Welcome to All About Agatha, the podcast dedicated to reading and ranking every single mystery novel written by The Queen of Crime Dame Agatha Christie. I'm Kemper Donovan. I'm Catherine Brodd. the Marple, short story. Oh, happy day. Catherine, what are we discussing today?

We are discussing the case of the perfect maid.

Very intriguing, and we know Miss Marple loves her maids.

Can you tell us a little bit about the publication history of this one?

So it was first published in April 1942 in the UK in the Strand

as the Perfect Maid.

And then subsequently in the Chicago Sunday Tribune

in the US as the Maid who Disappeared.

And then, of course, it was subsequently

collected in Three Blind Mice and

other stories, which was published in the US in 1950, and then in Miss Marple's

final cases in the UK, all the way in 1979.

All right, well let's dive right in and talk about our victim.

This is another rare Miss Marple that is not a murder mystery.

We do have a puzzle mystery here, thank the Lord. So we have a victim of sorts who is a housemaid named Gladys,

cousin of Miss Marple's made at the moment, her maid du jour, Edna, who has been fired

from her job seemingly for stealing. Her employers haven't come right out and said that but that is the

implication and as we know people will talk in St Mary Mead. Very much. Who are

our suspects Catherine? Well Gladys who I guess could be the if I mean that's

entirely possible the only indication that she's not is that Miss Marple

firmly does not believe that she is. Then next up we have Emily Skinner and Invalid

Spinster who Gladys had been working for and whose broach was stolen and it was

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