In+a+Nutshell

How It All Goes Down
(CH 1 - 3) The novel starts off with people in Chipping Cleghorn reading the daily Gazette. Mrs. Swettenham and her son, Edmund, Colonel and Mrs. Easterbrook, friends Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Murgatroyd, and Reverend and Mrs. Harmon read an ad in the paper says that "a murder is announced" for 6:30 pm that day at Little Paddocks. Those living at Little Paddocks - including Letitia Blacklock, Julia and Patrick Simmons, Dora Bunner, and Mitzi - are just as surprised as their neighbors to see the ad. Ms. Blacklock starts prepping for a party anyway, and sure enough these same guests arrive at the house that night. At 6:30 pm, the lights go out, and a man comes in, moving a flashlight around the room. The man shoots twice, someone screams, and a third shot is heard before he falls down, dead. Ms. Blacklock was shot at near her ear, and her shirt is covered with blood. Bunner recognizes the shooter, Rudi Scherz, saying that he tried to get money from her to go to Switzerland. He worked at the Royal Spa Hotel in Medenham Wells.

(CH 4 - 6) Detective-Inspector Craddock is then put in charge of the case. He interviews the manager and Rudi's girlfriend at the Hotel, but they are pretty much no help at all. Afterwards, he goes back to Little Paddocks to get Ms. Blacklock's account of the scene of the crime. Craddock interviews Julia, Mitzi, and Patrick for their views of how it went down as well, but no one knows whether Rudi wanted to kill himself, or why he was there in the first place.

(CH 7 - 9) At the Royal Spa Hotel, the police visit Jane Marple. She says that Rudi had tried to take money from her before, an example of a petty criminal. She tells them to talk to Myrna (Rudi's girlfriend) again. Myrna reveals that Rudi was paid to enter the party that night, but she doesn't know who paid him. Back at the House, Craddock fills Ms. Blacklock in and questions and Mitzi again. Mitzi claims that Phillipa was talking to Rudi, and that she left the side door open for him to get into the house. Later, Craddock chats with Blacklock about the many doors of the house before asking Dora Bunner about a fake door. We find out that the door is actually just bolted shut, and after finding the right key, Craddock figures out that the door was opened recently - the night of the party, by someone who was in the house.

(CH 10 - 12) Craddock tells Blacklock that someone must have went through the door when the lights were out, and shot at her from behind Rudi. She says that she is not very rich, and if she was dead then Patrick and Julia would inherit everything. But if the //wife of Mr. Goedler//, Blacklock's old boss who is a very rich man, was dead, then Blacklock would inherit a fortune. This is because she had helped him out of a tight money situation years ago. Blacklock mentions that she moved to England only a year ago, because she was in Switzerland with her sister (now dead) before that. Craddock comes to the conclusion that Pip and Emma, Mr. Goedler's nephew and niece, wanted to kill Blacklock because then //they// would inherit Goedler's fortune. Later on, Craddock asks Phillipa about Mitzi's story, which she completely denies.

(CH 13 - 15) Edmund Swettenham asks Phillipa Haymes to marry him. She obviously then refuses and reasons that he, in her eyes, doesn’t know anything about her. While this is going on, Colonel Easterbrook realizes that his gun is M.I.A. He is seriously worried that it might have been used in the shooting, however, he is then relieved when young babe of a wife says to him that the last time she saw it was the day after the incident. Miss Marple and Bunny have coffee together and Bunny tells Marple about how kind Miss Blacklock has been to her after all these years of friendship. Also, she says that she thinks Patrick may have been involved in the shooting and the oiling of the door. She says that she had earlier found him in the garden with an oily cup and a feather some days ago. Inspector Craddock goes to Scotland to meet Belle Goedler, who is quite close to death. She tells him that her deceased husband had argued with his sister Sonia over the man she married. For this reason, he had decided his money should go to Miss Blacklock, and not Sonia, after his wife’s death. Belle also had convinced him to dub Sonia’s son and daughter, Pip and Emma, as heirs to the fortune if Miss Blacklock died. It's Bunny's birthday back at Little Paddock's. Mitzi bakes up her quote-on-quote "famous" chocolate cake and the neighbors come to visit bringing many presents. After her party, Bunny has a raging headache and has takes of Blacklock’s aspirin before going to sleep. Julia overhears Miss Blacklock tells Phillipa that she left her a lot of money in her will. Julia obviously was pretty mad when she heard this.

(CH 16 - 18) Bunny is found dead the morning after. They conclude that the aspirin she took was poisoned. Craddock visits Miss Blacklock and because he wants to see a photo of Sonia Goedler to make a profile of her. She has some photo albums that she had been looking at with Julia a few days before. However, the two find to their demise that the pictures of Sonia have been removed. Craddock learns that Phillipa’s husband hadn’t died but had //deserted// from the army. She denies any recent contact with her husband. He then finds some letters from Letty to her sister, Charlotte. Whilst reading one, Craddock discovers a description of Sonia, which oddly reminds him of somebody he knows. He then finds out that Phillipa’s husband has in fact been killed in an accident.

(CH 19 - 21) Murgatroyd and Hinchcliffe go on adventures together in attempt to recreate the crime. Murgatroyd remembers that a woman, out of Swettenham, Easterbrook, and Julia Simmons wasn't in the drawing room the night of the shooting but she can't remember which. Letty receives a letter from Julia reading that she'll be coming to visit soon, and with this she discovers that the girl whom she thought was Julia staying in her home was actually Emma. Emma claims that she hasn't seen her brother Pip since she was young and that when she had found out that her uncle’s money was to go to Miss Blacklock, she had decided to befriend her in hope of getting some of that money. She denies ever shooting at her. Miss Blacklock breaks her pearl necklace and it makes her oddly really upset. Meanwhile Bunch tells Craddock that Miss Marple is missing. After dinner that night, Craddock questions several suspects at Little Paddocks. Laura Easterbrook tries to say she was with her husband at the time, but he denies it. Then Mitzi crazily runs into the room saying that she saw Miss Blacklock with the gun in her hand on the night of the hold-up. Phillipa then admits that she is actually Pip, who isn't even a dude but a girl, and that she ironic enough had also tried to befriend Miss Blacklock in the hope that she would get some money. So the Emma and Pip, siblings whom they thought were lost from eachother, had both been scamming the same woman and living in the same home.

(CH 22 - 24) Letty follows Mitzi into the kitchen and tries to drown her in the sink. Marple shows up and starts faking Bunny's voice to make he stop by calling Letty's name, leaving her dazed. Marple reveals that in fact Miss Blacklock is Charlotte, and that she wore the pearls all the time to hide her scars from an operation (which is why she was so oddly mad when they broke). Charlotte says that she never meant to kill anyone. Craddock and Marple then team up and explain the whole story to everyone. Charlotte had went with Letty to Switzerland to have an operation, however Letty died there after some time. Charlotte, because she knew about the money inheritance, took Letty's name and went back to England. When Bunny arrived, she told her everything. Rudi had recognized her as Charlotte, and she decided to kill him from what she arranged as a joke hold-up. She says Bunny became a liability as it seems each day she was growing closer to revealing her secret, so she realized she had to kill her as well. She then killed Murgatroyd because she had heard her say that she wasn't in the room. Miss Marple realized all of this and had set it up by getting Mitzi to pretend that she saw Charlotte with the gun. She then witnessed her attempt at murder and received her confession.