33 pages • 1 hour read
Agatha ChristieThe Pale Horse
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1961A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 21-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary
Sicker than ever, Ginger is moved to a private hospital after developing a severe case of bronchopneumonia. Desperate for a distraction, Mark calls Poppy, and they meet to talk about the latest developments in Ginger’s condition. Trying to discover anything else Poppy might know, Mark questions her, and Poppy offers the name of Eileen Brandon who might know something.
Poppy tells Mark that Eileen was once associated with a company called C.R.C and that she quit her job because she was convinced it was associated with the Pale Horse. She says that the job was innocuous, simply going to random homes and asking survey questions “about toothpaste or gas stoves” and things of that sort (230). Mark realizes that this sort of person visited Ginger the day before she fell ill, and he determines to investigate this angle.
The phone rings, and Mrs. Oliver proceeds to tell Mark that she came across a woman who knew one of the victims. This woman spoke about the death of Lady Hesketh-Dubois and mentioned that her hair had been falling out. Mrs. Oliver continues by saying the same phenomenon occurred with another woman as well as with the girl Mark saw in the café that first night, whose hair had been ripped out so easily. Taken aback, Mark realizes what the illness must be: thallium poisoning.
Chapter 22 Summary
Having discovered the nature of the illness, Mark realizes the meaning of the Pale Horse and its trappings: “No witchcraft, no hypnotism, no scientific death rays. Plain poisoning!” (238). Marks explains the whole thing to Lejeune, saying that the ritual at the Pale Horse is itself “a stalking horse” (239) designed to fascinate and terrify the superstitious and the skeptic. Thyrza works in concert with Bradley.
Lejeune questions Mark about how he realized the nature of the poisoning, and Mark explains that he recently read an article on the subject when visiting America. The women who go around asking questions for C.R.C. are plants who determine the best manner of getting the victim to ingest the poison while being oblivious as to the purpose of their questioning. Lejeune concludes the first victim, Mrs. Davis, must have seen something she shouldn’t have and must have been able to give the details to Fr. Gorman before he died.
Mark and Lejeune realize that the last piece of the puzzle is to discover who the mastermind and the poisoner really is. Lejeune says that he is fairly certain of the culprit’s identity and that the last step is to go and find the evidence.
Chapter 23 Summary
Three weeks later, Mark and Lejeune drive to the house of Venables, along with Detective Lee and the pharmacist Osborne. Confronting Venables, Lejeune questions him as to his whereabouts at the time of the murder of Fr. Gorman. Venables answers that he wasn’t in London at the time, but Lejeune returns the objection by stating that the murders were by thallium, a substance that was found in Venable’s potting shed.
Lejeune goes over their theory, narrating the involvement of the Pale Horse, Bradley, and even the C.R.C. survey workers. As the final piece of evidence, he mentions Osborne’s conviction that he saw Venables stalking Fr. Gorman the night of his murder. Osborne breaks into the conversation to confirm his testimony but, to everyone’s surprise, Lejeune turns on Osborne and accuses him of fraud: “You didn’t see Mr. Venables that night… You weren’t standing there at all. You were across the street yourself” (255-56). Lejeune reveals that Osborne has been under police observation and that he was observed planting evidence in Venables’s shed. Caught red-handed, Osborne begins to panic.
Chapter 24 Summary
Once Osborne is arrested, Lejeune fills Mark in on the detail that Venables was in on the act. Lejeune tells Mark that he was suspicious of Osborne from the start due to the uncanny detail in the description of the suspect and the fact that Osborne was a pharmacist. He had access to dangerous narcotics and other substances.
Chapter 25 Summary
Mark returns to see his cousin Rhoda and then heads to the Pale Horse—since deserted—and runs into the vicar’s wife, Mrs. Calthrop. They discuss the curious circumstances in which they were involved and the wickedness of those who would perform parlor tricks to destroy human lives. Entering the inn, they see Ginger holding the inn sign, and almost out of nowhere Mrs. Calthrop compliments Ginger: “You’ll make a good mother” (265). Mark and Ginger find themselves alone, and Mark proposes marriage.
Chapters 21-25 Analysis
With Ginger’s condition growing worse, Mark finds himself at a loss as to how to proceed. Desperate, he calls up Poppy and agrees to a meeting where he tries to extract any information or lead that could prove helpful. Still operating under the ruse of finding some way to get rid of his wife, he questions Poppy. She unwittingly gives Mark the clue he needs: a woman who worked for a survey company quit because she became convinced that she was wrapped up in criminal activity associated with the Pale Horse.
This woman worked as a survey taker, going to specific homes and addresses to ask random and innocuous questions. The kinds of questions and the interactions she had had were enough to make her quit. Mark remembers that “someone of that kind had called on Ginger at the flat” (231). He realizes that the affair must be more complex than they thought. Adding to the mystery, Mark receives a call from his friend Mrs. Oliver who suggests to him that there is nothing supernatural occurring. The deaths have been thallium poisoning. The thread that connects them is that the victims had been losing hair before their deaths.
Ginger is saved, and the work of the Pale Horse is unveiled. The witchcraft and magic of the ritual at the Pale Horse are designed to convince and terrify the superstitious and the credulous, while the inclusion of the electric machine serves to convince the more scientific-minded skeptic that some new technology has been discovered that could produce the desired results. The showmanship was nothing more than a front: “Attention was to be focused on that, so that we’d never suspect what might be going on in another direction” (239). The discovery of the involvement of the C.R.C. demonstrated how the poison was introduced: the victims were questioned about the things they used daily, and this information was used to determine the best means to poison them. The only thing they had not yet determined was the person at the top who was pulling the strings.
This final piece of the puzzle is set into place when Lejeune accuses not the primary suspect, Venables, but the retired pharmacist Osborne. From the start, Lejeune was suspicious of Osborne’s claim to have witnessed the stalker in such great detail, and so he had him followed throughout the investigation. They recently observed Osborne planting evidence at the residence of Venables, and this was enough to charge Osborne.
In the end, the operation was shut down—Osborne arrested, Bradley out of business, and the Pale Horse abandoned. The course of events not only turned out for the best (considering the circumstances), but it changed Mark as well. The realization that his friend Hermia had been an unsupportive bore, combined with his new friendship with Ginger, made him realize that he had fallen in love, a fact that his cousin Rhoda had already noticed: “I believe you’re in love… Yes, that’s it. Being in love has a very bad effect on men” (178). Realizing the fact at last, Mark proposes to Ginger, who readily accepts.
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By Agatha Christie
