Crooked House

The entirety of the novel is told in hindsight through Charles’s eyes. As he already knows the outcome of the case when he begins telling his tale, he can reflect key moments with the benefits of afterthought, noting when the investigation was off track. Using Charles’s reflections as well as carefully placed bits of dialogue, Christie foreshadows the novel’s conclusion throughout the story. Several moments that initially seem insignificant become, in hindsight, important clues to the truth behind Aristide’s murder.

The profile of a murderer outlined by Arthur in Chapter 12 perfectly fits Josephine’s character. In fact, she is the only one who fits the description exactly, but Charles fails to make the connection. Arthur advises Charles to keep an eye on Josephine because she “may know a little too much for somebody’s safety” (98). Charles interprets this as meaning that Josephine’s life is in danger. In fact, Arthur’s quote is correct, but the somebody who is in danger is not Josephine but her nanny Janet. Josephine knows too much because she is the murderer, not a potential victim. Josephine even directly hints that she is about to commit a second murder in Chapter 16, but because Charles doesn’t consider her a suspect, he misses her warning.

When Charles first meets Edith, he watches her grind a piece of bindweed under her foot. As bindweed symbolizes evil, Edith’s destruction of the plant foreshadows her zero-tolerance attitude toward criminality and her eventual killing of Josephine after discovering her guilt. Without the context of the ending, however, it is not a significant moment in the narrative. Christie skillfully layers foreshadowing details into Crooked House in a way that doesn’t spoil the story’s big twist and becomes noticeable only in hindsight.