Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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First published in Great Britain by Collins, The Crime Club 1952

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Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008196561

Ebook Edition © December 2016 ISBN: 9780007422852

Version: 2017-04-12

Dedication

To Mathew Prichard

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Epilogue

Also by Agatha Christie

About the Publisher

Map

CHAPTER 1

Mrs Van Rydock moved a little back from the mirror and sighed.

‘Well, that’ll have to do,’ she murmured. ‘Think it’s all right, Jane?’

Miss Marple eyed the Lanvanelli creation appraisingly.

‘It seems to me a very beautiful gown,’ she said.

‘The gown’s all right,’ said Mrs Van Rydock and sighed.

‘Take it off, Stephanie,’ she said.

The elderly maid with the grey hair and the small pinched mouth eased the gown carefully up over Mrs Van Rydock’s upstretched arms.

Mrs Van Rydock stood in front of the glass in her peach satin slip. She was exquisitely corseted. Her still shapely legs were encased in fine nylon stockings. Her face, beneath a layer of cosmetics and constantly toned up by massage, appeared almost girlish at a slight distance. Her hair was less grey than tending to hydrangea blue and was perfectly set. It was practically impossible when looking at Mrs Van Rydock to imagine what she would be like in a natural state. Everything that money could do had been done for her—reinforced by diet, massage, and constant exercises.

Ruth Van Rydock looked humorously at her friend.

‘Do you think most people would guess, Jane, that you and I are practically the same age?’

Miss Marple responded loyally.

‘Not for a moment, I’m sure,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I’m afraid, you know, that I look every minute of my age!’

Miss Marple was white-haired, with a soft pink and white wrinkled face and innocent china blue eyes. She looked a very sweet old lady. Nobody would have called Mrs Van Rydock a sweet old lady.

‘I guess you do, Jane,’ said Mrs Van Rydock. She grinned suddenly, ‘And so do I. Only not in the same way. “Wonderful how that old hag keeps her figure.” That’s what they say of me. But they know I’m an old hag all right! And, my God, do I feel like one!’

She dropped heavily on to the satin quilted chair.

‘That’s all right, Stephanie,’ she said. ‘You can go.’

Stephanie gathered up the dress and went out.

‘Good old Stephanie,’ said Ruth Van Rydock. ‘She’s been with me for over thirty years now. She’s the only woman who knows what I really look like! Jane, I want to talk to you.’

Miss Marple leant forward a little. Her face took on a receptive expression. She looked, somehow, an incongruous figure in the ornate bedroom of the expensive hotel suite. She was dressed in rather dowdy black, carried a large shopping bag and looked every inch a lady.

‘I’m worried, Jane. About Carrie Louise.’

‘Carrie Louise?’ Miss Marple repeated the name musingly. The sound of it took her a long way back.

The pensionnat in Florence. Herself, the pink and white English girl from a Cathedral Close. The two Martin girls, Americans, exciting to the English girl because of their quaint ways of speech and their forthright manner and vitality. Ruth, tall, eager, on top of the world; Carrie Louise, small, dainty, wistful.

‘When did you see her last, Jane?’

‘Oh! not for many many years. It must be twenty-five at least. Of course we still send cards at Christmas.’

Such an odd thing, friendship! She, young Jane Marple, and the two Americans. Their ways diverging almost at once, and yet the old affection persisting; occasional letters, remembrances at Christmas. Strange that Ruth whose home—or rather homes—had been in America should be the sister whom she had seen the more often of the two. No, perhaps not strange. Like most Americans of her class, Ruth had been cosmopolitan, every year or two she had come over to Europe, rushing from London to Paris, on to the Riviera, and back again, and always keen to snatch a few moments wherever she was with her old friends. There had been many meetings like this one. In Claridge’s, or the Savoy, or the Berkeley, or the Dorchester. A recherché meal, affectionate reminiscences, and a hurried and affectionate goodbye. Ruth had never had time to visit St Mary Mead. Miss Marple had not, indeed, ever expected it. Everyone’s life has a tempo. Ruth’s was presto whereas Miss Marple’s was content to be adagio.

So it was American Ruth whom she had seen most of, whereas Carrie Louise who lived in England, she had not now seen for over twenty years. Odd, but quite natural, because when one lives in the same country there is no need to arrange meetings with old friends. One assumes that, sooner or later, one will see them without contrivance. Only, if you move in different spheres, that does not happen. The paths of Jane Marple and Carrie Louise did not cross. It was as simple as that.

‘Why are you worried about Carrie Louise, Ruth?’ asked Miss Marple.

‘In a way that’s what worries me most! I just don’t know.’

‘She’s not ill?’

‘She’s very delicate—always has been. I wouldn’t say she’d been any worse than usual—considering that she’s getting on just as we all are.’

‘Unhappy?’

‘Oh no.’

No, it wouldn’t be that, thought Miss Marple. It would be difficult to imagine Carrie Louise unhappy—and yet there were times in her life when she must have been. Only—the picture did not come clearly. Bewildered—yes—incredulous—yes—but violent grief—no.

Mrs Van Rydock’s words came appositely.

‘Carrie Louise,’ she said, ‘has always lived right out of this world. She doesn’t know what it’s like. Maybe it’s that that worries me.’

‘Her circumstances,’ began Miss Marple, then stopped, shaking her head. ‘No,’ she said.

‘No, it’s she herself,’ said Ruth Van Rydock. ‘Carrie Louise was always the one of us who had ideals. Of course it was the fashion when we were young to have ideals—we all had them, it was the proper thing for young girls. You were going to nurse lepers, Jane, and I was going to be a nun. One gets over all that nonsense. Marriage, I suppose one might say, knocks it out of one. Still, take it by and large, I haven’t done badly out of marriage.’

Miss Marple thought that Ruth was expressing it mildly. Ruth had been married three times, each time to an extremely wealthy man, and the resultant divorces had increased her bank balance without in the least souring her disposition.

‘Of course,’ said Mrs Van Rydock, ‘I’ve always been tough. Things don’t get me down. I’ve not expected too much of life and certainly not expected too much of men—and I’ve done very well out of it—and no hard feelings. Tommy and I are still excellent friends, and Julius often asks me my opinion about the market.’ Her face darkened. ‘I believe that’s what worries me about Carrie Louise—she’s always had a tendency, you know, to marry cranks.’

‘Cranks?’

‘People with ideals. Carrie Louise was always a pushover for ideals. There she was, as pretty as they make them, just seventeen and listening with her eyes as big as saucers to old Gulbrandsen holding forth about his plans for the human race. Over fifty, and she married him, a widower with a family of grown-up children—all because of his philanthropic ideas. She used to sit listening to him spellbound. Just like Desdemona and Othello. Only fortunately there was no Iago about to mess things up—and anyway Gulbrandsen wasn’t coloured. He was a Swede or a Norwegian or something.’

Miss Marple nodded thoughtfully. The name of Gulbrandsen had an international significance. A man who with shrewd business acumen and perfect honesty had built up a fortune so colossal that really philanthropy had been the only solution to the disposal of it. The name still held significance. The Gulbrandsen Trust, the Gulbrandsen Research Fellowships, the Gulbrandsen Administrative Almshouses, and best known of all the vast educational College for the sons of working men.

‘She didn’t marry him for his money, you know,’ said Ruth, ‘I should have if I’d married him at all. But not Carrie Louise. I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t died when she was thirty-two. Thirty-two’s a very nice age for a widow. She’s got experience, but she’s still adaptable.’

The spinster listening to her, nodded gently whilst her mind revived, tentatively, widows she had known in the village of St Mary Mead.

‘I was really happiest about Carrie Louise when she was married to Johnnie Restarick. Of course he married her for her money—or if not exactly that, at any rate he wouldn’t have married her if she hadn’t had any. Johnnie was a selfish, pleasure-loving, lazy hound, but that’s so much safer than a crank. All Johnnie wanted was to live soft. He wanted Carrie Louise to go to the best dressmakers and have yachts and cars and enjoy herself with him. That kind of man is so very safe. Give him comfort and luxury and he’ll purr like a cat and be absolutely charming to you. I never took that scene designing and theatrical stuff of his very seriously. But Carrie Louise was thrilled by it—saw it all as Art with a capital A and really forced him back into those surroundings, and then that dreadful Yugoslavian woman got hold of him and just swept him off with her. He didn’t really want to go. If Carrie Louise had waited and been sensible, he would have come back to her.’

‘Did she care very much?’ asked Miss Marple.

‘That’s the funny thing. I don’t really believe she did. She was absolutely sweet about it all—but then she would be. She is sweet. Quite anxious to divorce him so that he and that creature could get married. And offering to give those two boys of his by his first marriage a home with her because it would be more settled for them. So there poor Johnnie was—he had to marry the woman and she led him an awful six months and then drove him over a precipice in a car in a fit of rage. They said it was an accident, but I think it was just temper!’

Mrs Van Rydock paused, took up a mirror and gazed at her face searchingly. She picked up her eyebrow tweezers and pulled out a hair.

‘And what does Carrie Louise do next but marry this man Lewis Serrocold. Another crank! Another man with ideals! Oh, I don’t say he isn’t devoted to her—I think he is—but he’s bitten by that same bug of wanting to improve everybody’s lives for them. And really, you know, nobody can do that but yourself.’

‘I wonder,’ said Miss Marple.

‘Only, of course, there’s a fashion in these things, just like there is in clothes. (My dear, have you seen what Christian Dior is trying to make us wear in the way of skirts?) Where was I? Oh yes, Fashion. Well there’s a fashion in philanthropy too. It used to be education in Gulbrandsen’s day. But that’s out of date now. The State has stepped in. Everyone expects education as a matter of right—and doesn’t think much of it when they get it! Juvenile Delinquency—that’s what is the rage nowadays. All these young criminals and potential criminals. Everyone’s mad about them. You should see Lewis Serrocold’s eyes sparkle behind those thick glasses of his. Crazy with enthusiasm! One of those men of enormous will power who like living on a banana and a piece of toast and put all their energies into a Cause. And Carrie Louise eats it up—just as she always did. But I don’t like it, Jane. They’ve had meetings of the Trustees and the whole place has been turned over to this new idea. It’s a training establishment now for these juvenile criminals, complete with psychiatrists and psychologists and all the rest of it. There Lewis and Carrie Louise are, living there, surrounded by these boys—who aren’t perhaps quite normal. And the place stiff with occupational therapists and teachers and enthusiasts, half of them quite mad. Cranks, all the lot of them, and my little Carrie Louise in the middle of it all!’

She paused—and stared helplessly at Miss Marple.

Miss Marple said in a faintly puzzled voice:

‘But you haven’t told me yet, Ruth, what you are really afraid of.’

‘I tell you, I don’t know! And that’s what worries me. I’ve just been down there—for a flying visit. And I felt all along that there was something wrong. In the atmosphere—in the house—I know I’m not mistaken. I’m sensitive to atmosphere, always have been. Did I ever tell you how I urged Julius to sell out of Amalgamated Cereals before the crash came? And wasn’t I right? Yes, something is wrong down there. But I don’t know why or what—if it’s these dreadful young jailbirds—or if it’s nearer home. I can’t say what it is. There’s Lewis just living for his ideas and not noticing anything else, and Carrie Louise, bless her, never seeing or hearing or thinking anything except what’s a lovely sight, or a lovely sound, or a lovely thought. It’s sweet but it isn’t practical. There is such a thing as evil—and I want you, Jane, to go down there right away and find out just exactly what’s the matter.’

‘Me?’ exclaimed Miss Marple. ‘Why me?’

‘Because you’ve got a nose for that sort of thing. You always had. You’ve always been a sweet innocent-looking creature, Jane, and all the time underneath nothing has ever surprised you, you always believe the worst.’

‘The worst is so often true,’ murmured Miss Marple.

‘Why you have such a poor idea of human nature, I can’t think—living in that sweet peaceful village of yours, so old world and pure.’

‘You have never lived in a village, Ruth. The things that go on in a pure peaceful village would probably surprise you.’

‘Oh I dare say. My point is that they don’t surprise you. So you will go down to Stonygates and find out what’s wrong, won’t you?’

‘But, Ruth dear, that would be a most difficult thing to do.’

‘No, it wouldn’t. I’ve thought it all out. If you won’t be absolutely mad at me, I’ve prepared the ground already.’

Mrs Van Rydock paused, eyed Miss Marple rather uneasily, lighted a cigarette, and plunged rather nervously into explanation.

‘You’ll admit, I’m sure, that things have been difficult in this country since the war, for people with small fixed incomes—for people like you, that is to say, Jane.’

‘Oh yes, indeed. But for the kindness, the really great kindness of my nephew Raymond, I don’t know really where I should be.’

‘Never mind your nephew,’ said Mrs Van Rydock. ‘Carrie Louise knows nothing about your nephew—or if she does, she knows him as a writer and has no idea that he’s your nephew. The point, as I put it to Carrie Louise, is that it’s just too bad about dear Jane. Really sometimes hardly enough to eat, and of course, far too proud ever to appeal to old friends. One couldn’t, I said, suggest money—but a nice long rest in lovely surroundings, with an old friend and with plenty of nourishing food, and no cares or worries’—Ruth Van Rydock paused and then added defiantly, ‘Now go on—be mad at me if you want to be.’

Miss Marple opened her china blue eyes in gentle surprise.

‘But why should I be mad at you, Ruth? A very ingenious and plausible approach. I’m sure Carrie Louise responded.’

‘She’s writing to you. You’ll find the letter when you get back. Honestly, Jane, you don’t feel that I’ve taken an unpardonable liberty? You won’t mind—’

She hesitated and Miss Marple put her thoughts deftly into words.

‘Going to Stonygates as an object of charity—more or less under false pretences? Not in the least—if it is necessary. You think it is necessary—and I am inclined to agree with you.’

Mrs Van Rydock stared at her.

‘But why? What have you heard?’

‘I haven’t heard anything. It’s just your conviction. You’re not a fanciful woman, Ruth.’

‘No, but I haven’t anything definite to go upon.’

‘I remember,’ said Miss Marple thoughtfully, ‘one Sunday morning at church—it was the second Sunday in Advent—sitting behind Grace Lamble and feeling more and more worried about her. Quite sure, you know, that something was wrong—badly wrong—and yet being quite unable to say why. A most disturbing feeling and very very definite.’

‘And was there something wrong?’

‘Oh yes. Her father, the old Admiral, had been very peculiar for some time, and the very next day he went for her with the coal hammer, roaring out that she was Antichrist masquerading as his daughter. He nearly killed her. They took him away to the asylum and she eventually recovered after months in hospital—but it was a very near thing.’

‘And you’d actually had a premonition that day in church?’

‘I wouldn’t call it a premonition. It was founded on fact—these things usually are, though one doesn’t always recognise it at the time. She was wearing her Sunday hat the wrong way round. Very significant, really, because Grace Lamble was a most precise woman, not at all vague or absent-minded—and the circumstances under which she would not notice which way her hat was put on to go to church were really extremely limited. Her father, you see, had thrown a marble paperweight at her and it had shattered the looking-glass. She had caught up her hat, put it on, and hurried out of the house. Anxious to keep up appearances and for the servants not to hear anything. She put down these actions, you see, to “dear Papa’s Naval temper,” she didn’t realise that his mind was definitely unhinged. Though she ought to have realised it clearly enough. He was always complaining to her of being spied upon and of enemies—all the usual symptoms, in fact.’

Mrs Van Rydock gazed respectfully at her friend.

‘Maybe, Jane,’ she said, ‘that St Mary Mead of yours isn’t quite the idyllic retreat that I’ve always imagined it.’

‘Human nature, dear, is very much the same everywhere. It is more difficult to observe it closely in a city, that is all.’

‘And you’ll go to Stonygates?’

‘I’ll go to Stonygates. A little unfair, perhaps, on my nephew Raymond. To let it be thought that he does not assist me, I mean. Still, the dear boy is in Mexico for six months. And by that time it should all be over.’

‘What should all be over?’

‘Carrie Louise’s invitation will hardly be for an indefinite stay. Three weeks, perhaps—a month. That should be ample.’

‘For you to find out what is wrong?’

‘For me to find out what is wrong.’

‘My, Jane,’ said Mrs Van Rydock, ‘you’ve got a lot of confidence in yourself, haven’t you?’

Miss Marple looked faintly reproachful.

‘You have confidence in me, Ruth. Or so you say … I can only assure you that I shall endeavour to justify your confidence.’

CHAPTER 2

Before catching her train back to St Mary Mead (Wednesday special cheap day return), Miss Marple, in a precise and businesslike fashion, collected certain data.

‘Carrie Louise and I have corresponded after a fashion, but it has largely been a matter of Christmas cards or calendars. It’s just the facts I should like, Ruth dear—and also some idea as to whom exactly I shall encounter in the household at Stonygates.’

‘Well, you know about Carrie Louise’s marriage to Gulbrandsen. There were no children and Carrie Louise took that very much to heart. Gulbrandsen was a widower, and had three grown-up sons. Eventually they adopted a child. Pippa, they called her—a lovely little creature. She was just two years old when they got her.’

‘Where did she come from? What was her background?’

‘Really, now, Jane, I can’t remember—if I ever heard, that is. An Adoption Society, maybe? Or some unwanted child that Gulbrandsen had heard about. Why? Do you think it’s important?’

‘Well, one always likes to know the background, so to speak. But please go on.’

‘The next thing that happened was that Carrie Louise found that she was going to have a baby after all. I understand from doctors that that quite often happens.’

Miss Marple nodded.

‘I believe so.’

‘Anyway, it did happen, and in a funny kind of way, Carrie Louise was almost disconcerted, if you can understand what I mean. Earlier, of course, she’d have been wild with joy. As it was, she’d given such a devoted love to Pippa that she felt quite apologetic to Pippa for putting her nose out of joint, so to speak. And then Mildred, when she arrived, was really a very unattractive child. Took after the Gulbrandsens—who were solid and worthy—but definitely homely. Carrie Louise was always so anxious to make no difference between the adopted child and her own child that I think she rather tended to overindulge Pippa and pass over Mildred. Sometimes I think that Mildred resented it. However I didn’t see them often. Pippa grew up a very beautiful girl and Mildred grew up a plain one. Eric Gulbrandsen died when Mildred was fifteen and Pippa eighteen. At twenty Pippa married an Italian, the Marchese di San Severiano—oh, quite a genuine Marchese—not an adventurer, or anything like that. She was by way of being an heiress (naturally, or San Severiano wouldn’t have married her—you know what Italians are!). Gulbrandsen left an equal sum in trust for both his own and his adopted daughter. Mildred married a Canon Strete—a nice man but given to colds in the head. About ten or fifteen years older than she was. Quite a happy marriage, I believe.

‘He died a year ago and Mildred has come back to Stonygates to live with her mother. But that’s getting on too fast, I’ve skipped a marriage or two. I’ll go back to them. Pippa married her Italian. Carrie Louise was quite pleased about the marriage. Guido had beautiful manners and was very handsome, and he was a fine sportsman. A year later Pippa had a daughter and died in childbirth. It was a terrible tragedy and Guido San Severiano was very cut up. Carrie Louise went to and fro between Italy and England a good deal, and it was in Rome that she met Johnnie Restarick and married him. The Marchese married again and he was quite willing for his little daughter to be brought up in England by her exceedingly wealthy grandmother. So they all settled down at Stonygates, Johnnie Restarick and Carrie Louise, and Johnnie’s two boys, Alexis and Stephen (Johnnie’s first wife was a Russian) and the baby Gina. Mildred married her Canon soon afterwards. Then came all this business of Johnnie and the Yugoslavian woman and the divorce. The boys still came to Stonygates for their holidays and were devoted to Carrie Louise, and then in 1938, I think it was, Carrie Louise married Lewis.’

Mrs Van Rydock paused for breath.

‘You’ve not met Lewis?’

Miss Marple shook her head.

‘No, I think I last saw Carrie Louise in 1928. She very sweetly took me to Covent Garden—to the Opera.’

‘Oh yes. Well, Lewis was a very suitable person for her to marry. He was the head of a very celebrated firm of chartered accountants. I think he met her first over some questions of the finances of the Gulbrandsen Trust and the College. He was well off, just about her own age, and a man of absolutely upright life. But he was a crank. He was absolutely rabid on the subject of the redemption of young criminals.’

Ruth Van Rydock sighed.

‘As I said just now, Jane, there are fashions in philanthropy. In Gulbrandsen’s time it was education. Before that it was soup kitchens—’

Miss Marple nodded.

‘Yes, indeed. Port wine jelly and calf’s head broth taken to the sick. My mother used to do it.’

‘That’s right. Feeding the body gave way to feeding the mind. Everyone went mad on educating the lower classes. Well, that’s passed. Soon, I expect, the fashionable thing to do will be not to educate your children, preserve their illiteracy carefully until they’re eighteen. Anyway the Gulbrandsen Trust and Education Fund was in some difficulties because the State was taking over its functions. Then Lewis came along with his passionate enthusiasm about constructive training for juvenile delinquents. His attention had been drawn to the subject first in the course of his profession—auditing accounts where ingenious young men had perpetrated frauds. He was more and more convinced that juvenile delinquents were not subnormal—that they had excellent brains and abilities and only needed right direction.’

‘There is something in that,’ said Miss Marple. ‘But it is not entirely true. I remember—’

She broke off and glanced at her watch.

‘Oh dear—I mustn’t miss the 6.30.’

Ruth Van Rydock said urgently:

‘And you will go to Stonygates?’

Gathering up her shopping bag and her umbrella Miss Marple said:

‘If Carrie Louise asks me—’

‘She will ask you. You’ll go? Promise, Jane?’

Jane Marple promised.

CHAPTER 3

Miss Marple got out of the train at Market Kindle station. A kindly fellow passenger handed out her suitcase after her, and Miss Marple, clutching a string bag, a faded leather handbag and some miscellaneous wraps, uttered appreciative twitters of thanks.

‘So kind of you, I’m sure … So difficult nowadays—not many porters. I get so flustered when I travel.’

The twitters were drowned by the booming noise of the station announcer saying loudly but indistinctly that the 3.18 was standing at Platform 1, and was about to proceed to various unidentifiable stations.

Market Kindle was a large empty windswept station with hardly any passengers or railway staff to be seen on it. Its claim to distinction lay in having six platforms and a bay where a very small train of one carriage was puffing importantly.

Miss Marple, rather more shabbily dressed than was her custom (so lucky that she hadn’t given away the old speckledy), was peering around her uncertainly when a young man came up to her.

‘Miss Marple?’ he said. His voice had an unexpectedly dramatic quality about it, as though the utterance of her name were the first words of a part he was playing in amateur theatricals. ‘I’ve come to meet you—from Stonygates.’

Miss Marple looked gratefully at him, a charming helpless-looking old lady with, if he had chanced to notice it, very shrewd blue eyes. The personality of the young man did not quite match his voice. It was less important, one might almost say insignificant. His eyelids had a trick of fluttering nervously.

‘Oh thank you,’ said Miss Marple. ‘There’s just this suitcase.’

She noticed that the young man did not pick up her suitcase himself. He flipped a finger at a porter who was trundling some packing cases past on a trolley.

‘Bring it out, please,’ he said, and added importantly, ‘for Stonygates.’

The porter said cheerfully:

‘Rightyho. Shan’t be long.’

Miss Marple fancied that her new acquaintance was not too pleased about this. It was as if Buckingham Palace had been dismissed as no more important than 3 Laburnum Road.

He said, ‘The railways get more impossible every day!’

Guiding Miss Marple towards the exit, he said: ‘I’m Edgar Lawson. Mrs Serrocold asked me to meet you. I help Mr Serrocold in his work.’

There was again the faint insinuation that a busy and important man had, very charmingly, put important affairs on one side out of chivalry to his employer’s wife.

And again the impression was not wholly convincing—it had a theatrical flavour.

Miss Marple began to wonder about Edgar Lawson.

They came out of the station and Edgar guided the old lady to where a rather elderly Ford V. 8 was standing.

He was just saying ‘Will you come in front with me, or would you prefer the back?’ when there was a diversion.

A new gleaming two-seater Rolls Bentley came purring into the station yard and drew up in front of the Ford. A very beautiful young woman jumped out of it and came across to them. The fact that she wore dirty corduroy slacks and a simple shirt open at the neck seemed somehow to enhance the fact that she was not only beautiful but expensive.

‘There you are, Edgar. I thought I wouldn’t make it in time. I see you’ve got Miss Marple. I came to meet her.’ She smiled dazzlingly at Miss Marple, showing a row of lovely teeth in a sunburnt southern face. ‘I’m Gina,’ she said. ‘Carrie Louise’s granddaughter. What was your journey like? Simply foul? What a nice string bag. I love string bags. I’ll take it and the coats and then you can get in better.’

Edgar’s face flushed. He protested.

‘Look here, Gina, I came to meet Miss Marple. It was all arranged …’

Again the teeth flashed in that wide lazy smile.

‘Oh I know, Edgar, but I suddenly thought it would be nice if I came along. I’ll take her with me and you can wait and bring her cases up.’

She slammed the door on Miss Marple, ran round to the other side, jumped in the driving seat, and they purred swiftly out of the station.

Looking back, Miss Marple noticed Edgar Lawson’s face.

‘I don’t think, my dear,’ she said, ‘that Mr Lawson is very pleased.’

Gina laughed.

‘Edgar’s a frightful idiot,’ she said. ‘Always so pompous about things. You’d really think he mattered!’

Miss Marple asked, ‘Doesn’t he matter?’

‘Edgar?’ There was an unconscious note of cruelty in Gina’s scornful laugh. ‘Oh, he’s bats anyway.’

‘Bats?’

‘They’re all bats at Stonygates,’ said Gina. ‘I don’t mean Lewis and Grandam and me and the boys—and not Miss Bellever, of course. But the others. Sometimes I feel I’m going a bit bats myself living there. Even Aunt Mildred goes out on walks and mutters to herself all the time—and you don’t expect a Canon’s widow to do that, do you?’

They swung out of the station approach and accelerated up the smooth surfaced empty road. Gina shot a swift sideways glance at her companion.

‘You were at school with Grandam, weren’t you? It seems so queer.’

Miss Marple knew perfectly what she meant. To youth it seems very odd to think that age was once young and pigtailed and struggled with decimals and English literature.

‘It must,’ said Gina with awe in her voice, and obviously not meaning to be rude, ‘have been a very long time ago.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Miss Marple. ‘You feel that more with me than you do with your grandmother, I expect?’

Gina nodded. ‘It’s cute of you saying that. Grandam, you know, gives one a curiously ageless feeling.’

‘It is a long time since I’ve seen her. I wonder if I shall find her much changed.’

‘Her hair’s grey, of course,’ said Gina vaguely. ‘And she walks with a stick because of her arthritis. It’s got much worse lately. I suppose that—’ she broke off, and then asked: ‘Have you been to Stonygates before?’

‘No, never. I’ve heard a great deal about it, of course.’

‘It’s pretty ghastly, really,’ said Gina cheerfully. ‘A sort of Gothic monstrosity. What Steve calls Best Victorian Lavatory period. But it’s fun, too, in a way. Only of course everything’s madly earnest, and you tumble over psychiatrists everywhere underfoot. Enjoying themselves madly. Rather like Scout-masters, only worse. The young criminals are rather pets, some of them. One showed me how to diddle locks with a bit of wire and one angelic-faced boy gave me a lot of points about coshing people.’

Miss Marple considered this information thoughtfully.

‘It’s the thugs I like best,’ said Gina. ‘I don’t fancy the queers so much. Of course Lewis and Dr Maverick think they’re all queer—I mean they think it’s repressed desires and disordered home life and their mothers getting off with soldiers and all that. I don’t really see it myself because some people have had awful home lives and yet have managed to turn out quite all right.’

‘I’m sure it is all a very difficult problem,’ said Miss Marple.

Gina laughed, again showing her magnificent teeth.

‘It doesn’t worry me much. I suppose some people have these sort of urges to make the world a better place. Lewis is quite dippy about it all—he’s going to Aberdeen next week because there’s a case coming up in the police court—a boy with five previous convictions.’

‘The young man who met me at the station? Mr Lawson. He helps Mr Serrocold, he told me. Is he his secretary?’

‘Oh Edgar hasn’t brains enough to be a secretary. He’s a case, really. He used to stay at hotels and pretend he was a V.C. or a fighter pilot and borrow money and then do a flit. I think he’s just a rotter. But Lewis goes through a routine with them all. Makes them feel one of the family and gives them jobs to do and all that to encourage their sense of responsibility. I daresay we shall be murdered by one of them one of these days.’ Gina laughed merrily.

Miss Marple did not laugh.

They turned in through some imposing gates where a Commissionaire was standing on duty in a military manner and drove up a drive flanked with rhododendrons. The drive was badly kept and the grounds seemed neglected.

Interpreting her companion’s glance, Gina said, ‘No gardeners during the war, and since we haven’t bothered. But it does look rather terrible.’

They came round a curve and Stonygates appeared in its full glory. It was, as Gina had said, a vast edifice of Victorian Gothic—a kind of temple to Plutocracy. Philanthropy had added to it in various wings and outbuildings which, while not positively dissimilar in style, had robbed the structure as a whole of any cohesion or purpose.

‘Hideous, isn’t it?’ said Gina affectionately. ‘There’s Grandam on the terrace. I’ll stop here and you can go and meet her.’

Miss Marple advanced along the terrace towards her old friend.

From a distance, the slim little figure looked curiously girlish in spite of the stick on which she leaned and her slow and obviously rather painful progress. It was as though a young girl was giving an exaggerated imitation of old age.

‘Jane,’ said Mrs Serrocold.

‘Dear Carrie Louise.’

Yes, unmistakably Carrie Louise. Strangely unchanged, strangely youthful still, although, unlike her sister, she used no cosmetics or artificial aids to youth. Her hair was grey, but it had always been of a silvery fairness and the colour had changed very little. Her skin had still a rose leaf pink and white appearance, though now it was a crumpled rose leaf. Her eyes had still their starry innocent glance. She had the slender youthful figure of a girl and her head kept its eager birdlike tilt.

‘I do blame myself,’ said Carrie Louise in her sweet voice, ‘for letting it be so long. Years since I saw you, Jane dear. It’s just lovely that you’ve come at last to pay us a visit here.’

From the end of the terrace Gina called:

‘You ought to come in, Grandam. It’s getting cold—and Jolly will be furious.’

Carrie Louise gave her little silvery laugh.

‘They all fuss about me so,’ she said. ‘They rub it in that I’m an old woman.’

‘And you don’t feel like one.’

‘No, I don’t, Jane. In spite of all my aches and pains and I’ve got plenty. Inside I go on feeling just a chit like Gina. Perhaps everyone does. The glass shows them how old they are and they just don’t believe it. It seems only a few months ago that we were at Florence. Do you remember Fraulein Schweich and her boots?’

The two elderly women laughed together at events that had happened nearly half a century ago.

They walked together to a side door. In the doorway a gaunt elderly lady met them. She had an arrogant nose, a short haircut and wore stout well-cut tweeds.

She said fiercely:

‘It’s absolutely crazy of you, Cara, to stay out so late. You’re absolutely incapable of taking care of yourself. What will Mr Serrocold say?’

‘Don’t scold me, Jolly,’ said Carrie Louise pleadingly.

She introduced Miss Bellever to Miss Marple.

‘This is Miss Bellever, who is simply everything to me. Nurse, dragon, watchdog, secretary, housekeeper and very faithful friend.’

Juliet Bellever sniffed, and the end of her big nose turned rather pink, a sign of emotion.

‘I do what I can,’ she said gruffly. ‘This is a crazy household. You simply can’t arrange any kind of planned routine.’

‘Darling Jolly, of course you can’t. I wonder why you ever try. Where are you putting Miss Marple?’

‘In the Blue Room. Shall I take her up?’ asked Miss Bellever.

‘Yes, please do, Jolly. And then bring her down to tea. It’s in the library today, I think.’

The Blue Room had heavy curtains of a rich faded blue brocade that must have been, Miss Marple thought, about fifty years old. The furniture was mahogany, big and solid, and the bed was a vast mahogany fourposter. Miss Bellever opened a door into a connecting bathroom. This was unexpectedly modern, orchid in colouring and with much dazzling chromium.

She observed grimly:

‘John Restarick had ten bathrooms put into the house when he married Cara. The plumbing is about the only thing that’s ever been modernized. He wouldn’t hear of the rest being altered—said the whole place was a perfect Period Piece. Did you ever know him at all?’

‘No, I never met him. Mrs Serrocold and I have met very seldom though we have always corresponded.’

‘He was an agreeable fellow,’ said Miss Bellever. ‘No good, of course! A complete rotter. But pleasant to have about the house. Great charm. Women liked him far too much. That was his undoing in the end. Not really Cara’s type.’

She added with a brusque resumption of her practical manner:

‘The housemaid will unpack for you. Do you want a wash before tea?’

Receiving an affirmative answer, she said that Miss Marple would find her waiting at the top of the stairs.

Miss Marple went into the bathroom and washed her hands and dried them a little nervously on a very beautiful orchid-coloured face towel. Then she removed her hat and patted her soft white hair into place.

Opening her door, she found Miss Bellever waiting for her, and was conducted down the big gloomy staircase and across a vast dark hall and into a room where bookshelves went up to the ceiling and a big window looked out over an artificial lake.

Carrie Louise was standing by the window and Miss Marple joined her.

‘What a very imposing house this is,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I feel quite lost in it.’

‘Yes, I know. It’s ridiculous, really. It was built by a prosperous iron master—or something of that kind. He went bankrupt not long after. I don’t wonder really. There were about fourteen living-rooms—all enormous. I’ve never seen what people can want with more than one sitting-room. And all those huge bedrooms. Such a lot of unnecessary space. Mine is terribly overpowering—and quite a long way to walk from the bed to the dressing table. And great heavy dark crimson curtains.’

‘You haven’t had it modernized and redecorated?’

Carrie Louise looked vaguely surprised.

‘No. On the whole it’s very much as it was when I first lived here with Eric. It’s been repainted, of course, but they always do it the same colour. Those things don’t really matter, do they? I mean I shouldn’t have felt justified in spending a lot of money on that kind of thing when there are so many things that are so much more important.’

‘Have there been no changes at all in the house?’

‘Oh—yes—heaps of them. We’ve just kept a kind of block in the middle of the house as it was—the Great Hall and the rooms off and over. They’re the best ones and Johnnie—my second husband—was lyrical over them and said they should never be touched or altered—and of course he was an artist and a designer and he knew about these things. But the East and West wings have been completely remodelled. All the rooms partitioned off and divided up, so that we have offices, and bedrooms for the teaching staff, and all that. The boys are all in the College building—you can see it from here.’

Miss Marple looked out towards where large red brick buildings showed through a belt of sheltered trees. Then her eyes fell on something nearer at hand, and she smiled a little.

‘What a very beautiful girl Gina is,’ she said.

Carrie Louise’s face lit up.

‘Yes, isn’t she?’ she said softly. ‘It’s so lovely to have her back here again. I sent her to America at the beginning of the war—to Ruth. Did Ruth talk about her at all?’

‘No. At least she did just mention her.’

Carrie Louise sighed.

‘Poor Ruth! She was frightfully upset over Gina’s marriage. But I’ve told her again and again that I don’t blame her in the least. Ruth doesn’t realize, as I do, that the old barriers and class shibboleths are gone—or at any rate are going.

‘Gina was doing her war work—and she met this young man. He was a Marine and had a very good war record. And a week later they were married. It was all far too quick, of course, no time to find out if they were really suited to each other—but that’s the way of things nowadays. Young people belong to their generation. We may think they’re unwise in many of their doings, but we have to accept their decisions. Ruth, though, was terribly upset.’

‘She didn’t consider the young man suitable?’

‘She kept saying that one didn’t know anything about him. He came from the Middle West and he hadn’t any money—and naturally no profession. There are hundreds of boys like that everywhere—but it wasn’t Ruth’s idea of what was right for Gina. However, the thing was done. I was so glad when Gina accepted my invitation to come over here with her husband. There’s so much going on here—jobs of every kind, and if Walter wants to specialize in medicine or get a degree or anything he could do it in this country. After all, this is Gina’s home. It’s delightful to have her back, to have someone so warm and gay and alive in the house.’

Miss Marple nodded and looked out of the window again at the two young people standing near the lake.

‘They’re a remarkably handsome couple, too,’ she said. ‘I don’t wonder Gina fell in love with him!’

‘Oh, but that—that isn’t Wally.’ There was, quite suddenly, a touch of embarrassment, or restraint, in Mrs Serrocold’s voice. ‘That’s Steve—the younger of Johnnie Restarick’s two boys. When Johnnie—when he went away, he’d no place for the boys in the holidays, so I always had them here. They look on this as their home. And Steve’s here permanently now. He runs our dramatic branch. We have a theatre, you know, and plays—we encourage all the artistic instincts. Lewis says that so much of this juvenile crime is due to exhibitionism, most of the boys have had such a thwarted unhappy home life, and these hold-ups and burglaries make them feel heroes. We urge them to write their own plays and act in them and design and paint their own scenery. Steve is in charge of the theatre. He’s so keen and enthusiastic. It’s wonderful what life he’s put into the whole thing.’

‘I see,’ said Miss Marple slowly.

Her long-distance sight was good (as many of her neighbours knew to their cost in the village of St Mary Mead) and she saw very clearly the dark handsome face of Stephen Restarick as he stood facing Gina, talking eagerly. Gina’s face she could not see, since the girl had her back to them, but there was no mistaking the expression in Stephen Restarick’s face.

‘It isn’t any business of mine,’ said Miss Marple, ‘but I suppose you realize, Carrie Louise, that he’s in love with her.’

‘Oh no—’ Carrie Louise looked troubled. ‘Oh no, I do hope not.’

‘You were always up in the clouds, Carrie Louise. There’s not the least doubt about it.’

CHAPTER 4

Before Mrs Serrocold could say anything, her husband came in from the hall carrying some open letters in his hand.

Lewis Serrocold was a short man, not particularly impressive in appearance, but with a personality that immediately marked him out. Ruth had once said of him that he was more like a dynamo than a human being. He usually concentrated entirely on what was immediately occupying his attention and paid no attention to the objects or persons who were surrounding them.

‘A bad blow, dearest,’ he said. ‘That boy, Jackie Flint. Back at his tricks again. And I really did think he meant to go straight this time if he got a proper chance. He was most earnest about it. You know we found he’d always been keen on railways—and both Maverick and I thought that if he got a job on the railways he’d stick to it and make good. But it’s the same story. Petty thieving from the parcels office. Not even stuff he could want or sell. That shows that it must be psychological. We haven’t really got to the root of the trouble. But I’m not giving up.’

‘Lewis—this is my old friend, Jane Marple.’

‘Oh how d’you do,’ said Mr Serrocold absently. ‘So glad—they’ll prosecute, of course. A nice lad, too, not too many brains, but a really nice boy. Unspeakable home he came from. I—’

He suddenly broke off, and the dynamo was switched on to the guest.

‘Why, Miss Marple, I’m so delighted you’ve come to stay with us for a while. It will make such a great difference to Caroline to have a friend of old days with whom she can exchange memories. She has in many ways a grim time here—so much sadness in the stories of these poor children. We do hope you’ll stay with us a very long time.’

Miss Marple felt the magnetism and realized how attractive it would have been to her friend. That Lewis Serrocold was a man who would always put causes before people she did not doubt for a moment. It might have irritated some women, but not Carrie Louise.

Lewis Serrocold sorted out another letter.

‘At any rate we’ve some good news. This is from the Wiltshire and Somerset Bank. Young Morris is doing extremely well. They’re thoroughly satisfied with him and in fact are promoting him next month. I always knew that all he needed was responsibility—that, and a thorough grasp of the handling of money and what it means.’

He turned to Miss Marple.

‘Half these boys don’t know what money is. It represents to them going to the pictures or to the dogs, or buying cigarettes—and they’re clever with figures and find it exciting to juggle them round. Well, I believe in—what shall I say?—rubbing their noses in the stuff—train them in accountancy, in figures—show them the whole inner romance of money, so to speak. Give them skill and then responsibility—let them handle it officially. Our greatest successes have been that way—only two out of thirty-eight have let us down. One’s head cashier in a firm of druggists—a really responsible position—’

He broke off to say: ‘Tea’s in, dearest,’ to his wife.

‘I thought we were having it here. I told Jolly.’

‘No, it’s in the Hall. The others are there.’

‘I thought they were all going to be out.’

Carrie Louise linked her arm through Miss Marple’s and they went into the Great Hall. Tea seemed a rather incongruous meal in its surroundings. The tea things were piled haphazard on a tray—white utility cups mixed with the remnants of what had been Rockingham and Spode tea services. There was a loaf of bread, two pots of jam, and some cheap and unwholesome-looking cakes.

A plump middle-aged woman with grey hair sat behind the tea table and Mrs Serrocold said:

‘This is Mildred, Jane. My daughter Mildred. You haven’t seen her since she was a tiny girl.’

Mildred Strete was the person most in tune with the house that Miss Marple had so far seen. She looked prosperous and dignified. She had married late in her thirties a Canon of the Church of England and was now a widow. She looked exactly like a Canon’s widow, respectable and slightly dull. She was a plain woman with a large unexpressive face and dull eyes. She had been, Miss Marple reflected, a very plain little girl.

‘And this is Wally Hudd—Gina’s husband.’

Wally was a big young man with hair brushed up on his head and a sulky expression. He nodded awkwardly and went on cramming cake into his mouth.

Presently Gina came in with Stephen Restarick. They were both very animated.

‘Gina’s got a wonderful idea for that backcloth,’ said Stephen. ‘You know, Gina, you’ve got a very definite flair for theatrical designing.’

Gina laughed and looked pleased. Edgar Lawson came in and sat down by Lewis Serrocold. When Gina spoke to him, he made a pretence of not answering.

Miss Marple found it all a little bewildering and was glad to go to her room and lie down after tea.

There were more people still at dinner, a young Dr Maverick who was either a psychiatrist or a psychologist—Miss Marple was rather hazy about the difference—and whose conversation, dealing almost entirely with the jargon of his trade, was practically unintelligible to her. There were also two spectacled young men who held posts on the teaching side, and a Mr Baumgarten, who was an occupational therapist, and three intensely bashful youths who were doing their ‘house guest’ week. One of them, a fair–haired lad with very blue eyes was, Gina informed her in a whisper, the expert with the ‘cosh’.

The meal was not a particularly appetizing one. It was indifferently cooked and indifferently served. A variety of costumes were worn. Miss Bellever wore a high black dress, Mildred Strete wore evening dress and a woollen cardigan over it. Carrie Louise had on a short dress of grey wool—Gina was resplendent in a kind of peasant get up. Wally had not changed, nor had Stephen Restarick, Edgar Lawson had on a neat dark blue suit. Lewis Serrocold wore the conventional dinner jacket. He ate very little and hardly seemed to notice what was on his plate.

After dinner Lewis Serrocold and Dr Maverick went away to the latter’s office. The occupational therapist and the schoolmasters went away to some lair of their own. The three ‘cases’ went back to the college. Gina and Stephen went to the theatre to discuss Gina’s idea for a set. Mildred knitted an indeterminate garment and Miss Bellever darned socks. Wally sat in a chair gently tilted backwards and stared into space. Carrie Louise and Miss Marple talked about old days. The conversation seemed strangely unreal.

Edgar Lawson alone seemed unable to find a niche. He sat down and then got up restlessly.

‘I wonder if I ought to go to Mr Serrocold,’ he said rather loudly. ‘He may need me.’

Carrie Louise said gently, ‘Oh I don’t think so. He was going to talk over one or two points with Dr Maverick this evening.’

‘Then I certainly won’t butt in! I shouldn’t dream of going where I wasn’t wanted. I’ve already wasted time today going down to the station when Mrs Hudd meant to go herself.’

‘She ought to have told you,’ said Carrie Louise. ‘But I think she just decided at the last moment.’

‘You do realize, Mrs Serrocold, that she made me look a complete fool! A complete fool!’

‘No, no,’ said Carrie Louise, smiling. ‘You mustn’t have these ideas.’

‘I know I’m not needed or wanted … I’m perfectly aware of that. If things had been different—if I’d had my proper place in life it would be very different. Very different indeed. It’s no fault of mine that I haven’t got my proper place in life.’

‘Now, Edgar,’ said Carrie Louise. ‘Don’t work yourself up about nothing. Jane thinks it was very kind of you to meet her. Gina always has these sudden impulses—she didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘Oh yes, she did. It was done on purpose—to humiliate me—’

‘Oh Edgar—’

‘You don’t know half of what’s going on, Mrs Serrocold. Well, I won’t say any more now except goodnight.’

Edgar went out, shutting the door with a slam behind him.

Miss Bellever snorted:

‘Atrocious manners.’

‘He’s so sensitive,’ said Carrie Louise vaguely.

Mildred Strete clicked her needles and said sharply:

‘He really is a most odious young man. You shouldn’t put up with such behaviour, Mother.’

‘Lewis says he can’t help it.’

Mildred said sharply:

‘Everyone can help behaving rudely. Of course I blame Gina very much. She’s so completely scatter-brained in everything she undertakes. She does nothing but make trouble. One day she encourages the young man and the next day she snubs him. What can you expect?’

Wally Hudd spoke for the first time that evening.

He said:

‘That guy’s crackers. That’s all there is to it! Crackers!’

In her bedroom that night Miss Marple tried to review the pattern of Stonygates, but it was as yet too confused. There were currents and cross-currents here—but whether they could account for Ruth Van Rydock’s uneasiness it was impossible to tell. It did not seem to Miss Marple that Carrie Louise was affected in any way by what was going on round her. Stephen was in love with Gina. Gina might or might not be in love with Stephen. Walter Hudd was clearly not enjoying himself. These were incidents that might and did occur in all places and at most times. There was, unfortunately, nothing exceptional about them. They ended in the divorce court and everybody hopefully started again—when fresh tangles were created. Mildred Strete was clearly jealous of Gina and disliked her. That, Miss Marple thought, was very natural.

She thought over what Ruth Van Rydock had told her. Carrie Louise’s disappointment at not having a child—the adoption of little Pippa—and then the discovery that, after all, a child was on the way.

‘Often happens like that,’ Miss Marple’s doctor had told her. Relief of tension, maybe, and then Nature can do its work.

He had added that it was usually hard lines on the adopted child.

But that had not been so in this case. Both Gulbrandsen and his wife had adored little Pippa. She had made her place too firmly in their hearts to be lightly set aside. Gulbrandsen was already a father. Paternity meant nothing new to him. Carrie Louise’s maternal yearnings had been assuaged by Pippa. Her pregnancy had been uncomfortable and the actual birth difficult and prolonged. Possibly Carrie Louise, who had never cared for reality, did not enjoy her first brush with it.

There remained two little girls growing up, one pretty and amusing, the other plain and dull. Which again, Miss Marple thought, was quite natural. For when people adopt a baby girl, they choose a pretty one. And though Mildred might have been lucky and taken after the Martins who had produced handsome Ruth and dainty Carrie Louise, Nature elected that she should take after the Gulbrandsens, who were large and stolid and uncompromisingly plain.

Moreover, Carrie Louise was determined that the adopted child should never feel her position, and in making sure of this she was over-indulgent to Pippa and sometimes less than fair to Mildred.

Pippa had married and gone away to Italy, and Mildred for a time had been the only daughter of the house. But then Pippa had died and Carrie Louise had brought Pippa’s baby back to Stonygates, and once more Mildred had been out of it. There had been the new marriage—the Restarick boys. In 1934 Mildred had married Canon Strete, a scholarly antiquarian about fifteen years her senior and had gone away to live in the South of England. Presumably she had been happy—but one did not really know. There had been no children. And now here she was, back again in the same house where she had been brought up. And once again, Miss Marple thought, not particularly happy in it.

Gina, Stephen, Wally, Mildred, Miss Bellever who liked an ordered routine and was unable to enforce it. Lewis Serrocold who was clearly blissfully and whole-heartedly happy; an idealist able to translate his ideals into practical measures. In none of these personalities did Miss Marple find what Ruth’s words had led her to believe she might find. Carrie Louise seemed secure, remote at the heart of the whirlpool—as she had been all her life. What then, in that atmosphere, had Ruth felt to be wrong …? Did she, Jane Marple, feel it also?

What of the outer personalities of the whirlpool—the occupational therapists, the schoolmasters, earnest, harmless young men, confident young Dr Maverick, the three pink-faced innocent-eyed young delinquents—Edgar Lawson …

And here, just before she fell asleep, Miss Marple’s thoughts stopped and revolved speculatively round the figure of Edgar Lawson. Edgar Lawson reminded her of someone or something. There was something a little wrong about Edgar Lawson—perhaps more than a little. Edgar Lawson was maladjusted—that was the phrase, wasn’t it? But surely that didn’t, and couldn’t touch Carrie Louise?’

Mentally, Miss Marple shook her head.

What worried her was something more than that.

CHAPTER 5

Gently eluding her hostess the next morning, Miss Marple went out into the gardens. Their condition distressed her. They had once been an ambitiously set out achievement. Clumps of rhododendrons, smooth slopes of lawns, massed borders of herbaceous plants, clipped boxhedges surrounding a formal rose garden. Now all was largely derelict, the lawns raggedly mown, the borders full of weeds with tangled flowers struggling through them, the paths moss-covered and neglected. The kitchen gardens, on the other hand, enclosed by red brick walls, were prosperous and well stocked. That, presumably, was because they had a utility value. So, also, a large portion of what had once been lawn and flower garden, was now fenced off and laid out in tennis courts and a bowling green.

Surveying the herbaceous border, Miss Marple clicked her tongue vexedly and pulled up a flourishing plant of groundsel.

As she stood with it in her hand, Edgar Lawson came into view. Seeing Miss Marple, he stopped and hesitated. Miss Marple had no mind to let him escape. She called him briskly. When he came, she asked him if he knew where any gardening tools were kept.

Edgar said vaguely that there was a gardener somewhere who would know.

‘It’s such a pity to see this border so neglected,’ twittered Miss Marple. ‘I’m so fond of gardens.’ And since it was not her intention that Edgar should go in search of any necessary implement she went on quickly:

‘It’s about all an old and useless woman can find to do. Now I don’t suppose you ever bother your head about gardens, Mr Lawson. You have so much real and important work to do. Being in a responsible position here, with Mr Serrocold. You must find it all most interesting.’

He answered quickly, almost eagerly:

‘Yes—yes—it is interesting.’

‘And you must be of the greatest assistance to Mr Serrocold.’

His face darkened.

‘I don’t know. I can’t be sure. It’s what’s behind it all—’

He broke off. Miss Marple watched him thoughtfully. A pathetic undersized young man in a neat dark suit. A young man that few people would look at twice, or remember if they did look …

There was a garden seat nearby and Miss Marple drifted towards it and sat. Edgar stood frowning in front of her.

‘I’m sure,’ said Miss Marple brightly, ‘that Mr Serrocold relies on you a great deal.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Edgar. ‘I really don’t know.’ He frowned and almost absently sat down beside her. ‘I’m in a very difficult position.’

‘Of course,’ said Miss Marple.

The young man Edgar sat staring in front of him.

‘This is all highly confidential,’ he said suddenly.

‘Of course,’ said Miss Marple.

‘If I had my rights—’

‘Yes?’

‘I might as well tell you … You won’t let it go any further, I’m sure?’

‘Oh no.’ She noticed he did not wait for her disclaimer.

‘My father—actually, my father is a very important man.’

This time there was no need to say anything. She had only to listen.

‘Nobody knows except Mr Serrocold. You see, it might prejudice my father’s position if the story got out.’ He turned to her. He smiled. A sad dignified smile. ‘You see, I’m Winston Churchill’s son.’

‘Oh,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I see.’

And she did see. She remembered a rather sad story in St Mary Mead—and the way it had gone.

Edgar Lawson went on, and what he said had the familiarity of a stage scene.

‘There were reasons. My mother wasn’t free. Her own husband was in an asylum—there could be no divorce—no question of marriage. I don’t really blame them. At least, I think I don’t … He’s done, always, everything he could. Discreetly, of course. And that’s where the trouble has arisen. He’s got enemies—and they’re against me, too. They’ve managed to keep us apart. They watch me. Wherever I go, they spy on me. And they make things go wrong for me.’

Miss Marple shook her head.

‘Dear, dear,’ she said.

‘In London I was studying to be a doctor. They tampered with my exams—they altered the answers. They wanted me to fail. They followed me about the streets. They told things about me to my landlady. They hound me wherever I go.’

‘Oh, but you can’t be sure of that,’ said Miss Marple soothingly.

‘I tell you I know! Oh they’re very cunning. I never get a glimpse of them or find out who they are. But I shall find out … Mr Serrocold took me away from London and brought me down here. He was kind—very kind. But even here, you know, I’m not safe. They’re here too. Working against me. Making the others dislike me. Mr Serrocold says that isn’t true—but Mr Serrocold doesn’t know. Or else—I wonder—sometimes I’ve thought—’

He broke off. He got up.

‘This is all confidential,’ he said. ‘You do understand that, don’t you? But if you notice anyone following me—spying, I mean—you might let me know who it is!’

He went away, then—neat, pathetic, insignificant. Miss Marple watched him and wondered …

A voice spoke.

‘Nuts,’ it said. ‘Just nuts.’

Walter Hudd was standing beside her. His hands were thrust deep in his pockets and he was frowning as he stared after Edgar’s retreating figure.

‘What kind of a joint is this, anyway?’ he said. ‘They’re all bughouse, the whole lot of them.’

Miss Marple said nothing and Walter went on:

‘That Edgar guy—what do you make of him? Says his father’s really Lord Montgomery. Doesn’t seem likely to me. Not Monty! Not from all I’ve heard about him.’

‘No,’ said Miss Marple. ‘It doesn’t seem very likely.’

‘He told Gina something quite different—some bunk about being really the heir to the Russian throne—said he was some Grand Duke’s son or other. Hell, doesn’t the chap know who his father really was?’

‘I should imagine not,’ said Miss Marple. ‘That is probably just the trouble.’

Walter sat down beside her, dropping his body on to the seat with a slack movement. He repeated his former statement.

‘They’re all bughouse here.’

‘You don’t like being at Stonygates?’

The young man frowned.

‘I simply don’t get it—that’s all! I don’t get it. Take this place—the house—the whole set-up. They’re rich, these people. They don’t need dough—they’ve got it. And look at the way they live. Cracked antique china and cheap plain stuff all mixed up. No proper upper-class servants—just some casual hired help. Tapestries and drapes and chair-covers all satin and brocade and stuff—and it’s falling to pieces! Big silver tea urns and what do you know—all yellow and tarnished for want of cleaning. Mrs Serrocold just doesn’t care. Look at that dress she had on last night. Darned under the arms, nearly worn out—and yet she could go to a store and order what she liked. Bond Street or wherever it is. Dough? They’re rolling in dough.’

He paused and sat, deliberating.

‘I understand being poor. There’s nothing much wrong with it. If you’re young and strong and ready to work. I never had much money, but I was all set to get where I wanted. I was going to open a garage. I’d got a bit of money put by. I talked to Gina about it. She listened. She seemed to understand. I didn’t know much about her. All those girls in uniform, they look about the same. I mean you can’t tell from looking at them who’s got dough and who hasn’t. I thought she was a cut above me, perhaps, education and all that. But it didn’t seem to matter. We fell for each other. We got married. I’d got my bit put by and Gina had some too, she told me. We were going to set up a gas station back home—Gina was willing. Just a couple of crazy kids we were—mad about each other. Then that snooty aunt of Gina’s started making trouble … And Gina wanted to come here to England to see her grandmother. Well, that seemed fair enough. It was her home, and I was curious to see England anyway. I’d heard a lot about it. So we came. Just a visit—that’s what I thought.’

The frown became a scowl.

‘But it hasn’t turned out like that. We’re caught up in this crazy business. Why don’t we stay here—make our home here—that’s what they say? Plenty of jobs for me. Jobs! I don’t want a job feeding candy to gangster kids and helping them play at kids’ games … what’s the sense of it all? This place could be swell—really swell. Don’t people who’ve got money understand their luck? Don’t they understand that most of the world can’t have a swell place like this and that they’ve got one? Isn’t it plain crazy to kick your luck when you’ve got it? I don’t mind working if I’ve got to. But I’ll work the way I like and at what I like—and I’ll work to get somewhere. This place makes me feel I’m tangled up in a spider’s web. And Gina—I can’t make Gina out. She’s not the same girl I married over in the States. I can’t—dang it all—I can’t even talk to her now. Oh hell!’

Miss Marple said gently:

‘I quite see your point of view.’

Wally shot a swift glance at her.

‘You’re the only one I’ve shot my mouth off to so far. Most of the time I shut up like a clam. Don’t know what it is about you—you’re English right enough, really English—but in the durndest way you remind me of my Aunt Betsy back home.’

‘Now that’s very nice.’

‘A lot of sense she had,’ Wally continued reflectively. ‘Looked as frail as though you could snap her in two, but actually she was tough—yes, sir, I’ll say she was tough.’

He got up.

‘Sorry talking to you this way,’ he apologized. For the first time, Miss Marple saw him smile. It was a very attractive smile, and Wally Hudd was suddenly transfigured from an awkward sulky boy into a handsome and appealing young man. ‘Had to get things off my chest, I suppose. But too bad picking on you.’

‘Not at all, my dear boy,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I have a nephew of my own—only, of course, a great deal older than you are.’

Her mind dwelt for a moment on the sophisticated modern writer Raymond West. A greater contrast to Walter Hudd could not have been imagined.

‘You’ve got other company coming,’ said Walter Hudd. ‘That dame doesn’t like me. So I’ll quit. So long, ma’am. Thanks for the talk.’

He strode away and Miss Marple watched Mildred Strete coming across the lawn to join her.

‘I see you’ve been victimized by that terrible young man,’ said Mrs Strete, rather breathlessly, as she sank down on the seat. ‘What a tragedy that is.’

‘A tragedy?’

‘Gina’s marriage. It all came about from sending her off to America. I told mother at the time it was most unwise. After all, this is quite a quiet district. We had hardly any raids here. I do so dislike the way many people gave way to panic about their families—and themselves, too, very often.’

‘It must have been difficult to decide what was right to do,’ said Miss Marple thoughtfully. ‘Where children were concerned, I mean. With the prospect of possible invasion, it might have meant their being brought up under a German régime—as well as the danger of bombs.’

‘All nonsense,’ said Mrs Strete. ‘I never had the least doubt that we should win. But mother has always been quite unreasonable where Gina is concerned. The child was always spoilt and indulged in every way. There was absolutely no need to take her away from Italy in the first place.’

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