Agatha Christie's "They Do It with Mirrors" Quiz

Answer: None, it it just a feeling she has.

Ruth tells Miss Marple that she really has no particular reasoning for having the feelings she does. Nonetheless, she asks Miss Marple to go visit Carrie Louise and investigate. Miss Marple agrees and goes to visit Carrie Louise at her house, Stonygates.

Answer: Pippa

Carrie Louise had two daughters total: Mildred by birth and Pippa by adoption. Carrie Louise had feared that Pippa would resent her because she was not a blood daughter like Mildred, so Carrie Louise spoiled her. As a result, it was Mildred who felt unloved and now resents Gina, Pippa's daughter.

Some of the other relatives that live at Stonygates, or are frequent visitors, are Alex and Stephen Restarick, Carrie Louise's stepsons from her second marriage, and Christian Gulbrandsen, Carrie Louise's stepson from her first marriage who is actually older than she is.

Answer: His father is Winston Churchill

Edgar Lawson does not appear to be all there mentally in Miss Marple's mind. He tells her his father is Winston Churchill and that he had enemies who were preventing him from becoming powerful. He tells other people that various other powerful British men are his father. Miss Marple relays this information back to Lewis who assures her that Edgar is perfectly sane.

Answer: Christian had recently visited for business purposes.

The logic was that since Christian and the other members of the Stonygates Board of Trustees had just had a meeting, there would be no reason for him to pay a business visit so soon and for no apparent reason. Moreover, Christian and Lewis were very secretive about the visit.

The business at Stonygates is the boys' reformatory school run by Lewis. The boys also take part in theatrical productions as a part of their rehabilitation.

Answer: A box of chocolates Alex sent to Carrie Louise

Miss Marple wonders why Alex would have sent a box of chocolates to Carrie Louise by the post the day after he arrived (and the day after the murder occurred) when he could have just brought it with him. Alex denied sending the chocolates. This did not rule out Alex as the killer until Lewis admitted that the real reason Christian came to Stonygates was because he believed Carrie Louise was being poisoned. It is suspected that the chocolates may have been poisoned and Carrie Louise is told not to eat them but not about Christian's suspicions of her being poisoned.

Christian was murdered while Lewis and Edgar argued alone in Lewis' library while the rest of the guests (except Christian and Alex) were listening outside the closed doors in the living room. Edgar had fired two shots at Lewis but missed. During this argument the fuse box blew out and Wally, Gina's husband, went to go fix it. Christian, at the time, was in his room typing a letter while Alex was driving up the road to Stonygates.

Answer: All of these

Miss Marple notes that old houses like Stonygates tend to have secret passages that allow for people to move about the house quickly and without being noticed. Indeed, some members of the family also believe in the existence of the passageway but no one knows for sure.

Since the fuse box went out, Miss Marple does not believe that anyone can say for sure who was, or who was not, with everyone else in the living room because it was so dark. Mildred notes that in the darkness it would be difficult for someone to find the secret passage unless they were already standing by it when the lights went out. Moreover, Inspector Curry of the police department confirms that the fuse went out by itself so it could not have been the murderer's doing. Another reason Miss Marple says no one can be sure who was with them in the living room is because everyone was so focused on the fight between Edgar and Lewis that no one was paying attention to anything else.

Answer: The boys love Carrie Louise

Miss Marple notes that many of the boys at the reform school look up to Carrie Louise as she provides a lot of the funding for the school, lends part of her home to the school, and believes in them. Ernie, one of the boys, confirms this to Gina toward the end of the book when he says none of the boys would ever have poisoned Carrie Louise because they like her too much.

The idea that the boys could escape their rooms during the night and sneak back in by morning was brought up several times. Some of the boys claim this is possible but Lewis' partner claims it is not. It is never revealed one way or the other by the time the novel ends.

Answer: A magical illusion

As Alex points out to Miss Marple before he is killed, magicians use mirrors as part of their act to create their illusions which give the appearance that they can perform magic. Miss Marple connects this to how in a stage production, like the ones the boys put on, the scenery is just like a mirror in that it is meant to trick the audience. The audience watching a play forgets the stage does not end at the scenery but behind the stage is where the actors wait for their cue and beyond that is the dressing rooms and hallways.

This makes Miss Marple realize that during Lewis and Edgar's argument the closed doors preventing the rest of the family from seeing the fight served as mirrors. Beyond the doors was the library where Edgar and Lewis fought but beyond that was a door that either Lewis or Edgar could have used to leave the library, kill Christian and return to the library without being seen. Miss Marple deduces that Lewis did in fact commit the murder this way while Edgar, using his acting skills, conducted the two-sided argument by himself and imitated Lewis' voice while doing so.

Answer: Christian knew Lewis was embezzling from the Gulbrandsen Trust

Although Edgar is Lewis' biological son, Christian did not know that. The actual reason for his visit was that Lewis was embezzling from the trust. Christian had agreed to keep this a secret from Carrie Louise at Lewis' request. However, instead of coming clean, Lewis and Edgar conspired to kill Christian.

Lewis came up with the idea that Carrie Louise was being poisoned to explain why Christian showed up suddenly. In reality, Carrie Louise was not being poisoned. Lewis had taken samples of Carrie Louise's medication and added poison just to the sample to make it look like she was being poisoned via her medicine.

Answer: Drowning after being caught in thick reeds in a pond

Edgar and Lewis try to escape by hopping into a boat in Stonygates' pond. However, the boat is old and rotted out. It sinks in the middle of thick reeds which make it difficult for either of the men to swim and they drown. This is to the relief of Carrie Louise who is glad they did not suffer by being hanged, which would have been their sentence had they gone to trial.