Murder at the Vicarage

  “Well, sir,” he greeted me. “I’ve traced that telephone call that you received.”

  “Indeed?” I said eagerly.

  “It’s rather odd. It was put through from the North Lodge of Old Hall. Now that lodge is empty, the lodgekeepers have been pensioned off and the new lodgekeepers aren’t in yet. The place was empty and convenient—a window at the back was open. No fingerprints on the instrument itself—it had been wiped clear. That’s suggestive.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean that it shows that call was put through deliberately to get you out of the way. Therefore the murder was carefully planned in advance. If it had been just a harmless practical joke, the fingerprints wouldn’t have been wiped off so carefully.”

  “No. I see that.”

  “It also shows that the murderer was well acquainted with Old Hall and its surroundings. It wasn’t Mrs. Protheroe who put that call through. I’ve accounted for every moment of her time that afternoon. There are half a dozen other servants who can swear that she was at home till five thirty. Then the car came round and drove Colonel Protheroe and her to the village. The Colonel went to see Quinton, the vet, about one of the horses. Mrs. Protheroe did some ordering at the grocers and at the fish shop, and from there came straight down the back lane where Miss Marple saw her. All the shops agree she carried no handbag with her. The old lady was right.”

  “She usually is,” I said mildly.

  “And Miss Protheroe was over at Much Benham at 5:30.”

  “Quite so,” I said. “My nephew was there too.”

  “That disposes of her. The maid seems all right—a bit hysterical and upset, but what can you expect? Of course, I’ve got my eye on the butler—what with giving notice and all. But I don’t think he knows anything about it.”

  “Your inquiries seem to have had rather a negative result, Inspector.”

  “They do and they do not, sir. There’s one very queer thing has turned up—quite unexpectedly, I may say.”

  “Yes?”

  “You remember the fuss that Mrs. Price Ridley, who lives next door to you, was kicking up yesterday morning? About being rung up on the telephone?”

  “Yes?” I said.

  “Well, we traced the call just to calm her—and where on this earth do you think it was put through from?”

  “A call office?” I hazarded.

  “No, Mr. Clement. That call was put through from Mr. Lawrence Redding’s cottage.”

  “What?” I exclaimed, surprised.

  “Yes. A bit odd, isn’t it? Mr. Redding had nothing to do with it. At that time, 6:30, he was on his way to the Blue Boar with Dr. Stone in full view of the village. But there it is. Suggestive, eh? Someone walked into that empty cottage and used the telephone, who was it? That’s two queer telephone calls in one day. Makes you think there’s some connection between them. I’ll eat my hat if they weren’t both put through by the same person.”

  “But with what object?”

  “Well, that’s what we’ve got to find out. There seems no particular point in the second one, but there must be a point somewhere. And you see the significance? Mr. Redding’s house used to telephone from. Mr. Redding’s pistol. All throwing suspicion on Mr. Redding.”

  “It would be more to the point to have put through the first call from his house,” I objected.

  “Ah, but I’ve been thinking that out. What did Mr. Redding do most afternoons? He went up to Old Hall and painted Miss Protheroe. And from his cottage he’d go on his motor bicycle, passing through the North Gate. Now you see the point of the call being put through from there. The murderer is someone who didn’t know about the quarrel and that Mr. Redding wasn’t going up to Old Hall any more.”

  I reflected a moment to let the Inspector’s points sink into my brain. They seemed to me logical and unavoidable.

  “Were there any fingerprints on the receiver in Mr. Redding’s cottage?” I asked.

  “There were not,” said the Inspector bitterly. “That dratted old woman who goes and does for him had been and dusted them off yesterday morning.” He reflected wrathfully for a few minutes. “She’s a stupid old fool, anyway. Can’t remember when she saw the pistol last. It might have been there on the morning of the crime, or it might not. ‘She couldn’t say, she’s sure.’ They’re all alike!

  “Just as a matter of form, I went round and saw Dr. Stone,” he went on. “I must say he was pleasant as could be about it. He and Miss Cram went up to that mound—or barrow—or whatever you call it, about half past two yesterday, and stayed there all the afternoon. Dr. Stone came back alone, and she came later. He says he didn’t hear any shot, but admits he’s absentminded. But it all bears out what we think.”

  “Only,” I said, “you haven’t caught the murderer.”

  “H’m,” said the Inspector. “It was a woman’s voice you heard through the telephone. It was in all probability a woman’s voice Mrs. Price Ridley heard. If only that shot hadn’t come hard on the close of the telephone call—well, I’d know where to look.”

  “Where?”

  “Ah! That’s just what it’s best not to say, sir.”

  Unblushingly, I suggested a glass of old port. I have some very fine old vintage port. Eleven o’clock in the morning is not the usual time for drinking port, but I did not think that mattered with Inspector Slack. It was, of course, cruel abuse of the vintage port, but one must not be squeamish about such things.

  When Inspector Slack had polished off the second glass, he began to unbend and become genial. Such is the effect of that particular port.

  “I don’t suppose it matters with you, sir,” he said. “You’ll keep it to yourself? No letting it get round the parish.”

  I reassured him.

  “Seeing as the whole thing happened in your house, it almost seems as though you have a right to know.”

  “Just what I feel myself,” I said.

  “Well, then, sir, what about the lady who called on Colonel Protheroe the night before the murder?”

  “Mrs. Lestrange,” I cried, speaking rather loud in my astonishment.

  The Inspector threw me a reproachful glance.

  “Not so loud, sir. Mrs. Lestrange is the lady I’ve got my eye on. You remember what I told you—blackmail.”

  “Hardly a reason for murder. Wouldn’t it be a case of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs? That is, assuming that your hypothesis is true, which I don’t for a minute admit.”

  The Inspector winked at me in a common manner.

  “Ah! She’s the kind the gentlemen will always stand up for. Now look here, sir. Suppose she’s successfully blackmailed the old gentleman in the past. After a lapse of years, she gets wind of him, comes down here and tries it on again. But, in the meantime, things have changed. The law has taken up a very different stand. Every facility is given nowadays to people prosecuting for blackmail—names are not allowed to be reported in the press. Suppose Colonel Protheroe turns round and says he’ll have the law on her. She’s in a nasty position. They give a very severe sentence for blackmail. The boot’s on the other leg. The only thing to do to save herself is to put him out good and quick.”

  I was silent. I had to admit that the case the Inspector had built up was plausible. Only one thing to my mind made it inadmissable—the personality of Mrs. Lestrange.

  “I don’t agree with you, Inspector,” I said. “Mrs. Lestrange doesn’t seem to me to be a potential blackmailer. She’s—well, it’s an old-fashioned word, but she’s a—lady.”

  He threw me a pitying glance.

  “Ah! well, sir,” he said tolerantly, “you’re a clergyman. You don’t know half of what goes on. Lady indeed! You’d be surprised if you knew some of the things I know.”

  “I’m not referring to mere social position. Anyway, I should imagine Mrs. Lestrange to be a déclassée. What I mean is a question of—personal refinement.”

  “You don’t see her with the same eyes as I do, sir. I may be a man??
?but I’m a police officer, too. They can’t get over me with their personal refinement. Why, that woman is the kind who could stick a knife into you without turning a hair.”

  Curiously enough, I could believe Mrs. Lestrange guilty of murder much more easily than I could believe her capable of blackmail.

  “But, of course, she can’t have been telephoning to the old lady next door and shooting Colonel Protheroe at one and the same time,” continued the Inspector.

  The words were hardly out of his mouth when he slapped his leg ferociously.

  “Got it,” he exclaimed. “That’s the point of the telephone call. Kind of alibi. Knew we’d connect it with the first one. I’m going to look into this. She may have bribed some village lad to do the phoning for her. He’d never think of connecting it with the murder.”

  The Inspector hurried off.

  “Miss Marple wants to see you,” said Griselda, putting her head in. “She sent over a very incoherent note—all spidery and underlined. I couldn’t read most of it. Apparently she can’t leave home herself. Hurry up and go across and see her and find out what it is. I’ve got my old women coming in two minutes or I’d come myself. I do hate old women—they tell you about their bad legs and sometimes insist on showing them to you. What luck that the inquest is this afternoon! You won’t have to go and watch the Boys’ Club Cricket Match.”

  I hurried off, considerably exercised in my mind as to the reason for this summons.

  I found Miss Marple in what, I believe, is described as a fluster. She was very pink and slightly incoherent.

  “My nephew,” she explained. “My nephew, Raymond West, the author. He is coming down today. Such a to-do. I have to see to everything myself. You cannot trust a maid to air a bed properly, and we must, of course, have a meat meal tonight. Gentlemen require such a lot of meat, do they not? And drink. There certainly should be some drink in the house—and a siphon.”

  “If I can do anything—” I began.

  “Oh! How very kind. But I did not mean that. There is plenty of time really. He brings his own pipe and tobacco, I am glad to say. Glad because it saves me from knowing which kind of cigarettes are right to buy. But rather sorry, too, because it takes so long for the smell to get out of the curtains. Of course, I open the window and shake them well very early every morning. Raymond gets up very late—I think writers often do. He writes very clever books, I believe, though people are not really nearly so unpleasant as he makes out. Clever young men know so little of life, don’t you think?”

  “Would you like to bring him to dinner at the Vicarage?” I asked, still unable to gather why I had been summoned.

  “Oh! No, thank you,” said Miss Marple. “It’s very kind of you,” she added.

  “There was—er—something you wanted to see me about, I think,” I suggested desperately.

  “Oh! Of course. In all the excitement it had gone right out of my head.” She broke off and called to her maid. “Emily—Emily. Not those sheets. The frilled ones with the monogram, and don’t put them too near the fire.”

  She closed the door and returned to me on tiptoe.

  “It’s just rather a curious thing that happened last night,” she explained. “I thought you would like to hear about it, though at the moment it doesn’t seem to make sense. I felt very wakeful last night—wondering about all this sad business. And I got up and looked out of my window. And what do you think I saw?”

  I looked, inquiring.

  “Gladys Cram,” said Miss Marple, with great emphasis. “As I live, going into the wood with a suitcase.”

  “A suitcase?”

  “Isn’t it extraordinary? What should she want with a suitcase in the wood at twelve o’clock at night?

  “You see,” said Miss Marple, “I dare say it has nothing to do with the murder. But it is a Peculiar Thing. And just at present we all feel we must take notice of Peculiar Things.”

  “Perfectly amazing,” I said. “Was she going to—er—sleep in the barrow by any chance?”

  “She didn’t, at any rate,” said Miss Marple. “Because quite a short time afterwards she came back, and she hadn’t got the suitcase with her.”

  Eighteen

  The inquest was held that afternoon (Saturday) at two o’clock at the Blue Boar. The local excitement was, I need hardly say, tremendous. There had been no murder in St. Mary Mead for at least fifteen years. And to have someone like Colonel Protheroe murdered actually in the Vicarage study is such a feast of sensation as rarely falls to the lot of a village population.

  Various comments floated to my ears which I was probably not meant to hear.

  “There’s Vicar. Looks pale, don’t he? I wonder if he had a hand in it. ’Twas done at Vicarage, after all.” “How can you, Mary Adams? And him visiting Henry Abbott at the time.” “Oh! But they do say him and the Colonel had words. There’s Mary Hill. Giving herself airs, she is, on account of being in service there. Hush, here’s coroner.”

  The coroner was Dr. Roberts of our adjoining town of Much Benham. He cleared his throat, adjusted his eyeglasses, and looked important.

  To recapitulate all the evidence would be merely tiresome. Lawrence Redding gave evidence of finding the body, and identified the pistol as belonging to him. To the best of his belief he had seen it on the Tuesday, two days previously. It was kept on a shelf in his cottage, and the door of the cottage was habitually unlocked.

  Mrs. Protheroe gave evidence that she had last seen her husband at about a quarter to six when they separated in the village street. She agreed to call for him at the Vicarage later. She had gone to the Vicarage about a quarter past six, by way of the back lane and the garden gate. She had heard no voices in the study and had imagined that the room was empty, but her husband might have been sitting at the writing table, in which case she would not have seen him. As far as she knew, he had been in his usual health and spirits. She knew of no enemy who might have had a grudge against him.

  I gave evidence next, told of my appointment with Protheroe and my summons to the Abbotts.’ I described how I had found the body and my summoning of Dr. Haydock.

  “How many people, Mr. Clement, were aware that Colonel Protheroe was coming to see you that evening?”

  “A good many, I should imagine. My wife knew, and my nephew, and Colonel Protheroe himself alluded to the fact that morning when I met him in the village. I should think several people might have overheard him, as, being slightly deaf, he spoke in a loud voice.”

  “It was, then, a matter of common knowledge? Anyone might know?”

  I agreed.

  Haydock followed. He was an important witness. He described carefully and technically the appearance of the body and the exact injuries. It was his opinion that the deceased had been shot at approximately 6:20 to 6:30—certainly not later than 6:35. That was the outside limit. He was positive and emphatic on that point. There was no question of suicide, the wound could not have been self-inflicted.

  Inspector Slack’s evidence was discreet and abridged. He described his summons and the circumstances under which he had found the body. The unfinished letter was produced and the time on it—6:20—noted. Also the clock. It was tacitly assumed that the time of death was 6:22. The police were giving nothing away. Anne Protheroe told me afterwards that she had been told to suggest a slightly earlier period of time than 6:20 for her visit.

  Our maid, Mary, was the next witness, and proved a somewhat truculent one. She hadn’t heard anything, and didn’t want to hear anything. It wasn’t as though gentlemen who came to see the Vicar usually got shot. They didn’t. She’d got her own jobs to look after. Colonel Protheroe had arrived at a quarter past six exactly. No, she didn’t look at the clock. She heard the church chime after she had shown him into the study. She didn’t hear any shot. If there had been a shot she’d have heard it. Well, of course, she knew there must have been a shot, since the gentleman was found shot—but there it was. She hadn’t heard it.

  The coroner did not pres
s the point. I realized that he and Colonel Melchett were working in agreement.

  Mrs. Lestrange had been subpoenaed to give evidence, but a medical certificate, signed by Dr. Haydock, was produced saying she was too ill to attend.

  There was only one other witness, a somewhat doddering old woman. The one who, in Slack’s phrase, “did for” Lawrence Redding.

  Mrs. Archer was shown the pistol and recognized it as the one she had seen in Mr. Redding’s sitting room “over against the bookcase, he kept it, lying about.” She had last seen it on the day of the murder. Yes—in answer to a further question—she was quite sure it was there at lunchtime on Thursday—quarter to one when she left.

  I remembered what the Inspector had told me, and I was mildly surprised. However vague she might have been when he questioned her, she was quite positive about it now.

  The coroner summed up in a negative manner, but with a good deal of firmness. The verdict was given almost immediately:

  Murder by Person or Persons unknown.

  As I left the room I was aware of a small army of young men with bright, alert faces and a kind of superficial resemblance to each other. Several of them were already known to me by sight as having haunted the Vicarage the last few days. Seeking to escape, I plunged back into the Blue Boar and was lucky enough to run straight into the archaeologist, Dr. Stone. I clutched at him without ceremony.

  “Journalists,” I said briefly and expressively. “If you could deliver me from their clutches?”

  “Why, certainly, Mr. Clement. Come upstairs with me.”

  He led the way up the narrow staircase and into his sitting room, where Miss Cram was sitting rattling the keys of a typewriter with a practised touch. She greeted me with a broad smile of welcome and seized the opportunity to stop work.

  “Awful, isn’t it?” she said. “Not knowing who did it, I mean. Not but that I’m disappointed in an inquest. Tame, that’s what I call it. Nothing what you might call spicy from beginning to end.”

  “You were there, then, Miss Cram?”