Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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First published in Great Britain by Collins, The Crime Club 1965

At Bertram’s Hotel™ is a trade mark of Agatha Christie Limited

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registered trade marks of Agatha Christie Limited in the UK and elsewhere.

Copyright © 1965 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.

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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: 9780008196615

Ebook Edition © December 2016 ISBN: 9780007422159

Version: 2017-07-26

Dedication

For Harry Smith

because I appreciate the scientific way

he reads my books

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by Agatha Christie

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1

In the heart of the West End, there are many quiet pockets, unknown to almost all but taxi drivers who traverse them with expert knowledge, and arrive triumphantly thereby at Park Lane, Berkeley Square or South Audley Street.

If you turn off on an unpretentious street from the Park, and turn left and right once or twice, you will find yourself in a quiet street with Bertram’s Hotel on the right hand side. Bertram’s Hotel has been there a long time. During the war, houses were demolished on the right of it, and a little farther down on the left of it, but Bertram’s itself remained unscathed. Naturally it could not escape being, as house agents would say, scratched, bruised and marked, but by the expenditure of only a reasonable amount of money it was restored to its original condition. By 1955 it looked precisely as it had looked in 1939—dignified, unostentatious, and quietly expensive.

Such was Bertram’s, patronized over a long stretch of years by the higher échelons of the clergy, dowager ladies of the aristocracy up from the country, girls on their way home for the holidays from expensive finishing schools. (‘So few places where a girl can stay alone in London but of course it is quite all right at Bertram’s. We have stayed there for years.’)

There had, of course, been many other hotels on the model of Bertram’s. Some still existed, but nearly all had felt the wind of change. They had had necessarily to modernize themselves, to cater for a different clientele. Bertram’s, too, had had to change, but it had been done so cleverly that it was not at all apparent at the first casual glance.

Outside the steps that led up to the big swing doors stood what at first sight appeared to be no less than a Field-Marshal. Gold braid and medal ribbons adorned a broad and manly chest. His deportment was perfect. He received you with tender concern as you emerged with rheumatic difficulty from a taxi or a car, guided you carefully up the steps and piloted you through the silently swinging doorway.

Inside, if this was the first time you had visited Bertram’s, you felt, almost with alarm, that you had re-entered a vanished world. Time had gone back. You were in Edwardian England once more.

There was, of course, central heating, but it was not apparent. As there had always been, in the big central lounge, there were two magnificent coal fires; beside them big brass coal scuttles shone in the way they used to shine when Edwardian housemaids polished them, and they were filled with exactly the right sized lumps of coal. There was a general appearance of rich red velvet and plushy cosiness. The arm-chairs were not of this time and age. They were well above the level of the floor, so that rheumatic old ladies had not to struggle in an undignified manner in order to get to their feet. The seats of the chairs did not, as in so many modern high-priced arm-chairs, stop half-way between the thigh and the knee, thereby inflicting agony on those suffering from arthritis and sciatica; and they were not all of a pattern. There were straight backs and reclining backs, different widths to accommodate the slender and the obese. People of almost any dimension could find a comfortable chair at Bertram’s.

Since it was now the tea hour, the lounge hall was full. Not that the lounge hall was the only place where you could have tea. There was a drawing-room (chintz), a smoking-room (by some hidden influence reserved for gentlemen only), where the vast chairs were of fine leather, two writing-rooms, where you could take a special friend and have a cosy little gossip in a quiet corner—and even write a letter as well if you wanted to. Besides these amenities of the Edwardian age, there were other retreats, not in any way publicized, but known to those who wanted them. There was a double bar, with two bar attendants, an American barman to make the Americans feel at home and to provide them with bourbon, rye, and every kind of cocktail, and an English one to deal with sherries and Pimm’s No. 1, and to talk knowledgeably about the runners at Ascot and Newbury to the middle-aged men who stayed at Bertram’s for the more serious race meetings. There was also, tucked down a passage, in a secretive way, a television-room for those who asked for it.

But the big entrance lounge was the favourite place for the afternoon tea drinking. The elderly ladies enjoyed seeing who came in and out, recognizing old friends, and commenting unfavourably on how these had aged. There were also American visitors fascinated by seeing the titled English really getting down to their traditional afternoon tea. For afternoon tea was quite a feature of Bertram’s.

It was nothing less than splendid. Presiding over the ritual was Henry, a large and magnificent figure, a ripe fifty, avuncular, sympathetic, and with the courtly manners of that long vanished species: the perfect butler. Slim youths performed the actual work under Henry’s austere direction. There were large crested silver trays, and Georgian silver teapots. The china, if not actually Rockingham and Davenport, looked like it. The Blind Earl services were particular favourites. The tea was the best Indian, Ceylon, Darjeeling, Lapsang, etc. As for eatables, you could ask for anything you liked—and get it!

On this particular day, November the 17th, Lady Selina Hazy, sixty-five, up from Leicestershire, was eating delicious well-buttered muffins with all an elderly lady’s relish.

Her absorption with muffins, however, was not so great that she failed to look up sharply every time the inner pair of swing doors opened to admit a newcomer.

So it was that she smiled and nodded to welcome Colonel Luscombe—erect, soldierly, race glasses hanging round his neck. Like the old autocrat that she was, she beckoned imperiously and, in a minute or two, Luscombe came over to her.

‘Hallo, Selina, what brings you up to Town?’

‘Dentist,’ said Lady Selina, rather indistinctly, owing to muffin. ‘And I thought as I was up, I might as well go and see that man in Harley Street about my arthritis. You know who I mean.’

Although Harley Street contained several hundreds of fashionable practitioners for all and every ailment, Luscombe did know whom she meant.

‘Do you any good?’ he asked.

‘I rather think he did,’ said Lady Selina grudgingly. ‘Extraordinary fellow. Took me by the neck when I wasn’t expecting it, and wrung it like a chicken.’ She moved her neck gingerly.

‘Hurt you?’

‘It must have done, twisting it like that, but really I hadn’t time to know.’ She continued to move her neck gingerly. ‘Feels all right. Can look over my right shoulder for the first time in years.’

She put this to a practical test and exclaimed, ‘Why I do believe that’s old Jane Marple. Thought she was dead years ago. Looks a hundred.’

Colonel Luscombe threw a glance in the direction of Jane Marple thus resurrected, but without much interest: Bertram’s always had a sprinkling of what he called fluffy old pussies.

Lady Selina was continuing.

‘Only place in London you can still get muffins. Real muffins. Do you know when I went to America last year they had something called muffins on the breakfast menu. Not real muffins at all. Kind of teacake with raisins in them. I mean, why call them muffins?’

She pushed in the last buttery morsel and looked round vaguely. Henry materialized immediately. Not quickly or hurriedly. It seemed that, just suddenly, he was there.

‘Anything further I can get you, my lady? Cake of any kind?’

‘Cake?’ Lady Selina thought about it, was doubtful.

‘We are serving very good seed cake, my lady. I can recommend it.’

‘Seed cake? I haven’t eaten seed cake for years. It is real seed cake?’

‘Oh, yes, my lady. The cook has had the recipe for years. You’ll enjoy it, I’m sure.’

Henry gave a glance at one of his retinue, and the lad departed in search of seed cake.

‘I suppose you’ve been at Newbury, Derek?’

‘Yes. Darned cold, I didn’t wait for the last two races. Disastrous day. That filly of Harry’s was no good at all.’

‘Didn’t think she would be. What about Swanhilda?’

‘Finished fourth.’ Luscombe rose. ‘Got to see about my room.’

He walked across the lounge to the reception desk. As he went he noted the tables and their occupants. Astonishing number of people having tea here. Quite like old days. Tea as a meal had rather gone out of fashion since the war. But evidently not at Bertram’s. Who were all these people? Two Canons and the Dean of Chislehampton. Yes, and another pair of gaitered legs over in the corner, a Bishop, no less! Mere Vicars were scarce. ‘Have to be at least a Canon to afford Bertram’s,’ he thought. The rank and file of the clergy certainly couldn’t, poor devils. As far as that went, he wondered how on earth people like old Selina Hazy could. She’d only got twopence or so a year to bless herself with. And there was old Lady Berry, and Mrs Posselthwaite from Somerset, and Sybil Kerr—all poor as church mice.

Still thinking about this he arrived at the desk and was pleasantly greeted by Miss Gorringe the receptionist. Miss Gorringe was an old friend. She knew every one of the clientele and, like Royalty, never forgot a face. She looked frumpy but respectable. Frizzled yellowish hair (old-fashioned tongs, it suggested), black silk dress, a high bosom on which reposed a large gold locket and a cameo brooch.

‘Number fourteen,’ said Miss Gorringe. ‘I think you had fourteen last time, Colonel Luscombe, and liked it. It’s quiet.’

‘How you always manage to remember these things, I can’t imagine, Miss Gorringe.’

‘We like to make our old friends comfortable.’

‘Takes me back a long way, coming in here. Nothing seems to have changed.’

He broke off as Mr Humfries came out from an inner sanctum to greet him.

Mr Humfries was often taken by the uninitiated to be Mr Bertram in person. Who the actual Mr Bertram was, or indeed, if there ever had been a Mr Bertram was now lost in the mists of antiquity. Bertram’s had existed since about 1840, but nobody had taken any interest in tracing its past history. It was just there, solid, in fact. When addressed as Mr Bertram, Mr Humfries never corrected the impression. If they wanted him to be Mr Bertram he would be Mr Bertram. Colonel Luscombe knew his name, though he didn’t know if Humfries was the manager or the owner. He rather fancied the latter.

Mr Humfries was a man of about fifty. He had very good manners, and the presence of a Junior Minister. He could, at any moment, be all things to all people. He could talk racing shop, cricket, foreign politics, tell anecdotes of Royalty, give Motor Show information, knew the most interesting plays on at present—advise on places Americans ought really to see in England however short their stay. He had knowledgeable information about where it would suit persons of all incomes and tastes to dine. With all this, he did not make himself too cheap. He was not on tap all the time. Miss Gorringe had all the same facts at her fingertips and could retail them efficiently. At brief intervals Mr Humfries, like the sun, made his appearance above the horizon and flattered someone by his personal attention.

This time it was Colonel Luscombe who was so honoured. They exchanged a few racing platitudes, but Colonel Luscombe was absorbed by his problem. And here was the man who could give him the answer.

‘Tell me, Humfries, how do all these old dears manage to come and stay here?’

‘Oh you’ve been wondering about that?’ Mr Humfries seemed amused. ‘Well, the answer’s simple. They couldn’t afford it. Unless—’

He paused.

‘Unless you make special prices for them? Is that it?’

‘More or less. They don’t know, usually, that they are special prices, or if they do realize it, they think it’s because they’re old customers.’

‘And it isn’t just that?’

‘Well, Colonel Luscombe, I am running a hotel. I couldn’t afford actually to lose money.’

‘But how can that pay you?’

‘It’s a question of atmosphere … Strangers coming to this country (Americans, in particular, because they are the ones who have the money) have their own rather queer ideas of what England is like. I’m not talking, you understand, of the rich business tycoons who are always crossing the Atlantic. They usually go to the Savoy or the Dorchester. They want modern décor, American food, all the things that will make them feel at home. But there are a lot of people who come abroad at rare intervals and who expect this country to be—well, I won’t go back as far as Dickens, but they’ve read Cranford and Henry James, and they don’t want to find this country just the same as their own! So they go back home afterwards and say: “There’s a wonderful place in London; Bertram’s Hotel, it’s called. It’s just like stepping back a hundred years. It just is old England! And the people who stay there! People you’d never come across anywhere else. Wonderful old Duchesses. They serve all the old English dishes, there’s a marvellous old-fashioned beef-steak pudding! You’ve never tasted anything like it; and great sirloins of beef and saddles of mutton, and an old-fashioned English tea and a wonderful English breakfast. And of course all the usual things as well. And it’s wonderfully comfortable. And warm. Great log fires.”’

Mr Humfries ceased his impersonation and permitted himself something nearly approaching a grin.

‘I see,’ said Luscombe thoughtfully. ‘These people; decayed aristocrats, impoverished members of the old County families, they are all so much mise en scène?’

Mr Humfries nodded agreement.

‘I really wonder no one else has thought of it. Of course I found Bertram’s ready made, so to speak. All it needed was some rather expensive restoration. All the people who come here think it’s something that they’ve discovered for themselves, that no one else knows about.’

‘I suppose,’ said Luscombe, ‘that the restoration was quite expensive?’

‘Oh yes. The place has got to look Edwardian, but it’s got to have the modern comforts that we take for granted in these days. Our old dears—if you will forgive me referring to them as that—have got to feel that nothing has changed since the turn of the century, and our travelling clients have got to feel they can have period surroundings, and still have what they are used to having at home, and can’t really live without!’

‘Bit difficult sometimes?’ suggested Luscombe.

‘Not really. Take central heating for instance. Americans require—need, I should say—at least ten degrees Fahrenheit higher than English people do. We actually have two quite different sets of bedrooms. The English we put in one lot, the Americans in the other. The rooms all look alike, but they are full of actual differences—electric razors, and showers as well as tubs in some of the bathrooms, and if you want an American breakfast, it’s there—cereals and iced orange juice and all—or if you prefer you can have the English breakfast.’

‘Eggs and bacon?’

‘As you say—but a good deal more than that if you want it. Kippers, kidneys and bacon, cold grouse, York ham. Oxford marmalade.’

‘I must remember all that tomorrow morning. Don’t get that sort of thing any more at home.’

Humfries smiled.

‘Most gentlemen only ask for eggs and bacon. They’ve—well, they’ve got out of the way of thinking about the things there used to be.’

‘Yes, yes … I remember when I was a child … Sideboards groaning with hot dishes. Yes, it was a luxurious way of life.’

‘We endeavour to give people anything they ask for.’

‘Including seed cake and muffins—yes, I see. To each according to his need—I see … Quite Marxian.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Just a thought, Humfries. Extremes meet.’

Colonel Luscombe turned away, taking the key Miss Gorringe offered him. A page-boy sprang to attention and conducted him to the lift. He saw in passing that Lady Selina Hazy was now sitting with her friend Jane Something or other.

CHAPTER 2

‘And I suppose you’re still living at that dear St Mary Mead?’ Lady Selina was asking. ‘Such a sweet unspoilt village. I often think about it. Just the same as ever, I suppose?’

‘Well, not quite.’ Miss Marple reflected on certain aspects of her place of residence. The new Building Estate. The additions to the Village Hall, the altered appearance of the High Street with its up-to-date shop fronts—She sighed. ‘One has to accept change, I suppose.’

‘Progress,’ said Lady Selina vaguely. ‘Though it often seems to me that it isn’t progress. All these smart plumbing fixtures they have nowadays. Every shade of colour and superb what they call “finish”—but do any of them really pull? Or push, when they’re that kind. Every time you go to a friend’s house, you find some kind of a notice in the loo—“Press sharply and release,” “Pull to the left,” “Release quickly.” But in the old days, one just pulled up a handle any kind of way, and cataracts of water came at once—There’s the dear Bishop of Medmenham,’ Lady Selina broke off to say, as a handsome, elderly cleric passed by. ‘Practically quite blind, I believe. But such a splendid militant priest.’

A little clerical talk was indulged in, interspersed by lady Selina’s recognition of various friends and acquaintances, many of whom were not the people she thought they were. She and Miss Marple talked a little of ‘old days’, though Miss Marple’s upbringing, of course, had been quite different from Lady Selina’s, and their reminiscences were mainly confined to the few years when Lady Selina, a recent widow of severely straitened means, had taken a small house in the village of St Mary Mead during the time her second son had been stationed at an airfield nearby.

‘Do you always stay here when you come up, Jane? Odd I haven’t seen you here before.’

‘Oh no, indeed. I couldn’t afford to, and anyway, I hardly ever leave home these days. No, it was a very kind niece of mine who thought it would be a treat for me to have a short visit to London. Joan is a very kind girl—at least perhaps hardly a girl.’ Miss Marple reflected with a qualm that Joan must now be close on fifty. ‘She is a painter, you know. Quite a well-known painter. Joan West. She had an exhibition not long ago.’

Lady Selina had little interest in painters, or indeed in anything artistic. She regarded writers, artists and musicians as a species of clever performing animal; she was prepared to feel indulgent towards them, but to wonder privately why they wanted to do what they did.

‘This modern stuff, I suppose,’ she said, her eyes wandering. ‘There’s Cicely Longhurst—dyed her hair again, I see.’

‘I’m afraid dear Joan is rather modern.’

Here Miss Marple was quite wrong. Joan West had been modern about twenty years ago, but was now regarded by the young arriviste artists as completely old-fashioned.

Casting a brief glance at Cicely Longhurst’s hair, Miss Marple relapsed into a pleasant remembrance of how kind Joan had been. Joan had actually said to her husband, ‘I wish we could do something for poor old Aunt Jane. She never gets away from home. Do you think she’d like to go to Bournemouth for a week or two?’

‘Good idea,’ said Raymond West. His last book was doing very well indeed, and he felt in a generous mood.

‘She enjoyed her trip to the West Indies, I think, though it was a pity she had to get mixed up in a murder case. Quite the wrong thing at her age.’

‘That sort of thing seems to happen to her.’

Raymond was very fond of his old aunt and was constantly devising treats for her, and sending her books that he thought might interest her. He was surprised when she often politely declined the treats, and though she always said the books were ‘so interesting’ he sometimes suspected that she had not read them. But then, of course, her eyes were failing.

In this last he was wrong. Miss Marple had remarkable eyesight for her age, and was at this moment taking in everything that was going on round her with keen interest and pleasure.

To Joan’s proffer of a week or two at one of Bournemouth’s best hotels, she had hesitated, murmured, ‘It’s very, very kind of you, my dear, but I really don’t think—’

‘But it’s good for you, Aunt Jane. Good to get away from home sometimes. It gives you new ideas, and new things to think about.’

‘Oh yes, you are quite right there, and I would like a little visit somewhere for a change. Not, perhaps, Bournemouth.’

Joan was slightly surprised. She had thought Bournemouth would have been Aunt Jane’s Mecca.

‘Eastbourne? Or Torquay?’

‘What I would really like—’ Miss Marple hesitated.

‘Yes?’

‘I dare say you will think it rather silly of me.’

‘No, I’m sure I shan’t.’ (Where did the old dear want to go?)

‘I would really like to go to Bertram’s Hotel—in London.’

‘Bertram’s Hotel?’ The name was vaguely familiar.

Words came from Miss Marple in a rush.

‘I stayed there once—when I was fourteen. With my uncle and aunt, Uncle Thomas, that was, he was Canon of Ely. And I’ve never forgotten it. If I could stay there—a week would be quite enough—two weeks might be too expensive.’

‘Oh, that’s all right. Of course you shall go. I ought to have thought that you might want to go to London—the shops and everything. We’ll fix it up—if Bertram’s Hotel still exists. So many hotels have vanished, sometimes bombed in the war and sometimes just given up.’

‘No, I happen to know Bertram’s Hotel is still going. I had a letter from there—from my American friend Amy McAllister of Boston. She and her husband were staying there.’

‘Good, then I’ll go ahead and fix it up.’ She added gently, ‘I’m afraid you may find it’s changed a good deal from the days when you knew it. So don’t be disappointed.’

But Bertram’s Hotel had not changed. It was just as it had always been. Quite miraculously so, in Miss Marple’s opinion. In fact, she wondered …

It really seemed too good to be true. She knew quite well, with her usual clear-eyed common sense, that what she wanted was simply to refurbish her memories of the past in their old original colours. Much of her life had, perforce, to be spent recalling past pleasures. If you could find someone to remember them with, that was indeed happiness. Nowadays that was not easy to do; she had outlived most of her contemporaries. But she still sat and remembered. In a queer way, it made her come to life again—Jane Marple, that pink and white eager young girl … Such a silly girl in many ways … now who was that very unsuitable young man whose name—oh dear, she couldn’t even remember it now! How wise her mother had been to nip that friendship so firmly in the bud. She had come across him years later—and really he was quite dreadful! At the time she had cried herself to sleep for at least a week!

Nowadays, of course—she considered nowadays … These poor young things. Some of them had mothers, but never mothers who seemed to be any good—mothers who were quite incapable of protecting their daughters from silly affairs, illegitimate babies, and early and unfortunate marriages. It was all very sad.

Her friend’s voice interrupted these meditations.

‘Well, I never. Is it—yes, it is—Bess Sedgwick over there! Of all the unlikely places—’

Miss Marple had been listening with only half an ear to Lady Selina’s comments on her surroundings. She and Miss Marple moved in entirely different circles, so that Miss Marple had been unable to exchange scandalous tit-bits about the various friends or acquaintances that Lady Selina recognized or thought she recognized.

But Bess Sedgwick was different. Bess Sedgwick was a name that almost everyone in England knew. For over thirty years now, Bess Sedgwick had been reported by the Press as doing this or that outrageous or extraordinary thing. For a good part of the war she had been a member of the French Resistance, and was said to have six notches on her gun representing dead Germans. She had flown solo across the Atlantic years ago, had ridden on horseback across Europe and fetched up at Lake Van. She had driven racing cars, had once saved two children from a burning house, had several marriages to her credit and discredit and was said to be the second best-dressed woman in Europe. It was also said that she had successfully smuggled herself aboard a nuclear submarine on its test voyage.

It was therefore with the most intense interest that Miss Marple sat up and indulged in a frankly avid stare.

Whatever she had expected of Bertram’s Hotel, it was not to find Bess Sedgwick there. An expensive night club, or a lorry drivers’ pull up—either of those would be quite in keeping with Bess Sedgwick’s wide range of interests. But this highly respectable and old world hostelry seemed strangely alien.

Still there she was—no doubt of it. Hardly a month passed without Bess Sedgwick’s face appearing in the fashion magazines or the popular press. Here she was in the flesh, smoking a cigarette in a quick impatient manner and looking in a surprised way at the large tea tray in front of her as though she had never seen one before. She had ordered—Miss Marple screwed up her eyes and peered—it was rather far away—yes, doughnuts. Very interesting.

As she watched, Bess Sedgwick stubbed out her cigarette in her saucer, lifted a doughnut and took an immense bite. Rich red real strawberry jam gushed out over her chin. Bess threw back her head and laughed, one of the loudest and gayest sounds to have been heard in the lounge of Bertram’s Hotel for some time.

Henry was immediately beside her, a small delicate napkin proffered. She took it, scrubbed her chin with the vigour of a schoolboy, exclaiming: ‘That’s what I call a real doughnut. Gorgeous.’

She dropped the napkin on the tray and stood up. As usual every eye was on her. She was used to that. Perhaps she liked it, perhaps she no longer noticed it. She was worth looking at—a striking woman rather than a beautiful one. The palest of platinum hair fell sleek and smooth to her shoulders. The bones of her head and face were exquisite. Her nose was faintly aquiline, her eyes deep set and a real grey in colour. She had the wide mouth of a natural comedian. Her dress was of such simplicity that it puzzled most men. It looked like the coarsest kind of sacking, had no ornamentation of any kind, and no apparent fastening or seams. But women knew better. Even the provincial old dears in Bertram’s knew, quite certainly, that it had cost the earth!

Striding across the lounge towards the lift, she passed quite close to Lady Selina and Miss Marple, and she nodded to the former.

‘Hello, Lady Selina. Haven’t seen you since Crufts. How are the Borzois?’

‘What on earth are you doing here, Bess?’

‘Just staying here. I’ve just driven up from Land’s End. Four hours and three quarters. Not bad.’

‘You’ll kill yourself one of these days. Or someone else.’

‘Oh I hope not.’

‘But why are you staying here?’

Bess Sedgwick threw a swift glance round. She seemed to see the point and acknowledge it with an ironic smile.

‘Someone told me I ought to try it. I think they’re right. I’ve just had the most marvellous doughnut.’

‘My dear, they have real muffins too.’

‘Muffins,’ said Lady Sedgwick thoughtfully. ‘Yes …’ She seemed to concede the point. ‘Muffins!’

She nodded and went on towards the lift.

‘Extraordinary girl,’ said Lady Selina. To her, like to Miss Marple, every woman under sixty was a girl. ‘Known her ever since she was a child. Nobody could do anything with her. Ran away with an Irish groom when she was sixteen. They managed to get her back in time—or perhaps not in time. Anyway they bought him off and got her safely married to old Coniston—thirty years older than she was, awful old rip, quite dotty about her. That didn’t last long. She went off with Johnnie Sedgwick. That might have stuck if he hadn’t broken his neck steeplechasing. After that she married Ridgway Becker, the American yacht owner. He divorced her three years ago and I hear she’s taken up with some Racing Motor Driver—a Pole or something. I don’t know whether she’s actually married or not. After the American divorce she went back to calling herself Sedgwick. She goes about with the most extraordinary people. They say she takes drugs … I don’t know, I’m sure.’

‘One wonders if she is happy,’ said Miss Marple.

Lady Selina, who had clearly never wondered anything of the kind, looked rather startled.

‘She’s got packets of money, I suppose,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Alimony and all that. Of course that isn’t everything …’

‘No, indeed.’

‘And she’s usually got a man—or several men—in tow.’

‘Yes?’

‘Of course when some women get to that age, that’s all they want … But somehow—’

She paused.

‘No,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I don’t think so either.’

There were people who would have smiled in gentle derision at this pronouncement on the part of an old-fashioned old lady who could hardly be expected to be an authority on nymphomania, and indeed it was not a word that Miss Marple would have used—her own phrase would have been ‘always too fond of men’. But Lady Selina accepted her opinion as a confirmation of her own.

‘There have been a lot of men in her life,’ she pointed out.

‘Oh yes, but I should say, wouldn’t you, that men were an adventure to her, not a need?’

And would any woman, Miss Marple wondered, come to Bertram’s Hotel for an assignation with a man? Bertram’s was very definitely not that sort of place. But possibly that could be, to someone of Bess Sedgwick’s disposition, the very reason for choosing it.

She sighed, looked up at the handsome grandfather clock decorously ticking in the corner, and rose with the careful effort of the rheumatic to her feet. She walked slowly towards the lift. Lady Selina cast a glance around her and pounced upon an elderly gentleman of military appearance who was reading the Spectator.

‘How nice to see you again. Er—it is General Arlington, isn’t it?’

But with great courtesy the old gentleman declined being General Arlington. Lady Selina apologized, but was not unduly discomposed. She combined short sight with optimism and since the thing she enjoyed most was meeting old friends and acquaintances, she was always making this kind of mistake. Many other people did the same, since the lights were pleasantly dim and heavily shaded. But nobody ever took offence—usually indeed it seemed to give them pleasure.

Miss Marple smiled to herself as she waited for the lift to come down. So like Selina! Always convinced that she knew everybody. She herself could not compete. Her solitary achievement in that line had been the handsome and well-gaitered Bishop of Westchester whom she had addressed affectionately as ‘dear Robbie’ and who had responded with equal affection and with memories of himself as a child in a Hampshire vicarage calling out lustily ‘Be a crocodile now, Aunty Janie. Be a crocodile and eat me.’

The lift came down, the uniformed middle-aged man threw open the door. Rather to Miss Marple’s surprise the alighting passenger was Bess Sedgwick whom she had seen go up only a minute or two before.

And then, one foot poised, Bess Sedgwick stopped dead, with a suddenness that surprised Miss Marple and made her own forward step falter. Bess Sedgwick was staring over Miss Marple’s shoulder with such concentration that the old lady turned her own head.

The commissionaire had just pushed open the two swing doors of the entrance and was holding them to let two women pass through into the lounge. One of them was a fussy looking middle-aged lady wearing a rather unfortunate flowered violet hat, the other was a tall, simply but smartly dressed, girl of perhaps seventeen or eighteen with long straight flaxen hair.

Bess Sedgwick pulled herself together, wheeled round abruptly and re-entered the lift. As Miss Marple followed her in, she turned to her and apologized.

‘I’m so sorry. I nearly ran into you.’ She had a warm friendly voice. ‘I just remembered I’d forgotten something—which sounds nonsense but isn’t really.’

‘Second floor?’ said the operator. Miss Marple smiled and nodded in acknowledgment of the apology, got out and walked slowly along to her room, pleasurably turning over sundry little unimportant problems in her mind as was so often her custom.

For instance what Lady Sedgwick had said wasn’t true. She had only just gone up to her room, and it must have been then that she ‘remembered she had forgotten something’ (if there had been any truth in that statement at all) and had come down to find it. Or had she perhaps come down to meet someone or look for someone? But if so, what she had seen as the lift door opened had startled and upset her, and she had immediately swung into the lift again and gone up so as not to meet whoever it was she had seen.

It must have been the two newcomers. The middle-aged woman and the girl. Mother and daughter? No, Miss Marple thought, not mother and daughter.

Even at Bertram’s, thought Miss Marple, happily, interesting things could happen …

CHAPTER 3

‘Er—is Colonel Luscombe—?’

The woman in the violet hat was at the desk. Miss Gorringe smiled in a welcoming manner and a page, who had been standing at the ready, was immediately dispatched but had no need to fulfil his errand, as Colonel Luscombe himself entered the lounge at that moment and came quickly across to the desk.

‘How do you do, Mrs Carpenter.’ He shook hands politely, then turned to the girl. ‘My dear Elvira.’ He took both her hands affectionately in his. ‘Well, well, this is nice. Splendid—splendid. Come and let’s sit down.’ He led them to chairs, established them. ‘Well, well,’ he repeated, ‘this is nice.’

The effort he made was somewhat palpable as was his lack of ease. He could hardly go on saying how nice this was. The two ladies were not very helpful. Elvira smiled very sweetly. Mrs Carpenter gave a meaningless little laugh, and smoothed her gloves.

‘A good journey, eh?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ said Elvira.

‘No fog. Nothing like that?’

‘Oh no.’

‘Our flight was five minutes ahead of time,’ said Mrs Carpenter.

‘Yes, yes. Good, very good.’ He took a pull upon himself. ‘I hope this place will be all right for you?’

‘Oh, I’m sure it’s very nice,’ said Mrs Carpenter warmly, glancing round her. ‘Very comfortable.’

‘Rather old-fashioned, I’m afraid,’ said the Colonel apologetically. ‘Rather a lot of old fogies. No—er—dancing, anything like that.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ agreed Elvira.

She glanced round in an expressionless manner. It certainly seemed impossible to connect Bertram’s with dancing.

‘Lot of old fogies here, I’m afraid,’ said Colonel Luscombe, repeating himself. ‘Ought, perhaps, to have taken you somewhere more modern. Not very well up in these things, you see.’

‘This is very nice,’ said Elvira politely.

‘It’s only for a couple of nights,’ went on Colonel Luscombe. ‘I thought we’d go to a show this evening. A musical—’ he said the word rather doubtfully, as though not sure he was using the right term. ‘Let Down Your Hair Girls. I hope that will be all right?’

‘How delightful,’ exclaimed Mrs Carpenter. ‘That will be a treat, won’t it, Elvira?’

‘Lovely,’ said Elvira, tonelessly.

‘And then supper afterwards? At the Savoy?’

Fresh exclamations from Mrs Carpenter. Colonel Luscombe, stealing a glance at Elvira, cheered up a little. He thought that Elvira was pleased, though quite determined to express nothing more than polite approval in front of Mrs Carpenter. ‘And I don’t blame her,’ he said to himself.

He said to Mrs Carpenter:

‘Perhaps you’d like to see your rooms—see they’re all right and all that—’

‘Oh, I’m sure they will be.’

‘Well, if there’s anything you don’t like about them, we’ll make them change it. They know me here very well.’

Miss Gorringe, in charge at the desk, was pleasantly welcoming. Nos 28 and 29 on the second floor with an adjoining bathroom.

‘I’ll go up and get things unpacked,’ said Mrs Carpenter. ‘Perhaps, Elvira, you and Colonel Luscombe would like to have a little gossip.’

Tact, thought Colonel Luscombe. A bit obvious, perhaps, but anyway it would get rid of her for a bit. Though what he was going to gossip about to Elvira, he really didn’t know. A very nice-mannered girl, but he wasn’t used to girls. His wife had died in childbirth and the baby, a boy, had been brought up by his wife’s family whilst an elder sister had come to keep house for him. His son had married and gone to live in Kenya, and his grandchildren were eleven, five and two and a half and had been entertained on their last visit by football and space science talk, electric trains, and a ride on his foot. Easy! But young girls!

He asked Elvira if she would like a drink. He was about to propose a bitter lemon, ginger ale, or orangeade, but Elvira forestalled him.

‘Thank you. I should like a gin and vermouth.’

Colonel Luscombe looked at her rather doubtfully. He supposed girls of—what was she? sixteen? seventeen?—did drink gin and vermouth. But he reassured himself that Elvira knew, so to speak, correct Greenwich social time. He ordered a gin and vermouth and a dry sherry.

He cleared his throat and asked:

‘How was Italy?’

‘Very nice, thank you.’

‘And that place you were at, the Contessa what’s-her-name? Not too grim?’

‘She is rather strict. But I didn’t let that worry me.’

He looked at her, not quite sure whether the reply was not slightly ambiguous.

He said, stammering a little, but with a more natural manner than he had been able to manage before:

‘I’m afraid we don’t know each other as well as we ought to, seeing I’m your guardian as well as your godfather. Difficult for me, you know—difficult for a man who’s an old buffer like me—to know what a girl wants—at least—I mean to know what a girl ought to have. Schools and then after school—what they used to call finishing in my day. But now, I suppose it’s all more serious. Careers eh? Jobs? All that? We’ll have to have a talk about all that sometime. Anything in particular you want to do?’

‘I suppose I shall take a secretarial course,’ said Elvira without enthusiasm.

‘Oh. You want to be a secretary?’

‘Not particularly—’

‘Oh—well, then—’

‘It’s just what you start with,’ Elvira explained.

Colonel Luscombe had an odd feeling of being relegated to his place.

‘These cousins of mine, the Melfords. You think you’ll like living with them? If not—’

‘Oh I think so. I like Nancy quite well. And Cousin Mildred is rather a dear.’

‘That’s all right then?’

‘Quite, for the present.’

Luscombe did not know what to say to that. Whilst he was considering what next to say, Elvira spoke. Her words were simple and direct.

‘Have I any money?’

Again he took his time before answering, studying her thoughtfully. Then he said:

‘Yes. You’ve got quite a lot of money. That is to say, you will have when you are twenty-one.’

‘Who has got it now?’

He smiled. ‘It’s held in trust for you; a certain amount is deducted each year from the income to pay for your maintenance and education.’

‘And you are the trustee?’

‘One of them. There are three.’

‘What happens if I die?’

‘Come, come, Elvira, you’re not going to die. What nonsense!’

‘I hope not—but one never knows, does one? An airliner crashed only last week and everyone was killed.’

‘Well, it’s not going to happen to you,’ said Luscombe firmly.

‘You can’t really know that,’ said Elvira. ‘I was just wondering who would get my money if I died?’

‘I haven’t the least idea,’ said the Colonel irritably. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘It might be interesting,’ said Elvira thoughtfully. ‘I wondered if it would be worth anyone’s while to kill me.’

‘Really, Elvira! This is a most unprofitable conversation. I can’t understand why your mind dwells on such things.’

‘Oh. Just ideas. One wants to know what the facts really are.’

‘You’re not thinking of the Mafia—or something like that?’

‘Oh no. That would be silly. Who would get my money if I was married?’

‘Your husband, I suppose. But really—’

‘Are you sure of that?’

‘No, I’m not in the least sure. It depends on the wording of the Trust. But you’re not married, so why worry?’

Elvira did not reply. She seemed lost in thought. Finally she came out of her trance and asked:

‘Do you ever see my mother?’

‘Sometimes. Not very often.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘Oh—abroad.’

‘Where abroad?’

‘France—Portugal. I don’t really know.’

‘Does she ever want to see me?’

Her limpid gaze met his. He didn’t know what to reply. Was this a moment for truth? Or for vagueness? Or for a good thumping lie? What could you say to a girl who asked a question of such simplicity, when the answer was of great complexity? He said unhappily:

‘I don’t know.’

Her eyes searched him gravely. Luscombe felt thoroughly ill at ease. He was making a mess of this. The girl must wonder—clearly was wondering. Any girl would.

He said, ‘You mustn’t think—I mean it’s difficult to explain. Your mother is, well, rather different from—’ Elvira was nodding energetically.

‘I know. I’m always reading about her in the papers. She’s something rather special, isn’t she? In fact, she’s rather a wonderful person.’

‘Yes,’ agreed the Colonel. ‘That’s exactly right. She’s a wonderful person.’ He paused and then went on. ‘But a wonderful person is very often—’ He stopped and started again—‘it’s not always a happy thing to have a wonderful person for a mother. You can take that from me because it’s the truth.’

‘You don’t like speaking the truth very much, do you? But I think what you’ve just said is the truth.’

They both sat staring towards the big brass-bound swing doors that led to the world outside.

Suddenly the doors were pushed open with violence—a violence quite unusual in Bertram’s Hotel—and a young man strode in and went straight across to the desk. He wore a black leather jacket. His vitality was such that Bertram’s Hotel took on the atmosphere of a museum by way of contrast. The people were the dust-encrusted relics of a past age. He bent towards Miss Gorringe and asked:

‘Is Lady Sedgwick staying here?’

Miss Gorringe on this occasion had no welcoming smile. Her eyes were flinty. She said:

‘Yes.’ Then, with definite unwillingness, she stretched out her hand towards the telephone. ‘Do you want to—?’

‘No,’ said the young man. ‘I just wanted to leave a note for her.’

He produced it from a pocket of his leather coat and slid it across the mahogany counter.

‘I only wanted to be sure this was the right hotel.’

There might have been some slight incredulity in his voice as he looked round him, then turned back towards the entrance. His eyes passed indifferently over the people sitting round him. They passed over Luscombe and Elvira in the same way, and Luscombe felt a sudden unsuspected anger. ‘Dammit all,’ he thought to himself, ‘Elvira’s a pretty girl. When I was a young chap I’d have noticed a pretty girl, especially among all these fossils.’ But the young man seemed to have no interested eyes to spare for pretty girls. He turned back to the desk and asked, raising his voice slightly as though to call Miss Gorringe’s attention:

‘What’s the telephone number here? 1129 isn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Miss Gorringe, ‘3925.’

‘Regent?’

‘No. Mayfair.’

He nodded. Then swiftly he strode across to the door and passed out, swinging the doors to behind him with something of the same explosive quality he had shown on entering.

Everybody seemed to draw a deep breath; to find difficulty in resuming their interrupted conversations.

‘Well,’ said Colonel Luscombe, rather inadequately, as if at a loss for words. ‘Well, really! These young fellows nowadays …’

Elvira was smiling.

‘You recognized him, didn’t you?’ she said. ‘You know who he is?’ She spoke in a slightly awed voice. She proceeded to enlighten him. ‘Ladislaus Malinowski.’

‘Oh, that chap.’ The name was indeed faintly familiar to Colonel Luscombe. ‘Racing driver.’

‘Yes. He was world champion two years running. He had a bad crash a year ago. Broke lots of things. But I believe he’s driving again now.’ She raised her head to listen. ‘That’s a racing car he’s driving now.’

The roar of the engine had penetrated through to Bertram’s Hotel from the street outside. Colonel Luscombe perceived that Ladislaus Malinowski was one of Elvira’s heroes. ‘Well,’ he thought to himself, ‘better that than one of those pop singers or crooners or long-haired Beatles or whatever they call themselves.’ Luscombe was old-fashioned in his views of young men.

The swing doors opened again. Both Elvira and Colonel Luscombe looked at them expectantly but Bertram’s Hotel had reverted to normal. It was merely a white-haired elderly cleric who came in. He stood for a moment looking round him with a slightly puzzled air as of one who fails to understand where he was or how he had come there. Such an experience was no novelty to Canon Pennyfather. It came to him in trains when he did not remember where he had come from, where he was going, or why! It came to him when he was walking along the street, it came to him when he found himself sitting on a committee. It had come to him before now when he was in his cathedral stall, and did not know whether he had already preached his sermon or was about to do so.

‘I believe I know that old boy,’ said Luscombe, peering at him. ‘Who is he now? Stays here fairly often, I believe. Abercrombie? Archdeacon Abercrombie—no, it’s not Abercrombie, though he’s rather like Abercrombie.’

Elvira glanced round at Canon Pennyfather without interest. Compared with a racing driver he had no appeal at all. She was not interested in ecclesiastics of any kind although, since being in Italy, she admitted to a mild admiration for Cardinals whom she considered as at any rate properly picturesque.

Canon Pennyfather’s face cleared and he nodded his head appreciatively. He had recognized where he was. In Bertram’s Hotel, of course; where he was going to spend the night on his way to—now where was he on his way to? Chadminster? No, no, he had just come from Chadminster. He was going to—of course—to the Congress at Lucerne. He stepped forward, beaming, to the reception desk and was greeted warmly by Miss Gorringe.

‘So glad to see you, Canon Pennyfather. How well you are looking.’

‘Thank you—thank you—I had a severe cold last week but I’ve got over it now. You have a room for me. I did write?’

Miss Gorringe reassured him.

‘Oh yes, Canon Pennyfather, we got your letter. We’ve reserved No. 19 for you, the room you had last time.’

‘Thank you—thank you. For—let me see—I shall want it for four days. Actually I am going to Lucerne and I shall be away for one night, but please keep the room. I shall leave most of my things here and only take a small bag to Switzerland. There won’t be any difficulty over that?’

Again Miss Gorringe reassured him.

‘Everything’s going to be quite all right. You explained very clearly in your letter.’

Other people might not have used the word ‘clearly’. ‘Fully’ would have been better, since he had certainly written at length.

All anxieties set at rest, Canon Pennyfather breathed a sigh of relief and was conveyed, together with his baggage, to Room 19.

In Room 28 Mrs Carpenter had removed her crown of violets from her head and was carefully adjusting her nightdress on the pillow of her bed. She looked up as Elvira entered.

‘Ah, there you are, my dear. Would you like me to help you with your unpacking?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Elvira politely. ‘I shan’t unpack very much, you know.’

‘Which of the bedrooms would you like to have? The bathroom is between them. I told them to put your luggage in the far one. I thought this room might be a little noisy.’

‘That was very kind of you,’ said Elvira in her expressionless voice.

‘You’re sure you wouldn’t like me to help you?’

‘No, thanks, really I wouldn’t. I think I might perhaps have a bath.’

‘Yes, I think that’s a very good idea. Would you like to have the first bath? I’d rather finish putting my things away.’

Elvira nodded. She went into the adjoining bathroom, shut the door behind her and pushed the bolts across. She went into her own room, opened her suitcase and flung a few things on the bed. Then she undressed, put on a dressing-gown, went into the bathroom and turned the taps on. She went back into her own room and sat down on the bed by the telephone. She listened a moment or two in case of interruptions, then lifted the receiver.

‘This is Room 29. Can you give me Regent 1129 please?’

CHAPTER 4

Within the confines of Scotland Yard a conference was in progress. It was by way of being an informal conference. Six or seven men were sitting easily around a table and each of those six men was a man of some importance in his own line. The subject that occupied the attention of these guardians of the law was a subject that had grown terrifically in importance during the last two or three years. It concerned a branch of crime whose success had been overwhelmingly disquieting. Robbery on a big scale was increasing. Bank hold-ups, snatches of pay-rolls, thefts of consignments of jewels sent through the mail, train robberies. Hardly a month passed but some daring and stupendous coup was attempted and brought off successfully.

Sir Ronald Graves, Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, was presiding at the head of the table. According to his usual custom he did more listening than talking. No formal reports were being presented on this occasion. All that belonged to the ordinary routine of CID work. This was a high level consultation, a general pooling of ideas between men looking at affairs from slightly different points of view. Sir Ronald Graves’ eyes went slowly round his little group, then he nodded his head to a man at the end of the table.

‘Well, Father,’ he said, ‘let’s hear a few homely wisecracks from you.’

The man addressed as ‘Father’ was Chief-Inspector Fred Davy. His retirement lay not long ahead and he appeared to be even more elderly than he was. Hence his nickname of ‘Father’. He had a comfortable spreading presence, and such a benign and kindly manner that many criminals had been disagreeably surprised to find him a less genial and gullible man that he had seemed to be.

‘Yes, Father, let’s hear your views,’ said another Chief-Inspector.

‘It’s big,’ said Chief-Inspector Davy with a deep sigh. ‘Yes, it’s big. Maybe it’s growing.’

‘When you say big, do you mean numerically?’

‘Yes, I do.’

Another man, Comstock, with a sharp, foxy face and alert eyes, broke in to say:

‘Would you say that was an advantage to them?’

‘Yes and no,’ said Father. ‘It could be a disaster. But so far, devil take it, they’ve got it all well under control.’

Superintendent Andrews, a fair, slight, dreamy-looking man said, thoughtfully:

‘I’ve always thought there’s a lot more to size than people realize. Take a little one-man business. If that’s well run and if it’s the right size, it’s a sure and certain winner. Branch out, make it bigger, increase personnel, and perhaps you’ll get it suddenly to the wrong size and down the hill it goes. The same way with a great big chain of stores. An empire in industry. If that’s big enough it will succeed. If it’s not big enough it just won’t manage it. Everything has got its right size. When it is its right size and well run it’s the tops.’

‘How big do you think this show is?’ Sir Ronald barked.

‘Bigger than we thought at first,’ said Comstock.

A tough looking man, Inspector McNeill, said:

‘It’s growing, I’d say. Father’s right. Growing all the time.’

‘That may be a good thing,’ said Davy. ‘It may grow a bit too fast, and then it’ll get out of hand.’

‘The question is, Sir Ronald,’ said McNeill, ‘who we pull in and when?’

‘There’s a round dozen or so we could pull in,’ said Comstock. ‘The Harris lot are mixed up in it, we know that. There’s a nice little pocket down Luton way. There’s a garage at Epsom, there’s a pub near Maidenhead, and there’s a farm on the Great North Road.’

‘Any of them worth pulling in?’

‘I don’t think so. Small fry all of them. Links. Just links here and there in the chain. A spot where cars are converted, and turned over quickly; a respectable pub where messages get passed; a second-hand clothes shop where appearance can be altered, a theatrical costumier in the East End, also very useful. They’re paid, these people. Quite well paid but they don’t really know anything!’

The dreamy Superintendent Andrews said again:

‘We’re up against some good brains. We haven’t got near them yet. We know some of their affiliations and that’s all. As I say, the Harris crowd are in it and Marks is in on the financial end. The foreign contacts are in touch with Weber but he’s only an agent. We’ve nothing actually on any of these people. We know that they all have ways of maintaining contact with each other, and with the different branches of the concern, but we don’t know exactly how they do it. We watch them and follow them, and they know we’re watching them. Somewhere there’s a great central exchange. What we want to get at is the planners.’

Comstock said:

‘It’s like a giant network. I agree that there must be an operational headquarters somewhere. A place where each operation is planned and detailed and dovetailed completely. Somewhere, someone plots it all, and produces a working blueprint of Operation Mailbag or Operation Payroll. Those are the people we’re out to get.’

‘Possibly they are not even in this country,’ said Father quietly.

‘No, I dare say that’s true. Perhaps they’re in an igloo somewhere, or in a tent in Morocco or in a chalet in Switzerland.’

‘I don’t believe in these master-minds,’ said McNeill, shaking his head: ‘they sound all right in a story. There’s got to be a head, of course, but I don’t believe in a Master Criminal. I’d say there was a very clever little Board of Directors behind this. Centrally planned, with a Chairman. They’ve got on to something good, and they’re improving their technique all the time. All the same—’

‘Yes?’ said Sir Ronald encouragingly.

‘Even in a right tight little team, there are probably expendables. What I call the Russian Sledge principle. From time to time, if they think we might be getting hot on the scent, they throw off one of them, the one they think they can best afford.’

‘Would they dare to do that? Wouldn’t it be rather risky?’

‘I’d say it could be done in such a way that whoever it was wouldn’t even know he had been pushed off the sledge. He’d just think he’d fallen off. He’d keep quiet because he’d think it was worth his while to keep quiet. So it would be, of course. They’ve got plenty of money to play with, and they can afford to be generous. Family looked after, if he’s got one, whilst he’s in prison. Possibly an escape engineered.’

‘There’s been too much of that,’ said Comstock.

‘I think, you know,’ said Sir Ronald, ‘that it’s not much good going over and over our speculations again. We always say much the same thing.’

McNeill laughed.

‘What is it you really wanted us for, sir?’

‘Well—’ Sir Ronald thought a moment, ‘we’re all agreed on the main things,’ he said slowly. ‘We’re agreed on our main policy, on what we’re trying to do. I think it might be profitable to have a look around for some of the small things, the things that don’t matter much, that are just a bit out of the usual run. It’s hard to explain what I mean, but like that business some years ago in the Culver case. An ink stain. Do you remember? An ink stain round a mouse-hole. Now why on earth should a man empty a bottle of ink into a mouse-hole? It didn’t seem important. It was hard to get at the answer. But when we did hit on the answer, it led somewhere. That’s—roughly—the sort of thing I was thinking about. Odd things. Don’t mind saying if you come across something that strikes you as a bit out of the usual. Petty if you like, but irritating, because it doesn’t quite fit in. I see Father’s nodding his head.’

‘Couldn’t agree with you more,’ said Chief-Inspector Davy. ‘Come on, boys, try to come up with something. Even if it’s only a man wearing a funny hat.’

There was no immediate response. Everyone looked a little uncertain and doubtful.

‘Come on,’ said Father. ‘I’ll stick my neck out first. It’s just a funny story, really, but you might as well have it for what it’s worth. The London and Metropolitan Bank hold-up. Carmolly Street Branch. Remember it? A whole list of car numbers and car colours and makes. We appealed to people to come forward and they responded—how they responded! About a hundred and fifty pieces of misleading information! Got it sorted out in the end to about seven cars that had been seen in the neighbourhood, any one of which might have been concerned in the robbery.’

‘Yes,’ said Sir Ronald, ‘go on.’

‘There were one or two we couldn’t get tags on. Looked as though the numbers might have been changed. Nothing out of the way in that. It’s often done. Most of them got tracked down in the end. I’ll just bring up one instance. Morris Oxford, black saloon, number CMG 265, reported by a probation officer. He said it was being driven by Mr Justice Ludgrove.’

He looked round. They were listening to him, but without any manifest interest.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘wrong as usual. Mr Justice Ludgrove is a rather noticeable old boy, ugly as sin for one thing. Well, it wasn’t Mr Justice Ludgrove because at that exact time he was actually in Court. He has got a Morris Oxford, but its number isn’t CMG 256.’ He looked round. ‘All right. All right. So there’s no point in it, you’ll say. But do you know what the number was? CMG 265. Near enough, eh? Just the sort of mistake one does make when you’re trying to remember a car number.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Sir Ronald, ‘I don’t quite see—’

‘No,’ said Chief-Inspector Davy, ‘there’s nothing to see really, is there? Only—it was very like the actual car number, wasn’t it? 265—256 CMG. Really rather a coincidence that there should be a Morris Oxford car of the right colour with the number just one digit wrong, and with a man in it closely resembling the owner of the car.’

‘Do you mean—?’

‘Just one little digit difference. Today’s “deliberate mistake”. It almost seems like that.’

‘Sorry, Davy. I still don’t get it.’

‘Oh, I don’t suppose there’s anything to get. There’s a Morris Oxford car, CMG 265, proceeding along the street two and a half minutes after the bank snatch. In it, the probation officer recognizes Mr Justice Ludgrove.’

‘Are you suggesting it really was Mr Justice Ludgrove? Come now, Davy.’

‘No, I’m not suggesting that it was Mr Justice Ludgrove and that he was mixed up in a bank robbery. He was staying at Bertram’s Hotel in Pond Street, and he was at the Law Courts at that exact time. All proved up to the hilt. I’m saying the car number and make and the identification by a probation officer who knows old Ludgrove quite well by sight is the kind of coincidence that ought to mean something. Apparently it doesn’t. Too bad.’

Comstock stirred uneasily.

‘There was another case like that in connection with the jewellery business at Brighton. Some old Admiral or other. I’ve forgotten his name now. Some woman identified him most positively as having been on the scene.’

‘And he wasn’t?’

‘No, he’d been in London that night. Went up for some Naval dinner or other, I think.’

‘Staying at his club?’

‘No, he was staying at a hotel—I believe it was that one you mentioned just now, Father, Bertram’s, isn’t it? Quiet place. A lot of old service geezers go there, I believe.’

‘Bertram’s Hotel,’ said Chief-Inspector Davy, thoughtfully.

CHAPTER 5

Miss Marple awoke early because she always woke early. She was appreciative of her bed. Most comfortable.

She pattered across to the window and pulled the curtains, admitting a little pallid London daylight. As yet, however, she did not try to dispense with the electric light. A very nice bedroom they had given her, again quite in the tradition of Bertram’s. A rose-flowered wallpaper, a large well-polished mahogany chest of drawers—a dressing-table to correspond. Two upright chairs, one easy chair of a reasonable height from the ground. A connecting door led to a bathroom which was modern but which had a tiled wallpaper of roses and so avoided any suggestion of over-frigid hygiene.

Miss Marple got back into bed, plumped her pillows up, glanced at her clock, half-past seven, picked up the small devotional book that always accompanied her, and read as usual the page and a half allotted to the day. Then she picked up her knitting and began to knit, slowly at first, since her fingers were stiff and rheumatic when she first awoke, but very soon her pace grew faster, and her fingers lost their painful stiffness.

‘Another day,’ said Miss Marple to herself, greeting the fact with her usual gentle pleasure. Another day—and who knew what it might bring forth?

She relaxed, and abandoning her knitting, let thoughts pass in an idle stream through her head … Selina Hazy … what a pretty cottage she had had in St Mary Mead—and now someone had put on that ugly green roof … Muffins … very wasteful in butter … but very good … And fancy serving old-fashioned seed cake! She had never expected, not for a moment, that things would be as much like they used to be … because, after all, Time didn’t stand still … And to have made it stand still in this way must really have cost a lot of money … Not a bit of plastic in the place!… It must pay them, she supposed. The out-of-date returns in due course as the picturesque … Look how people wanted old-fashioned roses now, and scorned hybrid teas!… None of this place seemed real at all … Well, why should it?… It was fifty—no, nearer sixty years since she had stayed here. And it didn’t seem real to her because she was now acclimatized in this present year of Our Lord—Really, the whole thing opened up a very interesting set of problems … The atmosphere and the people … Miss Marple’s fingers pushed her knitting farther away from her.

‘Pockets,’ she said aloud … ‘Pockets, I suppose … And quite difficult to find …’

Would that account for that curious feeling of uneasiness she had had last night? That feeling that something was wrong …

All those elderly people—really very much like those she remembered when she had stayed here fifty years ago. They had been natural then—but they weren’t very natural now. Elderly people nowadays weren’t like elderly people then—they had that worried harried look of domestic anxieties with which they are too tired to cope, or they rushed around to committees and tried to appear bustling and competent, or they dyed their hair gentian blue, or wore wigs, and their hands were not the hands she remembered, tapering, delicate hands—they were harsh from washing up and detergents …

And so—well, so these people didn’t look real. But the point was that they were real. Selina Hazy was real. And that rather handsome old military man in the corner was real—she had met him once, although she did not recall his name—and the Bishop (dear Robbie!) was dead.

Miss Marple glanced at her little clock. It was eight-thirty. Time for her breakfast.

She examined the instructions given by the hotel—splendid big print so that it wasn’t necessary to put one’s spectacles on.

Meals could be ordered through the telephone by asking for Room Service, or you could press the bell labelled Chambermaid.

Miss Marple did the latter. Talking to Room Service always flustered her.

The result was excellent. In no time at all there was a tap on the door and a highly satisfactory chambermaid appeared. A real chambermaid looking unreal, wearing a striped lavender print dress and actually a cap, a freshly laundered cap. A smiling, rosy, positively countrified face. (Where did they find these people?)

Miss Marple ordered her breakfast. Tea, poached eggs, fresh rolls. So adept was the chambermaid that she did not even mention cereals or orange juice.

Five minutes later breakfast came. A comfortable tray with a big pot-bellied teapot, creamy-looking milk, a silver hot water jug. Two beautifully poached eggs on toast, poached the proper way, not little round hard bullets shaped in tin cups, a good-sized round of butter stamped with a thistle. Marmalade, honey and strawberry jam. Delicious-looking rolls, not the hard kind with papery interiors—they smelt of fresh bread (the most delicious smell in the world!). There was also an apple, a pear and a banana.

Miss Marple inserted a knife gingerly but with confidence. She was not disappointed. Rich deep yellow yolk oozed out, thick and creamy. Proper eggs!

Everything piping hot. A real breakfast. She could have cooked it herself but she hadn’t had to! It was brought to her as if—no, not as though she were a queen—as though she were a middle-aged lady staying in a good but not unduly expensive hotel. In fact—back to 1909. Miss Marple expressed appreciation to the chambermaid who replied smiling,

‘Oh, yes, Madam, the Chef is very particular about his breakfasts.’

Miss Marple studied her appraisingly. Bertram’s Hotel could certainly produce marvels. A real housemaid. She pinched her left arm surreptitiously.

‘Have you been here long?’ she asked.

‘Just over three years, Madam.’

‘And before that?’

‘I was in a hotel at Eastbourne. Very modern and up-to-date—but I prefer an old-fashioned place like this.’

Miss Marple took a sip of tea. She found herself humming in a vague way—words fitting themselves to a long-forgotten song.

‘Oh where have you been all my life …’

The chambermaid was looking slightly startled.

‘I was just remembering an old song,’ twittered Miss Marple apologetically. ‘Very popular at one time.’

Again she sang softly. ‘Oh where have you been all my life …’

‘Perhaps you know it?’ she asked.

‘Well—’ The chambermaid looked rather apologetic.

‘Too long ago for you,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Ah well, one gets to remembering things—in a place like this.’

‘Yes, Madam, a lot of the ladies who stay here feel like that, I think.’

‘It’s partly why they come, I expect,’ said Miss Marple.

The chambermaid went out. She was obviously used to old ladies who twittered and reminisced.

Miss Marple finished her breakfast, and got up in a pleasant leisurely fashion. She had a plan ready made for a delightful morning of shopping. Not too much—to over-tire herself. Oxford Street today, perhaps. And tomorrow Knightsbridge. She planned ahead happily.

It was about ten o’clock when she emerged from her room fully equipped: hat, gloves, umbrella—just in case, though it looked fine—handbag—her smartest shopping bag—

The door next but one on the corridor opened sharply and someone looked out. It was Bess Sedgwick. She withdrew back into the room and closed the door sharply.

Miss Marple wondered as she went down the stairs. She preferred the stairs to the lift first thing in the morning. It limbered her up. Her steps grew slower and slower … she stopped.

As Colonel Luscombe strode along the passage from his room, a door at the top of the stairs opened sharply and Lady Sedgwick spoke to him.

‘There you are at last! I’ve been on the look-out for you—waiting to pounce. Where can we go and talk? That is to say without falling over some old pussy every second.’

‘Well, really, Bess, I’m not quite sure—I think on the mezzanine floor there’s a sort of writing-room.’

‘You’d better come in here. Quick now, before the chambermaid gets peculiar ideas about us.’

Rather unwillingly, Colonel Luscombe stepped across the threshold and had the door shut firmly behind him.

‘I’d no idea you would be staying here, Bess, I hadn’t the faintest idea of it.’

‘I don’t suppose you had.’

‘I mean—I would never have brought Elvira here. I have got Elvira here, you know?’

‘Yes, I saw her with you last night.’

‘But I really didn’t know that you were here. It seemed such an unlikely place for you.’

‘I don’t see why,’ said Bess Sedgwick, coldly. ‘It’s far and away the most comfortable hotel in London. Why shouldn’t I stay here?’

‘You must understand that I hadn’t any idea of … I mean—’

She looked at him and laughed. She was dressed ready to go out in a well cut dark suit and a shirt of bright emerald green. She looked gay and very much alive. Beside her, Colonel Luscombe looked rather old and faded.

‘Darling Derek, don’t look so worried. I’m not accusing you of trying to stage a mother and daughter sentimental meeting. It’s just one of those things that happen; where people meet each other in unsuspected places. But you must get Elvira out of here, Derek. You must get her out of it at once—today.’

‘Oh, she’s going. I mean, I only brought her here just for a couple of nights. Do a show—that sort of thing. She’s going down to the Melfords tomorrow.’

‘Poor girl, that’ll be boring for her.’

Luscombe looked at her with concern. ‘Do you think she will be very bored?’

Bess took pity on him.

‘Probably not after duress in Italy. She might even think it wildly thrilling.’

Luscombe took his courage in both hands.

‘Look here, Bess, I was startled to find you here, but don’t you think it—well, you know, it might be meant in a way. I mean that it might be an opportunity—I don’t think you really know how—well, how the girl might feel.’

‘What are you trying to say, Derek?’

‘Well, you are her mother, you know.’

‘Of course I’m her mother. She’s my daughter. And what good has that fact ever been to either of us, or ever will be?’

‘You can’t be sure. I think—I think she feels it.’

‘What gives you that idea?’ said Bess Sedgwick sharply.

‘Something she said yesterday. She asked where you were, what you were doing.’

Bess Sedgwick walked across the room to the window. She stood there a moment tapping on the pane.

‘You’re so nice, Derek,’ she said. ‘You have such nice ideas. But they don’t work, my poor angel. That’s what you’ve got to say to yourself. They don’t work and they might be dangerous.’

‘Oh come now, Bess. Dangerous?’

‘Yes, yes, yes. Dangerous. I’m dangerous. I’ve always been dangerous.’

‘When I think of some of the things you’ve done,’ said Colonel Luscombe.

‘That’s my own business,’ said Bess Sedgwick. ‘Running into danger has become a kind of habit with me. No, I wouldn’t say habit. More an addiction. Like a drug. Like that nice little dollop of heroin addicts have to have every so often to make life seem bright coloured and worth living. Well, that’s all right. That’s my funeral—or not—as the case may be. I’ve never taken drugs—never needed them—Danger has been my drug. But people who live as I do can be a source of harm to others. Now don’t be an obstinate old fool, Derek. You keep that girl well away from me. I can do her no good. Only harm. If possible, don’t even let her know I was staying in the same hotel. Ring up the Melfords and take her down there today. Make some excuse about a sudden emergency—’

Colonel Luscombe hesitated, pulling his moustache.

‘I think you’re making a mistake, Bess.’ He sighed. ‘She asked where you were. I told her you were abroad.’

‘Well, I shall be in another twelve hours, so that all fits very nicely.’

She came up to him, kissed him on the point of his chin, turned him smartly around as though they were about to play Blind Man’s Buff, opened the door, gave him a gentle little propelling shove out of it. As the door shut behind him, Colonel Luscombe noticed an old lady turning the corner from the stairs. She was muttering to herself as she looked into her handbag. ‘Dear, dear me. I suppose I must have left it in my room. Oh dear.’

She passed Colonel Luscombe without paying much attention to him apparently, but as he went on down the stairs Miss Marple paused by her room door and directed a piercing glance after him. Then she looked towards Bess Sedgwick’s door. ‘So that’s who she was waiting for,’ said Miss Marple to herself. ‘I wonder why.’

Canon Pennyfather, fortified by breakfast, wandered across the lounge, remembered to leave his key at the desk, pushed his way through the swinging doors, and was neatly inserted into a taxi by the Irish commissionaire who existed for this purpose.

‘Where to, sir?’

‘Oh dear,’ said Canon Pennyfather in sudden dismay. ‘Now let me see—where was I going?’

The traffic in Pond Street was held up for some minutes whilst Canon Pennyfather and the commissionaire debated this knotty point.

Finally Canon Pennyfather had a brainwave and the taxi was directed to go to the British Museum.

The commissionaire was left on the pavement with a broad grin on his face, and since no other exits seemed to be taking place, he strolled a little way along the façade of the hotel whistling an old tune in a muted manner.

One of the windows on the ground floor of Bertram’s was flung up—but the commissionaire did not even turn his head until a voice spoke unexpectedly through the open window.

‘So this is where you’ve landed up, Micky. What on earth brought you to this place?’

He swung round, startled—and stared.

Lady Sedgwick thrust her head through the open window.

‘Don’t you know me?’ she demanded.

A sudden gleam of recognition came across the man’s face.

‘Why, if it isn’t little Bessie now! Fancy that! After all these years. Little Bessie.’

‘Nobody but you ever called me Bessie. It’s a revolting name. What have you been doing all these years?’

‘This and that,’ said Micky with some reserve. ‘I’ve not been in the news like you have. I’ve read of your doings in the paper time and again.’

Bess Sedgwick laughed. ‘Anyway, I’ve worn better than you have,’ she said. ‘You drink too much. You always did.’

‘You’ve worn well because you’ve always been in the money.’

‘Money wouldn’t have done you any good. You’d have drunk even more and gone to the dogs completely. Oh yes, you would! What brought you here? That’s what I want to know. How did you ever get taken on at this place?’

‘I wanted a job. I had these—’ his hand flicked over the row of medals.

‘Yes, I see.’ She was thoughtful. ‘All genuine too, aren’t they?’

‘Sure they’re genuine. Why shouldn’t they be?’

‘Oh I believe you. You always had courage. You’ve always been a good fighter. Yes, the army suited you. I’m sure of that.’

‘The army’s all right in time of war, but it’s no good in peace time.’

‘So you took to this stuff. I hadn’t the least idea—’ she stopped.

‘You hadn’t the least idea what, Bessie?’

‘Nothing. It’s queer seeing you again after all these years.’

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ said the man. ‘I’ve never forgotten you, little Bessie. Ah! A lovely girl you were! A lovely slip of a girl.’

‘A damn’ fool of a girl, that’s what I was,’ said Lady Sedgwick.

‘That’s true now. You hadn’t much sense. If you had, you wouldn’t have taken up with me. What hands you had for a horse. Do you remember that mare—what was her name now?—Molly O’Flynn. Ah, she was a wicked devil, that one was.’

‘You were the only one that could ride her,’ said Lady Sedgwick.

‘She’d have had me off if she could! When she found she couldn’t, she gave in. Ah, she was a beauty, now. But talking of sitting a horse, there wasn’t one lady in those parts better than you. A lovely seat you had, lovely hands. Never any fear in you, not for a minute! And it’s been the same ever since, so I judge. Aeroplanes, racing cars.’

Bess Sedgwick laughed.

‘I must get on with my letters.’

She drew back from the window.

Micky leaned over the railing. ‘I’ve not forgotten Ballygowlan,’ he said with meaning. ‘Sometimes I’ve thought of writing to you—’

Bess Sedgwick’s voice came out harshly.

‘And what do you mean by that, Mick Gorman?’

‘I was just saying as I haven’t forgotten—anything. I was just—reminding you like.’

Bess Sedgwick’s voice still held its harsh note.

‘If you mean what I think you mean, I’ll give you a piece of advice. Any trouble from you, and I’d shoot you as easily as I’d shoot a rat. I’ve shot men before—’

‘In foreign parts, maybe—’

‘Foreign parts or here—it’s all the same to me.’

‘Ah, good Lord, now, and I believe you would do just that!’ His voice held admiration. ‘In Ballygowlan—’

‘In Ballygowlan,’ she cut in, ‘they paid you to keep your mouth shut and paid you well. You took the money. You’ll get no more from me so don’t think it.’

‘It would be a nice romantic story for the Sunday papers …’

‘You heard what I said.’

‘Ah,’ he laughed, ‘I’m not serious, I was just joking. I’d never do anything to hurt my little Bessie. I’ll keep my mouth shut.’

‘Mind you do,’ said Lady Sedgwick.

She shut down the window. Staring down at the desk in front of her she looked at her unfinished letter on the blotting paper. She picked it up, looked at it, crumpled it into a ball and slung it into the waste-paper basket. Then abruptly she got up from her seat and walked out of the room. She did not even cast a glance around her before she went.

The smaller writing-rooms at Bertram’s often had an appearance of being empty even when they were not. Two well-appointed desks stood in the windows, there was a table on the right that held a few magazines, on the left were two very high-backed arm-chairs turned towards the fire. These were favourite spots in the afternoon for elderly military or naval gentlemen to ensconce themselves and fall happily asleep until tea-time. Anyone coming in to write a letter did not usually even notice them. The chairs were not so much in demand during the morning.

As it happened, however, they were on this particular morning both occupied. An old lady was in one and a young girl in the other. The young girl rose to her feet. She stood a moment looking uncertainly towards the door through which Lady Sedgwick had passed out, then she moved slowly towards it. Elvira Blake’s face was deadly pale.

It was another five minutes before the old lady moved. Then Miss Marple decided that the little rest which she always took after dressing and coming downstairs had lasted quite long enough. It was time to go out and enjoy the pleasures of London. She might walk as far as Piccadilly, and take a No. 9 bus to High Street, Kensington, or she might walk along to Bond Street and take a 25 bus to Marshall & Snelgrove’s, or she might take a 25 the other way which as far as she remembered would land her up at the Army & Navy Stores. Passing through the swing doors she was still savouring these delights in her mind. The Irish commissionaire, back on duty, made up her mind for her.

‘You’ll be wanting a taxi, Ma’am,’ he said with firmness.

‘I don’t think I do,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I think there’s a 25 bus I could take quite near here—or a 2 from Park Lane.’

‘You’ll not be wanting a bus,’ said the commissionaire firmly. ‘It’s very dangerous springing on a bus when you’re getting on in life. The way they start and stop and go on again. Jerk you off your feet, they do. No heart at all, these fellows, nowadays. I’ll whistle you along a taxi and you’ll go to wherever you want to like a queen.’

Miss Marple considered and fell.

‘Very well then,’ she said, ‘perhaps I had better have a taxi.’

The commissionaire had no need even to whistle. He merely clicked his thumb and a taxi appeared like magic. Miss Marple was helped into it with every possible care and decided on the spur of the moment to go to Robinson & Cleaver’s and look at their splendid offer of real linen sheets. She sat happily in her taxi feeling indeed as the commissionaire had promised her, just like a queen. Her mind was filled with pleasurable anticipation of linen sheets, linen pillow cases and proper glass- and kitchen-cloths without pictures of bananas, figs or performing dogs and other pictorial distractions to annoy you when you were washing up.

Lady Sedgwick came up to the Reception desk.

‘Mr Humfries in his office?’

‘Yes, Lady Sedgwick.’ Miss Gorringe looked startled.

Lady Sedgwick passed behind the desk, tapped on the door and went in without waiting for any response.

Mr Humfries looked up startled.

‘What—’

‘Who engaged that man Michael Gorman?’

Mr Humfries spluttered a little.

‘Parfitt left—he had a car accident a month ago. We had to replace him quickly. This man seemed all right. References OK—ex-Army—quite good record—not very bright perhaps—but that’s all the better sometimes—you don’t know anything against him, do you?’

‘Enough not to want him here.’

‘If you insist,’ Humfries said slowly, ‘we’ll give him his notice—’

‘No,’ said Lady Sedgwick slowly. ‘No—it’s too late for that—Never mind.’

CHAPTER 6

‘Elvira.’

‘Hallo, Bridget.’

The Hon. Elvira Blake pushed her way through the front door of 180 Onslow Square, which her friend Bridget had rushed down to open for her, having been watching through the window.

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