There was silence whilst Miss Marple read. She put the typewritten sheets down at last.
“It’s very interesting,” she said with a sigh. “All the different things that people say—and think. The things they see—or think that they see. And all so complex, nearly all so trivial and if one thing isn’t trivial, it’s so hard to spot which one—like a needle in a haystack.”
Craddock felt a twinge of disappointment. Just for a moment or two, he wondered if Sir Henry might be right about this funny old lady. She might have put her finger on something—old people were often very sharp. He’d never, for instance, been able to conceal anything from his own great aunt Emma. She had finally told him that his nose twitched when he was about to tell a lie.
But just a few fluffy generalities, that was all that Sir Henry’s famous Miss Marple could produce. He felt annoyed with her and said rather curtly:
“The truth of the matter is that the facts are indisputable. Whatever conflicting details these people give, they all saw one thing. They saw a masked man with a revolver and a torch open the door and hold them up, and whether they think he said ‘Stick ’em up’ or ‘Your money or your life,’ or whatever phrase is associated with a hold-up in their minds, they saw him.”
“But surely,” said Miss Marple gently. “They couldn’t—actually—have seen anything at all….”
Craddock caught his breath. She’d got it! She was sharp, after all. He was testing her by that speech of his, but she hadn’t fallen for it. It didn’t actually make any difference to the facts, or to what happened, but she’d realized, as he’d realized, that those people who had seen a masked man holding them up couldn’t really have seen him at all.
“If I understand rightly,” Miss Marple had a pink flush on her cheeks, her eyes were bright and pleased as a child’s, “there wasn’t any light in the hall outside—and not on the landing upstairs either?”
“That’s right,” said Craddock.
“And so, if a man stood in the doorway and flashed a powerful torch into the room, nobody could see anything but the torch, could they?”
“No, they couldn’t. I tried it out.”
“And so when some of them say they saw a masked man, etc., they are really, though they don’t realize it, recapitulating from what they saw afterwards—when the lights came on. So it really all fits in very well, doesn’t it, on the assumption that Rudi Scherz was the—I think, ‘fall guy’ is the expression I mean?”
Rydesdale stared at her in such surprise that she grew pinker still. “I may have got the term wrong,” she murmured.
“I am not very clever about Americanisms—and I understand they change very quickly. I got it from one of Mr. Dashiel Hammett’s stories. (I understand from my nephew Raymond that he is considered at the top of the tree in what is called the ‘tough’ style of literature.) A ‘fall guy,’ if I understand it rightly, means someone who will be blamed for a crime really committed by someone else. This Rudi Scherz seems to me exactly the right type for that. Rather stupid really, you know, but full of cupidity and probably extremely credulous.”
Rydesdale said, smiling tolerantly:
“Are you suggesting that he was persuaded by someone to go out and take pot shots at a room full of people? Rather a tall order.”
“I think he was told that it was a joke,” said Miss Marple. “He was paid for doing it, of course. Paid, that is, to put an advertisement in the newspaper, to go out and spy out the household premises, and then, on the night in question, he was to go there, assume a mask and a black cloak and throw open a door, brandishing a torch, and cry ‘Hands up!’”
“And fire off a revolver?”
“No, no,” said Miss Marple. “He never had a revolver.”
“But everyone says—” began Rydesdale, and stopped.
“Exactly,” said Miss Marple. “Nobody could possibly have seen a revolver even if he had one. And I don’t think he had. I think that after he’d called ‘Hands up’ somebody came up quietly behind him in the darkness and fired those two shots over his shoulder. It frightened him to death. He swung round and as he did so, that other person shot him and then let the revolver drop beside him….”
The three men looked at her. Sir Henry said softly:
“It’s a possible theory.”
“But who is Mr. X who came up in the darkness?” asked the Chief Constable.
Miss Marple coughed.
“You’ll have to find out from Miss Blacklock who wanted to kill her.”
Good for old Dora Bunner, thought Craddock. Instinct against intelligence every time.
“So you think it was a deliberate attempt on Miss Blacklock’s life,” asked Rydesdale.
“It certainly has that appearance,” said Miss Marple. “Though there are one or two difficulties. But what I was really wondering about was whether there mightn’t be a short cut. I’ve no doubt that whoever arranged this with Rudi Scherz took pains to tell him to keep his mouth shut, but if he talked to anybody it would probably be to that girl, Myrna Harris. And he may—he just may—have dropped some hint as to the kind of person who’d suggested the whole thing.”
“I’ll see her now,” said Craddock, rising.
Miss Marple nodded.
“Yes, do, Inspector Craddock. I’ll feel happier when you have. Because once she’s told you anything she knows she’ll be much safer.”
“Safer?… Yes, I see.”
He left the room. The Chief Constable said doubtfully, but tactfully:
“Well, Miss Marple, you’ve certainly given us something to think about.”
III
“I’m sorry about it, I am really,” said Myrna Harris. “It’s ever so nice of you not to be ratty about it. But you see Mum’s the sort of person who fusses like anything. And it did look as though I’d—what’s the phrase?—been an accessory before the fact” (the words ran glibly off her tongue). “I mean, I was afraid you’d never take my word for it that I only thought it was just a bit of fun.”
Inspector Craddock repeated the reassuring phrase with which he had broken down Myrna’s resistance.
“I will. I’ll tell you all about it. But you will keep me out of it if you can because of Mum? It all started with Rudi breaking a date with me. We were going to the pictures that evening and then he said he wouldn’t be able to come and I was a bit standoffish with him about it—because after all, it had been his idea and I don’t fancy being stood up by a foreigner. And he said it wasn’t his fault, and I said that was a likely story, and then he said he’d got a bit of a lark on that night—and that he wasn’t going to be out of pocket by it and how would I fancy a wristwatch? So I said, what do you mean by a lark? And he said not to tell anyone, but there was to be a party somewhere and he was to stage a sham hold-up. Then he showed me the advertisement he’d put in and I had to laugh. He was a bit scornful about it all. Said it was kid’s stuff, really—but that was just like the English. They never really grew up—and of course, I said what did he mean by talking like that about Us—and we had a bit of an argument, but we made it up. Only you can understand, can’t you, sir, that when I read all about it, and it hadn’t been a joke at all and Rudi had shot someone and then shot himself—why, I didn’t know what to do. I thought if I said I knew about it beforehand, it would look as though I were in on the whole thing. But it really did seem like a joke when he told me about it. I’d have sworn he meant it that way. I didn’t even know he’d got a revolver. He never said anything about taking a revolver with him.”
Craddock comforted her and then asked the most important question.
“Who did he say it was who had arranged this party?”
But there he drew a blank.
“He never said who it was that was getting him to do it. I suppose nobody was, really. It was all his own doing.”
“He didn’t mention a name? Did he say he—or she?”
“He didn’t say anything except that it was going to be a scream. ‘I shall laugh to see a
ll their faces.’ That’s what he said.”
He hadn’t had long to laugh, Craddock thought.
IV
“It’s only a theory,” said Rydesdale as they drove back to Medenham. “Nothing to support it, nothing at all. Put it down as old maid’s vapourings and let it go, eh?”
“I’d rather not do that, sir.”
“It’s all very improbable. A mysterious X appearing suddenly in the darkness behind our Swiss friend. Where did he come from? Who was he? Where had he been?”
“He could have come in through the side door,” said Craddock, “just as Scherz came. Or,” he added slowly, “he could have come from the kitchen.”
“She could have come from the kitchen, you mean?”
“Yes, sir, it’s a possibility. I’ve not been satisfied about that girl all along. She strikes me as a nasty bit of goods. All that screaming and hysterics—it could have been put on. She could have worked on this young fellow, let him in at the right moment, rigged the whole thing, shot him, bolted back into the dining room, caught up her bit of silver and her chamois and started her screaming act.”
“Against that we have the fact that—er—what’s his name—oh, yes, Edmund Swettenham, definitely says the key was turned on the outside of the door, and that he turned it to release her. Any other door into that part of the house?”
“Yes, there’s a door to the back stairs and kitchen just under the stairs, but it seems the handle came off three weeks ago and nobody’s come to put it on yet. In the meantime you can’t open the door. I’m bound to say that story seems correct. The spindle and the two handles were on a shelf outside the door in the hall and they were thickly coated with dust, but of course a professional would have ways of opening that door all right.”
“Better look up the girl’s record. See if her papers are in order. But it seems to me the whole thing is very theoretical.”
Again the Chief Constable looked inquiringly at his subordinate. Craddock replied quietly:
“I know, sir, and of course if you think the case ought to be closed, it must be. But I’d appreciate it if I could work on it for just a little longer.”
Rather to his surprise the Chief Constable said quietly and approvingly:
“Good lad.”
“There’s the revolver to work on. If this theory is correct, it wasn’t Scherz’s revolver and certainly nobody so far has been able to say that Scherz ever had a revolver.”
“It’s a German make.”
“I know, sir. But this country’s absolutely full of Continental makes of guns. All the Americans brought them back and so did our chaps. You can’t go by that.”
“True enough. Any other lines of inquiry?”
“There’s got to be a motive. If there’s anything in this theory at all, it means that last Friday’s business wasn’t a mere joke, and wasn’t an ordinary hold-up, it was a cold-blooded attempt at murder. Somebody tried to murder Miss Blacklock. Now why? It seems to me that if anyone knows the answer to that it must be Miss Blacklock herself.”
“I understand she rather poured cold water on that idea?”
“She poured cold water on the idea that Rudi Scherz wanted to murder her. And she was quite right. And there’s another thing, sir.”
“Yes?”
“Somebody might try again.”
“That would certainly prove the truth of the theory,” said the Chief Constable dryly. “By the way, look after Miss Marple, won’t you?”
“Miss Marple? Why?”
“I gather she is taking up residence at the Vicarage in Chipping Cleghorn and coming into Medenham Wells twice a week for her treatments. It seems that Mrs. What’shername is the daughter of an old friend of Miss Marple’s. Good sporting instincts, that old bean. Oh, well, I suppose she hasn’t much excitement in her life and sniffing round after possible murderers gives her a kick.”
“I wish she wasn’t coming,” said Craddock seriously.
“Going to get under your feet?”
“Not that, sir, but she’s a nice old thing. I shouldn’t like anything to happen to her … always supposing, I mean, that there’s anything in this theory.”
Nine
CONCERNING A DOOR
I
“I’m sorry to bother you again, Miss Blacklock—”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I suppose, as the inquest was adjourned for a week, you’re hoping to get more evidence?”
Detective-Inspector Craddock nodded.
“To begin with, Miss Blacklock, Rudi Scherz was not the son of the proprietor of the Hotel des Alpes at Montreux. He seems to have started his career as an orderly in a hospital at Berne. A good many of the patients missed small pieces of jewellery. Under another name he was a waiter at one of the small winter sports places. His speciality there was making out duplicate bills in the restaurant with items on one that didn’t appear on the other. The difference, of course, went into his pocket. After that he was in a department store in Zürich. There losses from shoplifting were rather above the average whilst he was with them. It seems likely that the shoplifting wasn’t entirely due to customers.”
“He was a picker up of unconsidered trifles, in fact?” said Miss Blacklock dryly. “Then I was right in thinking that I had not seen him before?”
“You were quite right—no doubt you were pointed out to him at the Royal Spa Hotel and he pretended to recognize you. The Swiss police had begun to make his own country rather too hot for him, and he came over here with a very nice set of forged papers and took a job at the Royal Spa.”
“Quite a good hunting ground,” said Miss Blacklock dryly. “It’s extremely expensive and very well-off people stay there. Some of them are careless about their bills, I expect.”
“Yes,” said Craddock. “There were prospects of a satisfactory harvest.”
Miss Blacklock was frowning.
“I see all that,” she said. “But why come to Chipping Cleghorn? What does he think we’ve got here that could possibly be better than the rich Royal Spa Hotel?”
“You stick to your statement that there’s nothing of especial value in the house?”
“Of course there isn’t. I should know. I can assure you Inspector, we’ve not got an unrecognized Rembrandt or anything like that.”
“Then it looks, doesn’t it, as though your friend Miss Bunner was right? He came here to attack you.”
(“There, Letty, what did I tell you!”
“Oh, nonsense, Bunny.”)
“But is it nonsense?” said Craddock. “I think, you know, that it’s true.”
Miss Blacklock stared very hard at him.
“Now, let’s get this straight. You really believe that this young man came out here—having previously arranged by means of an advertisement that half the village would turn up agog at that particular time—”
“But he mayn’t have meant that to happen,” interrupted Miss Bunner eagerly. “It may have been just a horrid sort of warning—to you, Letty—that’s how I read it at the time—‘A murder is announced’—I felt in my bones that it was sinister—if it had all gone as planned he would have shot you and got away—and how would anyone have ever known who it was?”
“That’s true enough,” said Miss Blacklock. “But—”
“I knew that advertisement wasn’t a joke, Letty. I said so. And look at Mitzi—she was frightened, too!”
“Ah,” said Craddock, “Mitzi. I’d like to know rather more about that young woman.”
“Her permit and papers are quite in order.”
“I don’t doubt that,” said Craddock dryly. “Scherz’s papers appeared to be quite correct, too.”
“But why should this Rudi Scherz want to murder me? That’s what you don’t attempt to explain, Inspector Craddock.”
“There may have been someone behind Scherz,” said Craddock slowly. “Have you thought of that?”
He used the words metaphorically though it flashed across his mind that if Miss Marple’s theory was correct,
the words would also be true in a literal sense. In any case they made little impression on Miss Blacklock, who still looked sceptical.
“The point remains the same,” she said. “Why on earth should anyone want to murder me?”
“It’s the answer to that that I want you to give me, Miss Blacklock.”
“Well, I can’t! That’s flat. I’ve no enemies. As far as I’m aware I’ve always lived on perfectly good terms with my neighbours. I don’t know any guilty secrets about anyone. The whole idea is ridiculous! And if what you’re hinting is that Mitzi has something to do with this, that’s absurd, too. As Miss Bunner has just told you she was frightened to death when she saw that advertisement in the Gazette. She actually wanted to pack up and leave the house then and there.”
“That may have been a clever move on her part. She may have known you’d press her to stay.”
“Of course, if you’ve made up your mind about it, you’ll find an answer to everything. But I can assure you that if Mitzi had taken an unreasoning dislike to me, she might conceivably poison my food, but I’m sure she wouldn’t go in for all this elaborate rigmarole.
“The whole idea’s absurd. I believe you police have got an anti-foreigner complex. Mitzi may be a liar but she’s not a cold-blooded murderer. Go and bully her if you must. But when she’s departed in a whirl of indignation, or shut herself up howling in her room, I’ve a good mind to make you cook the dinner. Mrs. Harmon is bringing some old lady who is staying with her to tea this afternoon and I wanted Mitzi to make some little cakes—but I suppose you’ll upset her completely. Can’t you possibly go and suspect somebody else?”
II
Craddock went out to the kitchen. He asked Mitzi questions that he had asked her before and received the same answers.
Yes, she had locked the front door soon after four o’clock. No, she did not always do so, but that afternoon she had been nervous because of “that dreadful advertisement.” It was no good locking the side door because Miss Blacklock and Miss Bunner went out that way to shut up the ducks and feed the chickens and Mrs. Haymes usually came in that way from work.
The Complete Miss Marple Collection Page 67