The quaint Lucy Eyelesbarrow

This most unusual character in all fiction appears in Agatha Christie's "4.50 from Paddington." Here the detective Miss Marple suspects that a body is hidden in an old house in a large grounds occupied by the Rutherford family. As she cannot penetrate into the grounds, she recollects Lucy, who nursed her, when she had influenza.

This Lucy has a First in Mathematics from Oxford, but disdains an academic career, as it is poorly paid. She has observed that there is a great demand for efficient domestic help & the affluent are prepared to pay the earth for competent help. She decides to enter the market but only 2 weeks at a place as she wants to meet a variety of people.

On a request from Miss Marple, who subsidises her normal wages from the Rutherford family to make up her exorbitant wages, Lucy enters the family & promptly wins the hearts of everyone with her hard work & efficiency. In her spare time, she snoops around the ground & eventually discovers the body, leaving it to Miss Marple to stage a final showdown & unmask the culprit.

By the end of the novel, she may even marry one of the characters, about whose identity Miss Marple has no doubts but typically doesn't share it with the reader!