By the Pricking of My Thumbs

 

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

Synopsis:  Tommy and Tuppence meet with Tommy's Aunt Ada in the Sunny Ridge Nursing home, where Tommy solves crosswords with Ada and Tuppence meets with the local residents.  This includes Mrs Lancaster, who asks cryptic questions about "the poor dead child."  Later, with Tommy out of the country, Tuppence learns that Aunt Ada has died and that Mrs Lancaster was hustled out of the nursing home in the dead of night.  Among Aunt Ada's things, now transferred to Tommy as next of kin, was an unusual painting.  In the back of the painting was a letter written by Aunt Ada, suggesting that something evil was happening at the nursing home, and that Tommy should look for her murderer.  Returning to investigate, Tuppence meets Miss Marple and together they begin to track down the clues present in the painting

They discover that the original painting was altered with a few additions.  They identify the location of the cottage depicted in the painting and meet the local residents who all seem hesitant and evasive when asked about the cottage.  Eventually, the whole story comes out, that a local girl, Lily Waters, was abducted as a small child, and her body was found two weeks later.  A local boy was accused of the abduction and he later hanged himself.  One by one, the clues added to the painting began to makes sense until they began to point to the wife of the local lord who had purchased a manor and was spending his money on the village children.    With Tuppence and Marple on the case, they unravel the mystery that happened 22 years ago, in that Sir Phillip Stark and his wife, Julia, lost a child.  In her grief, the wife of the manor went mad and abducted the missing Lily Waters.  When her husband learned what had happened, using the organizational skills of Nellie Bligh, he packed her off to a nursing home to keep her out of trouble.  However, she couldn't help but ramble on about her past and eventually Aunt Ada began to put the pieces together.  It was then that the mad wife poisoned Ada. 

Nellie, using Stark's car, was the one who picked her up from Sunny Ridge and brought her back to Stark's manor, keeping her out of sight in the children's bungalow that was captured in the painting.  Eventually, the Vicar decided that he could no longer keep quiet and forced a confrontation and confession, while Tuppence used the diversion to go through Nellie's desk at the manor.  What she discovered, however, was the actual presence of Mrs. Lancaster, or Julia Stark.  Julia attempted to poison Tuppence, as she had Ada and Nellie, but Tuppence fought her off and a full confession was extracted.

 

Questions:

Why did Mrs. Lancaster give Ada the painting?  This was the main clue that pointed everyone to the village, Ferrell St. Edmund. And her eventual discovery and guilt.

Who altered the painting with the telltale rope and roses and so forth?

Miss Marple suggests that Mrs. Lancaster added the clues herself.  But if so, then why?  She couldn't bear to live with the secret.

 Was there an actual child behind the fireplace?  Yes, Mrs. Lancaster abducted Rose and kept her at the cottage, but we are never actually shown the fireplace, nor how anyone could have been hidden behind it.

The Cast

The Doctor:  Doctor Waters, the father of Rose and Lily.

The Vicar,  The Reverend Septimus Bligh

The Loving Wife:   Nellie Bligh to the Vicar.  We see her bringing him food, taking care of the church.  Later we learn that Nellie is estranged from Septimus and has become emotionally attached to Phillip Stark.

The Efficient Professional:  Nellie Bligh to Sir Phillip.  It is she who actually arranges for Julia Stark, AKA Mrs. Lancaster, to be kept at Sunny Ridge.

The Energetic Young Woman:  the inn keeper Miss Hannah Beresford.

The Housekeeper; the Matron, Miss Packard, running the Sunny Ridge nursing home. It's tempting to put her as the Nurse, or as the Efficient Professional, because she is both.  But she also functions as the Housekeeper:  familiar with family secrets, sees the private comings and goings of the residents.  And she earns a clean review from Miss Marple.

The Time Gap:  Rose and Lily Waters as children.  The other element is the mysterious family of the Warrenders.  These were the ones who owned the manor house up until the 1920s when they died out, apparently due to inbreeding and genetic defect.  However, the one remaining member of the Warrender family was Julia Warrender, whom Sir Phillip Stark married and she became Julia Stark, now referred to as Mrs Lancaster or Mrs York.

The Ominous Event.  As a child, Lily was abducted in the pre-gap time and she turned up dead after two weeks.  The village pointed the finger at a hapless, slightly inbred young man, who was innocent but eventually hanged himself from the shame. At the same time, the wife of Sir Phillip gave birth to a stillborn child, and later apparently died of grief, not too much later.  The event caused great trouble for the village. It ruined the career of the Vicar for example, and the aspirations of the local lord, Sir Phillip.  People avoided the village due to the notoriety, turning it into an isolated hamlet that Tuppence and Miss Marple have trouble locating even with a map.

The Batty Eccentric.  Mrs. Lancaster, obviously.   We also could point a finger at many of the residents of Sunny Ridge.   And, Alice Perry who goes around dressed up as a witch ever since she did a play at the village hall.  Alice is Amos' mother but also the mother of Job, the simple-minded boy accused of murdering Lily. 

The Industrialist:  Sir Phillip Stark gained immense wealth through mining and came to the village to buy the "manor house".  Having "lost" his wife and child he is involved with the village in other ways.

The Daughter:  poor Lily who was killed in the former time.  She is the classic young girl who died tragically, which cast a shadow over the village for over 20 years.

 The Legal mind:  the shady solicitor whom Nellie and Stark employ to handle the financial arrangements of Mrs Lancaster's bills. 

The Rake:  the American serviceman, Chris Murphy, who has won the heart of the local darling, Rose Waters (and gotten her pregnant). 

The Rival:  the local bobby, Ethan.

The Temptrix:  Rose Waters, who became pregnant with the American and is now enticing the Constable to marry her to take care of her baby, though Ethan does not know she is pregnant.

The India Connection:  While a resident in Sunny Ridge, Mrs Lancaster was taken away in the dead of night by her relatives from "Africa", Mr and Mrs Johnson.  In actuality, there were no relatives in Africa, it was all an elaborate fiction concocted by Sir Philip and Nellie and the Solicitor.  However, the explanation is presented as completely believable and commonplace.