54 pages • 1-hour read
The Moving Finger
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Chapters 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death by suicide, death, gender discrimination, and mental illness.
Chapter 5 Summary
Jerry is walking through the village when he encounters Mrs. Dane Calthrop, who eagerly greets him. Mrs. Calthrop is married to the local reverend, Mr. Caleb Dane Calthrop. While the reverend is a quiet, absent-minded and highly intellectual person, Mrs. Calthrop is energetic and social. Jerry feels that the other locals are intimidated by her. Jerry puzzles over how Mrs. Calthrop seems to know everything about the villagers’ lives—and admits that she thinks it is her “function” as the reverend’s wife —but doesn’t come across as a nosy person.
Mrs. Calthrop asks Jerry about his experience with the anonymous letters, and shares that she has also received a few of them. She wonders why the letters are full of false accusations when there are real “shameful secrets” (62) in the village. Jerry realizes that Mrs. Calthrop knows all kinds of secrets, and believes that this is why the locals seem to be afraid of her.
The next morning Partridge shares the bad news quickly circulating the village: Mrs. Symmington, Megan Hunter’s mother, has died by suicide. Jerry and Joanna feel especially bad for Megan, and want to invite her to stay with them for a few days. They share their idea with Dr. Griffith, who agrees it is a good plan, and confirms that Mrs. Symmington’s death was a death by suicide after receiving an anonymous letter claiming that her second son was not her husband’s child. He claims he had treated her for a nervous condition, and wonders if the shock of the letter, however untrue, prompted her death by suicide.
Joanna and Jerry visit the Symmington house and talk to Elsie Holland, the boys’ governess. Elsie agrees with their plan to invite Megan, repeatedly calling Megan “anxious” and “difficult.” Elsie implies that she is too busy to take care of Megan, too. When Jerry finds Megan, she is upset and scared, and jumps at the chance to leave the house for a while.
Back at Little Furze, Jerry and Joanna are sympathetic when Megan breaks down in tears, and give her a cocktail to calm her down. While the two reassure Megan and engage her in conversation, their housekeeper, Partridge, seems annoyed that she is there.
Chapter 6 Summary
Three days later there is a public inquest into Mrs. Symmington’s death by suicide, which Jerry attends, alongside many villagers. They learn that Mrs. Symmington was alone in the house one afternoon when she received an anonymous letter, and soon after drank cyanide from the potting shed, leaving a note that read, “I can’t go on” (77).
The coroner and Dr. Griffith emphasize her poor mental health before her death, and the jury rule that the death was a suicide while “temporarily insane” (77). Nevertheless, Jerry hears the local women gossiping about how perhaps the rumors about Mrs. Symmington are true, and that is why she was so upset by the letter. Jerry loathes this malicious gossip.
The next day Aimee Griffith comes by the house when Jerry is home alone. She repeatedly slanders Megan, calling her unintelligent and lazy. She hates that Megan is “idle,” which she considers an unforgivable sin. Jerry defends Megan and says she is sensitive and intelligent, but that she has had a difficult life. Miss Griffith is convinced that the rumors about Miss Symmington had to be true to prompt such an extreme reaction. Jerry refutes this, but cannot persuade her.
As they chat, Jerry becomes convinced that Miss Griffith also hates his sister Joanna, noticing her passive-aggressive tone. Finally, Miss Griffith leaves, musing that the townspeople must stop waiting for the police to act and somehow stop the anonymous letters themselves.
In town, Jerry meets Mr. Symmington, and realizes that he has basically forgotten about his stepdaughter, Megan. This angers Jerry. Emily Barton visits them next, and she and Jerry commiserate about the letters. After she leaves, Joanna is surprised to receive another letter insulting her. Jerry saves it to show the police.
Police Superintendent Nash arrives to examine the latest letter. He takes Jerry into the station with him, where Mr. Symmington and Dr. Griffith are also waiting. There, they work with Inspector Graves, who has come from London to help with the case. The officers reveal that after studying the commonalities in the letters, they suspect that an educated local woman must have written them.
Jerry is so sickened by the toxicity of the letters and the town gossip that he’s tempted to forfeit the rest of his rent and leave early, but curiosity keeps him in Lymstock. He visits the house agents’ office to pay rent, and recognizes the clerk as Symmington’s former clerk, Miss Ginch. She claims she left her old job when an anonymous letter suggested she was having an affair with Mr. Symmington, yet Jerry notices that she seems almost happy to talk about it, and he wonders if she could be the letter writer.
Chapter 7 Summary
Jerry returns home and finds Joanna visiting with Mrs. Calthrop. Mrs. Calthrop insults Mrs. Symmington as having been “selfish” and “stupid,” and claims that she would have died by suicide eventually for one reason or another, regardless of the letter (101). Jerry and Joanna are surprised when Mrs. Calthrop expresses sympathy for the letter writer, and feels that she should know if someone in the village was so unhappy that they would target others in this way. After she leaves, Jerry reflects on how people imagine the letter writer differently, either triumphant, regretful, or in pain. He reveals that in hindsight, he knows that after Mrs. Symmington’s death the writer was mostly fearful.
The next day Jerry is annoyed when Aimee Griffith comes by at 9:30 am, interrupting breakfast and asking for vegetables for the Red Cross stand. Their conversation is interrupted by a phone call from Agnes Woddell, calling for Partridge. Partridge apologizes to the Burtons for using the phone, explaining that Agnes Woddell was orphaned as a child and used to work in the household as a teen. She asks for permission to have her over for tea. When Joanna says Partridge can socialize however she likes, the housekeeper seems annoyed that she is less strict than Miss Barton. Joanna puzzles over why Partridge dislikes her when she is so kind and relaxed with her.
Megan abruptly announces that she’ll be going home that day, news that slightly disappoints Jerry and Joanna, but pleases Partridge. Dr. Griffith comes over for lunch, and Jerry notices that Joanna listens to him attentively. He feels she is encouraging his crush on her, even though she would never really date him.
Jerry and Joanna go for tea at Miss Barton’s room in the village. They chat with her old housemaid, Florence, who angrily derides the government for taxing Miss Barton. She feels that Miss Barton needs looking after, and that it is an injustice for her to have to rent out her house to pay her tax bill. Jerry and Joanna sympathize, but feel awkward as her tenants. Florence leaves and Miss Barton comes in late, happy to see them. She is thrilled to take them for tea, and speaks in glowing terms about many people in the village, but feels the anonymous letters are too sensitive of a topic to talk about. She reveals that she doesn’t like Mrs. Calthrop as she is so “aloof,” says strange things, and sympathizes with the wrong people. Jerry and Joanna are intrigued by her assessment.
At home, Partridge angrily recounts how she invited Agnes Woddell to tea, but she didn’t show up. When Joanna observes that it’s been a week since Mrs. Symmington’s death by suicide, Jerry thinks about the local customs in which maids get the same day off each week. He confirms with Partridge that Agnes is in service at the Symmington household, and begins to worry that something could have happened to her.
When he phones the house, the governess confirms that Agnes Woddell hasn’t come back from her day off, and Jerry puzzles over what could be going on at the Symmington house.
Chapter 8 Summary
Jerry sleeps restlessly, wondering how all the strange pieces of this mystery fit together. He dreams that Mrs. Dane Calthrop has turned into a greyhound and he is walking her on a leash.
Early that morning, Megan phones the house and asks Jerry to come over. He quickly dresses and, for the first time in his recovery, drives the car over to the Symmingtons’ house. Megan reveals she has found Agnes dead in a cupboard under the stairs, and that the police are there investigating. Jerry is annoyed that no one has taken care of Megan after her shock, and brings her to the kitchen for tea and brandy, leaving her with the cook, Rose. Jerry sees the boys’ governess, Elsie Holland, who tells him that Agnes was killed with a blow to the back of the head. Jerry feels that Elsie is enjoying the drama of the situation.
Next he speaks with Police Superintendent Nash, who informs him that Megan, Mr. Symmington, and Rose the cook had all left the home shortly before Agnes’s death. She was killed with a blow to the back of the head, followed by a kitchen skewer stabbed into her skull. The cook informed the police that Agnes had been nervous and worried since Mrs. Symmington’s death, but was scared of consulting the police.
Superintendent Nash shares his theory with Jerry. He knows that the letter to Mrs. Symmington had been delivered by hand on the maids’ day out. However, he also knows that Agnes was not actually out on that day; she had argued with her boyfriend and retreated to the house. He believes Agnes saw who delivered the letter and thus knew who the anonymous letter writer was; however, it did not occur to her that this was important information until after Mrs. Symmington’s death. She called Miss Partridge at Jerry’s house to ask for advice, a call that was somewhat overheard by visitors Miss Griffith and Mr. Pye, who could have gossiped about this overheard conversation. Nash thinks that the letter writer, whom he believes is a woman of “good social position,” visited the house when Agnes was home alone, and quickly murdered her and hid her body after she answered the door.
Nash asks Jerry to be his eyes and ears around the village. The two go to interview Rose the cook a third time. She shares that Agnes was indeed in fear of her life in the week preceding her death. She was out visiting her family the afternoon Agnes was murdered. Next Nash and Jerry interview governess Elsie Holland, who claims she was busy fishing with the Symmington boys when Agnes was murdered. She is very composed and helpful, but becomes emotional when she reveals that she has never received any anonymous letters. Afterward, Jerry and Nash puzzle over how this particularly attractive young lady has never received an anonymous letter.
Nash predicts that the letter writer will continue to write, and will eventually give herself away.
Chapters 5-8 Analysis
In these chapters, the novel develops its theme on The Corrosive Nature of Social Paranoia. By suggesting that Mrs. Symmington died by suicide due to the letter’s accusation that she was unfaithful to her husband, the villagers hint at the intense humiliation of losing one’s reputation in Lymstock and how quick they are to believe the worst of one another. Many villagers attend Mrs. Symmington’s death inquest only out of morbid curiosity, not because they truly care for her or mourn her death, which suggests how superficial the village’s apparent friendliness can be. Jerry explains, “I heard the same hateful sibilant whisper I had begun to know so well, ‘No smoke without fire, that’s what I say!’ ‘Must ‘a been something in it for certain sure. She wouldn’t never have done it otherwise’” (78). The callous and mistrustful reaction of the inhabitants adds substance to the theory that Mrs. Symmington died by suicide to escape the social judgment and rumor-mongering that she believed would be triggered by the anonymous letter, exposing the village’s deep social fractures that lie just beneath the surface.
The easy way in which reputations are made and broken also adds to the novel’s theme of The Role of Secrecy in Small-Town Life, as the villagers consider secrecy essential to preserve their reputations. Jerry’s perplexing interaction with Mrs. Calthrop suggests that there are many secrets in the village, which she knows about. She says of the letters, “[T]hey don’t seem to know anything. None of the real things. […] I dare say there are other things—” and this leads Jerry to reflect, “In everybody’s life there are hidden chapters which they hope may never be known. I felt that Mrs. Dane Calthrop knew them” (62). Mrs. Calthrop’s role as a keeper of secrets makes her a powerful person in Lymstock, as she has the ability to destroy others by simply sharing their personal information.
As the mysteries unfolding in Lymstock become darker and more urgent, The Consequences of Gossip and Biased Judgment also come to the forefront of the story. Mrs. Symmington’s apparent death by suicide is a reminder of the potential consequences of malicious gossip and accusations. Even Joanna jumps to conclusions about Mrs. Symmington, musing that the letter’s accusations must have been true if Mrs. Symmington decided to die by suicide, while Aimee Griffith and Mrs. Calthrop continue to speculate about her possible wrong-doing and slander her. Aimee Griffith rudely labels her “the unintelligent domestic type” (79), while Mrs. Calthrop derides Mrs. Symmington as a “selfish rather stupid woman” who was “that kind of woman” who would panic in a crisis (101). The rapidity with which the villagers form unflattering and even cruel judgments about Mrs. Symmington expose the town’s dark underside, challenging Jerry’s initial impressions of the town as a sleepy, idyllic retreat.
Biased judgments also threaten the success of the investigation into the poison pen letters. As Nash, Inspector Graves, and Jerry begin to piece together the puzzle, they immediately assume that the letter writer must be a woman, which reflects how their sexism results in biased judgements that lead them further away from the real murderer. They believe that a woman would fit the stereotype of “poison pen” writers and would explain why the letters were typed at the Women’s Institute. Inspector Graves insists, “They were written by a woman, and in my opinion a woman of middle age or over, and probably, though not certainly, unmarried” (93, emphasis added). Graves’s assumption that such a woman would be “of middle age or over” and “probably […] unmarried” reinforces sexist stereotypes about unmarried older women as automatically unhappy or jealous of others—a stereotype that the clever and kindly Miss Marple will challenge later.
There is also a strong element of classism in Jerry’s biased judgment, as he muses, “I shouldn’t have thought one of these bucolic women down here would have had the brains” (94, emphasis added). Jerry’s dismissive attitude reflects his prejudiced assumption that women in small towns are automatically less intelligent and sophisticated than their urban counterparts. By suggesting that gossip, speculation, and biased judgments can lead to misunderstandings and tragic consequences, the story infuses moral messages into the broader mystery.
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