“Come,” she said, “tell me all about it. Or as much as you are allowed to tell me.”
“I think you probably know as much as I do. And very likely you have something up your sleeve. How about your dogsbody, your dear Miss Knight? What about her having committed the crime?”
“Now why should Miss Knight have done such a thing?” demanded Miss Marple, surprised.
“Because she’s the most unlikely person,” said Dermot. “It so often seems to hold good when you produce your answer.”
“Not at all,” said Miss Marple with spirit. “I have said over and over again, not only to you, my dear Dermot—if I may call you so—that it is always the obvious person who has done the crime. One thinks so often of the wife or the husband and so very often it is the wife or the husband.”
“Meaning Jason Rudd?” He shook his head. “That man adores Marina Gregg.”
“I was speaking generally,” said Miss Marple, with dignity. “First we had Mrs. Badcock apparently murdered. One asked oneself who could have done such a thing and the first answer would naturally be the husband. So one had to examine that possibility. Then we decided that the real object of the crime was Marina Gregg and there again we have to look for the person most intimately connected with Marina Gregg, starting as I say with the husband. Because there is no doubt about it that husbands do, very frequently, want to make away with their wives, though sometimes, of course, they only wish to make away with their wives and do not actually do so. But I agree with you, my dear boy, that Jason Rudd really cares with all his heart for Marina Gregg. It might be very clever acting, though I can hardly believe that. And one certainly cannot see a motive of any kind for his doing away with her. If he wanted to marry somebody else there could, I should say, be nothing more simple. Divorce, if I may say so, seems second nature to film stars. A practical advantage does not seem to arise either. He is not a poor man by any means. He has his own career, and is, I understand, most successful in it. So we must go farther afield. But it certainly is difficult. Yes, very difficult.”
“Yes,” said Craddock, “it must hold particular difficulties for you because of course this film world is entirely new to you. You don’t know the local scandals and all the rest of it.”
“I know a little more than you may think,” said Miss Marple. “I have studied very closely various numbers of Confidential, Film Life, Film Talk and Film Topics.”
Dermot Craddock laughed. He couldn’t help it.
“I must say,” he said, “it tickles me to see you sitting there and telling me what your course of literature has been.”
“I found it very interesting,” said Miss Marple. “They’re not particularly well written, if I may say so. But it really is disappointing in a way that it is all so much the same as it used to be in my young days. Modern Society and Tit Bits and all the rest of them. A lot of gossip. A lot of scandal. A great preoccupation with who is in love with whom, and all the rest of it. Really, you know, practically exactly the same sort of thing goes on in St. Mary Mead. And in the Development too. Human nature, I mean, is just the same everywhere. One comes back, I think, to the question of who could have been likely to want to kill Marina Gregg, to want to so much that having failed once they sent threatening letters and made repeated attempts to do so. Someone perhaps a little—” very gently she tapped her forehead.
“Yes,” said Craddock, “that certainly seems indicated. And of course it doesn’t always show.”
“Oh, I know,” agreed Miss Marple, fervently. “Old Mrs. Pike’s second boy, Alfred, seemed perfectly rational and normal. Almost painfully prosaic, if you know what I mean, but actually, it seems, he had the most abnormal psychology, or so I understand. Really positively dangerous. He seems quite happy and contented, so Mrs. Pike told me, now that he is in Fairways Mental Home. They understand him there, and the doctors think him a most interesting case. That of course pleases him very much. Yes, it all ended quite happily, but she had one or two very near escapes.”
Craddock revolved in his mind the possibility of a parallel between someone in Marina Gregg’s entourage and Mrs. Pike’s second son.
“The Italian butler,” continued Miss Marple, “the one who was killed. He went to London, I understand, on the day of his death. Does anyone know what he did there—if you are allowed to tell me, that is,” she added conscientiously.
“He arrived in London at eleven-thirty in the morning,” said Craddock, “and what he did in London nobody knows until a quarter to two he visited his bank and made a deposit of five hundred pounds in cash. I may say that there was no confirmation of his story that he went to London to visit an ill relative or a relative who had got into trouble. None of his relatives there had seen him.”
Miss Marple nodded her head appreciatively.
“Five hundred pounds,” she said. “Yes, that’s quite an interesting sum, isn’t it? I should imagine it would be the first instalment of a good many other sums, wouldn’t you?”
“It looks that way,” said Craddock.
“It was probably all the ready money the person he was threatening could raise. He may even have pretended to be satisfied with that or he may have accepted it as a down payment and the victim may have promised to raise further sums in the immediate future. It seems to knock out the idea that Marina Gregg’s killer could have been someone in humble circumstances who had a private vendetta against her. It would also knock out, I should say, the idea of someone who’d obtained work as a studio helper or attendant or a servant or a gardener. Unless”—Miss Marple pointed out—“such a person may have been the active agent whereas the employing agent may not have been in the neighbourhood. Hence the visit to London.”
“Exactly. We have in London Ardwyck Fenn, Lola Brewster and Margot Bence. All three were present at the party. All three of them could have met Giuseppe at an arranged meeting place somewhere in London between the hours of eleven and a quarter to two. Ardwyck Fenn was out of his office during those hours. Lola Brewster had left her suite to go shopping. Margot Bence was not in her studio. By the way—”
“Yes?” said Miss Marple. “Have you something to tell me?”
“You asked me,” said Dermot, “about the children. The children that Marina Gregg adopted before she knew she could have a child of her own.”
“Yes I did.”
Craddock told her what he had learned.
“Margot Bence,” said Miss Marple softly. “I had a feeling, you know, that it had something to do with children….”
“I can’t believe that after all these years—”
“I know, I know. One never can. But do you really, my dear Dermot, know very much about children? Think back to your own childhood. Can’t you remember some incident, some happening that caused you grief, or a passion quite incommensurate with its real importance? Some sorrow or passionate resentment that has really never been equalled since? There was such a book, you know, written by that brilliant writer. Mr. Richard Hughes. I forget the name of it but it was about some children who had been through a hurricane. Oh yes—the hurricane in Jamaica. What made a vivid impression on them was their cat rushing madly through the house. It was the only thing they remembered. But the whole of the horror and excitement and fear that they had experienced was bound up in that one incident.”
“It’s odd you should say that,” said Craddock thoughtfully.
“Why, has it made you remember something?”
“I was thinking of when my mother died. I was five I think. Five or six. I was having dinner in the nursery, jam roll pudding. I was very fond of jam roll pudding. One of the servants came in and said to my nursery governess, ‘Isn’t it awful? There’s been an accident and Mrs. Craddock has been killed.’… Whenever I think of my mother’s death, d’you know what I see?”
“What?”
“A plate with jam roll pudding on it, and I’m staring at it. Staring at it and I can see as well now as then, how the jam oozed out of it at one side. I didn’t cr
y or say anything. I remember just sitting there as though I’d been frozen stiff, staring at the pudding. And d’you know, even now if I see in a shop or a restaurant or in anyone’s house a portion of jam roll pudding, a whole wave of horror and misery and despair comes over me. Sometimes for a moment I don’t remember why. Does that seem very crazy to you?”
“No,” said Miss Marple, “it seems entirely natural. It’s very interesting, that. It’s given me a sort of idea….”
II
The door opened and Miss Knight appeared bearing the tea tray.
“Dear, dear,” she exclaimed, “and so we’ve got a visitor, have we? How very nice. How do you do, Inspector Craddock. I’ll just fetch another cup.”
“Don’t bother,” Dermot called after her. “I’ve had a drink instead.”
Miss Knight popped her head back round the door.
“I wonder—could you just come here a minute, Mr. Craddock?”
Dermot joined her in the hall. She went to the dining room and shut the door.
“You will be careful, won’t you?” she said.
“Careful? In what way, Miss Knight?”
“Our old dear in there. You know, she’s so interested in everything but it’s not very good for her to get excited over murders and nasty things like that. We don’t want her to brood and have bad dreams. She’s very old and frail, and she really must lead a very sheltered life. She always has, you know. I’m sure all this talk of murders and gangsters and things like that is very, very bad for her.”
Dermot looked at her with faint amusement.
“I don’t think,” he said gently, “that anything that you or I could say about murders is likely unduly to excite or shock Miss Marple. I can assure you, my dear Miss Knight, that Miss Marple can contemplate murder and sudden death and indeed crime of all kinds with the utmost equanimity.”
He went back to the drawing room, and Miss Knight, clucking a little in an indignant manner, followed him. She talked briskly during tea with an emphasis on political news in the paper and the most cheerful subjects she could think of. When she finally removed the tea tray and shut the door behind her, Miss Marple drew a deep breath.
“At last we’ve got some peace,” she said. “I hope I shan’t murder that woman some day. Now listen, Dermot, there are some things I want to know.”
“Yes? What are they?”
“I want to go over very carefully what happened on the day of the fête. Mrs. Bantry has arrived, and the vicar shortly after her. Then come Mr. and Mrs. Badcock, and on the stairs at that time were the mayor and his wife, this man Ardwyck Fenn, Lola Brewster, a reporter from the Herald & Argus of Much Benham, and this photographer girl, Margot Bence. Margot Bence, you said, had her camera at an angle on the stairs, and was taking photographs of the proceedings. Have you seen any of those photographs?”
“Actually I brought one to show you.”
He took from his pocket an unmounted print. Miss Marple looked at it steadfastly. Marina Gregg with Jason Rudd a little behind her to one side, Arthur Badcock, his hand to his face, looking slightly embarrassed, was standing back, whilst his wife had Marina Gregg’s hand in hers and was looking up at her and talking. Marina was not looking at Mrs. Badcock. She was staring over her head looking, it seemed, full into the camera, or possibly just slightly to the left of it.
“Very interesting,” said Miss Marple. “I’ve had descriptions, you know, of what this look was on her face. A frozen look. Yes, that describes it quite well. A look of doom. I’m not really so sure about that. It’s more a kind of paralysis of feeling rather than apprehension of doom. Don’t you think so? I wouldn’t say it was actually fear, would you, although fear of course might take you that way. It might paralyse you. But I don’t think it was fear. I think rather that it was shock. Dermot, my dear boy, I want you to tell me, if you’ve got notes of it, what exactly Heather Badcock said to Marina Gregg on that occasion. I know roughly the gist of it, of course, but how near can you get to the actual words. I suppose you had accounts of it from different people.”
Dermot nodded.
“Yes. Let me see. Your friend, Mrs. Bantry, then Jason Rudd and I think Arthur Badcock. As you say they varied a little in wording, but the gist of them was the same.”
“I know. It’s the variations that I want. I think it might help us.”
“I don’t see how,” said Dermot, “though perhaps you do. Your friend, Mrs. Bantry, was probably the most definite on the point. As far as I remember—wait—I carry a good many of my jottings around with me.”
He took out a small notebook from his pocket, looked through it to refresh his memory.
“I haven’t got the exact words here,” he said, “but I made a rough note. Apparently Mrs. Badcock was very cheerful, rather arch, and delighted with herself. She said something like ‘I can’t tell you how wonderful this is for me. You won’t remember but years ago in Bermuda—I got up from bed when I had chicken pox and came along to see you and you gave me an autograph and it’s one of the proudest days of my life which I have never forgotten.’”
“I see,” said Miss Marple, “she mentioned the place but not the date, did she?”
“Yes.”
“And what did Rudd say?”
“Jason Rudd? He said that Mrs. Badcock told his wife that she’d got up from bed when she had the flu and had come to meet Marina and she still had her autograph. It was a shorter account than your friend’s but the gist of it was the same.”
“Did he mention the time and place?”
“No. I don’t think he did. I think he said roughly that it was some ten or twelve years ago.”
“I see. And what about Mr. Badcock?”
“Mr. Badcock said that Heather was extremely excited and anxious to meet Marina Gregg, that she was a great fan of Marina Gregg’s and that she’d told him that once when she was ill as a girl she managed to get up and meet Miss Gregg and get her autograph. He didn’t go into any close particulars, as it was evidently in the days before he was married to his wife. He impressed me as not thinking the incident of much importance.”
“I see,” said Miss Marple. “Yes, I see….”
“And what do you see?” asked Craddock.
“Not quite as much as I’d like to yet,” said Miss Marple, honestly, “but I have a sort of feeling if I only knew why she’d ruined her new dress—”
“Who—Mrs. Badcock?”
“Yes. It seems to me such a very odd thing—such an inexplicable one unless—of course—Dear me, I think I must be very stupid!”
Miss Knight opened the door and entered, switching the light on as she did so.
“I think we want a little light in here,” she said brightly.
“Yes,” said Miss Marple, “you are so right, Miss Knight. That is exactly what we did want. A little light. I think, you know, that at last we’ve got it.”
The tête-à-tête seemed ended and Craddock rose to his feet.
“There only remains one thing,” he said, “and that is for you to tell me just what particular memory from your own past is agitating your mind now.”
“Everyone always teases me about that,” said Miss Marple, “but I must say that I was reminded just for a moment of the Lauristons’ parlourmaid.”
“The Lauristons’ parlourmaid?” Craddock looked completely mystified.
“She had, of course, to take messages on the telephone,” said Miss Marple, “and she wasn’t very good at it. She used to get the general sense right, if you know what I mean, but the way she wrote it down used to make quite nonsense of it sometimes. I suppose really, because her grammar was so bad. The result was that some very unfortunate incidents occurred. I remember one in particular. A Mr. Burroughs, I think it was, rang up and said he had been to see Mr. Elvaston about the fence being broken down but he said that the fence wasn’t his business at all to repair. It was on the other side of the property and he said he would like to know if that was really the case before proceeding further
as it would depend on whether he was liable or not and it was important for him to know the proper lie of the land before instructing solicitors. A very obscure message, as you see. It confused rather than enlightened.”
“If you’re talking about parlourmaids,” said Miss Knight with a little laugh, “that must have been a very long time ago. I’ve never heard of a parlourmaid for many years now.”
“It was a good many years ago,” said Miss Marple, “but nevertheless human nature was very much the same then as it is now. Mistakes were made for very much the same reasons. Oh dear,” she added, “I am thankful that that girl is safely in Bournemouth.”
“The girl? What girl?” asked Dermot.
“That girl who did dressmaking and went up to see Giuseppe that day. What was her name— Gladys something.”
“Gladys Dixon?”
“Yes, that’s the name.”
“She’s in Bournemouth, do you say? How on earth do you know that?”
“I know,” said Miss Marple, “because I sent her there.”
“What?” Dermot stared at her. “You? Why?”
“I went out to see her,” said Miss Marple, “and I gave her some money and told her to take a holiday and not to write home.”
“Why on earth did you do that?”
“Because I didn’t want her to be killed, of course,” said Miss Marple, and blinked at him placidly.
Twenty-two
“Such a sweet letter from Lady Conway,” Miss Knight said two days later as she deposited Miss Marple’s breakfast tray. “You remember my telling you about her? Just a little, you know—” she tapped her forehead—“wanders sometimes. And her memory’s bad. Can’t recognize her relations always and tells them to go away.”
“That might be shrewdness really,” said Miss Marple, “rather than a loss of memory.”
“Now, now,” said Miss Knight, “aren’t we being naughty to make suggestions like that? She’s spending the winter at the Belgrave Hotel at Llandudno. Such a nice residential hotel. Splendid grounds and a very nice glassed-in terrace. She’s most anxious for me to come and join her there.” She sighed.
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