Murder at the Vicarage

  “You won’t tell me where?”

  Rather childishly, I wouldn’t.

  He had his secrets. Well, I would have mine.

  I was a little hurt that he had not confided in me more fully.

  Twenty-six

  I was in a strange mood when I mounted the pulpit that night.

  The church was unusually full. I cannot believe that it was the prospect of Hawes preaching which had attracted so many. Hawes’s sermons are dull and dogmatic. And if the news had got round that I was preaching instead, that would not have attracted them either. For my sermons are dull and scholarly. Neither, I am afraid, can I attribute it to devotion.

  Everybody had come, I concluded, to see who else was there, and possibly exchange a little gossip in the church porch afterwards.

  Haydock was in church, which is unusual, and also Lawrence Redding. And to my surprise, beside Lawrence I saw the white strained face of Hawes. Anne Protheroe was there, but she usually attends Evensong on Sundays, though I had hardly thought she would today. I was far more surprised to see Lettice. Churchgoing was compulsory on Sunday morning—Colonel Protheroe was adamant on that point, but I had never seen Lettice at evening service before.

  Gladys Cram was there, looking rather blatantly young and healthy against a background of wizened spinsters, and I fancied that a dim figure at the end of the church who had slipped in late, was Mrs. Lestrange.

  I need hardly say that Mrs. Price Ridley, Miss Hartnell, Miss Wetherby, and Miss Marple were there in full force. All the village people were there, with hardly a single exception. I don’t know when we have had such a crowded congregation.

  Crowds are queer things. There was a magnetic atmosphere that night, and the first person to feel its influence was myself.

  As a rule, I prepare my sermons beforehand. I am careful and conscientious over them, but no one is better aware than myself of their deficiencies.

  Tonight I was of necessity preaching extempore, and as I looked down on the sea of upturned faces, a sudden madness entered my brain. I ceased to be in any sense a Minister of God. I became an actor. I had an audience before me and I wanted to move that audience—and more, I felt the power to move it.

  I am not proud of what I did that night. I am an utter disbeliever in the emotional Revivalist spirit. Yet that night I acted the part of a raving, ranting evangelist.

  I gave out my text slowly.

  I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

  I repeated it twice, and I heard my own voice, a resonant, ringing voice unlike the voice of the everyday Leonard Clement.

  I saw Griselda from her front pew look up in surprise and Dennis follow her example.

  I held my breath for a moment or two, and then I let myself rip.

  The congregation in that church were in a state of pent-up emotion, ripe to be played upon. I played upon them. I exhorted sinners to repentance. I lashed myself into a kind of emotional frenzy. Again and again I threw out a denouncing hand and reiterated the phrase.

  “I am speaking to you.…”

  And each time, from different parts of the church, a kind of sighing gasp went up.

  Mass emotion is a strange and terrible thing.

  I finished up with those beautiful and poignant words—perhaps the most poignant words in the whole Bible:

  “This night thy soul shall be required of thee….”

  It was a strange, brief possession. When I got back to the Vicarage I was my usual faded, indeterminate self. I found Griselda rather pale. She slipped her arm through mine.

  “Len,” she said, “you were rather terrible tonight. I—I didn’t like it. I’ve never heard you preach like that before.”

  “I don’t suppose you ever will again,” I said, sinking down wearily on the sofa. I was tired.

  “What made you do it?”

  “A sudden madness came over me.”

  “Oh! It—it wasn’t something special?”

  “What do you mean—something special?”

  “I wondered—that was all. You’re very unexpected, Len. I never feel I really know you.”

  We sat down to cold supper, Mary being out.

  “There’s a note for you in the hall,” said Griselda. “Get it, will you, Dennis?”

  Dennis, who had been very silent, obeyed.

  I took it and groaned. Across the top left-hand corner was written: By hand—Urgent.

  “This,” I said, “must be from Miss Marple. There’s no one else left.”

  I had been perfectly correct in my assumption.

  “Dear Mr. Clement,—I should so much like to have a little chat with you about one or two things that have occurred to me. I feel we should all try and help in elucidating this sad mystery. I will come over about half past nine if I may, and tap on your study window. Perhaps dear Griselda would be so very kind as to run over here and cheer up my nephew. And Mr. Dennis too, of course, if he cares to come. If I do not hear, I will expect them and will come over myself at the time I have stated.

  Yours very sincerely,

  Jane Marple.”

  I handed the note to Griselda.

  “Oh, we’ll go!” she said cheerfully. “A glass or two of homemade liqueur is just what one needs on Sunday evening. I think it’s Mary’s blancmange that is so frightfully depressing. It’s like something out of a mortuary.”

  Dennis seemed less charmed at the prospect.

  “It’s all very well for you,” he grumbled. “You can talk all this highbrow stuff about art and books. I always feel a perfect fool sitting and listening to you.”

  “That’s good for you,” said Griselda serenely. “It puts you in your place. Anyway, I don’t think Mr. Raymond West is so frightfully clever as he pretends to be.”

  “Very few of us are,” I said.

  I wondered very much what exactly it was that Miss Marple wished to talk over. Of all the ladies in my congregation, I considered her by far the shrewdest. Not only does she see and hear practically everything that goes on, but she draws amazingly neat and apposite deductions from the facts that come under her notice.

  If I were at any time to set out on a career of deceit, it would be of Miss Marple that I should be afraid.

  What Griselda called the Nephew Amusing Party started off at a little after nine, and whilst I was waiting for Miss Marple to arrive I amused myself by drawing up a kind of schedule of the facts connected with the crime. I arranged them so far as possible in chronological order. I am not a punctual person, but I am a neat one, and I like things jotted down in a methodical fashion.

  At half past nine punctually, there was a little tap on the window, and I rose and admitted Miss Marple.

  She had a very fine Shetland shawl thrown over her head and shoulders and was looking rather old and frail. She came in full of little fluttering remarks.

  “So good of you to let me come—and so good of dear Griselda—Raymond admires her so much—the perfect Greuze he always calls her … No, I won’t have a footstool.”

  I deposited the Shetland shawl on a chair and returned to take a chair facing my guest. We looked at each other, and a little deprecating smile broke out on her face.

  “I feel that you must be wondering why—why I am so interested in all this. You may possibly think it’s very unwomanly. No—please—I should like to explain if I may.”

  She paused a moment, a pink colour suffusing her cheeks.

  “You see,” she began at last, “living alone, as I do, in a rather out-of-the-way part of the world, one has to have a hobby. There is, of course, woolwork, and Guides, and Welfare, and sketching, but my hobby is—and always has been—Human Nature. So varied—and so very fascinating. And, of course, in a small village, with nothing to distract one, one has such ample opportunity for becoming what I might call proficient in one’s study. One begins to class people, quite definitely, just as though they were birds or flowers, group so-and-so, genus this, species that. Sometimes, of course, one makes mista
kes, but less and less as time goes on. And then, too, one tests oneself. One takes a little problem—for instance, the gill of picked shrimps that amused dear Griselda so much—a quite unimportant mystery but absolutely incomprehensible unless one solves it right. And then there was that matter of the changed cough drops, and the butcher’s wife’s umbrella—the last absolutely meaningless unless on the assumption that the greengrocer was not behaving at all nicely with the chemist’s wife—which, of course, turned out to be the case. It is so fascinating, you know, to apply one’s judgment and find that one is right.”

  “You usually are, I believe,” I said smiling.

  “That, I am afraid, is what has made me a little conceited,” confessed Miss Marple. “But I have always wondered whether, if some day a really big mystery came along, I should be able to do the same thing. I mean—just solve it correctly. Logically, it ought to be exactly the same thing. After all, a tiny working model of a torpedo is just the same as a real torpedo.”

  “You mean it’s all a question of relativity,” I said slowly. “It should be—logically, I admit. But I don’t know whether it really is.”

  “Surely it must be the same,” said Miss Marple. “The—what one used to call the factors at school—are the same. There’s money, and the mutual attraction people of an—er—opposite sex—and there’s queerness of course—so many people are a little queer, aren’t they?—in fact, most people are when you know them well. And normal people do such astonishing things sometimes, and abnormal people are sometimes so very sane and ordinary. In fact, the only way is to compare people with other people you have known or come across. You’d be surprised if you knew how very few distinct types there are in all.”

  “You frighten me,” I said. “I feel I’m being put under the microscope.”

  “Of course, I wouldn’t dream of saying any of this to Colonel Melchett—such an autocratic man, isn’t he?—and poor Inspector Slack—well, he’s exactly like the young lady in the boot shop who wants to sell you patent leather because she’s got it in your size, and doesn’t take any notice of the fact that you want brown calf.”

  That, really, is a very good description of Slack.

  “But you, Mr. Clement, know, I’m sure, quite as much about the crime as Inspector Slack. I thought, if we could work together—”

  “I wonder,” I said. “I think each one of us in his secret heart fancies himself as Sherlock Holmes.”

  Then I told her of the three summonses I had received that afternoon. I told her of Anne’s discovery of the picture with the slashed face. I also told her of Miss Cram’s attitude at the police station, and I described Haydock’s identification of the crystal I had picked up.

  “Having found that myself,” I finished up, “I should like it to be important. But it’s probably got nothing to do with the case.”

  “I have been reading a lot of American detective stories from the library lately,” said Miss Marple, “hoping to find them helpful.”

  “Was there anything in them about picric acid?”

  “I’m afraid not. I do remember reading a story once, though, in which a man was poisoned by picric acid and lanoline being rubbed on him as an ointment.”

  “But as nobody has been poisoned here, that doesn’t seem to enter into the question,” I said.

  Then I took up my schedule and handed it to her.

  “I’ve tried,” I said, “to recapitulate the facts of the case as clearly as possible.”

  MY SCHEDULE

  Thursday, 21st inst.

  12:30 p.m.—Colonel Protheroe alters his appointment from six to six fifteen. Overheard by half village very probably.

  12:45—Pistol last seen in its proper place. (But this is doubtful, as Mrs. Archer had previously said she could not remember.)

  5:30 (approx.)—Colonel and Mrs. Protheroe leave Old Hall for village in car.

  5:30 Fake call put through to me from the North Lodge, Old Hall.

  6:15 (or a minute or two earlier)—Colonel Protheroe arrives at Vicarage. Is shown into study by Mary.

  6:20—Mrs. Protheroe comes along back lane and across garden to study window. Colonel Protheroe not visible.

  6:29—Call from Lawrence Redding’s cottage put through to Mrs. Price Ridley (according to Exchange).

  6:30–6:35—Shot heard. (Accepting telephone call time as correct.) Lawrence Redding, Anne Protheroe and Dr. Stone’s evidence seem to point to its being earlier, but Mrs. P.R. probably right.

  6:45—Lawrence Redding arrives Vicarage and finds the body.

  6:48—I meet Lawrence Redding.

  6:49—Body discovered by me.

  6:55—Haydock examines body.

  NOTE.—The only two people who have no kind of alibi for 6:30–6:35 are Miss Cram and Mrs. Lestrange. Miss Cram says she was at the barrow, but no confirmation. It seems reasonable, however, to dismiss her from case as there seems nothing to connect her with it. Mrs. Lestrange left Dr. Haydock’s house some time after six to keep an appointment. Where was the appointment, and with whom? It could hardly have been with Colonel Protheroe, as he expected to be engaged with me. It is true that Mrs. Lestrange was near the spot at the time the crime was committed, but it seems doubtful what motive she could have had for murdering him. She did not gain by his death, and the Inspector’s theory of blackmail I cannot accept. Mrs. Lestrange is not that kind of woman. Also it seems unlikely that she should have got hold of Lawrence Redding’s pistol.

  “Very clear,” said Miss Marple, nodding her head in approval. “Very clear indeed. Gentlemen always make such excellent memoranda.”

  “You agree with what I have written?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes—you have put it all beautifully.”

  I asked her the question then that I had been meaning to put all along.

  “Miss Marple,” I said. “Who do you suspect? You once said that there were seven people.”

  “Quite that, I should think,” said Miss Marple absently. “I expect every one of us suspects someone different. In fact, one can see they do.”

  She didn’t ask me who I suspected.

  “The point is,” she said, “that one must provide an explanation for everything. Each thing has got to be explained away satisfactorily. If you have a theory that fits every fact—well, then, it must be the right one. But that’s extremely difficult. If it wasn’t for that note—”

  “The note?” I said, surprised.

  “Yes, you remember, I told you. That note has worried me all along. It’s wrong, somehow.”

  “Surely,” I said, “that is explained now. It was written at six thirty five and another hand—the murderer’s—put the misleading 6:20 at the top. I think that is clearly established.”

  “But even then,” said Miss Marple, “it’s all wrong.”

  “But why?”

  “Listen.” Miss Marple leant forward eagerly. “Mrs. Protheroe passed my garden, as I told you, and she went as far as the study window and she looked in and she didn’t see Colonel Protheroe.”

  “Because he was writing at the desk,” I said.

  “And that’s what’s all wrong. That was at twenty past six. We agreed that he wouldn’t sit down to say he couldn’t wait any longer until after half past six—so, why was he sitting at the writing table then?”

  “I never thought of that,” I said slowly.

  “Let us, dear Mr. Clement, just go over it again. Mrs. Protheroe comes to the window and she thinks the room is empty—she must have thought so, because otherwise she would never have gone down to the studio to meet Mr. Redding. It wouldn’t have been safe. The room must have been absolutely silent if she thought it was empty. And that leaves us three alternatives, doesn’t it?”

  “You mean—”

  “Well, the first alternative would be that Colonel Protheroe was dead already—but I don’t think that’s the most likely one. To begin with he’d only been there about five minutes and she or I would have heard the shot, and secondly, the same difficult
y remains about his being at the writing table. The second alternative is, of course, that he was sitting at the writing table writing a note, but in that case it must have been a different note altogether. It can’t have been to say he couldn’t wait. And the third—”

  “Yes?” I said.

  “Well, the third is, of course, that Mrs. Protheroe was right, and that the room was actually empty.”

  “You mean that, after he had been shown in, he went out again and came back later?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why should he have done that?”

  Miss Marple spread out her hands in a little gesture of bewilderment.

  “That would mean looking at the case from an entirely different angle,” I said.

  “One so often has to do that—about everything. Don’t you think so?”

  I did not reply. I was going over carefully in my mind the three alternatives that Miss Marple had suggested.

  With a slight sigh the old lady rose to her feet.

  “I must be getting back. I am very glad to have had this little chat—though we haven’t got very far, have we?”

  “To tell you the truth,” I said, as I fetched her shawl, “the whole thing seems to me a bewildering maze.”

  “Oh! I wouldn’t say that. I think, on the whole, one theory fits nearly everything. That is, if you admit one coincidence—and I think one coincidence is allowable. More than one, of course, is unlikely.”

  “Do you really think that? About the theory, I mean?” I asked, looking at her.

  “I admit that there is one flaw in my theory—one fact that I can’t get over. Oh! If only that note had been something quite different—”

  She sighed and shook her head. She moved towards the window and absentmindedly reached up her hand and felt the rather depressed-looking plant that stood in a stand.