Sleeping Murder

Sleeping Murder is a novel by Agatha Christie. It was published posthumously in 1976, the year of Christie's death. However, it is set in the interwar years (and was written long before her death).

"Let sleeping murder lie": This is the motto which is not obeyed by Gwenda Halliday, a woman in her early twenties who has recently married and now comes to England to settle down there. For all she knows, she has never set foot on English soil before, as her father brought her directly from India to New Zealand when she was a two year-old girl. While her husband is still abroad on business, she drives around the countryside looking for a suitable house which might become their permanent residence. She decides on the small village of Dillmouth in the South of England when she finds a nice old house there called Hillside which immediately appeals to her. Little does she know yet why this is the case.

Sleeping Murder was filmed by the BBC in 1986 as a two-part mini-series. It was directed by John Howard Davies (see Fawlty Towers) and starred Joan Hickson as Miss Marple.

Users who are planning to read the book and/or watch the movie are advised not to read on. What follows is a detailed and chronological outline of the plot which contains spoilers. It may be of interest for students of Christie's novels who already know the novel and want to analyse her intricate plotting.

Dr James Kennedy, a Scottish doctor who lives in Dillmouth, is pathologically jealous of his half-sister Helen, who is much younger than he is and whom it is his duty to bring up. As a learned man, however, he is extremely good at hiding his condition so that none of the villagers suspects anything out of the ordinary.

Without anybody noticing, the situation escalates when Helen Kennedy returns to Dillmouth after leaving school. She is young, very attractive and wants to have fun, so she goes out with men. Her half-brother cannot cope with this situation, becomes increasingly irritated and starts playing nasty tricks on her: For example, as a doctor, he "treats" her foot injury in a way which makes her unable to walk for much longer than necessary. He also cuts their tennis net to ribbons so that she cannot invite her friends and have a tennis party.

20 years later Miss Marple finds out that Helen's reputation as a man crazy nymphomaniac was actually invented by Dr Kennedy in order to be able to get rid of her without suspicion. All Helen really wants is get away from the stifling atmosphere that surrounds her half-brother. At first she goes out with Jackie Afflick, a young man a class beneath her who works as a clerk for Fane, the country solicitor. Young Walter Fane, a repressed and uninteresting young man, is also crazy about her. Rejected by Helen, Fane decides to go abroad and try his hand at planting tea in India. Afflick is fired and thinks this is due to a conspiracy against him instigated by Dr Kennedy.

Now Helen really wants to get away and decides to go to India to marry Walter Fane. She tells him so and actually starts on the voyage to India. On the ship she meets the third man in her life: Richard Erskine, married with two little boys, whose wife is pathologically jealous. On arrival in India, Erskine and Helen decide to go separate ways because, after all, Erskine is married and has to care for his wife and sons. But at the same time Helen realizes that she could never spend the rest of her life with a man as boring as Walter Fane. She tells him so and immediately books a passage back to England.

On the journey back Helen Kennedy meets Kelvin Halliday. Halliday is a widower with a two year-old girl called Gwenda. His wife Megan, a New Zealander, died while they were living in India, and now Halliday, desperate after the loss of his wife, is on his way back to England. Halliday and Helen get to know each other better and decide to get married on arrival: Helen does not want to wait for her half-brother's approval, which she might never get. The Hallidays rent a house, St Catherine's—later renamed Hillside—in Dillmouth, quite close to that of Dr Kennedy—actually next to the hospital where he is working. Dr Kennedy becomes a frequent visitor at St Catherine's, and on the surface everything seems to be all right now.

But Helen's former suitors are around, too: Walter Fane has also returned from India, is working in his father's law firm and following Helen around like a dog; Jackie Afflick cannot help showing off his flashy car and this way proving to the Kennedys and Hallidays that he has made his way in spite of his disadvantaged position; and Richard Erskine spends a few weeks in August with his jealous wife in Dillmouth as a summer guest. All three of them are attracted to Helen and St Catherine's like moths to the light.

When Kelvin Halliday reveals to Dr Kennedy that he and his wife and daughter are planning to move North for good—a fact Helen has kept a secret from him for good reasons—Dr Kennedy goes berserk and, in the fashion of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, strangles his half-sister in the hall of St Catherine's. Nevertheless it is premeditated murder, with Dr Kennedy planning the murder so that it looks as if Helen, the nympho, had run off with one of her lovers. What Dr Kennedy does not realize is that Gwenda is watching him through the banister from the first floor landing. The deed done, Kennedy is able to persuade Kelvin Halliday, whom he has been drugging for some time, that he is suffering from delusions and that he has actually strangled his wife in their bedroom without being able to remember it. At night he digs a grave for his half-sister in a part of the garden of St Catherine's which can only be seen from the nursery window. What Dr Kennedy does not know at the time is that he is actually watched doing so by the Hallidays' Swiss nurse, Léonie. He pretends to her that Kelvin Halliday is insane and that he just wants to cover up for his brother-in-law. Léonie, who, as a foreigner, does not want to get involved with the police, says nothing and goes home to Switzerland soon afterwards. There she dies of an overdose of sleeping pills which Dr Kennedy has given her.

The whole village now believes that Helen Kennedy has run away with a man, but no one knows who it might be. The two most likely suspects are Afflick and Erskine (the latter only known as a "married man"), but it could also be someone else. Under the circumstances, Kelvin Halliday considers it the best solution to send three year-old Gwenda back to her relatives in New Zealand and to spend his time as a voluntary patient in a lunatic asylum somewhere in the North. There Halliday commits suicide soon afterwards. This is the point where Dr Kennedy has achieved everything he has planned. And for the next 18 years, nothing happens.

"Let sleeping murder lie": This is the motto which is not obeyed by Gwenda Halliday, who, now 21 or 22 and recently married to Giles Reed, comes to England to settle down there. (This is where the novel starts.) She has never bothered about her early childhood and believes she has never set foot on English soil before, believing that her father brought her directly from India to New Zealand when she was a two year-old girl. While her husband is still abroad on business, she drives around the countryside looking for a house which is to become their permanent residence. She decides on Dillmouth and on a house called Hillside, which is actually the old St Catherine's where she spent about a year of her early childhood.

At first Gwenda Reed thinks she must be psychic: She knows things about the house which she could not possibly know, for example the exact location of a communicating door that was plastered up and cannot be seen any longer. Miss Marple appears on the scene when friends of the Reeds' who live in London introduce her to that elderly lady. As it happens, they are watching a performance of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi when Gwenda suddenly jumps up from her seat and runs out of the auditorium. What she has just encountered lies buried deep in her unconscious: She has just relived her stepmother's murder, which she eye-witnessed as a three year-old. Miss Marple, who first advises the young couple to "let sleeping murder lie", later advises her doctor, Dr Haydock (rather than the other way round!), to prescribe her a change of air: Consequently she travels to Dillmouth, where, through her large network of relatives near and far and some acquaintances, she is cordially taken up.

The investigation that now sets in is completely in the hands of amateurs: Giles and Gwenda Reed and Miss Marple. The police are absent as so far it has not even been established that a crime has ever been committed. Helen Halliday could just as well have run off with one of her lovers and died abroad or just never got in touch with anyone from back home. For all they know, she could still be alive and well. What nobody knows of course at this early stage is that Dr Kennedy, her murderer, now retired, is actually informed about each and every step the amateur detectives take. Far from being hostile, he pretends to be helpful wherever he can.

Some of the more basic facts are quickly established. For example, it soon turns out that Gwenda Reed is not psychic after all. Rather, she actually spent part of her childhood in this house. The amateur sleuths can also dig up two old gardeners who remember the Halliday family and some of the old household staff at St Catherine's, for example by placing an ad in several newspapers. They can also trace down the three men in Helen's life: Walter Fane, J J Afflick, and Richard Erskine. At one point it seems very likely that one of them must be the murderer: They were all "on the spot", as Miss Marple calls it, that August night 18 years ago when Helen was murdered. Dr Kennedy can distract the amateur investigators a bit by presenting two letters posted abroad (forged by him, as it turns out later) which he says he got from his half-sister after her disappearance.

When Lily Kimble, who used to be in Halliday's employ 18 years ago, senses there could be money in it, she contacts Dr Kennedy, of all people, to ask for his advice. Kennedy thinks she plans to blackmail him—at least this is how he interprets her letter to him. Dr Kennedy plays it cool: He writes her back, inviting her to see him at his house and including a train timetable and exact instructions on how to get to his house. His alibi is almost perfect (if it were not for Miss Marple): He misdirects her to a stretch of woodland, where he strangles her. Then he replaces his original letter with a fake one and is back at his house in time to "wait", together with Giles and Gwenda Reed, for her arrival.

When Lily Kimble's body is found, the police finally start investigating. Now it suddenly dawns upon the Reeds that there actually was a murder 18 years ago—and, with the murderer still at large, that their lives are in danger. But the nightmare is soon over: After unsuccessfully trying to poison Gwenda and/or Giles—it is Mrs Cocker, the cook, who takes a sip of brandy instead and who consequently has to be hospitalized—Dr Kennedy tries to strangle Gwenda. But Miss Marple saves her life by flinging some soapy liquid into Dr Kennedy's face. So of course there is a happy ending.