#67 – Third Girl

A young woman comes to consult Hercule Poirot because she might have committed a murder but on meeting him face to face decides that he is “too old” and leaves hurriedly without saying any more.

So he is feeling sorry for himself when crime writer Ariadne Oliver calls him to invite him to speak at the annual dinner of the Detective Authors’ Club. To cheer him up she invites him round for a hot chocolate and they discover that it was she who pointed the girl, Norma Restarick, in his direction.

Soon they find that she has disappeared, so they embark on a double quest to find her and a murder against a backdrop of Sixties London.

I thought I knew who the murderer was from a previous read and so when I spotted some of the clues I thought they were the red herrings being laid on a little bit thick. There are a lot of classic Christie elements and it was fun seeing Mrs Oliver try her hand at shadowing a suspect but overall the atmosphere was wrong and the killer could have achieved their aim in a much less risky fashion.

Recurring Character Development

Hercule Poirot

Has changed his bakery of choice to a local Danish patisserie.

Has just seen his Magnum Opus, “an analysis of great writers of detective fiction”, through publication. This may have come out of the reading he was doing in “The Clocks”.

He reads “The Times” but only the births, deaths, and marriages and such articles as he finds of interest.

Doesn’t normally pick up hitchhikers.

Ariadne Oliver

Has changed her hairstyle and her wallpaper – the tropical birds are out and cherries are in.

Does not really like alcoholic drinks.

Has now written forty-three books.

Signs of the Times

Mrs Oliver thinks of a number of songs as she tries to recall Norma’s name. “Speak to me, Thora” is from the 1905 song “Thora” by Fred E. Weatherly and Stephen Adams. “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls” or “The Gipsy Girl’s Dream” is an aria from the 1843 opera by Michael William Balfe and Alfred Bunn.

The cleaner of number 67 refers to David Baker as “one of these Mods by all accounts”. The mod subculture took its name from “modernists” as it began with those who liked modernist jazz in the late 1950s.

References to previous works

Although Poirot makes up his acquaintance with Sir Roderick, the stories he tells of WWII may have a basis in reality – he may have had some unofficial rôle in Intelligence. He mentions Colonel Race who he last met in “Death on the Nile” and Giraud, which may be a reference to his rival from “The Murder on the Links”.

Chief Inspector Neele appears in this book – could he be a promoted Inspector Neele who appeared alongside Miss Marple in “A Pocket Full of Rye”?

 

#67 – Third Girl – WITH SPOILERS

A young woman comes to consult Hercule Poirot because she might have committed a murder but on meeting him face to face decides that he is “too old” and leaves hurriedly without saying any more.

So he is feeling sorry for himself when crime writer Ariadne Oliver calls him to invite him to speak at the annual dinner of the Detective Authors’ Club. To cheer him up she invites him round for a hot chocolate and they discover that it was she who pointed the girl, Norma Restarick, in his direction.

Soon they find that she has disappeared, so they embark on a double quest to find her and a murder against a backdrop of Sixties London.

I thought I knew who the murderer was from a previous read and so when I spotted some of the clues I thought they were the red herrings being laid on a little bit thick. There are a lot of classic Christie elements and it was fun seeing Mrs Oliver try her hand at shadowing a suspect but overall the atmosphere was wrong and the killer could have achieved their aim in a much less risky fashion.

Recurring Character Development

Hercule Poirot

Has changed his bakery of choice to a local Danish patisserie.

Has just seen his Magnum Opus, “an analysis of great writers of detective fiction”, through publication. This may have come out of the reading he was doing in “The Clocks”.

He reads “The Times” but only the births, deaths, and marriages and such articles as he finds of interest.

Doesn’t normally pick up hitchhikers.

Ariadne Oliver

Has changed her hairstyle and her wallpaper – the tropical birds are out and cherries are in.

Does not really like alcoholic drinks.

Has now written forty-three books.

Signs of the Times

Mrs Oliver thinks of a number of songs as she tries to recall Norma’s name. “Speak to me, Thora” is from the 1905 song “Thora” by Fred E. Weatherly and Stephen Adams. “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls” or “The Gipsy Girl’s Dream” is an aria from the 1843 opera by Michael William Balfe and Alfred Bunn.

The cleaner of number 67 refers to David Baker as “one of these Mods by all accounts”. The mod subculture took its name from “modernists” as it began with those who liked modernist jazz in the late 1950s.

References to previous works

Although Poirot makes up his acquaintance with Sir Roderick, the stories he tells of WWII may have a basis in reality – he may have had some unofficial rôle in Intelligence. He mentions Colonel Race who he last met in “Death on the Nile” and Giraud, which may be a reference to his rival from “The Murder on the Links”.

Chief Inspector Neele appears in this book – could he be a promoted Inspector Neele who appeared alongside Miss Marple in “A Pocket Full of Rye”?

SPOILERS

My faulty memory told me it was Frances/Mary and David who were working together so I was surprised when he wound up dead and so all the stuff that pointed at Andrew being a fake I dismissed as red herrings.  The trick with using a fake painting to support an imposter’s claim is good but I’ve seen it before in a much earlier short story.

The main question is why the murderers were determined to frame Norma? The first murder was easily passed off as suicide and after that Frances could have killed David and then just disappeared back into her Mary persona which to me leaves much less to chance than drugging someone in the hope they will believe they killed someone.

Asimov’s Mysteries (1968) by Isaac Asimov

“You should never judge a book by its cover” is the old adage, and this volume gives weight to that argument. I’ve no idea what it is supposed to represent but I think this edition was published at a time when Isaac Asimov was science-fiction and so as long as it said “Asimov” on the cover, it didn’t matter what else was on there.

Following the success of his futuristic detective novel The Caves of Steel, Asimov wanted to demonstrate that short-form sci-fi mysteries were also possible and so penned the following thirteen short stories between 1955 and 1967.

The Singing Bell

This inverted mystery shows master criminal Louis Peyton committing the first murder on the Moon. His non-alibi seems unbreakable until the case is brought before Dr. Wendell Urth, an extraterrologist, who eschews all forms of transport except walking, and consequently never leaves the university campus, let alone Earth.

I love the simplicity of the way in which Urth proves the case against Peyton and this is one of the few solutions that I remembered from a previous reading.

The Talking Stone

Wendell Urth has to find a hidden treasure in the asteroid but without a map to guide him.

What’s in a Name?

One of the “Twin” Librarians made the coffee for both of them and then one of them died – but was it suicide or murder?

The Dying Night

Villiers was the best in his class but a bout of rheumatic fever left him unable to go into space. Despite being Earthbound he claims to have out done his former classmates. Which of them has stolen his research?

Pâté de Foie Gras

A shaggy dog story – feel free to skip this one.

The Dust of Death

Everyone wants to kill Llewes but only Edmund Farley actually puts his feelings into action. This is similar to some of the Inspector French short stories where a minor error on the part of the killer proves fatal, as once observed, it gives the investigator a starting point that ultimately leads to the truth coming out.

A Loint of Paw

A two page joke but one which raises an interesting philosophical question.

I’m in Marsport without Hilda

Galactic Service Agent Max has planned an illicit liaison in the fleshpots of Marsport when he is recalled to duty to deal with an urgent matter. Can he identify the VIP smuggler in time to keep his date?

Marooned off Vesta & Anniversary

The first of these stories, as explained in Asimov’s linking material, was the first of his stories that was ever published. He was asked to write a sequel twenty years later to mark the occasion. This reduces the tension somewhat in the first part where three men have to figure out how to survive the aftermath of an asteroid strike as we know that at least two of them must make it through.

The second story is the actual mystery and features Multivac, which is effectively the internet, thirty years before it was invented.

Obituary

A previously unsuccessful scientist finds a way to read his own obituary and achieve scientific immortality. But is he doomed to fail once again?

Star Light

Brennmeyer had planned the perfect crime for thirty years – what could possibly go wrong?

The Key

Karl Jennings is dying but manages to hide an alien artifact from his killer. H. Seton Davenport eventually realises what half Jennings’ final message means and takes it to someone else to decipher the remainder. 

This feels quite like a Black Widowers tales which often involve messages or symbols with multiple possible meanings, which only make sense when looked at from the right angle.

The Billiard Ball

James Priss has two Nobel prizes but Ed Bloom has millions of pounds. When the latter tries to publicly humiliate the former no one is prepared for what happens next.

It’s a brilliant idea with a great final line but on re-reading I feel Asimov should have tweaked the first few paragraphs and better hidden the ultimate point of the story.

Summary

Not all the stories were quite as good as I remembered but there is enough here to satisfy both sci-fi and mystery fans and secondhand copies are easily and cheaply available. The linking material provided by Asimov is entertaining and shows how later discoveries can impact on a story – see also “Strong Poison” by Dorothy L. Sayers – and how consistency between stories involving the same characters can be quite difficult.

I re-read this in preparation for reading “Future Crimes”, the latest anthology in the British Library Science Fiction Classics. A review of that book will appear at some point soon.

Sherlockian Shorts #4 – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Part 2

A series of posts, containing full spoilers, as I make my way once more through the complete canon, picking out points of interest and reflecting on my personal experience of the stories.

The Boscombe Valley Mystery

• The famous deerstalker hat appears for the first time!
• Lestrade is described as “a lean, ferret-like man, furtive and sly-looking” which Agatha Christie later borrowed for Inspector Japp “a little, sharp, dark, ferret-faced man”.
• Shouting “Cooee” marks someone out as being Australian – something also used by Christie in “Peril at End House”.
• Watson ends by saying “there is every prospect that the son and daughter may come to live happily together in ignorance of the black cloud which rests upon the past”. Hopefully they don’t read the Strand Magazine then!

The Five Orange Pips

• Holmes, by his own admission “has been beaten four times – three times by men, and once by a woman” but Watson’s comments at the start of the story would imply more occasions than these.
• This opening sets the scene for another failure. Whilst Holmes cleverly deduces that the interval between the threatening letter being received and the threat being carried out points to a particular boat, he allows his client to return home and be killed. It is unclear to me why anyone, especially Doyle himself, should include this in their Top 12 Sherlock Holmes stories.

The Man with the Twisted Lip

• Watson’s wife refers to him as “James” when his name is “John”!
• Despite Holmes often deploring Watson’s narratives he likes them really as he says “a trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so”.
• If St Clair hadn’t cried out in surprise upon seeing his wife she would never have noticed him. The moral of the story is to keep your cool.

Previous posts in this series:

#1 – A Study in Scarlet

#2 – The Sign of the Four

#3 -A Scandal in Bohemia, The Red-Headed League, and A Case of Identity