The revolver

The revolver is Colonel Easterbrook’s weapon, secretly removed from his collar drawer by Letitia Blacklock and used to murder Rudi Scherz during the staged hold-up at Little Paddocks. Its concealment, timed use, and deliberate abandonment make it the instrument through which a rehearsed performance becomes a real killing—and a murder is disguised as an apparent attack.

Acquisition and Preparation

Before the shooting, Letitia takes the revolver from Colonel Easterbrook’s collar drawer. The theft belongs to a sequence of preparations that make the supposed robbery seem like a game: she also oils the drawing-room’s second door so it can open and close noiselessly, and arranges to move a table under the pretext that Phillipa’s flower arrangements will show to better advantage. The ordinary, plausible errands and adjustments help hide the practical work behind the planned crime.

The weapon is not used in isolation. Letitia frays the cord of a lamp and arranges for water from the vase of violets to short the exposed wires. The resulting blackout creates the interval in which the revolver can be brought into play without the guests seeing who fires.

Use in the Shooting

At about 6:30 p.m., as the clock begins to chime and the people in the room look toward it, Letitia is near the table with the cigarette-box. She has arranged the scene so that she appears to be performing an ordinary hostess’s task. When the lamp shorts and the lights go out, she slips through the oiled second door and comes up behind Rudi, who is moving through the room with his torch as the supposed intruder.

Letitia wears gardening gloves and holds the revolver. She waits until the torch reaches the wall near the spot where she is supposed to be standing, then fires twice. When Rudi turns, startled, she presses the weapon close to his body and fires again. The closeness of the final shot and the sequence of shots are part of the concealed killing, not the mock robbery that the room’s occupants believe they are witnessing.

Abandonment and Narrative Significance

After the shooting, Letitia drops the revolver beside Rudi’s body and throws her gloves carelessly onto the hall table. She returns through the other door to the place where she had been standing when the lights went out, then cuts her ear so that blood running over her white blouse supports the impression that she was nearly hit. The dropped weapon thus helps sustain the staged scene even as it is evidence of the real violence underneath it.

In Miss Marple’s reconstruction, the revolver connects the apparently playful preparations to the fatal outcome. The guests are distracted by the clock, the short circuit, and the torch; Dora Bunner, watching her friend, notices Letitia pick up the vase of violets but does not see the hidden shooting. The weapon’s brief, concealed use turns the blackout into the decisive opening for murder, while its placement beside Rudi helps the staged hold-up pass as an explanation for his death.