A Pocket Full of Rye

The chapter opens from the perspective of Vivian. Adele has been calling him incessantly and has now left a letter at his hotel, and he is terrified of any evidence of their affair becoming public. He reluctantly takes Adele’s call, listening to her complain about the police. He makes her promise to avoid contacting him for now and reminds her that she promised to burn his letters. Adele insists that she has done so. Vivian frets, worried that the letters are in some way incriminating. He decides that he should sneak into the house to intercept them.

The third-person perspective shifts to Miss Dove as she sees a man walking in the garden. From a distance, she assumes that this is Lance. She finds Gladys in the hall and asks about a recent phone call. Gladys insists that the last call was a mistake, and before that, Vivian called for Adele. Miss Dove notices that she seems excitable and tells her to bring in the family’s afternoon tea. Gladys, petulant and preoccupied with her own concerns, decides not to cut sandwiches but prepares bread, butter, and honey. A sound distracts her.

The narrative switches back to Miss Dove, who has noticed that Glady never brought the teatime meal in. Miss Dove brings in the tray in response to Adele’s impatient request. The doorbell rings, and Miss Dove is surprised to meet Lance, as she assumed that he had already arrived. She is immediately struck by his good looks.

At tea, Adele complains of the police’s suspicion of the family and notices that Lance has left Pat behind. He asks for cake rather than answering Elaine’s question about whether he fears for his wife’s safety at Yewtree Lodge. Lance asks if Miss Ramsbottom is still alive, and the others say that she is, though Jennifer worries about her mental health. He then asks about Miss Dove, struck by her appearance and implying that she has hidden depths. The others assure him that she is an indispensable employee.

Lance is visiting Miss Ramsbottom, who begrudgingly compliments him on his practical decision to leave Pat behind for her safety. Miss Ramsbottom, like Ellen, suspects Adele of murdering Rex due to her affair with Vivian. Lance takes a particular interest in his aunt’s insistence that Gladys has some insight into the case. She tells him, “Natural affection is one thing […] and I hope I’ve got as much of it as anyone. But I won’t stand for wickedness. Wickedness has got to be destroyed” (96).

The narrative shifts to the cook, Mrs. Crump, who is airing her grievances to Miss Dove. She is especially angry that her husband has taken his usual afternoon off, even with Lance there for dinner. She is planning an elaborate meal, but Gladys has gone missing. Miss Dove helps her regroup and goes to the library to clear away the dishes there. She finds Adele’s body, with a cup of tea and scone spread with honey beside it.

The perspective shifts to Neele, who is discussing Adele’s death with Dr. Bernsdorff. The doctor tells him that Adele was poisoned as well, with potassium cyanide placed in her tea. Neele is frustrated and baffled, as his former chief suspect has just become a murder victim. He ends his call and briefly speaks with Mrs. Crump. The cook insists that while she is upset with Gladys, the girl would never have poisoned her employer. Mrs. Crump notes that Gladys clearly left in a hurry, dressed in her prized new stockings. Neele is uneasy at her prolonged absence. He distracts himself with a brief investigation of Adele’s bedroom. There, he finds mud tracked in from outside, suggesting that an intruder entered.

Neele moves on to Gladys’s room, where he finds evidence of her obsession with magazine articles about pseudoscientific marvels and her correspondence with an admirer named Albert Evans. On the stairs, he meets Hay, who tells him that Gladys has been found strangled. Hay reports that she has “been dead for hours I’d say. And sir, it’s a wicked kind of joke—there was a clothes-peg clipped on her nose” (103).

Elderly spinster Miss Jane Marple is traveling by train to Yewtree Lodge. She examines reports of the murders in the newspapers, distressed by what she reads. The house is closed to the public, but her taxi enters the gates unimpeded, “so impossible would it have been to believe she was anyone but an elderly relative of the family” (106).

Miss Marple meets the butler, Crump, and immediately notices that he is on edge. She asks to speak to the lady of the house, which disconcerts Crump, as Adele would normally fill that role. Pat comes up, and Miss Marple notices her gentle demeanor and that she seems uncomfortable in the lavish mansion. She explains to Pat why she has come: Gladys worked in her house for several years, and she came to provide background about her in the hopes that this might help the investigation. Pat is instantly sympathetic and approves of Miss Marple’s actions. Miss Marple explains that Gladys was not particularly skilled at her work and more focused on finding a boyfriend, which she struggled to do. Miss Marple is particularly affronted by the obvious disdainful gesture of the clothespin on Gladys’s nose. Pat offers to introduce Miss Marple to Neele.

Neele is exhausted but vindicated: He had worried that Adele murdering her husband was too pat, and the changes in the case have proven his doubts correct. The assistant commissioner recently insisted to him that no rational person could be responsible. Neele finds it noticeable that Percival obviously benefits most from the deaths but also has solid alibis for them. He also wonders about Miss Dove, as her professional mien seems to mask other motives. Neele upbraids himself for failing to save Gladys or see her potential insight into the case. Neele takes in Miss Marple and decides that she will be a useful asset, as her age and gender mean that various members of the household may confide more readily in her.

Miss Marple confirms for Neele that Gladys would have struggled to explain what she knew about the murder. She asks about Albert Evans, and Neele says that he is an unlikely culprit since he has never visited the house. Miss Marple insists that Gladys was naive and would have believed any stories a personable man told her. Miss Marple tentatively offers her assistance, suggesting that perhaps she could prevail upon Miss Ramsbottom for an invitation to stay at the house by feigning an interest in the lady’s mission work. Neele is relieved at the idea, as he has found Miss Ramsbottom to be a difficult witness. He sums up the case for her, and Miss Marple points out that many households use potassium cyanide for pest control. Inspector Neele confirms her hunch, saying that the estate gardener stocks it. Neele is confused when she asks particularly what Adele was eating at tea, especially when she seems satisfied to learn that bread and honey were on the menu.

Neele goes on to describe Gladys’s death, assuming that she got distracted by laundry she had forgotten and was killed while hanging it up. Neele admits that he should have questioned Gladys more thoroughly, but Miss Marple assures him that he is not at fault. Neele becomes further confused when Miss Marple says that the clothespin filled a significant purpose for the killer. She emphasizes Rex’s first name and his wife’s meal at tea, gently pointing out to Neele that this fits the nursery rhyme “Sing a Song of Sixpence.” She explains, “Though as I say, I do it with the utmost diffidence because I know I am very old and rather muddleheaded, and I dare say my idea is of no value at all, but what I mean to say is, have you gone into the question of blackbirds?” (118).

Miss Marple recites the nursery rhyme to an increasingly baffled Inspector Neele. She asks if the newspaper reporting about rye in the dead man’s pocket was accurate and is somewhat triumphant when Neele confirms this for her. Miss Marple insists, “[Y]ou really must make inquiries about blackbirds, because there must be blackbirds!” (120). Neele, like his superior, assumes that this comment means the killer is irrational, but Miss Marple says that this only proves that the case is stranger than it appears. Miss Marple leaves to go investigate Gladys’s room.

Sergeant Hay interrupts Neele’s thoughts to report that a new marmalade jar has been found in the shrubbery, clearly thrown out of a kitchen window to hide its existence. Neele immediately develops a new theory of the murder: Someone took a new jar of marmalade and added poison. Neele realizes that this method would have prevented anyone else from dying accidentally, as only Rex Fortescue ate marmalade. He determines that the poison could have been placed in the jar at any point before the murder, so the culprit could have been virtually anyone in the household. This leads him to believe that he needs to ask new questions and even consider Miss Marple’s nursery rhyme hypothesis. The novel will later reveal that Gladys poisoned the marmalade on behalf of Lance, who posed as Albert Evans to manipulate her into unknowingly murdering Rex.

Neele begins his interviews with Miss Dove. Neele is curious why none of the servants have left, knowing that Miss Dove will take pride in proving her management skills. She explains that she promised the Crumps additional compensation, while Ellen seems to enjoy the drama, as does Jennifer since the changes give her new autonomy in the household. Neele is still eager to discover “what was behind the careful and efficient understatement of her whole attitude” (129). Miss Dove recapitulates the timeline for afternoon tea, including that she assumed Jennifer came downstairs before she actually did, as she heard sounds of someone upstairs, and that she saw a man in the garden whom she originally assumed was Lance. Neele is interested in this. He explains to her that Lance was still on the train at that time, so the man was possibly the same intruder Miss Dove heard in the house.

Inspector Neele then alludes to blackbirds somewhere in the case, and Miss Dove explains that some months before, dead blackbirds were hidden in Rex’s study. Neele resents that Miss Marple’s hunch was correct, as this now requires him to “keep the crazier possibilities of the case in mind” (130).

Inspector Neele speaks with Elaine next. He confirms that she was the last person to see her stepmother alive and asks what their last conversation was about. Elaine sheepishly admits that she had asked Adele if Gerald could visit and that the two are informally engaged now that Rex is dead. Elaine was upset that Adele suggested she could find a wealthier man for herself now and describes her fiancé as a long-suffering intellectual whom her father drove away.

Neele privately reflects that Gerald has returned because Elaine will now receive her inheritance, while marrying a penniless woman held little appeal. Neele asks her about blackbirds, and Elaine reports that there were some in a pie as well as the ones in her father’s desk. He wonders about the terms of Adele’s will or whether she made one, and Elaine has no information about this but takes in the new reality that she has her own wealth to bequeath.

Alone, Neele ponders all the new information. Miss Dove’s revelations about a man in the garden may explain the mud he found the day of Adele’s death: Vivian did not know that Neele and his officers already had his letters, keeping them as evidence for Adele’s possible murder trial. Neele wonders if Adele’s death only proves her guilt: She could have plotted her husband’s death, only for Vivian to murder her for similarly mercenary reasons. Neele decides to investigate Vivian’s alibi, and he moves on to his interview with Jennifer.

Assessing Jennifer, who worked as a nurse before her marriage, Neele decides that she seems unhappy with her life of leisure and that her interest in the murders proves “a revelation of the arid deserts of boredom which encompass[] her life” (139). Jennifer is able to provide Neele with one new piece of data: Adele did make a will before her death, consulting the local solicitor rather than her husband’s firm. When Neele asks her about blackbirds, Jennifer is obviously disturbed but downplays the incidents, though she admits that her father-in-law seemed concerned. She considers Crump, the butler, to be the likely culprit.

Neele interviews Lance, who tells him that the blackbirds remind him of an incident from his father’s past, something about a Blackbird Mine in Africa. Lance suggests that Neele ask his aunt. He confirms with Neele that Gladys did not confide any suspicions to him before her death.

Neele finds Miss Marple in friendly conversation with Miss Ramsbottom. The irascible old lady insists that Miss Marple stay in the room next to hers, and Miss Marple agrees. Neele promptly asks Miss Ramsbottom what she knows about the Blackbird Mine. Miss Ramsbottom is gratified that Neele has finally realized what she was trying to convey earlier.

She explains that the mine is in East Africa and that Rex Fortescue went there with a business partner, Mackenzie. The other man died there, and Rex reported that the mine held no gold reserves or other value. The man’s widow claimed that Rex was somehow responsible for his death, swearing vengeance and promising that her children would do the same. Miss Marple later reveals that Jennifer is Mackenzie’s daughter: She is responsible for the blackbirds but none of the deaths.

Miss Ramsbottom explains that while she does not believe that Rex would have murdered a man, he would have readily abandoned an injured or ill Mackenzie or manipulated him out of money.

Neele tells Hay his next destination is the Golf Hotel, presumably to speak to Vivian and Elaine’s fiancé. He tells a confused Hay to continue researching blackbirds.