The atmosphere of on-coming tragedy was heightened when the hall porter died from pneumonia, followed soon after by one of the hydro's housemaids who died of blood poisoning. When he was examined by his cousin, Elliot, and then Dr Symonds, they found he was dead, killed by a stab to the heart, but no one was seen to approach him and no weapon was found on the grassy floor.

He instructed Petherick to attend him to draw up a new will leaving five thousand pounds to each of his nieces and nephews and the greater part to the Spraggs. Another month passed, with Nurse Copling and Pritchard growing increasingly nervous while Mrs Pritchard seems resigned. Maudsley: the town doctor who, along with Hester, attempts to help the twins through experimentation. Books are, for me, it must be said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that.Anime adaptations were done for three of these short stories ( Ingots of Gold, The Blue Geranium and Motive versus Opportunity) as episodes of the Japanese animated television series Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, airing in 2004 and 2005. The conversation turns to unsolved mysteries; Raymond, Joyce, Pender, and Petherick all claim that their professions are ideal for solving crimes. The writing had hold of me, the characters made me need to know more about their lives, the mysteries surrounding Winters' youth kept me guessing. The landlord's lorry was never used, but a tyre was taken off it during the night and put on another lorry to provide the "evidence".

Over the next hundred years the Thirteen gained notoriety amongst the Blackbeak Clan as being the most deadly coven in the clan. Jane Eyre provides a link among all these characters, and the ripped pages indicate the ending of all their stories.The thirteenth story, Death by Drowning, takes place some time after the dinner party when Miss Marple finds out that Clithering is staying in St Mary Mead and asks him to help in the investigation surrounding the death of a local village girl.