Sleight of hand?

Motive v. Opportunity: A Miss Marple Short Story by Agatha Christie

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This Miss Marple short story is entertaining if a little lacking in a couple of respects – namely, that the eminent spinster does not really play much of a part and that the author employs a cheat which, after considering such as a possible explanation, I roundly dismissed as too audacious!

Nonetheless, it is a satisfying cozy puzzle, well-constructed, featuring an account related by a lawyer to a group of fireside listeners (Miss Marple among them), of an elderly gentleman prompted to disinherit his family in favour of a disreputable spiritual medium who takes advantage of his loss of a child.

On his death bed he alters his will, and in the brief interregnum between the lawyer conveying it to the safe in his office, several members of the household might have gained access to the envelope in his jacket pocket.

When it comes to the opening of the revised will, the envelope contains a blank page!

Whodunit? Miss Marple swiftly references an errant schoolboy from St Mary Mead, citing his personality for comparison to that of the likely perpetrator. She hands a folded note to the lawyer with the name she suspects.

Of course, she will be right, but one must read (or listen) to the tale to find out.




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