The Body in the Library
Review of the novel The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie.
Published by Harper Collins on 11th May 1942.
Cost: 3s 6p 1967
ISBN: N/A (Paperback Edition - 191 pages – starts on page 7)
Dedication: To my friend Nan
The Body in the Library is the second full-length Miss Marple novel by Agatha Christie; with The Murder at the Vicarage having been published in 1930, there is a twelve-year gap. However, the story seems to pick up exactly where the previous one left off – but we must accept that Miss Marple has become a little wiser and been observing the activities in the village which will help her find solutions to crimes and mysteries.
The story opens with Dolly and Arthur Bantry, the owners of Gossington Hall, having been woken by their maid, to find there is a body in their library. From the short story collection presented in The Tuesday Club Murders (published in 1932), we learnt that Dolly Bantry and Miss Marple are good friends, so it’s not surprising that Dolly should immediately contact Miss Marple.
Miss Marple’s telephone rang when she was dressing. The sound of it flurried her a little. It was an unusual hour for her telephone to ring. So well ordered was her prim spinster’s life that unforeseen telephone calls were a source of vivid conjecture.
'Dear me,’ said Miss Marple, surveying the ringing instrument with perplexity. 'I wonder who that can be?’
Nine o’clock to nine-thirty was the recognised time for the village to make friendly calls to neighbours. The butcher had been known to ring up just before nine if some crisis in the meat trade had occurred. At intervals during the day spasmodic calls might occur, though it was considered bad form to ring up after nine-thirty at night. [No one] of Miss Marple’s acquaintances would be likely to ring up before eight in the morning. Actually a quarter to eight.
Too early even for a telegram, since the post office did not open until eight.
'It must be,’ Miss Marple decided, 'a wrong number.’
Having decided this, she advanced to the impatient instrument and quelled its clamour by picking up the receiver.
The telephone call is from Dolly Bantry, who insists that Miss Marple should investigate the murder and with that in mind, Miss Marple arrives at Gossington Hall before the police have taken control of the situation. So, five pages into the story we are re-introduced to Miss Marple, her way of life and given an insight into the village of St Mary Mead.
As Miss Marple reviews the scene in front of her when she enters the library. She sees:
…. across the old bearskin hearthrug there was sprawled something new and crude and melodramatic. The flamboyant figure of a girl. A girl with unnaturally fair hair … dressed in a backless evening dress of white spangled satin. The face was heavily made-up …. The finger-nails were enamelled in a deep blood-red and so were the toenails in their cheap silver sandal shoes.
When the police arrive on the scene, Miss Marple and Dolly Bantry quickly leave the library.
As the body is discovered in the village of St Mary Mead, we are again introduced to Inspector Slack, the lead detective in The Murder at the Vicarage. What is interesting in this story is the number of senior police officers investigating the case, partly because the investigation covers two English Counties managed by different police forces; Colonel Melchett, Chief Constable for the County of Radfordshire (which includes St Mary Mead); and Superintendent Harper for the Glenshire police (the neighbouring county).
The reader is given no further details when the police review the body, and it can only be supposed that no further facts would present themselves, however, if the reader were to reflect on the scene they would see that Christie set out important clues that the police missed and Miss Marple would use to solve the murder. The incompetence of the police is reinforced a few pages later when they review a list of persons reported missing:
'Mrs Saunders, reported missing a week ago, dark-haired, blue-eyed, thirty-six. Mrs Barnard – she’s sixty-five. Pamela Reeves, sixteen, missing from home last night … dark-brown hair in a pigtail, five feet five –‘
Melchett said irritably, 'Don’t go on reading idiotic details, Slack. This wasn’t a schoolgirl.’
The investigation takes a new turn when a few minutes later details of a further missing person are telephoned through to the two police officers; a professional dancer fitting the description of the body is missing from a local hotel eighteen miles away in the next county.
At the same time, Christie seems to want to reinforce the incompetence of the police when she introduces Basil Blake, a resident of St Mary Mead, who has a girlfriend with platinum blonde hair and Colonel Melchett rushes off to interview him. However, after a few cross words between the two men, Melchett leaves Blake when the girlfriend arrives on the scene.
The investigation now focuses on the professional dancer, Ruby Keene, missing from the Majestic Hotel. There is more here than first seems obvious; the eighteen-year-old Ruby Keene has become involved in a wealthy family staying at the hotel. Desperate to get away from Gossington Hall, Dolly Bantry decides she and Miss Marple will also investigate the mystery behind the body in the library and book rooms at the Majestic hotel. At this point, Miss Marple is also encouraged to use her investigative skills to solve the murder by the retired Chief Constable, Sir Henry Clithering.
When the body in the library is identified by Josie Turner, one of the lead dancers at the hotel and cousin to the dead girl, the police are left floundering with the case and it’s Miss Marple’s understanding of village life that comes to the rescue.
'With Mr Harbottle it was Miss Harbottle going away. And with the Badgers it was Mrs Badger taking such an interest in Spiritualism.’
'I must say,’ said Sir Henry ruefully, 'that I dislike the way you reduce us all to a General Common Denominator.’
Miss Marple shook her head sadly. 'Human nature is very much the same anywhere, Sir Henry.’
After a second body found in a burnt-out wreck is identified as that of the missing schoolgirl, and Girl Guide, Pamela Reeves it's Miss Marple who feels there is a connection between the two deaths. She insists the friends of Pamela Reeves are re-interviewed and a forceful Miss Marple has one of the girls reveal the truth about the missing girl’s activities on the day she went missing, which enables the murder of Ruby Keene and Pamela Reeves to be linked.
There is so much going on in this story, it would be possible to continue detailing the action that takes place and review it for the part the characters play in unravelling the solution to the murders. Miss Marple reveals that she is on the committee of the local orphanage and has had several servants and young maids to assist her in running her house, that she feels she has had a lot of experience in assessing when a girl is telling the truth and when she is holding something back. A theme that is expressed by Miss Marple on more than one occasion: 'One does see so much evil in the village.' 'Human nature is very much the same everywhere.'
This is a wonderful story with clues dotted throughout the pages and sadly missed by the police in their investigation. In this story, the reader must also reflect on the capabilities of Doctor Haydock, who refuses to budge on the time of the death of the body in the library, but fails to recognise the facts before him that should have led to different conclusions early on in the investigation. It is perhaps too easy to suggest that in today’s police investigations the clues would not have been missed, however, it is the clever instincts of Miss Marple that guides the police to the solution that was missed by so many characters in the story. Christie gives the reader a few glimpses into village life of St Mary Mead and how Miss Marple is able to compare past and present activities of the villagers to enable her to suggest solutions to the unravelling of the murders. It’s not surprising that Miss Marple has become one of the most popular Christie characters, loved by so many of her readers. A must read story: Rating: 5 stars.
Dr Sheppard
7 December 2016
