The Murder at the Vicarage is a work of detective fiction by the British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in October 1930[1] and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year.
Colonel Lucius Protheroe, Clement's churchwarden, is a wealthy, abrasive man who also serves as the local magistrate, and is widely disliked in the village.
Upon returning home, Clement encounters a distressed Redding at the gate to the vicarage, then discovers Colonel Protheroe dead at the writing desk in his study.
The police, led by Colonel Melchett and Inspector Slack, are confounded by several details, including a note left by Protheroe that seems to conflict with Haydock's opinion of the time of death, and the claim of some witnesses to have heard a shot in the woods, but no gunshot near or within the house.
Clement is inspired to give a far more vigorous sermon than usual, after which he receives a call from Hawes, his sickly curate, who says he has something to confess.
He discovers the real note Protheroe was writing when he was killed, which reveals that Hawes was responsible for stealing money from the church accounts.
Her seven suspects are revealed to be: Archer; Mary, the Clements' maid, who had the opportunity; Lettice Protheroe, the Colonel's daughter, who could not stand him; Dennis, whose alibi about a tennis party fails to hold up; either Hawes or Clement, to prevent the Colonel from investigating the church accounts; and Griselda, who is revealed to have returned on an earlier train on the day of the murder.
In the evening, Redding made the false call to Clement to get him out of the house, while Anne walked past Miss Marple's home without a handbag and in close-fitting clothing to show that she was not carrying a gun.
Miss Cram is revealed to have known nothing about the false Dr Stone's plot, and Griselda and Dennis confess to having threatened Mrs Price Ridley as a practical joke.
The Times Literary Supplement of 6 November 1930 concluded, "As a detective story, the only fault of this one is that it is hard to believe the culprit could kill Prothero [sic] so quickly and quietly.
The three plans of the room, garden, and village show that almost within sight and hearing was Miss Marple, who 'always knew every single thing that happened and drew the worst inferences.'
"[5] H.C. O'Neill, in The Observer of 12 December 1930, wrote, "here is a straightforward story which very pleasantly draws a number of red herrings across the docile reader's path.
"[6] In the Daily Express of 16 October 1930, Harold Nicolson said, "I have read better works by Agatha Christie, but that does not mean that this last book is not more cheerful, more amusing, and more seductive than the generality of detective novels.
"[8] Sixty years later, Robert Barnard wrote that the novel is "[o]ur first glimpse of St Mary Mead, a hotbed of burglary, impersonation, adultery and ultimately murder.
"The solution boggles the mind somewhat, but there are too many incidental pleasures to complain, and the strong dose of vinegar in this first sketch of Miss Marple is more to modern taste than the touch of syrup in later presentations.
The BBC adapted the book into a film which was first broadcast on 25 December 1986, with Joan Hickson as Miss Marple, Paul Eddington as the vicar, and Polly Adams as Anne Protheroe.
The adaptation was generally very close to the original novel with four major exceptions: the trap which exposes the killer is changed to involve another murder attempt, the characters of Dennis, Dr Stone and Gladys Cram are deleted, Bill Archer is present in the kitchen while the murder takes place, and Anne kills herself out of remorse rather than being tried.
This version eliminates the characters of Dr Stone and Gladys Cram, replacing them with the elderly French professor Dufosse and his granddaughter Hélène.