The Body in the Library (3/3)

For most of this final part, Miss Marple is out on a limb about a schoolgirl. Pamela Reeve's death has been written off as a sad footnote, but Miss Marple will not let it lie. She keeps saying the girl's death is the key to the double murder, and the people around her keep not hearing it. The death was treated as a footnote because it was convenient to treat it as one. The double murder has occupied everyone for two parts, and the schoolgirl has been collateral damage all along. Miss Marple does not believe in collateral damage.

The threads do snap into place in the end. The killer's identity is revealed, and the motive is produced, and the explanation feels thin on closer inspection. Christie was never above handing you a solution you could argue with, and this is one of those. It holds together, just about, and Miss Marple makes it hold. There are no new suspects and no new alibis; the case has shrunk to one question, and the answer has been sitting in the village all along.

Agatha Christie's story winds up with Joan Hickson as Miss Marple and no director listed in the records. The village gets its answers, the case closes, and the Bantrys get their library back. It is a quiet conclusion for a quiet affair. There are no courtroom fireworks and no last-minute confession; the explanation simply arrives, and the village accepts it because Miss Marple accepts it.

Not every Christie solution satisfies equally, and this one asks for patience. But the pleasure is in the watching: the quiet certainty Miss Marple brings to an idea everyone else has dismissed, and the small satisfaction of seeing her proved right. The three parts hold together as one story, and the final hour earns the patience the first two asked for.