20 Questions: A Murder is Announced Multiple Choice Quiz | Literature

Answer: The Chipping Cleghorn Gazette

While all of these publications are read by one or more of the characters, only the Gazette (as it is known locally, although its full name is "The North Benham News and Chipping Cleghorn Gazette") carries the announcement. (The Daily Worker, read by Edmund Swettenham, would never advertise such bourgeois escapism.)

Answer: Little Paddocks

Miss Blacklock and Dora Bunner live at Little Paddocks. Boulders is where Miss Hinchcliff and Miss Murgatroyd live, Chipping Cleghorn is the name of the village, and the vicarage is, of course, where the vicar (and his wife) live.

Answer: Switzerland

Rudi Scherz met miss Blacklock in his native Switzerland, where he was an orderly at a clinic in Berne.

Answer: Bunch

It is Bunch. Bunny is Dora Bunner's nickname; Belle is Mrs. Goedler's first name. Bundle is a character in the "Seven Dials Mystery".

Answer: So there would be no light in the room

It was essential to the murderer's plans that there be no light in the room except the flashlight. A fire would have given off light, and it was too cold (in late October) for the room to be completely unheated; hence the central heating.

Answer: To cover a scar on her neck.

The pearls, which were obviously fake and always looked incongruous, covered a scar from an operation for goiter years before (in Berne, which is where Rudi Scherz recognized her from).

Answer: Colonel Easterbrook

Colonel Easterbrook's gun, of German make, was a war souvenir. It was stolen from his home and used to murder Rudi Scherz.

Answer: That someone had paid Rudi to stage the fake "holdup".

Myrna confirmed Miss Marple's conviction that a petty thief like Rudi would not suddenly go off and stage a holdup unless someone else had put him up to it and offered him money. Unfortunately, he had not told her the person's identity.

Answer: Violets

The violets had withered in their vase because the water had been poured on the frayed lamp wire, causing the blackout. This had left a burn on the tabletop, which Dora Bunner thought had been caused by someone carelessly leaving a cigarette on the table. Dora had also seen Miss Blacklock pick up the vase of violets; Miss Blacklock convinced her that she was mistaken, and that she had picked up the cigarette box instead.

Answer: Miss Blacklock

In an interview after the first murder, Miss Blacklock tells the inspector about Sonia Goedler's twins, who will inherit Belle Goedler's money if Leticia Blacklock predeceases her.

Answer: An oily cup and a feather.

Dora saw Patrick in the garden holding the feather and oily cup, which he had found, and suspected (incorrectly) that it was he who had oiled the door hinges.

Answer: Patrick Simmons

The always irreverant Patrick gave the cake this sinister moniker.

Answer: Narcotic tablets

Dora died of narcotic poisoning after taking what she thought were aspirin from Miss Blacklock's nightstand; in fact the aspirin had been replaced with narcotic tablets.

Answer: Lead Kindly Light

Miss Blacklock breaks down to Miss Marple after making this request; Dora had been her oldest and dearest friend. If only she hadn't kept calling her Lotty.

Answer: Julia Simmons

Although she spends about the first three-quarters of the novel pretending to be Julia Simmons, Patrick's female compatriot at Little Paddocks is, in reality, Emma Stamfordis (daughter of Sonia Goedler). She is unmasked when the real Julia writes to Miss Blacklock from Perth.

Answer: Phillipa Haymes

Miss Blacklock informs Phillipa that her will leaves everything, with the exception of a legacy for Dora, to her. Miss Blacklock likes Phillipa, a widowed mother, and wants to help her and her son; she also convinces herself that this action will "legitimize" her obtaining the Goedler fortune by fraudulent means.

Answer: That Miss Blacklock hadn't been standing where the shots were fired.

Miss Murgatroyd's last words to Miss Hinchcliff, as the latter drove away, were "She wasn't there" (meaning Miss Blacklock hadn't been standing in front of the wall into which the shots had been fired). Alas, that three-word sentence got her strangled! Miss Marple later determines that she had emphasized the word "there" instead of the word "she"; it was a place she had in mind, not a person.

The place was the wall against which Miss Blacklock was supposed to have been standing when the shooting began.

Answer: The cat

The Harmon's cat (Tiglath Pileser) had been gnawing on the lamp cord, exposing the bare wires. When Mrs. Harmon went to move the vase of flowers, the cat got in her way, causing her to spill water on the exposed wire, causing the lights to short out and making a burn mark on the table, similar to the "cigarette burn" on the table at Little Paddocks.

Answer: False

The murderer was Charlotte Blacklock, not Leticia. Charlotte had assumed the identity of her sister Leticia, a junior partner of the late financier Randall Goedler. Leticia had died of pneumonia, shortly after they had learned that she would inherit the Goedler millions upon his widow's death. Charlotte, who had spent much of her life as a recluse because of her goiter, had her sister buried under her own name and moved to Chipping Cleghorn, waiting to inherit the money she felt she deserved after all her suffering. Only Dora had known her secret. Belle Goedler had admired Leticia's integrity and had described her as being "really good"; Miss Marple felt that Leticia, however tempted, would never have contemplated any kind of fraud.

Answer: The Chipping Cleghorn Gazette

After all that has happened since the "murder" announcement, Edmund and Phillipa decide they can do without the Gazette. We understand!