A Christmas Tragedy by Agatha Christie. Short summary

5 seconds

A short story from the collection «Thirteen Mystery Cases.» At a dinner hosted by Colonel Arthur Bantry and his wife, all the guests take turns telling detective stories. Miss Marple’s narration.

1 minute

One day before Christmas, Miss Marple went on vacation to a resort. At the hotel, the old lady saw a married couple named Jack and Gladys Sanders. Jack lived off Gladys, but the overbearing wife would not let her husband handle the money.

Her intuition told Miss Marple that the husband wanted to kill his wife. She even witnessed Jack trying to push Gladys off the streetcar by «accidentally» tripping, but the woman that time was saved by the conductor.

Suddenly the hotel porter died of pneumonia, and then one of the maids died of blood poisoning. Shortly thereafter, Mrs. Sanders was found dead in her room, and her jewelry was missing. Miss Marple called the police.

It took Miss Marple two days to solve the mystery, helped by a cheap hat found in the room. The discovered body was not Mrs. Saunders’ — it was a dead maid, waiting for the funeral. Jack had lured his wife to the room and killed her later by swapping the bodies. In doing so, he provided himself with an alibi. The murderer is arrested and hanged.