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 6-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
Leaving the luncheon at Venables’s home, the group arrives at the Pale Horse and is greeted by Thyrza Grey joined in short order by Sybil and Bella. After a few brief pleasantries, Mark and Thyrza breach the nature of their visit. Thyrza addresses Mark’s skepticism: “You can’t explain away everything as superstition, or fear, or religious bigotry” (77). Mark agrees that there are things that cannot be explained but fails to believe Thyrza’s assertion that the three women possess particular powers.
During the group’s conversation, they agree that there are generally only two reasons people resort to magic and the supernatural: “The love potion or the cup of poison” (79). Thyrza asserts that there is a death drive in each person and that the “death wish that exists in all of us must be stimulated” to cause death in another (81). She claims that she, Bella, and Sybil have harnessed the means by which to do this. She lets slip that she is convinced Mark sought them out for his own reasons.
Chapter 7 Summary
As the group drives away from the Pale Horse, they discuss the unsettling feeling they experienced among the three women and the strange conversations that had occurred. Eager to get his thoughts in order, Mark takes a walk on his own once they all part ways, and he tries to connect the dots of the puzzling occurrences of the days and week prior.
After some time, he walks by the vicarage and, deciding that he needs someone to talk to, rings the bell. The vicar’s wife, Mrs. Dane Calthrop, answers the door, and Mark proceeds to unburden his troubles onto her practically without thinking. Mrs. Calthrop provides a thoughtful rejoinder to Mark’s stories and worries, confirming the strange character of the women at the Pale Horse. Mark’s real fears begin to surface after he reveals his suspicion that everyone whose name appears on the deceased priest’s list is dead. “It’s bad,” she replies. “It’s very bad. Whatever is behind it, it’s got to be stopped” (94). In the end, they determine that the next step is finding a link between the names on the list and the Pale Horse.
Chapter 8 Summary
Chapter 8 sees Lejeune with a letter from the pharmacist who informs him that he saw the mysterious man again and that the man he witnessed following Fr. Gorman is Venables who is currently going about town in a wheelchair. Upon receiving this correspondence, Lejeune determines to find Venables and question him.
Chapter 9 Summary
Mark is having dinner with his friend Hermia after the trip to the Pale Horse and the vicarage, and he tells her everything. Hermia reacts with astonishment and delight. Seeing her excitement, Mark asks Hermia to help him investigate, but she refuses, thinking the entire thing silly. Mark begins to consider how boring Hermia can sometimes be.
The next day Mark meets Corrigan again. They determine that every person on the list is dead. Every death, however, was devoid of suspicion, and the police suspect no foul play in any of the fatalities. Discussing the night of Fr. Gorman’s death, they see that the person Osborne witnessed could not have been Venables due to his condition, but that all the same he is a fascinating figure due to his fantastic wealth. Coming back to the topic of the names on the list, they determine that all the deaths, no matter how innocuous, were convenient for someone. Before they leave, Corrigan refuses to help Mark investigate Thyrza Grey and the Pale Horse.
Chapter 10 Summary
Planting bulbs in his garden, Osborne is surprised to see Lejeune venture onto his grounds. Lejeune informs Osborne that Venables is bound to a wheelchair, and Osborne expresses his disappointment in the fact as it counts against his testimony that he saw him walk by the window of his pharmacy. Astonished that his testimony seems to have been false, Osborne tells Lejeune that “memorising faces” (116) is a hobby from his after many years of working in his shop. He considers his keen memory a gift that he has honed through the years. Osborne even offers the solution of an identical twin or a false diagnosis before his conversation with Lejeune comes to an end.
Chapters 6-10 Analysis
Upon leaving the home of Venables, the group of friends takes the short trip to the Pale Horse where they meet the inhabitants: Thyrza, Sybil, and Bella. The impact of who lives at the inn and the matters that are discussed is offset by the charming and innocuous description of it, a “half-timbered building with a walled garden” gave the property “a pleasant old-world look” (72). The three women demonstrate radically different personalities. Thyrza shows herself to be an adept and charming hostess, balancing the silliness and spontaneity of Sybil and the strange, silent darkness of Bella.
Thyrza’s demeanor echoes the strange dichotomy of the home by joining a down-to-earth personality with strange beliefs about the occult. To the group, Sybil appears somewhat exotic, dressed in a Sari and telling tales of visiting India and Haiti where they believe in voodoo and witchcraft. Sensing skepticism from Mark and others in the group, Thyrza speaks up: “There are elemental truths and elemental powers. There always have been. There always will be” (77). Mark agrees with her, realizing that there are things in the world that are beyond his understanding. But he is unwilling to believe all that Thyrza and her friends are professing.
Thyrza is a compelling figure because she seems to be a rational mystic, at once downplaying the overwrought pageantry displayed by Sybil and Bella and at the same time expressing a belief that the supernatural is real and active in the world. After leaving the Pale Horse, Mark continues to be haunted by his experience, convinced that there is a connection between the inn and the names on the list that was found on the priest. Mark appears alone in this desire to come to the truth, however, as he fails to convince either Corrigan or Hermia to help him in his investigation.
Related Titles
By Agatha Christie
