The successive deaths of people on the list

The successive deaths of people on the list become a central pattern in Mark Easterbrook’s inquiry, not because the deaths are shown to be violent or medically inexplicable, but because their names connect them to Father Gorman’s murder. Mark finds that people on the list have died within a recent period, and learns that their deaths were treated as natural. The tension lies between that ordinary record and Thyrza Grey’s claim that distant deaths can be caused: the deaths raise a question, but do not by themselves answer it.

From a death notice to a name on the list

About a week after the event, Mark notices a death notice in The Times for Thomasina Ann Tuckerton. She died on October 2 at Fallowfield Nursing Home in Amberley, aged twenty. The notice identifies her as the only daughter of the late Thomas Tuckerton and records that her funeral was private and that flowers were not wanted. In the notice, a formal family record becomes personal to Mark, who recalls Thomasina as Tommy Tucker and thinks of her life in Chelsea. Her death is not initially presented as a clue; its significance emerges when another conversation gives her name a place in a larger sequence.

Mark hears of the circumstances of Father Gorman’s murder from Jim Corrigan, who has copied out a list of names connected with the case. Reading the list, Mark recognizes Tuckerton and asks whether it could mean Thomasina. Corrigan cannot confirm the identity, but Mark knows that her death appeared in the paper about a week earlier. The recognition links a recent death notice to the murder inquiry without establishing why her name was on the list or whether the person named is certainly Thomasina. At this stage, the connection is a lead to be examined, not a demonstrated explanation.

A pattern assembled through inquiry

Mark later brings together the clues that have accumulated around the list. Poppy had casually connected the Pale Horse with getting rid of someone; the copied names were associated with Father Gorman’s murder; and Mark recognized Tuckerton as Thomasina’s surname. He also connects Hesketh-Dubois with Minnie Hesketh-Dubois, and Delafontaine with a sick friend of Mrs Oliver who has since died. The pattern grows by linking names to people already encountered or mentioned, while Mark’s recollection of Poppy’s subsequent denial and fear adds unease without proving what she knows.

When Mark asks Corrigan about the names, Corrigan reports that the police have been trying to trace and identify them. The work is slow because the list lacks addresses and Christian names, and some surnames are common. Mark proposes a different test: whether every name has appeared on a death certificate within roughly the previous year to year and a half. Corrigan confirms that this is so, while warning that the shared fact may mean less than it seems. The discovery sharpens the pattern but also defines its evidentiary weakness: a recent death record is a real correspondence, yet common names and the number of deaths make coincidence possible.

Natural deaths and an extraordinary claim

Mark identifies three people as already dead: Minnie Hesketh-Dubois, Thomasina Tuckerton, and Mary Delafontaine. All three, he says, died in bed from natural causes, matching the kind of outcome Thyrza Grey claims can be produced. Corrigan’s account broadens that point: the deaths investigated by the police have not appeared questionable. The recorded causes include pneumonia, cerebral haemorrhage, a brain tumour, gallstones, and one case of polio. These are illnesses, not accidents or identified poisonings.

That ordinary medical character makes the sequence harder, rather than easier, for Mark to interpret. If the deaths had been suspicious accidents, the link might be investigated as a conventional crime; instead, the apparent normality of each death is precisely what resembles Thyrza’s account. Mark tells Corrigan that he believes she caused the deaths, while also acknowledging that the idea seems fantastic and that he would like it to be impossible. His distinction matters: the deaths and their reported causes are presented as facts within the inquiry, but supernatural or remote causation remains Mark’s inference, not a conclusion established by the records.

Inheritance, suspicion, and uncertainty

The list also directs attention to who might benefit from particular deaths. Lady Hesketh-Dubois left about fifty thousand pounds net, inherited by a niece and nephew; both could use the money. Thomasina had inherited a very large fortune from her father, with the provision that if she died unmarried before twenty-one it would revert to her stepmother. Mark describes the stepmother as apparently blameless. Mary Delafontaine’s money went to a cousin who was in Kenya with her husband. These details supply possible financial stakes, but the evidence does not establish that any beneficiary arranged a death or knew of the list.

The deaths therefore function as both a pattern and a set of unresolved cases. Thomasina’s age and the condition attached to her inheritance make her death especially suggestive, while the other inheritances offer separate possible benefits. Yet the beneficiaries’ circumstances vary, and the apparent natural causes resist a simple account of murder. The list draws Mark from isolated notices toward a theory of organized killing, but the evidence available at this point sustains suspicion rather than proof. Its force comes from the collision between ordinary death certificates, repeated names, and a claim that ordinary illnesses can themselves be made to serve as instruments of death.