History Literature / APocketFullOfRye

* ShoutOut: Inspector Neele describes Miss Dove as "The admirable Miss Crichton", a reference to the [[TheJeeves exceedingly competent butler]] of Creator/JMBarrie's play ''The Admirable Crichton''.

** Lance implies it's his stiff, boring, reliable brother Percy who actually forged the cheques which saw Lance cut off from the family business all those years ago. [[spoiler:Lance is lying, and despite his superficial charm and dashing good looks, Lance is every bit as bad as everyone always thought and worse -- he's the one who poisoned his father, forged the documents that let him back into the business, strangled Gladys Martin after leading her astray (in the guise of her supposed boyfriend Albert Evans), and poisoned his stepmother Adele before she could inherit. Played with in that in his mind, he was doing it all so that he could turn over a new leaf for Pat.]]

* FamilyThemeNaming: ThePatriarch Rex Fortescue started by changing his own name -- he's said to have emigrated from eastern Europe, and the patronym -escu is common in Romania. "Rex" is Latin for king, and Rex seems to have gone out of his way to seek out associations with the Myth/KingArthur legend: he named his sons Lance(lot) and Percy (Percival) and his daughter Elaine (of Astolat, as appearing in Creator/AlfredLordTennyson's ''Literature/IdyllsOfTheKing'' and "The Lady of Shalott").[[note]]The literary Elaine pines for Lancelot; fortunately that doesn't seem to be the case here, though Elaine does seem to be the only one who feels anything over the death of her father and the absence of her brother for all those years.[[/note]] Percy would then go on to marry a woman named Jennifer (Guinevere).

* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Lancelot and Percival Fortescue. In Lance's words: "I blew my pocket money, he saved his. I had disreputable but entertaining friends, Percy made what he called 'worthwhile contacts.'" Percival went to work for the family business, while Lance filched cash from the business and got kicked out of the family.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Towards the end, Inspector Neele reads a newspaper story about "uranium deposits in Tanganyika." That turns out to be part of the motive--the supposedly worthless Blackbird Mine has a lot of uranium, and Lance wants the mine.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Percy, for all his protests, must be complicit in his father's less honest business decisions on some level. He's too involved in Consolidated Investments to be as ignorant as he claims.
* IHaveNoSon:

* InfoDump: Inspector Neele's interview with Miss Griffith at the office sketches out the members of the Fortescue family. Then his interview with Mary Dove fills in some detail, like how Percy is stingy and Adele is a GoldDigger.

* ShoutOut: Inspector Neele describes Miss Dove as "The admirable Miss Crichton", a reference to the [[TheJeeves exceedingly competent butler]] of J. M. Barrie's play ''The Admirable Crichton''.

* UnintentionalFinalMessage: After she gets back home, Miss Marple receives a letter that [[spoiler:Gladys wrote and mailed after Rex Fortescue was killed and mere hours before she herself was murdered]]. It makes Miss Marple cry, but it also contains [[spoiler:a photo of Lance with Gladys]] that will be useful in getting the murderer convicted.
* WorthlessYellowRocks: The Blackbird Mine was considered worthless when first assayed because it didn't have any gold. True, it doesn't have gold, but it does have uranium - something that wasn't all that valuable when the mine was first assayed before WWII, but is priceless in the fifties.

* ParentalMarriageVeto: Rex Fortescue threatens to cut off his daughter Elaine without a cent if she marries poor schoolteacher and avowed communist Gerald Wright. Elaine would have married him anyway, but Gerald was only interested in Elaine for her money and promptly dumped her. At least until Rex died, leaving Elaine a large amount of money... Interestingly, Miss Marple is convinced the marriage will turn out well, as she sees the gold-hunting groom as a man who will respect and be kind to the woman who made his dreams (a school) come true where he's resent a poor girl married for love for ruining his life.

* ShoutOut: Inspector Neele describes Miss Dove as "The admirable Miss Crichton", a reference to the [[TheJeeves exceedingly competent butler]] of J. M. Barrie's play ''Theatre/TheAdmirableCrichton''.