Mary Higgins

In the short story The Case of the Perfect Maid, Mary Higgins was the perfect maid in question. After the Skinner sisters dismissed Gladys Holmes, all the villagers of St. Mary Mead expected that they would have trouble finding a new maid. They were therefore surprised to Mary Higgins turning up, with good references for three years and asking for less money than Gladys. Mary dressed and spoke well and soon Lavinia Skinner was telling Miss Marple what a superb maid she was, and how Mary had taken away her burden of looking after her invalid sister Emily.

The Skinner sisters lived as tenants of one of four flats at Old Hall. Shortly after the arrival of the new and "perfect" maid, there was a series of spectacular burglaries among the neighbours. Mary then disappeared. The police suspected Mary but were puzzled because they could not find any of her fingerprints in the flat of the Skinners. Miss Marple had been a visitor to the Skinners since the dismissal of Gladys as she had been trying to intercede for her. On one of her visits, she pretended to drop a hand mirror which Mary picked up. Having tricked Mary into leaving a set of fingerprints on the mirror, Miss Marple handed it to Inspector Slack. She told him that she suspected that Mary was in fact Emily Skinner in disguise. Slack subsequently found that Miss Marple was right.

Mary Higgins was described as "certainly a most superior-looking maid." She was about forty years of age, "with neat black hair, rosy cheeks, a plump figure discreetly arrayed in black with a white apron and cap" and with "the proper, inaudible respectful voice." In Miss Marple's estimation, she was "quite the good, old-fashioned type of servant." This contrasted with the pale gaunt figure of Emily Skinner and was thus quite a feat of disguise and makeup.