Down the Garden Path With Christie Quiz

Answer: It was the wrong kind of rock for her garden.

Miss Marple came upon the artist Lawrence Redding, who was cutting through the woods near her property carrying large rock. He explained that he was bringing her the rock for one of her oriental gardens. Actually, he was removing the rock, which was an important piece of evidence; he had used it to produce a small explosion to simulate a gunshot, thus providing himself and his accomplice Anne Protheroe (the victim's wife) with an alibi for the time of the murder.

When Miss Marple surprised him carrying the rock, he made up his excuse about bringing it for her garden. Miss Marple noted that the rock he had brought her was all wrong for an oriental garden and that, being an artist, Redding would surely have known this.

Answer: The Four Suspects

"The Four Suspects" is related by Sir Henry Clithering, and concerns the suspicious death of one Dr. Rosen. Ostensibly, the death occurred as the result of a fall from the stairs, but Sir Henry suspects that Rosen, who was involved in Secret Service work in his native Germany, was marked for death by the Camorra. At the time of the "accident", there were four people in or about the house- Greta, Rosen's niece, Gertrud, an elderly servant, Dobbs, the gardener, and Templeton, the secretary (who was actually one of Sir Henry's own men working undercover).

A cryptic letter that Rosen had received before his death mentioned three names- Dr. Helmuth Spath, Edgar Jackson, and Amos Perry, as well as a loction- Tsingtau, and was signed "Georgina". Miss Marple noted that the word "Honesty" was capitalized in the letter, though it did not appear at the beginning of a sentence. She and Mrs. Bantry recognize that the four names, plus the word "Honesty", were all names of dahlia cultivars. Together, their initial letters spell out the word DEATH. An added clue was the signiature; the word Georgina is the German for dahlia. At the story's end, Miss Marple remembers with a shudder that, in the Victorian language of flowers, the dahlia represents Treachery and Misepresentation. As Mrs. Bantry notes "It's lucky one has flowers and one's friends."

Answer: Vegetable marrows

Poirot had retired to the sleepy village of King's Abbott to grow vegetable marrows (known to Americans as winter squash). Gardening proves far less enjoyable for Poirot than for Miss Marple, however, and when we first encounter him in "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", he has become so frustrated that he pitches one of the marrows out of the garden.

It lands at the feet of Dr. Sheppard, thus precipitating the fateful meeting between the two. In the final sentence of the novel, Sheppard rues the day that Poirot came to King's Abbott to grow vegetable marrows.

Answer: An unfinished border of shells

Poirot had received a letter from the elderly Amelia Barrowby, who was deeply concerned about a family matter of some delicacy. Mrs. Barrowby's household included her niece Mary Delafontane, Mary's husband, and a Russian servant girl named Katrina Reiger. Before Poirot could visit Mrs. Barrowby, she suddenly (and rather suspiciously) died. An autopsy revealed that she died of strychnine poisoning. Mrs. Barrowby had left the bulk of her estate to Katrina, whose duties included administering her medicine. Strychnine being extremely bitter, it could not have been introduced into any of the dishes served at dinner on the fatal evening, so it would seem that it had to have been given in the medicine. When strychnine is discovered in Katrina's room, the case appears to be solved.

Poirot, however, is not satisfied. Upon his first visit to Mrs. Barrowby's home, he was struck by the beauty of the garden, the work of Mrs. Barrowby's niece Mary. It recalled the nursery rhyme "Mistress Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells, and pretty maids all in a row." The one jarring flaw in the garden's design was an incomplete border of shells which, Poirot noted, were not cockle (scallop) shells, but oyster shells. An enquiry at the fishmongers revealed that Mary had secretly purchased oysters, of which her aunt was fond, on the day of the murder. Since oysters are quickly swallowed, the taste of the poison was not noticed. The shells could not be disposed of in the trash (where the servants would have noticed them), so they were incorporated into the garden. Mary had been financially dependent upon her aunt, and feared being left penniless, so she poisoned her in such a way that Katrina would be suspected. Upon confronting Mary with the truth, Poirot remarked that she cared for only two things in her life: her husband and her garden. While taking his leave of her, he casts a rueful glance at the flowers, as if apologizing for what he is about to do.

Answer: Hallowe'en Party

The murderers in "Hallowe'en Party" are Michael Garfield, a landscaping genius, and his paramour Rowena Drake, a respectable middle-aged widow. Michael had created a beautiful sunken garden in an abandoned quarry for the wealthy Mrs. Llewellen-Smythe. Mrs. Drake was the beneficiary of the Mrs. Llewellen-Smythe's will, but when the older woman learned about her affair with Michael, she angrily added a codicil, leaving her fortune to her au-pair girl, Olga Seminoff. Michael and Rowena hired young Lesly Ferrier to create an obvious forgery of the codicil, which was contested and upset, reverting to the original will. Olga and Lesly were both murdered to keep the truth about the will from becoming known. Olga was presumed to have paid Ferrier to forge the codicil (and, possibly to have hurried Mrs. Llewellen-Smythe's death), and to have fled to escape prosecution. Ferrier's death was put down to a gang knifing; Olga's body was disposed of in the well at Quarry Wood.

At a children's Hallowe'en party hosted by Mrs. Drake, young Joyce Reynolds bragged about having seen a murder. Mrs. Drake, who had always suspected that there had been a witness to Olga's burial, drowned Joyce in the bobbing-for-apples bucket to keep her silent. Later, Joyce's brother Leopold was also drowned in a brook after trying to blackmail the killers.

Ironically, Joyce had only been lying to get attention; she had heard the story from her friend Miranda Butler who had witnessed Olga's burial. Miranda is almost murdered herself by Michael; fortunately, Poirot anticipates and prevents this. It turns out that she had been Michael's illegitimate daughter; her mother Judith Butler (Mrs. Oliver's friend) had loved Michael, but was always afraid of him.

Michael had wanted the money purely in order to create a garden paradise on a Greek island, an idea that had obsessed him to the point of madness. Poirot believed that he had no feelings for Rowena Drake, and that he would probably have arranged an "accident" for her once he had her money. He compared Michael to Narcissus, and Rowena Drake to Lady Macbeth.

Answer: Jasmine

Amyas Crale had been having an affair with the young model Elsa Greer, whom he was painting at the time of the murder. An atmosphere of tension existed between Miss Greer and Crale's wife, Caroline, which came to a head when Elsa casually announced that she and Crale were to be married. Believing her marriage to be over, Caroline had resolved to take her own life. On the following day, she and the others were present at Meredith Blake's laboratory, when he gave a dissertation on various poisons, including coniine (distilled from the spotted hemlock). Caroline surreptiously emptied a bottle of jasmine-scented cologne she had in her purse and filled it with some of the coniine.

Blake had mentioned the scent of jasmine wafting through the laboratory window on the day before the murder. Poirot asks him to close his eyed and try to remember the details of that day; while Blake's eyes are closed, Poirot waves a jasmine-scented handkerchief under his nose. This triggers Blake's memory; he remembers that he had stood at the door of the laboratory speaking to Elsa when he smelled the jasmine. Blake had his back to Caroline Crale, but Elsa could see her clearly and noticed her taking the coniine. When Elsa learned the next day that Crale did not really love her, and had no intention of leaving Caroline, she took some of the coniine from Caroline's room and poisoned Crale, allowing Caroline to be accused of the crime.

Poirot notes that the jasmine outside the window was the summer-blooming variety; it would have finished blooming in mid-September, when the crime took place. It was not jasmine flowers that Blake had smelled that day, but Caroline's spilled cologne. Blake also remembers the scent of valerian being in the laboratory the night before the murder, leading him to believe that a cat had gotten in. In fact, Caroline's adolescent sister Angela, who had quarreled with Amyas, had stolen some valerian to put into Crale's beer as a nasty prank. Caroline had seen her tampering with the beer, which led her to believe that it was Angela who had poisoned Crale.

Answer: Foxglove (Digitalis)

Foxglove (digitalis) is a flowering perennial which is the source of both digitalis, a heart medication, and digitoxin. The young leaves of the plant are similar in appearance to those of garden sage, however they are poisonous and not to be eaten. "The Herb of Death" concerns what appears to be a case of accidental poisoning; a number of people at the estate of the wealthy Sir Ambrose Bercy become ill after being served a dinner of roast duck with a sage and onion stuffing.

It develops that foxglove leaves were growing along with the sage, and were accidentally (or so it seems) gathered up and presented to the cook. One of the dinner guests- Sir Ambrose's lovely young ward Sylvia Keene- dies of the effects of digitalis. Miss Marple deduces that Sylvia was, in fact, given an overdose of digitalis, and that the "accidental" food poisoning was cleverly engineered to disguise this fact and cause the death to be put down as an accident.

The solution of this mystery, in particular the motive for the murder, bears certain strong similarities to that of "Nemesis", which also concerns the murder of a beautiful young ward.

The use of foxglove leaves would reappear again in the Tommy and Tuppence mystery "Postern of Fate", the last novel Christie wrote.

Answer: Thorns

The rosebush was of the species Zephrine Droughin, which is notable for having thornless canes. The victim, Mary Gerrard, was poisoned by Nurse Hopkins, who had been looking after Laura Welman, a wealthy, elderly woman who was actually Mary's birth mother, a fact of which Nurse Hopkins was aware. Mrs. Welman had planned on making a provision for Mary in her will, but died intestate before she could do so. Since Mary was her next of kin, Mrs. Welman's entire fortune reverted to her. Nurse Hopkins (who had also "hastened" Mrs. Welman's death) persuaded Mary to make out a will, leaving all her money to a cousin in Australia, who was her next of kin. Unbeknownst to Mary, the cousin (whom she had never met) was Nurse Hopkins herself. Nurse Hopkins then poisoned both Mary and herself with morphine, administered in a pot of tea; she then injected herself with apomorhine hydrochloride, a powerful emetic which caused her to vomit up the morphine before it should take effect. When Mary died, suspicion fell on Elinor Carlisle, Mrs. Welman's niece, whose fiance had fallen in love with Mary, and she was arrested for the crime.

The principal clue which led Poirot to suspect that Nurse Hopkins was the true criminal was a prick on her arm, caused by the hypodermic needle. She explained this away as having been caused by a thorn from the rosebush growing near the lodge, where the crime took place. Unluckily for her, Poirot noticed that the rosebush was thornless, which led him to suspect the rest of her evidence as well (and to wonder what had actually caused the prick on her arm). At the trial, a horticultural expert identified the species of rose, and testified that it was thornless. Nurse Hopkins was identified as Mary Riley, who had been suspected of other murders in Australia.

Answer: It is beautiful, but rampant and invasive.

Polygonum Baldschaunicum is a beautiful, but invasive plant (also known as silver lace vine) which quickly crowds out any other plants that might be growing in its vicinity. Miss Marple comes to realize that the murder she has been invited to solve is that of young Verity Hunt. Verity was a "shining girl" who, after her parents' death lived under the protection of Clotilde Bradbury-Scott. Clotilde loved and idolized Verity (it is strongly implied that her feelings were of a romantic, rather than maternal, nature), and was horrified when the girl fell in love with the unsatisfactory Michael Rafiel (Jason's son). Realizing that she could not keep Verity from Michael, and unable to bear the thought of losing her, she gave the girl a fatal overdose of a narcotic, after which she laid her to rest in the ruins of the greenhouse.

As a memorial to Verity (and also to keep her tomb in the greenhouse inaccessible to her inquisitive sister Anthea), she planted the Polygonum, which quickly covered the ruins with a thick mass of blossoming vines. Clotilde then strangled young Nora Broad, a schoolmate of Verity's, dressed her in Verity's clothes, and disfigured her face. When the police discovered Nora's body, Clothilde identified her as Verity, and she was buried in the churchyard under Verity's name. Michael was arrested for the crime.

Miss Marple stayed as a guest at the home of Clotilde and Anthea, and their widowed sister, Mrs. Glynn. She noticed the mound of white blossoms during a walk with Anthea and asked about it. Anthea, who had fond memories of the greenhouse as it used to be, tells Miss Marple that she hates the invasive plant and had urged Clotilde to dig it up. The Polygonum has a dual symbolism in the story: Clotilde had planted the vine, with its triumphant white flowers, as a tribute to her "shining girl"; however, the Polygonum's choking, smothering habit serves to symbolize Clotilde herself, from whose obsessive, demanding attentions Verity had tried(unsuccessfully) to escape.

(It should be noted that Polygonum Baldschaunicum has since been reclassified under the name Fallopia Baldschaunicum, a name which would have given an additional layer of symbolism to the story.)

Answer: A rocking horse

The rocking horse was of American make and was named Mathilde. An opening in her stomach yielded a number of curious objects, one of which was a leather notebook containing arrangements for a secret meeting. It develops that Mary, who was hired as a nursery governess, was actually gathering information about a suspected spy ring in the village. She discovered that a local doctor was involved in traitorous activities, but died before she could reveal what she knew. Her death was thought to have been through misadventure; some foxglove (digitalis) leaves had been gathered along with spinach leaves which were served at dinner (a device borrowed from the story "The Herb of Death" from "The Thirteen Problems" (a.k.a. The Tuesday Club Murders"). Although everyone became ill from eating the foxglove, only Mary had died. Mary's young charge Alexander Parkinson suspected that she had been delibrately poisoned, and left clues in a copy of "The Black Arrow". Alexander himself met with an untimely (and suspicious) end.

The Beresford's decide to investigate the decades-old mystery. Tuppence finds herself in danger from a rather gruff woman named Miss Mullins, who offers her assistance in renovating the garden. Miss Mullins, who turns out to have been a descendant of the traitorous doctor who had murdered Mary Jordan, takes a shot at Tuppence and tries to poison her coffee, but both these attempts are foiled by the Beresford's faithful dog Hannibal.

I must confess that the Tommy and Tuppence mysteries are not among my favorites, and that "Postern of Fate" did not work for me as a mystery novel (though the concept was interesting). However, the affection and concern which the aging Beresfords display toward each other in this novel mitigates the frequently cutesy tone of their relationship and makes much of the book entertaining to read. "Postern of Fate" was the last novel Christie wrote, although she had arranged for "Sleeping Murder" (published posthumously) to be her last published work.