# The Clue — Character guide

> Key figures in The Clue by Carolyn Wells.

- [Schuyler Carleton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_se/characters/schuyler_carleton.md): Carleton moves through the Van Norman household as its prospective master: wealthy, reserved, and unfailingly correct, the sort of man everyone assumes will do his duty. Yet the women who know Madeleine best suspect his 
- [Rob Fessenden](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_se/characters/rob_fessenden.md): Fessenden arrives at the Van Norman wedding as Schuyler Carleton's friend and best man, only to find himself the closest thing to a professional investigator the tragedy has. He works methodically — questioning innkeeper
- [Madeleine Van Norman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_se/characters/madeleine_van_norman.md): Madeleine dominates the Van Norman household by sheer presence: beautiful, proud, and possessed of a fortune that makes her both envied and courted. Yet her friends whisper that her engagement to Schuyler Carleton rests 
- [Kitty French](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_se/characters/kitty_french.md): Kitty is the lively, curly-haired counterpoint to Madeleine's magnificence — the sort of girl who scrambles under tables hunting clues and confides her theories only to herself. She is convinced Schuyler Carleton is guil
- [Elizabeth Morton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_se/characters/elizabeth_morton.md): Elizabeth Morton arrives as a guest at Madeleine's wedding, an old friend of the late Richard Van Norman whose history with the family is tangled and unresolved. Within minutes of the discovery she is telephoning doctors
- [Tom Willard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_se/characters/tom_willard.md): Tom is the affable, slightly disreputable old friend everyone remembers fondly and warns newcomers about — an engineer who quarreled with his uncle and left town three years ago, only to reappear for the Van Norman weddi
- [Cicely Dupuy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_se/characters/cicely_dupuy.md): Cicely Dupuy moves through the Van Norman household as a quiet, overlooked presence, yet she is the last known witness to Madeleine alive and the first to reach the scene of the crime. Her secret infatuation with Schuyle
- [Fleming Stone](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_se/characters/fleming_stone.md): Fleming Stone enters the case after the household has been scrubbed, dusted, and polished into apparent hopelessness, yet he reads the immaculate rooms with the same ease others read a familiar page. Where the local dete
- [Molly Gardner](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_se/characters/molly_gardner.md): A young woman with a connection to the Van Norman household.
- [Mr. Benson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_se/characters/mr_benson.md): Coroner Benson presides over the investigation with a pleasant, inscrutable demeanor that puts witnesses at ease even as he quietly assembles the facts. When suspicion shifts from Schuyler Carleton toward Cicely Dupuy, h
- [Mrs. Markham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_se/characters/mrs_markham.md): A housekeeper or matron in the household.
- [Doctor Hills](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_se/characters/doctor_hills.md): A physician attending to the case.
- [Miss Burt](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_se/characters/miss_burt.md): Dorothy Burt, small and lovely beside Madeleine's magnificence, has quietly captured Schuyler Carleton's real affection while outwardly insisting she would never come between him and his betrothed. When Madeleine dies, h
- [Doctor Leonard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_se/characters/doctor_leonard.md): Another physician involved in the investigation.

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