Miss Marple Tells a Story is a radio play created by Agatha Christie for the BBC which was converted into a short story published as the sixth story in the collection The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories.
Synopsis
Miss Marple is asked for help by an old friend of her solicitor, who is about to be indicted for his wife’s murder. She was stabbed to death in a hotel room but he swears that he is innocent. Can Miss Marple save him from the gallows?
Characters
- Miss Jane Marple
- Raymond West
- Joan West
- Gwen
- Mr Petherick Sr
- Mr Petherick Jr
- Mr Rhodes
- Mrs Rhodes
- Sir Malcolm Olde, K.C.
- Mary Hill, chambermaid at the Crown Hotel in Barnchester.
- Mrs Granby, an Anglo-Indian widow, staying at the hotel.
- Miss Carruthers, a rather horsey spinster, staying at the hotel.
Publication history
Miss Marple Tells a Story was specially commissioned by the BBC as a radio play and read by Christie herself on May 11. The twenty-minute broadcast took place on Friday, 11 May 1934 at 9.20pm on the National Programme.
- 1935, Home Journal (Volume 3, Issue 64), 25 May 1935, illustrated by Michael Bernard (Under the title Behind Closed Doors)
- 1939, The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
- 1939, Dodd, Mead and Company, Hardback, 229 pp
- 1939, Lawrence E. Spivak (New York), Abridged edition, 126 pp
- 1946, Avon Books, Paperback, (Avon number 85)
- 1964, Dell Books, Paperback, (Dell number 7336), 192 pp
- 1978, Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories
- 1978, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, ISBN 0-7089-2346-1
- 1979, Collins Crime Club (London), October 1979, Hardcover, 140 pp ISBN 0-00-231596-3
- 1980, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback