A Body on the Gondola

The story takes place during the winter of 1950 at the Grand Alpine Hotel, an isolated Gothic resort high in the Swiss Alps. It is told through alternating first-person accounts from Diana Glass, Catherine Narracott, Sylvia Sinclair, and Bruno Crane, with occasional third-person sections. The timeline begins with the murder itself before jumping back two days to show how everyone reached that point.

At 9:25 one morning, the attendant at the summit gondola station watches a red cabin arrive. A passenger inside appears strangely motionless. When the doors open, the figure topples onto the metal floor, dead.

Two days earlier, Diana Glass, a multilingual woman in her twenties, arrives aboard the Grand Alpine Express with her employer, wealthy widow Mrs. Dolly Bantry, and Bantry’s elderly friend Miss Jane Marple. Diana appears to be an ordinary secretary and companion, but during WWII she worked for the SOE and FANY as a radio operator in occupied Europe.

The hotel is filled with equally colorful guests. Anthony Narracott is a handsome rising Conservative politician and War Office official who received the Victoria Cross during the war. His beautiful twenty-two-year-old wife, Catherine, is a former debutante whose polished appearance conceals an increasingly unhappy marriage. Anthony’s old wartime companion Bruno Crane is also there, although unlike Anthony, Bruno has emerged from the war shabby, broke, and involved in black-market dealings.

Then there is thirty-five-year-old Hollywood star Sylvia Sinclair, born Sally Simmons, who arrives with her enormous Irish wolfhound, Herb. Sylvia drinks heavily, uses cocaine, and still carries grief from a secret teenage pregnancy and the loss of her baby.

Trouble begins almost immediately. Catherine discovers a jar marked RAT POISON in her room, but Anthony dismisses it as intimidation from communist activists. Anthony then meets Bruno and forces him to accompany him on an ice climb. He points out an isolated refuge hut across the glacier and tells Bruno that they will retrieve something hidden there when the moon is full. Anthony is also furious to learn that Sylvia is staying at the hotel.

Watching the climbers through binoculars, Diana sees one man move behind the other and raise his hands as though preparing to push him over the edge. He stops before doing it.

Anthony’s Secrets Begin to Surface

That evening, Catherine is approached by Charlie Levitt, a dishevelled twenty-year-old medical student who warns her that Anthony has a dark past. At dinner she also encounters former schoolmate Harriet Hodgson, whose comments revive memories of an old scandal involving a gardener named Kit.

Anthony is served nusstorte, a caramel nut tart, and immediately suffers a severe allergic reaction. His hidden nut allergy suddenly becomes known to people around him.

More disturbing revelations follow. Anthony visits Bruno’s room, where their argument exposes the truth behind Anthony’s celebrated wartime heroism. Anthony once shot Bruno in the head, taking off part of his ear, and deliberately shot off one of his own toes to manufacture his supposedly heroic war wound. Bruno still carries a cyanide suicide capsule from the war and drunkenly talks about throwing himself from the balcony.

Anthony is also having an affair with Sylvia. He secretly enters her bathroom while she is bathing, and Sylvia demands that he stop hiding their relationship. Instead, Anthony insults her. When she throws an ashtray at him, he attacks her, grabbing her throat and forcing her beneath the bathwater until she nearly drowns.

Bruno, meanwhile, goes gambling and briefly wins more than £5,000—enough to escape his debts and perhaps Anthony’s control. Instead of leaving with the money, he wagers everything on roulette and loses it all.

The following day, Catherine and Anthony go skiing. Diana notices Charlie following them. On the slopes, Catherine encounters Sylvia and recognizes her distinctive perfume as the same scent she noticed after a mysterious woman telephoned Anthony’s London apartment. Catherine now realizes Sylvia is Anthony’s mistress.

Her distrust of her husband becomes even worse when she nearly skis over a huge cliff in thick cloud. Anthony had a map and knew the drop was there, yet failed to warn her. Catherine begins to wonder whether her husband actually wanted her dead.

That night, Sylvia makes sure her bruised neck will be noticed by deliberately cutting the strap of her dress. Catherine confronts Anthony with a diamond earring she found in their bed and, after Sylvia taunts her, throws a martini into the actress’s face. Anthony responds by violently grabbing Catherine’s wrists hard enough to bruise them.

It appears that Catherine and Sylvia despise each other.

Nazi Gold and Murder

Under the full moon, Anthony and Bruno cross the glacier to the refuge hut. They break through the cemented floor and uncover a metal chest filled with Nazi gold bars stolen during the war.

Their conversation reveals an even uglier history. Anthony insists Bruno murdered a young French Resistance fighter in 1943, although Bruno remembers Anthony firing the fatal shot. Anthony has spent years manipulating Bruno’s memories and using their shared crimes to control him.

The next morning, a black flag bearing a white triangle and howling wolf is raised above the hotel. Anthony recognizes the emblem of Les loups des montagnes, a French Resistance group, and is visibly terrified.

At 9:00 a.m., Anthony leaves his coffee flask at Reception to be filled. A fake telegram call draws him away briefly. He then boards the 9:10 gondola alone.

At the summit, the attendant discovers Anthony dead inside the cabin. His body is curled into a fetal position, and the empty flask beneath him smells of coffee and caramelized nusstorte.

When his body is returned to the hotel, Catherine faints and strikes her head. Charlie rushes to help and produces a medical kit containing morphine, adrenaline, and various poisons.

Bruno has more immediate concerns. He returns to the refuge hut expecting to steal the Nazi gold for himself and discovers that the entire chest has been emptied. Convinced Catherine knows something, he breaks into her suite, chokes her, and tears through her belongings. Diana and Charlie intervene before he can seriously injure her.

Bruno flees toward the railway carrying two gold bars he had previously taken. He knocks out the train driver and starts the engine, with Diana leaping aboard after him. Their struggle ends catastrophically when Bruno falls against the accelerator and the train crashes inside the mountain tunnel. The wreckage seals the tunnel, leaving everyone trapped at the Grand Alpine.

Miss Marple Starts Putting the Pieces Together

A guest named Christophe Moreau now identifies himself as an inspector with the Paris Judiciaire and asks Miss Marple to assist him. Anthony, he explains, was murdered with almond oil placed inside his coffee flask, triggering his fatal allergy.

The interrogations expose several secrets. Catherine says she was in the spa when Anthony’s flask was poisoned, and Sylvia confirms seeing her there. Charlie’s communist magazine initially makes him look suspicious, but Miss Marple notices his physical resemblance to Anthony and realizes the truth: Charlie is Anthony’s illegitimate son. Charlie admits he followed Anthony hoping to obtain money for his gambling debts, only to be rejected.

Sylvia freely admits to the affair. Bruno claims he slept through the morning, but Miss Marple catches him lying because housekeeping had already cleaned his room. His wartime cyanide capsule has also mysteriously disappeared.

Knowing someone at the hotel stole the gold, Bruno sends the thief an anonymous note demanding one-third of it in exchange for his silence. The response tells him that “silence is indeed golden” and orders him to await instructions.

Those instructions lead him to an isolated pine copse during the hotel’s toboggan competition. A grotesque troll mask hanging from a tree briefly frightens him, but the real danger approaches from behind. Bruno recognizes the person and manages only a confused response before he is struck violently in the head, splitting his skull.

His frozen body is soon discovered. A ski trail leads away from the scene down a steep couloir toward the hotel.

Another Body in the Snow

Catherine searches Anthony’s belongings and discovers a shocking photograph of someone currently staying at the Grand Alpine.

Diana, meanwhile, has grown close to Christophe. After drinking together, they sleep together in his room. When Diana’s ring rolls beneath his bed, she discovers photographs developed from film that was stolen from her camera. Christophe admits taking it. The pictures show Anthony and Bruno near the refuge hut—and a mysterious third person nearby.

The following morning brings another death. A maid screams after discovering Christophe’s body in the snow beneath Mrs. Bantry’s third-floor balcony. Someone stole Mrs. Bantry’s room key, sent Christophe a fake note signed “JM,” and arranged for Mrs. Bantry to be away on a sleigh ride.

Miss Marple now reveals that Christophe was lying about his own identity. He was actually Kristoph Mauer, a Swiss banker trying to intercept the stolen Nazi gold.

Then she turns her attention to Diana.

Diana’s fluent French, expensive underwear, French engagement ring, and unusual interest in Anthony have all told Miss Marple that Diana is hiding something. Diana finally confesses the truth. During the war, she served as an SOE radio operator alongside Les loups des montagnes. Anthony and Bruno massacred members of her Resistance group while stealing Nazi gold. Diana came to the Grand Alpine to expose Anthony’s treason and recover the stolen gold.

She wanted justice, but she did not murder Anthony, Bruno, or Kristoph.

Catherine and Sylvia’s Real Plan

The final clue comes when Sylvia disappears. Her abandoned room contains black hair dye, allowing Miss Marple to reconstruct a far more elaborate conspiracy.

The apparent hatred between Catherine and Sylvia was fake.

Weeks earlier, the two women discovered that Anthony had been deceiving both of them. Instead of becoming rivals, they formed a relationship, fell in love, and decided to kill Anthony and steal his hidden fortune.

Their public confrontations—including Catherine throwing the martini into Sylvia’s face—were designed to convince everyone that they despised one another.

On the morning Anthony died, the women used disguises to create Catherine’s alibi. Catherine dressed as Sylvia, complete with an ermine coat and platinum wig, and made herself visible in the spa. Sylvia disguised herself in a loose nun’s habit, allowing her to move through the hotel unnoticed and put almond oil into Anthony’s coffee flask.

The same partnership explains the later murders. Sylvia killed Bruno in the pine copse and escaped down the steep couloir on skis. Catherine stole Mrs. Bantry’s room key and pushed Kristoph from the balcony after he discovered who they were.

With Anthony, Bruno, and Kristoph dead, Catherine and Sylvia take the Nazi gold and flee across the mountains toward Italy.

The Escape—and the Trap

Diana pursues them on skis. She nearly catches the pair, but Catherine turns and shoots her in the side. Diana collapses bleeding into the snow while Catherine and Sylvia continue their escape.

Then the mountain itself seems to stop them. An avalanche breaks loose above the women and roars down the slope, engulfing them completely.

It appears that Catherine and Sylvia have died with the gold.

Two days later, however, two nuns arrive at Venice Santa Lucia station and board the Simplon-Orient-Express. Once safely inside their first-class compartment, they reveal themselves as Catherine and Sylvia. They survived the avalanche, successfully crossed into Italy, and believe they have finally escaped.

They are wrong.

The compartment door opens and Italian police officers enter. Miss Marple anticipated their escape and, through Sir Henry Clithering and Interpol, arranged a trap. Catherine and Sylvia are arrested before they can disappear with the gold.

One month later, back in St Mary Mead, Mrs. Bantry reads newspaper reports about Catherine Narracott’s trial at the Old Bailey.

Diana has survived as well. The gondola attendant found her after Catherine shot her, and she recovered from the wound. Before beginning a new position at the Foreign Office, she visits Miss Marple and makes one final decision about Anthony Narracott.

Rather than allowing the dead politician to retain his reputation as a decorated war hero, Diana intends to publish her photographs and expose his wartime treason. After surviving the Grand Alpine and confronting the men responsible for destroying her Resistance group, she chooses to return to a useful, adventurous life rather than retreat into safety.