Evening+at+the+Vicarage

A Murder is Announced Chapter 23 Summary

 * Now, the truth comes to light. Bunch, Rev. Harmon, Craddock, Julia, Patrick, Edmund, and Phillipa are seated around Miss Marple as she describes what happened.
 * Miss Marple says that the most obvious person would have been Miss Blacklock, as she was the only one who had contact with Rudi, and could have arranged for there not to be a fire the night of the murder, so there wouldn’t be any light.
 * Rudi, in fact, worked at Dr. Adolph Koch’s clinic in Berne. Koch was “a world famous specialist” for goiter operations (210).
 * Rudi recognized Charlotte as one of his patients.
 * Miss Marple then backs up, realizing her audience wants her to “go through it all from the beginning” (210).
 * The whole thing started when, as a young girl, Charlotte Blacklock developed goiter, an enlargement of the thyroid gland. This “ruined her life” (210).
 * Her father was an “old-fashioned, narrow-minded, tyrannical and obstinate man”, and refused Charlotte the operation she needed (211).
 * Charlotte’s sister, Leticia, was a very good person. When their father died, Leticia “devoted herself to Charlotte” (211).
 * Leticia took Charlotte to Switzerland for the operation, and it turned out to be a success. Charlotte hid her scars with the choker of pearls.
 * The war broke out, and the sisters occasionally got news from England, some of which being that Belle Goedler was not expected to live much longer, and the fortune might soon become Leticia and Charlotte’s.
 * According to Miss Marple, this meant “a lot more to Charlotte” than it did to Leticia (212).
 * However, Leticia caught pneumonia and died.
 * If Leticia hadn’t died, and Belle Goedler did, the money would have been hers, and then Charlotte’s after Leticia died. So, Charlotte decided to take Leticia’s place, because “she regarded herself and Leticia as one” (212).
 * Charlotte bought a house in England under Leticia’s name where no one knew her, and she eventually let her two young cousins live with her, who had never seen her. So they thought of her as their Aunt Letty.
 * However, the first problem came when Dora Bunner asked “Letty” for help. Dora recognized Charlotte, but Charlotte managed to explain everything to her, and eventually Dora believed that Charlotte deserved some good in her life.
 * This is why Dora sometimes mistakenly called Letty “Lotty” (her nickname for Charlotte). This became a problem for Charlotte.
 * Even more of a problem developed when Rudi recognized her at the Royal Spa Hotel. He soon asked her for money.
 * Charlotte interpreted this as blackmail, and decided she needed to get rid of him. So, she staged the holdup.
 * She made the lights go off by dousing the cord with water from the vase. She later then switched the lamps, replacing the broken one with one that worked.
 * After the lights went off, she shot twice from the doorway to where she was supposed to be standing, then shot Rudi. She made her ear bleed to make it look like she was shot.
 * She killed Dora Bunner because she was becoming too much of a danger and was liable to accidentally let the truth slip out, that Letty was actually Lotty.
 * Dora died from taking the poisoned aspirin, and this made it look like someone was actually after Blacklock.
 * Murgatroyd needed to be killed after Charlotte heard her and Hinch discussing the murder. Murgatroyd reenacted the holdup in her head and realized that she never saw Leticia where she should have been.
 * The final clue came when Miss Marple compared letters of Leticia’s and of Charlotte’s, and realized that the spelling differed on some words, like “enquiries.” A woman would not change her spelling over time.
 * Miss Marple needed proof though, and with Fletcher and Mitzi’s help, exposed Miss Blacklock as the real culprit, even though Mitzi couldn’t actually see Miss Blacklock with the key in the keyhole.
 * With the story finished, Julia comments that Mitzi now has a job assisting the police.
 * Edmund comments that one of his plays has been accepted and will be produced.
 * The group talks about Rev. Harmon’s next sermon, and his wife acknowledges the cat’s role in solving the murder. After all, he “showed [them] how the lights went off” (229).