A Murder Is Announced

by Agatha Christie

  “No—no, perhaps not, but I didn’t see anything, the torch went round and round—”

  “Showing you what? It rested on faces, didn’t it? And on tables? And on chairs?”

  “Yes—yes, it did … Miss Bunner, her mouth wide open and her eyes popping out of her head, staring and blinking.”

  “That’s the stuff!” Miss Hinchcliffe gave a sigh of relief. “The difficulty there is in making you use that grey fluff of yours! Now then, keep it up.”

  “But I didn’t see any more, I didn’t, really.”

  “You mean you saw an empty room? Nobody standing about? Nobody sitting down?”

  “No, of course not that. Miss Bunner with her mouth open and Mrs. Harmon was sitting on the arm of a chair. She had her eyes tight shut and her knuckles all doubled up to her face—like a child.”

  “Good, that’s Mrs. Harmon and Miss Bunner. Don’t you see yet what I’m getting at? The difficulty is that I don’t want to put ideas into your head. But when we’ve eliminated who you did see—we can get on to the important point which is, was there anyone you didn’t see. Got it? Besides the tables and the chairs and the chrysanthemums and the rest of it, there were certain people: Julia Simmons, Mrs. Swettenham, Mrs. Easterbrook—either Colonel Easterbrook or Edmund Swettenham—Dora Bunner and Bunch Harmon. All right, you saw Bunch Harmon and Dora Bunner. Cross them off. Now think, Murgatroyd, think, was there one of those people who definitely wasn’t there?”

  Miss Murgatroyd jumped slightly as a branch knocked against the open window. She shut her eyes. She murmured to herself….

  “The flowers … on the table … the big armchair … the torch didn’t come round as far as you, Hinch—Mrs. Harmon, yes….”

  The telephone rang sharply. Miss Hinchcliffe went to it.

  “Hallo, yes? The station?”

  The obedient Miss Murgatroyd, her eyes closed, was reliving the night of the 29th. The torch, sweeping slowly round … a group of people … the windows … the sofa … Dora Bunner … the wall … the table with lamp … the archway … the sudden spat of the revolver….

  “… but that’s extraordinary!” said Miss Murgatroyd.

  “What?” Miss Hinchcliffe was barking angrily into the telephone. “Been there since this morning? What time? Damn and blast you, and you only ring me up now? I’ll set the S.P.C.A. after you. An oversight? Is that all you’ve got to say?”

  She banged down the receiver.

  “It’s that dog,” she said. “The red setter. Been at the station since this morning—since this morning at eight o’clock. Without a drop of water! And the idiots only ring me up now. I’m going to get her right away.”

  She plunged out of the room, Miss Murgatroyd squeaking shrilly in her wake.

  “But listen, Hinch, a most extraordinary thing … I don’t understand it….”

  Miss Hinchcliffe had dashed out of the door and across to the shed which served as a garage.

  “We’ll go on with it when I come back,” she called. “I can’t wait for you to come with me. You’ve got your bedroom slippers on as usual.”

  She pressed the starter of the car and backed out of the garage with a jerk. Miss Murgatroyd skipped nimbly sideways.

  “But listen, Hinch, I must tell you—”

  “When I come back….”

  The car jerked and shot forwards. Miss Murgatroyd’s voice came faintly after it on a high excited note.

  “But, Hinch, she wasn’t there. …”

  III

  Overhead the clouds had been gathering thick and blue. As Miss Murgatroyd stood looking after the retreating car, the first big drops began to fall.

  In an agitated fashion, Miss Murgatroyd plunged across to a line of string on which she had, some hours previously, hung out a couple of jumpers and a pair of woollen combinations to dry.

  She was murmuring under her breath:

  “Really most extraordinary … Oh, dear, I shall never get these down in time—and they were nearly dry….”

  She struggled with a recalcitrant clothes peg, then turned her head as she heard someone approaching.

  Then she smiled a pleased welcome.

  “Hallo—do go inside, you’ll get wet.”

  “Let me help you.”

  “Oh, if you don’t mind … so annoying if they all get soaked again. I really ought to let down the line, but I think I can just reach.”

  “Here’s your scarf. Shall I put it round your neck?”

  “Oh, thank you … Yes, perhaps … If I could just reach this peg….”

  The woollen scarf was slipped round her neck and then, suddenly, pulled tight….

  Miss Murgatroyd’s mouth opened, but no sound came except a small choking gurgle.

  And the scarf was pulled tighter still….

  IV

  On her way back from the station, Miss Hinchcliffe stopped the car to pick up Miss Marple who was hurrying along the street.

  “Hallo,” she shouted. “You’ll get very wet. Come and have tea with us. I saw Bunch waiting for the bus. You’ll be all alone at the Vicarage. Come and join us. Murgatroyd and I are doing a bit of reconstruction of the crime. I rather think we’re just getting somewhere. Mind the dog. She’s rather nervous.”

  “What a beauty!”

  “Yes, lovely bitch, isn’t she! Those fools kept her at the station since this morning without letting me know. I told them off, the lazy b—s. Oh, excuse my language. I was brought up by grooms at home in Ireland.”

  The little car turned with a jerk into the small backyard of Boulders.

  A crowd of eager ducks and fowls encircled the two ladies as they descended.

  “Curse Murgatroyd,” said Miss Hinchcliffe, “she hasn’t given ’em their corn.”

  “Is it difficult to get corn?” Miss Marple inquired.

  Miss Hincliffe winked.

  “I’m in with most of the farmers,” she said.

  Shooing away the hens, she escorted Miss Marple towards the cottage.

  “Hope you’re not too wet?”

  “No, this is a very good mackintosh.”

  “I’ll light the fire if Murgatroyd hasn’t lit it. Hiyah, Murgatroyd? Where is the woman? Murgatroyd! Where’s that dog? She’s disappeared now.”

  A slow dismal howl came from outside.

  “Curse the silly bitch.” Miss Hinchcliffe tramped to the door and called:

  “Hyoup, Cutie—Cutie. Damn” silly name but that’s what they called her apparently. We must find her another name. Hiyah, Cutie.”

  The red setter was sniffing at something lying below the taut string where a row of garments swirled in the wind.

  “Murgatroyd’s not even had the sense to bring the washing in. Where is she?”

  Again the red setter nosed at what seemed to be a pile of clothes, and raised her nose high in the air and howled again.

  “What’s the matter with the dog?”

  Miss Hinchcliffe strode across the grass.

  And quickly, apprehensively, Miss Marple ran after her. They stood there, side by side, the rain beating down on them, and the older woman’s arm went round the younger one’s shoulders.

  She felt the muscles go stiff and taut as Miss Hinchcliffe stood looking down on the thing lying there, with the blue congested face and the protruding tongue.

  “I’ll kill whoever did this,” said Miss Hinchcliffe in a low quiet voice, “if I once get my hands on her….”

  Miss Marple said questioningly:

  “Her?”

  Miss Hinchcliffe turned a ravaged face towards her.

  “Yes. I know who it is—near enough … That is, it’s one of three possibles.”

  She stood for another moment, looking down at her dead friend, and then turned towards the house. Her voice was dry and hard.

  “We must ring up the police,” she said. “And while we’re waiting for them, I’ll tell you. My fault, in a way, that Murgatroyd’s lying out there. I made a game of it … Murder isn’t a game….”

/>   “No,” said Miss Marple. “Murder isn’t a game.”

  “You know something about it, don’t you?” said Miss Hinchcliffe as she lifted the receiver and dialled.

  She made a brief report and hung up.

  “They’ll be here in a few minutes … Yes, I heard that you’d been mixed up in this sort of business before … I think it was Edmund Swettenham told me so … Do you want to hear what we were doing, Murgatroyd and I?”

  Succinctly she described the conversation held before her departure for the station.

  “She called after me, you know, just as I was leaving … That’s how I know it’s a woman and not a man … If I’d waited—if only I’d listened! God dammit, the dog could have stopped where she was for another quarter of an hour.”

  “Don’t blame yourself, my dear. That does no good. One can’t foresee.”

  “No, one can’t … Something tapped against the window, I remember. Perhaps she was outside there, then—yes, of course, she must have been … coming to the house … and there were Murgatroyd and I shouting at each other. Top of our voices … She heard … She heard it all….”

  “You haven’t told me yet what your friend said.”

  “Just one sentence! ‘She wasn’t there.’”

  She paused. “You see? There were three women we hadn’t eliminated. Mrs. Swettenham, Mrs. Easterbrook, Julia Simmons. And one of those three—wasn’t there … She wasn’t there in the drawing room because she had slipped out through the other door and was out in the hall.”

  “Yes,” said Miss Marple, “I see.”

  “It’s one of those three women. I don’t know which. But I’ll find out!”

  “Excuse me,” said Miss Marple. “But did she—did Miss Murgatroyd, I mean, say it exactly as you said it?”

  “How d’you mean—as I said it?”

  “Oh, dear, how can I explain? You said it like this. She-wasn’t-there. An equal emphasis on every word. You see, there are three ways you could say it. You could say, ‘She wasn’t there.’ Very personal. Or again, ‘She wasn’t there.’ Confirming, some suspicion already held. Or else you could say (and this is nearer to the way you said it just now), ‘She wasn’t there…’ quite blankly—with the emphasis, if there was emphasis—on the ‘there.’”

  “I don’t know.” Miss Hinchcliffe shook her head. “I can’t remember … How the hell can I remember? I think, yes, surely she’d say “She wasn’t there.’ That would be the natural way, I should think. But I simply don’t know. Does it make any difference?”

  “Yes,” said Miss Marple, thoughtfully. “I think so. It’s a very slight indication, of course, but I think it is an indication. Yes, I should think it makes a lot of difference….”

  Twenty

  MISS MARPLE IS MISSING

  I

  The postman, rather to his disgust, had lately been given orders to make an afternoon delivery of letters in Chipping Cleghorn as well as a morning one.

  On this particular afternoon he left three letters at Little Paddocks at exactly ten minutes to five.

  One was addressed to Phillipa Haymes in a schoolboy’s hand; the other two were for Miss Blacklock. She opened them as she and Phillipa sat down at the tea table. The torrential rain had enabled Phillipa to leave Dayas Hall early today, since once she had shut up the greenhouses there was nothing more to do.

  Miss Blacklock tore open her first letter which was a bill for repairing a kitchen boiler. She snorted angrily.

  “Dymond’s prices are preposterous—quite preposterous. Still, I suppose all the other people are just as bad.”

  She opened the second letter which was in a handwriting quite unknown to her.

  Dear Cousin Letty (it said),

  I hope it will be all right for me to come to you on Tuesday? I wrote to Patrick two days ago but he hasn’t answered. So I presume it’s all right. Mother is coming to England next month and hopes to see you then.

  My train arrives at Chipping Cleghorn at 6:15 if that’s convenient?

  Yours affectionately,

  Julia Simmons.

  Miss Blacklock read the letter once with astonishment pure and simple, and then again with a certain grimness. She looked up at Phillipa who was smiling over her son’s letter.

  “Are Julia and Patrick back, do you know?”

  Phillipa looked up.

  “Yes, they came in just after I did. They went upstairs to change. They were wet.”

  “Perhaps you’d not mind going and calling them.”

  “Of course I will.”

  “Wait a moment—I’d like you to read this.”

  She handed Phillipa the letter she had received.

  Phillipa read it and frowned. “I don’t understand….”

  “Nor do I, quite … I think it’s about time I did. Call Patrick and Julia, Phillipa.”

  Phillipa called from the bottom of the stairs:

  “Patrick! Julia! Miss Blacklock wants you.”

  Patrick came running down the stairs and entered the room.

  “Don’t go, Phillipa,” said Miss Blacklock.

  “Hallo, Aunt Letty,” said Patrick cheerfully. “Want me?”

  “Yes, I do. Perhaps you’ll give me an explanation of this?”

  Patrick’s face showed an almost comical dismay as he read.

  “I meant to telegraph her! What an ass I am!”

  “This letter, I presume, is from your sister Julia?”

  “Yes—yes, it is.”

  Miss Blacklock said grimly:

  “Then who, may I ask, is the young woman whom you brought here as Julia Simmons, and whom I was given to understand was your sister and my cousin?”

  “Well—you see—Aunt Letty—the fact of the matter is—I can explain it all—I know I oughtn’t to have done it—but it really seemed more of a lark than anything else. If you’ll just let me explain—”

  “I am waiting for you to explain. Who is this young woman?”

  “Well, I met her at a cocktail party soon after I got demobbed. We got talking and I said I was coming here and then—well, we thought it might be rather a good wheeze if I brought her along … You see, Julia, the real Julia, was mad to go on the stage and Mother had seven fits at the idea—however, Julia got a chance to join a jolly good repertory company up in Perth or somewhere and she thought she’d give it a try—but she thought she’d keep Mum calm by letting Mum think that she was here with me studying to be a dispenser like a good little girl.”

  “I still want to know who this other young woman is.”

  Patrick turned with relief as Julia, cool and aloof, came into the room.

  “The balloon’s gone up,” he said.

  Julia raised her eyebrows. Then, still cool, she came forward and sat down.

  “O.K.,” she said. “That’s that. I suppose you’re very angry?” She studied Miss Blacklock’s face with almost dispassionate interest. “I should be if I were you.”

  “Who are you?”

  Julia sighed.

  “I think the moment’s come when I make a clean breast of things. Here we go. I’m one half of the Pip and Emma combination. To be exact, my christened name is Emma Jocelyn Stamfordis—only Father soon dropped the Stamfordis. I think he called himself De Courcy next.

  “My father and mother, let me tell you, split up about three years after Pip and I were born. Each of them went their own way. And they split us up. I was Father’s part of the loot. He was a bad parent on the whole, though quite a charming one. I had various desert spells of being educated in convents—when Father hadn’t any money, or was preparing to engage in some particularly nefarious deal. He used to pay the first term with every sign of affluence and then depart and leave me on the nuns’ hands for a year or two. In the intervals, he and I had some very good times together, moving in cosmopolitan society. However, the war separated us completely. I’ve no idea of what’s happened to him. I had a few adventures myself. I was with the French Resistance for a time. Quite exciting. To c
ut a long story short, I landed up in London and began to think about my future. I knew that Mother’s brother with whom she’d had a frightful row had died a very rich man. I looked up his will to see if there was anything for me. There wasn’t—not directly, that is to say. I made a few inquiries about his widow—it seemed she was quite ga-ga and kept under drugs and was dying by inches. Frankly, it looked as though you were my best bet. You were going to come into a hell of a lot of money and from all I could find out, you didn’t seem to have anyone much to spend it on. I’ll be quite frank. It occurred to me that if I could get to know you in a friendly kind of way, and if you took a fancy to me—well, after all, conditions have changed a bit, haven’t they, since Uncle Randall died? I mean any money we ever had has been swept away in the cataclysm of Europe. I thought you might pity a poor orphan girl, all alone in the world, and make her, perhaps, a small allowance.”

  “Oh, you did, did you?” said Miss Blacklock grimly.

  “Yes. Of course, I hadn’t seen you then … I visualized a kind of sob stuff approach … Then, by a marvellous stroke of luck, I met Patrick here—and he turned out to be your nephew or your cousin, or something. Well, that struck me as a marvellous chance. I went bullheaded for Patrick and he fell for me in a most gratifying way. The real Julia was all wet about this acting stuff and I soon persuaded her it was her duty to Art to go and fix herself up in some uncomfortable lodgings in Perth and train to be the new Sarah Bernhardt.

  “You mustn’t blame Patrick too much. He felt awfully sorry for me, all alone in the world—and he soon thought it would be a really marvellous idea for me to come here as his sister and do my stuff.”

  “And he also approved of your continuing to tell a tissue of lies to the police?”

  “Have a heart, Letty. Don’t you see that when that ridiculous hold-up business happened—or rather after it happened—I began to feel I was in a bit of a spot. Let’s face it, I’ve got a perfectly good motive for putting you out of the way. You’ve only got my word for it now that I wasn’t the one who tried to do it. You can’t expect me deliberately to go and incriminate myself. Even Patrick got nasty ideas about me from time to time, and if even he could think things like that, what on earth would the police think? That Detective-Inspector struck me as a man of singularly sceptical mind. No, I figured out the only thing for me to do was to sit tight as Julia and just fade away when term came to an end.