4.50 From Paddington
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 Facsimile of first edition cover |
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| Author | Agatha Christie |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Miss Marple |
| Genre(s) | Mystery, Novel |
| Publisher | Collins Crime Club |
| Released | 1957 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
4.50 From Paddington (published in 1957; in the United States it was initially published under the title What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!), is a mystery, detective novel by Agatha Christie. It features Miss Marple.
Elspeth McGillicuddy is a woman not usually given to hallucinations. But when she witnesses what appears to be a woman being strangled on a train and no one else sees it, no one reports it and no corpse is found, she turns to her old friend Jane Marple to help solve the puzzle. Miss Marple asks her highly efficient and intelligent young acquaintance, Lucy Eyelesbarrow, to infiltrate the Crackenthorpe family, who live at Rutherford Hall, and seem to be at the heart of the mystery, to help unmask the murderer.
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[edit] Plot summary
Elspeth McGillicuddy has come down from Scotland to visit her old friend, Jane Marple. On the way, she sees a woman strangled in a passing train. Only Miss Marple believes her and they set about to solve the mystery. The first task is to ascertain where the body could have been dumped off of the train, and then hidden. Comparison of the facts of the murder with the train timetable and the local geography lead to Rutherford Hall as the only possible location. Miss Marple calls upon an acquaintance, Lucy Eyelesbarrow, who is a professional nanny and child-sitter. Lucy agrees to take a position with the Crackenthorpes, and the hunt is on.
Rutherford Hall was built by Josiah Crackenthorpe, purveyor of tea biscuits. His son, Luther, is now a semi-invalid widower who had displayed spendthrift qualities in his youth. To preserve the family fortune, Josiah's will provided Luther with a home and income for life but otherwise left everything in trust for the grandchildren. They share equally in the estate, but only if they live long enough to inherit it.
Edmund Crackenthorpe and Edith Crackenthorpe Eastley died during the War. That leaves Cedric, a painter and lover of women who lives on Ibiza; Harold, a cold and stuffy banker with a hidden passion for the ballet; Alfred; and Emma Crackenthorpe, a spinster who lives at home and takes care of Luther. The brothers are visiting for Luther's birthday, as are Edith's husband, Brian Eastley, and their son Alexander. Also in the story are other servants, and Dr. John Quimper, who looks after Luther's health and is secretly engaged to Emma.
Enter Lucy, who uses golf practice as an excuse to search the grounds for clues to the murdered woman. She eventually finds the body in a sarcophogus in amongst Luther's collection of dubious statuary in the stables. But who is she?
Her clothes are traced to France, and Emma reveals that she has received a letter from some women named Martine. Martine's letter claims she was married to Edmund during the War; they had a child; and she now wishes her son to have all of the advantages to which his birth properly entitles him. Lucy reports periodically to Miss Marple and they arrange a visit to the house.
One thing leads to another as the plot thickens; and so does the curry, which is mysteriously laced with arsenic. It makes everybody sick, except for Lucy, who doesn't eat any; and Alfred, who is not sick - he's dead. Sometime later, back at home in London, Harold takes a couple of tablets apparently the same as those prescribed by Dr. Quimper, and now he's dead, too. They weren't the tablets prescribed by Dr. Quimper; they were poison. One by one, the heirs to Josiah's fortune are vanishing.
Meanwhile, thanks to Lucy's regular reports and a visit to Somerset House, Miss Marple has worked it out. A tea time visit to Crackenthorpe Hall is arranged, and Mrs. McGillicuddy is invited down from Scotland again. She is instructed to ask to use the lavatory as soon as they arrive, but nothing more is told her.
Miss Marple is having a fish paste sandwich when it seems she has got a fish bone stuck in her throat. Dr. Quimper moves to assist her. Mrs. McGillicuddy enters the room from her visit "upstairs," sees the doctors hands at Miss Marple's throat as he examines her, and calls out, "But that's him! That's the man on the train!" this device was necessary because the angle of the light on the train meant that Mrs McGillicuddy had mistaken the hair colour of the murderer. Miss Marple deduces this and is forced to make sure Mrs McGillicuddy sees the murderer in the same context in order to make the identification.
It transpires that the murdered woman, whose real name was Anna, and who was indeed French, had been married to Dr. Quimper many years before. They had separated but she was a good Catholic, so would not agree to a divorce. But he had to be free to marry Emma, so that he could inherit Josiah's fortune through her, after he got rid of the rest of the family in line for a piece of it. Fortunately, he does not get away with it.
[edit] Characters in "4.50 From Paddington"
- Jane Marple – the detective, protagonist
- Lucy Eyelesbarrow – Miss Marple's proxy at the Hall, serving as housekeeper-cum-spy
- Elspeth McGillicuddy – the witness to murder, a friend of Miss Marple's
- Luther Crackenthorpe – now a semi-invalid widower and owner of Crackenthorpe Hall
- Anna Stravinski – the murdered woman's real name
- Edmund Crackenthorpe and Edith Crackenthorpe Eastley – already dead during the war
- Cedric Crackenthorpe – Luther's son; a painter and lover of women
- Harold Crackenthorpe – Luther's son; a banker with a hidden passion for the ballet
- Alfred Crackenthorpe – Luther's son; makes his living as a sort of genteel con artist
- Emma Crackenthorpe – a spinster who lives at home and takes care of Luther. The brothers are visiting for Luther's birthday, as are Edith's husband,
- Brian Eastley – Edith's husband
- Alexander Eastley – Edith & Brian's son
- John Quimper – the doctor who looks after Luther's health and is in love with Emma.
[edit] Major themes
This book has Miss Marple give voice to Agatha Christie's view on the death penalty when she remarks, "I am really very, very glad that they haven't abolished capital punishment yet because I do feel that if there is anyone who ought to hang, it’s Dr. Quimper." In fact, capital punishment was not finally abolished in Britain until 1969 (1973 for Northern Ireland), but there were many periods, of one to five years' length, when the death penalty was temporarily suspended by the Government while Acts of Parliament for abolition were pending. One of these "temporary abolitions" happened in February 1956 but ended in July 1957. So, the death penalty was in moratorium when Christie wrote 4.50 From Paddington but it was active again about the time the book came out.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
Released by MGM in 1962 as "Murder she Said" starring Margaret Rutherford, which substantially changed the plot. The name 'Lucy' is kept for Miss Marple's home help, but there is no Mrs. McGillicuddy or Lucy Eyelesbarrow. Instead, Miss Marple herself sees the murder, and it is she who takes the position of maid and cook at Ackenthorpe Hall. There, she finds the body while pretending to practice her golf shots. This Miss Marple's sidekick is her friend from the library, Jim Stringer (played by Rutherford's husband, Stringer Davis), and she telephones him to have him report the finding to the police. Schoolboy Alexander is here, but his chum, James Stoddard-West, is missing. Alexander functions as Miss Marple's "on-site" sidekick, as it were. The basics of the plot are the same, except that it's 'Albert' instead of 'Alfred,' but he's killed in the same way. Harold, however, appears to have met with a shooting accident. Miss Marple catches the doctor in the end just the same, and she departs for home - after politely declining a proposal of marriage from Mr. Ackenthorpe.
Although certainly not Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, the Rutherford version of the character is nevertheless very well played, and the four films she made as Miss Marple are highly entertaining.
The BBC stuck very closely to the original plot with its 1988 version, starring Joan Hickson, who had appeared in the Rutherford film as Mrs. Kidder. Departures from the original story include the absence of any food poisoning - Alfred is still alive at the end, though suffering from a terminal illness that Dr. Quimper apparently misdiagnosed deliberately. Harold is still dead, however, but not by poison tablets. As in the previous film, he is shot and it is made to look like an accident - on this occasion, with Harold apparently getting himself caught in an ancient leg-hold man trap. (Inspector Slack remarks how "These man traps have been illegal for centuries!") The other major departure is at the end, where Miss Marple unambiguously opines that Lucy Eyelesbarrow will marry Bryan Eastley, a possibility that is only hinted at in the novel, despite the fact she is actually more attracted to Cedric. "She's not in love with him yet," Miss Marple explains to Cedric. "But she'll marry him and make him what she wants. And then she'll fall in love with him."
Another version was made by ITV in 2004 starring Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple and a cast that included David Warner, Griff Rhys Jones and Ben Daniels. It has been shown in the United States under the title What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw.
[edit] Trivia
The first novel to feature a sidekick for Miss Marple, in the form of Lucy Eyelesbarrow, a move welcomed by fans but apparently not by Christie, who did not feature Lucy Eyelesbarrow in any future novels.
