57 pages • 1 hour read
Agatha ChristieA Pocket Full of Rye
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1953A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 17-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary
Neele’s first visit is to the local law firm to establish that Adele did indeed write a will under their auspices. Adele left her then-meager assets to Vivian. Now, however, Neele assumes that Vivian Dubois will inherit the £100,000 left to Adele in her husband’s will.
Neele’s interview with Vivian establishes the other man’s nervousness: He tries to avoid admitting that he spoke to Adele by phone the day of her death and denies being in the house. When Neele suggests that Vivian repeat this denial with an attorney present, he admits to going in search of the letters and realizes that Neele has already seen them. Vivian denies that he or Adele plotted murder, suggesting that Adele’s death proves this. Neele reveals that Vivian is the beneficiary of Adele’s will, implying that he could have killed her for the money or to hide their shared complicity. He adds, however, that Adele’s assets were minimal, which surprises Vivian. It is later revealed that Adele would only receive the full inheritance if she outlived Rex by one month—since she did not, the funds remain in the family.
Neele interviews Gerald Wright. When Neele suggests that it is hypocritical of Gerald to take Elaine’s money now when he despised Rex’s capitalism, Wright asserts that he will use the assets for a social mission. When Gerald admits to walking near the house the day of the murders, Neele tries to suggest that he actually went there, which Gerald denies. Gerald also claims that he did not see Vivian that day.
Neele returns to the house, where Hay tells him that blackbirds were recently left in a meat pie after someone removed the original contents. Neele quotes the nursery rhyme, saying, “[W]asn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king” (159), baffling his sergeant.
Chapter 18 Summary
The chapter opens with Miss Ramsbottom triumphantly winning a game of patience while Pat watches. The old lady interrogates Pat, asking about her prior marriages, health, and family. Pat explains that her first husband died during World War II, while her second died by suicide after a scandal involving his racehorses. Miss Ramsbottom asks Pat pointedly if she knows the full extent of the Fortescue family’s own scandals, and Pat responds, somewhat coolly, that she knows “as much as one ever knows of the family one marries into” (161). Miss Ramsbottom states that Lance has always been unscrupulous but that Percival is also less innocent than he appears.
Inspector Neele speaks by phone with the assistant commissioner, who agrees to help him find the Mackenzies. Neele says that he is also investigating Vivian Dubois and Gerald Wright, along with the Fortescue estate and Rex’s history in Africa.
Neele next meets with Rex’s solicitors, the more reputable firm he used for his straightforward dealings. The solicitor Billingsley tells him that the firm was in danger of failure due to Rex’s erratic behavior and sudden purchases of unreliable holdings. The lawyer also explains that contrary to what Neele believed, Adele no longer inherits, as she did not outlive her husband by the legally mandated 30 days. The firm thus retains her share, which is to Percival’s benefit as the new manager.
Neele then chats with Dr. Bernsdorff, who tells him that Rex’s somewhat manic and impulsive behavior seems like “general paralysis of the insane,” a form of dementia caused by late-stage syphilis. The doctor says that those suffering from the condition are so confident that they are virtually immune to criticism or correction. He says, “I should say it was a bit of luck for your friends that he died” (167), to which Neele repeats his assertion that he finds the entire family “very unpleasant.”
Chapter 19 Summary
The remaining Fortescues have a family conference. Percival and Jennifer complain about the indignity and disruption of the criminal investigation. Elaine discomfits Percival by explaining that she is planning to marry immediately and use her inheritance to start a progressive school. Lance encourages her and tells his brother that he is staying in England and rejoining the firm. Percival soon becomes angry, especially when Lance encourages Elaine to take her inheritance while the firm is still solvent.
Lance suggests a radical business approach, while Percival urges caution and the end of any partnership. Lance laughingly agrees to take some of the more dubious holdings, and Pat suspects that he has a strategy he has not divulged. Lance asks pointedly if the Blackbird Mine will be among his share. Percival assures him that there is no gold there and that Rex’s memory can be trusted. Lance suggests that the mine is in West Africa, in contrast to his aunt’s earlier claim that it was in East Africa. This is a deliberate obfuscation to conceal his interest in the mine, as Neele soon realizes. Lance recalls the Mackenzies, especially Mrs. Mackenzie’s fury, and speculates on the fate of her two children.
Chapter 20 Summary
Inspector Neele arrives at Pinewood Sanatorium to meet with Mrs. Mackenzie, who lives there voluntarily as a result of her mental illness. She at first denies any knowledge of Rex but admits that she should have discouraged her husband from a business partnership in the mine. When Neele suggests that the matter is in the past, Mrs. Mackenzie quotes Kipling, telling him that “no question is ever settled until it is settled right” (178). Mrs. Mackenzie seems to think that she is still in the past. She is intrigued when he tells her of the recent incidents involving blackbirds at Yewtree Lodge. She insists that she raised her children to kill Rex, only for her son to die at Dunkirk and her daughter, Ruby, to abandon the cause. She shows Neele the book she has been reading: the family Bible, with Ruby’s name removed, reflecting that she has been disowned. Mrs. Mackenzie refuses to say more.
Neele asks the doctor If Mrs. Mackenzie’s daughter visits, but the doctor says that contact has proved too distressing. Now, Mrs. Mackenzie’s care is arranged through a law firm, and none of the staff can describe Ruby. Neele reports back by phone to the assistant commissioner, who agrees that the nursery rhyme has some significance. Neele almost has an epiphany when his boss refers to Gladys’s death as “the third murder” (183), telling him this summary was “wrong somewhere.”
Chapter 21 Summary
Lance and Pat walk in the gardens, and Pat confesses that she finds the arrangements impersonal and is particularly repulsed by the yew trees. Pat thinks that the poisoner is monstrous, a “horrid, brooding, revengeful mind” (183), while Lance insists that the murderer strikes him as “businesslike and cold blooded” (183). In response to Pat’s fears, Lance urges her to return to the city, but she is reluctant to leave him. Morbidly, she insists that her presence causes tragedy. Lance assures her of his devotion but suggests that she spend time with Miss Marple for her safety.
Meanwhile, Jennifer confides in Miss Marple. She reminds Miss Marple of a woman in her village who was married to the bank manager and isolated due to her class position: She had too little wealth to socialize with the old families, while those who shared her humbler origins considered her too far above them because of her marriage. This made her immensely lonely and very voluble on the rare instance that she did find a sympathetic listener. Miss Marple notes that Jennifer “had a lot of grievances to bear and the relief of airing them to a more or less total stranger was enormous” (187). Jennifer explains that Percival is obsessed with his work and that she struggles to make friends. Miss Marple finds herself sympathetic, realizing that Jennifer’s privilege cannot make up for her emotional isolation among the Fortescues.
Turning to the murders, Jennifer insists that she suspects Crump, and she considers escaping the house for a new life of some kind. Miss Marple tells her that she is wrong to underestimate Neele, who would surely find her. Jennifer insists that she does not feel safe but refuses to answer when Miss Marple asks if there is a specific reason. Watching her, Miss Marple reflects that “for some reason, Jennifer Fortescue [i]s very badly frightened indeed” (192).
Chapter 22 Summary
Miss Marple, knitting in the library, catches sight of Pat outside. She calls Pat in to chat with her, urging her to avoid the chilly weather. Pat says that she finds Miss Marple knitting in front of a fire a kind of respite, a reminder that England is more than the horrors she is currently experiencing. Miss Marple agrees with her that the house is an unhappy place due to the constant anxieties of its inhabitants. Pat also worries about being trapped with a killer, insisting that whoever is responsible must be irrational. Miss Marple gently discourages this, asking Pat if some of her pessimism is due to her life’s struggles. Pat explains that while she has happy memories of riding horses in Ireland when she was young, her adulthood has been more difficult. Her first husband, an ambitious man, died in the war when his plane was shot down. While she grieved him deeply, she has trouble imagining him happy in civilian life, as he had a kind of “arrogant insubordination.” She did her best to ignore her second husband’s unethical habits in his racing stable, concentrating on his love for her. After his death by suicide, she met Lance on a trip to Africa.
Pat asks Miss Marple what she thinks of Percival and goes on to describe her brother-in-law as frugal to the point of obsession. Miss Marple agrees that Miss Dove is remarkably skilled at managing him and alludes to a story from St. Mary Mead that reminds her of Miss Dove but stops short, implying that she has unearthed what bothers Inspector Neele about the housekeeper. Pat insists that she is terrified of Miss Ramsbottom’s fervent moralizing religiosity and that Lance, for all his secrets, knows one of his family members is responsible. Miss Marple agrees with Pat that Lance is astute to suggest that they spend time together. She assures Pat that her fears of more murders are groundless, as “the murderer’s accomplished his purpose, you see” (198), but declines to explain further.
Chapters 17-22 Analysis
As the investigation progresses, Neele methodically moves down a list of suspects. His interviews reinforce the theme of Class, Ambition, and Transgression. Both Vivian Dubois and Gerald Wright strike him as eager to enrich themselves at the Fortescue family’s expense. Neele’s dislike of both men reveals his own class position as a man who works for his living and has little leisure time. He rejects Gerald’s idealism, seeing him as no less mercenary than Adele or Vivian. Through Gerald, the novel suggests that Elaine may have simply traded one egotistical man’s rule for another, subordinating her own wishes entirely to his view of the world. Miss Marple suggests that the marriage will be a happy one precisely because of Elaine’s wealth, establishing the Fortescues as mercenary in their own ways: Elaine will buy her happiness. Gerald, Elaine, and Vivian soon vanish from the text, implying that Neele has been diligent in investigating every avenue but that all three are red herrings.
Neele’s discovery that Adele’s death saves the firm from insolvency speaks to the theme of Family, Loyalty, and the Ties That Bind. Neele is right to suspect the family, though he focuses his suspicion on Percival rather than Lance. The discovery that Rex Fortescue’s behavior was caused by “general paralysis of the insane” underlines the family as a site of suffering and instability. Syphilis was strongly associated with moral decay and sexual immorality, and though its worst effects were treatable at the time, the novel portrays Rex as reckless with his own health and that of his family by extension. This revelation also hints at the killer’s motive: to preserve the business and family assets. However, Lance is no noble knight, rescuing his siblings out of loyalty; he kills for personal gain. His suggestion that Pat spend time with Miss Marple may be another act of opportunism, as Pat could convey to him whatever Miss Marple has discovered. Lance and Percival, despite their differing temperaments, are alike in their thoroughly material views of happiness.
The family meeting also examines Family, Loyalty, and the Ties That Bind, revealing all the Fortescue siblings to be self-interested and mercenary. Elaine’s ostensible moral crusade is not presented as particularly sincere, while Percival’s frugality borders on obsession. Lance’s emphasis on the Blackbird Mine is a strategic bit of misdirection—he mentions it in a critical tone to assure himself that his brother will take no interest in it—but his strategy backfires, and Percival becomes suspicious. Mr. Mackenzie’s mysterious death underscores that venality produces either cruelty and callousness or profound tragedy, while the anecdote about the Mackenzies shows the tragedy of family loyalty: Mrs. Mackenzie’s grief lands her in a psychiatric hospital and estranges her from her only surviving child. Through her, the novel suggests that mental illness is destabilizing and deeply regrettable, not a sign of calculating menace as Pat mistakenly believes. The scene in the sanatorium underlines the aptness of Rex’s fate: He was the agent of Mrs. Mackenzie’s mental illness, only to fail to treat his own medical condition and be murdered in the process.
While Inspector Neele focuses much of his attention on the men in the case, Percival in particular, Miss Marple turns her attention to the women. Her allusions to her village experiences underline that ordinary life is its own evidence base. She senses that Jennifer’s emotional isolation and fear hint at a deeper secret, and it is she who will eventually reveal Jennifer’s true identity as Ruby Mackenzie. Miss Marple’s interest in Pat’s personal tragedies and Lance’s motivations affirms the novel’s arguments about Gender, Intuition, and Justice. Neele intimidates suspects and gathers hard data, while Miss Marple cultivates relationships.
Jennifer, like Pat, is largely ignored both by the family and by Neele, but they each reveal much to Miss Marple because she is kind and gentle with them. Miss Marple seeks justice with empathy, making her one of the novel’s only sympathetic characters. In her conversation with Pat about the killer’s goals, Miss Marple is knitting, an activity strongly associated with femininity. It may also be a subtle allusion to either history or mythology: At an earlier juncture, Neele imagines Miss Marple as an “avenging fury,” and in Greek myth, the fates are depicted as spinning threads of life, cutting them at the end of a moral lifespan. Furthermore, women knitting at the guillotine were a common image of the French Revolution’s radical phases. In associating Miss Marple with these images of power, influence, and death, through what is usually seen as a domestic undertaking, the novel underscores Miss Marple’s importance in bringing moral rectitude to her novel’s universe. Miss Marple’s investigations underline that it is the women of the household who are fundamental to the case: Lance is best understood through both his love for Pat and his relentless ambition on her behalf. Miss Marple’s relationship with Gladys brought her to the case and will feature prominently in the novel’s final act, making her empathy key to her ability to enact justice.
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