A Holiday For Murder – Summary Essay, Research Paper
Part 1, Chapter 1.
A man called Stephen gets off a train and he is set on doing something that he has planned to do for a long time.
The man is from Africa because he said that he felt homesick.
Was three days before Christmas.
Uses words like Drab
Saw a beautiful girl sitting on the train. She looked out of place.
Part 1, Chapter 2.
Pilar, the girl narrates.
She was also set to do something.
She saw a good looking man in the corridor. He walked in to talk to her.
Gave what both people are thinking while they are talking to one another.
They talked about how much they hated England.
Pilar came from Spain.
A war was on at the time.
She told a story of when her driver was killed by a bomb: she did not seem to care! (P5)
He told her about Africa and a story of when he was a kid.
Part 1, Chapter 3.
A bunch of people talking about their father. They talk of how much they hate him, and how they want to break their chains.
Lydia had a garden with a number of scenes that she had made the garden to look like.
One of the scenes was the Dead Sea.
Butler had been at the house for forty years.
Part 1, Chapter 4.
Two, David and Hilda, talking about the man’s mother and how she was humiliated by his father with his affairs that he boasted about.
The mother was not able to devorce because of the times.
Blames his father for his mothers’ death.
He had not seen his father since he started college because of a dispute between what he wanted to do and what his father wanted him to do.
Part 1, Chapter 5.
George Lee and his wife are talking about his father’s great wealth. “A millionaire twice over, I believe.” (George:P17)
Made his money from mining South African Diamonds.
Georges’ sister died a year before the time of the book.
Harry is the brother who went travelling the world, and often sent messages to wire him money. He usually got money from his father even though he had a huge fight with his father before he left because his father wanted him to do something with his life.
Part 1, Chapter 6.
The old man and Lydia talking about the two mysterious people that were supposed to show up the next day.
The person was Pilar, who is his grandaughter.
Harry was the other person who was supposed to arrive the next day.
Part 2, Chapter 1.
Everyone surprised to see Harry Lee
Throughoutt Book – Reference to fathers appairs with other women.
Harry surprised to find all family there
George was a member of Parliament
When Alfred walked in they stared at each other.
Part 2, Chapter 2.
Simeon talking of his regrets of cheating on his wife.
Pilar believes strongly in God and praying.
Talks about men being more powerful than men Pilar: “If I were a man i would be like that, too.” (P31).
Impressed his Granddaughter with uncut diamonds just to prove to her that he is rich.
Part 2, Chapter 3.
David and Hilda in a sitting room.
David talking about a memory of his mother reading books to him in that room when he was a child.
Part 2, Chapter 4.
A man that the Doorman had met a long time ago came to the door and gave him a letter for Simeon.
The doorman could not remember who the man was.
Part 2, Chapter 5.
The man turned out to be the son of an old partner of Simeons
The man came from South Africa.
Part 3, Chapter 1.
Harry and Simeon talking about the problem of Harrys’ presence there.
The main problem was Alfred’s. His brother.
The old man has a surprise for the rest of the family before lunch.
Part 3, Chapter 2.
The family walks into the room and the old man is talking on the telephone to a lawyer. He is talking about making up a new will after Christmas.
The old man talks about lowering the allowance of George in order to pay for the rising costs of maintaining the house.
The old man called his dead wife a louse and then said that she transmitted it onto her children.
The children started yelling at their father and he told them all to get out.
The old man later stated that watching his whole family get mad under his joke was fun.
Hilda said that she was afraid for Simeon.
Part 3, Chapter 3.
Tressilian, the butler, is the narrator.
Two of the servants talking and when one said that the police had shown up at the house, the Valet dropped his cup of tea and started to perspire. He became at ease when he found out that it was only to collect for the children’s orphanage.
At dinner all of the family, except for the man from South Africa, was quiet. They only talked in spurts.
David was nervous and knocked over his glass of wine.
David played the “Dead March” on the piano after dinner and the butler thought it was strange.
Above him he heard china crashing and furniture falling over.
Harry and The South African, Mr. Farr, were already there after they ran upstairs to find that the door to the old man’s room was locked.
There was a ring at the door.
They broke the door down with a wooden bench.
Furniture was broken, china shattered. There was definitely a struggle in the room.
Simeon was laying in a pool of blood, the rug beside him had caught fire.
Part 3, Chapter 4.
The door bell rang again. They opened up the door to find the police chief at the door.
The chief took charge and made everyone leave the room and made them not touch anything.
Pilar picked something up and was reluctant to give it back. She played “Dumb”.
It was a piece of rubber and wood. The Superintendent put them into a bag and placed the bag into his pocket.
Part 3, Chapter 5.
This chapter starts off with Colonel Johnson and Hercule Poirot talking about different poisoning murders and how they used to be “un-English”.
The Colonel said that there was less likely to be murders during the Christmas season than any other time of the year.
The men were talking about Christmas and then the phone rang and it was a case of murder. (Ironic)
The Colonel thought that the old man was not very liked in the community.
But the case will still cause a big stirr.
The colonel asked Poirot if he would like to come along on the case.
Poirot said that he would only assist the Superintendent and not take over the case.
Part 3, Chapter 6.
The men were at the house and started to look for clues.
Poirot was famous in the area for solving a case of nicotine poisoning a few years before.
Mr. Lee’s throat was slit, jugular vein severed.
Mr. Lee had phoned the Superintendent earlier in the afternoon and told him to go to Mr. Lee’s house. The old man told the Super. that the house had been robbed of many uncut diamonds. The old man thought that the diamonds may be a practicle joke played by someone in the house. The old man told the Super to return in a hour and that the old man would have the case solved. The Super returned in an hour and the old man was dead.