Card Shuffling
The first thing that the narrator discovers about Mrs. Cartwright is that she is unusually deft and dexterous with the act of shuffling cards. More than just efficient, she can even easily off card-handling tricks of the type associated with slight-of-hand performances by magicians. Mrs. Cartwright’s peculiarly precocious ability to shuffle acts as sort of symbolic foreshadowing that telegraphs her ability to shuffle more important things may also be at play.
Square Chin
Also early on in the story is a rather idiosyncratic attention to Mrs. Cartwright’s physical appearance and how it changed over 20 years. The narrator seems surprisingly attuned to the shape of the woman’s chin. Described as part of an overall softer and round face by the police chief recollecting her beauty from two decades earlier, the narrator makes special note of how Mrs. Cartwright’s chin has now become square and lost all traces of any soft roundness if, indeed, it ever existed. The observation seems a little offbeat, but it serves a clear purpose. The last of a truly extraordinary number of references made to Mrs. Cartwright’s face comes almost at the end of the story when the police chief muses that a square chin is somehow a physical manifestation of “the courage of the devil.” Thus a square chin is a symbol of a certain sort of evil audacity.
Hairpin (of the lack thereof)
Part and parcel of Mrs. Cartwright’s change in appearance since she helped to plan her first husband’s murder nineteen years earlier is a lack of attention to those looks. The police chief intimates that this was true even when she was two decades younger and the most attractive woman on the island. But she had youth then, so her lack of effort didn’t have any real negative effect other than to keep her from being, as the cop puts it, “stunning.” Now that she’s lost her youth, the lack of attention to grooming and preening is more noticeable because she has no taken on an appearance describe by the narrator, in an unusual lapse of chivalry, as “slovenly.” The singular symbol of this personality trait or character flaw or however one might describe is the hairpin which would be so easy use to keep from constantly having to brush her hair out of her eyes. It is the lack of her decision to take even this step which endows the hairpin which isn’t there with symbolic significance. What that significance is perhaps depends upon just how devilish you presume Mrs. Cartwright to be. Is the lack of the hairpin a sign that she doesn’t really have the organization skills to have been an equal partner in her husband’s murder or the lack of a hairpin—and everything it stands for—a monumentally devious part of her successful plan to make herself completely above suspicion until the evidence otherwise becomes overwhelming for the police chief?
Tennis
If the deck of cards is the symbol of Mrs. Cartwright’s complicity in the murder, then tennis is the symbol of Mr. Cartwright. Their victim is described by the police chief as not “bad at tennis” whereas Mr. Cartwright demonstrates such athleticism and drive that he must bring an extra towel to soak up all the sweat he produces while playing. Tennis becomes a binary opposition symbol in which Mr. Cartwright is virile and so masculine he literally exudes sweat whereas Mr. Cartwright’s then-husband is, well, okay...not bad…but certainly no competition.
The Chinaman
The character referred to five times as “The Chinaman” but never mentioned by name is the single most important character in the story relative to solving the mystery of the murder driving the narrative. The fact that he is not given a name and is instead mentioned only by a vague—possibly inaccurate—and unquestionably racially insensitive epithet is the story’s singular symbol of colonial and imperialist superiority over the indigenous people whose land they rule and whose natural resources they pillage. Without “The Chinaman” the watch is not found and without the watch the money would not have been found and without the money being found the assumption that the motive for the murder was robbery would not have been disproven and, well, you get the point.
