Evening+at+the+Vicarage

Chapter 23: Evening at the Vicarage
 * This chapter is the one you’ve been waiting for the whole book. The last chapter gave away the critical fact—that Miss Blacklock herself is the murderer. In this chapter, we get the juicy stuff. How exactly could Letitia have pulled it off?
 * For starters, “Miss Blacklock” was not Letitia Blacklock—she was Letitia’s sister, Charlotte (but you knew that from the last chapter).
 * Now, the group consisting of Craddock, Marple, and the rest discusses how they came to that realization.
 * They realize that Miss Blacklock was the “ideal person” to have staged the holdup (209). She knew Rudi Scherz and no one else did.
 * Only she could have arranged for central heating to be on, instead of a fire. Fires produce light, which would have busted the holdup gimmick.
 * But why did Blacklock want to kill Rudi? Well, Rudi was present in Switzerland while Charlotte was getting her goiter operation. That is to say, Rudi recognized Charlotte //as Charlotte//, not just as one of the Blacklock sisters.
 * Thus, Rudi was a threat to the security of Charlotte’s identity theft plan. What logical thing to do other than plan to kill him? Charlotte contacted Rudi, and Rudi took the bait—and the bullet.
 * The group then examines further into Charlotte’s childhood. She had developed goiter (a swelling of the thyroid) at a relatively young age.
 * Her father, an “old-fashioned, narrow-minded, tyrannical, and obstinate” doctor, insisted that surgery would not work and that Charlotte must live her life taking medicine and being inferior (209). Who wouldn’t like that, right?
 * However, when Dr. Blacklock died, Letitia (the real Letitia) went with Charlotte to Switzerland for Charlotte’s surgery. This is where Charlotte meets Rudi. The operation was successful, and the scar could be hidden by, say, a “choker of pearls or beads” (212). Sound familiar?
 * The war broke out, and the Blacklock sisters were stuck in Switzerland during the fighting.
 * While living there, the sisters learned that Belle Goedler was close to death. They realized that after her death, the fortune would turn to the sisters (specifically Letitia).
 * Letitia, normally the “strong healthy” sister, threw a wrench in the spokes by catching pneumonia and dying—now the money would skip over her, to Pip and Emma, after Belle’s death (212).
 * Thanks to “strong family resemblance,” Charlotte decided to bury Letitia in Charlotte’s name and pass as Letitia herself (213). Confusing, right? No more second fiddle for her.
 * Charlotte buys a house in a random part of rural England (Clipping Cleghorn) with the hopes that no one will recognize her. Not many people knew Charlotte, anyway.
 * If someone notices that she looks different, they will likely just assume she has changed with age. Her only danger was “recognition as //Charlotte//” (213).
 * Charlotte accepted two cousins, people she had never met and who had never met her, to live with her. That made the whole ruse more believable.
 * Charlotte received Dora Bunner’s letter and took pity on her, taking her in. However, Bunny had known both sisters, so there was no way to pretend to be Letitia with her.
 * Unfortunately, Bunny was old and couldn’t quite keep things straight. Bunny always knew the sisters by nicknames; Letitia was “Letty” and Charlotte was “Lotty” (214). As it turns out, all of those times early in the book when she said “Lotty” instead of “Letty,” she was accidentally referring to the **//correct//** sister.
 * Then, everything took a murderous turn when Rudi Scherz recognized Charlotte at the spa. He was a real problem—a sane, non-senile person who knew her specifically as Charlotte.
 * Rudi kept asking Charlotte for money. Rudi didn’t realize the importance, but to Charlotte, the money was “keeping him quiet” about the Letty/Lotty secret, a form of “insidious blackmail” (215).
 * Charlotte planned the hold-up and executed it (and Rudi) perfectly.
 * She let Rudi in
 * She frayed the lamp wire so that when she poured out the vase, (remember the dead violets?) the fuse would burn out.
 * She lamps were switched the next day (from the “shepherd” to the “shepherdess.”)
 * She snuck around and through the oiled second door.
 * She shot at the spot where everyone though she was standing.
 * She nicked her ear to make it all seem real.
 * Charlotte recognized Phillipa as Emma because she looked like a young Sonia Goedler.
 * Charlotte finally decided she had to kill the increasingly absent-minded Dora. She made Dora’s last day as comfortable as possible.
 * With the poisoned aspirin seemingly meant for Letitia/Charlotte, Charlotte was free of suspicion.
 * Charlotte felt really bad about killing her friend, but not bad enough to not do it.
 * Charlotte overheard Miss Murgatroyd, and realized that Murgatroyd’s angle of vision would have allowed her to solve the case. Charlotte hastily strangled her before she could get word out.
 * The group discusses the fact that Charlotte, as she said, “didn’t want to kill anybody” (223). She was, however, willing to go to unreasonable lengths to acquire an inheritance that wasn’t hers.
 * With the above clues in place, Miss Marple decided she had to do something. She and Sergeant Fletcher came up with a plan.
 * As the plan went, Mitzi burst in at the right time claiming to have seen Miss Blackwood with the revolver. Even though Mitzi did not actually see it, that event **//did//** take place. Craddock, playing his part, pretended to be skeptical and diverted the discussion away from Mitzi’s statement.
 * At that point, Charlotte thought that her only danger was Mitzi. She took Mitzi into the kitchen and tried to kill her, as the Detectives knew she would.
 * Fletcher and Miss Marple popped out from their hiding places for the big “gotcha” moment, with Miss Marple imitating Bunny’s voice to drive Charlotte extra crazy.
 * With Letitia dead (she actually died before the book started), the Goedler fortune went to Pip (Phillipa) and Emma (Julia).
 * Phillipa and Edmund lived happily ever after together (with Phillipa now very rich).

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