’s body in Colonel Bantry’s library is so incongruous and surprising that it prevents anyone from seeing the case clearly at its outset.
Inspector Slack, the other police official, not belonging to the colonel’s “old boy network,” looks askance at genteel cronyism: Part of his narrative function is to assure the reader that Colonel Bantry and other privileged suspects will be properly investigated. Likewise, Melchett’s friendship with Colonel Bantry compels him to be more broad-minded than the efficient, narrowly focused Slack, who would like to pin the murder on the nearest viable suspect, i.e., Bantry. Thanks to Melchett, the investigation widens its net well beyond Gossington Hall and St. Mary Mead and soon shifts its focus entirely, subverting expectations of the cozy mystery genre.
When Miss Marple enters the investigation at Dolly’s invitation, she brings her own investigative rigor and a skepticism that helps to cut through the layers of deception surrounding the case, recognizing The Contrast Between Appearance and Reality. Deeply intuitive and a master of psychology, Marple sees subtle connections that the more conventional policemen overlook, many of them drawn from her intimate knowledge of village life. Though sexism leads others to underestimate her, Marple’s lived experience as a woman allows her to spot clues that the male investigators miss. For instance, she notices quickly that the corpse’s fingernails clash with the rest of her appearance, and that her satin dress seems oddly “tawdry”—both of which remind her of a village girl she once knew: “Edie was fond of what I call cheap finery too” (14). These homespun observations are her first clues that the body is not, in fact, that of the missing dancer Ruby Keene, even though Ruby’s cousin Josie has identified it as such.
Josie’s muted but unmistakable “anger”—rather than grief—at her murdered cousin does not escape Marple’s eye. As it happens, the hotel guest who reported Ruby missing turns out to be an old friend of the Bantrys, and this link draws the detectives’ scrutiny to the goings-on at the Majestic Hotel, particularly the wealthy Mr. Jefferson. Again, Josie tries to hide her reaction to this turn of events, but as with her anger at Ruby, the sensitive Miss Marple picks up on it: Why, she wonders, “did her manner change at once when the Jeffersons were mentioned” (48)? The bulk of the novel, following this scent, abandons the pastoral seclusion of Gossington Hall for the chic, flamboyant Majestic Hotel, which becomes the heart of the case. The Bantrys’ house and the hotel represent opposing sides of a changing cultural landscape, with the staid country mansion representing tradition, rigid hierarchies, and fixed social roles, while the hotel represents a more demotic modernity—a coming world of greater social mobility and freedom of expression. When the corpse in its “tawdry” attire appears in the Bantrys’ library, it appears that the modern world has invaded a bastion of tradition. What seemed, at first, a “cozy mystery” sequestered in a country house now greatly expands its purlieu, as Josie Turner and the mysterious Mr. Jefferson—neither of whom has ever been seen at St. Mary Mead—join the growing list of suspects.
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