Agatha Christie – A Murder Is Announced

‘That’s an odd description of a murderess,’ said Edmund.

‘I don’t know that it is,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Weak and kindly people are often very treacherous. And if they’ve got a grudge against life it saps the little moral strength that they may possess.

‘Letitia Blacklock, of course, had quite a different personality. Inspector Craddock told me that Belle Goedler described her as really good—and I think Letitia was good. She was a woman of great integrity who found—as she put it herself—a great difficulty in understanding how people couldn’t see what was dishonest. Letitia Blacklock, however tempted, would never have contemplated any kind of fraud for a moment.

‘Letitia was devoted to her sister. She wrote her long accounts of everything that happened in an effort to keep her sister in touch with life. She was worried by the morbid state Charlotte was getting into.

‘Finally Dr Blacklock died. Letitia, without hesitation, threw up her position with Randall Goedler and devoted herself to Charlotte. She took her to Switzerland, to consult authorities there on the possibility of operating. It had been left very late—but as we know the operation was successful. The deformity was gone—and the scar this operation had left was easily hidden by a choker of pearls or beads.

‘The war had broken out. A return to England was difficult and the two sisters stayed in Switzerland doing various Red Cross and other work. That’s right, isn’t it, Inspector?’

‘Yes, Miss Marple.’

‘They got occasional news from England—amongst other things, I expect, they heard that Belle Goedler could not live long. I’m sure it would be only human nature for them both to have planned and talked together of the days ahead when a big fortune would be theirs to spend. One has got to realize, I think, that this prospect meant much more to Charlotte than it did to Letitia. For the first time in her life, Charlotte could go about feeling herself a normal woman, a woman at whom no one looked with either repulsion or pity. She was free at last to enjoy life—and she had a whole lifetime, as it were, to crowd into her remaining years. To travel, to have a house and beautiful grounds—to have clothes and jewels, and go to plays and concerts, to gratify every whim—it was all a kind of fairy tale come true to Charlotte.

‘And then Letitia, the strong healthy Letitia, got flu which turned to pneumonia and died within the space of a week! Not only had Charlotte lost her sister, but the whole dream existence she had planned for herself was cancelled. I think, you know, that she may have felt almost resentful towards Letitia. Why need Letitia have died, just then, when they had just had a letter saying Belle Goedler could not last long? Just one more month, perhaps, and the money would have been Letitia’s—and hers when Letitia died…

‘Now this is where I think the difference between the two came in. Charlotte didn’t really feel that what she suddenly thought of doing was wrong—not really wrong. The money was meant to come to Letitia—it would have come to Letitia in the course of a few months—and she regarded herself and Letitia as one.

‘Perhaps the idea didn’t occur to her until the doctor or someone asked her her sister’s Christian name—and then she realized how to nearly everyone they had appeared as the two Miss Blacklocks—elderly, well-bred Englishwomen, dressed much the same, with a strong family resemblance—(and, as I pointed out to Bunch, one elderly woman is so like another). Why shouldn’t it be Charlotte who had died and Letitia who was alive?

‘It was an impulse, perhaps, more than a plan. Letitia was buried under Charlotte’s name. “Charlotte” was dead, “Letitia” came to England. All the natural initiative and energy, dormant for so many years, were now in the ascendant. As Charlotte she had played second fiddle. She now assumed the airs of command, the feeling of command that had been Letitia’s. They were not really so unlike in mentality—though there was, I think, a big difference morally.

‘Charlotte had, of course, to take one or two obvious precautions. She bought a house in a part of England quite unknown to her. The only people she had to avoid were a few people in her own native town in Cumberland (where in any case she’d lived as a recluse) and, of course, Belle Goedler who had known Letitia so well that any impersonation would have been out of the question. Handwriting difficulties were got over by the arthritic condition of her hands. It was really very easy because so few people had ever really known Charlotte.’