I recently began reading an Agatha Christie mystery novel entitled Ordeal by Innocence.Two years prior to the beginning of the story, a man named Jack Argyle was sentenced to life in prison fo killing his adoptive mother, Rachel Argyle. The evidence against Jack was sure and uncontroversial, despite Jack's insistent protests that he hadn't committed the crime. On the night his mother was murdered, Jack came to her home at about six in the evening and demanded that she give him money to get Jack out of some kind of trouble he had gotten him into. Mrs. Argyle refused. Jack immediately became angry and threatening toward his mother. Jack eventually left the house in a rage. At 7:30 that same evening, Mrs. Argyle was struck and killed with a fireplace poker. The police found Jack's fingerprints on the poker and a large quantity of money missing from Mrs. Argyle's bureau drawer. Jack was later picked up by the police in a town called Drymouth. A great amount of cash was found on his person, which was later traced back to Mrs. Argyle. Jack was charged with wilful murder. Jack claimed he had an alibi for the period of time it was believed his mother had been killed, sometime between seven and seven-thirty. Jack claimed during that time he had been hitchhiking and been picked up by a middle-aged man in a black or dark blue saloon car on the road to Drymouth. The police did everything humanly possible to find the vehicle and its driver, but Jack's alibi couldn't be confirmed. Jack was sentenced to life in prison and died of pneumonia six months later.
Some two years after these events occured, a geophysicist named Dr. Arthur Calgary approached the Argyle family claiming that he had been the middle-aged man who picked up Jack Argyle on the road to Drymouth, literally confirming Jack's alibi for the time period during which Mrs. Argyle was believed to have been murdered. Calgary told the family that after he dropped Jack off at Drymouth he went to London and waited for the train he supposed to catch. However, while crossing a street, he was hit by a streetcar. Although Calgary appeared to be fine during the initial minutes after the accident, by the time his train arrived
he was unconscious and had to be rushed to the hospital. When he regained conscionsness a few days later, Calgary could remember nothing of the last twenty-four or so, including picking Jack up on the road the Drymouth. Having no reason to believe that anything important occured during the missing hours of his life, Calgary was not concerned about this partial amnesia. During his recovery at the hospital, Calgary had no contact with the outside world, and, therefore, did not learn of the Argyle murder. Following his recovery, Calgary left England to prepare for an expedition to the Antarctic, which kept him busy enough he never heard of the Argyle murder. It wasn't until Calgary returned to England about a month prior to the start of the story that he learned of Rachel Argyle's murder and Jack Argyle's conviction of the crime, and remembered the part he unknowingly played in the situation. He saw Jack's photo in a newspaper and thought he looked familiar. After he read the paragraph that detailed the events surrounding the murder, Calgary suddenly remembered that he picked Jack Argyle up on the road Drymouth. After he researched the murder to make sure his recently recovered memory collaborated with the facts of the case, Calgary went to Jack's former attorney, from whom he learned he too late to rescue Jack, who died in prison two years before. However, the case was being laid before the Public Prosecutor and it was likely that in no time at all, Jack's conviction would be overturned. Feeling responsible for unknowingly allowing Jack to go to prison for crime he hadn't committed, Calgary went to the family and explained his role in situation. The Argyle family was hardly pleased or relieved to learn of Jack's innocence. Jack had an awful temper and was mentally unstable. Although this mental unstability wasn't of the kind that could have gotten Jack anything less than a life sentence, it was enough that it allowed the Argyles to believe that, while Jack was guilty, he wasn't responsible for actions. This belief allowed the family to resign themselves to Jack's imprisonment. But now this recent discovery of Jack's innocence stirs up not only the murder case but also turmoil within family; since Mrs. Argyle was killed inside her own home then that means her killer was either a family inside the house at the time or someone she willingly allowed into her home. The ultimate question of Ordeal by Innocence is this: if Jack Argyle didn't kill Rachel Argyle who did?
