I smiled. “The best solution I have had was a dream. In my dream it all fitted in and panned out beautifully. Unfortunately when I woke up the whole thing was nonsense!”
“How interesting, though. Do tell me how the nonsense went!”
“Oh, it all started with the silly phrase ‘No smoke without fire.’ People have been saying that ad nauseam. And then I got it mixed up with war terms. Smoke screens, scrap of paper, telephone messages— No, that was another dream.”
“And what was that dream?”
The old lady was so eager about it, that I felt sure she was a secret reader of Napoleon’s Book of Dreams, which had been the great standby of my old nurse.
“Oh! only Elsie Holland—the Symmingtons’ nursery governess, you know, was getting married to Dr. Griffith and the vicar here was reading the service in Latin—(‘Very appropriate, dear,’ murmured Mrs. Dane Calthrop to her spouse) and then Mrs. Dane Calthrop got up and forbade the banns and said it had got to be stopped!
“But that part,” I added with a smile, “was true. I woke up and found you standing over me saying it.”
“And I was quite right,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop—but quite mildly, I was glad to note.
“But where did a telephone message come in?” asked Miss Marple, crinkling her brows.
“I’m afraid I’m being rather stupid. That wasn’t in the dream. It was just before it. I came through the hall and noticed Joanna had written down a message to be given to someone if they rang up….”
Miss Marple leaned forward. There was a pink spot in each cheek. “Will you think me very inquisitive and very rude if I ask just what that message was?” She cast a glance at Joanna. “I do apologize, my dear.”
Joanna, however, was highly entertained.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” she assured the old lady. “I can’t remember anything about it myself, but perhaps Jerry can. It must have been something quite trivial.”
Solemnly I repeated the message as best I could remember it, enormously tickled at the old lady’s rapt attention.
I was afraid the actual words were going to disappoint her, but perhaps she had some sentimental idea of a romance, for she nodded her head and smiled and seemed pleased.
“I see,” she said. “I thought it might be something like that.”
Mrs. Dane Calthrop said sharply: “Like what, Jane?”
“Something quite ordinary,” said Miss Marple.
She looked at me thoughtfully for a moment or two, then she said unexpectedly:
“I can see you are a very clever young man—but not quite enough confidence in yourself. You ought to have!”
Joanna gave a loud hoot.
“For goodness’ sake don’t encourage him to feel like that. He thinks quite enough of himself as it is.”
“Be quiet, Joanna,” I said. “Miss Marple understands me.”
Miss Marple had resumed her fleecy knitting. “You know,” she observed pensively. “To commit a successful murder must be very much like bringing off a conjuring trick.”
“The quickness of the hand deceives the eye?”
“Not only that. You’ve got to make people look at the wrong thing and in the wrong place—Misdirection, they call it, I believe.”
“Well,” I remarked. “So far everybody seems to have looked in the wrong place for our lunatic at large.”
“I should be inclined, myself,” said Miss Marple, “to look for somebody very sane.”
“Yes,” I said thoughtfully. “That’s what Nash said. I remember he stressed respectability too.”
“Yes,” agreed Miss Marple. “That’s very important.”
Well, we all seemed agreed.
I addressed Mrs. Calthrop. “Nash thinks,” I said, “that there will be more anonymous letters. What do you think?”
She said slowly: “There may be, I suppose.”
“If the police think that, there will have to be, no doubt,” said Miss Marple.
I went on doggedly to Mrs. Dane Calthrop.
“Are you still sorry for the writer?”
She flushed. “Why not?”
“I don’t think I agree with you, dear,” said Miss Marple. “Not in this case.”
I said hotly: “They’ve driven one woman to suicide, and caused untold misery and heartburnings!”
“Have you had one, Miss Burton?” asked Miss Marple of Joanna.
Joanna gurgled, “Oh yes! It said the most frightful things.”
“I’m afraid,” said Miss Marple, “that the people who are young and pretty are apt to be singled out by the writer.”
“That’s why I certainly think it’s odd that Elsie Holland hasn’t had any,” I said.
“Let me see,” said Miss Marple. “Is that the Symmingtons’ nursery governess—the one you dreamt about, Mr. Burton?”
“Yes.”
“She’s probably had one and won’t say so,” said Joanna.
“No,” I said, “I believe her. So does Nash.”
“Dear me,” said Miss Marple. “Now that’s very interesting. That’s the most interesting thing I’ve heard yet.”
II
As we were going home Joanna told me that I ought not to have repeated what Nash said about letters coming.
“Why not?”
“Because Mrs. Dane Calthrop might be It.”
“You don’t really believe that!”
“I’m not sure. She’s a queer woman.”
We began our discussion of probables all over again.
It was two nights later that I was coming back in the car from Exhampton. I had had dinner there and then started back and it was already dark before I got into Lymstock.
Something was wrong with the car lights, and after slowing up and switching on and off, I finally got out to see what I could do. I was some time fiddling, but I managed to fix them up finally.
The road was quite deserted. Nobody in Lymstock is about after dark. The first few houses were just ahead, amongst them the ugly gabled building of the Women’s Institute. It loomed up in the dim starlight and something impelled me to go and have a look at it. I don’t know whether I had caught a faint glimpse of a stealthy figure flitting through the gate—if so, it must have been so indeterminate that it did not register in my conscious mind, but I did suddenly feel a kind of overweening curiosity about the place.
The gate was slightly ajar, and I pushed it open and walked in. A short path and four steps led up to the door.
I stood there a moment hesitating. What was I really doing there? I didn’t know, and then, suddenly, just near at hand, I caught the sound of a rustle. It sounded like a woman’s dress. I took a sharp turn and went round the corner of the building towards where the sound had come from.
I couldn’t see anybody. I went on and again turned a corner. I was at the back of the house now and suddenly I saw, only two feet away from me, an open window.
I crept up to it and listened. I could hear nothing, but somehow or other I felt convinced that there was someone inside.
My back wasn’t too good for acrobatics as yet, but I managed to hoist myself up and drop over the sill inside. I made rather a noise unfortunately.
I stood just inside the window listening. Then I walked forward, my hands outstretched. I heard then the faintest sound ahead of me to my right.
I had a torch in my pocket and I switched it on.
Immediately a low, sharp voice said: “Put that out.”
I obeyed instantly, for in that brief second I had recognized Superintendent Nash.
I felt him take my arm and propel me through a door and into a passage. Here, where there was no window to betray our presence to anyone outside, he switched on a lamp and looked at me more in sorrow than in anger.
“You would have to butt in just that minute, Mr. Burton.”
“Sorry,” I apologized. “But I got a hunch that I was on to something.”
“And so you were probably. Did you see anyone?”
I hesitated.
“I’m not sure,” I said slowly. “I’ve got a vague feeling I saw someone sneak in through the front gate but I didn’t really see anyone. Then I heard a rustle round the side of the house.”
Nash nodded.
“That’s right. Somebody came round the house before you. They hesitated by the window, then went on quickly—heard you, I expect.”
I apologized again. “What’s the big idea?” I asked.
Nash said:
“I’m banking on the fact that an anonymous letter writer can’t stop writing letters. She may know it’s dangerous, but she’ll have to do it. It’s like a craving for drink or drugs.”
I nodded.
“Now you see, Mr. Burton, I fancy whoever it is will want to keep the letters looking the same as much as possible. She’s got the cut-out pages of that book, and can go on using letters and words cut out of them. But the envelopes present a difficulty. She’ll want to type them on the same machine. She can’t risk using another typewriter or her own handwriting.”
“Do you really think she’ll go on with the game?” I asked incredulously.
“Yes, I do. And I’ll bet you anything you like she’s full of confidence. They’re always vain as hell, these people! Well, then, I figured out that whoever it was would come to the Institute after dark so as to get at the typewriter.”
“Miss Ginch,” I said.
“Maybe.”
“You don’t know yet?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you suspect?”
“Yes. But somebody’s very cunning, Mr. Burton. Somebody knows all the tricks of the game.”
I could imagine some of the network that Nash had spread abroad. I had no doubt that every letter written by a suspect and posted or left by hand was immediately inspected. Sooner or later the criminal would slip up, would grow careless.
For the third time I apologized for my zealous and unwanted presence.
“Oh well,” said Nash philosophically. “It can’t be helped. Better luck next time.”
I went out into the night. A dim figure was standing beside my car. To my astonishment I recognized Megan.
“Hallo!” she said. “I thought this was your car. What have you been doing?”
“What are you doing is much more to the point?” I said.
“I’m out for a walk. I like walking at night. Nobody stops you and says silly things, and I like the stars, and things smell better, and everyday things look all mysterious.”
“All of that I grant you freely,” I said. “But only cats and witches walk in the dark. They’ll wonder about you at home.”
“No, they won’t. They never wonder where I am or what I’m doing.”
“How are you getting on?” I asked.
“All right, I suppose.”
“Miss Holland look after you and all that?”
“Elsie’s all right. She can’t help being a perfect fool.”
“Unkind—but probably true,” I said. “Hop in and I’ll drive you home.”
It was not quite true that Megan was never missed.
Symmington was standing on the doorstep as we drove up.
He peered towards us. “Hallo, is Megan there?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve brought her home.”
Symmington said sharply:
“You mustn’t go off like this without telling us, Megan. Miss Holland has been quite worried about you.”
Megan muttered something and went past him into the house. Symmington sighed.
“A grown-up girl is a great responsibility with no mother to look after her. She’s too old for school, I suppose.”
He looked towards me rather suspiciously.
“I suppose you took her for a drive?”
I thought it best to leave it like that.
Eleven
I
On the following day I went mad. Looking back on it, that is really the only explanation I can find.
I was due for my monthly visit to Marcus Kent… I went up by train. To my intense surprise Joanna elected to stay behind. As a rule she was eager to come and we usually stayed up for a couple of days.
This time, however, I proposed to return the same day by the evening train, but even so I was astonished at Joanna. She merely said enigmatically that she’d got plenty to do, and why spend hours in a nasty stuffy train when it was a lovely day in the country?
That, of course, was undeniable, but sounded very unlike Joanna.
She said she didn’t want the car, so I was to drive it to the station and leave it parked there against my return.
The station of Lymstock is situated, for some obscure reason known to railway companies only, quite half a mile from Lymstock itself. Halfway along the road I overtook Megan shuffling along in an aimless manner. I pulled up.
“Hallo, what are you doing?”
“Just out for a walk.”
“But not what is called a good brisk walk, I gather. You were crawling along like a dispirited crab.”
“Well, I wasn’t going anywhere particular.”
“Then you’d better come and see me off at the station.” I opened the door of the car and Megan jumped in.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“London. To see my doctor.”
“Your back’s not worse, is it?”
“No, it’s practically all right again. I’m expecting him to be very pleased about it.”
Megan nodded.
We drew up at the station. I parked the car and went in and bought my ticket at the booking office. There were very few people on the platform and nobody I knew.
“You wouldn’t like to lend me a penny, would you?” said Megan. “Then I’d get a bit of chocolate out of the slot machine.”
“Here you are, baby,” I said, handing her the coin in question. “Sure you wouldn’t like some clear gums or some throat pastilles as well?”
“I like chocolate best,” said Megan without suspecting sarcasm.
She went off to the chocolate machine, and I looked after her with a feeling of mounting irritation.
She was wearing trodden over shoes, and coarse unattractive stockings and a particularly shapeless jumper and skirt. I don’t know why all this should have infuriated me, but it did.
I said angrily as she came back:
“Why do you wear those disgusting stockings?”
Megan looked down at them, surprised.
“What’s the matter with them?”
“Everything’s the matter with them. They’re loathsome. And why wear a pullover like a decayed cabbage?”
“It’s all right, isn’t it? I’ve had it for years.”
“So I should imagine. And why do you—”
At this minute the train came in and interrupted my angry lecture.
I got into an empty first-class carriage, let down the window and leaned out to continue the conversation.
Megan stood below me, her face upturned. She asked me why I was so cross.
“I’m not cross.” I said untruly. “It just infuriates me to see you so slack, and not caring how you look.”
“I couldn’t look nice, anyway, so what does it matter?”
“My God,” I said. “I’d like to see you turned out properly. I’d like to take you to London and outfit you from tip to toe.”
“I wish you could,” said Megan.
The train began to move. I looked down into Megan’s upturned, wistful face.
And then, as I have said, madness came upon me.
I opened the door, grabbed Megan with one arm and fairly hauled her into the carriage.
There was an outraged shout from a porter, but all he could do was dexterously to bang shut the door again. I pulled Megan up from the floor where my impetuous action had landed her.
“What on earth did you do that for?” she demanded, rubbing one knee.
“Shut up,” I said. “You’re coming to London with me and when I’ve done with you you won’t know yourself. I’ll show you
what you can look like if you try. I’m tired of seeing you mooch about down at heel and all anyhow.”
“Oh!” said Megan in an ecstatic whisper.
The ticket collector came along and I bought Megan a return ticket. She sat in her corner looking at me in a kind of awed respect.
“I say,” she said when the man had gone. “You are sudden, aren’t you?”
“Very,” I said. “It runs in our family.”
How to explain to Megan the impulse that had come over me? She had looked like a wistful dog being left behind. She now had on her face the incredulous pleasure of the dog who has been taken on the walk after all.
“I suppose you don’t know London very well?” I said to Megan.
“Yes, I do,” said Megan. “I always went through it to school. And I’ve been to the dentist there and to a pantomime.”
“This,” I said darkly, “will be a different London.”
We arrived with half an hour to spare before my appointment in Harley Street.
I took a taxi and we drove straight to Mirotin, Joanna’s dressmaker. Mirotin is, in the flesh, an unconventional and breezy woman of forty-five, Mary Grey. She is a clever woman and very good company. I have always liked her.
I said to Megan. “You’re my cousin.”
“Why?”
“Don’t argue,” I said.
Mary Grey was being firm with a stout Jewess who was enamoured of a skintight powder-blue evening dress. I detached her and took her aside.
“Listen,” I said. “I’ve brought a little cousin of mine along. Joanna was coming up but was prevented. But she said I could leave it all to you. You see what the girl looks like now?”
“My God, I do,” said Mary Grey with feeling.
“Well, I want her turned out right in every particular from head to foot. Carte blanche. Stockings, shoes, undies, everything! By the way, the man who does Joanna’s hair is close round here, isn’t he?”
“Antoine? Round the corner. I’ll see to that too.”
“You’re a woman in a thousand.”
“Oh, I shall enjoy it—apart from the money—and that’s not to be sneezed at in these days—half my damned brutes of women never pay their bills. But as I say, I shall enjoy it.” She shot a quick professional glance at Megan standing a little way away. “She’s got a lovely figure.”