After the Funeral
(American Title: Funerals Are Fatal)
Richard Abernethie was a wealthy industrialist. At his death, his five remaining family members inherited his fortune in equal shares. The entire family—brother Timothy Abernethie and his wife Maude, sister-in-law Helen Abernethie, nephew George Crossfields, niece Susan Banks and her husband Gregory, niece Rosamund Shane and her husband Michael, and estranged sister Cora Lansquenet—come to the family home for the funeral.
As the family relaxes after the funeral, Cora Lansquenet makes the disquieting comment, "He was murdered, wasn’t he?" As far as anyone knew, Richard Abernethie had died of natural causes; therefore Cora’s absurd comment could have been dismissed—except that Cora herself is found murdered the next day, hacked to death with an axe!
Cora has left all her possessions to her niece Susan Banks. Susan attends the funeral with Cora’s live-in companion, Miss Gillespie. That afternoon, after the funeral, Miss Gillespie receives a piece of wedding cake in the mail; and that night, Miss Gillespie is suffering from arsenic poisoning.
The only reason for these crimes seems to be that Richard Abernethie was murdered; that he was being systematically poisoning and before his death visited Cora to discuss the matter (allowing Miss Gillespie the chance to overhear—thus the attempt on her life). It seems the suspects must be found among the family itself. The family lawyer decides to ask Hercule Poirot to investigate the matter.
Poirot’s investigation reveals everyone had an opportunity to poison Richard Abernethie, and that no one’s alibi for the time of Cora’s murder is trustworthy. He suspects each cast member in his/her turn, and ends with a "family conference" with everyone present, where he finally accuses the true murderer and hands that person over to the authorities.
Read on for spoilers! Scroll down for full spoilers on this book.
Spoilers
By the end of the book, Poirot has unraveled all the intermingled "minor" mysteries, and discovered each character’s guilty secret:
But the actual murderer of Cora Lansquenet was ... Miss Gillespie! She drugged Cora, dressed up like her, and attended the funeral in Cora’s place, where she made her psychologically important comment about Richard being murdered. Then she returned to the cottage she shared with Cora and killed her with an axe. Her plan worked—everyone connected the two murders and assumed that Cora was killed by whoever killed Richard. Miss Gillespie even poisoned herself to give the impression that she "knew something."
Why did Miss Gillespie do all this? Because she recognized that a painting Cora obtained at a yard sale was actually valuable. With money from the sale of the painting, Miss Gillespie could fulfill her life-long dream: opening a tea shop. When Cora’s brother Richard died suddenly (but of natural causes), Miss Gillespie saw an opportunity and went into action.
My Thoughts About This Book
I think with this novel you can see that Christie did not like Poirot anymore. He’s barely in the story, until the end, and his detecting seems obscured to the reader. In fact, we’re left so much out of his mind that it’s hard to see how he drew his conclusions (there aren’t any moments where you slap your hand to your forehead as you realize something obvious).The female characters are, as usual, well developed and sympathetic. The whole premise of the story is believable and interesting. The clues are there for a reader to discover. Nonetheless, this is one of my less favorite of Christie’s mysteries.
| Hillary's rating: | |