The inspector nodded. “I see. And no doctor had prescribed anything of this kind for her?”
“No. Certainly not. I’m sure of that.”
“Who was her doctor?”
“She was on Dr. Sim’s panel, but I don’t think she’s been to him once since we’ve been here.”
Inspector Cornish said thoughtfully, “So she doesn’t seem the kind of woman to have been likely to need such a thing, or to have taken it?”
“She didn’t, Inspector, I’m sure she didn’t. She must have taken it by a mistake of some kind.”
“It’s a very difficult mistake to imagine,” said Inspector Cornish. “What did she have to eat and drink that afternoon?”
“Well, let me see. For lunch—”
“You needn’t go back as far as lunch,” said Cornish. “Given in such quantity the drug would act quickly and suddenly. Tea. Go back to tea.”
“Well, we went into the marquee in the grounds. It was a terrible scrum in there, but we managed in the end to get a bun each and a cup of tea. We finished it as quickly as possible because it was very hot in the marquee and we came out again.”
“And that’s all she had, a bun and a cup of tea there?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“And after that you went into the house. Is that right?”
“Yes. The young lady came and said that Miss Marina Gregg would be very pleased to see my wife if she would like to come into the house. Of course my wife was delighted. She had been talking about Marina Gregg for days. Everybody was excited. Oh well, you know that, Inspector, as well as anyone does.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Cornish. “My wife was excited, too. Why, from all around people were paying their shilling to go in and see Gossington Hall and what had been done there, and hoped to catch a glimpse of Marina Gregg herself.”
“The young lady took us into the house,” said Arthur Badcock, “and up the stairs. That’s where the party was. On the landing up there. But it looked quite different from what it used to look like, so I understand. It was more like a room, a sort of big hollowed out place with chairs and tables with drinks on them. There were about ten or twelve people there, I suppose.”
Inspector Cornish nodded. “And you were received there—by whom?”
“By Miss Marina Gregg herself. Her husband was with her. I’ve forgotten his name now.”
“Jason Rudd,” said Inspector Cornish.
“Oh, yes, not that I noticed him at first. Well, anyway, Miss Gregg greeted Heather very nicely and seemed very pleased to see her, and Heather was talking and telling a story of how she’d once met Miss Gregg years ago in the West Indies and everything seemed as right as rain.”
“Everything seemed as right as rain,” echoed the inspector. “And then?”
“And then Miss Gregg said what would we have? And Miss Gregg’s husband, Mr. Rudd, got Heather a kind of cocktail, a dickery or something like that.”
“A daiquiri.”
“That’s right, sir. He brought two. One for her and one for Miss Gregg.”
“And you, what did you have?”
“I had a sherry.”
“I see. And you three stood there drinking together?”
“Well, not quite like that. You see there were more people coming up the stairs. There was the mayor, for one, and some other people—an American gentleman and lady, I think—so we moved off a bit.”
“And your wife drank her daiquiri then?”
“Well, no, not then, she didn’t.”
“Well, if she didn’t drink it then, when did she drink it?”
Arthur Badcock stood frowning in remembrance. “I think—she set it down on one of the tables. She saw some friends there. I think it was someone to do with the St. John Ambulance who’d driven over there from Much Benham or somewhere like that. Anyway they got to talking together.”
“And when did she drink her drink?”
Arthur Badcock again frowned. “It was a little after that,” he said. “It was getting rather more crowded by then. Somebody jogged Heather’s elbow and her glass got spilt.”
“What’s that?” Inspector Cornish looked up sharply. “Her glass was spilt?”
“Yes, that’s how I remember it… She’d picked it up and I think she took a little sip and made rather a face. She didn’t really like cocktails, you know, but all the same she wasn’t going to be downed by that. Anyway, as she stood there, somebody jogged her elbow and the glass spilled over. It went down her dress and I think it went on Miss Gregg’s dress too. Miss Gregg couldn’t have been nicer. She said it didn’t matter at all and it would make no stain and she gave Heather her handkerchief to wipe up Heather’s dress, and then she passed over the drink she was holding and said, ‘Have this, I haven’t touched it yet.’”
“She handed over her own drink, did she?” said the inspector. “You’re quite sure of that?”
Arthur Badcock paused a moment while he thought. “Yes, I’m quite sure of that,” he said.
“And your wife took the drink?”
“Well, she didn’t want to at first, sir. She said ‘Oh no, I couldn’t do that’ and Miss Gregg laughed and said, ‘I’ve had far too much to drink already.’”
“And so your wife took that glass and did what with it?”
“She turned away a little and drank it, rather quickly, I think. And then we walked a little way along the corridor looking at some of the pictures and the curtains. Lovely curtain stuff it was, like nothing we’d seen before. Then I met a pal of mine, Councillor Allcock, and I was just passing the time of day with him when I looked round and saw Heather was sitting on a chair looking rather odd, so I came to her and said, ‘What’s the matter?’ She said she felt a little queer.”
“What kind of queerness?”
“I don’t know, sir. I didn’t have time. Her voice sounded very queer and thick and her head was rolling a little. All of a sudden she made a great half gasp and her head fell forward. She was dead, sir, dead.”
Eight
I
“St. Mary Mead, you say?” Chief-Inspector Craddock looked up sharply.
The assistant commissioner was a little surprised.
“Yes,” he said, “St. Mary Mead. Why? Does it—”
“Nothing really,” said Dermot Craddock.
“It’s quite a small place, I understand,” went on the other. “Though of course there’s a great deal of building development going on there now. Practically all the way from St. Mary Mead to Much Benham, I understand. Hellingforth Studios,” he added, “are on the other side of St. Mary Mead, towards Market Basing.” He was still looking slightly inquiring. Dermot Craddock felt that he should perhaps explain.
“I know someone living there,” he said. “At St. Mary Mead. An old lady. A very old lady by now. Perhaps she’s dead, I don’t know. But if not—”
The assistant commissioner took his subordinate’s point, or at any rate he thought he did.
“Yes,” he said, “it would give you an ‘in’ in a way. One needs a bit of local gossip. The whole thing is a curious business.”
“The County have called us in?” Dermot asked.
“Yes. I’ve got the chief constable’s letter here. They don’t seem to feel that it’s necessarily a local affair. The largest house in the neighbourhood, Gossington Hall, was recently sold as a residence for Marina Gregg, the film star, and her husband. They’re shooting a film at their new studios, at Hellingforth, in which she is starring. A fête was held in the grounds in aid of the St. John Ambulance. The dead woman—her name is Mrs. Heather Badcock—was the local secretary of this and had done most of the administrative work for the fête. She seems to have been a competent, sensible person, well liked locally.”
“One of those bossy women?” suggested Craddock.
“Very possibly,” said the assistant commissioner. “Still in my experience, bossy women seldom get themselves murdered. I can’t think why not. When you come to think of it, it’s rathe
r a pity. There was a record attendance at the fête, it seems, good weather, everything running to plan. Marina Gregg and her husband held a kind of small private reception in Gossington Hall. About thirty or forty people attended this. The local notables, various people connected with the St. John Ambulance Association, several friends of Marina Gregg herself, and a few people connected with the studios. All very peaceful, nice and happy. But, fantastically and improbably, Heather Badcock was poisoned there.”
Dermot Craddock said thoughtfully, “An odd place to choose.”
“That’s the chief constable’s point of view. If anyone wanted to poison Heather Badcock, why choose that particular afternoon and circumstances? Hundreds of much simpler ways of doing it. A risky business anyway, you know, to slip a dose of deadly poison into a cocktail in the middle of twenty or thirty people milling about. Somebody ought to have seen something.”
“It definitely was in the drink?”
“Yes, it was definitely in the drink. We have the particulars here. One of those inexplicable names that doctors delight in, but actually a fairly common prescription in America.”
“In America. I see.”
“Oh, this country too. But these things are handed out much more freely on the other side of the Atlantic. Taken in small doses, beneficial.”
“Supplied on prescription or can it be bought freely?”
“No. You have to have a prescription.”
“Yes, it’s odd,” said Dermot. “Heather Badcock have any connection with these film people?”
“None whatever.”
“Any member of her own family at this do?”
“Her husband.”
“Her husband,” said Dermot thoughtfully.
“Yes, one always thinks that way,” agreed his superior officer, “but the local man—Cornish, I think his name is—doesn’t seem to think there’s anything in that, although he does report that Badcock seemed ill at ease and nervous, but he agrees that respectable people often are like that when interviewed by the police. They appear to have been quite a devoted couple.”
“In other words, the police there don’t think it’s their pigeon. Well, it ought to be interesting. I take it I’m going down there, sir?”
“Yes. Better get there as soon as possible, Dermot. Who do you want with you?”
Dermot considered for a moment or two.
“Tiddler, I think,” he said thoughtfully. “He’s a good man and, what’s more, he’s a film star. That might come in useful.”
The assistant commissioner nodded. “Good luck to you,” he said.
II
“Well!” exclaimed Miss Marple, going pink with pleasure and surprise. “This is a surprise. How are you, my dear boy—though you’re hardly a boy now. What are you—a Chief-Inspector or this new thing they call a Commander?”
Dermot explained his present rank.
“I suppose I need hardly ask what you are doing down here,” said Miss Marple. “Our local murder is considered worthy of the attention of Scotland Yard.”
“They handed it over to us,” said Dermot, “and so, naturally, as soon as I got down here I came to headquarters.”
“Do you mean—” Miss Marple fluttered a little.
“Yes, Aunty,” said Dermot disrespectfully. “I mean you.”
“I’m afraid,” said Miss Marple regretfully, “I’m very much out of things nowadays. I don’t get out much.”
“You get out enough to fall down and be picked up by a woman who’s going to be murdered ten days later,” said Dermot Craddock.
Miss Marple made the kind of noise that would once have been written down as “tut-tut.”
“I don’t know where you hear these things,” she said.
“You should know,” said Dermot Craddock. “You told me yourself that in a village everybody knows everything.
“And just off the record,” he added, “did you think she was going to be murdered as soon as you looked at her?”
“Of course not, of course not,” exclaimed Miss Marple. “What an idea!”
“You didn’t see that look in her husband’s eye that reminded you of Harry Simpson or David Jones or somebody you’ve known years ago, and subsequently pushed his wife off a precipice.”
“No, I did not!” said Miss Marple. “I’m sure Mr. Badcock would never do a wicked thing of that kind. At least,” she added thoughtfully, “I’m nearly sure.”
“But human nature being what it is—” murmured Craddock, wickedly.
“Exactly,” said Miss Marple. She added, “I daresay, after the first natural grief, he won’t miss her very much….”
“Why? Did she bully him?”
“Oh no,” said Miss Marple, “but I don’t think that she—well, she wasn’t a considerate woman. Kind, yes. Considerate—no. She would be fond of him and look after him when he was ill and see to his meals and be a good housekeeper, but I don’t think she would ever—well, that she would ever even know what he might be feeling or thinking. That makes rather a lonely life for a man.”
“Ah,” said Dermot, “and is his life less likely to be lonely in future?”
“I expect he’ll marry again,” said Miss Marple. “Perhaps quite soon. And probably, which is such a pity, a woman of much the same type. I mean he’ll marry someone with a stronger personality than his own.”
“Anyone in view?” asked Dermot.
“Not that I know of,” said Miss Marple. She added regretfully, “But I know so little.”
“Well, what do you think?” urged Dermot Craddock. “You’ve never been backward in thinking things.”
“I think,” said Miss Marple, unexpectedly, “that you ought to go and see Mrs. Bantry.”
“Mrs. Bantry? Who is she? One of the film lot?”
“No,” said Miss Marple, “she lives in the East Lodge at Gossington. She was at the party that day. She used to own Gossington at one time. She and her husband, Colonel Bantry.”
“She was at the party. And she saw something?”
“I think she must tell you herself what it was she saw. You mayn’t think it has any bearing on the matter, but I think it might be—just might be—suggestive. Tell her I sent you to her and—ah yes, perhaps you’d better just mention the Lady of Shalott.”
Dermot Craddock looked at her with his head just slightly on one side.
“The Lady of Shalott,” he said. “Those are the code words, are they?”
“I don’t know that I should put it that way,” said Miss Marple, “but it will remind her of what I mean.”
Dermot Craddock got up. “I shall be back,” he warned her.
“That is very nice of you,” said Miss Marple. “Perhaps if you have time, you would come and have tea with me one day. If you still drink tea,” she added rather wistfully. “I know that so many young people nowadays only go out to drinks and things. They think that afternoon tea is a very outmoded affair.”
“I’m not as young as all that,” said Dermot Craddock. “Yes, I’ll come and have tea with you one day. We’ll have tea and gossip and talk about the village. Do you know any of the film stars, by the way, or any of the studio lot?”
“Not a thing,” said Miss Marple, “except what I hear,” she added.
“Well, you usually hear a good deal,” said Dermot Craddock. “Goodbye. It’s been very nice to see you.”
III
“Oh, how do you do?” said Mrs. Bantry, looking slightly taken aback when Dermot Craddock had introduced himself and explained who he was. “How very exciting to see you. Don’t you always have sergeants with you?”
“I’ve got a sergeant down here, yes,” said Craddock. “But he’s busy.”
“On routine inquiries?” asked Mrs. Bantry, hopefully.
“Something of the kind,” said Dermot gravely.
“And Jane Marple sent you to me,” said Mrs. Bantry, as she ushered him into her small sitting room. “I was just arranging some flowers,” she explained. “It’s one of those days when
flowers won’t do anything you want them to. They fall out, or stick up where they shouldn’t stick up or won’t lie down where you want them to lie down. So I’m thankful to have a distraction, and especially such an exciting one. So it really was murder, was it?”
“Did you think it was murder?”
“Well, it could have been an accident, I suppose,” said Mrs. Bantry. “Nobody’s said anything definite, officially, that is. Just that rather silly piece about no evidence to show by whom or in what way the poison was administered. But, of course, we all talk about it as murder.”
“And about who did it?”
“That’s the odd part of it,” said Mrs. Bantry. “We don’t. Because I really don’t see who can have done it.”
“You mean as a matter of definite physical fact you don’t see who could have done it?”
“Well, no, not that. I suppose it would have been difficult but not impossible. No, I mean, I don’t see who could have wanted to do it.”
“Nobody, you think, could have wanted to kill Heather Badcock?”
“Well, frankly,” said Mrs. Bantry, “I can’t imagine anybody wanting to kill Heather Badcock. I’ve seen her quite a few times, on local things, you know. Girl guides and the St. John Ambulance, and various parish things. I found her a rather trying sort of woman. Very enthusiastic about everything and a bit given to over-statement, and just a little bit of a gusher. But you don’t want to murder people for that. She was the kind of woman who in the old days if you’d seen her approaching the front door, you’d have hurried out to say to your parlourmaid—which was an institution we had in those days, and very useful too—and told her to say ‘not at home’ or ‘not at home to visitors,’ if she had conscientious scruples about the truth.”
“You mean that one might take pains to avoid Mrs. Badcock, but one would have no urge to remove her permanently.”
“Very well put,” said Mrs. Bantry, nodding approval.
“She had no money to speak of,” mused Dermot, “so nobody stood to gain by her death. Nobody seems to have disliked her to the point of hatred. I don’t suppose she was blackmailing anybody?”
“She wouldn’t have dreamed of doing such a thing, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Bantry. “She was the conscientious and high-principled kind.”
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