“She would be startled then when she saw him?”
“Presumably yes.”
“Startled—and possibly frightened.”
“‘The doom has come upon me,’” said Craddock. “That’s the idea. Then there was young Hailey Preston dodging about that day, doing his stuff. Talks a good deal but definitely heard nothing, saw nothing and knew nothing. Almost too anxious to say so. Does anything there ring a bell?”
“Not exactly,” said Miss Marple. “Plenty of interesting possibilities. But I’d still like to know a little more about the children.”
He looked at her curiously. “You’ve got quite a bee in your bonnet about that, haven’t you?” he said. “All right, I’ll find out.”
Thirteen
I
“I suppose it couldn’t possibly have been the mayor?” said Inspector Cornish wistfully.
He tapped the paper with the list of names on it with his pencil. Dermot Craddock grinned.
“Wishful thinking?” he asked.
“You could certainly call it that,” said Cornish. “Pompous, canting old hypocrite!” he went on. “Everybody’s got it in for him. Throws his weight about, ultra sanctimonious, and neck deep in graft for years past!”
“Can’t you ever bring it home to him?”
“No,” said Cornish. “He’s too slick for that. He’s always just on the right side of the law.”
“It’s tempting, I agree,” said Dermot Craddock, “but I think you’ll have to banish that rosy picture from your mind, Frank.”
“I know, I know,” said Cornish. “He’s a possible, but a wildly improbable. Who else have we got?”
Both men studied the list again. There were still eight names on it.
“We’re pretty well agreed,” said Craddock, “that there’s nobody missed out from here?” There was a faint question in his voice. Cornish answered it.
“I think you can be pretty sure that’s the lot. After Mrs. Bantry came the vicar, and after that the Badcocks. There were then eight people on the stairs. The mayor and his wife, Joshua Grice and wife from Lower Farm. Donald McNeil of the Much Benham Herald & Argus. Ardwyck Fenn, USA, Miss Lola Brewster, USA, Moving Picture Star. There you are. In addition there was an arty photographer from London with a camera set up on the angle of the stairs. If, as you suggest, this Mrs. Bantry’s story of Marina Gregg having a ‘frozen look’ was occasioned by someone she saw on the stairs, you’ve got to take your pick among that lot. Mayor regretfully out. Grices out—never been away from St. Mary Mead I should say. That leaves four. Local journalist unlikely, photographer girl had been there for half an hour already, so why should Marina react so late in the day? What does that leave?”
“Sinister strangers from America,” said Craddock with a faint smile.
“You’ve said it.”
“They’re our best suspects by far, I agree,” said Craddock. “They turned up unexpectedly. Ardwyck Fenn was an old flame of Marina’s whom she had not seen for years. Lola Brewster was once married to Marina Gregg’s third husband, who got a divorce from her in order to marry Marina. It was not, I gather, a very amicable divorce.”
“I’d put her down as Suspect Number One,” said Cornish.
“Would you, Frank? After a lapse of about fifteen years or so, and having remarried twice herself since then?”
Cornish said that you never knew with women. Dermot accepted that as a general dictum, but remarked that it seemed odd to him to say the least of it.
“But you agree that it lies between them?”
“Possibly. But I don’t like it very much. What about the hired help who were serving the drinks?”
“Discounting the ‘frozen look’ we’ve heard so much about? Well, we’ve checked up in a general way. Local catering firm from Market Basing had the job—for the fête, I mean. Actually in the house, there was the butler, Giuseppe, in charge; and two local girls from the studios canteen. I know both of them. Not over bright, but harmless.”
“Pushing it back at me, are you? I’ll go and have a word with the reporter chap. He might have seen something helpful. Then to London. Ardwyck Fenn, Lola Brewster—and the photographer girl—what’s her name?—Margot Bence. She also might have seen something.”
Cornish nodded. “Lola Brewster is my best bet,” he said. He looked curiously at Craddock. “You don’t seem as sold on her as I am.”
“I’m thinking of the difficulties,” said Dermot slowly.
“Difficulties?”
“Of putting poison into Marina’s glass without anybody seeing her.”
“Well, that’s the same for everybody, isn’t it? It was a mad thing to do.”
“Agreed it was a mad thing to do, but it would be a madder thing for someone like Lola Brewster than for anybody else.”
“Why?” asked Cornish.
“Because she was a guest of importance. She’s a somebody, a big name. Everyone would be looking at her.”
“True enough,” Cornish admitted.
“The locals would nudge each other and whisper and stare, and after Marina Gregg and Jason Rudd greeted her she’d have been passed on for the secretaries to look after. It wouldn’t be easy, Frank. However adroit you were, you couldn’t be sure someone wouldn’t see you. That’s the snag there, and it’s a big snag.”
“As I say, isn’t that snag the same for everybody?”
“No,” said Craddock. “Oh no. Far from it. Take the butler now, Giuseppe. He’s busy with the drinks and glasses, with pouring things out, with handing them. He could put a pinch or a tablet or two of Calmo in a glass easily enough.”
“Giuseppe?” Frank Cornish reflected. “Do you think he did?”
“No reason to believe so,” said Craddock, “but we might find a reason. A nice solid bit of motive, that is to say. Yes, he could have done it. Or one of the catering staff could have done it—unfortunately they weren’t on the spot—a pity.”
“Someone might have managed to get himself or herself deliberately planted in the firm for the purpose.”
“You mean it might have been as premeditated as all that?”
“We don’t know anything about it yet,” said Craddock, vexedly. “We absolutely don’t know the first thing about it. Not until we can prise what we want to know out of Marina Gregg, or out of her husband. They must know or suspect—but they’re not telling. And we don’t know yet why they’re not telling. We’ve a long way to go.”
He paused and then resumed: “Discounting the ‘frozen look’ which may have been pure coincidence, there are other people who could have done it fairly easily. The secretary woman, Ella Zielinsky. She was also busy with glasses, with handing things to people. Nobody would be watching her with any particular interest. The same applies to that willow wand of a young man—I’ve forgotten his name. Hailey—Hailey Preston? That’s right. There would have been a good opportunity for either of them. In fact if either of them had wanted to do away with Marina Gregg it would have been far safer to do so on a public occasion.”
“Anyone else?”
“Well, there’s always the husband,” said Craddock.
“Back to the husbands again,” said Cornish, with a faint smile. “We thought it was that poor devil, Badcock, before we realised that Marina was the intended victim. Now we’ve transferred our suspicions to Jason Rudd. He seems devoted enough though, I must say.”
“He has the reputation of being so,” said Craddock, “but one never knows.”
“If he wanted to get rid of her, wouldn’t divorce be much easier?”
“It would be far more usual,” agreed Dermot, “but there may be a lot of ins and outs to this business that we don’t know yet.”
The telephone rang. Cornish took up the receiver.
“What? Yes? Put them through. Yes, he’s here.” He listened for a moment then put his hand over the receiver and looked at Dermot. “Miss Marina Gregg,” he said, “is feeling very much better. She is quite ready to be interviewed.”
/> “I’d better hurry along,” said Dermot Craddock, “before she changes her mind.”
II
At Gossington Hall Dermot Craddock was received by Ella Zielinsky. She was, as usual, brisk and efficient.
“Miss Gregg is waiting for you, Mr. Craddock,” she said.
Dermot looked at her with some interest. From the beginning he had found Ella Zielinsky an intriguing personality. He had said to himself, “A poker face if I ever saw one.” She had answered any questions he had asked with the utmost readiness. She had shown no signs of keeping anything back, but what she really thought or felt or even knew about the business, he still had no idea. There seemed to be no chink in the armour of her bright efficiency. She might know more than she said she did; she might know a good deal. The only thing he was sure of—and he had to admit to himself that he had no reasons to adduce for that surety—was that she was in love with Jason Rudd. It was, as he had said, an occupational disease of secretaries. It probably meant nothing. But the fact did at least suggest a motive and he was sure, quite sure, that she was concealing something. It might be love, it might be hate. It might, quite simply, be guilt. She might have taken her opportunity that afternoon, or she might have deliberately planned what she was going to do. He could see her in the part quite easily, as far as the execution of it went. Her swift but unhurried movements, moving here and there, looking after guests, handing glasses to one or another, taking glasses away, her eyes marking the spot where Marina had put her glass down on the table. And then, perhaps at the very moment when Marina had been greeting the arrivals from the States, with surprise and joyous cries and everybody’s eyes turned towards their meeting, she could have quietly and unobtrusively dropped the fatal dose into that glass. It would require audacity, nerve, swiftness. She would have had all those. Whatever she had done, she would not have looked guilty whilst she was doing it. It would have been a simple, brilliant crime, a crime that could hardly fail to be successful. But chance had ruled otherwise. In the rather crowded floorspace someone had joggled Heather Badcock’s arm. Her drink had been spilt, and Marina, with her natural impulsive grace, had quickly proffered her own glass, standing there untouched. And so the wrong woman had died.
A lot of pure theory, and probably hooey at that, said Dermot Craddock to himself at the same time as he was making polite remarks to Ella Zielinsky.
“One thing I wanted to ask you, Miss Zielinsky. The catering was done by a Market Basing firm, I understand?”
“Yes.”
“Why was that particular firm chosen?”
“I really don’t know,” said Ella. “That doesn’t lie amongst my duties. I know Mr. Rudd thought it would be more tactful to employ somebody local rather than to employ a firm from London. The whole thing was really quite a small affair from our point of view.”
“Quite.” He watched her as she stood frowning a little and looking down. A good forehead, a determined chin, a figure which could look quite voluptuous if it was allowed to do so, a hard mouth, an acquisitive mouth. The eyes? He looked at them in surprise. The lids were reddened. He wondered. Had she been crying? It looked like it. And yet he could have sworn she was not the type of young woman to cry. She looked up at him, and as though she read his thoughts, she took out her handkerchief and blew her nose heartily.
“You’ve got a cold,” he said.
“Not a cold. Hay fever. It’s an allergy of some kind, really. I always get at it this time of year.”
There was a low buzz. There were two phones in the room, one on the table and one on another table in the corner. It was the latter one that was beginning to buzz. Ella Zielinsky went over to it and picked up the receiver.
“Yes,” she said, “he’s here. I’ll bring him up at once.” She put the receiver down again. “Marina’s ready for you,” she said.
III
Marina Gregg received Craddock in a room on the first floor, which was obviously her own private sitting room opening out of her bedroom. After the accounts of her prostration and her nervous state, Dermot Craddock had expected to find a fluttering invalid. But although Marina was half reclining on a sofa her voice was vigorous and her eyes were bright. She had very little makeup on, but in spite of this she did not look her age, and he was struck very forcibly by the subdued radiance of her beauty. It was the exquisite line of cheek and jawbone, the way the hair fell loosely and naturally to frame her face. The long sea-green eyes, the pencilled eyebrows, owing something to art but more to nature, and the warmth and sweetness of her smile, all had a subtle magic. She said:
“Chief-Inspector Craddock? I’ve been behaving disgracefully. I do apologize. I just let myself go to pieces after this awful thing. I could have snapped out of it but I didn’t. I’m ashamed of myself.” The smile came, rueful, sweet, turning up the corners of the mouth. She extended a hand and he took it.
“It was only natural,” he said, “that you should feel upset.”
“Well, everyone was upset,” said Marina. “I’d no business to make out it was worse for me than anyone else.”
“Hadn’t you?”
She looked at him for a minute and then nodded. “Yes,” she said, “you’re very perceptive. Yes, I had.” She looked down and with one long forefinger gently stroked the arm of the sofa. It was a gesture he had noticed in one of her films. It was a meaningless gesture, yet it seemed fraught with significance. It had a kind of musing gentleness.
“I’m a coward,” she said, her eyes still cast down. “Somebody wanted to kill me and I didn’t want to die.”
“Why do you think someone wanted to kill you?”
Her eyes opened wide. “Because it was my glass—my drink—that had been tampered with. It was just a mistake that that poor stupid woman got it. That’s what’s so horrible and so tragic. Besides—”
“Yes, Miss Gregg?”
She seemed a little uncertain about saying more.
“You had other reasons perhaps for believing that you were the intended victim?”
She nodded.
“What reasons, Miss Gregg?”
She paused a minute longer before saying, “Jason says I must tell you all about it.”
“You’ve confided in him then?”
“Yes… I didn’t want to at first—but Dr. Gilchrist put it to me that I must. And then I found that he thought so too. He’d thought it all along but—it’s rather funny really”—rueful smile curled her lips again—“he didn’t want to alarm me by telling me. Really!” Marina sat up with a sudden vigorous movement. “Darling Jinks! Does he think I’m a complete fool?”
“You haven’t told me yet, Miss Gregg, why you should think anyone wanted to kill you.”
She was silent for a moment and then with a sudden brusque gesture, she stretched out for her handbag, opened it, took out a piece of paper and thrust it into his hand. He read it. Typed on it was one line of writing.
Don’t think you’ll escape next time.
Craddock said sharply, “When did you get this?” “It was on my dressing table when I came back from the bath.”
“So someone in the house—”
“Not necessarily. Someone could have climbed up the balcony outside my window and pushed it through there. I think they meant it to frighten me still more, but actually it didn’t. I just felt furiously angry and sent word to you to come and see me.”
Dermot Craddock smiled. “Possibly a rather unexpected result for whoever sent it. Is this the first kind of message like that you’ve had?”
Again Marina hesitated. Then she said, “No, it isn’t.”
“Will you tell me about any other?”
“It was three weeks ago, when we first came here. It came to the studio, not here. It was quite ridiculous. It was just a message. Not typewritten that time. In capital letters. It said, ‘Prepare to die.’” She laughed. There was perhaps a very faint tinge of hysteria in the laugh. The mirth was genuine enough. “It was so silly,” she said. “Of course one often gets crank
messages, threats, things like that. I thought it was probably religious you know. Someone who didn’t approve of film actresses. I just tore it up and threw it into the wastepaper basket.”
“Did you tell anyone about it, Miss Gregg?”
Marina shook her head. “No, I never said a word to anyone. As a matter of fact, we were having a bit of worry at the moment about the scene we were shooting. I just couldn’t have thought of anything but that at the moment. Anyway, as I say, I thought it was either a silly joke or one of those religious cranks who write and disapprove of playacting and things like that.”
“And after that, was there another?”
“Yes. On the day of the fête. One of the gardeners brought it to me, I think. He said someone had left a note for me and was there any answer? I thought perhaps it had to do with the arrangements. I just tore it open. It said ‘Today will be your last day on earth.’ I just crumpled it up and said, ‘No answer.’ Then I called the man back and asked him who gave it to him. He said it was a man with spectacles on a bicycle. Well, I mean, what could you think about that? I thought it was more silliness. I didn’t think—I didn’t think for a moment, it was a real genuine threat.”
“Where’s that note now, Miss Gregg?”
“I’ve no idea. I was wearing one of those coloured Italian silk coats and I think, as far as I remember, that I crumpled it up and shoved it into the pocket of it. But it’s not there now. It probably fell out.”
“And you’ve no idea who wrote these silly notes, Miss Gregg? Who inspired them? Not even now?”
Her eyes opened widely. There was a kind of innocent wonder in them that he took note of. He admired it, but he did not believe in it.
The Complete Miss Marple Collection Page 152