A Christmas Tragedy

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  • Miss Marple
  • Short Story
  • 1930

Miss Marple meets a couple and immediately knows the husband means to kill the wife. But when the wife is found murdered, he has an alibi - could Miss Marple have been wrong? From The Thirteen Problems.

But facts are facts, and if one is proved to be wrong, one must just be humble about it and start again.

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More about this story

Miss Marple is certain that Mr Sanders plans to kill his wife, and does everything she can to protect the innocent woman. Despite Miss Marple’s best efforts poor Mrs Sanders is killed but her husband has an alibi – could the amateur sleuth have made a mistake?

Many readers will note the similarities to a plot device used in Agatha Christie's later novel Evil Under the Sun. The story was published with its revised title in the 1932 collection The Thirteen Problems.

It has never been adapted.

Did you know?

  1. It was first published in the UK in The Story-Teller under the title The Hat and the Alibi.

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