Gertrud Swartz

In the short story The Four Suspects, Gertrud Swartz was a servant of employed by Dr Rosen and who had served him faithfully for some forty years by the time of his death. Gertrud left Germany with her employer and continued working for him after he arrived in England to seek refuge from a criminal secret society whose members were planning to kill him. She lived and worked at Dr Rosen's cottage in the quiet Somerset village of King's Gnatton. Gertrud did not have an alibi for the time of Dr Rosen's death. She said she was in the kitchen with the door closed and she did not hear anything. The police thought the instruction to kill Dr Rosen must have come a letter. Gertrud did receive a letter shortly before Rosen's death, but this was from a local villager, Mrs Emma Greene, inviting her to a church social.

Miss Marple considered it important to solve the case in order to clear the innocent from having to live under a cloud of suspicion. Of all the suspects, Miss Marple though Gertrud was likely to suffer the most. She likened Gertrud to her village parallel of Annie Poultny. Old people became bitter very easily, especially having to live with unjustified suspicion after many years of faithful service. After the culprit had been identified, Miss Marple urged Sir Henry Clithering to write to Gertrude and state definitively that her innocence had been established beyond doubt.