The Thirteen Problems (miss marple)

by Agatha Christie

  'Dorothy agreed.

  '"A heap of fish," she said; "some nonsense like that. I could see at once he wasn't in his right mind, poor gentleman."

  'There didn't seem to be any sense to be made out of that. As a last resource I went up to see Brewster, who was a gaunt, middle-aged woman of about fifty.

  '"It is a pity that I wasn't here that night," she said, "Nobody seems to have tried to do anything for him until the doctor came."

  '"I suppose he was delirious," I said doubtfully, "but that is not a symptom of ptomaine poisoning, is it?"

  '"It depends," said Brewster.

  'I asked her how her patient was getting on.

  'She shook her head.

  '"He is pretty bad," she said.

  '"Weak?"

  '"Oh no, he is strong enough physically - all but his eyesight. That is failing badly. He may outlive all of us, but his mind is failing very fast now. I have already told both Mr and Mrs Denman that he ought to be in an institution, but Mrs Denman wouldn't hear of it at any price."

  'I will say for Mabel that she always had a kindly heart.

  'Well, there the thing was. I thought it over in every aspect, and at last I decided that there was only one thing to be done. In view of the rumours that were going about, permission must be applied for to exhume the body, and a proper post-mortem must be made and lying tongues quietened once and for all. Mabel, of course, made a fuss, mostly on sentimental grounds - disturbing the dead man in his peaceful grave, etc., etc. - but I was firm.

  'I won't make a long story of this part of it. We got the order and they did the autopsy, or whatever they call it, but the result was not so satisfactory as it might have been. There was no trace of arsenic - that was all to the good - but the actual words of the report were that there was nothing to show by what means deceased had come to his death.

  'So, you see, that didn't lead us out of trouble altogether. People went on talking - about rare poisons impossible to detect, and rubbish of that sort. I had seen the pathologist who had done the post-mortem, and I had asked him several questions, though he tried his best to get out of answering most of them; but I got out of him that he considered it highly unlikely that the poisoned mushrooms were the cause of death. An idea was simmering in my mind, and I asked him what poison, if any, could have been employed to obtain that result. He made a long explanation to me, most of which, I must admit, I did not follow, but it amounted to this: That death might have been due to some strong vegetable alkaloid.

  'The idea I had was this: Supposing the taint of insanity was in Geoffrey Denman's blood also, might he not have made away with himself? He had, at one period of his life, studied medicine, and he would have a good knowledge of poisons and their effects.

  'I didn't think it sounded very likely, but it was the only thing I could think of. And I was nearly at my wits' end, I can tell you. Now, I dare say you modern young people will laugh, but when I am in really bad trouble I always say a little prayer to myself - anywhere, when I am walking along the street, or at a bazaar. And I always get an answer. It may be some trifling thing, apparently quite unconnected with the subject, but there it is. I had that text pinned over my bed when I was a little girl: Ask and you shall receive. On the morning that I am telling you about, I was walking along the High Street, and I was praying hard. I shut my eyes, and when I opened them, what do you think was the first thing that I saw?

  'Five faces with varying degrees of interest were turned to Miss Marple. It may be safely assumed, however, that no one would have guessed the answer to the question right.

  'I saw,' said Miss Marple impressively, 'the window of the fishmonger's shop. There was only one thing in it, a fresh haddock.

  'She looked round triumphantly.

  'Oh, my God!' said Raymond West. 'An answer to prayer - a fresh haddock!'

  'Yes, Raymond,' said Miss Marple severely, 'and there is no need to be profane about it. The hand of God is everywhere. The first thing I saw were the black spots - the marks of St Peter's thumb. That is the legend, you know. St Peter's thumb. And that brought things home to me. I needed faith, the ever true faith of St Peter. I connected the two things together, faith - and fish.

  'Sir Henry blew his nose rather hurriedly. Joyce bit her lip.

  'Now what did that bring to my mind? Of course, both the cook and house-parlourmaid mentioned fish as being one of the things spoken of by the dying man. I was convinced, absolutely convinced, that there was some solution of the mystery to be found in these words. I went home determined to get to the bottom of the matter.

  'She paused.

  'Has it ever occurred to you,' the old lady went on, 'how much we go by what is called, I believe, the context? There is a place on Dartmoor called Grey Wethers. If you were talking to a farmer there and mentioned Grey Wethers, he would probably conclude that you were speaking of these stone circles, yet it is possible that you might be speaking of the atmosphere; and in the same way, if you were meaning the stone circles, an outsider, hearing a fragment of the conversation, might think you meant the weather. So when we repeat a conversation, we don't, as a rule, repeat the actual words; we put in some other words that seem to us to mean exactly the same thing.

  'I saw both the cook and Dorothy separately. I asked the cook if she was quite sure that her master had really mentioned a heap of fish. She said she was quite sure.

  '"Were these his exact words," I asked, "or did he mention some particular kind of fish?"

  '"That's it," said the cook; '

  'it was some particular kind of fish, but I can't remember what now. A heap of - now what was it? Not any of the fish you send to table. Would it be a perch now - or pike? No. It didn't begin with a P."

  'Dorothy also recalled that her master had mentioned some special kind of fish. "Some outlandish kind of fish it was," she said.

  '"A pile of - now what was it?"

  '"Did he say heap or pile?" I asked.

  '"I think he said pile. But there, I really can't be sure - it's so hard to remember the actual words, isn't it, Miss, especially when they don't seem to make sense. But now I come to think of it, I am pretty sure that it was a pile, and the fish began with C; but it wasn't a cod or a crayfish."

  'The next part is where I am really proud of myself,' said Miss Marple, 'because, of course, I don't know anything about drugs - nasty, dangerous things I call them. I have got an old recipe of my grandmother's for tansy tea that is worth any amount of your drugs. But I knew that there were several medical volumes in the house, and in one of them there was an index of drugs. You see, my idea was that Geoffrey had taken some particular poison, and was trying to say the name of it.

  'Well, I looked down the list of H's, beginning He. Nothing there that sounded likely; then I began on the P's, and almost at once I came to - what do you think?

  'She looked round, postponing her moment of triumph.

  'Pilocarpine. Can't you understand a man who could hardly speak trying to drag that word out? What would that sound like to a cook who had never heard the word? Wouldn't it convey the impression "pile of carp"?'

  'By Jove!' said Sir Henry.

  'I should never have hit upon that,' said Dr Pender.

  'Most interesting,' said Mr Petherick. 'Really most interesting.'

  'I turned quickly to the page indicated in the index. I read about pilocarpine and its effect on the eyes and other things that didn't seem to have any bearing on the case, but at last I came to a most significant phrase: Has been tried with success as an antidote for atropine poisoning.

  'I can't tell you the light that dawned upon me then. I never had thought it likely that Geoffrey Denman would commit suicide. No, this new solution was not only possible, but I was absolutely sure it was the correct one, because all the pieces fitted in logically.'

  'I am not going to try to guess,' said Raymond. 'Go on. Aunt Jane, and tell us what was so startlingly clear to you.'

  'I don't know anything about medicine, of course,' sai
d Miss Marple, 'but I did happen to know this, that when my eyesight was failing, the doctor ordered me drops with atropine sulphate in them. I went straight upstairs to old Mr Denman's room. I didn't beat about the bush.

  '"Mr Denman," I said, "I know everything. Why did you poison your son?"

  'He looked at me for a minute or two - rather a handsome old man he was, in his way - and then he burst out laughing. It was one of the most vicious laughs I have ever heard. I can assure you it made my flesh creep. I had only heard anything like it once before, when poor Mrs Jones went off her head.

  '"Yes," he said, "I got even with Geoffrey. I was too clever for Geoffrey. He was going to put me away, was he? Have me shut up in an asylum? I heard them talking about it. Mabel is a good girl - Mabel stuck up for me, but I knew she wouldn't be able to stand up against Geoffrey. In the end he would have his own way; he always did. But I settled him - I settled my kind, loving son! Ha, ha! I crept down in the night. It was quite easy. Brewster was away. My dear son was asleep; he had a glass of water by the side of his bed; he always woke up in the middle of the night and drank it off. I poured it away - ha, ha! - and I emptied the bottle of eyedrops into the glass. He would wake up and swill it down before he knew what it was. There was only a table-spoonful of it - quite enough, quite enough. And so he did! They came to me in the morning and broke it to me very gently. They were afraid it would upset me. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

  'Well,' said Miss Marple, 'that is the end of the story. Of course, the poor old man was put in an asylum. He wasn't really responsible for what he had done, and the truth was known, and everyone was sorry for Mabel and could not do enough to make up to her for the unjust suspicions they had had. But if it hadn't been for Geoffrey realizing what the stuff was he had swallowed and trying to get everybody to get hold of the antidote without delay, it might never have been found out. I believe there are very definite symptoms with atropine - dilated pupils of the eyes, and all that; but, of course, as I have said, Dr Rawlinson was very shortsighted, poor old man. And in the same medical book which I went on reading - and some of it was most interesting - it gave the symptoms of ptomaine poisoning and atropine, and they are not unlike. But I can assure you I have never seen a pile of fresh haddock without thinking of the thumb mark of St Peter.

  'There was a very long pause.

  'My dear friend,' said Mr Petherick. 'My very dear friend, you really are amazing.'

  'I shall recommend Scotland Yard to come to you for advice,' said Sir Henry.

  'Well, at all events, Aunt Jane,' said Raymond, 'there is one thing that you don't know.'

  'Oh, yes, I do, dear,' said Miss Marple. 'It happened just before dinner, didn't it? When you took Joyce out to admire the sunset. It is a very favourite place, that. There by the jasmine hedge. That is where the milkman asked Annie if he could put up the banns.'

  'Dash it all, Aunt Jane,' said Raymond, 'don't spoil all the romance. Joyce and I aren't like the milkman and Annie.'

  'That is where you make a mistake, dear,' said Miss Marple. 'Everybody is very much alike, really. But fortunately, perhaps, they don't realize it.'

  The Blue Geranium

  'When I was down here last year -' said Sir Henry Clithering, and stopped.

  His hostess, Mrs Bantry, looked at him curiously.

  The Ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard was staying with old friends of his, Colonel and Mrs Bantry, who lived near St Mary Mead.

  Mrs Bantry, pen in hand, had just asked his advice as to who should be invited to make a sixth guest at dinner that evening.

  'Yes?' said Mrs Bantry encouragingly. 'When you were here last year?'

  'Tell me,' said Sir Henry, 'do you know a Miss Marple?

  'Mrs Bantry was surprised. It was the last thing she had expected.

  'Know Miss Marple? Who doesn't! The typical old maid of fiction. Quite a dear, but hopelessly behind the times. Do you mean you would like me to ask her to dinner?'

  'You are surprised?'

  'A little, I must confess. I should hardly have thought you - but perhaps there's an explanation?'

  'The explanation is simple enough. When I was down here last year we got into the habit of discussing unsolved mysteries - there were five or six of us - Raymond West, the novelist, started it. We each supplied a story to which we knew the answer, but nobody else did. It was supposed to be an exercise in the deductive faculties - to see who could get nearest the truth.'

  'Well?'

  'Like in the old story - we hardly realized that Miss Marple was playing; but we were very polite about it - didn't want to hurt the old dear's feelings. And now comes the cream of the jest. The old lady outdid us every time!'

  'What?'

  'I assure you - straight to the truth like a homing pigeon.'

  'But how extraordinary! Why, dear old Miss Marple has hardly ever been out of St Mary Mead.'

  'Ah! But according to her, that has given her unlimited opportunities of observing human nature - under the microscope as it were.'

  'I suppose there's something in that,' conceded Mrs Bantry. 'One would at least know the petty side of people. But I don't think we have any really exciting criminals in our midst. I think we must try her with Arthur's ghost story after dinner. I'd be thankful if she'd find a solution to that.'

  'I didn't know that Arthur believed in ghosts?'

  'Oh! he doesn't. That's what worries him so. And it happened to a friend of his, George Pritchard - a most prosaic person. It's really rather tragic for poor George. Either this extraordinary story is true - or else - '

  'Or else what?

  'Mrs Bantry did not answer. After a minute or two she said irrelevantly: 'You know, I like George - everyone does. One can't believe that he - but people do do such extraordinary things.

  'Sir Henry nodded. He knew, better than Mrs Bantry, the extraordinary things that people did.

  So it came about that that evening Mrs Bantry looked round her dinner table (shivering a little as she did so, because the dining-room, like most English dining-rooms, was extremely cold) and fixed her gaze on the very upright old lady sitting on her husband's right. Miss Marple wore black lace mittens; an old lace fichu was draped round her shoulders and another piece of lace surmounted her white hair. She was talking animatedly to the elderly doctor, Dr Lloyd, about the Workhouse and the suspected shortcomings of the District Nurse.

  Mrs Bantry marvelled anew. She even wondered whether Sir Henry had been making an elaborate joke - but there seemed no point in that. Incredible that what he had said could be really true.

  Her glance went on and rested affectionately on her red-faced, broad-shouldered husband as he sat talking horses to Jane Helier, the beautiful and popular actress. Jane, more beautiful (if that were possible) off the stage than on, opened enormous blue eyes and murmured at discreet intervals: 'Really?' 'Oh fancy!' 'How extraordinary!' She knew nothing whatever about horses and cared less.

  'Arthur,' said Mrs Bantry, 'you're boring poor Jane to distraction. Leave horses alone and tell her your ghost story instead. You know... George Pritchard.'

  'Eh, Dolly? Oh! but I don't know- '

  'Sir Henry wants to hear it too. I was telling him something about it this morning. It would be interesting to hear what everyone has to say about it.'

  'Oh do!' said Jane. 'I love ghost stories.'

  'Well - ' Colonel Bantry hesitated. 'I've never believed much in the supernatural. But this -

  'I don't think any of you know George Pritchard. He's one of the best. His wife - well, she's dead now, poor woman. I'll just say this much: she didn't give George any too easy a time when she was alive. She was one of those semi-invalids - I believe she had really something wrong with her, but whatever it was she played it for all it was worth. She was capricious, exacting, unreasonable. She complained from morning to night. George was expected to wait on her hand and foot and everything he did was always wrong and he got cursed for it. Most men, I'm fully convinced, would have hit her over the head with a hatche
t long ago. Eh, Dolly, isn't that so?'

  'She was a dreadful woman,' said Mrs Bantry with conviction. 'If George Pritchard had brained her with a hatchet and there had been any woman on the jury, he would have been triumphantly acquitted.'

  'I don't quite know how this business started. George was rather vague about it. I gather Mrs Pritchard had always had a weakness for fortune tellers, palmists, clairvoyants - anything of that sort. George didn't mind. If she found amusement in it, well and good. But he refused to go into rhapsodies himself, and that was another grievance.

  'A succession of hospital nurses was always passing through the house, Mrs Pritchard usually becoming dissatisfied with them after a few weeks. One young nurse had been very keen on this fortune telling stunt, and for a time Mrs Pritchard had been very fond of her. Then she suddenly fell out with her and insisted on her going. She had back another nurse who had been with her previously - an older woman, experienced and tactful in dealing with a neurotic patient. Nurse Copling, according to George, was a very good sort - a sensible woman to talk to. She put up with Mrs Pritchard's tantrums and nervestorms with complete indifference.

  'Mrs Pritchard always lunched upstairs, and it was usual at lunch time for George and the nurse to come to some arrangement for the afternoon. Strictly speaking, the nurse went off from two to four, but 'to oblige' as the phrase goes, she would sometimes take her time off after tea if George wanted to be free for the afternoon. On this occasion, she mentioned that she was going to see a sister at Golders Green and might be a little late returning. George's face fell, for he had arranged to play a round of golf. Nurse Copling, however, reassured him.

  '"We'll neither of us be missed, Mr Pritchard." A twinkle came into her eye. "Mrs Pritchard's going to have more exciting company than ours."

  '"Who's that?"

  '"Wait a minute," Nurse Copling's eyes twinkled more than ever. "Let me get it right. Zarida, Psychic Reader of the Future."

  '"Oh Lord!" groaned George. "That's a new one, isn't it?"

  '"Quite new. I believe my predecessor, Nurse Carstairs, sent her along. Mrs Pritchard hasn't seen her yet. She made me write, fixing an appointment for this afternoon."