At Bertram's Hotel

At Bertram's Hotel is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 15 November 1965 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at sixteen shillings (16/-) and the US edition at $4.50. It features the detective Miss Marple staying at an upmarket hotel which serves as a front for a sophisticated gang of robbers.
Reviews at the time of publication considered the denouement too far-fetched, but that it has "phenomenal zest and makes a reasonably snug read". Another reviewer called it "an ingenious mystery" reliant on Christie's skillful writing style. A review in 1990 found the plot "creaky" but praised the "hotel atmosphere" which "is very well conveyed and used". The character Elvira Blake was drawn well, and the careful description of the way older people look in 1965 compared to earlier eras, showed that Christie's "sharp eye had not dimmed".
Plot summary
Miss Marple takes a two-week holiday in London, at Bertram's Hotel, an establishment known for its scrupulously authentic recreation of the Edwardian era, with the addition of modern conveniences. While taking tea with her friend Lady Selina Hazy, Miss Marple observes the other guests: famous adventuress Bess Sedgwick; her daughter, Elvira Blake with Elvira's legal guardian Colonel Luscombe; clergyman Canon Pennyfather; and race car driver Ladislaus Malinowski.
Elvira seeks to learn the size of her inheritance and who gets it if she dies. Lawyer Richard Egerton, one of her trustees, tells her about the great wealth awaiting her. She works a scheme with her friend Bridget to get money to fly to Ireland for unspecified reasons.
Canon Pennyfather attempts to travel to Lucerne for a conference; however, he leaves on the wrong day and misses the event. Upon returning to Bertram's late at night, Pennyfather disturbs intruders in his bedroom. He awakens four days later in a house far from London, near the location of a recent overnight robbery of the Irish Mail train. Some witnesses of the robbery report having seen him on the train. Inspector Campbell and Chief Inspector Davy visit Bertram's to investigate the assault on the canon, as well as a series of unsolved robberies that Davy thinks may have some connection with the hotel.
After the Inspector questions everyone at the hotel, Davy meets Miss Marple. She tells Davy of seeing Canon Pennyfather after she thought he had left. She also tells him that she overheard Bess Sedgwick and hotel commissionaire Michael Gorman discussing their mutual past. It is revealed that they had been married at one time in Ireland and the marriage was never annulled, thus making Bess' subsequent marriages illegitimate.
With Miss Marple's help, Davy discovers the truth about Bertram's Hotel; it is the home base for a sophisticated criminal gang who commit large-scale robberies while impersonating distinguished hotel guests. On Miss Marple's last day at the hotel, Gorman is shot with Malinowski's gun. Elvira Blake says he was shielding her from the gunfire.
Miss Marple realises she saw a younger man who closely resembled Pennyfather, and recalls the German term doppelganger. This jogs Pennyfather's memory; he remembers he saw himself sitting on a chair in his own hotel room just before he was knocked unconscious. The gang had expected Canon Pennyfather to be in Lucerne and had sent a double to replace him and take part in the train robbery.
Davy and Miss Marple confront Bess Sedgwick as the orchestrator of the daring robberies, along with the maître d'hôtel Henry, and Ladislaus Malinowski when fast cars were needed. The hotel staff co-operated, and the owners handled the money side of the thefts. Bess confesses not only to this, but also to the murder of Gorman. Making a run for it, Bess steals a car and speeds away recklessly, crashing fatally.
Miss Marple is not convinced that Bess killed Gorman, believing she was covering for Elvira Blake. It is revealed that Elvira also overheard the conversation between Bess and Gorman. Elvira realized that if Bess' marriage to Gorman was in fact legitimate, then Elvira would not receive the substantial inheritance she had been expecting. She killed Gorman to keep him quiet. Davy will not let her get away with the murder.
Characters
Miss Marple: older woman and amateur detective who resides in St Mary Mead; here she is on holiday in London.
Mr Humfries: manager of Bertram's Hotel.
Miss Gorringe: works at the reception desk at Bertram's Hotel.
Rose Sheldon: chambermaid employed at Bertram's Hotel, who previously worked as an actress.
Lady Selina Hazy: guest at the hotel, a friend of Miss Marple.
The Honourable Elvira Blake: beautiful young woman with fashionably long, straight flaxen hair, a guest at the hotel returning to England after attending finishing school in Italy.
Mrs Carpenter: Elvira's chaperone while travelling from Italy to England.
Bridget: Elvira's best friend from the school in Italy and unknown to Elvira's guardian. She lives with her mother in Onslow Square.
Colonel Derek Luscombe: Elvira's guardian, accompanying her at the hotel. He is one of three trustees who manage Elvira's inheritance
Mrs Mildred Melford: Colonel Luscombe's cousin who will host Elvira until she turns 21. She has daughters nearly the age as Elvira who live outside of London, in Kent.
Mr Bollard: owner of the jewellery shop on Bond Street that Elvira usually frequents.
Bess, Lady Sedgwick: guest at the hotel, about 40 years old, and well known for her life of daring adventures and several marriages. She is Elvira's estranged mother.
Lord Coniston: Bess's second husband, and Elvira Blake's wealthy father. He was much older than Bess, who left him after their daughter was two years old. He died when Elvira was five years old.
Henry: master of the afternoon tea – "He sets the tone of the [hotel]". He is like a perfect butler.
Michael "Micky" Gorman: Commissionaire (doorman) at Bertram's Hotel, an Irishman with a military background and Lady Sedgwick's estranged first husband, whom she married when she was 16 years old in Ballygowland, Ireland. He is fatally shot in front of the hotel.
Richard Egerton: lawyer who is one of three trustees for Elvira's inheritance.
Guido: Elvira's boyfriend when she was in Italy.
Inspector Campbell: younger inspector at Scotland Yard, assigned to find the missing cleric.
Chief-Inspector Fred "Father" Davy: Scotland Yard detective who sees the link between the missing person case and recent large scale burglaries. He works with Miss Marple.
Sergeant Wadell: sent from Scotland Yard to do the initial interviews regarding Canon Pennyfather, the missing person.
Canon Pennyfather: scholarly cleric with expertise in ancient languages and the Dead Sea Scrolls, who is also noted for his ability to lose track of time completely. He has a distinct appearance, as a man in his early sixties with a shock of white hair.
Ladislaus Malinowski: race car driver in his thirties, associate and occasional lover of Lady Sedgwick, with whom her daughter Elvira has fallen in love.
Mrs McCrae: Canon Pennyfather's housekeeper.
Archdeacon Simmons: Canon Pennyfather's friend and house guest who initiates the call to the police when his friend is missing for a week.
Mr Robinson: financial power-player who knows about all aspects of banking and high finance. Davy approaches him to discover the true owner of the hotel. This character appears briefly in one of the Tommy and Tuppence novels (Postern of Fate), one Hercule Poirot story (Cat Among the Pigeons) and in Passenger to Frankfurt.
Wilhelm and Robert Hoffman: two wealthy Swiss brothers and actual owners of Bertram's Hotel. They handle the illegal financial transactions of the hotel.
References to actual places or events
Bertram's Hotel is popularly believed to have been inspired by Brown's Hotel, where Agatha Christie often stayed when visiting London. However, Christie's authorised biographer Janet Morgan asserted that Bertram's was in fact based on Flemings Mayfair hotel. Morgan has cited correspondence between Christie and her agent Edmund Cork in which they decided to change the hotel proprietor's name and street in which Bertram's was located in order to obscure the connection with Fleming's. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography also claims Fleming's as Christie's model.
Literary significance and reception
In The Guardian of 17 December 1965, Francis Iles (Anthony Berkeley Cox) said that "At Bertram's Hotel can hardly be called a major Agatha Christie [novel], for in spite of the presence of Miss Marples (sic) the denouement is really too far-fetched. But does the plot matter so much with Mrs Christie? What does matter is that one just can't put any book of hers down."
Maurice Richardson in The Observer of 12 December 1965 said, "A C is seldom at her best when she goes thrillerish on you. This one is a bit wild and far-fetched, but it's got plenty of that phenomenal zest and makes a reasonably snug read."
Robert Weaver in the Toronto Daily Star of 8 January 1966 said, "At Bertram's Hotel is vintage Agatha Christie: an ingenious mystery that triumphantly gets away with what in lesser hands would be the most outrageous coincidences."
This novel was listed on Anthony Boucher's Best Crime Novels of the Year for 1966, one of thirteen listed that year.
Brigid Brophy complained that the author offered "nothing like enough signposts to give the reader a chance to beat Miss Marple or the police to the solution".
Robert Barnard said of this novel that "The plot is rather creaky, as in most of the late ones, but the hotel atmosphere is very well conveyed and used. Elvira Blake is one of the best observed of the many young people in late Christie. Note the reflections in chapter 5 in the novel on the changed look of elderly people, showing that the sharp eye had not dimmed, even if the narrative grasp was becoming shaky."
Publication history
1965, Collins Crime Club (London), 15 November 1965, hardcover, 256 pp
1966, Dodd, Mead and Company (New York), 1966, hardcover, 272 pp
1967, Pocket Books (New York), paperback, 180 pp
1967, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), paperback, 192 pp
1968, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, hardcover, 256 pp
1972, Greenway edition of collected works (William Collins), hardcover, 253 pp
1973, Greenway edition of collected works (Dodd Mead), hardcover, 253 pp
2006, Marple Facsimile edition HarperCollins (facsimile of 1965 Collins Crime Club first edition), 6 March 2006, hardcover,
The novel was first serialised in the UK weekly magazine Woman's Own in five abridged instalments from 20 November to 18 December 1965, illustrated with specially posed photographic layouts by Abis Sida Stribley. In the US the novel was serialised in Good Housekeeping magazine in two instalments from March (volume 162, number 3) to April 1966 (volume 162, number 4) with illustrations by Sanford Kossin and a photograph by James Viles.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
A BBC television film adaptation from 1987 starred Joan Hickson as Miss Marple and Caroline Blakiston as Bess Sedgwick.
A BBC radio adaptation by Michael Bakewell, broadcast in 1995–1996, starred June Whitfield as Miss Marple and Sian Phillips as Bess Sedgwick.
ITV broadcast its adaptation on 23 September 2007 as part of the third series of Agatha Christie's Marple, starring Geraldine McEwan. This version included many substantial changes to the plot, characters, atmosphere and the finale of the original novel, and added overtly contemporary social themes.
References
External links
At Bertram's Hotel at Agatha Christie official website
1965 British novels
British novels adapted into films
Collins Crime Club books
Miss Marple novels
British novels adapted into television shows
Novels first published in serial form
Novels set in hotels
Novels set in London
Works originally published in Woman's Own