A Murder Is Announced (8 page)

“Was it Miss Hinchcliffe I was asking about giving the hens cod liver oil in the cold weather? Or was it Mrs. Harmon—no, she'd only just arrived. I think I was just saying to Colonel Easterbrook that I thought it was really very dangerous to have an atom research station in England. It ought to be on some lonely island in case the radio activity gets loose.”

“You don't remember if you were sitting or standing?”

“Does it really matter, Inspector? I was somewhere over by the window or near the mantelpiece, because I know I was
quite
near the clock when it struck. Such a thrilling moment! Waiting to see if anything might be going to happen.”

“You describe the light from the torch as blinding. Was it turned full on to you?”

“It was right in my eyes. I couldn't see a thing.”

“Did the man hold it still, or did he move it about, from person to person?”

“Oh, I don't really know. Which did he do, Edmund?”

“It moved rather slowly over us all, so as to see what we were all doing, I suppose, in case we should try and rush him.”

“And where exactly in the room were
you,
Mr. Swettenham?”

“I'd been talking to Julia Simmons. We were both standing up in the middle of the room—the long room.”

“Was everyone in that room, or was there anyone in the far room?”

“Phillipa Haymes had moved in there, I think. She was over by that far mantelpiece. I think she was looking for something.”

“Have you any idea as to whether the third shot was suicide or an accident?”

“I've no idea at all. The man seemed to swerve round very suddenly and then crumple up and fall—but it was all very confused. You must realise that you couldn't really see anything. And then that refugee girl started yelling the place down.”

“I understand it was you who unlocked the dining room door and let her out?”

“Yes.”

“The door was definitely locked on the outside?”

Edmund looked at him curiously.

“Certainly it was. Why, you don't imagine—?”

“I just like to get my facts quite clear. Thank you, Mr. Swettenham.”

IV

Inspector Craddock was forced to spend quite a long time with Colonel and Mrs. Easterbrook. He had to listen to a long disquisition on the psychological aspect of the case.

“The psychological approach—that's the only thing nowadays,” the Colonel told him. “You've got to understand your criminal. Now the whole setup here is quite plain to a man who's had the wide experience that I have. Why does this fellow put that advert in? Psychology. He wants to advertise himself—to focus attention on
himself. He's been passed over, perhaps despised as a foreigner by the other employees at the Spa Hotel. A girl has turned him down, perhaps. He wants to rivet her attention on him. Who is the idol of the cinema nowadays—the gangster—the tough guy? Very well, he will be a tough guy. Robbery with violence. A mask? A revolver? But he wants an audience—he must have an audience. So he arranges for an audience. And then, at the supreme moment, his part runs away with him—he's more than a burglar. He's a killer. He shoots—blindly—”

Inspector Craddock caught gladly at a word:

“You say ‘blindly,' Colonel Easterbrook. You didn't think that he was firing deliberately at one particular object—at Miss Blacklock, that is to say?”

“No, no. He just loosed off, as I say, blindly. And that's what brought him to himself. The bullet hit someone—actually it was only a graze, but he didn't know that. He comes to himself with a bang. All this—this make-believe he's been indulging in—is
real.
He's shot at someone—perhaps killed someone … It's all up with him. And so in blind panic he turns the revolver on himself.”

Colonel Easterbrook paused, cleared his throat appreciatively and said in a satisfied voice, “Plain as a pikestaff, that's what it is, plain as a pikestaff.”

“It really is wonderful,” said Mrs. Easterbrook, “the way you know exactly what happened, Archie.”

Her voice was warm with admiration.

Inspector Craddock thought it was wonderful, too, but he was not quite so warmly appreciative.

“Exactly where were you in the room, Colonel Easterbrook, when the actual shooting business took place?”

“I was standing with my wife—near a centre table with some flowers on it.”

“I caught hold of your arm, didn't I, Archie, when it happened? I was simply scared to death. I just had to hold on to you.”

“Poor little kitten,” said the Colonel playfully.

V

The Inspector ran Miss Hinchcliffe to earth by a pigsty.

“Nice creatures, pigs,” said Miss Hinchcliffe, scratching a wrinkled pink back. “Coming on well, isn't he? Good bacon round about Christmas time. Well, what do you want to see me about? I told your people last night I hadn't the least idea who the man was. Never seen him anywhere in the neighbourhood snooping about or anything of that sort. Our Mrs. Mopp says he came from one of the big hotels in Medenham Wells. Why didn't he hold up someone there if he wanted to? Get a much better haul.”

That was undeniable—Craddock proceeded with his inquiries.

“Where were you exactly when the incident took place?”

“Incident! Reminds me of my A.R.P. days. Saw some incidents then, I can tell you. Where was I when the shooting started? That what you want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Leaning up against the mantelpiece hoping to God someone would offer me a drink soon,” replied Miss Hinchcliffe promptly.

“Do you think that the shots were fired blindly, or aimed carefully at one particular person?”

“You mean aimed at Letty Blacklock? How the devil should I know? Damned hard to sort out what your impressions really were or
what really happened after it's all over. All I know is the lights went out, and that torch went whirling round dazzling us all, and then the shots were fired and I thought to myself, ‘If that damned young fool Patrick Simmons is playing his jokes with a loaded revolver somebody will get hurt.'”

“You thought it was Patrick Simmons?”

“Well, it seemed likely. Edmund Swettenham is intellectual and writes books and doesn't care for horseplay, and old Colonel Easterbrook wouldn't think that sort of thing funny. But Patrick's a wild boy. However, I apologize to him for the idea.”

“Did your friend think it might be Patrick Simmons?”

“Murgatroyd? You'd better talk to her yourself. Not that you'll get any sense out of her. She's down the orchard. I'll yell for her if you like.”

Miss Hinchcliffe raised her stentorian voice in a powerful bellow:

“Hi-youp, Murgatroyd….”

“Coming …” floated back a thin cry.

“Hurry up—Polieece,” bellowed Miss Hinchcliffe.

Miss Murgatroyd arrived at a brisk trot very much out of breath. Her skirt was down at the hem and her hair was escaping from an inadequate hair net. Her round, good-natured face beamed.

“Is it Scotland Yard?” she asked breathlessly. “I'd no idea. Or I wouldn't have left the house.”

“We haven't called in Scotland Yard yet, Miss Murgatroyd. I'm Inspector Craddock from Milchester.”

“Well, that's very nice, I'm sure,” said Miss Murgatroyd vaguely. “Have you found any clues?”

“Where were you at the time of the crime, that's what he
wants to know, Murgatroyd?” said Miss Hinchcliffe. She winked at Craddock.

“Oh, dear,” gasped Miss Murgatroyd. “Of course. I ought to have been prepared.
Alibis,
of course. Now, let me see, I was just with everybody else.”

“You weren't with me,” said Miss Hinchcliffe.

“Oh, dear, Hinch, wasn't I? No, of course, I'd been admiring the chrysanthemums. Very poor specimens, really. And then it all happened—only I didn't really know it had happened—I mean I didn't know that anything like that had happened. I didn't imagine for a moment that it was a real revolver—and all so awkward in the dark, and that dreadful screaming. I got it all wrong, you know. I thought
she
was being murdered—I mean the refugee girl. I thought she was having her throat cut across the hall somewhere. I didn't know it was
him
—I mean, I didn't even know there was a man. It was really just a voice, you know, saying, ‘Put them up, please.'”

“‘Stick 'em up!'” Miss Hinchcliffe corrected. “And no suggestion of ‘please' about it.”

“It's so terrible to think that until that girl started screaming I was actually enjoying myself. Only being in the dark was very awkward and I got a knock on my corn. Agony, it was. Is there anything more you want to know, Inspector?”

“No,” said Inspector Craddock, eyeing Miss Murgatroyd speculatively. “I don't really think there is.”

Her friend gave a short bark of laughter.

“He's got you taped, Murgatroyd.”

“I'm sure, Hinch,” said Miss Murgatroyd, “that I'm only too willing to say anything I can.”

“He doesn't want that,” said Miss Hinchcliffe.

She looked at the Inspector. “If you're doing this geographically I suppose you'll go to the Vicarage next. You might get something there. Mrs. Harmon looks as vague as they make them—but I sometimes think she's got brains. Anyway, she's got something.”

As they watched the Inspector and Sergeant Fletcher stalk away, Amy Murgatroyd said breathlessly:

“Oh, Hinch, was I very awful? I do get so flustered!”

“Not at all,” Miss Hinchcliffe smiled. “On the whole, I should say you did very well.”

VI

Inspector Craddock looked round the big shabby room with a sense of pleasure. It reminded him a little of his own Cumberland home. Faded chintz, big shabby chairs, flowers and books strewn about, and a spaniel in a basket. Mrs. Harmon, too, with her distraught air, and her general disarray and her eager face he found sympathetic.

But she said at once, frankly, “I shan't be any help to you. Because I shut my eyes. I hate being dazzled. And then there were shots and I screwed them up tighter than ever. And I did wish, oh, I did wish, that it had been a
quiet
murder. I don't like bangs.”

“So you didn't see anything.” The Inspector smiled at her. “But you heard—?”

“Oh, my goodness, yes, there was plenty to
hear.
Doors opening and shutting, and people saying silly things and gasping and old Mitzi screaming like a steam engine—and poor Bunny squealing like a trapped rabbit. And everyone pushing and falling over everyone else. However, when there really didn't seem to be any more bangs coming, I opened my eyes. Everyone was out in the hall then,
with candles. And then the lights came on and suddenly it was all as usual—I don't mean really as usual, but we were ourselves again, not just—people in the dark. People in the dark are quite different, aren't they?”

“I think I know what you mean, Mrs. Harmon.”

Mrs. Harmon smiled at him.

“And there he was,” she said. “A rather weaselly-looking foreigner—all pink and surprised-looking—lying there dead—with a revolver beside him. It didn't—oh, it didn't seem to make
sense,
somehow.”

It did not make sense to the Inspector, either.

The whole business worried him.

I

C
raddock laid the typed transcript of the various interviews before the Chief Constable. The latter had just finished reading the wire received from the Swiss Police.

“So he had a police record all right,” said Rydesdale. “H'm—very much as one thought.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jewellery … h'm, yes … falsified entries … yes … cheque … Definitely a dishonest fellow.”

“Yes, sir—in a small way.”

“Quite so. And small things lead to large things.”

“I wonder, sir.”

The Chief Constable looked up.

“Worried, Craddock?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why? It's a straightforward story. Or isn't it? Let's see what all these people you've been talking to have to say.”

He drew the report towards him and read it through rapidly.

“The usual thing—plenty of inconsistencies and contradictions. Different people's accounts of a few moments of stress never agree. But the main picture seems clear enough.”

“I know, sir—but it's an unsatisfactory picture. If you know what I mean—it's the wrong picture.”

“Well, let's take the facts. Rudi Scherz took the 5:20 bus from Medenham to Chipping Cleghorn arriving there at six o'clock. Evidence of conductor and two passengers. From the bus stop he walked away in the direction of Little Paddocks. He got into the house with no particular difficulty—probably through the front door. He held up the company with a revolver, he fired two shots, one of which slightly wounded Miss Blacklock, then he killed himself with a third shot, whether accidentally or deliberately there is not sufficient evidence to show. The reasons
why
he did all this are profoundly unsatisfactory, I agree. But
why
isn't really a question we are called upon to answer. A Coroner's jury may bring it in suicide—or accidental death. Whichever verdict it is, it's the same as far as we're concerned. We can write finis.”

“You mean we can always fall back upon Colonel Easterbrook's psychology,” said Craddock gloomily.

Rydesdale smiled.

“After all, the Colonel's probably had a good deal of experience,” he said. “I'm pretty sick of the psychological jargon that's used so glibly about everything nowadays—but we can't really rule it out.”

“I still feel the picture's all wrong, sir.”

“Any reason to believe that somebody in the setup at Chipping Cleghorn is lying to you?”

Craddock hesitated.

“I think the foreign girl knows more than she lets on. But that may be just prejudice on my part.”

“You think she might possibly have been in it with this fellow? Let him into the house? Put him up to it?”

“Something of the kind. I wouldn't put it past her. But that surely indicates that there really was something valuable, money or jewellery, in the house, and that doesn't seem to have been the case. Miss Blacklock negatived it quite decidedly. So did the others. That leaves us with the proposition that there was something valuable in the house that nobody knew about—”

“Quite a best-seller plot.”

“I agree it's ridiculous, sir. The only other point is Miss Bunner's certainty that it was a definite attempt by Scherz to murder Miss Blacklock.”

“Well, from what you say—and from her statement, this Miss Bunner—”

“Oh, I agree, sir,” Craddock put in quickly, “she's an utterly unreliable witness. Highly suggestible. Anyone could put a thing into her head—but the interesting thing is that this is quite her own theory—no one
has
suggested it to her. Everybody else negatives it. For once she's
not
swimming with the tide. It definitely
is
her own impression.”

“And why should Rudi Scherz want to kill Miss Blacklock?”

“There you are, sir. I don't know. Miss Blacklock doesn't know—unless she's a much better liar than I think she is. Nobody knows. So presumably it isn't true.”

He sighed.

“Cheer up, Craddock,” said the Chief Constable. “I'm taking you off to lunch with Sir Henry and myself. The best that the Royal Spa Hotel in Medenham Wells can provide.”

“Thank you, sir.” Craddock looked slightly surprised.

“You see, we received a letter—” He broke off as Sir Henry Clithering entered the room. “Ah, there you are, Henry.”

Sir Henry, informal this time, said, “Morning, Dermot.”

“I've got something for you, Henry,” said the Chief Constable.

“What's that?”

“Authentic letter from an old Pussy. Staying at the Royal Spa Hotel. Something she thinks we might like to know in connection with this Chipping Cleghorn business.”

“The old Pussies,” said Sir Henry triumphantly. “What did I tell you? They hear everything. They see everything. And, unlike the famous adage, they speak all evil. What's this particular one got hold of?”

Rydesdale consulted the letter.

“Writes just like my old grandmother,” he complained. “Spiky. Like a spider in the ink bottle, and all underlined. A good deal about how she hopes it won't be taking up our valuable time, but might possibly be of some slight assistance, etc., etc. What's her name? Jane—something—Murple—no, Marple, Jane Marple.”

“Ye Gods and Little Fishes,” said Sir Henry, “can it be? George, it's my own particular, one and only, four-starred Pussy. The super Pussy of all old Pussies. And she has managed somehow to be at Medenham Wells, instead of peacefully at home in St. Mary Mead, just at the right time to be mixed up in a murder. Once more a murder is announced—for the benefit and enjoyment of Miss Marple.”

“Well, Henry,” said Rydesdale sardonically, “I'll be glad to see your paragon. Come on! We'll lunch at the Royal Spa and we'll interview the lady. Craddock, here, is looking highly sceptical.”

“Not at all, sir,” said Craddock politely.

He thought to himself that sometimes his godfather carried things a bit far.

II

Miss Jane Marple was very nearly, if not quite, as Craddock had pictured her. She was far more benignant than he had imagined and a good deal older. She seemed indeed very old. She had snow-white hair and a pink crinkled face and very soft innocent blue eyes, and she was heavily enmeshed in fleecy wool. Wool round her shoulders in the form of a lacy cape and wool that she was knitting and which turned out to be a baby's shawl.

She was all incoherent delight and pleasure at seeing Sir Henry, and became quite flustered when introduced to the Chief Constable and Detective-Inspector Craddock.

“But really, Sir Henry, how fortunate … how very fortunate. So long since I have seen you … Yes, my rheumatism. Very bad of late. Of course I couldn't have afforded this hotel (really fantastic what they charge nowadays) but Raymond—my nephew, Raymond West, you may remember him—”

“Everyone knows
his
name.”

“Yes, the dear boy has been so successful with his clever books—he prides himself upon never writing about anything pleasant. The dear boy insisted on paying all my expenses. And his dear
wife is making a name for herself too, as an artist. Mostly jugs of dying flowers and broken combs on windowsills. I never dare tell her, but I still admire Blair Leighton and Alma Tadema. Oh, but I'm chattering. And the Chief Constable himself—indeed I never expected—so afraid I shall be taking up his time—”

“Completely ga-ga,” thought the disgusted Detective-Inspector Craddock.

“Come into the Manager's private room,” said Rydesdale. “We can talk better there.”

When Miss Marple had been disentangled from her wool, and her spare knitting pins collected, she accompanied them, fluttering and protesting, to Mr. Rowlandson's comfortable sitting-room.

“Now, Miss Marple, let's hear what you have to tell us,” said the Chief Constable.

Miss Marple came to the point with unexpected brevity.

“It was a cheque,” she said. “He altered it.”

“He?”

“The young man at the desk here, the one who is supposed to have staged that hold-up and shot himself.”

“He altered a cheque, you say?”

Miss Marple nodded.

“Yes. I have it here.” She extracted it from her bag and laid it on the table. “It came this morning with my others from the Bank. You can see, it was for seven pounds, and he altered it to seventeen. A stroke in front of the 7, and
teen
added after the word seven with a nice artistic little blot just blurring the whole word. Really very nicely done. A certain amount of
practice,
I should say. It's the same
ink, because I wrote the cheque actually at the desk. I should think he'd done it quite often before, wouldn't you?”

“He picked the wrong person to do it to, this time,” remarked Sir Henry.

Miss Marple nodded agreement.

“Yes. I'm afraid he would never have gone very far in crime. I was quite the wrong person. Some busy young married woman, or some girl having a love affair—that's the kind who write cheques for all sorts of different sums and don't really look through their passbooks carefully. But an old woman who has to be careful of the pennies, and who has formed habits—that's quite the wrong person to choose. Seventeen pounds is a sum I
never
write a cheque for. Twenty pounds, a round sum, for the monthly wages and books. And as for my personal expenditure, I usually cash seven—it used to be five, but everything has gone up so.”

“And perhaps he reminded you of someone?” prompted Sir Henry, mischief in his eye.

Miss Marple smiled and shook her head at him.

“You are very naughty, Sir Henry. As a matter of fact he
did.
Fred Tyler, at the fish shop. Always slipped an extra 1 in the shillings column. Eating so much fish as we do nowadays, it made a long bill, and lots of people never added it up. Just ten shillings in his pocket every time, not much but enough to get himself a few neckties and take Jessie Spragge (the girl in the draper's) to the pictures. Cut a splash, that's what these young fellows want to do. Well, the very first week I was here, there was a mistake in my bill. I pointed it out to the young man and he apologized very nicely and looked very much upset, but I thought to myself then: ‘You've got a shifty eye, young man.'

“What I mean by a shifty eye,” continued Miss Marple, “is the kind that looks very straight at you and never looks away or blinks.”

Craddock gave a sudden movement of appreciation. He thought to himself “Jim Kelly to the life,” remembering a notorious swindler he had helped to put behind bars not long ago.

“Rudi Scherz was a thoroughly unsatisfactory character,” said Rydesdale. “He's got a police record in Switzerland, we find.”

“Made the place too hot for him, I suppose, and came over here with forged papers?” said Miss Marple.

“Exactly,” said Rydesdale.

“He was going about with the little red-haired waitress from the dining room,” said Miss Marple. “Fortunately I don't think her heart's affected at all. She just liked to have someone a bit ‘different,' and he used to give her flowers and chocolates which the English boys don't do much. Has she told you all she knows?” she asked, turning suddenly to Craddock. “Or not quite all yet?”

“I'm not absolutely sure,” said Craddock cautiously.

“I think there's a little to come,” said Miss Marple. “She's looking very worried. Brought me kippers instead of herrings this morning, and forgot the milk jug. Usually she's an excellent waitress. Yes, she's worried. Afraid she might have to give evidence or something like that. But I expect”—her candid blue eyes swept over the manly proportions and handsome face of Detective-Inspector Craddock with truly feminine Victorian appreciation—“that
you
will be able to persuade her to tell you all she knows.”

Detective-Inspector Craddock blushed and Sir Henry chuckled.

“It might be important,” said Miss Marple. “He may have told her who it was.”

Rydesdale stared at her.

“Who what was?”

“I express myself so badly. Who it was who put him up to it, I mean.”

“So you think someone put him up to it?”

Miss Marple's eyes widened in surprise.

“Oh, but surely—I mean … Here's a personable young man—who filches a little bit here and a little bit there—alters a small cheque, perhaps helps himself to a small piece of jewellery if it's left lying around, or takes a little money from the till—all sorts of small petty thefts. Keeps himself going in ready money so that he can dress well, and take a girl about—all that sort of thing. And then suddenly he goes off, with a revolver, and holds up a room full of people, and shoots at someone. He'd
never
have done a thing like that—not for a moment! He wasn't that kind of person. It doesn't make
sense.
”

Craddock drew in his breath sharply. That was what Letitia Blacklock had said. What the Vicar's wife had said. What he himself felt with increasing force.
It didn't make sense.
And now Sir Henry's old Pussy was saying it, too, with complete certainty in her fluting old lady's voice.

“Perhaps you'll tell us, Miss Marple,” he said, and his voice was suddenly aggressive, “what did happen, then?”

She turned on him in surprise.

“But how should I know what happened? There was an account in the paper—but it says so little. One can make conjectures, of course, but one has no accurate information.”

“George,” said Sir Henry, “would it be very unorthodox if Miss Marple were allowed to read the notes of the interviews Craddock had with these people at Chipping Cleghorn?”

“It may be unorthodox,” said Rydesdale, “but I've not got where I am by being orthodox. She can read them. I'd be curious to hear what she has to say.”