by John Curran
One day Louise took her courage in both hands. She was out walking. She had passed Mrs Murgatroyd, pretending not to notice her, but suddenly she swerved back and went right up to her. She said a little breathlessly,
‘What is it? What’s the matter? What do you want?’
The old woman blinked at her. She had a cunning dark gypsy face, with wisps of iron grey hair, and bleared suspicious eyes. Louise wondered if she drank.
She spoke in a whining and yet threatening voice.
‘What do I want, you ask? What indeed? That which has been took away from me. Who turned me out of Kingsdean House? I’d lived there girl and woman for near on forty years. It was a black deed to turn me out and it’s black bad luck it’ll bring to you and him.’
Louise said:
‘You’ve got a very nice cottage and—’ she broke off.
The old woman’s arms flew up. She screamed!
‘What’s the good of that to me? It’s my own place I want, and my own fire as I sat beside all them years. And as for you and him I’m telling you there will be no happiness for you in your new fine house! It’s the black sorrow will be upon you – sorrow and death and my curse! May your fair face rot . . .’
Louise turned away and broke into a little stumbling run.
She thought:
‘I must get away from here. We must sell the house. We must go away . . .’
At the moment such a solution seemed easy to her. But Harry’s utter incomprehension took her aback. He exclaimed:
‘Leave here? Sell the house? Because of a crazy old woman’s threats? You must be mad!’
‘No, I’m not. But she – she frightens me . . . I know something will happen.’
v
A friendship had sprung up between Clarice Vane and young Mrs Laxton. The two girls were much of an age, though dissimilar both in character and in tastes. In Clarice’s company Louise found reassurance. Clarice was so self reliant, so sure of herself. Louise mentioned the matter of Mrs Murgatroyd and her threats but Clarice seemed to regard the matter as more annoying than frightening.
‘It’s so stupid, that sort of thing,’ she said. ‘But really very annoying for you!’
‘You know, Clarice, I – I feel quite frightened sometimes. My heart gives the most awful jumps.’
‘Nonsense, you mustn’t let a silly thing like that get you down. She’ll soon get tired of it.’
‘You think so?’
‘I expect so. Anyway don’t let her see you’re frightened.’
‘No. No, I won’t.’
She was silent for a minute or two. Clarice said:
‘What’s the matter?’
Louise paused for a moment, then her answer came with a rush.
‘I hate this place! I hate being here! The woods, and this house, and the awful silence at night, and the queer noise owls make. Oh and the peopleand everything!’
‘The people? What people?’
‘The people in the village. Those prying gossiping old maids.’
Clarice said sharply:
‘What have they been saying?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing particular. But they’ve got nasty minds . . . when you’ve talked to them you feel you wouldn’t trust anybody . . . not anybodyat all!’
Clarice said:
‘Forget them. They’ve nothing to do but gossip. And most of the muck they talk they just invent.’
Louise said:
‘I wish we’d never come here . . . but Harry adores it so – Harry.’
Her voice softened. Clarice thought, ‘How she adores him!’
She said abruptly:
‘I must go now.’
‘I’ll send you back in the car. Come again soon.’
Clarice nodded. Louise felt comforted by her new friend’s visit. Harry was pleased to find her more cheerful and from then on urged her to have Clarice often to the house.
Then one day he said:
‘Good news for you, darling.’
‘Oh, what?’
‘I’ve fixed the Murgatroyd! She’s got a son in America, you know. Well, I’ve arranged for her to go out and join him. I’ll pay her passage.’
‘Oh Harry, how wonderful! I believe I might get to like Kingsdean after all.’
‘Getto like it? Why, it’s the most wonderful place in the world!’
‘To youdarling, not to me!’
‘You wait!’ said Harry confidently.
Louise gave a little shiver. She could not rid herself of her superstitious fears so easily.
vi
If the ladies of St Mary Mead had hoped for the pleasure of imparting information about her husband’s past into the ears of the bride, they were disappointed by Harry Laxton’s own prompt action.
Miss Hartnell and Clarice Vane were both in Mr Edge’s shop, the one buying mothballs and the other a packet of indigestion lozenges, when Harry Laxton and his wife came in.
After greeting the two ladies, Harry turned to the counter and was just demanding a toothbrush when he stopped in mid speech and exclaimed heartily:
‘Well, well, just see who’s here! Bella, I do declare!’
Mrs Edge, who had hurried out from the back parlour to attend to the congestion of ladies, beamed back cheerfully at him showing her big white teeth. She had been a dark handsome girl and was still a reasonably handsome woman, though she had put on weight and the lines on her face had coarsened, but her large brown eyes were full of warmth as she replied:
‘Bella it is, Mr Harry, and pleased to see you after all these years.’
Harry turned to his wife.
‘Bella’s an old flame of mine, Louise,’ he said. ‘Head over ears in love with her, wasn’t I, Bella?’
‘That’s what yousay,’ said Mrs Edge.
Louise laughed. She said:
‘My husband’s very happy seeing all his old friends again.’
‘Ah,’ said Mrs Edge, ‘wehaven’t forgotten you, Mr Harry. Seems like a fairy tale to think of you married and building up a new house instead of that ruined old Kingsdean House.’
‘You look very well and blooming,’ Harry said, and Mrs Edge laughed and said there was nothing wrong with her and what about that toothbrush?
Clarice, watching the baffled look on Miss Hartnell’s face, said to herself exultantly:
‘Oh well done, Harry! You’ve spiked their guns!’
Indeed, though Miss Hartnell did her best, with mysterious hints of having seen Harry Laxton and Mrs Edge talking together on the outskirts of the village, to revive a bygone scandal, she met with no success, and had to fall back upon vague hints as to the general depravity of men.
vii
It was Dr Haydock who said abruptly to Miss Marple:
‘What’s all this Clarice tells me about old Mrs Murgatroyd?’
‘Mrs Murgatroyd?’
‘Yes. Hanging about Kingsdean and shaking her fist and cursing the new regime.’
Miss Marple looked astonished.
‘How extraordinary. Of course Murgatroyd and his wife were always a queer couple, but I always thought the woman was devoted to Harry – and he’s found her such a nice new cottage and everything.’
‘Just so,’ said the doctor drily. ‘And by way of gratitude she goes up and makes a nuisance of herself and frightens his wife to death.’
‘Dear dear,’ said Miss Marple. ‘How peculiar. I must have a word with her.’
Mrs Murgatroyd was at home this afternoon and was smoking a pipe. She received Miss Marple without undue deference.
‘I thought,’ said Miss Marple reproachfully, ‘that you were fond of Mr Laxton.’
Mrs Murgatroyd said:
‘And who told you that?’
‘You used to be when he was a boy.’
‘That’s a long time since. He hadn’t pulled down house then.’
‘Do you mean you’d rather be living there in that lonely ruined place than here in this nice cottage?’
‘What I feel’s my own business.’
/> ‘Do you mean that it’s really true that you go up there and frighten young Mrs Laxton with curses?’
A strange film came over the dirty old woman’s eyes. She said, and there was dignity and menace in her voice:
‘I know how to curse, I do. I can do it proper. You’ll see.’
Miss Marple said:
‘What you are doing is cruel and uncivilised and – and I don’t understand it. What harm has Harry Laxton ever done you?’
‘That’s for me to say.’ She leaned forward nodding her head triumphantly. ‘I can hold my tongue, I can. You won’t get anything out of me.’
Miss Marple came away looking puzzled and worried. She met the doctor just outside his own gate.
He said, ‘Well?’
‘Oh dear, I am very much upset. There is – I am convinced there is – something very dangerous going on. Something that I don’t understand.’
‘Get anything out of the old woman?’
‘Nothing at all. She – I can’t understand her.’
Haydock said thoughtfully:
‘She’s not crazy, you know. She’s got someidea at the back of her mind. However, I’m glad to say Laxton is shipping her off to America next week.’
‘She’s consented to go?’
‘Oh yes, jumped at it. I wondered – well, she’s an artful old devil. I wondered if she had been playing for just this to happen? What do youthink?’
Miss Marple said, ‘I don’t know what to think. But I wish – I wish she were gone . . .’
The next morning Louise Laxton was thrown from her horse and killed.
viii
Two men in a baker’s van had witnessed the accident. They saw Louise come out of the big gate, saw the old woman spring up and stand in the way waving her arms and shouting, saw the horse start, swerve and then bolt madly down the road throwing Louise Laxton over his head . . .
One of them stood over the unconscious figure, not knowing what to do next, while the other rushed to the house to get help. Harry Laxton came running out, his face ghastly. They took off a door of the van and carried her on it to the house. But when the doctor arrived she had died without regaining consciousness.
The author of the catastrophe had slunk away. Frightened, perhaps, at what she had done, she slipped into her cottage and packed her belongings and left. She went straight off to Liverpool.
‘And the law can’t touch her,’ said Haydock bitterly.
He was speaking to Miss Marple who had paid him an unexpected visit.
He went on, his tone reflecting the deep anger and discouragement of his mood.
‘You couldn’t make out a case against her. A clever counsel would tear her to pieces. She didn’t even threaten. She never touched the horse. It’s a case of malevolent will power, that’s all. She terrified that poor child, and she scared the horse and he bolted with her. It’s an accident– that’s all. But in my opinion, Louise Laxton was murdered as truly as I stand here talking to you.’
Miss Marple nodded her head.
‘I agree with you.’
‘And that half witted malevolent old crone commits murder and gets away with it! And all for no reason as far as I can see . . .’
Miss Marple was twisting her fingers nervously.
She said:
‘You know, Dr Haydock, I don’t think she did murder her.’
‘Not legally, perhaps.’
‘Not at all.’
Haydock stared.
‘But you just said—’
‘You see, we are talking at cross purposes. I do think Louise was murdered – but not by the person you think.’
Haydock stared. He said:
‘My dear old friend, are you mad, or am I?’
‘Oh I know it may sound quiteridiculous to you, and of course it is entirely an ideaon my part, only, if it isso, it is most important that the truth should come out, because one doesn’t want to see another young life ruined and it might be – in fact, it probably would be. Oh dear, how incoherent I sound, and it is necessary, I know, to be calm and businesslikein order to convince you.’
Haydock looked at her attentively. He said:
‘Tell it your own way.’
‘Oh, thankyou. Well, you see, there are certain facts that seem so at variance with the whole thing. To begin with – Mrs Murgatroyd always hated Kingsdean House – they only stayed there because Murgatroyd drank and couldn’t keep any other job. So you see it seems very unlikely that she’d feel leaving so keenly. Which means, of course, that somebody paidher to act that way she’s done . . . putting on an act, they call it nowadays.’
Haydock drew a deep breath.
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘Poor little rich girl,’ said Miss Marple unexpectedly. ‘Gentlemen, so I have noticed, are nearly always attracted by the same type. Not always in the same class of life, of course, but there’s usually physical resemblance. Bella Edge, for instance, was a tall dark handsome girl with white teeth and a lot of spirit. Rather like your niece Clarice. That’s why when I saw Louise I was quite sure that Harry wasn’t the least bit in love with her. He married for money. And after that he planned to get rid of her.’
Haydock said incredulously:
‘You think he paid that old woman to come and curse in order to scare his wife and finally induce her horse to run away with her. My dear woman, that’s a tall order!’
‘Oh yes, yes, put like that. Did she die of the fall?’
‘She had a fractured arm and concussion, but she actually died of the shock.’
‘You’ve not done an autopsy, have you? And has anyone examined the horse?’
‘What’s the idea?’
Miss Marple said:
‘I’m suggesting, absurd or not, that it wasn’t Mrs Murgatroyd who caused the horse to bolt. That was only the apparentcause – for the onlookers. Harry was always very good with a catapult. A stone may have struck the horse just as it came through the gate. Then it bolted and threw Louise. The fall might have killed her but when Harry came out she was still alive. I think that then, before you got there, he may have injected something to make certain.’
Haydock said: ‘You terrifying woman!36I suppose you’ll tell me what he injected next?’
‘Oh, really I have not the least idea. Probably some very swift heart poison.’
‘Such things aren’t easy to get hold of.’
Miss Marple said sharply:
‘Bella Edge could have got it for him.’
‘Well – er yes – perhaps, but why should shedo such a thing?’
‘Because, poor woman, she’s always been crazy about Harry Laxton. Because I’ve no doubt he’s been playing her up and telling her after Louise was dead he’d take her away from her husband and marry her.’
‘Marry Bella Edge!’
‘He wouldn’t, of course! But afterwards she couldn’t give him away. She’d be too afraid for herself. Actually Harry plans to marry your niece Clarice. She’s no idea. He fell in love with her at that party. That’s why you’ve got to do something if you can. She’s in love with him and you don’t want her married to a murderer.’
‘Not if Ican help it,’ said Haydock grimly.
Satisfied, Miss Marple went out into the clear sunshine of the morning.
She said under her breath:
‘Poor little rich girl . . .’
THE END
* * *
Two interesting amendments that appear in the original typescript merit mention. The first time the name Clarice appears, in section ii, it has been inserted in handwriting and the following has been deleted: ‘Griselda Clement, the young and pretty wife of the vicar . . .’ This is the only appearance in the typescript of Griselda and by the top of the next page, and thereafter, ‘Clarice’ has been typed. Possibly as she wrote Christie decided to make Clarice part of the motive, something that she could not have done with happily married mother Griselda, whom her readers knew from The Murder at the Vicarage. The second c
hange was to the scene in the chemist’s shop (section vi), when Bella and Harry’s conversation is witnessed by Clarice and Miss Harmon/Hartnell. Here again, ‘Clarice’ is inserted in handwriting and ‘Miss Marple’ is deleted. And the closing paragraph of this section, here reinstated, is omitted in Version A, to the detriment of the plot; the information given here is an indication of collusion between Harry and Bella.
Version A has the totally incredible account, given by Dr Haydock in the closing scene, in which Harry, the newly widowed murderer, drops a hypodermic syringe out of his trouser pocket. No murderer, regardless of circumstance, would resort to this potentially hazardous, not to mention probably painful, method of concealment. I cannot believe that Agatha Christie ever envisioned such a scene; this must be the invention of a (poor) magazine editor.
Despite her last-minute substitution and insertion in the two instances mentioned above, Clarice plays a more pivotal role in Version B. Although in both versions she provides part of the motive, it is more unequivocal and less covert in Version B than in the earlier version, where her interest in Harry is peripheral.
Overall, this newly discovered version is longer, more convincing and more coherent than its predecessor. The awkward, not to mention unmotivated, manuscript ploy is replaced by a more straightforward narration in which Miss Marple takes centre stage – where she belongs.
Chapter 8
The Fourth Decade 1950–1959
‘So I was happy, radiantly happy, and made even more so by the applause of the audience.’
* * *
SOLUTIONS REVEALED
After The Funeral • Appointment with Death • ‘The Case of the Perfect Maid’ • Cat among the Pigeons • Death in the Clouds • Death on the Nile • Destination Unknown • Endless Night • ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’ • The Mysterious Affair at Styles • The Mystery of the Blue Train • Sparkling Cyanide • Taken at the Flood • They Came to Baghdad • They Do It with Mirrors • Three Act Tragedy • The Unexpected Guest
* * *
While she still produced her annual ‘Christie for Christmas’, the 1950s was Agatha Christie’s Golden Age of Theatre. Throughout this decade her name, already a constant on the bookshelf, now became a perennial on the theatre marquee as well. In so doing she became the only crime writer to conquer the stage as well as the page; and the only female playwright in history to have three plays running simultaneously in London’s West End. Other playwrights wrote popular stage thrillers – Frederick Knott’s Dial M for Murder and Wait until Dark or Francis Durbridge’s Suddenly at Home – and some of her fellow crime writers wrote stage plays – Dorothy L. Sayers’ Busman’s Honeymoon, Ngaio Marsh’s Singing in the Shrouds – but Christie is still the only crime writer to achieve equal fame and success in both media.