Charlotte Blacklock’s impersonation of Letitia Blacklock is the hidden identity deception at the centre of the inheritance mystery. By living as her sister, Charlotte occupied the position of Randall Goedler’s trusted secretary and prospective heir; the disguise also depended on keeping Charlotte’s own history out of view. Jane Marple eventually reads the apparent inconsistencies as a connected trail: the sisters’ names, a concealed surgical scar, and differences in spelling all point back to the woman behind the borrowed identity.

Inheritance and the sisters’ history

Randall Goedler left his fortune in trust for his wife, Belle, during her lifetime, with the estate passing absolutely to Letitia after Belle’s death. Letitia explained that Randall had no children and had quarrelled with his sister Sonia, whose marriage to Dmitri Stamfordis he disapproved of. His suspicion extended to Sonia’s husband, whom Letitia regarded as a crook and an attractive figure to women.

The succession had a further condition. If Letitia died before Belle, the estate was to pass to the legal offspring of Sonia, Randall’s only sister. Letitia said that Pip and Emma were the possible beneficiaries, while acknowledging that she did not know what had become of Sonia or her children. The arrangement therefore made the order of deaths and the identity of the eligible heirs matter to the fortune’s destination.

Belle later explained that the provision for Sonia’s children had been her suggestion. When Randall told her about the will, she raised the possibility that Letitia might die first and proposed Sonia’s children as an alternative to leaving the money to Sonia’s husband. Randall resisted allowing Dmitri access to his fortune but agreed to name Pip and Emma, and perhaps other children, as beneficiaries. Belle said that she and Randall had heard nothing of Sonia or her children from that point onward.

The concealed identity and its motive

Jane Marple’s reconstruction is that Charlotte recognized Phillipa Haymes almost at once. Sonia Goedler had been among the few people admitted to Charlotte’s private life, and Phillipa resembled the young Sonia Charlotte remembered. Marple suggests that Charlotte was pleased by the recognition and grew fond of Phillipa. She imagined that, after inheriting the money, she would care for Phillipa and Harry as if they were her own family.

That imagined generosity did not remove the danger the inheritance posed. Once Inspector Craddock began asking about Pip and Emma, Charlotte became uneasy. Marple reasons that Charlotte did not want Phillipa to become a scapegoat: the plan had been designed to make the earlier shooting appear to be a hold-up by a young criminal whose death was accidental. The discovery of the oiled door changed the investigators’ understanding of that incident, and Phillipa appeared to be the only person Charlotte knew who might have a motive to kill her. Because Charlotte did not know Julia’s identity, she tried to shield Phillipa instead.

Charlotte’s protection of Phillipa also shaped what she disclosed about Sonia. When asked, she described Sonia as small and dark, then removed old snapshots from the family album so that investigators would not notice the resemblance. She also removed photographs of Letitia. The two omissions worked together: one obscured the possible likeness between Phillipa and her mother, while the other helped conceal the identity Charlotte had appropriated.

Clues in names, language, and appearance

Marple identifies a small change in spelling as evidence that the supposed Letitia was not the woman who had written to her sister. In Letitia’s letter, the word “enquiries” appeared twice, each time spelled with an e; in a later note attributed to Miss Blacklock, “inquiries” was spelled with an i. Marple regarded the alteration as significant because people do not often change their spelling as they grow older. The clue depended not on the word’s meaning but on comparing two pieces of writing attributed to the same person.

The sisters’ names supplied another distinction. Marple remembered that Letitia’s sister was Charlotte, and that Dora Bunner had sometimes called Miss Blacklock “Lotty.” On those occasions Dora had become upset afterward. The familiar name connected the woman at Little Paddocks to Charlotte, while Dora’s reactions suggested that the name carried a recognition she could not safely or consistently explain.

A medical history further exposed the borrowed identity. Marple connected the iodine reference and Switzerland with goitre treatment: Switzerland was associated with leading authorities and skilled surgeons for the condition. She concluded that Charlotte’s claim that her sister had died of consumption did not fit the signs left by that history. The conspicuous pearls Miss Blacklock wore were not, Marple thought, in keeping with Letitia’s style; they made sense as a means of covering the scar from surgery.

The broken string of pearls had already drawn attention to the disguise. Craddock later understood why Miss Blacklock’s agitation when the string broke had seemed disproportionate. Once the pearls were read not simply as jewellery but as concealment, the reaction became part of the same chain of evidence as the iodine, the Swiss treatment, and the difference between Letitia and Charlotte’s names.

The pattern of recollection and investigation

The investigation’s clues were dispersed across conversation, documents, and memory rather than presented as a single confession. Marple joined the spelling in Letitia’s letter to the spelling in the later note, then connected Dora’s use of Lotty with Charlotte’s name and the episodes of visible distress that followed. The details were small in isolation; together they challenged the assumption that the woman called Miss Blacklock had always been Letitia.

Other apparent fragments helped Marple arrange the clues. Rudi Scherz had been an orderly in a hospital in Berne, a detail that became pertinent beside the reference to Switzerland. Marple also recalled the example she had discussed with Bunch Harmon at the Bluebird Café: Mrs Wotherspoon had drawn Mrs Bartlett’s old-age pension as well as her own, although Mrs Bartlett had been dead for years, because one old woman could be mistaken for another. Marple said that the comparison helped the clues form a pattern, though she had not initially seen its application.

After Marple and Miss Hinchcliffe found Miss Murgatroyd, Marple recognized that the matter demanded swift action, but she still lacked proof. She had begun to form a plan and spoke with Sergeant Fletcher. The investigation thus moved from identifying a likely impersonation to the practical problem of demonstrating it, while the very clues that solved the puzzle placed Marple in danger: Craddock later realized that her pencilled words showed she was on the track, and that this knowledge could make her situation dangerous.

Significance

The impersonation makes inheritance dependent on more than a name in a will. Randall’s conditions created possible beneficiaries among Sonia’s children, while Belle’s account showed that their inclusion had been negotiated to prevent Dmitri from gaining the estate. Under those circumstances, Charlotte’s assumed identity did not merely conceal a family relationship; it placed her within a succession whose alternatives depended on who died first and which relatives could be recognized.

The mystery’s solution likewise depends on recognition, but not on a single dramatic revelation. Marple distinguishes Charlotte from Letitia through the evidence left by ordinary habits and remembered details: a spelling preference, a name Dora could not use without distress, a medical history, and pearls that conceal a scar. The disguise succeeds while those pieces remain separate; it becomes legible when their connections are restored. The same contrast governs Charlotte’s response to Phillipa: she seeks to protect a person who resembles the family she remembers, even as she conceals the identity and inheritance that make that resemblance dangerous.