# Mrs. Meade — The Crime at Black Dudley character guide

> Mrs. Meade in The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Meade, the redoubtable Mrs. Meade

**First appearance:** 0017-xvi-the-militant-mrs-meade

## Snapshot

A gaunt, scripture-quoting village woman who barricades herself in and prophesies gallows for the wicked with relish.

## Who they are

Mrs. Meade comes in from the village only when Black Dudley has company, and she regards the house and its German guests with a mixture of terror and righteous glee. Barricaded behind bolts and furniture, she treats the imprisoned visitors to a torrent of apocalyptic prophecy — four shall swing, the fiery furnace is prepared — and her certainty that punishment is coming is both comic and genuinely unnerving. She matters because she is the one voice from outside the sealed house, and her hints about what really happened to Colonel Coombe plant doubts that the official story cannot quite quiet.

## In the story

### [XVI: The Militant Mrs. Meade](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crime_at_black_dudley_se/chapters/xvi-the-militant-mrs-meade)

Introduced as a militant, religiously fanatical local woman who witnessed the secret meeting and overheard incriminating talk about murder.

### [XVII: In the Evening](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crime_at_black_dudley_se/chapters/xvii-in-the-evening)

The redoubtable old woman who has fortified herself in an inner room; she reveals that the gang may not have killed Coombe and provides information about the servant Lizzie Tiddy.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crime_at_black_dudley_se/characters/mrs_meade
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crime_at_black_dudley_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crime_at_black_dudley_se/characters