“I know perfectly. Well, as far as I’m aware, there was no one of the kind. Not by anything she ever said.”
“Thank you, Mr. Starr. Now will you just tell me in your own words exactly what happened last night?”
“Certainly. Ruby and I did our ten-thirty dance together—”
“No signs of anything unusual about her then?”
Raymond considered.
“I don’t think so. I didn’t notice what happened afterwards. I had my own partners to look after. I do remember noticing she wasn’t in the ballroom. At midnight she hadn’t turned up. I was very annoyed and went to Josie about it. Josie was playing bridge with the Jeffersons. She hadn’t any idea where Ruby was, and I think she got a bit of a jolt. I noticed her shoot a quick, anxious glance at Mr. Jefferson. I persuaded the band to play another dance and I went to the office and got them to ring up to Ruby’s room. There wasn’t any answer. I went back to Josie. She suggested that Ruby was perhaps asleep in her room. Idiotic suggestion really, but it was meant for the Jeffersons, of course! She came away with me and said we’d go up together.”
“Yes, Mr. Starr. And what did she say when she was alone with you?”
“As far as I can remember, she looked very angry and said: ‘Damned little fool. She can’t do this sort of thing. It will ruin all her chances. Who’s she with, do you know?’
“I said that I hadn’t the least idea. The last I’d seen of her was dancing with young Bartlett. Josie said: ‘She wouldn’t be with him. What can she be up to? She isn’t with that film man, is she?’”
Harper said sharply: “Film man? Who was he?”
Raymond said: “I don’t know his name. He’s never stayed here. Rather an unusual-looking chap—black hair and theatrical-looking. He has something to do with the film industry, I believe—or so he told Ruby. He came over to dine here once or twice and danced with Ruby afterwards, but I don’t think she knew him at all well. That’s why I was surprised when Josie mentioned him. I said I didn’t think he’d been here tonight. Josie said: ‘Well, she must be out with someone. What on earth am I going to say to the Jeffersons?’ I said what did it matter to the Jeffersons? And Josie said it did matter. And she said, too, that she’d never forgive Ruby if she went and messed things up.
“We’d got to Ruby’s room by then. She wasn’t there, of course, but she’d been there, because the dress she had been wearing was lying across a chair. Josie looked in the wardrobe and said she thought she’d put on her old white dress. Normally she’d have changed into a black velvet dress for our Spanish dance. I was pretty angry by this time at the way Ruby had let me down. Josie did her best to soothe me and said she’d dance herself so that old Prestcott shouldn’t get after us all. She went away and changed her dress and we went down and did a tango—exaggerated style and quite showy but not really too exhausting upon the ankles. Josie was very plucky about it—for it hurt her, I could see. After that she asked me to help her soothe the Jeffersons down. She said it was important. So, of course, I did what I could.”
Superintendent Harper nodded. He said:
“Thank you, Mr. Starr.”
To himself he thought: “It was important, all right! Fifty thousand pounds!”
He watched Raymond Starr as the latter moved gracefully away. He went down the steps of the terrace, picking up a bag of tennis balls and a racquet on the way. Mrs. Jefferson, also carrying a racquet, joined him and they went towards the tennis courts.
“Excuse me, sir.”
Sergeant Higgins, rather breathless, stood at Harper’s side.
The Superintendent, jerked from the train of thought he was following, looked startled.
“Message just come through for you from headquarters, sir. Labourer reported this morning saw glare as of fire. Half an hour ago they found a burnt-out car in a quarry. Venn’s Quarry—about two miles from here. Traces of a charred body inside.”
A flush came over Harper’s heavy features. He said:
“What’s come to Glenshire? An epidemic of violence? Don’t tell me we’re going to have a Rouse case now!”
He asked: “Could they get the number of the car?”
“No, sir. But we’ll be able to identify it, of course, by the engine number. A Minoan 14, they think it is.”
Eight
I
Sir Henry Clithering, as he passed through the lounge of the Majestic, hardly glanced at its occupants. His mind was preoccupied. Nevertheless, as is the way of life, something registered in his subconscious. It waited its time patiently.
Sir Henry was wondering as he went upstairs just what had induced the sudden urgency of his friend’s message. Conway Jefferson was not the type of man who sent urgent summonses to anyone. Something quite out of the usual must have occurred, decided Sir Henry.
Jefferson wasted no time in beating about the bush. He said:
“Glad you’ve come. Edwards, get Sir Henry a drink. Sit down, man. You’ve not heard anything, I suppose? Nothing in the papers yet?”
Sir Henry shook his head, his curiosity aroused.
“What’s the matter?”
“Murder’s the matter. I’m concerned in it and so are your friends the Bantrys.”
“Arthur and Dolly Bantry?” Clithering sounded incredulous.
“Yes, you see, the body was found in their house.”
Clearly and succinctly, Conway Jefferson ran through the facts. Sir Henry listened without interrupting. Both men were accustomed to grasping the gist of a matter. Sir Henry, during his term as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, had been renowned for his quick grip on essentials.
“It’s an extraordinary business,” he commented when the other had finished. “How do the Bantrys come into it, do you think?”
“That’s what worries me. You see, Henry, it looks to me as though possibly the fact that I know them might have a bearing on the case. That’s the only connection I can find. Neither of them, I gather, ever saw the girl before. That’s what they say, and there’s no reason to disbelieve them. It’s most unlikely they should know her. Then isn’t it possible that she was decoyed away and her body deliberately left in the house of friends of mine?”
Clithering said:
“I think that’s far-fetched.”
“It’s possible, though,” persisted the other.
“Yes, but unlikely. What do you want me to do?”
Conway Jefferson said bitterly:
“I’m an invalid. I disguise the fact—refuse to face it—but now it comes home to me. I can’t go about as I’d like to, asking questions, looking into things. I’ve got to stay here meekly grateful for such scraps of information as the police are kind enough to dole out to me. Do you happen to know Melchett, by the way, the Chief Constable of Radfordshire?”
“Yes, I’ve met him.”
Something stirred in Sir Henry’s brain. A face and figure noted unseeingly as he passed through the lounge. A straight-backed old lady whose face was familiar. It linked up with the last time he had seen Melchett.
He said:
“Do you mean you want me to be a kind of amateur sleuth? That’s not my line.”
Jefferson said:
“You’re not an amateur, that’s just it.”
“I’m not a professional anymore. I’m on the retired list now.”
Jefferson said: “That simplifies matters.”
“You mean that if I were still at Scotland Yard I couldn’t butt in? That’s perfectly true.”
“As it is,” said Jefferson, “your experience qualifies you to take an interest in the case, and any cooperation you offer will be welcomed.”
Clithering said slowly:
“Etiquette permits, I agree. But what do you really want, Conway? To find out who killed this girl?”
“Just that.”
“You’ve no idea yourself?”
“None whatever.”
Sir Henry said slowly:
“You probably won’t believe me, but you’ve got an expert at solvi
ng mysteries sitting downstairs in the lounge at this minute. Someone who’s better than I am at it, and who in all probability may have some local dope.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Downstairs in the lounge, by the third pillar from the left, there sits an old lady with a sweet, placid spinsterish face, and a mind that has plumbed the depths of human iniquity and taken it as all in the day’s work. Her name’s Miss Marple. She comes from the village of St. Mary Mead, which is a mile and a half from Gossington, she’s a friend of the Bantrys—and where crime is concerned she’s the goods, Conway.”
Jefferson stared at him with thick, puckered brows. He said heavily:
“You’re joking.”
“No, I’m not. You spoke of Melchett just now. The last time I saw Melchett there was a village tragedy. Girl supposed to have drowned herself. Police quite rightly suspected that it wasn’t suicide, but murder. They thought they knew who did it. Along to me comes old Miss Marple, fluttering and dithering. She’s afraid, she says, they’ll hang the wrong person. She’s got no evidence, but she knows who did do it. Hands me a piece of paper with a name written on it. And, by God, Jefferson, she was right!”
Conway Jefferson’s brows came down lower than ever. He grunted disbelievingly:
“Woman’s intuition, I suppose,” he said sceptically.
“No, she doesn’t call it that. Specialized knowledge is her claim.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Well, you know, Jefferson, we use it in police work. We get a burglary and we usually know pretty well who did it—of the regular crowd, that is. We know the sort of burglar who acts in a particular sort of way. Miss Marple has an interesting, though occasionally trivial, series of parallels from village life.”
Jefferson said sceptically:
“What is she likely to know about a girl who’s been brought up in a theatrical milieu and probably never been in a village in her life?”
“I think,” said Sir Henry Clithering firmly, “that she might have ideas.”
II
Miss Marple flushed with pleasure as Sir Henry bore down upon her.
“Oh, Sir Henry, this is indeed a great piece of luck meeting you here.”
Sir Henry was gallant. He said:
“To me it is a great pleasure.”
Miss Marple murmured, flushing: “So kind of you.”
“Are you staying here?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, we are.”
“We?”
“Mrs. Bantry’s here too.” She looked at him sharply. “Have you heard yet? Yes, I can see you have. It is terrible, is it not?”
“What’s Dolly Bantry doing here? Is her husband here too?”
“No. Naturally, they both reacted quite differently. Colonel Bantry, poor man, just shuts himself up in his study, or goes down to one of the farms, when anything like this happens. Like tortoises, you know, they draw their heads in and hope nobody will notice them. Dolly, of course, is quite different.”
“Dolly, in fact,” said Sir Henry, who knew his old friend fairly well, “is almost enjoying herself, eh?”
“Well—er—yes. Poor dear.”
“And she’s brought you along to produce the rabbits out of the hat for her?”
Miss Marple said composedly:
“Dolly thought that a change of scene would be a good thing and she didn’t want to come alone.” She met his eye and her own gently twinkled. “But, of course, your way of describing it is quite true. It’s rather embarrassing for me, because, of course, I am no use at all.”
“No ideas? No village parallels?”
“I don’t know very much about it all yet.”
“I can remedy that, I think. I’m going to call you into consultation, Miss Marple.”
He gave a brief recital of the course of events. Miss Marple listened with keen interest.
“Poor Mr. Jefferson,” she said. “What a very sad story. These terrible accidents. To leave him alive, crippled, seems more cruel than if he had been killed too.”
“Yes, indeed. That’s why all his friends admire him so much for the resolute way he’s gone on, conquering pain and grief and physical disabilities.”
“Yes, it is splendid.”
“The only thing I can’t understand is this sudden outpouring of affection for this girl. She may, of course, have had some remarkable qualities.”
“Probably not,” said Miss Marple placidly.
“You don’t think so?”
“I don’t think her qualities entered into it.”
Sir Henry said:
“He isn’t just a nasty old man, you know.”
“Oh, no, no!” Miss Marple got quite pink. “I wasn’t implying that for a minute. What I was trying to say was—very badly, I know—that he was just looking for a nice bright girl to take his dead daughter’s place—and then this girl saw her opportunity and played it for all she was worth! That sounds rather uncharitable, I know, but I have seen so many cases of the kind. The young maid-servant at Mr. Harbottle’s, for instance. A very ordinary girl, but quiet with nice manners. His sister was called away to nurse a dying relative and when she got back she found the girl completely above herself, sitting down in the drawing room laughing and talking and not wearing her cap or apron. Miss Harbottle spoke to her very sharply and the girl was impertinent, and then old Mr. Harbottle left her quite dumbfounded by saying that he thought she had kept house for him long enough and that he was making other arrangements.
“Such a scandal as it created in the village, but poor Miss Harbottle had to go and live most uncomfortably in rooms in Eastbourne. People said things, of course, but I believe there was no familiarity of any kind—it was simply that the old man found it much pleasanter to have a young, cheerful girl telling him how clever and amusing he was than to have his sister continually pointing out his faults to him, even if she was a good economical manager.”
There was a moment’s pause, and then Miss Marple resumed.
“And there was Mr. Badger who had the chemist’s shop. Made a lot of fuss over the young lady who worked in his toilet section. Told his wife they must look on her as a daughter and have her to live in the house. Mrs. Badger didn’t see it that way at all.”
Sir Henry said: “If she’d only been a girl in his own rank of life—a friend’s child—”
Miss Marple interrupted him.
“Oh! but that wouldn’t have been nearly as satisfactory from his point of view. It’s like King Cophetua and the beggar maid. If you’re really rather a lonely, tired old man, and if, perhaps, your own family have been neglecting you”—she paused for a second—“well, to befriend someone who will be overwhelmed with your magnificence—(to put it rather melodramatically, but I hope you see what I mean)—well, that’s much more interesting. It makes you feel a much greater person—a beneficent monarch! The recipient is more likely to be dazzled, and that, of course, is a pleasant feeling for you.” She paused and said: “Mr. Badger, you know, bought the girl in his shop some really fantastic presents, a diamond bracelet and a most expensive radio-gramophone. Took out a lot of his savings to do so. However, Mrs. Badger, who was a much more astute woman than poor Miss Harbottle (marriage, of course, helps), took the trouble to find out a few things. And when Mr. Badger discovered that the girl was carrying on with a very undesirable young man connected with the racecourses, and had actually pawned the bracelet to give him the money—well, he was completely disgusted and the affair passed over quite safely. And he gave Mrs. Badger a diamond ring the following Christmas.”
Her pleasant, shrewd eyes met Sir Henry’s. He wondered if what she had been saying was intended as a hint. He said:
“Are you suggesting that if there had been a young man in Ruby Keene’s life, my friend’s attitude towards her might have altered?”
“It probably would, you know. I dare say, in a year or two, he might have liked to arrange for her marriage himself—though more likely he wouldn’t—gen
tlemen are usually rather selfish. But I certainly think that if Ruby Keene had had a young man she’d have been careful to keep very quiet about it.”
“And the young man might have resented that?”
“I suppose that is the most plausible solution. It struck me, you know, that her cousin, the young woman who was at Gossington this morning, looked definitely angry with the dead girl. What you’ve told me explains why. No doubt she was looking forward to doing very well out of the business.”
“Rather a cold-blooded character, in fact?”
“That’s too harsh a judgment, perhaps. The poor thing has had to earn her living, and you can’t expect her to sentimentalize because a well-to-do man and woman—as you have described Mr. Gaskell and Mrs. Jefferson—are going to be done out of a further large sum of money to which they have really no particular moral right. I should say Miss Turner was a hard-headed, ambitious young woman, with a good temper and considerable joie de vivre. A little,” added Miss Marple, “like Jessie Golden, the baker’s daughter.”
“What happened to her?” asked Sir Henry.
“She trained as a nursery governess and married the son of the house, who was home on leave from India. Made him a very good wife, I believe.”
Sir Henry pulled himself clear of these fascinating side issues. He said:
“Is there any reason, do you think, why my friend Conway Jefferson should suddenly have developed this ‘Cophetua complex,’ if you like to call it that?”
“There might have been.”
“In what way?”
Miss Marple said, hesitating a little:
“I should think—it’s only a suggestion, of course—that perhaps his son-in-law and daughter-in-law might have wanted to get married again.”
“Surely he couldn’t have objected to that?”
“Oh, no, not objected. But, you see, you must look at it from his point of view. He had a terrible shock and loss—so had they. The three bereaved people live together and the link between them is the loss they have all sustained. But Time, as my dear mother used to say, is a great healer. Mr. Gaskell and Mrs. Jefferson are young. Without knowing it themselves, they may have begun to feel restless, to resent the bonds that tied them to their past sorrow. And so, feeling like that, old Mr. Jefferson would have become conscious of a sudden lack of sympathy without knowing its cause. It’s usually that. Gentlemen so easily feel neglected. With Mr. Harbottle it was Miss Harbottle going away. And with the Badgers it was Mrs. Badger taking such an interest in Spiritualism and always going out to séances.”