Midwinter Murder

by Agatha Christie

  “Can you, by any chance, remember, Madam, whether there were earrings in the ears, or whether the deceased habitually wore earrings?’

  ‘Now fortunately I am in the habit of observing closely. I remembered that there had been a glint of pearls just below the hat brim, though I had paid no particular notice to it at the time. I was able to answer his first question in the affirmative.

  “Then that settles it. The lady’s jewel case was rifled—not that she had anything much of value, I understand—and the rings were taken from her fingers. The murderer must have forgotten the earrings, and come back for them after the murder was discovered. A cool customer! Or perhaps—’ He stared round the room and said slowly, ‘He may have been concealed here in this room—all the time.’

  ‘But I negatived that idea. I myself, I explained, had looked under the bed. And the manager had opened the doors of the wardrobe. There was nowhere else where a man could hide. It is true the hat cupboard was locked in the middle of the wardrobe, but as that was only a shallow affair with shelves, no one could have been concealed there.

  ‘The Inspector nodded his head slowly whilst I explained all this.

  “I’ll take your word for it, Madam,’ he said. ‘In that case, as I said before, he must have come back. A very cool customer.’

  “But the manager locked the door and took the key!’

  “That’s nothing. The balcony and the fire escape—that’s the way the thief came. Why, as likely as not, you actually disturbed him at work. He slips out of the window, and when you’ve all gone, back he comes and goes on with his business.’

  “You are sure,’ I said, ‘that there was a thief?’

  ‘He said drily:

  “Well, it looks like it, doesn’t it?’

  ‘But something in his tone satisfied me. I felt that he wouldn’t take Mr Sanders in the rôle of the bereaved widower too seriously.

  ‘You see, I admit it frankly. I was absolutely under the opinion of what I believe our neighbours, the French, call the idée fixe. I knew that that man, Sanders, intended his wife to die. What I didn’t allow for was that strange and fantastic thing, coincidence. My views about Mr Sanders were—I was sure of it—absolutely right and true. The man was a scoundrel. But although his hypocritical assumptions of grief didn’t deceive me for a minute, I do remember feeling at the time that his surprise and bewilderment were marvellously well done. They seemed absolutely natural—if you know what I mean. I must admit that after my conversation with the Inspector, a curious feeling of doubt crept over me. Because if Sanders had done this dreadful thing, I couldn’t imagine any conceivable reason why he should creep back by means of the fire escape and take the earrings from his wife’s ears. It wouldn’t have been a sensible thing to do, and Sanders was such a very sensible man—that’s just why I always felt he was so dangerous.’

  Miss Marple looked round at her audience.

  ‘You see, perhaps, what I am coming to? It is, so often, the unexpected that happens in this world. I was so sure, and that, I think, was what blinded me. The result came as a shock to me. For it was proved, beyond any possible doubt, that Mr Sanders could not possibly have committed the crime . . .’

  A surprised gasp came from Mrs Bantry. Miss Marple turned to her.

  ‘I know, my dear, that isn’t what you expected when I began this story. It wasn’t what I expected either. But facts are facts, and if one is proved to be wrong, one must just be humble about it and start again. That Mr Sanders was a murderer at heart I knew—and nothing ever occurred to upset that firm conviction of mine.

  ‘And now, I expect, you would like to hear the actual facts themselves. Mrs Sanders, as you know, spent the afternoon playing bridge with some friends, the Mortimers. She left them at about a quarter past six. From her friends’ house to the Hydro was about a quarter of an hour’s walk—less if one hurried. She must have come in then about six-thirty. No one saw her come in, so she must have entered by the side door and hurried straight up to her room. There she changed (the fawn coat and skirt she wore to the bridge party were hanging up in the cupboard) and was evidently preparing to go out again, when the blow fell. Quite possibly, they say, she never even knew who struck her. The sandbag, I understand, is a very efficient weapon. That looks as though the attackers were concealed in the room, possibly in one of the big wardrobe cupboards—the one she didn’t open.

  ‘Now as to the movements of Mr Sanders. He went out, as I have said, at about five-thirty—or a little after. He did some shopping at a couple of shops and at about six o’clock he entered the Grand Spa Hotel where he encountered two friends—the same with whom he returned to the Hydro later. They played billiards and, I gather, had a good many whiskies and sodas together. These two men (Hitchcock and Spender, their names were) were actually with him the whole time from six o’clock onwards. They walked back to the Hydro with him and he only left them to come across to me and Miss Trollope. That, as I told you, was about a quarter to seven—at which time his wife must have been already dead.

  ‘I must tell you that I talked myself to these two friends of his. I did not like them. They were neither pleasant nor gentlemanly men, but I was quite certain of one thing, that they were speaking the absolute truth when they said that Sanders had been the whole time in their company.

  ‘There was just one other little point that came up. It seems that while bridge was going on Mrs Sanders was called to the telephone. A Mr Littleworth wanted to speak to her. She seemed both excited and pleased about something—and incidentally made one or two bad mistakes. She left rather earlier than they had expected her to do.

  ‘Mr Sanders was asked whether he knew the name of Littleworth as being one of his wife’s friends, but he declared he had never heard of anyone of that name. And to me that seems borne out by his wife’s attitude—she too, did not seem to know the name of Littleworth. Nevertheless she came back from the telephone smiling and blushing, so it looks as though whoever it was did not give his real name, and that in itself has a suspicious aspect, does it not?

  ‘Anyway, that is the problem that was left. The burglar story, which seems unlikely—or the alternative theory that Mrs Sanders was preparing to go out and meet somebody. Did that somebody come to her room by means of the fire escape? Was there a quarrel? Or did he treacherously attack her?’

  Miss Marple stopped.

  ‘Well?’ said Sir Henry. ‘What is the answer?’

  ‘I wondered if any of you could guess.’

  ‘I’m never good at guessing,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘It seems a pity that Sanders had such a wonderful alibi; but if it satisfied you it must have been all right.’

  Jane Helier moved her beautiful head and asked a question.

  ‘Why,’ she said, ‘was the hat cupboard locked?’

  ‘How very clever of you, my dear,’ said Miss Marple, beaming. ‘That’s just what I wondered myself. Though the explanation was quite simple. In it were a pair of embroidered slippers and some pocket handkerchiefs that the poor girl was embroidering for her husband for Christmas. That’s why she locked the cupboard. The key was found in her handbag.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Jane. ‘Then it isn’t very interesting after all.’

  ‘Oh! but it is,’ said Miss Marple. ‘It’s just the one really interesting thing—the thing that made all the murderer’s plans go wrong.’

  Everyone stared at the old lady.

  ‘I didn’t see it myself for two days,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I puzzled and puzzled—and then suddenly there it was, all clear. I went to the Inspector and asked him to try something and he did.’

  ‘What did you ask him to try?’

  ‘I asked him to fit that hat on the poor girl’s head—and of course he couldn’t. It wouldn’t go on. It wasn’t her hat, you see.’

  Mrs Bantry stared.

  ‘But it was on her head to begin with?’

  ‘Not on her head—’

  Miss Marple stopped a moment to let her words sink in, and then
went on.

  ‘We took it for granted that it was poor Gladys’s body there; but we never looked at the face. She was face downwards, remember, and the hat hid everything.’

  ‘But she was killed?’

  ‘Yes, later. At the moment that we were telephoning to the police, Gladys Sanders was alive and well.’

  ‘You mean it was someone pretending to be her? But surely when you touched her—’

  ‘It was a dead body, right enough,’ said Miss Marple gravely.

  ‘But, dash it all,’ said Colonel Bantry, ‘you can’t get hold of dead bodies right and left. What did they do with the—the first corpse afterwards?’

  ‘He put it back,’ said Miss Marple. ‘It was a wicked idea—but a very clever one. It was our talk in the drawing-room that put it into his head. The body of poor Mary, the housemaid—why not use it? Remember, the Sanders’ room was up amongst the servants’ quarters. Mary’s room was two doors off. The undertakers wouldn’t come till after dark—he counted on that. He carried the body along the balcony (it was dark at five), dressed it in one of his wife’s dresses and her big red coat. And then he found the hat cupboard locked! There was only one thing to be done, he fetched one of the poor girl’s own hats. No one would notice. He put the sandbag down beside her. Then he went off to establish his alibi.

  ‘He telephoned to his wife—calling himself Mr Littleworth. I don’t know what he said to her—she was a credulous girl, as I said just now. But he got her to leave the bridge party early and not to go back to the Hydro, and arranged with her to meet him in the grounds of the Hydro near the fire escape at seven o’clock. He probably told her he had some surprise for her.

  ‘He returns to the Hydro with his friends and arranges that Miss Trollope and I shall discover the crime with him. He even pretends to turn the body over—and I stop him! Then the police are sent for, and he staggers out into the grounds.

  ‘Nobody asked him for an alibi after the crime. He meets his wife, takes her up the fire escape, they enter their room. Perhaps he has already told her some story about the body. She stoops over it, and he picks up his sandbag and strikes . . . Oh, dear! It makes me sick to think of, even now! Then quickly he strips off her coat and skirt, hangs them up, and dresses her in the clothes from the other body.

  ‘But the hat won’t go on. Mary’s head is shingled—Gladys Sanders, as I say, had a great bun of hair. He is forced to leave it beside the body and hope no one will notice. Then he carries poor Mary’s body back to her own room and arranges it decorously once more.’

  ‘It seems incredible,’ said Dr Lloyd. ‘The risks he took. The police might have arrived too soon.’

  ‘You remember the line was out of order,’ said Miss Marple. ‘That was a piece of his work. He couldn’t afford to have the police on the spot too soon. When they did come, they spent some time in the manager’s office before going up to the bedroom. That was the weakest point—the chance that someone might notice the difference between a body that had been dead two hours and one that had been dead just over half an hour; but he counted on the fact that the people who first discovered the crime would have no expert knowledge.’

  Dr Lloyd nodded.

  ‘The crime would be supposed to have been committed about a quarter to seven or thereabouts, I suppose,’ he said. ‘It was actually committed at seven or a few minutes after. When the police surgeon examined the body it would be about half past seven at the earliest. He couldn’t possibly tell.’

  ‘I am the person who should have known,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I felt the poor girl’s hand and it was icy cold. Yet a short time later the Inspector spoke as though the murder must have been committed just before we arrived—and I saw nothing!’

  ‘I think you saw a good deal, Miss Marple,’ said Sir Henry. ‘The case was before my time. I don’t even remember hearing of it. What happened?’

  ‘Sanders was hanged,’ said Miss Marple crisply. ‘And a good job too. I have never regretted my part in bringing that man to justice. I’ve no patience with modern humanitarian scruples about capital punishment.’

  Her stern face softened.

  ‘But I have often reproached myself bitterly with failing to save the life of that poor girl. But who would have listened to an old woman jumping to conclusions? Well, well—who knows? Perhaps it was better for her to die while life was still happy than it would have been for her to live on, unhappy and disillusioned, in a world that would have seemed suddenly horrible. She loved that scoundrel and trusted him. She never found him out.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Jane Helier, ‘she was all right. Quite all right. I wish—’ she stopped.

  Miss Marple looked at the famous, the beautiful, the successful Jane Helier and nodded her head gently.

  ‘I see, my dear,’ she said very gently. ‘I see.’

  The Coming of Mr Quin

  It was New Year’s Eve.

  The elder members of the house party at Royston were assembled in the big hall.

  Mr Satterthwaite was glad that the young people had gone to bed. He was not fond of young people in herds. He thought them uninteresting and crude. They lacked subtlety and as life went on he had become increasingly fond of subtleties.

  Mr Satterthwaite was sixty-two—a little bent, dried-up man with a peering face oddly elflike, and an intense and inordinate interest in other people’s lives. All his life, so to speak, he had sat in the front row of the stalls watching various dramas of human nature unfold before him. His role had always been that of the onlooker. Only now, with old age holding him in its clutch, he found himself increasingly critical of the drama submitted to him. He demanded now something a little out of the common.

  There was no doubt that he had a flair for these things. He knew instinctively when the elements of drama were at hand. Like a war horse, he sniffed the scent. Since his arrival at Royston this afternoon, that strange inner sense of his had stirred and bid him be ready. Something interesting was happening or going to happen.

  The house party was not a large one. There was Tom Evesham, their genial good-humoured host, and his serious political wife who had been before her marriage Lady Laura Keene. There was Sir Richard Conway, soldier, traveller and sportsman, there were six or seven young people whose names Mr Satterthwaite had not grasped and there were the Portals.

  It was the Portals who interested Mr Satterthwaite.

  He had never met Alex Portal before, but he knew all about him. Had known his father and his grandfather. Alex Portal ran pretty true to type. He was a man of close on forty, fair-haired, and blue-eyed like all the Portals, fond of sport, good at games, devoid of imagination. Nothing unusual about Alex Portal. The usual good sound English stock.

  But his wife was different. She was, Mr Satterthwaite knew, an Australian. Portal had been out in Australia two years ago, had met her out there and had married her and brought her home. She had never been to England previous to her marriage. All the same, she wasn’t at all like any other Australian woman Mr Satterthwaite had met.

  He observed her now, covertly. Interesting woman—very. So still, and yet so—alive. Alive! That was just it! Not exactly beautiful—no, you wouldn’t call her beautiful, but there was a kind of calamitous magic about her that you couldn’t miss—that no man could miss. The masculine side of Mr Satterthwaite spoke there, but the feminine side (for Mr Satterthwaite had a large share of femininity) was equally interested in another question. Why did Mrs Portal dye her hair?

  No other man would probably have known that she dyed her hair, but Mr Satterthwaite knew. He knew all those things. And it puzzled him. Many dark women dye their hair blonde; he had never before come across a fair woman who dyed her hair black.

  Everything about her intrigued him. In a queer intuitive way, he felt certain that she was either very happy or very unhappy—but he didn’t know which, and it annoyed him not to know. Furthermore there was the curious effect she had upon her husband.

  ‘He adores her,’ said Mr Satterthwa
ite to himself, ‘but sometimes he’s—yes, afraid of her! That’s very interesting. That’s uncommonly interesting.’

  Portal drank too much. That was certain. And he had a curious way of watching his wife when she wasn’t looking.

  ‘Nerves,’ said Mr Satterthwaite. ‘The fellow’s all nerves. She knows it too, but she won’t do anything about it.’

  He felt very curious about the pair of them. Something was going on that he couldn’t fathom.

  He was roused from his meditations on the subject by the solemn chiming of the big clock in the corner.

  ‘Twelve o’clock,’ said Evesham. ‘New Year’s Day. Happy New Year—everybody. As a matter of fact that clock’s five minutes fast . . . I don’t know why the children wouldn’t wait up and see the New Year in?’

  ‘I don’t suppose for a minute they’ve really gone to bed,’ said his wife placidly. ‘They’re probably putting hairbrushes or something in our beds. That sort of thing does so amuse them. I can’t think why. We should never have been allowed to do such a thing in my young days.’

  ‘Autre temps, autres moeurs,’ said Conway, smiling.

  He was a tall soldierly-looking man. Both he and Evesham were much of the same type—honest upright kindly men with no great pretensions to brains.

  ‘In my young days we all joined hands in a circle and sang ‘Auld Lang Syne”,’ continued Lady Laura. “Should auld acquaintance be forgot”—so touching, I always think the words are.’

  Evesham moved uneasily.

  ‘Oh! drop it, Laura,’ he muttered. ‘Not here.’

  He strode across the wide hall where they were sitting, and switched on an extra light.

  ‘Very stupid of me,’ said Lady Laura, sotto voce. ‘Reminds him of poor Mr Capel, of course. My dear, is the fire too hot for you?’

  Eleanor Portal made a brusque movement.

  ‘Thank you. I’ll move my chair back a little.’

  What a lovely voice she had—one of those low murmuring echoing voices that stay in your memory, thought Mr Satterthwaite. Her face was in shadow now. What a pity.