Alone with Miss Marple, Dinah Blake turned to her. She said:
“I don’t know who you are, but you’ve got to understand this—Basil didn’t do it.”
Miss Marple said:
“I know he didn’t. I know who did do it. But it’s not going to be easy to prove. I’ve an idea that something you said—just now—may help. It gave me an idea—the connection I’d been trying to find—now what was it?”
Sixteen
I
“I’m home, Arthur!” declared Mrs. Bantry, announcing the fact like a Royal Proclamation as she flung open the study door.
Colonel Bantry immediately jumped up, kissed his wife, and declared heartily: “Well, well, that’s splendid!”
The words were unimpeachable, the manner very well done, but an affectionate wife of as many years’ standing as Mrs. Bantry was not deceived. She said immediately:
“Is anything the matter?”
“No, of course not, Dolly. What should be the matter?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Bantry vaguely. “Things are so queer, aren’t they?”
She threw off her coat as she spoke and Colonel Bantry picked it up as carefully and laid it across the back of the sofa.
All exactly as usual—yet not as usual. Her husband, Mrs. Bantry thought, seemed to have shrunk. He looked thinner, stooped more; they were pouches under his eyes and those eyes were not ready to meet hers.
He went on to say, still with that affectation of cheerfulness:
“Well, how did you enjoy your time at Danemouth?”
“Oh! it was great fun. You ought to have come, Arthur.”
“Couldn’t get away, my dear. Lot of things to attend to here.”
“Still, I think the change would have done you good. And you like the Jeffersons?”
“Yes, yes, poor fellow. Nice chap. All very sad.”
“What have you been doing with yourself since I’ve been away?”
“Oh, nothing much. Been over the farms, you know. Agreed that Anderson shall have a new roof—can’t patch it up any longer.”
“How did the Radfordshire Council meeting go?”
“I—well—as a matter of fact I didn’t go.”
“Didn’t go? But you were taking the chair?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, Dolly—seems there was some mistake about that. Asked me if I’d mind if Thompson took it instead.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Bantry.
She peeled off a glove and threw it deliberately into the wastepaper basket. Her husband went to retrieve it, and she stopped him, saying sharply:
“Leave it. I hate gloves.”
Colonel Bantry glanced at her uneasily.
Mrs. Bantry said sternly:
“Did you go to dinner with the Duffs on Thursday?”
“Oh, that! It was put off. Their cook was ill.”
“Stupid people,” said Mrs. Bantry. She went on: “Did you go to the Naylors’ yesterday?”
“I rang up and said I didn’t feel up to it, hoped they’d excuse me. They quite understood.”
“They did, did they?” said Mrs. Bantry grimly.
She sat down by the desk and absentmindedly picked up a pair of gardening scissors. With them she cut off the fingers, one by one, of her second glove.
“What are you doing, Dolly?”
“Feeling destructive,” said Mrs. Bantry.
She got up. “Where shall we sit after dinner, Arthur? In the library?”
“Well—er—I don’t think so—eh? Very nice in here—or the drawing room.”
“I think,” said Mrs. Bantry, “that we’ll sit in the library!”
Her steady eye met his. Colonel Bantry drew himself up to his full height. A sparkle came into his eye.
He said:
“You’re right, my dear. We’ll sit in the library!”
II
Mrs. Bantry put down the telephone receiver with a sigh of annoyance. She had rung up twice, and each time the answer had been the same: Miss Marple was out.
Of a naturally impatient nature, Mrs. Bantry was never one to acquiesce in defeat. She rang up in rapid succession the vicarage, Mrs. Price Ridley, Miss Hartnell, Miss Wetherby, and, as a last resource, the fishmonger who, by reason of his advantageous geographical position, usually knew where everybody was in the village.
The fishmonger was sorry, but he had not seen Miss Marple at all in the village that morning. She had not been her usual round.
“Where can the woman be?” demanded Mrs. Bantry impatiently aloud.
There was a deferential cough behind her. The discreet Lorrimer murmured:
“You were requiring Miss Marple, madam? I have just observed her approaching the house.”
Mrs. Bantry rushed to the front door, flung it open, and greeted Miss Marple breathlessly:
“I’ve been trying to get you everywhere. Where have you been?” She glanced over her shoulder. Lorrimer had discreetly vanished. “Everything’s too awful! People are beginning to cold-shoulder Arthur. He looks years older. We must do something, Jane. You must do something!”
Miss Marple said:
“You needn’t worry, Dolly,” in a rather peculiar voice.
Colonel Bantry appeared from the study door.
“Ah, Miss Marple. Good morning. Glad you’ve come. My wife’s been ringing you up like a lunatic.”
“I thought I’d better bring you the news,” said Miss Marple, as she followed Mrs. Bantry into the study.
“News?”
“Basil Blake has just been arrested for the murder of Ruby Keene.”
“Basil Blake?” cried the Colonel.
“But he didn’t do it,” said Miss Marple.
Colonel Bantry took no notice of this statement. It is doubtful if he even heard it.
“Do you mean to say he strangled that girl and then brought her along and put her in my library?”
“He put her in your library,” said Miss Marple. “But he didn’t kill her.”
“Nonsense! If he put her in my library, of course he killed her! The two things go together.”
“Not necessarily. He found her dead in his own cottage.”
“A likely story,” said the Colonel derisively. “If you find a body, why, you ring up the police—naturally—if you’re an honest man.”
“Ah,” said Miss Marple, “but we haven’t all got such iron nerves as you have, Colonel Bantry. You belong to the old school. This younger generation is different.”
“Got no stamina,” said the Colonel, repeating a well-worn opinion of his.
“Some of them,” said Miss Marple, “have been through a bad time. I’ve heard a good deal about Basil. He did A.R.P. work, you know, when he was only eighteen. He went into a burning house and brought out four children, one after another. He went back for a dog, although they told him it wasn’t safe. The building fell in on him. They got him out, but his chest was badly crushed and he had to lie in plaster for nearly a year and was ill for a long time after that. That’s when he got interested in designing.”
“Oh!” The Colonel coughed and blew his nose. “I—er—never knew that.”
“He doesn’t talk about it,” said Miss Marple.
“Er—quite right. Proper spirit. Must be more in the young chap than I thought. Always thought he’d shirked the war, you know. Shows you ought to be careful in jumping to conclusions.”
Colonel Bantry looked ashamed.
“But, all the same”—his indignation revived—“what did he mean trying to fasten a murder on me?”
“I don’t think he saw it like that,” said Miss Marple. “He thought of it more as a—as a joke. You see, he was rather under the influence of alcohol at the time.”
“Bottled, was he?” said Colonel Bantry, with an Englishman’s sympathy for alcoholic excess. “Oh, well, can’t judge a fellow by what he does when he’s drunk. When I was at Cambridge, I remember I put a certain utensil—well, well, never mind. Deuce of a row there was about it.”
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He chuckled, then checked himself sternly. He looked piercingly at Miss Marple with eyes that were shrewd and appraising. He said: “You don’t think he did the murder, eh?”
“I’m sure he didn’t.”
“And you think you know who did?”
Miss Marple nodded.
Mrs. Bantry, like an ecstatic Greek chorus, said: “Isn’t she wonderful?” to an unhearing world.
“Well, who was it?”
Miss Marple said:
“I was going to ask you to help me. I think, if we went up to Somerset House we should have a very good idea.”
Seventeen
I
Sir Henry’s face was very grave.
He said:
“I don’t like it.”
“I am aware,” said Miss Marple, “that it isn’t what you call orthodox. But it is so important, isn’t it, to be quite sure—‘to make assurance doubly sure,’ as Shakespeare has it. I think, if Mr. Jefferson would agree—?”
“What about Harper? Is he to be in on this?”
“It might be awkward for him to know too much. But there might be a hint from you. To watch certain persons—have them trailed, you know.”
Sir Henry said slowly:
“Yes, that would meet the case….”
II
Superintendent Harper looked piercingly at Sir Henry Clithering.
“Let’s get this quite clear, sir. You’re giving me a hint?”
Sir Henry said:
“I’m informing you of what my friend has just informed me—he didn’t tell me in confidence—that he proposes to visit a solicitor in Danemouth tomorrow for the purpose of making a new will.”
The Superintendent’s bushy eyebrows drew downwards over his steady eyes. He said:
“Does Mr. Conway Jefferson propose to inform his son-in-law and daughter-in-law of that fact?”
“He intends to tell them about it this evening.”
“I see.”
The Superintendent tapped his desk with a penholder.
He repeated again: “I see….”
Then the piercing eyes bored once more into the eyes of the other man. Harper said:
“So you’re not satisfied with the case against Basil Blake?”
“Are you?”
The Superintendent’s moustaches quivered. He said:
“Is Miss Marple?”
The two men looked at each other.
Then Harper said:
“You can leave it to me. I’ll have men detailed. There will be no funny business, I can promise you that.”
Sir Henry said:
“There is one more thing. You’d better see this.”
He unfolded a slip of paper and pushed it across the table.
This time the Superintendent’s calm deserted him. He whistled:
“So that’s it, is it? That puts an entirely different complexion on the matter. How did you come to dig up this?”
“Women,” said Sir Henry, “are eternally interested in marriages.”
“Especially,” said the Superintendent, “elderly single women.”
III
Conway Jefferson looked up as his friend entered.
His grim face relaxed into a smile.
He said:
“Well, I told ’em. They took it very well.”
“What did you say?”
“Told ’em that, as Ruby was dead, I felt that the fifty thousand I’d originally left her should go to something that I could associate with her memory. It was to endow a hostel for young girls working as professional dancers in London. Damned silly way to leave your money—surprised they swallowed it. As though I’d do a thing like that!”
He added meditatively:
“You know, I made a fool of myself over that girl. Must be turning into a silly old man. I can see it now. She was a pretty kid—but most of what I saw in her I put there myself. I pretended she was another Rosamund. Same colouring, you know. But not the same heart or mind. Hand me that paper—rather an interesting bridge problem.”
IV
Sir Henry went downstairs. He asked a question of the porter.
“Mr. Gaskell, sir? He’s just gone off in his car. Had to go to London.”
“Oh! I see. Is Mrs. Jefferson about?”
“Mrs. Jefferson, sir, has just gone up to bed.”
Sir Henry looked into the lounge and through to the ballroom. In the lounge Hugo McLean was doing a crossword puzzle and frowning a good deal over it. In the ballroom Josie was smiling valiantly into the face of a stout, perspiring man as her nimble feet avoided his destructive tread. The stout man was clearly enjoying his dance. Raymond, graceful and weary, was dancing with an anaemic-looking girl with adenoids, dull brown hair, and an expensive and exceedingly unbecoming dress.
Sir Henry said under his breath:
“And so to bed,” and went upstairs.
V
It was three o’clock. The wind had fallen, the moon was shining over the quiet sea.
In Conway Jefferson’s room there was no sound except his own heavy breathing as he lay, half propped up on pillows.
There was no breeze to stir the curtains at the window, but they stirred … For a moment they parted, and a figure was silhouetted against the moonlight. Then they fell back into place. Everything was quiet again, but there was someone else inside the room.
Nearer and nearer to the bed the intruder stole. The deep breathing on the pillow did not relax.
There was no sound, or hardly any sound. A finger and thumb were ready to pick up a fold of skin, in the other hand the hypodermic was ready.
And then, suddenly, out of the shadows a hand came and closed over the hand that held the needle, the other arm held the figure in an iron grasp.
An unemotional voice, the voice of the law, said:
“No, you don’t. I want that needle!”
The light switched on and from his pillows Conway Jefferson looked grimly at the murderer of Ruby Keene.
Eighteen
I
Sir Henry Clithering said:
“Speaking as Watson, I want to know your methods, Miss Marple.”
Superintendent Harper said:
“I’d like to know what put you on to it first.”
Colonel Melchett said:
“You’ve done it again, by Jove! I want to hear all about it from the beginning.”
Miss Marple smoothed the puce silk of her best evening gown. She flushed and smiled and looked very self-conscious.
She said: “I’m afraid you’ll think my ‘methods,’ as Sir Henry calls them, are terribly amateurish. The truth is, you see, that most people—and I don’t exclude policemen—are far too trusting for this wicked world. They believe what is told them. I never do. I’m afraid I always like to prove a thing for myself.”
“That is the scientific attitude,” said Sir Henry.
“In this case,” continued Miss Marple, “certain things were taken for granted from the first—instead of just confining oneself to the facts. The facts, as I noted them, were that the victim was quite young and that she bit her nails and that her teeth stuck out a little—as young girls’ so often do if not corrected in time with a plate—(and children are very naughty about their plates and taking them out when their elders aren’t looking).
“But that is wandering from the point. Where was I? Oh, yes, looking down at the dead girl and feeling sorry, because it is always sad to see a young life cut short, and thinking that whoever had done it was a very wicked person. Of course it was all very confusing her being found in Colonel Bantry’s library, altogether too like a book to be true. In fact, it made the wrong pattern. It wasn’t, you see, meant, which confused us a lot. The real idea had been to plant the body on poor young Basil Blake (a much more likely person), and his action in putting it in the Colonel’s library delayed things considerably, and must have been a source of great annoyance to the real murderer.
“Originally, you see, Mr. Blake would have
been the first object of suspicion. They’d have made inquiries at Danemouth, found he knew the girl, then found he had tied himself up with another girl, and they’d have assumed that Ruby came to blackmail him, or something like that, and that he’d strangled her in a fit of rage. Just an ordinary, sordid, what I call nightclub type of crime!
“But that, of course, all went wrong, and interest became focused much too soon on the Jefferson family—to the great annoyance of a certain person.
“As I’ve told you, I’ve got a very suspicious mind. My nephew Raymond tells me (in fun, of course, and quite affectionately) that I have a mind like a sink. He says that most Victorians have. All I can say is that the Victorians knew a good deal about human nature.
“As I say, having this rather insanitary—or surely sanitary?—mind, I looked at once at the money angle of it. Two people stood to benefit by this girl’s death—you couldn’t get away from that. Fifty thousand pounds is a lot of money—especially when you are in financial difficulties, as both these people were. Of course they both seemed very nice, agreeable people—they didn’t seem likely people—but one never can tell, can one?
“Mrs. Jefferson, for instance—everyone liked her. But it did seem clear that she had become very restless that summer, and that she was tired of the life she led, completely dependent on her father-in-law. She knew, because the doctor had told her, that he couldn’t live long—so that was all right—to put it callously—or it would have been all right if Ruby Keene hadn’t come along. Mrs. Jefferson was passionately devoted to her son, and some women have a curious idea that crimes committed for the sake of their offspring are almost morally justified. I have come across that attitude once or twice in the village. ‘Well, ’twas all for Daisy, you see, miss,’ they say, and seem to think that that makes doubtful conduct quite all right. Very lax thinking.
“Mr. Mark Gaskell, of course, was a much more likely starter, if I may use such a sporting expression. He was a gambler and had not, I fancied, a very high moral code. But, for certain reasons, I was of the opinion that a woman was concerned in this crime.