A Murder Is Announced mm-5

by Agatha Christie

  She said, biting her lips:

  'I know. Bunny is dead—from taking an aspirin tablet that was meant for me. It may be Patrick, or Julia, or Phillipa, or Mitzi next—somebody young with their life in front of them. Somebody who drinks a glass of wine that is poured out for me, or eats a chocolate that is sent to me. Oh! take the letters—take them away. And afterwards burn them. They don't mean anything to anyone but me and Charlotte. It's all over—gone—past. Nobody remembers now?'

  Her hand went up to the choker of false pearls she was wearing. Caddock thought how incongruous it looked with her tweed coat and skirt.

  She said again:

  'Take the letters.'

  ***

  It was the following afternoon that the Inspector called at the Vicarage.

  It was a dark gusty day.

  Miss Marple had her chair pulled close to the fire and was knitting. Bunch was on hands and knees, crawling about the floor, cutting out material to a pattern.

  She sat back and pushed a mop of hair out of her eyes, looking up expectantly at Craddock.

  'I don't know if it's a breach of confidence,' said the Inspector, addressing himself to Miss Marple, 'but I'd like you to look at this letter.'

  He explained the circumstances of his discovery in the attic.

  'It's rather a touching collection of letters,' he said. 'Miss Blacklock poured out everything in the hopes of sustaining her sister's interest in life and keeping her health good. There's a very clear picture of an old father in the background—old Dr Blacklock. A real old pig-headed bully, absolutely set in his ways, and convinced that everything he thought and said was right. Probably killed thousands of patients through obstinacy. He wouldn't stand for any new ideas or methods.'

  'I don't really know that I blame him there,' said Miss Marple. 'I always feel that the young doctors are only too anxious to experiment. After they've whipped out all our teeth, and administered quantities of very peculiar glands, and removed bits of our insides, they then confess that nothing can be done for us. I really prefer the old-fashioned remedy of big black bottles of medicine. After all, one can always pour those down the sink.'

  She took the letter that Craddock handed her.

  He said: 'I want you to read it because I think that that generation is more easily understood by you than by me. I don't know really quite how these people's minds worked.'

  Miss Marple unfolded the fragile paper.

  Dearest Charlotte,

  I've not written for two days because we've been having the most terrible domestic complications. Randall's sister Sonia (you remember her? She came to take you out in the car that day? How I wish you would go out more).Sonia has declared her intention of marrying one Dmitri Stamfordis. I have only seen him once. Very attractive—not to be trusted, I should say. R.G. raves against him and says he is a crook and a swindler. Belle, bless her, just smiles and lies on her sofa. Sonia, who though she looks so impassive has really a terrific temper, is simply wild with R.G. I really thought yesterday she was going to murder him!

  I've done my best. I've talked to Sonia and I've talked to R.G. and I've got them both into a more reasonable frame of mind and then they come together and it all starts over again! You've no idea how tiring it is. R.G. has been making enquiries—and it does really seem as though this Stamfordis man was thoroughly undesirable.

  In the meantime business is being neglected. I carry on at the office and in a way it's rather fun because R.G. gives me a free hand. He said to me yesterday: 'Thank Heaven, there's one sane person in the world. You're never likely to fall in love with a crook, Blackie, are you?' I said I didn't think I was likely to fall in love with anybody. R.G. said: 'Let's start a few new hares in the City.' He's really rather a mischievous devil sometimes and he sails terribly near the wind. 'You're quite determined to keep me on the straight and narrow path aren't you, Blackie?' he said the other day. And I shall too! I can't understand how people can't see when a thing's dishonest—but R.G. really and truly doesn't. He only knows what is actually against the law.

  Belle only laughs at all this. She thinks the fuss about Sonia is all nonsense. 'Sonia has her own money,' she said. 'Why shouldn't she marry this man if she wants to?' I said it might turn out to be a terrible mistake and Belle said, 'It's never a mistake to marry a man you want to marry—even if you regret it.' And then she said, 'I suppose Sonia doesn't want to break with Randall because of money. Sonia's very fond of money.'

  No more now. How is father? I won't say Give him my love. But you can if you think it's better to do so. Have you seen more people? You really must not be morbid, darling.

  Sonia asks to be remembered to you. She has just come in and is closing and unclosing her hands like an angry cat sharpening its claws. I think she and R.G. have had another row. Of course Sonia can be very irritating. She stares you down with that cool stare of hers.

  Lots of love, darling, and buck up. This iodine treatment may make a lot of difference. I've been enquiring about it and it really does seem to have good results.

  Your loving sister,

  Letitia.

  Miss Marple folded the letter and handed it back. She looked abstracted.

  'Well, what do you think about her?' Craddock urged. 'What picture do you get of her?'

  'Of Sonia? It's difficult, you know, to see anyone through another person's mind?Determined to get her own way—that, definitely, I think. And wanting the best of two worlds?'

  'Closing and unclosing her hands like an angry cat,' murmured Craddock. 'You know, that reminds me of someone?'

  He frowned.

  'Making enquiries?' murmured Miss Marple.

  'If we could get hold of the result of those inquiries,' said Craddock.

  'Does that letter remind you of anything in St Mary Mead?' asked Bunch, rather indistinctly since her mouth was full of pins.

  'I really can't say it does, dear?Dr Blacklock is, perhaps, a little like Mr Curtiss the Wesleyan Minister. He wouldn't let his child wear a plate on her teeth. Said it was the Lord's Will if her teeth stuck out. "After all," I said to him, "you do trim your beard and cut your hair. It might be the Lord's Will that your hair should grow out." He said that was quite different. So like a man. But that doesn't help us with our present problem.'

  'We've never traced that revolver, you know. It wasn't Rudi Scherz. If I knew who had had a revolver in Chipping Cleghorn—'

  'Colonel Easterbrook has one,' said Bunch. 'He keeps it in his collar drawer.'

  'How do you know, Mrs Harmon?'

  'Mrs Butt told me. She's my daily. Or rather, my twice weekly. Being a military gentleman, she said, he'd naturally have a revolver and very handy it would be if burglars were to come along.'

  'When did she tell you this?'

  'Ages ago. About six months ago, I should think.'

  'Colonel Easterbrook?' murmured Craddock.

  'It's like those pointer things at fairs, isn't it?' said Bunch, still speaking through a mouthful of pins.

  'Go round and round and stop at something different every time.'

  'You're telling me,' said Craddock and groaned.

  'Colonel Easterbrook was up at Little Paddocks to leave a book there one day. He could have oiled that door then. He was quite straightforward about being there though. Not like Miss Hinchcliffe.'

  Miss Marple coughed gently. 'You must make allowances for the times we live in, Inspector,' she said.

  Craddock looked at her, uncomprehendingly.

  'After all,' said Miss Marple. 'you are the Police, aren't you? People can't say everything they'd like to say to the Police, can they?'

  'I don't see why not,' said Craddock. 'Unless they've got some criminal matter to conceal.'

  'She means butter,' said Bunch, crawling actively round a table leg to anchor a floating bit of paper.

  'Butter and corn for hens, and sometimes cream—and sometimes, even, a side of bacon.'

  'Show him that note from Miss Blacklock,' said Miss Marple. 'It
's some time ago now, but it reads like a first-class mystery story.'

  'What have I done with it? Is this the one you mean, Aunt Jane?'

  Miss Marple took it and looked at it.

  'Yes,' she said with satisfaction. 'That's the one.'

  She handed it to the Inspector.

  'I have made inquiries—Thursday is the day,'Miss Blacklock had written.'Any time after three. If there is any for me leave it in the usual place.'

  Bunch spat out her pins and laughed. Miss Marple was watching the Inspector's face.

  The Vicar's wife took upon herself to explain.

  'Thursday is the day one of the farms round here makes butter. They let anybody they like have a bit. It's usually Miss Hinchcliffe who collects it. She's very much in with all the farmers—because of her pigs, I think. But it's all a bit hush hush, you know, a kind of local scheme of barter. One person gets butter, and sends along cucumbers, or something like that—and a little something when a pig's killed. And now and then an animal has an accident and has to be destroyed. Oh, you know the sort of thing. Only one can't, very well, say it right out to the Police. Because I suppose quite a lot of this barter is illegal—only nobody really knows because it's all so complicated. But I expect Hinch had slipped into Little Paddocks with a pound of butter or something and had put it in the usual place. That's a flour bin under the dresser, by the way. It doesn't have flour in it.'

  Craddock sighed.

  'I'm glad I came here to you ladies,' he said.

  'There used to be clothing coupons, too,' said Bunch. 'Not usually bought—that wasn't considered honest. No money passes. But people like Mrs Butt or Mrs Finch or Mrs Huggins like a nice woollen dress or a winter coat that hasn't seen too much wear and they pay for it with coupons instead of money.'

  'You'd better not tell me any more,' said Craddock.

  'It's all against the law.'

  'Then there oughtn't to be such silly laws,' said Bunch, filling her mouth up with pins again. 'I don't do it, of course, because Julian doesn't like me to, so I don't. But I know what's going on, of course.'

  A kind of despair was coming over the Inspector.

  'It all sounds so pleasant and ordinary,' he said. 'Funny and petty and simple. And yet one woman and a man have been killed, and another woman may be killed before I can get anything definite to go on. I've left off worrying about Pip and Emma for the moment. I'm concentrating on Sonia. I wish I knew what she looked like. There was a snapshot or two in with these letters, but none of the snaps could have been of her.'

  'How do you know it couldn't have been her? Do you know what she looked like?'

  'She was small and dark, Miss Blacklock said.'

  'Really,' said Miss Marple, 'that's very interesting.'

  'There was one snap that reminded me vaguely of someone. A tall fair girl with her hair all done up on top of her head. I don't know who she could have been. Anyway, it can't have been Sonia. Do you think Mrs Swettenham could have been dark when she was a girl?'

  'Not very dark,' said Bunch. 'She's got blue eyes.'

  'I hoped there might be a photo of Dmitri Stamfordis—but I suppose that was too much to hope for?Well'—he took up the letter—'I'm sorry this doesn't suggest anything to you, Miss Marple.'

  'Oh! but it does,' said Miss Marple. 'It suggests a good deal. Just read it through again, Inspector—especially where it says that Randall Goedler was making inquiries about Dmitri Stamfordis.'

  Craddock stared at her.

  The telephone rang.

  Bunch got up from the floor and went out into the hall where, in accordance with the best Victorian traditions, the telephone had originally been placed and where it still was.

  She re-entered the room to say to Craddock:

  'It's for you.'

  Slightly surprised, the Inspector went out to the instrument—carefully shutting the door of the living-room behind him.

  'Craddock? Rydesdale here.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'I've been looking through your report. In the interview you had with Phillipa Haymes I see she states positively that she hasn't seen her husband since his desertion from the Army?'

  'That's right, sir—she was most emphatic. But in my opinion she wasn't speaking the truth.'

  'I agree with you. Do you remember a case about ten days ago—man run over by a lorry—taken to Milchester General with concussion and a fractured pelvis?'

  'The fellow who snatched a child practically from under the wheels of a lorry, and got run down himself?'

  'That's the one. No papers of any kind on him and nobody came forward to identify him. Looked as though he might be on the run. He died last night without regaining consciousness. But he's been identified—deserter from the Army—Ronald Haymes, ex-Captain in the South Loamshires.'

  'Phillipa Haymes' husband?'

  'Yes. He'd got an old Chipping Cleghorn bus ticket on him, by the way—and quite a reasonable amount of money.'

  'So he did get money from his wife? I always thought he was the man Mitzi overheard talking to her in the summerhouse. She denied it flatly, of course. But surely, sir, that lorry accident was before—'

  Rydesdale took the words out of his mouth.

  'Yes, he was taken to Milchester General on the 28th. The hold-up at Little Paddocks was on the 29th. That lets him out of any possible connection with it. But his wife, of course, knew nothing about the accident. She may have been thinking all along that he was concerned in it. She'd hold her tongue—naturally—after all he was her husband.'

  'It was a fairly gallant bit of work, wasn't it, sir?' said Craddock slowly.

  'Rescuing that child from the lorry? Yes. Plucky. Don't suppose it was cowardice that made Haymes desert. Well, all that's past history. For a man who'd blotted his copybook, it was a good death.'

  'I'm glad for her sake,' said the Inspector. 'And for that boy of theirs.'

  'Yes, he needn't be too ashamed of his father. And the young woman will be able to marry again now.'

  Craddock said slowly:

  'I was thinking of that, sir? It opens up—possibilities.'

  'You'd better break the news to her as you're on the spot.'

  'I will, sir. I'll push along there now. Or perhaps I'd better wait until she's back at Little Paddocks. It may be rather a shock—and there's someone else I rather want to have a word with first.'

  Chapter 19. Reconstruction of the Crime

  'I'll put a lamp by you before I go,' said Bunch. 'It's so dark in here. There's going to be a storm, I think.'

  She lifted the small reading lamp to the other side of the table where it would throw light on Miss Marple's knitting as she sat in a wide high backed chair.

  As the flex pulled across the table, Tiglath Pileser the cat leapt upon it and bit and clawed it violently.

  'No, Tiglath Pileser, you mustn't?He really is awful. Look, he's nearly bitten it through—it's all frayed. Don't you understand, you idiotic puss, that you may get a nasty electric shock if you do that?'

  'Thank you, dear,' said Miss Marple, and put out a hand to turn on the lamp.

  'It doesn't turn on there. You have to press that silly little switch half-way along the flex. Wait a minute. I'll take these flowers out of the way.'

  She lifted a bowl of Christmas roses across the table. Tiglath Pileser, his tail switching, put out a mischievous paw and clawed Bunch's arm. She spilled some of the water out of the vase. It fell on the frayed area of flex and on Tiglath Pileser himself, who leapt to the floor with an indignant hiss.

  Miss Marple pressed the small pear-shaped switch. Where the water had soaked the frayed flex there was a flash and a crackle.

  'Oh, dear,' said Bunch. 'It's fused. Now I suppose all the lights in here are off.' She tried them. 'Yes, they are. So stupid being all on the same thingummibob. And it's made a burn on the table, too. Naughty Tiglath Pileser—it's all his fault. Aunt Jane—what's the matter? Did it startle you?'

  'It's nothing, dear. Just something I sa
w quite suddenly which I ought to have seen before?'

  'I'll go and fix the fuse and get the lamp from Julian's study.'

  'No, dear, don't bother. You'll miss your bus. I don't want any more light. I just want to sit quietly and—think about something. Hurry dear, or you won't catch your bus.'

  When Bunch had gone, Miss Marple sat quite still for about two minutes. The air of the room was heavy and menacing with the gathering storm outside.

  Miss Marple drew a sheet of paper towards her.

  She wrote first: Lamp? and underlined it heavily.

  After a moment or two, she wrote another word.

  Her pencil travelled down the paper, making brief cryptic notes?

  ***

  In the rather dark living-room of Boulders with its low ceiling and latticed window panes, Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Murgatroyd were having an argument.

  'The trouble with you, Murgatroyd,' said Miss Hinchcliffe, 'is that you won't try.'

  'But I tell you, Hinch, I can't remember a thing.'

  'Now look here, Amy Murgatroyd, we're going to do some constructive thinking. So far we haven't shone on the detective angle. I was quite wrong over that door business. You didn't hold the door open for the murderer after all. You're cleared, Murgatroyd!'

  Miss Murgatroyd gave a rather watery smile.

  'It's just our luck to have the only silent cleaning woman in Chipping Cleghorn,' continued Miss Hinchcliffe. 'Usually I'm thankful for it, but this time it means we've got off to a bad start. Everybody else in the place knows about that second door in the drawing-room being used—and we only heard about it yesterday—'

  'I still don't quite understand how—'

  'It's perfectly simple. Our original premises were quite right. You can't hold open a door, wave a torch and shoot with a revolver all at the same time. We kept in the revolver and the torch and cut out the door. Well, we were wrong. It was the revolver we ought to have cut out.'