Sleeping Murder

 OK.

I am almost finished with the book, Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie. I cannot for the life of me remember WHO the killer is.  I have a fair idea of who it might be, but then they threw some stuff in and now I'm thinking it's someone who wasn't even in the running... who wasn't considered as Miss Marple says in the book, "On the spot."

One thing that I did find of interest, though is, in my version of the book anyway, at the end of Chapter 9, the last sentence got printed all jumbled. You can see the picture of the page on my Instagram feed. 

As the story has progressed, there are several solid people who are in the line up for the killer.  We have Walter Fane, who is as mild mannered as they come. His mother told a story about when he was a child and became very upset when his older brother smashed his project he'd been working on. It sounded like he was really whaling on him pretty good and shouting that he'd kill him.

Then there's Major Erskine, who Helen fell in love with on the voyage to India, when she left after writing to Walter that she would marry him after all. 

My favorite, so far though is Jackie Afflick. When Gwenda and Giles went to his place to meet him, Gwenda returned to the office looking for a scarf that she was suddenly missing (I really thought this was a ploy of hers so that she would do a little spying on Jackie and his wife), something is said about how Mrs. Afflick looks scared of Jackie, as he's upset because she interrupted the conversation. Remember, one of the girls that was in the house the night Helen might have been killed said she had overheard Helen say she was afraid of the man.  They had assumed at first that it was Major Halliday, but later realized he was out golfing.  Also, there was a 'flashy car' around outside and Jackie's yellow monstrosity would seem to fit the bill there.

My added thought was that it might be Mrs. Erskine.  

Right!? I'll explain why:

When Gwenda and Giles travel up to Northumberland to possibly question the Major, Mrs. Erskine is eyeing Gwenda, even when they are all just sitting around together. When Gwenda returned at a later time, once Mrs. Erskine had gone to Daith, she came back and gave the Major hell about making a date to see Gwenda and planning it all when for when the Mrs. went to town. Her behavior seems a little outrageous.  I mean, I'm jealous.  Like super ridiculous jealous.  Like one time I thought this girl was flirting with my boyfriend (he is now my husband) and he saw my face and made sure to tell me quickly that she was his friend's wife, because he thought I was ready to fight this girl in the Chuck E. Cheese. I'm not sure I'd do murder, though.  Or get as crazy as that lady did in the book.

Anyway, it makes sense, especially after you factor in that Mrs. Erskine had conveniently gone off to see her sister on the day that Lily Kimble, who may have had some valuable information regarding the events at Hillside that are in question, turned up strangled.

However... strangling is something that requires a lot of strength.  Most people that are being strangled aren't going to just sit there and let you have at it.  They're going to fight and since your hands are occupied up at their necks, and they're equipped with a lot of limbs that can go flailing around, you really need some strength.  I don't know if Mrs Erskine would be considered that strong of a woman.

Throughout the reading of this book, each time I hear about Helen falling in love with Major Erskine on the voyage to India, I can't help but think, "How long was that damn boat trip that two people would find the time to fall in that much love?"

OK, I'm assuming that since they fell in love on the voyage over, it wasn't some quick ferry ride, obviously. That would just seem ridiculous. So I am going in search of some information. One article I found that was published by the New York Times, states the voyage was at least 6 months.  

I'm not ready to settle it there, though.  I'm trying to figure out around what era the book takes place before I'll really try to nail it down on that score. Gwenda seems to have a fair amount of freedom that wasn't always afforded to females in past times, so I can safely say it's fairly 'recent' in the grand scheme of things. The book was first published in the 1970's so I'm assuming the 'present day' narrative is during that time and that would mean that what occured during the voyages to and from India were sometime in the 1950's.

There is information, though, that it may have been written in the 1940's.  And I know that this is horrible, so I'm going to do more research, but there is a point made on the Sleeping Murder Wikipedia page that states that Lily Kimble (Abbott), considered that if she is given any type of reward monies she might buy a wireless set, which could lead us to believe that the story takes place in the 1930's, so the voyage could very well have taken the full 6 months, if there weren't any additional stops, which COULD lead towards the Major and Helen being able to spend considerable time in each other's company, enough, I suppose to fall in love. 

I guess I have some extra reading to do. 

I'll update again when I'm finished with the book... hopefully that will be soon!

Happy reading!