No, Neele did not think that Gladys was wicked. He did not think that Gladys was a poisoner. And in any case the cyanide had not been in the teapot.
"But what made her go off suddenly-like this? It wasn't her day out, you say."
"No, sir, tomorrow's her day out."
'Does Crump-"
Mrs. Crump's belligerence suddenly revived. Her voice rose wrathfully.
"Don't you go fastening anything on Crump. Crump's out of it. He went off at three o'clock-and thankful I am now that he did. He's as much out of it as Mr. Percival himself."
Percival Fortescue had only just returned from London to be greeted by the astounding news of this second tragedy.
"I wasn't accusing Crump," said Neele mildly. "I just wondered if he knew anything about Gladys's plans."
"She had her best nylons on," said Mrs. Crump. "She was up to something. Don't tell me! Didn't cut any sandwiches for tea, either. Oh yes, she was up to something. I’ll give her a piece of my mind when she comes back."
When she comes back A faint uneasiness possessed Neele. To shake it off, he went upstairs to Adele Fortescue's bedroom. A lavish apartment-all rose brocade hangings and a vast gilt bed. On one side of the room was a door into a mirror-lined bathroom with a sunken, orchid pink porcelain bath. Beyond the bathroom, reached by a communicating door, was Rex Fortescue's room. Neele went back into Adele's bedroom, and through the door on the farther side of the room into her sitting-room.
The room was furnished in Empire style with a rose pile carpet. Neele only gave it a cursory glance, for that particular room had had his close attention on the preceding day-with special attention paid to the small, elegant desk.
Now, however, he stiffened to sudden attention. On the center of the rose pile carpet was a small piece of caked mud.
Neele went over to it and picked it up. The mud was still damp.
He looked round-there were no footprints visible-only this one, isolated fragment of wet earth.
Inspector Neele looked round the bedroom that belonged to Gladys Martin. It was past eleven o'clock. Cramp had come in half an hour ago, but there was still no sign of Gladys. Inspector Neele looked round him. Whatever Gladys's training had been, her own natural instincts were slovenly. The bed, Inspector Neele judged, was seldom made, the windows seldom opened. Gladys's personal habits, however, were not his immediate concern. Instead, he went carefully through her possessions.
They consisted, for the most part, of cheap and rather pathetic finery. There was little that was durable or of good quality. The elderly Ellen, whom he had called upon to assist him, had not been helpful. She didn't know what clothes Gladys bad or hadn't. She couldn't say what, if anything, was missing. He turned from the clothes and the underclothes to the contents of the chest of drawers. There Gladys kept her treasures. There were picture post cards and newspaper cuttings, knitting patterns, hints on beauty culture, dressmaking and fashion advice.
Inspector Neele sorted them neatly into various categories. The picture post cards consisted mainly of views of various places where he presumed Gladys had spent her holidays. Among them were three picture post cards signed "Bert." Bert he took to be the "young man" referred to by Mrs. Cramp. The first post card said, in an illiterate hand, "All the best. Missing you a lot. Yours ever, Bert." The second said, "Lots of nice-looking girls here but not one that's a patch on you. Be seeing you soon. Don't forget our date. And remember after that-it's thumbs up and living happy ever after."
The third said merely. "Don't forget. I'm tasting you. Love, B."
Next, Neele looked through the newspaper cuttings and sorted them into three piles. There were the dressmaking and beauty hints, there were items about cinema stars to which Gladys had appeared greatly addicted, and she bad also, it appeared, been attracted by the latest marvels of science. There were cuttings about flying saucers, about secret weapons, about truth drugs used by Russians, and claims for fantastic drugs discovered by American doctors. All the witchcraft, so Neele thought, of our twentieth century. But in all the contents of the room there was nothing to give him a clue to her disappearance. She had kept no diary, not that he had expected that. It was a remote possibility. There was no unfinished letter, no record at all of anything she might have seen in the house which could have had a bearing on Rex Fortescue's death. Whatever Gladys had seen, whatever Gladys had known, there was no record of it. It would stiff have to be guesswork why the second tea tray had been left in the hall, and Gladys herself had so suddenly vanished.
Sighing, Neele left the room, shutting the door behind him.
As he prepared to descend the small winding stairs he heard a noise of running feet coming along the landing below.
The agitated face of Sergeant Hay looked up at him from the bottom of the stairs. Sergeant Hay was panting a little.
"Sir," he said urgently, "Sir! We've found her."
"Found her?"
"It was the housemaid, sir-Ellen-remembered as she hadn't brought the clothes in from where they were hanging on the line-just round the corner from the back door. So she went out with a torch to take them in and she almost fen over the body-the girl's body-strangled, she was, with a stocking round her throat-been dead for hours, I'd say. And, sir, it's a wicked kind of joke-there was a clothes peg clipped on her nose-"
Chapter Thirteen
AN ELDERLY LADY traveling by train had bought three morning papers, and each of them, as she finished it, folded it and laid it aside, showed the same headline. It was no longer a question now of a small paragraph hidden away in the corner of the papers. There were headlines with flaring announcements of Triple Tragedy at Yewtree Lodge.
The old lady sat very upright, looking out of the window of the train, her Ups pursed together, an expression of distress and disapproval on her pink and white wrinkled face. Miss Marple had left St. Mary Meade by the early train, changing at the junction and going on to London where she took a Circle train to another London terminus and thence on to Baydon Heath.
At the station she signaled a taxi and asked to be taken to Yewtree Lodge. So charming, so innocent, such a fluffy and pink and white old lady was Miss Marple that she gained admittance to what was now practically a fortress in a state of siege far more easily than could have been believed possible. Though an army of reporters and photographers was being kept at bay by the police, Miss Marple was allowed to drive in without question, so impossible would it have been to believe that she was anyone but an elderly relative of the family.
Miss Marple paid off the taxi in a careful assortment of small change, and rang the front doorbell. Cramp opened it and Miss Marple summed him up with an experienced glance. A shifty eye, she said to herself. Seared to death, too.
Crump saw a tall, elderly lady wearing an old-fashioned tweed coat and skirt, a couple of scarves and a small felt bat with a bird's wing. The old lady carried a capacious handbag, and an aged but good quality suitcase reposed by her feet.
Crump recognized a lady when he saw one and said, "Yes, madam?" in his best and most respectful voice.
"Could I see the mistress of the house, please?" said Miss Marple.
Crump drew back to let her in. He picked up the suitcase and put it carefully down in the hall.
"Well, madam," he said rather dubiously, "I don't know who exactly'
Miss Marple helped him out.
"I have come," she said, "to speak about the poor girl who was killed. Gladys Martin."
"Oh, I see, madam. Well, in that case he broke off, and looked towards the library door from which a tall young woman had just emerged. "This is Mrs. Lance Fortescue, madam," he said.
Pat came forward, and she and Miss Marple looked at each other. Miss Marple was aware of a faint feeling of surprise. She had not expected to see someone like Patricia Fortescue in this particular house. Its interior was much as she bad pictured it, but Pat did not somehow match with that interior.
"It's about Gladys, madam," said Crump helpfully.
Pa
t said rather hesitatingly, "Will you come in here? We shall be quite alone."
She led the way into the library and Miss Marple followed her.
"There wasn't anyone specially you wanted to see, was there?" said Pat. "Because perhaps I shan't be much good. You see, my husband and I only came back from Africa a few days ago. We don't really know anything much about the household. But I can fetch my sister-in-law or my brother-in-law's wife."
Miss Marple looked at the girl and liked her. She liked her gravity and her simplicity. For some strange reason she felt sorry for her. A background of shabby chintz and horses and dogs, Miss Marple felt vaguely, would have been much more suitable than this richly furnished interior decor. At the pony show and gymkhanas held locally round St. Mary Meade, Miss Marple had met many Pats and knew them well. She felt at home with this rather unhappy-looking girl.
"It's very simple, really," said Miss Marple, taking off her gloves carefully and smoothing out the fingers of them. "I read in the paper, you see, about Gladys Martin having been killed. And of course I know all about her. She comes from my part of the country. I trained her, in fact, for domestic service. And since this terrible thing has happened to her, I felt-well, I felt that I ought to come and see if there was anything I could do about it."
"Yes," said Pat. "Of course. I see."
And she did see. Miss Marple's action appeared to her natural and inevitable.
"I think it's a very good thing you have come," said Pat. "Nobody seems to know very much about her. I mean relations and all that."
"No," said Miss Marple, "of course not. She hadn't got any relations. She came to me from the orphanage. St. Faith's. A very well-run place, though sadly short of funds. We do our best for the girls there, try to give them a good training and all that. Gladys came to me when she was seventeen, and I taught her how to wait at table and keep the silver and everything like that. Of course, she didn't stay long. They never do. As soon as she got a little experience, she went and took a job in a cafe. The girls nearly always want to do that. They think it's freer, you know, and a gayer life. Perhaps it may be. I really don't know."
"I never even saw her," said Pat. "Was she a pretty girl?"
"Oh, no," said Miss Marple, "not at all. Adenoids, and a good many spots. She was rather pathetically stupid, too. I don't suppose," went on Miss Marple thoughtfully, "that she ever made many friends anywhere. She was very keen on men, poor girl. But men didn't take much notice of her, and other girls rather made use of her."
"It sounds rather cruel," said Pat.
"Yes, my dear," said Miss Marple, "life is cruel, I'm afraid. One doesn't really know what to do with the Gladyses. They enjoy going to the pictures and all that, but they're always thinking of impossible things that can't possibly happen to them. Perhaps that's happiness of a kind. But they get disappointed. I think Gladys was disappointed in café and restaurant life. Nothing very glamorous or interesting happened to her and it was just hard on the feet. Probably that's why she came back into private service. Do you know how long she'd been here?"
Pat shook her head.
"Not very long, I should think. Only a month or two."
Pat paused and then went on, "It seems so horrible and futile that she should have been caught up in this thing. I suppose she'd seen something or noticed something."
"It was the clothes peg that really worried me," said Miss Marple in her gentle voice.
"The clothes peg?"
"Yes. I read about it in the papers. I suppose it is true?
That when she was found there was a clothes peg clipped onto her nose."
Pat nodded. The color rose to Miss Marple's pink cheeks.
"That's what made me so very angry, if you can understand, my dear. It was such a cruel, contemptuous gesture. It gave me a kind of picture of the murderer. To do a thing like that! It's very wicked, you know, to affront human dignity. Particularly if you've already killed."
Pat said slowly,
"I think I see what you mean." She got up. "I think you'd better come and see Inspector Neele. He's in charge of the case, and he's here now. You'll like him, I think. He's a very human person." She gave a sudden, quick shiver. "The whole thing is such a horrible nightmare. Pointless. Mad. Without rhyme or reason in it."
"I wouldn't say that, you know," said Miss Marple. "No, I wouldn't say that."
Inspector Neele was looking tired and haggard. Three deaths, and the press of the whole country whooping down the trail. A case that seemed to be shaping in well-known fashion had gone suddenly haywire. Adele Fortescue, the appropriate suspect, was now the second victim of an incomprehensible murder case. At the close of that fatal day the Assistant Commissioner had sent for Neele, and the two men had talked far into the night.
In spite of his dismay, or rather behind it, Inspector Neele had felt a faint inward satisfaction. That pattern of the wife and the lover. It had been too stick, too easy. He had always mistrusted it. And now that mistrust of his was justified.
"The whole thing takes on an entirely different aspect," the A.C. had said, striding up and down his room and frowning. "It looks to me, Neele, as though we'd got someone mentally unhinged to deal with. First the husband, then the wife. But the very circumstances of the case seem to show that it's an inside job. It's all there, in the family. Someone who sat down to breakfast with Fortescue put taxine in his coffee or on his food. Someone who had tea with the family that day put potassium cyanide in Adele Fortescue's cup of tea. Someone trusted, unnoticed, one of the family. Which of 'em, Neele?"
Neele said dryly,
"Percival wasn't there, so that lets him out again. That lets him out again," Inspector Neele repeated.
The A.C. looked at him sharply. Something in the repetition had attracted his attention.
"What's the idea, Neele? Out with it, man."
Inspector Neele looked stolid.
"Nothing, sir. Not so much as an idea. All I say is it was very convenient for him."
"A bit too convenient, eh?" The A.C. reflected and shook his head. "You think he might have managed it somehow? Can't see how, Neele. No, I can't see how."
He added, "And he's a cautious type, too."
"But quite intelligent, sir."
"You don't fancy the women. Is that it? Yet the women are indicated. Elaine Fortescue and Percival's wife. They were at breakfast and they were at tea that day. Either of them could have done it. No signs of anything abnormal about them? Well, it doesn't always show. There might be something in their past medical record."
Inspector Neele did not answer. He was thinking of Mary Dove. He had no definite reason for suspecting her, but that was the way his thoughts lay. There was something unexplained about her, unsatisfactory. A faint amused antagonism. That had been her attitude after the death of Rex Fortescue. what was her attitude now? Her behavior and manner were, as always, exemplary. There was no open antagonism, but he wondered whether, once or twice, he had not seen a trace of fear. He had been to blame, culpably to blame, in the matter of Gladys Martin. That slight, guilty confusion of hers he had put down to no more than a natural nervousness of the police. He had come across that guilty nervousness so often. In this case it had been something more. Gladys had seen or heard something which had aroused her suspicions. It was probably, he though% some quite small thing, something so vague and indefinite that she had hardly liked to speak about it. And now, poor little rabbit, she would never speak.
Inspector Neele looked with some interest at the mud, earnest face of the old lady who confronted him now at Yewtree Lodge. He had been in two minds at first how to treat her, but he quickly made up his mind. Miss Marple would be useful to him. She was upright, of unimpeachable rectitude and she had, like most old ladies, time on her hands and an old maid's nose for scenting bits of gossip. She'd get things out of servants and out of the women of the Fortescue family, perhaps, that he and his policemen would never get. Talk, conjecture, reminiscences, repetitions of things said and done, out of th
em all she would pick the salient facts. So Inspector Neele was gracious.
"It's uncommonly good of you to have come here, Miss Marple," he said.
"It was my duty, Inspector Neele. The girl had lived in my house. I feel, in a sense, responsible for her. She was a very silly girl, you know."
Inspector Neele looked at her appreciatively.
"Yes," he said, "just so."
She had gone, he felt, to the heart of the matter.
"She wouldn't know," said Miss Marple, "what she ought to do. If, I mean, something came up. Oh, dear, I'm expressing myself very badly."
Inspector Neele said that he understood.
"She hadn't got good judgment as to what was important or not, that's what you mean, isn't it?"
"Oh yes, exactly, Inspector."
A Pocket Full of Rye Page 9