Charmian was untying a ribbon that held the letters together. She drew one out and glanced at it. “Love letters!”
Miss Marple reacted with Victorian gusto. “How interesting! Perhaps the reason your uncle never married.”
Charmian read aloud:
“‘My ever dear Mathew, I must confess that the time seems long indeed since I received your last letter. I try to occupy myself with the various tasks allotted to me, and often say to myself that I am indeed fortunate to see so much of the globe, though little did I think when I went to America that I should voyage off to these far islands!’ “
Charmain broke off. “Where is it from? Oh! Hawaii!” She went on:
“‘Alas, these natives are still far from seeing the light. They are in an unclothed and savage state and spend most of their time swimming and dancing, adorning themselves with garlands of flowers. Mr. Gray has made some converts but it is uphill work, and he and Mrs. Gray get sadly discouraged. I try to do all I can to cheer and encourage him, but I, too, am often sad for a reason you can guess, dear Mathew. Alas, absence is a severe trial for a loving heart. Your renewed vows and protestations of affection cheered me greatly. Now and always you have my faithful and devoted heart, dear Mathew, and I remain—Your true love, Betty Martin.
“‘PS—I address my letter under cover to our mutual friend, Matilda Graves, as usual. I hope heaven will pardon this little subterfuge.’”
Edward whistled. “A female missionary! So that was Uncle Mathew’s romance. I wonder why they never married?”
“She seems to have gone all over the world,” said Charmian, looking through the letters. “Mauritius—all sorts of places. Probably died of yellow fever or something.”
A gentle chuckle made them start. Miss Marple was apparently much amused. “Well, well,” she said. “Fancy that, now!”
She was reading the recipe for baked ham. Seeing their enquiring glances, she read out: “‘Baked ham with spinach. Take a nice piece of gammon, stuff with cloves, and cover with brown sugar. Bake in a slow oven. Serve with a border of pureed spinach.’ What do you think of that, now?”
“I think it sounds filthy,” said Edward.
“No, no, actually it would be very good—but what do you think of the whole thing?”
A sudden ray of light illuminated Edward’s face. “Do you think it’s a code—cryptogram of some kind?” He seized it. “Look here, Charmian, it might be, you know! No reason to put a cooking-recipe in a secret drawer otherwise.”
“Exactly,” said Miss Marple. “Very, very significant.”
Charmian said, “I know what it might be—invisible ink! Let’s heat it. Turn on the electric fire.”
Edward did so, but no signs of writing appeared under the treatment.
Miss Marple coughed. “I really think, you know, that you’re making it rather too difficult. The recipe is only an indication, so to speak. It is, I think, the letters that are significant.”
“The letters?”
“Especially,” said Miss Marple, “the signature.”
But Edward hardly heard her. He called excitedly, “Charmian! Come here! She’s right. See—the envelopes are old, right enough, but the letters themselves were written much later.”
“Exactly,” said Miss Marple.
“They’re only fake old. I bet anything old Uncle Mat faked them himself—”
“Precisely,” said Miss Marple.
“The whole thing’s a sell. There never was a female missionary. It must be a code.”
“My dear, dear children—there’s really no need to make it all so difficult. Your uncle was really a very simple man. He had to have his little joke, that was all.”
For the first time they gave her their full attention.
“Just exactly what do you mean, Miss Marple?” asked Charmian.
“I mean, dear, that you’re actually holding the money in your hand this minute.”
Charmian stared down.
“The signature, dear. That gives the whole thing away. The recipe is just an indication. Shorn of all the cloves and brown sugar and the rest of it, what is it actually? Why, gammon and spinach to be sure! Gammon and spinach! Meaning—nonsense! So it’s clear that it’s the letters that are important. And then, if you take into consideration what your uncle did just before he died. He tapped his eye, you said. Well, there you are—that gives you the clue, you see.”
Charmian said, “Are we mad, or are you?”
“Surely, my dear, you must have heard the expression meaning that something is not a true picture, or has it quite died out nowadays? ‘All my eye and Betty Martin.’”
Edward gasped, his eyes falling to the letter in his hand. “Betty Martin—”
“Of course, Mr. Rossiter. As you have just said, there isn’t—there wasn’t any such person. The letters were written by your uncle, and I dare say he got a lot of fun out of writing them! As you say, the writing on the envelopes is much older—in fact, the envelope couldn’t belong to the letters, anyway, because the postmark of one you are holding is eighteen fifty-one.”
She paused. She made it very emphatic. “Eighteen fifty-one. And that explains everything, doesn’t it?”
“Not to me,” said Edward.
“Well, of course,” said Miss Marple, “I dare say it wouldn’t to me if it weren’t for my great-nephew Lionel. Such a dear little boy and a passionate stamp collector. Knows all about stamps. It was he who told me about the rare and expensive stamps and that a wonderful new find had come up for auction. And I actually remember his mentioning one stamp—an eighteen fifty-one blue two-cent. It realized something like twenty-five thousand dollars, I believe. Fancy! I should imagine that the other stamps are something also rare and expensive. No doubt your uncle bought through dealers and was careful to ‘cover his tracks,’ as they say in detective stories.”
Edward groaned. He sat down and buried his face in his hands.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Charmian.
“Nothing. It’s only the awful thought that, but for Miss Marple, we might have burned these letters in a decent, gentlemanly way!”
“Ah,” said Miss Marple, “that’s just what these old gentlemen who are fond of their jokes never realize. Uncle Henry, I remember, sent a favourite niece a five-pound note for a Christmas present. He put it in a Christmas card, gummed the card together, and wrote on it, ‘Love and best wishes. Afraid this is all I can manage this year.’”
“She, poor girl, was annoyed at what she thought was his meanness and threw it all straight into the fire; then, of course, he had to give her another.”
Edward’s feelings towards Uncle Henry had suffered an abrupt and complete change.
“Miss Marple,” he said, “I’m going to get a bottle of champagne. We’ll all drink the health of your Uncle Henry.”
Sixteen
THE CASE OF THE PERFECT MAID
“Oh, if you please, madam, could I speak to you a moment?”
It might be thought that this request was in the nature of an absurdity, since Edna, Miss Marple’s little maid, was actually speaking to her mistress at the moment.
Recognizing the idiom, however, Miss Marple said promptly, “Certainly, Edna, come in and shut the door. What is it?”
Obediently shutting the door, Edna advanced into the room, pleated the corner of her apron between her fingers, and swallowed once or twice.
“Yes, Edna?” said Miss Marple encouragingly.
“Oh, please, ma’am, it’s my cousin, Gladdie.”
“Dear me,” said Miss Marple, her mind leaping to the worst—and, alas, the most usual conclusion. “Not—not in trouble?”
Edna hastened to reassure her. “Oh, no, ma’am, nothing of that kind. Gladdie’s not that kind of girl. It’s just that she’s upset. You see, she’s lost her place.”
“Dear me, I am sorry to hear that. She was at Old Hall, wasn’t she, with the Miss—Misses—Skinner?”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s right, ma’am. And Gladdie�
��s very upset about it—very upset indeed.”
“Gladys has changed places rather often before, though, hasn’t she?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. She’s always one for a change, Gladdie is. She never seems to get really settled, if you know what I mean. But she’s always been the one to give the notice, you see!”
“And this time it’s the other way round?” asked Miss Marple dryly.
“Yes, ma’am, and it’s upset Gladdie something awful.”
Miss Marple looked slightly surprised. Her recollection of Gladys, who had occasionally come to drink tea in the kitchen on her “days out,” was a stout, giggling girl of unshakably equable temperament.
Edna went on. “You see, ma’am, it’s the way it happened—the way Miss Skinner looked.”
“How,” enquired Miss Marple patiently, “did Miss Skinner look?”
This time Edna got well away with her news bulletin.
“Oh, ma’am, it was ever such a shock to Gladdie. You see, one of Miss Emily’s brooches was missing, and such a hue and cry for it as never was, and of course nobody likes a thing like that to happen; it’s upsetting, ma’am, if you know what I mean. And Gladdie’s helped search everywhere, and there was Miss Lavinia saying she was going to the police about it, and then it turned up again, pushed right to the back of a drawer in the dressing table, and very thankful Gladdie was.
“And the very next day as ever was a plate got broken, and Miss Lavinia she bounced out right away and told Gladdie to take a month’s notice. And what Gladdie feels is it couldn’t have been the plate and that Miss Lavinia was just making an excuse of that, and that it must be because of the brooch and they think as she took it and put it back when the police was mentioned, and Gladdie wouldn’t do such a thing, not never she wouldn’t, and what she feels is as it will get round and tell against her and it’s a very serious thing for a girl, as you know, ma’am.”
Miss Marple nodded. Though having no particular liking for the bouncing, self-opinionated Gladys, she was quite sure of the girl’s intrinsic honesty and could well imagine that the affair must have upset her.
Edna said wistfully, “I suppose, ma’am, there isn’t anything you could do about it? Gladdie’s in ever such a taking.”
“Tell her not to be silly,” said Miss Marple crisply. “If she didn’t take the brooch—which I’m sure she didn’t—then she has no cause to be upset.”
“It’ll get about,” said Edna dismally.
Miss Marple said, “I—er—am going up that way this afternoon. I’ll have a word with the Misses Skinner.”
“Oh, thank you, madam,” said Edna.
Old Hall was a big Victorian house surrounded by woods and park land. Since it had been proved unlettable and unsaleable as it was, an enterprising speculator had divided it into four flats with a central hot-water system, and the use of “the grounds” to be held in common by the tenants. The experiment had been satisfactory. A rich and eccentric old lady and her maid occupied one flat. The old lady had a passion for birds and entertained a feathered gathering to meals every day. A retired Indian judge and his wife rented a second. A very young couple, recently married, occupied the third, and the fourth had been taken only two months ago by two maiden ladies of the name of Skinner. The four sets of tenants were only on the most distant terms with each other, since none of them had anything in common. The landlord had been heard to say that this was an excellent thing. What he dreaded were friendships followed by estrangements and subsequent complaints to him.
Miss Marple was acquainted with all the tenants, though she knew none of them well. The elder Miss Skinner, Miss Lavinia, was what might be termed the working member of the firm, Miss Emily, the younger, spent most of her time in bed suffering from various complaints which, in the opinion of St. Mary Mead, were largely imaginary. Only Miss Lavinia believed devoutly in her sister’s martyrdom and patience under affliction, and willingly ran errands and trotted up and down to the village for things that “my sister had suddenly fancied.”
It was the view of St. Mary Mead that if Miss Emily suffered half as much as she said she did, she would have sent for Doctor Haydock long ago. But Miss Emily, when this was hinted to her, shut her eyes in a superior way and murmured that her case was not a simple one—the best specialists in London had been baffled by it—and that a wonderful new man had put her on a most revolutionary course of treatment and that she really hoped her health would improve under it. No humdrum GP could possibly understand her case.
“And it’s my opinion,” said the outspoken Miss Hartnell, “that she’s very wise not to send for him. Dear Doctor Haydock, in that breezy manner of his, would tell her that there was nothing the matter with her and to get up and not make a fuss! Do her a lot of good!”
Failing such arbitrary treatment, however, Miss Emily continued to lie on sofas, to surround herself with strange little pill boxes, and to reject nearly everything that had been cooked for her and ask for something else—usually something difficult and inconvenient to get.
The door was opened to Miss Marple by “Gladdie,” looking more depressed than Miss Marple had ever thought possible. In the sitting room (a quarter of the late drawing room, which had been partitioned into a dining room, drawing room, bathroom, and housemaid’s cupboard), Miss Lavinia rose to greet Miss Marple.
Lavinia Skinner was a tall, gaunt, bony female of fifty. She had a gruff voice and an abrupt manner.
“Nice to see you,” she said. “Emily’s lying down—feeling low today, poor dear. Hope she’ll see you, it would cheer her up, but there are times when she doesn’t feel up to seeing anybody. Poor dear, she’s wonderfully patient.”
Miss Marple responded politely. Servants were the main topic of conversation in St. Mary Mead, so it was not difficult to lead the conversation in that direction. Miss Marple said she had heard that that nice girl, Gladys Holmes, was leaving.
Miss Lavinia nodded. “Wednesday week. Broke things, you know. Can’t have that.”
Miss Marple sighed and said we all had to put up with things nowadays. It was so difficult to get girls to come to the country. Did Miss Skinner really think it was wise to part with Gladys?
“Know it’s difficult to get servants,” admitted Miss Lavinia. “The Devereuxs haven’t got anybody—but then, I don’t wonder—always quarrelling, jazz on all night—meals anytime—that girl knows nothing of housekeeping. I pity her husband! Then the Larkins have just lost their maid. Of course, what with the judge’s Indian temper and his wanting chota hazri, as he calls it, at six in the morning and Mrs. Larkin always fussing, I don’t wonder at that, either. Mrs. Carmichael’s Janet is a fixture of course—though in my opinion she’s the most disagreeable woman, and absolutely bullies the old lady.”
“Then don’t you think you might reconsider your decision about Gladys? She really is a nice girl. I know all her family; very honest and superior.”
Miss Lavinia shook her head.
“I’ve got my reasons,” she said importantly.
Miss Marple murmured, “You missed a brooch, I understand—”
“Now, who has been talking? I suppose the girl has. Quite frankly, I’m almost certain she took it. And then got frightened and put it back—but, of course, one can’t say anything unless one is sure.” She changed the subject. “Do come and see Emily, Miss Marple. I’m sure it would do her good.”
Miss Marple followed meekly to where Miss Lavinia knocked on a door, was bidden enter, and ushered her guest into the best room in the flat, most of the light of which was excluded by half-drawn blinds. Miss Emily was lying in bed, apparently enjoying the half gloom and her own indefinite sufferings.
The dim light showed her to be a thin, indecisive-looking creature, with a good deal of greyish-yellow hair untidily wound around her head and erupting into curls, the whole thing looking like a bird’s nest of which no self-respecting bird could be proud. There was a smell in the room of Eau de Cologne, stale biscuits, and camphor.
Wi
th half-closed eyes and a thin, weak voice, Emily Skinner explained that this was “one of her bad days.”
“The worst of ill health is,” said Miss Emily in a melancholy tone, “that one knows what a burden one is to everyone around one.
“Lavinia is very good to me. Lavvie dear, I do so hate giving trouble but if my hot-water bottle could only be filled in the way I like it—too full it weighs on me so—on the other hand, if it is not sufficiently filled, it gets cold immediately!”
“I’m sorry, dear. Give it to me. I will empty a little out.”
“Perhaps, if you’re doing that, it might be refilled. There are no rusks in the house, I suppose—no, no, it doesn’t matter. I can do without. Some weak tea and a slice of lemon—no lemons? No, really, I couldn’t drink tea without lemon. I think the milk was slightly turned this morning. It has put me against milk in my tea. It doesn’t matter. I can do without my tea. Only I do feel so weak. Oysters, they say, are nourishing. I wonder if I could fancy a few? No, no, too much bother to get hold of them so late in the day. I can fast until tomorrow.”
Lavinia left the room murmuring something incoherent about bicycling down to the village.
Miss Emily smiled feebly at her guest and remarked that she did hate giving anyone any trouble.
Miss Marple told Edna that evening that she was afraid her embassy had met with no success.
She was rather troubled to find that rumours as to Gladys’s dishonesty were already going around the village.
In the post office, Miss Wetherby tackled her. “My dear Jane, they gave her a written reference saying she was willing and sober and respectable, but saying nothing about honesty. That seems to me most significant! I hear there was some trouble about a brooch. I think there must be something in it, you know, because one doesn’t let a servant go nowadays unless it’s something rather grave. They’ll find it most difficult to get anyone else. Girls simply will not go to Old Hall. They’re nervous coming home on their days out. You’ll see, the Skinners won’t find anyone else, and then, perhaps, that dreadful hypochondriac sister will have to get up and do something!”
The Complete Miss Marple Collection Page 265