'Marble Hall Murders' Recap: Episode 4

Marble Hall Murders airs Sundays at 8:00 pm and is available to stream. Recap the previous episode.
Recap and stream the previous two series, Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders.

Susan is becoming paranoid as she is dragged further into the drama and mystery of the Crace family. She has a nightmare that Miriam Crace’s Tiny People, in the form of childhood versions of Eliot, Roland, and Julia, kill her at Miriam’s urging.

Her paranoia is not unfounded: she wakes to two detectives at her door. DC Wardlaw and DI Blakeney inform her that Eliot was hit by a car after both he and Susan left the commemoration of Miriam’s death the previous night. He is in a coma, and it’s unclear if he’ll pull through. The police don’t think it was an accident.

Susan agrees; she suggests that someone was trying to prevent Eliot from naming Miriam’s killer after he revealed in a radio interview that he had hidden clues to their identity in his upcoming book. The detectives suspect Susan: after all, Eliot fired her as his editor in front of everyone at the party. They want to see Susan’s car, even though she took the train to the party.

Her keys are not out, as she thought, but in the pocket of the coat she wore the previous night. The front of her car is damaged, as though it hit something, and a scrap of fabric that might have a bloodstain is stuck in the grill. Susan is shocked – and worried. The police impound her car for further investigation.

Atticus Pünd is approached by an American who introduces himself as Harrison Carter. He is an archaeologist who worked as one of the so-called “monuments men” who sought to identify and return art and artifacts stolen by the Nazis during World War II. He learned that Nazis murdered a curator at a museum in Ithaca in order to steal a significant artifact, the Calyx Krater. He recently received a tip-off from Maria, the servant at Lady Chalfont’s Villa Belmar, that the Krater was there and Elmer Waysmith was trying to sell it – Maria had witnessed the Nazi murder and theft at the museum. Carter was able to confirm the authenticity of the vase by following a paper trail from the museum to the unscrupulous Swiss partner of Elmer.

He spoke with Elmer’s son Robert, who invited him to Villa Belmar, where Elmer was furious at the accusation and kicked him out.

Since this conversation took place in the room beneath Lady Chalfont’s room, from which you can hear conversations below through the open windows, Pünd wonders if this is the thing Lady Chalfont heard about her husband that troubled her and caused her to approach Pünd. After all, she called her lawyer Lambrose about her will soon after Carter visited the Villa Belmar. 

Susan goes to see Gillian but finds the door answered by her father-in-law, Edward, instead. He says that Eliot was a wild child, who still always picks fights. Eliot blamed Edward for all his problems because his mother disliked Marble Hall so much that she stayed away. Edward suggests that Charles Clover might have more insight into Eliot; he was often at Marble Hall, and more of a father figure to him than Edward ever was. 

Roland arrives at the house and is suddenly angry at Susan, asking her to leave. He dismisses Susan’s concern that someone is trying to kill Eliot and says it was just a hit and run. But she realizes that he has entered Eliot and Gillian’s house on his own: he has a key. She guesses that he is the person with whom Gillian was having an affair, whose baby she is now pregnant with. That must be the real reason he and Eliot fell out. Roland kicks her out.

Elmer also gets angry when queried by the detectives. He denies Carter’s accusation that Krater was illicitly acquired and says that his wife would have asked him about the conversation with Carter if she had heard it and been concerned. 

His step-grandson Cedric is more helpful. He’s intrigued by poisons like the one that killed his grandma, and shows the detectives where the plant it derives from grows on the grounds of the villa. 

Then news comes in that Lambrose’s secretary Sofia has gone missing. Lambrose says she’s reliable but missed work, and she didn’t return to the Hotel Poseidon her parents run yesterday. 

Lambrose says it was odd that Sofia seemed so shaken up by Lady Chalfont’s death; even though the Lady was a client, Lambrose and Sofia didn’t know her personally. Sofia did type up Lady Chalfont’s will. 

Pünd finds it odd that Lambrose didn’t know Sofia’s fiancé’s name. The detective thinks Sofia was lying when Pünd asked the man’s name: she hesitated and made up a name that he thinks she pulled from a newspaper that was visible nearby. 

This gains credence when her mother Val admits she wasn’t told anything about a fiancé; she didn’t even know that Sofia was planning to leave her job because of the supposed engagement. Val says Sofia was innocent and could have been taken advantage of. Pünd wonders if Sofia was used by someone because of her access to Lady Chalfont's will.

Susan visits Elaine, Charles Clover’s wife, and makes a surprising and difficult request: she wants to visit Charles, the man who tried to kill her and whom she sent to prison. Elaine thinks he will say no, but promises to ask. 

In the meantime, Susan meets with Matthew Flynn, the publisher who hired her to work on Eliot’s book. He’s reluctant to speak with her, having been questioned by the police about her. Susan wonders why he was at the Crace foundation’s party the previous night. He admits that his company won an auction to publish a Tiny People continuation novel. 

Unfortunately, he had already hired Eliot to write an Atticus Pünd continuation novel, and Jonathan Crace, Eliot’s uncle and the head of the foundation, did not take kindly to Matthew working with Eliot. Matthew was going to fire Eliot, but then Susan returned to London. Matthew hired her to essentially keep Eliot out of trouble. Regardless, Pünd’s Last Case will never be published now.

Some fisherman find a body on the beach: it’s Sofia, strangled and left there. A photo of Harry Lyttleton, Lady Chalfont’s son-in-law, is in her coin purse. She was last seen getting into a car that looked like Harry’s outside the Hotel Poseidon around 6 the previous day.

When the Chalfonts are asked about Sofia but not told yet that she is dead, Harry says he hardly knew her. Jeffrey still thinks the whole investigation is a mistake; maybe his mother, knowing she was dying, simply killed herself. 

When Sofia’s death is revealed, Robert defends Harry: he saw him at the Villa Belmar at 5:30, when Harry left to drive Judith to a lecture in town before returning. Lola heard his car return. Judith is unconcerned by the fact that her husband’s photo was found in a dead young woman’s possessions.

As Pünd and Achilles leave the Villa Belmar, they enter a blank void. Eliot has died. His novel, and Pünd’s mystery, will not go any further.