The Body in the Library Trivia Quiz

Answer: N or M?

"N or M?" was a murder mystery involving espionage; Christie incorporated a nursery rhyme (as she so often did) as part of the plot; in this case, "Goosey, Goosey Gander". In her autobiography, Christie writes "I had decided to write two books at once...I believed that if I wrote two books, and alternated the writing of them, it would keep me fresh at the task." While she was at work on these two books, England was in the thick of the Second World War; she found that keeping busy helped her to deal with the anxieties of the war.

Answer: Dreaming

Mrs Bantry, an avid gardener, is having a dream in which her sweet peas are awarded First Prize at a flower show, officiated by the vicar (whose wife walks past wearing a bathing suit). She is dimly aware of the sounds made by the servants, but continues in her dream until the housemaid, Mary, suddenly enters the room with her hysterical announcement that there is a body in the library. For a while, Mrs. Bantry wonders if she is dreaming still, but becomes certain that she has heard right and wakes her husband. Colonel Bantry is convinced that she must have been dreaming and does not believe that there is a body in the library until he goes downstairs to see for himself.

Answer: He put a frog in her clock.

Tommy Bond was a rather insecure boy, who felt that the schoolmistress was being over-critical of him. He got back at her by putting the frog in her clock; when she went to wind it, the frog jumped out. It turns out that the body was placed in the Bantry's library by Basil Blake, who had found it planted in his cabin. Rather drunk at the time, Blake decided to plant the body at Gossington Hall to spite Colonel Bantry, who is always looking down his nose at Blake.

Answer: No

The body is that of a schoolgirl, Pamela Reeves. Pamela had been approached by the killers with the offer of a screen test for the movies, an offer she simply couldn't resist. She was dressed and made up to look as much like Ruby as possible and her hair was bleached. One of the murderers was Ruby's cousin, Josephine Turner, who falsely identified the body as Ruby.

When Ruby's body, dressed in Pamela Reeve's clothes, was later found in a burnt-out car, it would be presumed to be that of the missing schoolgirl.

This misidentification provided the murderers with an alibi for the time of Ruby's death.

Answer: She was wearing a wig.

Pamela was not wearing a wig; her hair had been bleached and styled like Ruby's. She was also dressed in one of Ruby's old dresses, which strikes Miss Marple as entirely wrong. Ruby had supposedly been going to meet a young man when she was killed; she would have worn her best evening gown, not an old and rather cheap dress. Miss Marple also notices that the girl's teeth stick out, as teenage girls' teeth often do.

This not only indicates that the victim is a younger girl than Ruby was, but contradicts Mark Gaskell's observation that Ruby had "teeth running down her throat." Most importantly, the girl was clearly in the habit of biting her nails. Ruby had long, polished nails; Josie managed to catch one of them in her shawl and tear it, after which Ruby cut the rest to match.

In this way, Josie hoped to account for the body's short nails; unfortunately for her, Miss Marple is able to distinguish between cut nails and bitten nails.

Answer: Adopt Ruby

Conway Jefferson was the sole survivor of a plane crash that claimed the lives of his wife and his two children, Rosamund and Frank. After the accident, which left him an invalid, Jefferson turned for comfort to his children's spouses, Mark Gaskell and Adelaide Jefferson. Eventually, these two wanted to lead their own lives and remarry, which left old Jefferson feeling neglected.

At this time, his attention was caught by young Ruby Keene, who bore a certain resemblance to his daughter Rosamund. Jefferson became enamored of Ruby and had planned to adopt her.

This would make her the chief beneficiary of his fortune, which greatly upset both Mark and Adelaide. Although Jefferson had settled a great deal of money on both his children at the time of their marriage, Frank had lost most of the money through bad investments, while Mark went through most of his wife's fortune through gambling. Neither of them had told any of this to their father-in-law, who assumed that they were both well-off.

Answer: Her fingernail

Adelaide had found the broken nail and asked Peter to throw it out, but Peter had forgotten to do so. After the murder, Peter found the nail in his pocket and kept it in a matchbox. He proudly displays his "souvenir" to Mrs. Bantry, who is appalled. Since the nail also has a fragment of Josie's shawl attached, it turns out that Peter has a souvenir of both the victim and her killer.

Answer: Death by Drowning

"Death by Drowning" is the concluding story of "The Thirteen Problems" and one of Christie's few excursions into the lower classes. A young girl named Rose Emmott is found drowned, apparently a suicide. However, the police suspect that she was murdered by her boyfriend, Joe Ellis, who had apparently gotten her pregnant and whom she was now trying to rope into marriage. Miss Marple, however, believes that quite another person was responsible for the crime, and presents her suspicions to Sir Henry.

As Sir Henry recalls to Conway Jefferson, "Along to me comes old Miss Marple, fluttering and dithering. She's afraid, she says, they'll hang the wrong person. She's got no evidence, but she knows who did it. Hands me a piece of paper with a name written on it. And, Jefferson, she was right!"

Answer: Basil Blake

The murderers intended to fix the crime on young Basil Blake by planting the body in his cabin. Blake delayed things a bit by bringing the body to Gossington Hall and planting it there, but the police eventually arrested him when his discarded hearth rug was found to contain spangles from the victim's dress. Had the true killers not been caught, Blake would probably have been found guilty and hanged for the murders.

The killers do try to do away with Conway Jefferson when he announces his intention to leave the bulk of his fortune to establish a hostel for dance-hall girls in Ruby's memory, but this was not part of the original plan.

Answer: Griselda has had a baby.

At the end of "The Murder at the Vicarage", we learned that Griselda had become pregnant. In this novel, she is seen playing with her new baby boy, David, when Miss Marple comes asking if she can collect for one of the parish charities. Although Griselda claims to be following the new ideas about parenting, which recommend that parents keep a distance from their infants, she begins tumbling about on the floor with David as soon as Miss Marple leaves.

Answer: She relaxed too soon.

Miss Marple remembers one of her maids, Janet, who would tell lies quite convincingly, then give herself away by smirking as she left the room. She notices that Florence Small seemed to relax as she was leaving the room after the interrogation, and suspects that she knows more than she told Harper. Left alone with the girl, Miss Marple gets her to admit that Pamela had confided to her that she was going to meet some people for a screen test after a rally at school (she had told the others that she was going to Woolworths). Florence promised Pamela that she wouldn't tell anyone, and has been sick with worry ever since the body was found in the burnt-out car.

Answer: The way they fight.

Basil and Dinah have some spectacular rows, which convinces Miss Marple that they are actually married, though they enjoy shocking the village by pretending otherwise. She explains "When there is no- no legal bond, people are much more careful; they have to keep assuring themselves how happy and halcyon everything is...they dare not quarrel! Married people, I have noticed, quite enjoy their battles and the-er-appropriate reconciliations."

Answer: He saved some children from a burning building.

Miss Marple has learned a great deal about Basil Blake, and informs Colonel Bantry that he had done ARP work when he was eighteen. He had saved four children from a burning building, and had gone back in to get their dog, even though it wasn't safe. The building collapsed on him; he was rescued, but was laid up for a long time with a badly crushed chest. During his convalescence, he had become interested in designing. Colonel Bantry is rather chagrined upon hearing this, and raises his estimation of Blake.

Answer: Mark Gaskell and Josephine Turner

Earlier in the story, Mark Gaskell admits that he "broke away, on the quiet", from his father-in-law's determination to live in the past, but he is not specific about what he actually did to "break away". It turns out that he and Josie, whom he met frequently at the Majestic Hotel, had been secretly married. Ironically, Mark Gaskell is variously described by other characters in the story as "unscrupulous", "not someone I'd trust", and "the sort of fellow who would stick at nothing". Yet one tends to dismiss him as a suspect, since it doesn't seem likely he could have carried off the crime on his own- too indiscreet.

The revelation that he is in collaboration with Josie comes as a complete surprise.

Answer: True

In Chapter VIII, our young crime buff Peter Carmody proudly rattles off a brief list of famous detective story writers whose autographs he had obtained. These include Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, Dickson Carr, and H.C. Bailey.