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 features the detective Miss Marple staying at an upmarket hotel that is at the centre of a mysterious disappearance.
Reviews at the time of publication considered the denouement too far-fetched,[5][6] but one reviewer concluded that the novel has "phenomenal zest and makes a reasonably snug read",[6] and another reviewer called it "an ingenious mystery" reliant on Christie's skilful writing style.[7] A review in 1990 found the plot "creaky" but praised the "hotel atmosphere" as "very well conveyed and used";[8] the character Elvira Blake was drawn well, and the careful description of the way older people looked in 1965, compared to earlier eras, showed that Christie's "sharp eye had not dimmed".[8]
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.
Bertram's Hotel is believed 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.[9] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography also claims that Fleming's was Christie's model.[10]
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."[5]
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."[6]
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."[7]
This novel was listed in Anthony Boucher's Best Crime Novels of the Year for 1966, one of thirteen listed that year.[11]
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".[12]
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."[8]
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:
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.