Conclusion

We want to believe in the story, to sleepwalk its passages under an arch of stars. Marple believes for us, casts her eye at the mortality we dare not view head on. She is our avatar at the verge of death, our envoy into the night. All we need do is turn a blind eye to her crimes and she'll explain away all the mysteries. She knows the texts already, by heart. All she asks is that we submit to her indomitable will, her sense of unfettered justice.

Give Marple our dreams and she will shine a torch into their recesses, describe them in terms of a story we already know. She is the anti-anamorphosis, the parter of curtains, the sleepwaker of the sleepwalkers. She is Reason in a superhero cape.

But if she comes around here, let me tell you, I've got the curried duck ready.

 

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