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At Bertram's Hotel

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At Bertram's Hotel
Dust-jacket illustration of first UK edition
AuthorAgatha Christie
Cover artistBrian Russell[1]
LanguageEnglish
GenreCrime novel
PublisherCollins Crime Club
Publication date
15 November 1965
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Pages256 (first edition, hardcover)
Preceded byStar Over Bethlehem and other stories 
Followed byThird Girl 

At Bertram's Hotel is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 15 November 1965[2] and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1966.[3][4] The novel follows Chief Inspector Fred Davy as he investigates an upmarket hotel that is at the centre of a mysterious disappearance. Among the lodgers at the hotel is Christie's popular character Miss Marple; At Bertram's Hotel was marketed as a Miss Marple novel, despite the fact that Marple only appears in a few chapters and has a completely passive role in the investigation.

At Bertram's Hotel met with mostly positive reviews. Reviewers criticized the reliance of far-fetched coincidences, but found that Christie's gripping writing style makes the book enjoyable in spite of any weaknesses in the plot.

Plot summary

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Miss Marple takes a two-week holiday in London at Bertram's Hotel, an establishment known for its scrupulously authentic recreation of the Edwardian era with the addition of modern conveniences. While she is taking tea with her friend Lady Selina Hazy, Miss Marple observes the other guests: the famous adventuress Bess Sedgwick; her daughter, Elvira Blake; Elvira's legal guardian Colonel Luscombe; the clergyman Canon Pennyfather; and the racing car driver Ladislaus Malinowski.

Bess Sedgwick recognises the hotel's commissionaire, Michael Gorman, with whom she once had an affair. Unknown to either of them, Miss Marple and Elvira overhear their discussion of details of their shared past in Ballygowlan, a town in Ireland.

Elvira works a scheme with her friend Bridget to get money to fly to Ireland for unspecified reasons. She visits the lawyer Richard Egerton, one of her trustees, to find out the size of her inheritance and who gets it if she dies. He tells her about the great wealth awaiting her.

Canon Pennyfather attempts to travel to Lucerne for a conference, but he leaves on the wrong day and misses the event. Upon his return to Bertram's late at night he disturbs intruders in his bedroom. Some hours later the Irish Mail train is robbed. Some witnesses of the robbery report having seen Pennyfather on the train.

When the Canon has still not returned home days later, his disappearance is reported to the police. Inspector Campbell and Chief Inspector Davy visit Bertram's to investigate the disappearance as well as the series of robberies that Davy begins to suspect may have some connection with the hotel.

After the Inspector questions everyone at the hotel, Davy meets Miss Marple. She tells him that she saw Canon Pennyfather back at the hotel after he had supposedly left for Lucerne. The Canon is then discovered to be alive, having been found unconscious and nursed back to health by some Good Samaritans. However, he has no memory of events after he set out to take his plane to Lucerne.

On Miss Marple's last day at the hotel, Gorman is shot with Malinowski's gun. Elvira Blake says that he was shielding her from gunfire by an unknown assailant.

With Miss Marple's help Davy discovers the links between Bess Sedgewick, Micky Gorman, Elvira Blake and Ladislaus Malinowski, and the truth about Bertram's Hotel: it is the base of a sophisticated criminal gang that commits large-scale robberies while impersonating distinguished hotel guests. Miss Marple realises that she saw a doppelganger, a younger man who closely resembled Pennyfather, at the hotel that night. This jogs Pennyfather's memory, and he remembers that he saw himself sitting on a chair in his hotel room just before he was knocked unconscious. The gang had expected Canon Pennyfather to be in Lucerne and had sent a double to replace him and take part in the train robbery.

Davy and Miss Marple confront Bess Sedgwick as the orchestrator of the daring robberies, along with the maître d'hôtel Henry, and Ladislaus Malinowski when fast cars were needed. The hotel staff co-operated with the gang and the owners handled the money side of the thefts.

Bess and Gorman had been married at one time, and the marriage was never annulled, making Bess's subsequent marriages void. Bess confesses to her part in the robberies, but also to the murder of Gorman. She then steals a car and speeds away recklessly, crashing fatally.

Miss Marple is not convinced that Bess killed Gorman, believing that she was covering for Elvira Blake. Elvira believed that, as the illegitimate offspring of a bigamist, she would be disinherited, and killed Gorman to keep him quiet. Davy will not let her get away with the murder.

Characters

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  • Miss Marple: amateur detective who resides in the village of St Mary Mead, but in this novel is on holiday in London.
  • Mr Humfries: manager of Bertram's Hotel.
  • Miss Gorringe: works at the reception desk at Bertram's Hotel.
  • Rose Sheldon: chambermaid employed at Bertram's Hotel, who previously worked as an actress.
  • Lady Selina Hazy: guest at the hotel, a friend of Miss Marple.
  • The Honourable Elvira Blake: beautiful young woman with fashionably long, straight flaxen hair, a guest at the hotel who has returned to England after attending finishing school in Italy.
  • Mrs Carpenter: Elvira's chaperone while she was travelling from Italy to England.
  • Bridget: Elvira's best friend from the school in Italy and unknown to Elvira's guardian; she lives with her mother in Onslow Square.
  • Colonel Derek Luscombe: Elvira's guardian, accompanying her at the hotel; e is one of three trustees who manage Elvira's inheritance
  • Mr Bollard: owner of the jewellery shop on Bond Street that Elvira usually frequents.
  • Bess Sedgwick: guest at the hotel, about 40 years old, and well known for her life of daring adventures and several marriages; she is Elvira's estranged mother.
  • Henry: master of the afternoon tea – "He sets the tone of the [hotel]".
  • Michael "Micky" Gorman: commissionaire (doorman) at Bertram's Hotel, an Irishman with a military background and Lady Sedgwick's estranged first husband, whom she married when she was 16 years old in Ballygowland, Ireland.
  • Richard Egerton: lawyer who is one of the three trustees for Elvira's inheritance.
  • Inspector Campbell: inspector at Scotland Yard assigned to find the missing clergyman.
  • Chief Inspector Fred "Father" Davy: Scotland Yard detective who sees the link between the missing person case and recent large-scale robberies.
  • Sergeant Wadell: sent from Scotland Yard to do the initial interviews regarding Canon Pennyfather, the missing person.
  • Canon Pennyfather: scholarly clergyman with expertise in ancient languages and the Dead Sea Scrolls, who is also noted for his ability to lose track of time.
  • Ladislaus Malinowski: racing car driver in his thirties, associate and occasional lover of Lady Sedgwick, with whom her daughter Elvira has fallen in love.
  • Mrs McCrae: Canon Pennyfather's housekeeper.
  • Archdeacon Simmons: Canon Pennyfather's friend and house guest who initiates the call to the police when his friend has been missing for a week.
  • Mr Robinson: financial power-player who knows about all aspects of banking and high finance; Davy approaches him to discover the true owner of the hotel (this character appears briefly in one of the Tommy and Tuppence novels (Postern of Fate), one Hercule Poirot story (Cat Among the Pigeons) and Passenger to Frankfurt.
  • Wilhelm and Robert Hoffman: two wealthy Swiss brothers who are the true owners of Bertram's Hotel and handle its finances.

Real-world model for Bertram's Hotel

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Bertram's Hotel is believed[by whom?] to have been inspired by Brown's Hotel, where Agatha Christie often stayed when she visited London. However, Christie's authorised biographer Janet Morgan asserts that Bertram's was in fact based on Flemings Mayfair Hotel. Morgan cites correspondence between Christie and her agent Edmund Cork in which they decided to change the hotel proprietor's name and the street in which Bertram's was located in order to obscure the connection with Fleming's.[5] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography also claims that Fleming's was Christie's model.[6]

Reception

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Reviews at the time of publication considered the denouement too far-fetched.[7][8] In The Guardian (17 December 1965) Francis Iles (Anthony Berkeley Cox) wrote that "At Bertram's Hotel can hardly be called a major Agatha Christie [novel], for in spite of the presence of Miss Marples [sic] the denouement is really too far-fetched. But does the plot matter so much with Mrs Christie? What does matter is that one just can't put any book of hers down."[7]

Maurice Richardson wrote in The Observer (12 December 1965) that "A C is seldom at her best when she goes thrillerish on you. This one is a bit wild and far-fetched, but it's got plenty of that phenomenal zest and makes a reasonably snug read."[8]

Robert Weaver wrote in the Toronto Daily Star (8 January 1966): "At Bertram's Hotel is vintage Agatha Christie: an ingenious mystery that triumphantly gets away with what in lesser hands would be the most outrageous coincidences."[9]

This novel was listed in Anthony Boucher's Best Crime Novels of the Year for 1966, one of thirteen listed that year.[10]

Brigid Brophy complained that the author offered "nothing like enough signposts to give the reader a chance to beat Miss Marple or the police to the solution".[11]

Robert Barnard wrote of this novel that "The plot is rather creaky, as in most of the late ones, but the hotel atmosphere is very well conveyed and used. Elvira Blake is one of the best observed of the many young people in late Christie. Note the reflections in Chapter 5 in the novel on the changed look of elderly people, showing that the sharp eye had not dimmed, even if the narrative grasp was becoming shaky."[12]

Publication history

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The novel was first serialised in the British weekly magazine Woman's Own in five abridged instalments from 20 November to 18 December 1965, illustrated with specially posed photographic layouts by Abis Sida Stribley. In the United States the novel was serialised in Good Housekeeping in two instalments, in March (volume 162, number 3) and April 1966 (volume 162, number 4), with illustrations by Sanford Kossin and a photograph by James Viles.

The major editions of the book are:

  • Collins Crime Club (London), 15 November 1965, hardcover, 256 pp
  • Dodd, Mead and Company (New York), 1966, hardcover, 272 pp
  • Pocket Books (New York), 1967, paperback, 180 pp
  • Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), 1967, paperback, 192 pp
  • Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, 1968, hardcover, 256 pp
  • Greenway edition of Collected Works (William Collins), 1972, hardcover, 253 pp
  • Greenway edition of Collected Works (Dodd Mead), 1973, hardcover, 253 pp
  • Marple Facsimile Edition, HarperCollins 2006 (facsimile of first edition), hardcover, ISBN 978-0-00-720858-6


Television and radio adaptations

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A BBC television adaptation shown in 1987 starred Joan Hickson as Miss Marple and Caroline Blakiston as Bess Sedgwick.

A BBC radio adaptation by Michael Bakewell, broadcast in 1995–1996, starred June Whitfield as Miss Marple and Sian Phillips as Bess Sedgwick.

ITV broadcast its adaptation on 23 September 2007 as part of the third series of Agatha Christie's Marple, starring Geraldine McEwan. This version included substantial changes to the plot, characters, atmosphere and finale of the original novel, although the murder victim, killer and motive remained the same, and added overtly contemporary social themes.

References

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  1. ^ "Existential Ennui: Beautiful British Book Jacket Design of the 1950s and 1960s". Existential Ennui Blogspot.
  2. ^ Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. Collins Crime Club: A Checklist of First Editions. Dragonby Press (second edition) March 1999 (p. 15)
  3. ^ Cooper, John; Pyke, B.A. (1994). Detective Fiction: The Collector's Guide (second ed.). Scholar Press. pp. 82, 87. ISBN 0-85967-991-8.
  4. ^ Marcus, J.S. (May 2007). "American Tribute to Agatha Christie". Retrieved 27 August 2018.
  5. ^ Sanders, Dennis (1989). The Agatha Christie Companion: The Complete Guide to Agatha Christie's Life and Work (revised ed.). New York: Berkley Books. p. 312. ISBN 0-425-11845-2.
  6. ^ Morgan, Janet (October 2008). "Christie, Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa (1890–1976)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30926. Retrieved 25 November 2012. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  7. ^ a b Iles, Francis (17 December 1965). "Review". The Guardian. p. 9.
  8. ^ a b Richardson, Maurice (12 December 1965). "Review". The Observer. p. 31.
  9. ^ Weaver, Robert (8 January 1966). "Review". Toronto Daily Star. p. 42.
  10. ^ "Book awards: Anthony Boucher's Best Crime Fiction of the Year". 1966. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
  11. ^ Brophy, Brigid. "Review". New Statesman – via Explore the world of Agatha Christie's Stories.
  12. ^ Barnard, Robert (1990). A Talent to Deceive – an appreciation of Agatha Christie (revised ed.). Fontana Books. p. 188. ISBN 0-00-637474-3.
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