47 pages • 1 hour read
Nita ProseThe Mystery Guest: A Maid Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 25-Epilogue Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
As Molly and Stark drive back to the hotel, Molly remembers her gran’s story about a maid, a rat, and a spoon. She explains the story to Detective Stark, who is amazed at her deductive powers but confused as to why the gardener insisted that she take the seemingly fake Fabergé egg. They join Mr. Snow, and everyone goes to the room of Beulah the LAMBS member. She isn’t there, and they go in. The room is filthy, and Detective Stark comments that it “looks like a rat moved in” (238). One of Grimthorpe’s Moleskines is there, along with Beulah’s journal, which records years of rejections from Mr. Grimthorpe and ends with him slamming the door in her face on the day before his death. Molly gets Lily to confirm that there was a spoon from the Social sticking out of the peanut butter, which Lily says is now on the bedside table. They see it there, open the drawer below it, and find the missing honey pot in a satin-lined box. The honey smells wrong because it is mixed with anti-freeze.
Chapter 26 Summary
Inspired by Gran’s stories and her love of Columbo episodes that also equate villains with rats, Molly suggests setting a trap for Beulah. Mr. Snow announces to the hotel that there will be a special J.D. Grimthorpe seminar in five minutes. As the crowd gathers, the presenters ask for his number-one fan to step forward. Many people do, but Stark singles out Beulah as Grimthorpe’s biographer and takes her to the tearoom. They get her talking about buying his items from the website and she also shows her ambition by stating that her book about him will make her famous. Lily and Angela enter with a tea cart. Lily tricks Beulah into revealing that she knows exactly how Mr. Grimthorpe takes his tea. Stark asks Beulah to explain the honeypot in her room, but she only rages that they have no proof that she knew how he took his tea. Angela reveals a cellphone that is recording the whole conversation.
Chapter 27 Summary
Molly explains to Detective Stark that the tearoom’s silverware tinkles in the china cups in a very specific way, and that on the day of Mr. Grimthorpe’s murder, his spoon clanked, indicating that it was the heavier cutlery from the Social—just like the one that Molly saw in the peanut butter jar in Beulah’s room, Room 404. Stark offers Molly a job because she wants someone with Molly’s skills on her team. Molly has a small identity crisis, wondering if she is a maid or if she is just employed as one. In the entrance, Beulah is exchanging insults with the LAMBS and resisting arrest. Finally, Mr. Preston approaches and talks to her as though she is a VIP. Stark distracts the press and says that no one in the hotel had anything to do with the murder, and Molly tells Mr. Preston what happened. He speculates that treating Beulah with a little kindness would have prevented her from plotting murder. They make a date to talk on the day that Juan Manuel comes home.
Chapter 28 Summary
The tearoom is set just as it was a week ago. There is about to be another big announcement relating to Mr. Grimthorpe. Press and fans fill the room. Mr. Preston reminds Molly about their chat, and she theorizes that he is going to retire. Molly awards Lily a pin indicating her full Maid status. Cheryl knows that Molly also fought to keep her from being fired, so she is performing better under Molly’s supervision. Detective Stark is there; she tells Molly that Beulah has confessed to the murder. Beulah found out from a former maid that Grimthorpe was a fraud. She then wrote two versions of his biography: one true and one false. She confronted him and gave him a choice of which one she would publish. He slammed the door in her face, making her angry enough to kill him. She poisoned all the honeypots, and as a result, he ingested quite a bit of anti-freeze over a period of 24 hours. Now, Serena comes onto the stage and reveals that Mr. Grimthorpe was a fraud. His publisher’s lawyer has contacted her about awarding the credit and royalties to her mother, who actually wrote the books. The press and crowd follow Serena as she leaves. Detective Stark reiterates her offer to make Molly a detective, saying that she will still be able to wear uniforms and badges.
Epilogue Summary
Molly cleans the Fabergé egg and puts it in her gran’s cabinet next to the photo of her mother, Maggie. Mr. Preston tells her that he is really her grandfather. At first, Molly thinks that he has lost his mind, but he tells the story of how he and Gran fell in love. She was from a rich family who didn’t accept him, and when Gran got pregnant, they disowned her. She took as job as a maid, had her baby, and ignored Mr. Preston and his offers for help. Eventually, he met his wife Mary, who reached out and befriended Molly’s gran and convinced her to let them help. Molly is overjoyed and feels like she “has a piece of her family back” (284). Juan Manuel comes home and excitedly gushes about his family. When he finally asks about them, Molly lets Mr. Preston describe the recent events at the hotel and explain his new status as her grandfather. She knows that her grandmother isn’t here physically, but she feels that her gran is always a presence, watching and encouraging her.
Chapter 25-Epilogue Analysis
The final chapters of the novel follow the cozy mystery genre format by revealing the murderer and resolving most of the lingering problems, bringing the story to a warm, happy conclusion. However, Prose’s long-term plot development is such that even the conclusion raises new questions that can only be addressed in the next installment of the series. Specifically, Mr. Preston’s revelation that he is Molly’s grandfather creates the expectation that future novels will further explore and develop their relationship. Similarly, Detective Stark’s offer to Molly to join the police raises the possibility that she might renounce her current vocation as a maid and pursue a different career path entirely. Thus, the author continues to send out new tendrils of storytelling, indicating that the Molly the Maid series is only just reaching its stride and has more tales to tell.
The author also maintains the gentler tone of this particular flavor of mystery, for even the discovery of the murderer highlights new angles of The Struggle to Belong and The Value of Unnoticed Work. Beulah, who murdered Mr. Grimthorpe in what essentially amounts to a fit of pique at his rejection, stands as an example of someone whose negative path could have been avoided if her work had been noticed and appreciated. Likewise, Cheryl and Lily both begin to improve when Molly’s efforts on their behalf help them to feel like they belong. Serena’s mother, too, is finally given the acknowledgment that she deserves for her many years of work as Mr. Grimthorpe’s ghostwriter. While each character’s path is unique, Prose makes it a point to thematically unite these disparate storylines and add nuance to their experiences in order to enhance the novel’s conclusion.
It is also worth noting that the strategic insertion of key symbols culminates in the last few chapters and precipitates the climactic moment. With the description of Beulah’s hotel room as a “rats’ nest,” it is abundantly clear that the woman is one of the symbolic “rats” in the novel. When the presence of the restaurant’s spoon indirectly links her to the crime, the novel essentially finishes exactly as it began: with the discovery of the truly guilty party. The symbolic Fabergé egg also returns to Molly, and when the novel describes it being displayed in her gran’s cabinet, the author implies that Molly has gained a new sense of her own power and agency. She has brought the egg to a place where it will be admired and used well rather than being left to tarnish. Its new position in Gran’s curio case shows that Molly’s loved ones and family are the real treasure.
