The Pale Horse

“In the blonde’s fingers were large tufts of red hair. She held them aloft gleefully, then dropped them on the floor.”

What seems like a small detail of fact to Mark at this stage (as he is unaware of how unusual it would be for anyone to be able to rip a handful of hair out of someone’s scalp) will become essential evidence at the climax of the novel in the discovery of the link in the various illnesses of the victims—thallium poisoning causes hair-loss in its victims.

“Perhaps it was my life, my quiet scholarly life, immersed in books, shut off from the world, that was the wasted one.”

The tussle in the café and the obituary staring at him from the newspaper cause Mark to question the value of his life and his line of work. The feelings of boredom and stagnation help spur him to investigate the murders and the Pale Horse in the ensuing pages of the novel, sparked here by a reflection on the fleetingness of life.

“‘Nonsense,’ said Mrs. Oliver. ‘Hair’s tough.’”

A casual line thrown into a conversation foreshadows the solution to the mystery at the end, following up on what Mark witnessed at the café in Chelsea. As Mrs. Oliver notes, it is not an easy thing to rip the hair out of a scalp.

“Good old-fashioned rat poison or arsenic is good enough for me. Or the reliable blunt instrument.”

Foreshadowing the events to come—a fitting role for the author’s self-referential stand-in character—both methods of murder will be used in the deaths that populate the novel, as Fr. Gorman is killed by blunt force trauma to the head and the victims of the Pale Horse are discovered to be murdered by thallium poisoning.

“There’s still a witch in every village in rural England.”

Anticipating Mark’s eventual encounter with the women of the Pale Horse, David expresses a simple belief that there are, in fact, still witches inhabiting small English towns. His words will prove true as Mark will later meet Thyrza, Sybil, and Bella.

“I had always felt in the back of my mind that someday Hermia and I would marry.”

For most of the novel, Mark is attached to Hermia, both as a close friend and as a seemingly inevitable love interest. Through the investigation, however, Mark discovers that Hermia is (to him) a bore and doesn’t share enough of his interests to make a suitable long-term partner (as he will find in Ginger).

“There was a feeling of relaxation next day, which was a Sunday.”

It is ironic that the meeting with the witches of the Pale Horse is held on a Sunday, the Christian holy day that would seem to be the opposite in meaning from what is claimed to be real and present at the Pale Horse.

“There is evil. And evil is powerful. Sometimes more powerful than good. It’s there. It has to be recognised—and fought.”

The prime suspect for most of the novel is Venables. But this line foreshadows his eventual innocence. It casts his fundamental ideology explicitly against evil, proclaiming that evil must be stood up to and vanquished even if it seems to be much larger and much more powerful than the power of good that opposes it.

“So long as one doesn’t know who he is, I can keep him impressive—but when it all comes out—he seems, somehow, so inadequate. A kind of anticlimax.”

This line foreshadows the distinction that will be recognized between the otherworldly sense of dread and evil experienced during the séance at the barn of the Pale Horse and the ordinariness of the criminal mastermind’s identity, a retired pharmacist.

“Is this an original Malleus Maleficorum?”

The Malleus Maleficorum—usually translated as “The Hammer of Witches”—is a book written in the late Middle Ages as a treatise on witchcraft and sorcery, composed as a field guide for those who would have to deal with and punish those who practiced (or were accused of practicing) witchcraft.

“Poisons! That’s vieux jeu. Childish stuff. There are new horizons.”

Thyrza Grey speaks more than she realizes here in denigrating the use of poison in murder. What she does not realize is that while she and her two companions perform their ritual on their own, the one pulling the strings on the other end is using poison to bring the victims to their untimely demise.

“‘I came,’ said Lejeune, ‘because the very positiveness of your identification impressed me.’”

At this point in the novel, the reader simply takes this line for thorough police work. But when Osborne is revealed in the end to be the killer, Lejeune’s remark is illuminated with a different light since he tells the group of witnesses that he had suspected Osborne from the beginning, being suspicious of the great detail with which he described the suspect (a level of detail that was almost impossible to retain, and for that reason was cause for doubt).

“You yourself, if I may say so, seem to be rather a dark horse. Ha ha!”

Bradley engages in a little wordplay here, using the imagery of the horse (as brought up by their discussion of the Pale Horse), and calls Mark a “dark horse,” a name for someone or something that has only a small chance of succeeding against a heavy favorite.

“Panic, sheer panic, showed in those pale eyes. Beneath the makeup, her face was suddenly white and afraid.”

This moment proves the truth of the nefarious deeds associated with the Pale Horse. Up to this point, it was a theory, even if a very good one, but Mrs. Tuckerton’s reaction proves that the mention of the name of the inn in connection with the death of one of the listed victims evokes fear in those who would stand to benefit from the deaths.

“‘Brace yourself,’ said Ginger. ‘I’m your wife!’”

Setting herself up to play the part of Mark’s long-lost first wife to sell the false story to Bradley—and thus to set the trap—Ginger says more than she knows as she will very soon accept Mark’s proposal of marriage at the end of their involvement with the case.

“The supernatural seems supernatural. But the science of tomorrow is the supernatural of today.”

A rather remarkable claim that demonstrates intelligence and humility. Mark realizes that there are certain things about which he is ignorant, and he voices a truth that recognizes the fact that at times technology and magic are indistinguishable.

“‘I believe you’re in love,’ said Rhoda accusingly.”

Rhoda recognizes Mark’s state of mind but fails to recognize the cause for it. She is under the impression that he is in love with Hermia, and even Mark assumes that is so; he doesn’t yet realize that his affections have begun to shift and find their object in his new partner Ginger.

“The old magic and the new. The old knowledge of belief, the new knowledge of science. Together, they will prevail.”

Thyrza proves her cunning in speaking with Mark at the ritual by affirming the viability of both the old ways of magic and ritual as well as the new ways of scientific investigation and technological advancement.

“No suspicious characters approached you?”

Anxious to ensure Ginger’s safety, Mark inquires about who Ginger had come in contact with since the ritual, unaware that the seemingly harmless people with whom Ginger had come in contact with were actually who she should have been afraid of in the first place.

“A man who could wield power—and never be known to wield power.”

Initially directed at the man in the wheelchair, Venables, the statement is full of irony in that the one who is pulling the strings is invisible and unknown and has in fact been involved in the investigation from the beginning, inserting himself as an eyewitness to the killing of Fr. Gorman.

“The box represented, not human superstition, but a development of scientific possibility.”

Mark’s credentials and background as an academic have sufficiently inoculated him against the charms of the ritual’s magic, but this very same fact has made him more credulous of the electric box that could be some new technological manner of killing of which he had been previously unaware.

“I’m glad you’re coming, Mark. I daresay—I’m not so brave as I thought.”

Ginger, for the very first time, expresses her vulnerability to Mark by admitting that she wants him to be with her in her sickness. Up to this point, Ginger was the one to move first with their plans. She volunteered to play the victim and, in general, she was extremely courageous and outspoken. In her illness, however, she admits to being afraid.

“And pitiful it was to see her in the nursing home and all her hair, nice thick white hair it was, and always blued regularly once a fortnight, to see it coming out all over the pillow.”

Mrs. Oliver finally helps Mark piece together the last clue that they need to link the murders together: all the victims lost their hair in the days leading up to their death. Combined with Mark’s knowledge of thallium and its side effects, they are able to pinpoint the poison used and thus save Ginger’s life.