The Queens of Crime
46 pages • 1-hour read
Marie BenedictThe Queens of Crime
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 27-41Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of gender discrimination, sexual violence, pregnancy termination, and murder.
Chapter 27 Summary: “March 30, 1931—London, England”
Dorothy struggles to accept that the confession to May Daniels’s murder is a hoax. In addition, she struggles to write as she grows more attached to the case. Margery appears and invites Dorothy to visit Madame Isobel’s, the boutique where May Daniels’s expensive dresses were purchased. The women obtain the buyer’s address by pretending to be friends of May’s hoping to buy the same dress. The address links to an insurance company in a posh business district.
Chapter 28 Summary: “March 31, 1931—London, England”
At a tea shop near the insurance company, Dorothy and Margery share their findings with the group. Dorothy proposes that Emma and Ngaio pose as interested customers and try to obtain a list of the company’s principal partners, since they would be the only employees able to afford the dresses. Emma and Ngaio quickly return with two names: Jimmy Williams and his son, Louis Williams, who was interviewed in the case of the missing violinist. Dorothy suggests that Louis may have been May’s boyfriend and killer.
Chapter 29 Summary: “April 1, 1931—Manchester, England”
Dorothy travels with Agatha to Abney Hall, the home of Agatha’s sister, Margaret “Madge” Watts. Dorothy immediately recognizes aspects of the estate from Agatha’s novels. In addition, she senses tension between the sisters. When Dorothy asks about Jimmy and Louis Williams, Madge’s husband, Jim, reveals that Jimmy Williams was born out of wedlock to a wealthy man and his scandalously young maid and that their fortune is self-made. He implies that their social standing is too low for them to be invited to the Watts’ parties.
Chapter 30 Summary: “April 1, 1931—Manchester, England”
As she studies Agatha’s interactions with Madge, Dorothy begins to suspect that Madge is jealous of Agatha’s accomplishments and hopes to use her connections to boost her own career. At a party hosted by Madge and Jim, Dorothy and Agatha meet Basil Dean, the director of the Drury Theater and producer of Cavalcade, its current show. Dorothy and Agatha recall that shortly before May died, she saw the show and visited someone backstage. Dean invites the women to see the show as his guests.
Chapter 31 Summary: “April 2, 1931—London, England”
Dorothy and Agatha theorize that May had an affair with Louis Williams in the summer and fall before she died and planned to see Cavalcade with him in August but took Celia when he couldn’t attend. The October 2 news article May clipped about the missing violinist featured Louis’s name. Less than two weeks later, they believe she saw him in London before traveling to Brighton and then to Boulogne, where she died. Dorothy arranges to meet Louis to discuss insurance and briefly mentions her plan to see Cavalcade. Louis reveals that he planned to see the show but was unable to go, adding merit to Dorothy’s theory that he was May’s secret lover.
Chapter 32 Summary: “April 2, 1931—London, England”
After seeing Cavalcade, Agatha and Dorothy take a signed copy of one of Dorothy’s books backstage as a thank-you gift for Basil Dean. They leave the book with Sir Alfred Chapman, whom Louis Williams identified as his source for free theater tickets. Sir Alfred seems uninterested in socializing with the women but tells them that the cast and crew often spend time at the nearby Café de Paris. Dorothy recognizes the café as the place where violinist Leonora Denning disappeared. When Agatha asks about the Williams family, Sir Alfred awkwardly denies knowing them.
Chapter 33 Summary: “April 8, 1931—London, England”
Dorothy leaves a meeting with the other Queens of Crime, furious with herself. Emma, Ngaio, and Margery were unexpectedly angry with Dorothy and Agatha for pursuing the theories about the theater and Louis Williams on their own. They claimed that pursuing these leads without discussing it with the group violated the group’s spirit of egalitarianism. Although they accepted Dorothy’s apology, she remains angry with herself for risking the group’s discovery. As Dorothy walks home, a stranger attacks her, pushing her into heavy traffic, injuring and nearly killing her.
Chapter 34 Summary: “April 10, 1931—Oxfordshire, England”
Dorothy and Mac arrive at Sidelings, the country home of Dorothy’s cousin Ivy, who plans to care for Dorothy while Mac finishes his current assignment. Although Mac believes that the incident—a man shoving Dorothy into traffic—was an accident, Dorothy believes that she was targeted because of her investigation. She’s glad to be with Ivy, who was raised with her like a sister, but hates to impose on her. Mac leaves awkwardly as Dorothy’s son arrives at the home.
Chapter 35 Summary: “April 13, 1931—Oxfordshire, England”
The novel reveals that Dorothy had a son named John out of wedlock before she married Mac. Dorothy’s cousin Ivy, who acts as a foster parent for orphaned children, took John in and has cared for him for years. Although Dorothy longs to tell John the truth, she knows that the stigma of the illegitimate birth would make it impossible for her to continue to publish novels. She hopes to “adopt” John and bring him to live with her, but Mac claims that the time isn’t right.
Chapter 36 Summary: “April 13, 1931—Oxfordshire, England”
The Queens of Crime visit Dorothy at Sidelings. Dorothy is shocked and touched that they would travel from London and lodge at the simple local pub to spend time with her. Emma reveals with pleasure that she obtained the police files related to Leonora Denning, the violinist who disappeared and was connected to Louis Williams. Dorothy is shocked, since Mac’s police connections didn’t uncover anything. Although eager to read the files, she waits for Emma’s permission to proceed.
Chapter 37 Summary: “April 13, 1931—Oxfordshire, England”
Dorothy and the other Queens of Crime spend the day reviewing the police files related to Leonora Denning’s disappearance. They learn that Leonora was a talented student at the Royal Academy of Music who earned money by substituting in local orchestras, including Cavalcade at the Theater Royal. On the night she disappeared, she performed in Cavalcade and then accompanied other performers to the Café de Paris, where she spent time talking to Louis Williams. After a letter arrived claiming that she ran away with a boyfriend, the police closed the investigation.
Chapter 38 Summary: “April 14, 1931—Oxfordshire, England, and the English Channel”
The Queens of Crime travel back to Boulogne to try to solidify their theory about the connection between Louis Williams and May Daniels. As they travel, they add to their timeline, tracing May’s movements from her early August visit to see Cavalcade with Celia, to her likely meeting with Louis, to her disappearance on October 16. Dorothy’s memories of her discovery that she was unexpectedly pregnant intensify her determination to find justice for May, whom she believes Louis pressured into having an abortion.
Chapter 39 Summary: “April 14, 1931—Boulogne-Sur-Mer, France”
Dorothy studies the Queens of Crime as they disembark from the ferry, noting how each woman is unlike their fictional detectives. She shares her observations, and the women laugh together at the absurdity of their situation. They decide to stop at the restaurant where, on their last visit, waitress Madame Brat offered useful clues about May Daniels’s last day in Boulogne. Dorothy is disappointed when Madame Brat has nothing new to offer. When Madame Brat suggests that they leave their bags at the station, Dorothy has an idea.
Chapter 40 Summary: “April 14, 1931—Boulogne-Sur-Mer, France”
Dorothy leads the other Queens of Crime to the train station where May disappeared. She times herself sneaking out of the bathroom, walking to a nearby luggage locker, and then returning. She determines that the trip takes under three minutes and reveals her theory to the other women: On the day she disappeared, May intended to sneak away from her friend Celia only briefly, to hide something in a locker. Upon her return, her attacker intercepted her. Dorothy senses that Agatha can see the rest of her theory unfolding.
Chapter 41 Summary: “April 14, 1931—Boulogne-Sur-Mer, France”
On Dorothy’s suggestion, Dorothy and Emma pose as May Daniels’s sister and aunt and ask the French police to give them May’s personal belongings. They argue that since the investigation has been closed, they should be able to take her things back. The police reveal that the investigation hasn’t officially been closed but that British officials are reluctant to cooperate. Dorothy privately wonders who could be interfering in the case. Police agree to let the women examine May’s belongings. Dorothy finds a locker key in May’s purse.
Chapters 27-41 Analysis
In this section, extended conversations about the importance of paternity introduce the novel’s thematic interest in Class Expectations in British Culture. Jimmy Williams, the father of the suspect Louis Victim, is largely excluded from the upper crust of British society because his parents weren’t married when he was born. Agatha’s brother-in-law, Jim Watts, claims that Jimmy “was born a bastard to an unconscionably young housemaid and had to be raised by his grandmother” (165) and that, therefore, Jimmy “isn’t exactly [part of Jim’s] circle” (165). Although he admires the fact that a “lowly bastard” made “quite the name for himself” (165), he insists that he and Jimmy don’t “run in the same social circles” (165). Jim Watts’s easy dismissal of Jimmy Williams because of his socially unacceptable paternity reflects the powerful influence of class expectations in Britain.
Later, the novel reveals that Dorothy gave birth to a son out of wedlock before marrying Mac. When the man who got her pregnant disappeared, Dorothy decided to keep the pregnancy a secret and allow her cousin, a foster mother, to adopt the baby. Dorothy suggests that it would be impossible for her to raise the baby “without damning his reputation and ruining my ability to earn a living for us both” (194). She describes illegitimate pregnancy as “a stain that would never, ever fade” (194) for her and her son, John. Dorothy knows that the only solution is for her husband to agree to adopt John formally, granting him “legitimacy [that] would change everything for John” (195). Dorothy’s fear of social stigma outweighs her desire to be with her son is another fact that reflects the intense pressure of Class Expectations in British Culture.
Dorothy’s complicated relationship with her son connects her with May Daniels, whom Dorothy believes was pregnant. The Queens of Crime theorize that May was “with Louis the night before she headed to Brighton and informed him of the pregnancy” and that Louis “pushed an abortion on her” (173) in the days before she died. As she traces May’s steps, Dorothy can “sense May’s vulnerability” (175) and compares it to “the terror and turmoil [she] experienced” (210) after discovering she was pregnant. The fact that she also describes herself as “vulnerable” suggests that she explicitly connects May’s experience with her own. Although Dorothy “did not have a married paramour pressuring me, as I imagine Louis pressed May” (210), she nevertheless feels a kinship with her, acknowledging that her own experience shows “how easily [vulnerability] can be exploited by an unscrupulous man” (175). Dorothy’s self-identification with May makes her even more eager to solve the mystery of her disappearance.
In these chapters, the distinctions between the Queens of Crime and their fictional detective heroes begin to blur. As Dorothy grows closer to Margery Allingham, she begins to grow anxious about the fact that the hero of Margery’s novels, “aristocratic detective, Albert Campion” (152), was originally “created as a parody of […] Wimsey” (152), the hero of Dorothy’s novels. Dorothy’s fear that Campion is making fun of Wimsey reflects in her worry that Margery “also seems the sort of eager, stylish young woman who might have rejected me at university” (152). Dorothy’s inability to separate her real-life partner, Margery, from the fictional detective at the heart of her novels reveals the blurred line between fact and fiction.
As the novel progresses, the women begin to think and act as if they were the detectives from their novels. Dorothy’s narration initially approaches the idea with self-deprecating humor, joking that maybe “if we march down the Boulogne streets like one of our fiction detective heroes, the clues will come scampering out to meet us” (212). Later, she explicitly rejects the connection, insisting that “we are not” (212) the heroes in their novel. However, the fact that she repeatedly describes their investigation as “detective work” suggests that she does see a connection between the Queens of Crime and the heroes of their fiction. The distinction between the women and their fictional heroes continues to blur throughout the novel.
Unlock all 46 pages of this Study Guide
Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.
- Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
- Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
- Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs