The Murder at the Vicarage

Description

Agatha Christie's 1930 debut of Miss Marple: when the universally disliked Colonel Protheroe is found shot dead in the vicar's study, half of St. Mary Mead had a motive. While the police chase alibis, the elderly spinster next door quietly outpaces them all.

This is a U.S. public-domain edition (entered the public domain in the United States in 2026, 95 years after first publication). It may still be under copyright in other countries.

Excerpt

Chapter 1

It is difficult to know quite where to begin this story, but I have fixed my choice on a certain Wednesday at luncheon at the Vicarage. The conversation, though in the main irrelevant to the matter in hand, yet contained one or two suggestive incidents which influenced later developments.

I had just finished carving some boiled beef (remarkably tough by the way), and on resuming my seat I remarked, in a spirit most unbecoming to my cloth, that anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe would be doing the world at large a service.

My young nephew, Dennis, said instantly:

"That'll be remembered against you when the old boy is found bathed in blood. Mary will give evidence, won't you, Mary? And describe how you brandished the carving knife in a vindictive manner."