Year: 1991 (1957)
Publisher: Bonniers
Language: Swedish (translator Britte-Marie Bergström)
It is
generally accepted that the first female detective in (English) literature was the
sagacious and thrifty but nowadays largely forgotten Mrs Gladden in Andrew
Forrester’s 1864 novel “The Female Detective”. Since then, several writers have
introduced the world to a wealth of memorable female sleuths, agents, and
heroines such as Nancy Drew, Modesty Blaise, Precious Ramotswe, and Lisbeth
Salander.
One of the
most notable contributions to this illustrious roster was made by the Queen of
Mystery herself, Dame Agatha Christie, in the form of Miss Jane Marple across a
series of short stories and twelve novels, one of which is the present “4.50
from Paddington”.
The tale
opens with Mrs Elspeth McGillicuddy dozing off on a train from London to the
hamlet of St Mary Mead where she is to visit her good friend, the aforementioned
Miss Marple. She wakes up just in time to witness a murder take place on a
passing train running in the same direction on parallel tracks. She promptly
reports her observation to the authorities which launch a cursory investigation
into the matter, only to conclude that Mrs McGillicuddy must have been
mistaken. No dead body was found and no one had been reported missing. This might
have been the end of it if it had not been for the inquisitive mind of Miss
Marple’s.
I was very
much surprised by the passive and subordinated role the famous detective plays
in the story, however. After having concluded that Mrs McGillicuddy’s observation must have been accurate, Christie locks Miss Marple up in a rented room in a nearby village
citing poor health, and dispatches the only eyewitness all the way to Sri Lanka.
In their stead, the legwork is done by 32-year old math prodigy turned
housekeeper; Lucy Eylesbarrow. Miss Marple returns to action toward the end of the
story where she bets everything on one card when finally exposing the murderer
in an all but sure-fire final confrontation.
In many
ways, “4.50 from Paddington” constitutes a classical whodunit similar to so
many others from the golden age of British detective fiction but there is no
denying that the genre was already considered out of fashion by the time
Christie wrote it. I seem to pick up on one or two indications that the writer
might have been aware of this and was perhaps preparing for Miss Marple’s
retirement. I get a feeling that she was experimenting with the Lucy-character
and gauging the waters for a young and spirited new heroine. It would certainly
explain Miss Marple’s modest participation in solving the crime. Still, as far
as I have been able to discern, this novel was to be Lucy’s only appearance,
whereas Miss Marple would thrive for another 19 years (the last Miss Marple
mystery, “Sleeping Murders” was published in 1976, the same year Agatha
Christie passed away).
Seeing as
this is merely the second novel by Agatha Christie that I have ever read (the first
being “Death on the Nile”, featuring Hercule Poirot, when I was seventeen) am
not qualified to pass judgment on how this novel measures up to the rest of Christie’s
output, or to comment on the evolution of the Miss Marple character, but I was
struck by the focus and taciturnity with which Christie tells her story. My
Swedish copy is a mere 209 pages. A modern crime story would be twice that
long. Not because the mystery would be more complex but because of the
characters. In modern writing, it seems to me, that the writer is obsessed with
the private lives of the characters. Every dirty, embarrassing, troubling, and
disgusting detail about the hero and the villain needs to be relished in. If
Christie had followed the modern guidelines, while solving the murder mystery Miss Marple would spend half of the book trying to reconnect with her long-lost
illegitimate daughter, detective-inspector Craddock would be battling his
alcohol addiction and try to patch things up with his wife, and Lucy Eylesbarrow
would try to seek revenge on the stern director who routinely abused her as a child at the orphanage where she grew up.
Much to my
delight, none of this encumbers “4.50 from Paddington”. This is quite simply a
classical, albeit slightly outdated, murder mystery.
