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"True to the precepts handed down to her by her mother and grandmother—to wit: that a true lady can neither be shocked nor surprised—Miss Marple merely raised her eyebrows and shook her head,” - 4.50 from Paddington
The Sum of It:
I have been WAITING FOR AGES for it to be time to read this one, because I love, love, love the "Agatha Christie's Marple" version, and the book totally lived up to it. Eek! Ok, so, summary.
Miss Marple's friend, Mrs. McGillicuddy, is riding the train to visit her pal after doing some Christmas shopping in London. As she gazes out the window at another train traveling past, well, honestly I want to let Agatha explain it because I was pretty struck with what a beautiful job she does describing the scene, from the motion of the trains to the suddenness of the murder scene:
"For a time the two trains ran parallel, now one gaining a little, now the other. Mrs. McGillicuddy looked from her window through the windows of the parallel carriages. Most of the blinds were down, but occasionally the occupants of the carriages were visible. The other train was not very full and there were many empty carriages.
At the moment when the two trains gave the illusion of being stationary, a blind in one of the carriages flew up with a snap. Mrs. McGillicuddy looked into the lighted first-class carriage that was only a few feet away.
Then she drew her breath in with a gasp and half-rose to her feet."
What she saw was a #MURDER taking place in the opposite train! She could only see the back of a man with dark hair as he straight-up strangled the life out of some poor blonde lady in a light-colored fur coat. After she regains her senses, she reports it to the ticket guy, who is like "yeah sure, crazy old lady" but says he'll tell the railroad. When she gets to Miss Marple's house, she is quite shaken up, and Miss Marple insists on some booze to ease her nerves as they discuss. They go to bed, figuring they'll read all about it in the paper the next day, only...crickets. "WTF?!" they say, and go to the police who are like nope, no dead ladies on the train or by the tracks, maybe he was just play-strangling her but really she wasn't dead [sounds like a suggestion a certain presidential candidate might make in a similar circumstance, "Oh what she's fine we were just PLAY strangling" #lockerroom]
ANYWAYS both Miss M and her pal Mrs. M are kind of distraught because they know it's true. SO Miss Marple rides the train a million times, figures out the only spot a body could have been dumped, then calls up a very clever and resourceful young lady she knows, Miss Lucy Eyelesbarrow, and is like "yo, wanna get yourself hired at this big estate so you can help me find a dead body?" Naturally Lucy is like yah that sounds like a blast, I'm in, and gets to work with the Crackenthorpes, a clan of eccentric richies who own the only spot of land where the body could have been tossed. In addition to cooking lots of things, tending to children, and putting up with marriage proposals from literally every single male in the family, she does her assigned detecting and finds the body in an old sarcophagus in a barn. But at that point, the plot only thickens! Who is it? Why she ded? Who did the murdering? Only Lucy, Miss Marple, and Miss Marple's handsome Scotland Yard pal, Inspector Craddock, can figure it out.
The YOA Treatment:
This one is soooooooooooooo delightful, team. It's been a bit since I've read a truly delightful one (have had some that were adequate, just not like, YAY) and so I really enjoyed 4.50 from Paddington. For one thing, the concept is great. I often look over at people on other subway trains, or in other cabs, and wonder what's going on over there. I love how Agatha sets the scene for a drowsy Mrs. McGillicuddy, just chillin on the train, to all the sudden see something very scary an unexpected. You can almost see her, Ariadne Oliver-style, walking around and thinking to herself about what would happen if you saw someone get murdered on another train and then the police said there was no evidence of a murder on the train when they checked it out. So interesting to consider, and Miss Marple is the best character to just quietly ride the train, trying to figure it out, then enlist some other folks to do the real heavy poking around once she gets the story straight. It is clever, and the plot trips along nicely.
Another thing I truly love about this story, both in book and television version, is the character of Lucy Eyelesbarrow. In her, Agatha creates a clever and intuitive young lady sleuth, but one who is quite different from the plucky, bon-mot slinging young, Katharine Hepburn-in-Bringing-Up-Baby-style heroines of books like The Secret Adversary, The Man in the Brown Suit, or The Seven Dials Mystery. Lucy is 32, a bit older than these other characters, and though she is bright, attractive, and clever, she's a little more mature and thoughtful in how she goes about things, maybe more of a Hepburn-in-Philadelphia-Story style lady. She manages the home brilliantly, but Agatha also made sure to give her a mathematics degree from Oxford, and she constantly gets proposed to, but seems to mostly just roll her eyes. I really enjoyed reading this character, and how she interacted with the other great characters in the story, of which there are many! The Crackenthorpe family is full of colorful characters, from artistic, Hemingway-style brother Cedric to the cranky family patriarch who is mostly just annoyed that everyone wants his money, and it was lovely to meet all of them and wonder who might be the culprit!
This one is quite clever, mystery-wise, but it's also just a truly enjoyable read. Definitely going on my list of key Agatha's to recommend. Go get a copy!
- E.
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