4.50 from Paddington

4.50 from Paddington is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie, first published in November 1957 in the United Kingdom by Collins Crime Club. This work was published in the United States at the same time as What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!, by Dodd, Mead. The novel was published in serial form before the book was released in each nation, and under different titles. The US edition retailed at $2.95.
Reviewers at the time of publication generally liked the novel, but would have liked more direct involvement of Miss Marple, and less consideration of her failing strength, using others to act for her. A later review by Barnard found the story short on clues, but favourably noted Lucy Eyelesbarrow as an independent woman character.
The 1961 film Murder, She Said was based on this novel as were several television programmes.
Elspeth McGillicuddy visits her friend Jane Marple. Her train passes another running in the same direction. She sees a man on the other train with his back to her, strangling a woman. Mrs McGillicuddy describes to Miss Marple the dying woman as having blonde hair and wearing a fur coat and the man as tall and dark, though she saw only his back. Miss Marple believes her, knowing her friend to be trustworthy in description. With no news report of a body found, Miss Marple sets out to determine where the body is. With a map and several rides by train, she determines that the body is probably in the grounds of Rutherford Hall. Miss Marple sends Lucy Eyelesbarrow, a cook and housekeeper, to work at Rutherford Hall and find the body.
Luther Crackenthorpe is a widower living at Rutherford Hall. Luther's father made his fortune in biscuit manufacturing. His will left Rutherford Hall in trust for his eldest grandson (currently Cedric). Luther can live in the house for his lifetime, and receives the income from the capital left by his father. After Luther's death, that capital is to be divided equally among Luther's surviving children, so the share due to the living children rises as each sibling dies before Luther. Edmund, the firstborn son, died during World War II. Younger daughter Edith died four years before the novel begins, leaving a son, Alexander. The remaining children are Cedric, a painter; Harold, a married businessman; Alfred, who makes shady deals; and Emma. Others at the family home include Alexander's father Bryan Eastley, and Alexander's friend James Stoddart-West. Local physician Dr Quimper looks after Luther and is in love with Emma.
Lucy discovers fur from a woman's coat, and a cheap powder compact. Lucy takes these to Miss Marple, who believes the murderer removed the body from the railway embankment. Lucy finds the woman's body hidden in a sarcophagus in the stables containing Luther's collection of antiques.
The police, led by Inspector Craddock, identify the victim's clothing as French. Their enquiries lead them to think that the dead woman was a dancer, calling herself "Anna Stravinska", who had gone missing from a ballet troupe. However, "Anna Stravinska" is an alias, and the police cannot trace her origins.
Emma tells the police about two letters, one from her brother Edmund and written shortly before his death in France, and another received a few weeks before the woman's body is found. Her brother had said that he would marry a woman named Martine. The recent letter seemed to be from Martine, wanting to connect with the family of her son's father. There was no second letter, nor a meeting with Martine. The police conclude that the body in the sarcophagus is that of Martine, until Lady Stoddart-West, mother of James, reveals her identity as the former Martine Dubois. She confirms that Edmund's letter referred to her, but he had died before they could marry. She spoke up only because her son told her of the letter supposedly from "Martine". After Edmund's death, Martine had joined the Resistance, and briefly met Bryan Eastley who was escaping through France. At Rutherford Hall, she recognised him again instantly from "the way he stood, and the set of his shoulders". This incident seems to impress Miss Marple.
The whole family, apart from the absent Bryan and Alexander, become ill suddenly, and before long, Alfred is found dead while being nursed. The curry made by Lucy on the fateful day is found to contain arsenic. After returning home to London, Harold receives a delivery of tablets from Dr Quimper, who had told him not to take more. Harold takes them; they are poisoned with aconitine, and he dies.
Lucy arranges afternoon tea at Rutherford Hall for Miss Marple and Mrs McGillicuddy. Miss Marple instructs Mrs McGillicuddy to ask to use the lavatory as soon as they arrive. Miss Marple is eating a fish-paste sandwich when she pretends to choke on a fish bone. Dr Quimper moves to assist her. Mrs McGillicuddy enters the room at that moment, sees the doctor's hands at Miss Marple's throat, and cries out, "But that's him – that's the man on the train!"
Miss Marple had realised that her friend would recognise the real murderer if she saw him again in a similar pose. The dead woman was Quimper's wife, who would not divorce him, so he killed her to be free to marry Emma. After the Quimpers separated, she had joined a ballet troupe as Anna Stravinska. Quimper's scheme grew to killing Emma's brothers Alfred and Harold, so that the inheritance need not be shared.
The UK title 4.50 from Paddington specifies a train time departing in the afternoon from Paddington station, a major station in central London. In British style, the time is written as 4.50 (in later timetables it would be 16:50). The London railway stations were perhaps not considered well known by the US publisher, and thus the title in the US was changed to What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw!, which also refers to the moment on the train when the murder was seen.
Philip John Stead's review in The Times Literary Supplement (29 November 1957) concluded that "Miss Christie never harrows her readers, being content to intrigue and amuse them."
The novel was reviewed in The Times edition of 5 December 1957, stating, "Mrs Christie's latest is a model detective story; one keeps turning back to verify clues, and not one is irrelevant or unfair." The review concluded, "Perhaps there is a corpse or two too many, but there is never a dull moment."
Fellow crime writer Anthony Berkeley Cox, writing under the pen name of Francis Iles, reviewed the novel in the 6 December 1957 issue of The Guardian, in which he confessed to being disappointed with the work: "I have only pity for those poor souls who cannot enjoy the sprightly stories of Agatha Christie; but though sprightliness is not the least of this remarkable writer's qualities, there is another that we look for in her, and that is detection: genuine, steady, logical detection, taking us step by step nearer to the heart of the mystery. Unfortunately it is that quality that is missing in 4.50 from Paddington. The police never seem to find out a single thing, and even Miss Marples (sic) lies low and says nuffin' to the point until the final dramatic exposure. There is the usual small gallery of interesting and perfectly credible characters and nothing could be easier to read. But please, Mrs Christie, a little more of that incomparable detection next time."
Robert Barnard said of this novel that it was "Another locomotive one – murder seen as two trains pass each other in the same direction. Later settles down into a good old family murder. Contains one of Christie's few sympathetic independent women. Miss Marple apparently solves the crime by divine guidance, for there is very little in the way of clues or logical deduction."
In the UK the novel was first serialised in the weekly magazine John Bull in five abridged instalments from 5 October (volume 102 number 2675) to 2 November 1957 (volume 102 number 2679) with illustrations by K. J. Petts.
The novel was first serialised in the US in the Chicago Tribune in thirty six instalments from Sunday 27 October to Saturday 7 December 1957 under title Eyewitness to Death.
The novel was published in the US under the title What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! by Dodd, Mead and Co. The UK version was to be titled 4.54 from Paddington until the last minute, when the title and text references were changed to 4.50 from Paddington. This change was not communicated to Dodd Mead until after the book was being printed, so the text references to the time show 4:54 rather than 4:50.
An abridged version of the novel was also published in the 28 December 1957 issue of the Star Weekly Complete Novel, a Toronto newspaper supplement, under the title Eye Witness to Death with a cover illustration by Maxine McCaffrey.
The book was made into a 1961 film starring Margaret Rutherford in the first of her four appearances as Miss Marple. This was the first Miss Marple film made.
The BBC film broadly follows the original plot with its 1987 version and stars Joan Hickson (who also appeared as Mrs Kidder in the 1961 film, Murder, She Said). There are several changes:
Michael Bakewell dramatised the novel as a single 90-minute episode, first broadcast in March 1997. June Whitfield played Miss Marple, and Susannah Harker Lucy Eyelesbarrow.
ITV adapted the novel for the series Marple in 2004 starring Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple. The title What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw! was used when it was shown in the US. The adaptation contains several changes from the novel:
In addition to these changes, Miss Marple is seen reading Dashiel Hammett's Woman in the Dark and Other Stories, providing an inter-textual detail that suggests some of Miss Marple's detective insights come from her reading of classic murder fiction as well as her shrewd understanding of human nature.
The novel was adapted as a set of 4 episodes of the Japanese animated television series Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, airing in 2005.
Le crime est notre affaire is a French film directed by Pascal Thomas, released in 2008. Named after the book Partners in Crime, and, like the book, starring Tommy and Tuppence as the detective characters, the film is in fact an adaptation of 4.50 from Paddington. The locations and names differ, but the story is essentially the same. The film is a sequel to Mon petit doigt m'a dit..., a 2004 film by Pascal Thomas adapted from By the Pricking of My Thumbs. Both are set in Savoy in the present day.
On 17 June 2010, I-play released a downloadable hidden object game based on 4.50 from Paddington (see the external links). Dialogue interspersed with the hidden object puzzles follows the plot of the original story. Items mentioned in the dialogue are among those hidden in each round. The player finds locations on the map by textual clues, which makes the map a hidden object scene, too. At three points during play the player is asked to hypothesise on the identity of the murderer, but as in the novel there is little in the way of relevant evidence. Unlike the games based on Evil Under the Sun, Murder on the Orient Express, and And Then There Were None, this does not include any actual detection and unlike the latter two does not add an additional character to represent the player. This is the 4th in a series of Oberon Games' hidden object games based on Agatha Christie's novels, the first three were based on Death on the Nile, Peril at End House, and Dead Man's Folly.
TV Asahi adapted the novel in 2018 starring Yuki Amami and Atsuko Maeda, with the title Two Nights Drama Special: 4.50 from Paddington - Night Express Train Murder (Japanese: アガサ・クリスティ 二夜連続ドラマスペシャル パディントン発4時50分〜寝台特急殺人事件〜) as the first night. The second night was The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side.