Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies

4.2The Plot

On the morning of her murder, Arlena paddles alone to Pixy Cove, a cove on the other side of the island than the hotel. She meets Hercule Poirot on the way and asks him not to tell anyone where she is going, because she wants to be alone. Poirot does not believe this; Arlena’s face looks like she is meeting a lover (presumably Patrick Redfern). Meanwhile, the teenage Linda Marshall has been shopping and returns to her room with a parcel in her hand. There she is met by Christine Redfern who asks Linda to go sketching with her. On the beach, Patrick Redfern is obviously looking for Arlena and later joins Miss Brewster on her daily row around the island. When they reach Pixy Cove at quarter to twelve, they see a tanned body lying in the sand, face hidden by a hat, but otherwise obviously the body of Arlena Stuart. Patrick Redfern stays with the body while Emily Brewster paddles away to get help.

The police question everybody. Kenneth Marshall, the first suspect, was typing letters in his room. Linda Marshall was with Christine Redfern on another beach and they came back to the hotel at quarter to twelve, when the body was discovered. Rosamund Darnley was reading on a beach close to the hotel (and was seen there by Miss Brewster and Patrick Redfern). Stephen Lane and Major Barry were not on the island and Horace Blatt was sailing. At noon, Kenneth, Rosamund, Mr Gardener and Christine went to play tennis.

The questioning provides two interesting details: someone threw a bottle out of a window in the early morning and at noon, someone ran a bath. Nobody admits it was them who did these things, so Poirot knows they are significant. He also searches for details of any strangulation cases in the area. Back at Pixy Cove, the police find among other things a pair of scissors, a broken pipe, and, in Pixy Cave, heroin. Therefore, there might have been another motive for killing Arlena: drugs. Poirot then organises a picnic to see who of the hotel guests has vertigo. Christine Redfern, who previously claimed to have it, does not seem to. Meanwhile, Linda Marshall attempts suicide back in the hotel. She writes a note to Poirot, confessing to the murder of her stepmother. However, Poirot reveals that she only thought she had killed Arlena, because she made a voodoo doll of her and burned the doll.

The real killers are Christine and Patrick Redfern. The body which Patrick and Emily Brewster discovered at Pixy Cove was not Arlena but Christine, who used artificial suntan to make her body seem tanned (and threw the bottle out of the window). When Emily Brewster went to get help, Christine hurried to the hotel while Patrick was killing Arlena who was hidden in Pixy Cave. This was a very clever plan because Arlena was actually murdered after her body was discovered. Patrick Redfern also killed another woman before the events of the novel, Alice Corrigan, when he was married to her. Christine was the one who discovered her body and fetched the police; the manner of the murder was the same. The motive for killing Arlena was gain: she was giving Patrick large sums of money and the couple of murderers were afraid that her husband would find out.

4.3Linda

She disliked her face very much. At this minute it seemed to her to be mostly bones and freckles. She noted with distaste her heavy bush of soft brown hair (mouse, she called it in her own mind), her greenish-grey eyes, her high cheek-bones and the long aggressive line of the chin. Her mouth and teeth weren’t perhaps quite so bad – but what were teeth after all? (Evil Under the Sun 38)

This self-criticism is typical of teenagers of Linda’s age. As Linda puts it, “One [doesn’t], somehow, know where one [is].” (Evil Under the Sun 39). This is quite similar to the feelings of Eustace in Crooked House, when Sophia says about him that he “seems to hate [them] all” (Crooked House 180). Not only does Linda hate her stepmother, of whom she says “She’s a beast – a beast…” (Evil Under the Sun 39), she also hates herself.

Linda’s attitude towards her stepmother and Arlena’s view of Linda is a well-developed part of the novel. Linda’s opinion is shown in the beginning of the novel. “Stepmothers! It was rotten to have a stepmother, everybody said so. And it was true!” (Evil Under the Sun 39), she says. Having a stepmother like Arlena, who “hardly noticed the girl” (Evil Under the Sun 39), must have been a particularly bad experience for the sensitive teenager. As of Arlena’s attitude towards Linda, the reader only learns it through Linda’s eyes, but because of Arlena’s personality, Linda’s perception is probably accurate. The fact that Arlena’s opinion of Linda is not shown from her point of view might suggest that she really hardly noticed her. “But when she did, there was a contemptuous amusement in her glance, in her words. The finished grace and poise of Arlena’s movements emphasised Linda’s own adolescent clumsiness. With Arlena about, one felt, shamingly, just how immature and crude one was.” (Evil Under the Sun 39). From this description of her behaviour, Arlena probably thought of Linda as a clumsy and somewhat laughable human being who was not really worth her attention.

The hatred which Linda feels for her stepmother is deep, the way children hate. “You couldn’t be happy when there was a person there you – hated. Yes, hated. She hated Arlena. Very slowly again that black burning wave of hatred rose up again.” (Evil Under the Sun 42-43). It is an all-consuming, extreme emotion that Linda is very much aware of, even though Christie states earlier in the novel that “[Linda] wasn’t very good at sorting out her emotions and labeling them.” (Evil Under the Sun 40). She is, however, able to put a label on her attitude towards Arlena.

The hatred Linda feels for her stepmother is so big that she decides to do something about it. Her thoughts about what to do are expressed in the beginning of the novel: “I’d like to kill her. Oh! I wish she’d die…” (Evil Under the Sun 40). She goes and buys a book about voodoo and all the necessary equipment, and performs a voodoo ritual on the day Arlena dies. When she hears about the murder, she experiences feelings of great guilt, convinced that it was her who killed her stepmother. The way she acts during her first interview with the police suggests guilt as well. When she comes for her interview, she is “breathing heavily and the pupils of her eyes [are] dilated” and she looks like “a startled young colt” (Evil Under the Sun 131). She is terrified of what she thinks she has done. “Linda considered herself guilty.” (Evil Under the Sun 307), Poirot says to Rosamund Darnley towards the end of the novel. The feeling of guilt is quite understandable and is very different from the feelings of Josephine Leonides of Crooked House. Both of the girls think they have committed murder, but Josephine does not feel guilty at all. Linda’s feelings, on the other hand, suggest that she is in fact innocent and incapable of physically harming a person. “But you know, M. Poirot, it’s just the same as if I’d killed her, isn’t it? I meant to.” (Evil Under the Sun 315). This is what Linda says to Hercule Poirot at the end of the novel, still feeling guilty. But Poirot reassures her that “[t]he wish to kill and the action of killing are two different things.” (Evil Under the Sun 315). What Linda did was, according to Poirot, childish but also very helpful to her, because “[she] took the hate out of [herself] and put it into that little figure” (Evil Under the Sun 315). Linda admits to him that she felt better after performing the ritual, which suggests that she only needed an appropriate outlet for her hatred and anger, but did not really mean to kill her stepmother. Poirot’s attitude towards Linda is one of a fairy godfather; he helps Linda understand her own feelings and realize that she is not as bad a person as she thought she was. He also gives her advice about how to forget the whole history: “Then do not repeat to yourself the imbecilities. Just make up your mind not to hate your next stepmother.” (Evil Under the Sun 316).

Her relationship with her father seems to be a fairly good one, but Kenneth fails to see what he is really doing to Linda by being married to Arlena. He “[supposes] Arlena and Linda aren’t very good for each other” (Evil Under the Sun 54) but he thinks more about the fact that he married Arlena and therefore cannot divorce her (because he is too chivalrous) than about the happiness of his daughter. In his words “[i]f you marry a woman and engage yourself to look after her, well it’s up to you to do it.” (Evil Under the Sun 55). Concerning Linda’s opinion of her father, she thinks of him as a man who has changed since he married Arlena. “It was something [Arlena] did to people. Father, now, Father was quite different… […] Father at home – with Arlena there. All – all sort of bottled up and not – and not there.” (Evil Under the Sun 40). She is afraid that he will always be like this. “Day after day – month after month. […] Life stretched before her – endless – in a series of days darkened and poisoned by Arlena’s presence. She was childish enough still to have little sense of proportion. A year, to Linda, seemed like an eternity.” (Evil Under the Sun 40).

The only people who Linda approves of are Rosamund Darnley and Christine Redfern. Rosamund, according to Linda, was “sensible”. “It was not the adjective that Poirot himself would have selected for Rosamund Darnley, but he realized that it was Linda’s idea of high praise.” (Evil Under the Sun 316). Linda is quite happy about the thought that Rosamund will be her next stepmother. She does not clearly say that she likes her, she just says that she “[doesn’t] mind her” (Evil Under the Sun 316). This may be because of the difficulties she has with “sorting out her emotions”, as mentioned above. Another description of Linda’s feelings about Rosamund is written early in the novel. “She had a kind of funny amused face – as though it were amused at herself, not you.” (Evil Under the Sun 41). This is in contrast with Arlena, who always seemed to consider Linda laughable. The reason why she likes Rosamund is also gratitude that she treats her with respect. “Linda so seldom felt like a real human being that she was deeply grateful when anyone considered her one.” (Evil Under the Sun 42). Rosamund’s opinion of Linda is a good one as well. “I like Linda – very much. There’s something – fine about her.” (Evil Under the Sun 54), she says to Kenneth Marshall. Another moment when her affection for Linda is apparent is when they walk together after the inquest about Arlena’s murder. Linda calls her name and “[t]he mute appeal in the girl’s unhappy face touched her. She linked her arm through Linda’s and together they walked away from the hotel […]” (Evil Under the Sun 235). The reason why Rosamund likes Linda may also lie in the fact that she is the daughter of Kenneth, who Rosamund is in love with.

Christine Redfern is one of the villains in this novel; however, she appears to like Linda. This is then negated as the story progresses, because she and Patrick choose Linda to be their scapegoat and Christine even, in a way, provides Linda with her sleeping pills which Linda then uses for her suicide attempt. In spite of this, in the beginning the reader has an impression that Linda and Christine have a mutual understanding and affection for each other. This is, again, only seen from Linda’s point of view. “She liked Christine Redfern. She and Rosamund Darnley were the only bearable people on the island in Linda’s opinion. Neither of them talked much to her for one thing. […] That, Linda thought, was sensible. If you hadn’t anything worth saying why go chattering all the time?” (Evil Under the Sun 59). This shows that Linda likes to be left alone with her thoughts most of the time, in the manner of a typical teenager. This idea is further developed when Christine asks Linda to go sketching with her (to make Linda her alibi). “She liked being with Christine who, intent on her work, spoke very little. It was, Linda thought, nearly as good as being by oneself, and in a curious way she craved for company of some kind.” (Evil Under the Sun 76). However, Linda is aware that the sympathy between her and Christine Redfern is “probably based on the fact of their mutual dislike of the same person” (Evil Under the Sun 76). In spite of the sympathy between herself, Christine Redfern and Rosamund Darnley, Linda feels like she is never really understood by anyone. “You don’t understand in the least – and Christine doesn’t understand either! Both of you have been nice to me, but you can’t understand what I’m feeling.” (Evil Under the Sun 236), she says to Rosamund while they are walking together. The feeling of loneliness and misunderstanding is, again, typical of children Linda’s age.

Linda Marshall is portrayed as a typical sixteen-year-old child, who does not quite know what to think about the outer world and herself. Most of the time she wants to be left alone with her thoughts and ideas and she does not feel understood by anyone. These feelings are not different from the feelings of any teenager, be it Eustace Leonides in Crooked House or Linda Marshall in Evil Under the Sun.