The Murder at the Vicarage mm-1

by Agatha Christie

  "What?"

  "Yes - and that, under Providence, is what has saved his life. (For I hope and trust it is saved. Dr. Haydock is so clever.) As I see the matter, Mr. Redding kept this letter (a risky thing to do, but I expect he hid it in some safe place) and waited till he found out for certain to whom it referred. He soon made quite sure that it was Mr. Hawes. I understand he came back here with Mr. Hawes last night and spent a long time with him. I suspect that he then substituted a cachet of his own for one of Mr. Hawes, and slipped this letter in the pocket of Mr. Hawes's dressing-gown. The poor young man would swallow the fatal cachet in all innocence - after his death his things would be gone through and the letter found and every one would jump to the conclusion that he had shot Colonel Protheroe and taken his own life out of remorse. I rather fancy Mr. Hawes must have found that letter to-night just after taking the fatal cachet. In his disordered state, it must have seemed like something supernatural, and, coming on top of the vicar's sermon, it must have impeded him to confess the whole thing."

  "Upon my word," said Colonel Melchett. "Upon my word! Most extraordinary! I - I - don't believe a word of it."

  He had never made a statement that sounded more unconvincing. It must have sounded so in his own ears, for he went on:

  "And can you explain the other telephone call - the one from Mr. Redding's cottage to Mrs. Price Ridley?"

  "Ah!" said Miss Marple. "That is what I call the coincidence. Dear Griselda sent that call - she and Mr. Dennis between them, I fancy. They had heard the rumours Mrs. Price Ridley was circulating about the vicar, and they thought of this (perhaps rather childish) way of silencing her. The coincidence lies in the fact that the call should have been put through at exactly the same time as the fake shot from the wood. It led one to believe that the two must be connected."

  I suddenly remembered how every one who spoke of that shot had described it as "different" from the usual shot. They had been right. Yet how hard to explain just in what way the "difference" of the shot consisted.

  Colonel Melchett cleared his throat.

  "Your solution is a very plausible one, Miss Marple," he said. "But you will allow me to point out that there is not a shadow of proof."

  "I know," said Miss Marple. "But you believe it to be true, don't you?"

  There was a pause, then the colonel said almost reluctantly:

  "Yes, I do. Dash it all, it's the only way the thing could have happened. But there's no proof - not an atom."

  Miss Marple coughed.

  "That is why I thought perhaps - under the circumstances -"

  "Yes?"

  "A little trap might be permissible."

  Chapter XXXI

  Colonel Melchett and I both stared at her.

  "A trap? What kind of a trap?"

  Miss Marple was a little diffident, but it was clear that she had a plan fully outlined.

  "Supposing Mr. Redding were to be rung up on the telephone and warned."

  Colonel Melchett smiled.

  "'All is discovered. Fly!' That's an old wheeze, Miss Marple. Not that it isn't often successful! But I think in this case young Redding is too downy a bird to be caught that way."

  "It would have to be something specific. I quite realise that," said Miss Marple. "I would suggest - this is just a mere suggestion - that the warning should come from somebody who is known to have rather unusual views on these matters. Dr. Haydock's conversation would lead any one to suppose that he might view such a thing as murder from an unusual angle. If he were to hint that somebody - Mrs. Sadler - or one of her children - had actually happened to see the transposing of the cache - well, of course, if Mr. Redding is an innocent man, that statement will mean nothing to him, but if he isn't -"

  "If he isn't?"

  "Well, he might just possibly do something foolish."

  "And deliver himself into our hands. It's possible. Very ingenious, Miss Marple. But will Haydock stand for it? As you say, his views -"

  Miss Marple interrupted him brightly.

  "Oh! but that's theory! So very different from practice, isn't it? But anyway, here he is, so we can ask him."

  Haydock was, I think, rather astonished to find Miss Marple with us. He looked tired and haggard.

  "It's been a near thing," he said. "A very near thing. But he's going to pull through. It's a doctor's business to save his patient and I saved him, but I'd have been just as glad if I hadn't pulled it off."

  "You may think differently," said Melchett, "when you have heard what we have to tell you."

  And briefly and succinctly, he put Miss Marple's theory of the crime before the doctor, ending up with her final suggestion.

  We were then privileged to see exactly what Miss Marple meant by the difference between theory and practice.

  Haydock's views appeared to have undergone complete transformation. He would, I think, have liked Lawrence Redding's head on a charger. It was not, I imagine, the murder of Colonel Protheroe that so stirred his rancour. It was the assault on the unlucky Hawes.

  "The damned scoundrel," said Haydock. "The damned scoundrel! That poor devil Hawes. He's got a mother and a sister too. The stigma of being the mother and sister of a murderer would have rested on them for life, and think of their mental anguish. Of all the cowardly dastardly tricks!"

  For sheer primitive rage, commend me to a thoroughgoing humanitarian when you get him well roused.

  "If this thing's true," he said, "you can count on me. The fellow's not fit to live. A defenceless chap like Hawes."

  A lame dog of any kind can always count on Haydock's sympathy.

  He was eagerly arranging details with Melchett when Miss Marple rose and I insisted on seeing her home.

  "It is most kind of you, Mr. Clement," said Miss Marple, as we walked down the deserted street. "Dear me, past twelve o'clock. I hope Raymond has gone to bed and not waited up."

  "He should have accompanied you," I said.

  "I didn't let him know I was going," said Miss Marple.

  I smiled suddenly as I remembered Raymond West's subtle psychological analysis of the crime.

  "If your theory turns out to be the truth - which I for one do not doubt for a minute," I said, "you will have a very good score over your nephew."

  Miss Marple smiled also - an indulgent smile.

  "I remember a saying of my Great Aunt Fanny's. I was sixteen at the time and thought it particularly foolish."

  "Yes?" I inquired.

  "She used to say: 'The young people think the old people are fools; but the old people know the young people are fools!'"

  Chapter XXXII

  There is little more to be told. Miss Marple's plan succeeded. Lawrence Redding was not an innocent man, and the hint of a witness of the change of capsule did indeed cause him to do "something foolish." Such is the power of an evil conscience.

  He was, of course, peculiarly placed. His first impulse, I imagine, must have been to cut and run. But there was his accomplice to consider. He could not leave without getting word to her, and he dared not wait till morning. So he went up to Old Hall that night - and two of Colonel Melchett's most efficient officers followed him. He threw gravel at Anne Protheroe's window, aroused her, and an urgent whisper brought her down to speak with him. Doubtless they felt safer outside than in - with the possibility of Lettice waking. But as it happened, the two police officers were able to overhear their conversation in full. It left the matter in no doubt. Miss Marple had been right on every count.

  The trial of Lawrence Redding and Anne Protheroe is a matter of public knowledge. I do not propose to go into it. I will only mention that great credit was reflected upon Inspector Slack, whose zeal and intelligence had resulted in the criminals being brought to justice. Naturally, nothing was said of Miss Marple's share in the business. She herself would have been horrified at the thought of such a thing.

  Lettice came to see me just before the trial took place. She drifted through my study window, wraith-like as ever. She told me then
that she had all along been convinced of her stepmother's complicity. The loss of the yellow beret had been a mere excuse for searching the study. She hoped against hope that she might find something the police had overlooked.

  "You see," she said in her dreamy voice, "they didn't hate her like I did. And hate makes things easier for you."

  Disappointed in the result of her search, she had deliberately dropped Anne's ear-ring by the desk.

  "Since I knew she had done it, what did it matter? One way was as good as another. She had killed him."

  I sighed a little. There are always some things that Lettice will never see. In some respects she is morally colour blind.

  "What are you going to do, Lettice?" I asked.

  "When - when it's all over, I am going abroad." She hesitated and then went on. "I am going abroad with my mother."

  I looked up, startled.

  She nodded.

  "Didn't you ever guess? Mrs. Lestrange is my mother. She is - is dying, you know. She wanted to see me and so she came down here under an assumed name. Dr. Haydock helped her. He's a very old friend of hers - he was keen about her once - you can see that! In a way, he still is. Men always went batty about mother, I believe. She's awfully attractive even now. Anyway, Dr. Haydock did everything he could to help her. She didn't come down here under her own name because of the disgusting way people talk and gossip. She went to see father that night and told him she was dying and had a great longing to see something of me. Father was a beast. He said she'd forfeited all claim, and that I thought she was dead - as though I had ever swallowed that story! Men like father never see an inch before their noses!"

  "But mother is not the sort to give in. She thought it only decent to go to father first, but when he turned her down so brutally she sent a note to me, and I arranged to leave the tennis party early and meet her at the end of the footpath at a quarter past six. We just had a hurried meeting and arranged when to meet again. We left each other before half-past six. Afterwards I was terrified that she would be suspected of having killed father. After all, she had got a grudge against him. That's why I got hold of that old picture of her up in the attic and slashed it about. I was afraid the police might go nosing about and get hold of it and recognise it. Dr. Haydock was frightened too. Sometimes, I believe, he really thought she had done it! Mother is rather a - desperate kind of person. She doesn't count consequences."

  She paused.

  "It's queer. She and I belong to each other. Father and I didn't. But mother - well, anyway, I'm going abroad with her. I shall be with her till - till the end…"

  She got up and I took her hand.

  "God bless you both," I said. "Some day, I hope, there is a lot of happiness coming to you, Lettice."

  "There should be," she said, with an attempt at a laugh.

  "There hasn't been much so far - has there? Oh, well, I don't suppose it matters. Good-bye, Mr. Clement. You've been frightfully decent to me always - you and Griselda."

  Griselda!

  I had to own to her how terribly the anonymous letter had upset me, and first she laughed, and then solemnly read me a lecture.

  "However," she added, "I'm going to be very sober and Godfearing in future - quite like the Pilgrim fathers."

  I did not see Griselda in the rфle of a Pilgrim father.

  She went on:

  "You see, Len, I have a steadying influence coming into my life. It's coming into your life, too, but in your case it will be a kind of - of rejuvenating one - at least, I hope so! You can't call me a dear child half so much when we have a real child of our own. And, Len, I've decided that now I'm going to be a real 'wife and mother' (as they say in books), I must be a housekeeper too. I've bought two books on Household Management and one on Mother Love, and if that doesn't turn me out a pattern I don't know what will! They are all simply screamingly funny - not intentionally, you know. Especially the one about bringing up children."

  "You haven't bought a book on How to Treat a Husband, have you?" I asked, with sudden apprehension as I drew her to me.

  "I don't need to," said Griselda. "I'm a very good wife. I love you dearly. What more do you want?"

  "Nothing," I said.

  "Could you say, just for once, that you love me madly?"

  "Griselda," I said - "I adore you! I worship you! I am wildly, hopelessly and quite unclerically crazy about you!"

  My wife gave a deep and contented sigh.

  Then she drew away suddenly.

  "Bother! Here's Miss Marple coming. Don't let her suspect, will you? I don't want every one offering me cushions and urging me to put my feet up. Tell her I've gone down to the golf links. That will put her off the scent - and it's quite true because I left my yellow pullover there and I want it."

  Miss Marple came to the window, halted apologetically, and asked for Griselda.

  "Griselda," I said, "has gone to the golf links."

  An expression of concern leaped into Miss Marple's eyes.

  "Oh, but surely," she said, "that is most unwise - just now."

  And then in a nice, old-fashioned, lady-like, maiden-lady way, she blushed.

  And to cover the moment's confusion, we talked hurriedly of the Protheroe case, and of "Dr. Stone," who had turned out to be a well-known cracksman with several different aliases. Miss Cram, by the way, had been cleared of all complicity. She had at last admitted taking the suit-case to the wood, but had done so in all good faith, Dr. Stone having told her that he feared the rivalry of other archжologists who would not stick at burglary to gain their object of discrediting his theories. The girl apparently swallowed this not very plausible story. She is now, according to the village, looking out for a more genuine article in the line of an elderly bachelor requiring a secretary.

  As we talked, I wondered very much how Miss Marple had discovered our latest secret. But presently, in a discreet fashion, Miss Marple herself supplied me with a clue.

  "I hope dear Griselda is not overdoing it," she murmured, and, after a discreet pause, "I was in the bookshop in Much Benham yesterday -"

  Poor Griselda - that book on Mother Love has been her undoing!

  "I wonder, Miss Marple," I said suddenly, "if you were to commit a murder whether you would ever be found out."

  "What a terrible idea," said Miss Marple, shocked. "I hope I could never do such a wicked thing."

  "But human nature being what it is," I murmured.

  Miss Marple acknowledged the hit with a pretty old-ladyish laugh.

  "How naughty of you, Mr. Clement." She rose. "But naturally you are in good spirits."

  She paused by the window.

  "My love to dear Griselda - and tell her - that any little secret is quite safe with me."

  Really Miss Marple is rather a dear…

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