"The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side" by Agatha Christie

A masterpiece. Not literature. It isn't meant to be. It is a puzzle.

Were I judging this in the same way as other books I would note the two-dimensionality of the characters (some of them paper-thin marionettes), the weaknesses of the plot (two characters intimately connected with the distant past of the supposed murder victim just happen to be within a few yards of her when the murder is committed; exactly how did the butler die?) and the overall lack of verisimilitude. But this isn't meant to be read like this. It is a barebones murder mystery, intended to bamboozle the reader, and as such it is a masterpiece.

I've read it before (I think I've read Miss Christie's entire oeuvre). I've seen the film at least once. But I had to read it again for the Grove Book Club before watching a stage performance at the Grove Theatre, Eastbourne so I thought I'd try reading it from the back, first reminding myself of the murderer, the means, the motive and the opportunity and then seeing how the author dropped clues and/or misled us.

I hadn't realised how much we are told, clearly, how the crime was committed, why, and by whom.

Everything else after this is a spoiler.

The victim is a Heather Badcock. Why was she killed? The first time the Mrs B encounters Miss Marple (Ch 2), our classic amateur detective, she tells her the story which will provide the motive. Miss Marple then tells her that she reminds her of someone who “always saw her own point of view so clearly that she didn’t always see how things might appear to, or affect, other people.” This person then died. The foreshadowing is blatant.

The actual death occurs just before the 25% turning point. It is reported to Miss Marple by her cleaner, Cherry. "Heather Badcock's kind all right ... Overkind, some people say. They call it interfering. Well, anyway, she up and died." (Ch 6) We are reminded of the character of the victim immediately before we hear of her death. Then, exactly at the 25% mark, to the page, Miss Marple’s very first discussion with her policeman nephew contains these lines: “Supposing you went into a shop, say, and you knew the proprietress had a son who was the spivvy young juvenile delinquent type. He was there listening while you told his mother about some money you had in the house, or some silver or a piece of jewellery. It was something you were excited and pleased about and you wanted to talk about it. And you also perhaps mention and even that you were going out. you even say that you never lock the house. You're interested in what you're saying, what you're telling her, because it's so very much in your mind. And then, say, on that particular evening you come home because you’ve forgotten something and there's this bad lot of a boy in your house, caught in the act, and he turns around and coshes you.” (Ch 6.2) The motive has been nailed down ... but immediately Miss C blows smoke into our eyes with an alternative theory: “I wondered if it might have been the wrong murder”. (Ch 6) This leads to considering the people that Marina might have seen over Mrs Badcock’s shoulder ... and we have a list of suspects. The usual detective inquiry proceeds.

Now we focus on the means and the opportunity. Mr Badcock remembers that Mrs B’s elbow was jogged so she spilt her cocktail all over her dress and that Marina gave Mrs B her untouched glass BUT this is framed by the detective (and therefore the reader) as the way in which the ‘wrong’ murder was committed. This 'wrong murder' theory swells. Marina herself gets in on the ‘wrong murder act’ in chapter 9.2 Jason Rudd tells the detective about Mrs B having flu when she met his wife years ago ... and within a page he ‘accepts’ the theory advanced for him that the intended victim was his wife “you’re quite right, Chief Inspector, I have been sure of it all along.” (Ch 10) The climax comes a page before the 50% mark when Inspector Craddock tells Miss Marple “I think the intended victim was Marina Gregg” and Miss Marple replies “that would seem almost certain, wouldn't it?” (Ch 12) The red herring has now been sanctified. And a red herring suspect is immediately introduced in the shaped of Marina’s adopted children, having dismissed the biological child (the actual motive) a paragraph before.

Now we spend several chapters running the red herrings in the form of blackmailers and further deaths. It is assumed that these are further poorly aimed attempts to kill Marina although soon we are reminded that Heather Badcock was “a woman who invariably talked about herself.” (Ch 14)

The next real clue comes from Gladys in Ch 16 just before the 75% turning point. She says that it was “funny” because “when she spilt the cocktail ... I’m almost sure she did it on purpose.” This is a masterful piece of misdirection because the ‘she’ and the ‘she’ are intended to be different people. This might be unfair of Agatha if she hadn’t already, several times, referred us to the problem of people misusing pronouns (when the carer keeps calling Miss Marple ‘we’). We are told in three pages (exactly at the 75% mark) that some one must have seen the murder being committed although the Inspector is referring to adding the drug to the cocktail glass. And on the next page one of the detectives says “All right ... The moron saw it, the moron didn’t grasp what the action meant.” Rather rude about Gladys but nevertheless ...

But the very final piece of evidence doesn’t come till the chapter before the denouement when Miss Marple is told that Heather Badcock covered up her illness with face powder, so it wouldn’t have been whooping cough. The page before the local doctor had talked about “real doctoring. Eight to ten cases of German measles, half a dozen whooping coughs, and a suspected scarlet fever.” (Ch 22)

I am utterly impressed by the way Agatha Christie hides her clues in plain sight while misdirecting masterfully. A classic of the genre.

Selected quotes:

“Old Laycock then displayed his particular genius which was that of enthusiastic agreement and subsequent lack of performance.” (Ch 1)

October 2024; 224 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God