Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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First published in Great Britain by Collins, The Crime Club 1962

The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side™ is a trade mark of Agatha Christie Limited and Agatha Christie® Marple® and the Agatha Christie Signature are registered trade marks of Agatha Christie Limited in the UK and elsewhere. Copyright © 1962 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: 9780008196592

Ebook Edition © December 2016 ISBN: 9780007422456

Version: 2020-07-08

Dedication

To

Margaret Rutherford

in admiration

Epigraph

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack’d from side to side;

‘The curse is come upon me,’ cried

The Lady of Shalott

Alfred Tennyson

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

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

Also by Agatha Christie

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1

Miss Jane Marple was sitting by her window. The window looked over her garden, once a source of pride to her. That was no longer so. Nowadays she looked out of the window and winced. Active gardening had been forbidden her for some time now. No stooping, no digging, no planting—at most a little light pruning. Old Laycock who came three times a week, did his best, no doubt. But his best, such as it was (which was not much) was only the best according to his lights, and not according to those of his employer. Miss Marple knew exactly what she wanted done, and when she wanted it done, and instructed him duly. Old Laycock then displayed his particular genius which was that of enthusiastic agreement and subsequent lack of performance.

‘That’s right, missus. We’ll have them mecosoapies there and the Canterburys along the wall and as you say it ought to be got on with first thing next week.’

Laycock’s excuses were always reasonable, and strongly resembled those of Captain George’s in Three Men in a Boat for avoiding going to sea. In the captain’s case the wind was always wrong, either blowing off shore or in shore, or coming from the unreliable west, or the even more treacherous east. Laycock’s was the weather. Too dry—too wet—waterlogged—a nip of frost in the air. Or else something of great importance had to come first (usually to do with cabbages or brussels sprouts of which he liked to grow inordinate quantities). Laycock’s own principles of gardening were simple and no employer, however knowledgeable, could wean him from them.

They consisted of a great many cups of tea, sweet and strong, as an encouragement to effort, a good deal of sweeping up of leaves in the autumn, and a certain amount of bedding out of his own favourite plants, mainly asters and salvias—to ‘make a nice show’, as he put it, in summer. He was all in favour of syringeing roses for green-fly, but was slow to get around to it, and a demand for deep trenching for sweet peas was usually countered by the remark that you ought to see his own sweet peas! A proper treat last year, and no fancy stuff done beforehand.

To be fair, he was attached to his employers, humoured their fancies in horticulture (so far as no actual hard work was involved) but vegetables he knew to be the real stuff of life; a nice Savoy, or a bit of curly kale; flowers were fancy stuff such as ladies liked to go in for, having nothing better to do with their time. He showed his affection by producing presents of the aforementioned asters, salvias, lobelia edging, and summer chrysanthemums.

‘Been doing some work at them new houses over at the Development. Want their gardens laid out nice, they do. More plants than they needed so I brought along a few, and I’ve put ’em in where them old-fashioned roses ain’t looking so well.’

Thinking of these things, Miss Marple averted her eyes from the garden, and picked up her knitting.

One had to face the fact: St Mary Mead was not the place it had been. In a sense, of course, nothing was what it had been. You could blame the war (both the wars) or the younger generation, or women going out to work, or the atom bomb, or just the Government—but what one really meant was the simple fact that one was growing old. Miss Marple, who was a very sensible lady, knew that quite well. It was just that, in a queer way, she felt it more in St Mary Mead, because it had been her home for so long.

St Mary Mead, the old world core of it, was still there. The Blue Boar was there, and the church and the vicarage and the little nest of Queen Anne and Georgian houses, of which hers was one. Miss Hartnell’s house was still there, and also Miss Hartnell, fighting progress to the last gasp. Miss Wetherby had passed on and her house was now inhabited by the bank manager and his family, having been given a face-lift by the painting of doors and windows a bright royal blue. There were new people in most of the other old houses, but the houses themselves were little changed in appearances since the people who had bought them had done so because they liked what the house agent called ‘old world charm’. They just added another bathroom, and spent a good deal of money on plumbing, electric cookers, and dish-washers.

But though the houses looked much as before, the same could hardly be said of the village street. When shops changed hands there, it was with a view to immediate and intemperate modernization. The fishmonger was unrecognizable with new super windows behind which the refrigerated fish gleamed. The butcher had remained conservative—good meat is good meat, if you have the money to pay for it. If not, you take the cheaper cuts and the tough joints and like it! Barnes, the grocer, was still there, unchanged, for which Miss Hartnell and Miss Marple and others daily thanked Heaven. So obliging, comfortable chairs to sit in by the counter, and cosy discussions as to cuts of bacon, and varieties of cheese. At the end of the street, however, where Mr Toms had once had his basket shop stood a glittering new supermarket—anathema to the elderly ladies of St Mary Mead.

‘Packets of things one’s never even heard of,’ exclaimed Miss Hartnell. ‘All these great packets of breakfast cereal instead of cooking a child a proper breakfast of bacon and eggs. And you’re expected to take a basket yourself and go round looking for things—it takes a quarter of an hour sometimes to find all one wants—and usually made up in inconvenient sizes, too much or too little. And then a long queue waiting to pay as you go out. Most tiring. Of course it’s all very well for the people from the Development—’

At this point she stopped.

Because, as was now usual, the sentence came to an end there. The Development, Period, as they would say in modern terms. It had an entity of its own, and a capital letter.

Miss Marple uttered a sharp exclamation of annoyance. She’d dropped a stitch again. Not only that, she must have dropped it some time ago. Not until now, when she had to decrease for the neck and count the stitches, had she realized the fact. She took up a spare pin, held the knitting sideways to the light and peered anxiously. Even her new spectacles didn’t seem to do any good. And that, she reflected, was because obviously there came a time when oculists, in spite of their luxurious waiting-rooms, the up-to-date instruments, the bright lights they flashed into your eyes, and the very high fees they charged, couldn’t do anything much more for you. Miss Marple reflected with some nostalgia on how good her eyesight had been a few (well, not perhaps a few) years ago. From the vantage-point of her garden, so admirably placed to see all that was going on in St Mary Mead, how little had escaped her noticing eye! And with the help of her bird glasses—(an interest in birds was so useful!)—she had been able to see—She broke off there and let her thoughts run back over the past. Ann Protheroe in her summer frock going along to the Vicarage garden. And Colonel Protheroe—poor man—a very tiresome and unpleasant man, to be sure—but to be murdered like that—She shook her head and went on to thoughts of Griselda, the vicar’s pretty young wife. Dear Griselda—such a faithful friend—a Christmas card every year. That attractive baby of hers was a strapping young man now, and with a very good job. Engineering, was it? He always had enjoyed taking his mechanical trains to pieces. Beyond the Vicarage, there had been the stile and the field path with Farmer Giles’s cattle beyond in the meadows where now—now …

The Development.

And why not? Miss Marple asked herself sternly. These things had to be. The houses were necessary, and they were very well built, or so she had been told. ‘Planning’, or whatever they called it. Though why everything had to be called a Close she couldn’t imagine. Aubrey Close and Longwood Close, and Grandison Close and all the rest of them. Not really Closes at all. Miss Marple knew what a Close was perfectly. Her uncle had been a Canon of Chichester Cathedral. As a child she had gone to stay with him in the Close.

It was like Cherry Baker who always called Miss Marple’s old-world overcrowded drawing-room the ‘lounge’. Miss Marple corrected her gently, ‘It’s the drawing-room, Cherry.’ And Cherry, because she was young and kind, endeavoured to remember, though it was obvious to her ‘drawing-room’ was a very funny word to use—and ‘lounge’ came slipping out. She had of late, however, compromised on ‘living-room’. Miss Marple liked Cherry very much. Her name was Mrs Baker and she came from the Development. She was one of the detachment of young wives who shopped at the supermarket and wheeled prams about the quiet streets of St Mary Mead. They were all smart and well turned out. Their hair was crisp and curled. They laughed and talked and called to one another. They were like a happy flock of birds. Owing to the insidious snares of Hire Purchase, they were always in need of ready money, though their husbands all earned good wages; and so they came and did housework or cooking. Cherry was a quick and efficient cook, she was an intelligent girl, took telephone calls correctly and was quick to spot inaccuracies in the tradesmen’s books. She was not much given to turning mattresses, and as far as washing up went Miss Marple always now passed the pantry door with her head turned away so as not to observe Cherry’s method which was that of thrusting everything into the sink together and letting loose a snowstorm of detergent on it. Miss Marple had quietly removed her old Worcester teaset from daily circulation and put it in the corner cabinet whence it only emerged on special occasions. Instead she had purchased a modern service with a pattern of pale grey on white and no gilt on it whatsoever to be washed away in the sink.

How different it had been in the past … Faithful Florence, for instance, that grenadier of a parlourmaid—and there had been Amy and Clara and Alice, those ‘nice little maids’—arriving from St Faith’s Orphanage, to be ‘trained’, and then going on to better-paid jobs elsewhere. Rather simple, some of them had been, and frequently adenoidal, and Amy distinctly moronic. They had gossiped and chattered with the other maids in the village and walked out with the fishmonger’s assistant, or the under-gardener at the Hall, or one of Mr Barnes the grocer’s numerous assistants. Miss Marple’s mind went back over them affectionately thinking of all the little woolly coats she had knitted for their subsequent offspring. They had not been very good with the telephone, and no good at all at arithmetic. On the other hand, they knew how to wash up, and how to make a bed. They had had skills, rather than education. It was odd that nowadays it should be the educated girls who went in for all the domestic chores. Students from abroad, girls au pair, university students in the vacation, young married women like Cherry Baker, who lived in spurious Closes on new building developments.

There were still, of course, people like Miss Knight. This last thought came suddenly as Miss Knight’s tread overhead made the lustres on the mantelpiece tinkle warningly. Miss Knight had obviously had her afternoon rest and would now go out for her afternoon walk. In a moment she would come to ask Miss Marple if she could get her anything in the town. The thought of Miss Knight brought the usual reaction to Miss Marple’s mind. Of course, it was very generous of dear Raymond (her nephew) and nobody could be kinder than Miss Knight, and of course that attack of bronchitis had left her very weak, and Dr Haydock had said very firmly that she must not go on sleeping alone in the house with only someone coming in daily, but—She stopped there. Because it was no use going on with the thought which was ‘If only it could have been someone other than Miss Knight.’ But there wasn’t much choice for elderly ladies nowadays. Devoted maidservants had gone out of fashion. In real illness you could have a proper hospital nurse, at vast expense and procured with difficulty, or you could go to hospital. But after the critical phase of illness had passed, you were down to the Miss Knights.

There wasn’t, Miss Marple reflected, anything wrong about the Miss Knights other than the fact that they were madly irritating. They were full of kindness, ready to feel affection towards their charges, to humour them, to be bright and cheerful with them and in general to treat them as slightly mentally afflicted children.

‘But I,’ said Miss Marple to herself, ‘although I may be old, am not a mentally afflicted child.’

At this moment, breathing rather heavily, as was her custom, Miss Knight bounced brightly into the room. She was a big, rather flabby woman of fifty-six with yellowing grey hair very elaborately arranged, glasses, a long thin nose, and below it a good-natured mouth and a weak chin.

‘Here we are!’ she exclaimed with a kind of beaming boisterousness, meant to cheer and enliven the sad twilight of the aged. ‘I hope we’ve had our little snooze?’

‘I have been knitting,’ Miss Marple replied, putting some emphasis on the pronoun, ‘and,’ she went on, confessing her weakness with distaste and shame, ‘I’ve dropped a stitch.’

‘Oh dear, dear,’ said Miss Knight. ‘Well, we’ll soon put that right, won’t we?’

‘You will,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I, alas, am unable to do so.’

The slight acerbity of her tone passed quite unnoticed. Miss Knight, as always, was eager to help.

‘There,’ she said after a few moments. ‘There you are, dear. Quite all right now.’

Though Miss Marple was perfectly agreeable to be called ‘dear’ (and even ‘ducks’) by the woman at the greengrocer or the girl at the paper shop, it annoyed her intensely to be called ‘dear’ by Miss Knight. Another of those things that elderly ladies have to bear. She thanked Miss Knight politely.

‘And now I’m just going out for my wee toddle,’ said Miss Knight humorously. ‘Shan’t be long.’

‘Please don’t dream of hurrying back,’ said Miss Marple politely and sincerely.

‘Well, I don’t like to leave you too long on your own, dear, in case you get moped.’

‘I assure you I am quite happy,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I probably shall have’ (she closed her eyes) ‘a little nap.’

‘That’s right, dear. Anything I can get you?’

Miss Marple opened her eyes and considered.

‘You might go into Longdon’s and see if the curtains are ready. And perhaps another skein of the blue wool from Mrs Wisley. And a box of blackcurrant lozenges at the chemist’s. And change my book at the library—but don’t let them give you anything that isn’t on my list. This last one was too terrible. I couldn’t read it.’ She held out The Spring Awakens.

‘Oh dear dear! Didn’t you like it? I thought you’d love it. Such a pretty story.’

‘And if it isn’t too far for you, perhaps you wouldn’t mind going as far as Halletts and see if they have one of those up-and-down egg whisks—not the turn-the-handle kind.’

(She knew very well they had nothing of the kind, but Halletts was the farthest shop possible.)

‘If all this isn’t too much—’ she murmured.

But Miss Knight replied with obvious sincerity.

‘Not at all. I shall be delighted.’

Miss Knight loved shopping. It was the breath of life to her. One met acquaintances, and had the chance of a chat, one gossiped with the assistants, and had the opportunity of examining various articles in the various shops. And one could spend quite a long time engaged in these pleasant occupations without any guilty feeling that it was one’s duty to hurry back.

So Miss Knight started off happily, after a last glance at the frail old lady resting so peacefully by the window.

After waiting a few minutes in case Miss Knight should return for a shopping bag, or her purse, or a handkerchief (she was a great forgetter and returner), and also to recover from the slight mental fatigue induced by thinking of so many unwanted things to ask Miss Knight to get, Miss Marple rose briskly to her feet, cast aside her knitting and strode purposefully across the room and into the hall. She took down her summer coat from its peg, a stick from the hall stand and exchanged her bedroom slippers for a pair of stout walking shoes. Then she left the house by the side door.

‘It will take her at least an hour and a half,’ Miss Marple estimated to herself. ‘Quite that—with all the people from the Development doing their shopping.’

Miss Marple visualized Miss Knight at Longdon’s making abortive inquiries re curtains. Her surmises were remarkably accurate. At this moment Miss Knight was exclaiming, ‘Of course, I felt quite sure in my own mind they wouldn’t be ready yet. But of course I said I’d come along and see when the old lady spoke about it. Poor old dears, they’ve got so little to look forward to. One must humour them. And she’s a sweet old lady. Failing a little now, it’s only to be expected—their faculties get dimmed. Now that’s a pretty material you’ve got there. Do you have it in any other colours?’

A pleasant twenty minutes passed. When Miss Knight had finally departed, the senior assistant remarked with a sniff, ‘Failing, is she? I’ll believe that when I see it for myself. Old Miss Marple has always been as sharp as a needle, and I’d say she still is.’ She then gave her attention to a young woman in tight trousers and a sail-cloth jersey who wanted plastic material with crabs on it for bathroom curtains.

‘Emily Waters, that’s who she reminds me of,’ Miss Marple was saying to herself, with the satisfaction it always gave her to match up a human personality with one known in the past. ‘Just the same bird brain. Let me see, what happened to Emily?’

Nothing much, was her conclusion. She had once nearly got engaged to a curate, but after an understanding of several years the affair had fizzled out. Miss Marple dismissed her nurse attendant from her mind and gave her attention to her surroundings. She had traversed the garden rapidly only observing as it were from the corner of her eye that Laycock had cut down the old-fashioned roses in a way more suitable to hybrid teas, but she did not allow this to distress her, or distract her from the delicious pleasure of having escaped for an outing entirely on her own. She had a happy feeling of adventure. She turned to the right, entered the Vicarage gate, took the path through the Vicarage garden and came out on the right of way. Where the stile had been there was now an iron swing gate giving on to a tarred asphalt path. This led to a neat little bridge over the stream and on the other side of the stream where once there had been meadows with cows, there was the Development.

CHAPTER 2

With the feeling of Columbus setting out to discover a new world, Miss Marple passed over the bridge, continued on to the path and within four minutes was actually in Aubrey Close.

Of course Miss Marple had seen the Development from the Market Basing Road, that is, had seen from afar its Closes and rows of neat well-built houses, with their television masts and their blue and pink and yellow and green painted doors and windows. But until now it had only had the reality of a map, as it were. She had not been in it and of it. But now she was here, observing the brave new world that was springing up, the world that by all accounts was foreign to all she had known. It was like a neat model built with child’s bricks. It hardly seemed real to Miss Marple.

The people, too, looked unreal. The trousered young women, the rather sinister-looking young men and boys, the exuberant bosoms of the fifteen-year-old girls. Miss Marple couldn’t help thinking that it all looked terribly depraved. Nobody noticed her much as she trudged along. She turned out of Aubrey Close and was presently in Darlington Close. She went slowly and as she went she listened avidly to the snippets of conversation between mothers wheeling prams, to the girls addressing young men, to the sinister-looking Teds (she supposed they were Teds) exchanging dark remarks with each other. Mothers came out on doorsteps calling to their children who, as usual, were busy doing all the things they had been told not to do. Children, Miss Marple reflected gratefully, never changed. And presently she began to smile, and noted down in her mind her usual series of recognitions.

That woman is just like Carry Edwards—and the dark one is just like that Hooper girl—she’ll make a mess of her marriage just like Mary Hooper did. Those boys—the dark one is just like Edward Leeke, a lot of wild talk but no harm in him—a nice boy really—the fair one is Mrs Bedwell’s Josh all over again. Nice boys, both of them. The one like Gregory Binns won’t do very well, I’m afraid. I expect he’s got the same sort of mother …

She turned a corner into Walsingham Close and her spirits rose every moment.

The new world was the same as the old. The houses were different, the streets were called Closes, the clothes were different, the voices were different, but the human beings were the same as they always had been. And though using slightly different phraseology, the subjects of conversation were the same.

By dint of turning corners in her exploration, Miss Marple had rather lost her sense of direction and had arrived at the edge of the housing estate again. She was now in Carrisbrook Close, half of which was still ‘under construction’. At the first-floor window of a nearly finished house a young couple were standing. Their voices floated down as they discussed the amenities.

‘You must admit it’s a nice position, Harry.’

‘Other one was just as good.’

‘This one’s got two more rooms.’

‘And you’ve got to pay for them.’

‘Well, I like this one.’

‘You would!’

‘Ow, don’t be such a spoil-sport. You know what Mum said.’

‘Your Mum never stops saying.’

‘Don’t you say nothing against Mum. Where’d I have been without her? And she might have cut up nastier than she did. She could have taken you to court.’

‘Oh, come off it, Lily.’

‘It’s a good view of the hills. You can almost see—’ She leaned far out, twisting her body to the left. ‘You can almost see the reservoir—’

She leant farther still, not realizing that she was resting her weight on loose boards that had been laid across the sill. They slipped under the pressure of her body, sliding outwards, carrying her with them. She screamed, trying to regain her balance.

‘Harry—’

The young man stood motionless—a foot or two behind her. He took one step backwards—

Desperately, clawing at the wall, the girl righted herself. ‘Oo!’ She let out a frightened breath. ‘I near as nothing fell out. Why didn’t you get hold of me?’

‘It was all so quick. Anyway you’re all right.’

‘That’s all you know about it. I nearly went, I tell you. And look at the front of my jumper, it’s all mussed.’

Miss Marple went on a little way, then on impulse, she turned back.

Lily was outside in the road waiting for the young man to lock up the house.

Miss Marple went up to her and spoke rapidly in a low voice.

‘If I were you, my dear, I shouldn’t marry that young man. You want someone whom you can rely upon if you’re in danger. You must excuse me for saying this to you—but I feel you ought to be warned.’

She turned away and Lily stared after her.

‘Well, of all the—’

Her young man approached.

‘What was she saying to you, Lil?’

Lily opened her mouth—then shut it again.

‘Giving me the gipsy’s warning, if you want to know.’

She eyed him in a thoughtful manner.

Miss Marple in her anxiety to get away quickly, turned a corner, stumbled over some loose stones and fell.

A woman came running out of one of the houses.

‘Oh dear, what a nasty spill! I hope you haven’t hurt yourself?’

With almost excessive goodwill she put her arms round Miss Marple and tugged her to her feet.

‘No bones broken, I hope? There we are. I expect you feel rather shaken.’

Her voice was loud and friendly. She was a plump squarely built woman of about forty, brown hair just turning grey, blue eyes, and a big generous mouth that seemed to Miss Marple’s rather shaken gaze to be far too full of white shining teeth.

‘You’d better come inside and sit down and rest a bit. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

Miss Marple thanked her. She allowed herself to be led through the blue-painted door and into a small room full of bright cretonne-covered chairs and sofas.

‘There you are,’ said her rescuer, establishing her on a cushioned arm-chair. ‘You sit quiet and I’ll put the kettle on.’

She hurried out of the room which seemed rather restfully quiet after her departure. Miss Marple took a deep breath. She was not really hurt, but the fall had shaken her. Falls at her age were not to be encouraged. With luck, however, she thought guiltily, Miss Knight need never know. She moved her arms and legs gingerly. Nothing broken. If she could only get home all right. Perhaps, after a cup of tea—

The cup of tea arrived almost as the thought came to her. Brought on a tray with four sweet biscuits on a little plate.

‘There you are.’ It was placed on a small table in front of her. ‘Shall I pour it out for you? Better have plenty of sugar.’

‘No sugar, thank you.’

‘You must have sugar. Shock, you know. I was abroad with ambulances during the war. Sugar’s wonderful for shock.’ She put four lumps in the cup and stirred vigorously. ‘Now you get that down, and you’ll feel as right as rain.’

Miss Marple accepted the dictum.

‘A kind woman,’ she thought. ‘She reminds me of someone—now who is it?’

‘You’ve been very kind to me,’ she said, smiling.

‘Oh, that’s nothing. The little ministering angel, that’s me. I love helping people.’ She looked out of the window as the latch of the outer gate clicked. ‘Here’s my husband home. Arthur—we’ve got a visitor.’

She went out into the hall and returned with Arthur who looked rather bewildered. He was a thin pale man, rather slow in speech.

‘This lady fell down—right outside our gate, so of course I brought her in.’

‘Your wife is very kind, Mr—’

‘Badcock’s the name.’

‘Mr Badcock, I’m afraid I’ve given her a lot of trouble.’

‘Oh, no trouble to Heather. Heather enjoys doing things for people.’ He looked at her curiously. ‘Were you on your way anywhere in particular?’

‘No, I was just taking a walk. I live in St Mary Mead, the house beyond the Vicarage. My name is Marple.’

‘Well, I never!’ exclaimed Heather. ‘So you’re Miss Marple. I’ve heard about you. You’re the one who does all the murders.’

‘Heather! What do you—’

‘Oh, you know what I mean. Not actually do murders—find out about them. That’s right, isn’t it?’

Miss Marple murmured modestly that she had been mixed up in murders once or twice.

‘I heard there have been murders here, in this village. They were talking about it the other night at the Bingo Club. There was one at Gossington Hall. I wouldn’t buy a place where there’d been a murder. I’d be sure it was haunted.’

‘The murder wasn’t committed in Gossington Hall. A dead body was brought there.’

‘Found in the library on the hearthrug, that’s what they said?’

Miss Marple nodded.

‘Did you ever? Perhaps they’re going to make a film of it. Perhaps that’s why Marina Gregg has bought Gossington Hall.’

‘Marina Gregg?’

‘Yes. She and her husband. I forget his name—he’s a producer, I think, or a director—Jason something. But Marina Gregg, she’s lovely, isn’t she? Of course she hasn’t been in so many pictures of late years—she was ill for a long time. But I still think there’s never anybody like her. Did you see her in Carmanella? And The Price of Love, and Mary of Scotland? She’s not so young any more, but she’ll always be a wonderful actress. I’ve always been a terrific fan of hers. When I was a teenager I used to dream about her. The big thrill of my life was when there was a big show in aid of the St John Ambulance in Bermuda, and Marina Gregg came to open it. I was mad with excitement, and then on the very day I went down with a temperature and the doctor said I couldn’t go. But I wasn’t going to be beaten. I didn’t actually feel too bad. So I got up and put a lot of make-up on my face and went along. I was introduced to her and she talked to me for quite three minutes and gave me her autograph. It was wonderful. I’ve never forgotten that day.’

Miss Marple stared at her.

‘I hope there were no—unfortunate after-effects?’ she said anxiously.

Heather Badcock laughed.

‘None at all. Never felt better. What I say is, if you want a thing you’ve got to take risks. I always do.’

She laughed again, a happy strident laugh.

Arthur Badcock said admiringly, ‘There’s never any holding Heather. She always gets away with things.’

‘Alison Wilde,’ murmured Miss Marple, with a nod of satisfaction.

‘Pardon?’ said Mr Badcock.

‘Nothing. Just someone I used to know.’

Heather looked at her inquiringly.

‘You reminded me of her, that is all.’

‘Did I? I hope she was nice.’

‘She was very nice indeed,’ said Miss Marple slowly. ‘Kind, healthy, full of life.’

‘But she had her faults, I suppose?’ laughed Heather. ‘I have.’

‘Well, Alison always saw her own point of view so clearly that she didn’t always see how things might appear to, or affect, other people.’

‘Like the time you took in that evacuated family from a condemned cottage and they went off with all our teaspoons,’ Arthur said.

‘But Arthur!—I couldn’t have turned them away. It wouldn’t have been kind.’

‘They were family spoons,’ said Mr Badcock sadly. ‘Georgian. Belonged to my mother’s grandmother.’

‘Oh, do forget those old spoons, Arthur. You do harp so.’

‘I’m not very good at forgetting, I’m afraid.’

Miss Marple looked at him thoughtfully.

‘What’s your friend doing now?’ asked Heather of Miss Marple with kindly interest.

Miss Marple paused a moment before answering.

‘Alison Wilde? Oh—she died.’

CHAPTER 3

‘I’m glad to be back,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘Although, of course, I’ve had a wonderful time.’

Miss Marple nodded appreciatively, and accepted a cup of tea from her friend’s hand.

When her husband, Colonel Bantry, had died some years ago, Mrs Bantry had sold Gossington Hall and the considerable amount of land attached to it, retaining for herself what had been the East Lodge, a charming porticoed little building replete with inconvenience, where even a gardener had refused to live. Mrs Bantry had added to it the essentials of modern life, a built-on kitchen of the latest type, a new water supply from the main, electricity, and a bathroom. This had all cost her a great deal, but not nearly so much as an attempt to live at Gossington Hall would have done. She had also retained the essentials of privacy, about three quarters of an acre of garden nicely ringed with trees, so that, as she explained, ‘Whatever they do with Gossington I shan’t really see it or worry.’

For the last few years she had spent a good deal of the year travelling about, visiting children and grandchildren in various parts of the globe, and coming back from time to time to enjoy the privacies of her own home. Gossington Hall itself had changed hands once or twice. It had been run as a guest house, failed, and been bought by four people who had shared it as four roughly divided flats and subsequently quarrelled. Finally the Ministry of Health had bought it for some obscure purpose for which they eventually did not want it. The Ministry had now resold it—and it was this sale which the two friends were discussing.

‘I have heard rumours, of course,’ said Miss Marple.

‘Naturally,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘It was even said that Charlie Chaplin and all his children were coming to live here. That would have been wonderful fun; unfortunately there isn’t a word of truth in it. No, it’s definitely Marina Gregg.’

‘How very lovely she was,’ said Miss Marple with a sigh. ‘I always remember those early films of hers. Bird of Passage with that handsome Joel Roberts. And the Mary, Queen of Scots film. And of course it was very sentimental, but I did enjoy Comin’ Thru the Rye. Oh dear, that was a long time ago.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘She must be—what do you think? Forty-five? Fifty?’

Miss Marple thought nearer fifty.

‘Has she been in anything lately? Of course I don’t go very often to the cinema nowadays.’

‘Only small parts, I think,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘She hasn’t been a star for quite a long time. She had that bad nervous breakdown. After one of her divorces.’

‘Such a lot of husbands they all have,’ said Miss Marple. ‘It must really be very tiring.’

‘It wouldn’t suit me,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘After you’ve fallen in love with a man and married him and got used to his ways and settled down comfortably—to go and throw it all up and start again! It seems to me madness.’

‘I can’t presume to speak,’ said Miss Marple with a little spinsterish cough, ‘never having married. But it seems, you know, a pity.’

‘I suppose they can’t help it really,’ said Mrs Bantry vaguely. ‘With the kind of lives they have to live. So public, you know. I met her,’ she added. ‘Marina Gregg, I mean, when I was in California.’

‘What was she like?’ Miss Marple asked with interest.

‘Charming,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘So natural and unspoiled.’ She added thoughtfully, ‘It’s like a kind of livery really.’

‘What is?’

‘Being unspoiled and natural. You learn how to do it, and then you have to go on being it all the time. Just think of the hell of it—never to be able to chuck something, and say, “Oh, for the Lord’s sake stop bothering me.” I dare say that in sheer self-defence you have to have drunken parties or orgies.’

‘She’s had five husbands, hasn’t she?’ Miss Marple asked.

‘At least. An early one that didn’t count, and then a foreign Prince or Count, and then another film star, Robert Truscott, wasn’t it? That was built up as a great romance. But it only lasted four years. And then Isidore Wright, the playwright. That was rather serious and quiet, and she had a baby—apparently she’d always longed to have a child—she’s even half-adopted a few strays—anyway this was the real thing. Very much built up. Motherhood with a capital M. And then, I believe, it was an imbecile, or queer or something—and it was after that, that she had this breakdown and started to take drugs and all that, and threw up her parts.’

‘You seem to know a lot about her,’ said Miss Marple.

‘Well, naturally,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘When she bought Gossington I was interested. She married the present man about two years ago, and they say she’s quite all right again now. He’s a producer—or do I mean a director? I always get mixed. He was in love with her when they were quite young, but he didn’t amount to very much in those days. But now, I believe, he’s got quite famous. What’s his name now? Jason—Jason something—Jason Hudd, no, Rudd, that’s it. They’ve bought Gossington because it’s handy for’—she hesitated—‘Elstree?’ she hazarded.

Miss Marple shook her head.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Elstree’s in North London.’

‘It’s the fairly new studios. Hellingforth—that’s it. Sounds so Finnish, I always think. About six miles from Market Basing. She’s going to do a film on Elizabeth of Austria, I believe.’

‘What a lot you know,’ said Miss Marple. ‘About the private lives of film stars. Did you learn it all in California?’

‘Not really,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘Actually I get it from the extraordinary magazines I read at my hairdresser’s. Most of the stars I don’t even know by name, but as I said because Marina Gregg and her husband have bought Gossington, I was interested. Really the things those magazines say! I don’t suppose half of it is true—probably not a quarter. I don’t believe Marina Gregg is a nymphomaniac, I don’t think she drinks, pobably she doesn’t even take drugs, and quite likely she just went away to have a nice rest and didn’t have a nervous breakdown at all!—but it’s true that she is coming here to live.’

‘Next week, I heard,’ said Miss Marple.

‘As soon as that? I know she’s lending Gossington for a big fête on the twenty-third in aid of the St John Ambulance Corps. I suppose they’ve done a lot to the house?’

‘Practically everything,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Really it would have been much simpler, and probably cheaper, to have pulled it down and built a new house.’

‘Bathrooms, I suppose?’

‘Six new ones, I hear. And a palm court. And a pool. And what I believe they call picture windows, and they’ve knocked your husband’s study and the library into one to make a music room.’

‘Arthur will turn in his grave. You know how he hated music. Tone deaf, poor dear. His face, when some kind friend took us to the opera! He’ll probably come back and haunt them.’ She stopped and then said abruptly, ‘Does anyone ever hint that Gossington might be haunted?’

Miss Marple shook her head.

‘It isn’t,’ she said with certainty.

‘That wouldn’t prevent people saying it was,’ Mrs Bantry pointed out.

‘Nobody ever has said so.’ Miss Marple paused and then said, ‘People aren’t really foolish, you know. Not in villages.’

Mrs Bantry shot her a quick look. ‘You’ve always stuck to that, Jane. And I won’t say that you’re not right.’

She suddenly smiled.

‘Marina Gregg asked me, very sweetly and delicately, if I wouldn’t find it very painful to see my old home occupied by strangers. I assured her that it wouldn’t hurt me at all. I don’t think she quite believed me. But after all, as you know, Jane, Gossington wasn’t our home. We weren’t brought up there as children—that’s what really counts. It was just a house with a nice bit of shooting and fishing attached, that we bought when Arthur retired. We thought of it, I remember, as a house that would be nice and easy to run! How we can ever have thought that, I can’t imagine! All those staircases and passages. Only four servants! Only! Those were the days, ha ha!’ She added suddenly: ‘What’s all this about your falling down? That Knight woman ought not to let you go out by yourself.’

‘It wasn’t poor Miss Knight’s fault. I gave her a lot of shopping to do and then I—’

‘Deliberately gave her the slip? I see. Well, you shouldn’t do it, Jane. Not at your age.’

‘How did you hear about it?’

Mrs Bantry grinned.

‘You can’t keep any secrets in St Mary Mead. You’ve often told me so. Mrs Meavy told me.’

‘Mrs Meavy?’ Miss Marple looked at sea.

‘She comes in daily. She’s from the Development.’

‘Oh, the Development.’ The usual pause happened.

‘What were you doing in the Development?’ asked Mrs Bantry, curiously.

‘I just wanted to see it. To see what the people were like.’

‘And what did you think they were like?’

‘Just the same as everyone else. I don’t quite know if that was disappointing or reassuring.’

‘Disappointing, I should think.’

‘No. I think it’s reassuring. It makes you—well—recognize certain types—so that when anything occurs—one will understand quite well why and for what reason.’

‘Murder, do you mean?’

Miss Marple looked shocked.

‘I don’t know why you should assume that I think of murder all the time.’

‘Nonsense, Jane. Why don’t you come out boldly and call yourself a criminologist and have done with it?’

‘Because I am nothing of the sort,’ said Miss Marple with spirit. ‘It is simply that I have a certain knowledge of human nature—that is only natural after having lived in a small village all my life.’

‘You probably have something there,’ said Mrs Bantry thoughtfully, ‘though most people wouldn’t agree, of course. Your nephew Raymond always used to say this place was a complete backwater.’

‘Dear Raymond,’ said Miss Marple indulgently. She added: ‘He’s always been so kind. He’s paying for Miss Knight, you know.’

The thought of Miss Knight induced a new train of thought and she arose and said: ‘I’d better be going back now, I suppose.’

‘You didn’t walk all the way here, did you?’

‘Of course not. I came in Inch.’

This somewhat enigmatic pronouncement was received with complete understanding. In days very long past, Mr Inch had been the proprietor of two cabs, which met trains at the local station and which were also hired by the local ladies to take them ‘calling’, out to tea parties, and occasionally, with their daughters, to such frivolous entertainments as dances. In the fullness of time Inch, a cheery red-faced man of seventy odd, gave place to his son—known as ‘young Inch’ (he was then aged forty-five) though old Inch still continued to drive such elderly ladies as considered his son too young and irresponsible. To keep up with the times, young Inch abandoned horse vehicles for motor cars. He was not very good with machinery and in due course a certain Mr Bardwell took over from him. The name Inch persisted. Mr Bardwell in due course sold out to Mr Roberts, but in the telephone book Inch’s Taxi Service was still the official name, and the older ladies of the community continued to refer to their journeys as going somewhere ‘in Inch’, as though they were Jonah and Inch was a whale.

‘Dr Haydock called,’ said Miss Knight reproachfully. ‘I told him you’d gone to tea with Mrs Bantry. He said he’d call in again tomorrow.’

She helped Miss Marple off with her wraps.

‘And now, I expect, we’re tired out,’ she said accusingly.

‘You may be,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I am not.’

‘You come and sit cosy by the fire,’ said Miss Knight, as usual paying no attention. (‘You don’t need to take much notice of what the old dears say. I just humour them.’) ‘And how would we fancy a nice cup of Ovaltine? Or Horlicks for a change?’

Miss Marple thanked her and said she would like a small glass of dry sherry. Miss Knight looked disapproving.

‘I don’t know what the doctor would say to that, I’m sure,’ she said, when she returned with the glass.

‘We will make a point of asking him tomorrow morning,’ said Miss Marple.

On the following morning Miss Knight met Dr Haydock in the hall, and did some agitated whispering.

The elderly doctor came into the room rubbing his hands, for it was a chilly morning.

‘Here’s our doctor to see us,’ said Miss Knight gaily. ‘Can I take your gloves, Doctor?’

‘They’ll be all right here,’ said Haydock, casting them carelessly on a table. ‘Quite a nippy morning.’

‘A little glass of sherry perhaps?’ suggested Miss Marple.

‘I heard you were taking to drink. Well, you should never drink alone.’

The decanter and the glasses were already on a small table by Miss Marple. Miss Knight left the room.

Dr Haydock was a very old friend. He had semi-retired, but came to attend certain of his old patients.

‘I hear you’ve been falling about,’ he said as he finished his glass. ‘It won’t do, you know, not at your age. I’m warning you. And I hear you didn’t want to send for Sandford.’

Sandford was Haydock’s partner.

‘That Miss Knight of yours sent for him anyway—and she was quite right.’

‘I was only bruised and shaken a little. Dr Sandford said so. I could have waited quite well until you were back.’

‘Now look here, my dear. I can’t go on for ever. And Sandford, let me tell you, has better qualifications than I have. He’s a first class man.’

‘The young doctors are all the same,’ said Miss Marple. ‘They take your blood pressure, and whatever’s the matter with you, you get some kind of mass produced variety of new pills. Pink ones, yellow ones, brown ones. Medicine nowadays is just like a supermarket—all packaged up.’

‘Serve you right if I prescribed leeches, and black draught, and rubbed your chest with camphorated oil.’

‘I do that myself when I’ve got a cough,’ said Miss Marple with spirit, ‘and very comforting it is.’

‘We don’t like getting old, that’s what it is,’ said Haydock gently. ‘I hate it.’

‘You’re quite a young man compared to me,’ said Miss Marple. ‘And I don’t really mind getting old—not that in itself. It’s the lesser indignities.’

‘I think I know what you mean.’

‘Never being alone! The difficulty of getting out for a few minutes by oneself. And even my knitting—such a comfort that has always been, and I really am a good knitter. Now I drop stitches all the time—and quite often I don’t even know I’ve dropped them.’

Haydock looked at her thoughtfully.

Then his eyes twinkled.

‘There’s always the opposite.’

‘Now what do you mean by that?’

‘If you can’t knit, what about unravelling for a change? Penelope did.’

‘I’m hardly in her position.’

‘But unravelling’s rather in your line, isn’t it?’

He rose to his feet.

‘I must be getting along. What I’d prescribe for you is a nice juicy murder.’

‘That’s an outrageous thing to say!’

‘Isn’t it? However, you can always make do with the depth the parsley sank into the butter on a summer’s day. I always wondered about that. Good old Holmes. A period piece, nowadays, I suppose. But he’ll never be forgotten.’

Miss Knight bustled in after the doctor had gone.

‘There,’ he said, ‘we look much more cheerful. Did the doctor recommend a tonic?’

‘He recommended me to take an interest in murder.’

‘A nice detective story?’

‘No,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Real life.’

‘Goodness,’ exclaimed Miss Knight. ‘But there’s not likely to be a murder in this quiet spot.’

‘Murders,’ said Miss Marple, ‘can happen anywhere. And do.’

‘At the Development, perhaps?’ mused Miss Knight. ‘A lot of those Teddy-looking boys carry knives.’

But the murder, when it came, was not at the Development.

CHAPTER 4

Mrs Bantry stepped back a foot or two, surveyed herself in the glass, made a slight adjustment to her hat (she was not used to wearing hats), drew on a pair of good quality leather gloves and left the lodge, closing the door carefully behind her. She had the most pleasurable anticipations of what lay in front of her. Some three weeks had passed since her talk with Miss Marple. Marina Gregg and her husband had arrived at Gossington Hall and were now more or less installed there.

There was to be a meeting there this afternoon of the main persons involved in the arrangements for the fête in aid of the St John Ambulance. Mrs Bantry was not among those on the committee, but she had received a note from Marina Gregg asking her to come and have tea beforehand. It had recalled their meeting in California and had been signed, ‘Cordially, Marina Gregg.’ It had been handwritten, not typewritten. There is no denying that Mrs Bantry was both pleased and flattered. After all, a celebrated film star is a celebrated film star and elderly ladies, though they may be of local importance, are aware of their complete unimportance in the world of celebrities. So Mrs Bantry had the pleased feeling of a child for whom a special treat had been arranged.

As she walked up the drive Mrs Bantry’s keen eyes went from side to side registering her impressions. The place had been smartened up since the days when it had passed from hand to hand. ‘No expense spared,’ said Mrs Bantry to herself, nodding in satisfaction. The drive afforded no view of the flower garden and for that Mrs Bantry was just as pleased. The flower garden and its special herbaceous border had been her own particular delight in the far-off days when she had lived at Gossington Hall. She permitted regretful and nostalgic memories of her irises. The best iris garden of any in the country, she told herself with a fierce pride.

Faced by a new front door in a blaze of new paint she pressed the bell. The door was opened with gratifying promptness by what was undeniably an Italian butler. She was ushered by him straight to the room which had been Colonel Bantry’s library. This, as she had already heard, had been thrown into one with the study. The result was impressive. The walls were panelled, the floor was parquet. At one end was a grand piano and halfway along the wall was a superb record player. At the other end of the room was a small island, as it were, which comprised Persian rugs, a tea-table and some chairs. By the tea-table sat Marina Gregg, and leaning against the mantelpiece was what Mrs Bantry at first thought to be the ugliest man she had ever seen.

Just a few moments previously when Mrs Bantry’s hand had been advanced to press the bell, Marina Gregg had been saying in a soft, enthusiastic voice, to her husband:

‘This place is right for me, Jinks, just right. It’s what I’ve always wanted. Quiet. English quiet and the English countryside. I can see myself living here, living here all my life if need be. And we’ll adopt the English way of life. We’ll have afternoon tea every afternoon with China tea and my lovely Georgian tea service. And we’ll look out of the window on those lawns and that English herbaceous border. I’ve come home at last, that’s what I feel. I feel that I can settle down here, that I can be quiet and happy. It’s going to be home, this place. That’s what I feel. Home.’

And Jason Rudd (known to his wife as Jinks) had smiled at her. It was an acquiescent smile, indulgent, but it held its reserve because, after all, he had heard it very often before. Perhaps this time it would be true. Perhaps this was the place that Marina Gregg might feel at home. But he knew her early enthusiasms so well. She was always so sure that at last she had found exactly what she wanted. He said in his deep voice:

‘That’s grand, honey. That’s just grand. I’m glad you like it.’

‘Like it? I adore it. Don’t you adore it too?’

‘Sure,’ said Jason Rudd. ‘Sure.’

It wasn’t too bad, he reflected to himself. Good, solidly built, rather ugly Victorian. It had, he admitted, a feeling of solidity and security. Now that the worst of its fantastic inconveniences had been ironed out, it would be quite reasonably comfortable to live in. Not a bad place to come back to from time to time. With luck, he thought, Marina wouldn’t start taking a dislike to it for perhaps two years to two years and a half. It all depended.

Marina said, sighing softly:

‘It’s so wonderful to feel well again. Well and strong. Able to cope with things.’

And he said again: ‘Sure, honey, sure.’

And it was at that moment that the door opened and the Italian butler had ushered in Mrs Bantry.

Marina Gregg’s welcome was all that was charming. She came forward, hands outstretched, saying how delightful it was to meet Mrs Bantry again. And what a coincidence that they should have met that time in San Francisco and that two years later she and Jinks should actually buy the house that had once belonged to Mrs Bantry. And she did hope, she really did hope that Mrs Bantry wouldn’t mind terribly the way they’d pulled the house about and done things to it and she hoped she wouldn’t feel that they were terrible intruders living here.

‘Your coming to live here is one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to this place,’ said Mrs Bantry cheerfully and she looked towards the mantelpiece. Whereupon, almost as an afterthought, Marina Gregg said:

‘You don’t know my husband, do you? Jason, this is Mrs Bantry.’

Mrs Bantry looked at Jason Rudd with some interest. Her first impression that this was one of the ugliest men she had ever seen became qualified. He had interesting eyes. They were, she thought, more deeply sunk in his head than any eyes she had seen. Deep quiet pools, said Mrs Bantry to herself, and felt like a romantic lady novelist. The rest of his face was distinctly craggy, almost ludicrously out of proportion. His nose jutted upwards and a little red paint would have transformed it into the nose of a clown very easily. He had, too, a clown’s big sad mouth. Whether he was at this moment in a furious temper or whether he always looked as though he were in a furious temper she did not quite know. His voice when he spoke was unexpectedly pleasant. Deep and slow.

‘A husband,’ he said, ‘is always an afterthought. But let me say with my wife that we’re very glad to welcome you here. I hope you don’t feel that it ought to be the other way about.’

‘You must get it out of your head,’ said Mrs Bantry, ‘that I’ve been driven forth from my old home. It never was my old home. I’ve been congratulating myself ever since I sold it. It was a most inconvenient house to run. I liked the garden but the house became more and more of a worry. I’ve had a perfectly splendid time ever since, travelling abroad and going and seeing my married daughters and my grandchildren and my friends in all different parts of the world.’

‘Daughters,’ said Marina Gregg, ‘you have daughters and sons?’

‘Two sons and two daughters,’ said Mrs Bantry, ‘and pretty widely spaced. One in Kenya, one in South Africa. One near Texas and the other, thank goodness, in London.’

‘Four,’ said Marina Gregg. ‘Four—and grandchildren?’

‘Nine up to date,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘It’s great fun being a grandmother. You don’t have any of the worry of parental responsibility. You can spoil them in the most unbridled way—’

Jason Rudd interrupted her. ‘I’m afraid the sun catches your eyes,’ he said, and went to a window to adjust the blind. ‘You must tell us all about this delightful village,’ he said as he came back.

He handed her a cup of tea.

‘Will you have a hot scone or a sandwich, or this cake? We have an Italian cook and she makes quite good pastry and cakes. You see we have quite taken to your English afternoon tea.’

‘Delicious tea too,’ said Mrs Bantry, sipping the fragrant beverage.

Marina Gregg smiled and looked pleased. The sudden nervous movement of her fingers which Jason Rudd’s eyes had noticed a minute or two previously, was stilled again. Mrs Bantry looked at her hostess with great admiration. Marina Gregg’s heyday had been before the rise to supreme importance of vital statistics. She could not have been described as Sex Incarnate, or ‘The Bust’ or ‘The Torso’. She had been long and slim and willowy. The bones of her face and head had had some of the beauty associated with those of Garbo. She had brought personality to her pictures rather than mere sex. The sudden turn of her head, the opening of the deep lovely eyes, the faint quiver of her mouth, all these were what brought to one suddenly that feeling of breath-taking loveliness that comes not from regularity of feature but from some sudden magic of the flesh that catches the onlooker unawares. She still had this quality though it was not now so easily apparent. Like many film and stage actresses she had what seemed to be a habit of turning off personality at will. She could retire into herself, be quiet, gentle, aloof, disappointing to an eager fan. And then suddenly the turn of the head, the movement of the hands, the sudden smile and the magic was there.

One of her greatest pictures had been Mary, Queen of Scots, and it was of her performance in that picture that Mrs Bantry was reminded now as she watched her. Mrs Bantry’s eye switched to the husband. He too was watching Marina. Off guard for a moment, his face expressed clearly his feelings. ‘Good Lord,’ said Mrs Bantry to herself, ‘the man adores her.’

She didn’t know why she should feel so surprised. Perhaps because film stars and their love affairs and their devotion were so written up in the Press that one never expected to see the real thing with one’s own eyes. On an impulse she said:

‘I do hope you’ll enjoy it here and that you’ll be able to stay here some time. Do you expect to have the house for long?’

Marina opened wide surprised eyes as she turned her head. ‘I want to stay here always,’ she said. ‘Oh, I don’t mean that I shan’t have to go away a lot. I shall, of course. There’s a possibility of making a film in North Africa next year although nothing’s settled yet. No, but this will be my home. I shall come back here. I shall always be able to come back here.’ She sighed. ‘That’s what’s so wonderful. To have found a home at last.’

‘I see,’ said Mrs Bantry, but at the same time she thought to herself, ‘All the same I don’t believe for a moment that it will be like that. I don’t believe you’re the kind that can ever settle down.’

Again she shot a quick surreptitious glance at Jason Rudd. He was not scowling now. Instead he was smiling, a sudden very sweet and unexpected smile, but it was a sad smile. ‘He knows it too,’ thought Mrs Bantry.

The door opened and a woman came in. ‘Bartletts want you on the telephone, Jason,’ she said.

‘Tell them to call back.’

‘They said it was urgent.’

He sighed and rose. ‘Let me introduce you to Mrs Bantry,’ he said. ‘Ella Zielinsky, my secretary.’

‘Have a cup of tea, Ella,’ said Marina as Ella Zielinsky acknowledged the introduction with a smiling ‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘I’ll have a sandwich,’ said Ella. ‘I don’t go for China tea.’

Ella Zielinsky was at a guess thirty-five. She wore a well cut suit, a ruffled blouse and appeared to breathe self-confidence. She had short-cut black hair and a wide forehead.

‘You used to live here, so they tell me,’ she said to Mrs Bantry.

‘It’s a good many years ago now,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘After my husband’s death I sold it and it’s passed through several hands since then.’

‘Mrs Bantry really says she doesn’t hate the things we’ve done to it,’ said Marina.

‘I should be frightfully disappointed if you hadn’t,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘I came up here all agog. I can tell you the most splendid rumours have been going around the village.’

‘Never knew how difficult it was to get hold of plumbers in this country,’ said Miss Zielinsky, champing a sandwich in a businesslike way. ‘Not that that’s been really my job,’ she went on.

‘Everything is your job,’ said Marina, ‘and you know it is, Ella. The domestic staff and the plumbing and arguing with the builders.’

‘They don’t seem ever to have heard of a picture window in this country.’

Ella looked towards the window. ‘It’s a nice view, I must admit.’

‘A lovely old-fashioned rural English scene,’ said Marina. ‘This house has got atmosphere.’

‘It wouldn’t look so rural if it wasn’t for the trees,’ said Ella Zielinsky. ‘That housing estate down there grows while you look at it.’

‘That’s new since my time,’ said Mrs Bantry.

‘You mean there was nothing but the village when you lived here?’

Mrs Bantry nodded.

‘It must have been hard to do your shopping.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘I think it was frightfully easy.’

‘I understand having a flower garden,’ said Ella Zielinsky, ‘but you folk over here seem to grow all your vegetables as well. Wouldn’t it be much easier to buy them—there’s a supermarket?’

‘It’s probably coming to that,’ said Mrs Bantry, with a sigh. ‘They don’t taste the same, though.’

‘Don’t spoil the atmosphere, Ella,’ said Marina.

The door opened and Jason looked in. ‘Darling,’ he said to Marina, ‘I hate to bother you but would you mind? They just want your private view about this.’

Marina sighed and rose. She trailed languidly towards the door. ‘Always something,’ she murmured. ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Bantry. I don’t really think that this will take longer than a minute or two.’

‘Atmosphere,’ said Ella Zielinsky, as Marina went out and closed the door. ‘Do you think the house has got atmosphere?’

‘I can’t say I ever thought of it that way,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘It was just a house. Rather inconvenient in some ways and very nice and cosy in other ways.’

‘That’s what I should have thought,’ said Ella Zielinsky. She cast a quick direct look at Mrs Bantry. ‘Talking of atmosphere, when did the murder take place here?’

‘No murder ever took place here,’ said Mrs Bantry.

‘Oh come now. The stories I’ve heard. There are always stories, Mrs Bantry. On the hearthrug, right there, wasn’t it?’ said Miss Zielinsky nodding towards the fireplace.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘That was the place.’

‘So there was a murder?’

Mrs Bantry shook her head. ‘The murder didn’t take place here. The girl who had been killed was brought here and planted in this room. She’d nothing to do with us.’

Miss Zielinsky looked interested.

‘Possibly you had a bit of difficulty making people believe that?’ she remarked.

‘You’re quite right there,’ said Mrs Bantry.

‘When did you find it?’

‘The housemaid came in in the morning,’ said Mrs Bantry, ‘with early morning tea. We had housemaids then, you know.’

‘I know,’ said Miss Zielinksy, ‘wearing print dresses that rustled.’

‘I’m not sure about the print dress,’ said Mrs Bantry, ‘it may have been overalls by then. At any rate, she burst in and said there was a body in the library. I said “nonsense”, then I woke up my husband and we came down to see.’

‘And there it was,’ said Miss Zielinsky. ‘My, the way things happen.’ She turned her head sharply towards the door and then back again. ‘Don’t talk about it to Miss Gregg, if you don’t mind,’ she said. ‘It’s not good for her, that sort of thing.’

‘Of course. I won’t say a word,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘I never do talk about it, as a matter of fact. It all happened so long ago. But won’t she—Miss Gregg I mean—won’t she hear it anyway?’

‘She doesn’t come very much in contact with reality,’ said Ella Zielinsky. ‘Film stars can lead a fairly insulated life, you know. In fact very often one has to take care that they do. Things upset them. Things upset her. She’s been seriously ill the last year or two, you know. She only started making a comeback a year ago.’

‘She seems to like the house,’ said Mrs Bantry, ‘and to feel she will be happy here.’

‘I expect it’ll last a year or two,’ said Ella Zielinsky.

‘Not longer than that?’

‘Well, I rather doubt it. Marina is one of those people, you know, who are always thinking they’ve found their heart’s desire. But life isn’t as easy as that, is it?’

‘No,’ said Mrs Bantry forcefully, ‘it isn’t.’

‘It’ll mean a lot to him if she’s happy here,’ said Miss Zielinsky. She ate two more sandwiches in an absorbed, rather gobbling fashion in the manner of one who crams food into themselves as though they had an important train to catch. ‘He’s a genius, you know,’ she went on. ‘Have you seen any of the pictures he’s directed?’

Mrs Bantry felt slightly embarrassed. She was of the type of woman who when she went to the cinema went entirely for the picture. The long lists of casts, directors, producers, photography and the rest of it passed her by. Very frequently, indeed, she did not even notice the names of the stars. She was not, however, anxious to call attention to this failing on her part.

‘I get mixed up,’ she said.

‘Of course he’s got a lot to contend with,’ said Ella Zielinsky. ‘He’s got her as well as everything else and she’s not easy. You’ve got to keep her happy, you see; and it’s not really easy, I suppose, to keep people happy. Unless—that is—they—they are—’ she hesitated.

‘Unless they’re the happy kind,’ suggested Mrs Bantry. ‘Some people,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘enjoy being miserable.’

‘Oh, Marina isn’t like that,’ said Ella Zielinsky, shaking her head. ‘It’s more that her ups and downs are so violent. You know—far too happy one moment, far too pleased with everything and delighted with everything and how wonderful she feels. Then of course some little thing happens and down she goes to the opposite extreme.’

‘I suppose that’s temperament,’ said Mrs Bantry vaguely.

‘That’s right,’ said Ella Zielinsky. ‘Temperament. They’ve all got it, more or less, but Marina Gregg has got it more than most people. Don’t we know it! The stories I could tell you!’ She ate the last sandwich. ‘Thank God I’m only the social secretary.’

CHAPTER 5

The throwing open of the grounds of Gossington Hall for the benefit of the St John Ambulance Association was attended by a quite unprecedented number of people. Shilling admission fees mounted up in a highly satisfactory fashion. For one thing, the weather was good, a clear sunny day. But the preponderant attraction was undoubtedly the enormous local curiosity to know exactly what these ‘film people’ had done to Gossington Hall. The most extravagant assumptions were entertained. The swimming pool in particular caused immense satisfaction. Most people’s ideas of Hollywood stars were of sun-bathing by a pool in exotic surroundings and in exotic company. That the climate of Hollywood might be more suited to swimming pools than that of St Mary Mead failed to be considered. After all, England always has one fine hot week in the summer and there is always one day that the Sunday papers publish articles on How to Keep Cool, How to Have Cool Suppers and How to Make Cool Drinks. The pool was almost exactly what everyone had imagined it might be. It was large, its waters were blue, it had a kind of exotic pavilion for changing and was surrounded with a highly artificial plantation of hedges and shrubs. The reactions of the multitude were exactly as might have been expected and hovered over a wide range of remarks.

‘O-oh, isn’t it lovely!’

‘Two penn’orth of splash here, all right!’

‘Reminds me of that holiday camp I went to.’

‘Wicked luxury I call it. It oughtn’t to be allowed.’

‘Look at all that fancy marble. It must have cost the earth!’

‘Don’t see why these people think they can come over here and spend all the money they like.’

‘Perhaps this’ll be on the telly sometime. That’ll be fun.’

Even Mr Sampson, the oldest man in St Mary Mead, boasting proudly of being ninety-six though his relations insisted firmly that he was only eighty-six, had staggered along supporting his rheumatic legs with a stick, to see this excitement. He gave it his highest praise: ‘Wicked, this!’ He smacked his lips hopefully. ‘Ah, there’ll be a lot of wickedness here, I don’t doubt. Naked men and women drinking and smoking what they call in the papers them reefers. There’ll be all that, I expect. Ah yes,’ said Mr Sampson with enormous pleasure, ‘there’ll be a lot of wickedness.’

It was felt that the final seal of approval had been set on the afternoon’s entertainment. For an extra shilling people were allowed to go into the house, and study the new music room, the drawing-room, the completely unrecognizable dining-room, now done in dark oak and Spanish leather, and a few other joys.

‘Never think this was Gossington Hall, would you, now?’ said Mr Sampson’s daughter-in-law.

Mrs Bantry strolled up fairly late and observed with pleasure that the money was coming in well and that the attendance was phenomenal.

The large marquee in which tea was being served was jammed with people. Mrs Bantry hoped the buns were going to go round. There seemed some very competent women, however, in charge. She herself made a bee-line for the herbaceous border and regarded it with a jealous eye. No expense had been spared on the herbaceous border, she was glad to note, and it was a proper herbaceous border, well planned and arranged and expensively stocked. No personal labours had gone into it, she was sure of that. Some good gardening firm had been given the contract, no doubt. But aided by carte blanche and the weather, they had turned out a very good job.

Looking round her, she felt there was a faint flavour of a Buckingham Palace garden party about the scene. Everybody was craning to see all they could see, and from time to time a chosen few were led into one of the more secret recesses of the house. She herself was presently approached by a willowy young man with long wavy hair.

‘Mrs Bantry? You are Mrs Bantry?’

‘I’m Mrs Bantry, yes.’

‘Hailey Preston.’ He shook hands with her. ‘I work for Mr Rudd. Will you come up to the second floor? Mr and Mrs Rudd are asking a few special friends up there.’

Duly honoured Mrs Bantry followed him. They went in through what had been called in her time the garden door. A red cord cordoned off the bottom of the main stairs. Hailey Preston unhooked it and she passed through. Just in front of her Mrs Bantry observed Councillor and Mrs Allcock. The latter who was stout was breathing heavily.

‘Wonderful what they’ve done, isn’t it, Mrs Bantry?’ panted Mrs Allcock. ‘I’d like to have a look at the bathrooms, I must say, but I suppose I shan’t get the chance.’ Her voice was wistful.

At the top of the stairs Marina Gregg and Jason Rudd were receiving this specially chosen élite. What had once been a spare bedroom had been thrown into the landing so as to make a wide lounge-like effect. Giuseppe the butler was officiating with drinks.

A stout man in livery was announcing guests.

‘Councillor and Mrs Allcock,’ he boomed.

Marina Gregg was being, as Mrs Bantry had described her to Miss Marple, completely natural and charming. She could already hear Mrs Allcock saying later: ‘—and so unspoiled, you know, in spite of being so famous.’

How very nice of Mrs Allcock to come, and the Councillor, and she did hope they’d enjoy their afternoon. ‘Jason, please look after Mrs Allcock.’

Councillor and Mrs Allcock were passed on to Jason and drinks.

‘Oh, Mrs Bantry, it is nice of you to come.’

‘I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,’ said Mrs Bantry and moved on purposefully towards the Martinis.

The young man called Hailey Preston ministered to her in a tender manner and then made off, consulting a little list in his hand, to fetch, no doubt, more of the Chosen to the Presence. It was all being managed very well, Mrs Bantry thought, turning, Martini in hand, to watch the next arrivals. The vicar, a lean, ascetic man, was looking vague and slightly bewildered. He said earnestly to Marina Gregg:

‘Very nice of you to ask me. I’m afraid, you know, I haven’t got a television set myself, but of course I—er—I—well, of course my young people keep me up to the mark.’

Nobody knew what he meant. Miss Zielinsky, who was also on duty, administered a lemonade to him with a kindly smile. Mr and Mrs Badcock were next up the stairs. Heather Badcock, flushed and triumphant, came a little ahead of her husband.

‘Mr and Mrs Badcock,’ boomed the man in livery.

‘Mrs Badcock,’ said the vicar, turning back, lemonade in his hand, ‘the indefatigable secretary of the association. She’s one of our hardest workers. In fact I don’t know what the St John would do without her.’

‘I’m sure you’ve been wonderful,’ said Marina.

‘You don’t remember me?’ said Heather, in an arch manner. ‘How should you, with all the hundreds of people you meet. And anyway, it was years ago. In Bermuda of all places in the world. I was there with one of our ambulance units. Oh, it’s a long time ago now.’

‘Of course,’ said Marina Gregg, once more all charm and smiles.

‘I remember it all so well,’ said Mrs Badcock. ‘I was thrilled, you know, absolutely thrilled. I was only a girl at the time. To think there was a chance of seeing Marina Gregg in the flesh—oh! I was a mad fan of yours always.’

‘It’s too kind of you, really too kind of you,’ said Marina sweetly, her eyes beginning to hover faintly over Heather’s shoulder towards the next arrivals.

‘I’m not going to detain you,’ said Heather—‘but I must—’

‘Poor Marina Gregg,’ said Mrs Bantry to herself. ‘I suppose this kind of thing is always happening to her! The patience they need!’

Heather was continuing in a determined manner with her story.

Mrs Allcock breathed heavily at Mrs Bantry’s shoulder.

‘The changes they’ve made here! You wouldn’t believe till you saw for yourself. What it must have cost …’

‘I—didn’t feel really ill—and I thought I just must—’

‘This is vodka,’ Mrs Allcock regarded her glass suspiciously. ‘Mr Rudd asked if I’d like to try it. Sounds very Russian. I don’t think I like it very much …’

‘—I said to myself: I won’t be beaten! I put a lot of make-up on my face—’

‘I suppose it would be rude if I just put it down somewhere.’ Mrs Allcock sounded desperate.

Mrs Bantry reassured her gently.

‘Not at all. Vodka ought really to be thrown straight down the throat’—Mrs Allcock looked startled—‘but that needs practice. Put it down on the table and get yourself a Martini from that tray the butler’s carrying.’

She turned back to hear Heather Badcock’s triumphant peroration.

‘I’ve never forgotten how wonderful you were that day. It was a hundred times worth it.’

Marina’s response was this time not so automatic. Her eyes which had wavered over Heather Badcock’s shoulder, now seemed to be fixed on the wall midway up the stairs. She was staring and there was something so ghastly in her expression that Mrs Bantry half took a step forward. Was the woman going to faint? What on earth could she be seeing that gave her that basilisk look? But before she could reach Marina’s side the latter had recovered herself. Her eyes, vague and unfocussed, returned to Heather and the charm of manner was turned on once more, albeit a shade mechanically.

‘What a nice little story. Now, what will you have to drink? Jason! A cocktail?’

‘Well, really I usually have lemonade or orange juice.’

‘You must have something better than that,’ said Marina. ‘This is a feast day, remember.’

‘Let me persuade you to an American daiquiri,’ said Jason, appearing with a couple in his hand. ‘They’re Marina’s favourites, too.’

He handed one to his wife.

‘I shouldn’t drink any more,’ said Marina, ‘I’ve had three already.’ But she accepted the glass.

Heather took her drink from Jason. Marina turned away to meet the next person who was arriving.

Mrs Bantry said to Mrs Allcock, ‘Let’s go and see the bathrooms.’

‘Oh, do you think we can? Wouldn’t it look rather rude?’

‘I’m sure it wouldn’t,’ said Mrs Bantry. She spoke to Jason Rudd. ‘We want to explore your wonderful new bathrooms, Mr Rudd. May we satisfy this purely domestic curiosity?’

‘Sure,’ said Jason, grinning. ‘Go and enjoy yourselves, girls. Draw yourselves baths if you like.’

Mrs Allcock followed Mrs Bantry along the passage.

‘That was ever so kind of you, Mrs Bantry. I must say I wouldn’t have dared myself.’

‘One has to dare if one wants to get anywhere,’ said Mrs Bantry.

They went along the passage, opening various doors. Presently ‘Ahs’ and ‘Ohs’ began to escape Mrs Allcock and two other women who had joined the party.

‘I do like the pink one,’ said Mrs Allcock. ‘Oh, I like the pink one a lot.’

‘I like the one with the dolphin tiles,’ said one of the other women.

Mrs Bantry acted the part of hostess with complete enjoyment. For a moment she had really forgotten that the house no longer belonged to her.

‘All those showers!’ said Mrs Allcock with awe. ‘Not that I really like showers. I never know how you keep your head dry.’

‘It’d be nice to have a peep into the bedrooms,’ said one of the other women, wistfully, ‘but I suppose it’d be a bit too nosy. What do you think?’

‘Oh, I don’t think we could do that,’ said Mrs Allcock. They both looked hopefully at Mrs Bantry.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Bantry, ‘no, I suppose we oughtn’t to—’ then she took pity on them, ‘but—I don’t think anyone would know if we have one peep.’ She put her hand on a door-handle.

But that had been attended to. The bedrooms were locked. Everyone was very disappointed.

‘I suppose they’ve got to have some privacy,’ said Mrs Bantry kindly.

They retraced their steps along the corridors. Mrs Bantry looked out of one of the landing windows. She noted below her Mrs Meavy (from the Development) looking incredibly smart in a ruffled organdie dress. With Mrs Meavy, she noticed, was Miss Marple’s Cherry, whose last name for the moment Mrs Bantry could not remember. They seemed to be enjoying themselves and were laughing and talking.

Suddenly the house felt to Mrs Bantry old, worn-out and highly artificial. In spite of its new gleaming paint, its alterations, it was in essence a tired old Victorian mansion. ‘I was wise to go,’ thought Mrs Bantry. ‘Houses are like everything else. There comes a time when they’ve just had their day. This has had its day. It’s been given a face lift, but I don’t really think it’s done it any good.’

Suddenly a slight rise in the hum of voices reached her. The two women with her started forward.

‘What’s happening?’ said one. ‘It sounds as though something’s happening.’

They stepped back along the corridor towards the stairs. Ella Zielinksy came rapidly along and passed them. She tried a bedroom door and said quickly, ‘Oh, damn. Of course they’ve locked them all.’

‘Is anything the matter?’ asked Mrs Bantry.

‘Someone’s taken ill,’ said Miss Zielinsky shortly.

‘Oh dear, I’m sorry. Can I do anything?’

‘I suppose there’s a doctor here somewhere?’

‘I haven’t seen any of our local doctors,’ said Mrs Bantry, ‘but there’s almost sure to be one here.’

‘Jason’s telephoning,’ said Ella Zielinsky, ‘but she seems pretty bad.’

‘Who is it?’ asked Mrs Bantry.

‘A Mrs Badcock, I think.’

‘Heather Badcock? But she looked so well just now.’

Ella Zielinksy said impatiently, ‘She’s had a seizure, or a fit, or something. Do you know if there’s anything wrong with her heart or anything like that?’

‘I don’t really know anything about her,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘She’s new since my day. She comes from the Development.’

‘The Development? Oh, you mean that housing estate. I don’t even know where her husband is or what he looks like.’

‘Middle-aged, fair, unobtrusive,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘He came with her so he must be about somewhere.’

Ella Zielinsky went into a bathroom. ‘I don’t know really what to give her,’ she said. ‘Sal volatile, do you think, something like that?’

‘Is she faint?’ said Mrs Bantry.

‘It’s more than that,’ said Ella Zielinsky.

‘I’ll see if there’s anything I can do,’ said Mrs Bantry. She turned away and walked rapidly back towards the head of the stairs. Turning a corner she cannoned into Jason Rudd.

‘Have you seen Ella?’ he said. ‘Ella Zielinsky?’

‘She went along there into one of the bathrooms. She was looking for something. Sal volatile—something like that.’

‘She needn’t bother,’ said Jason Rudd.

Something in his tone struck Mrs Bantry. She looked up sharply. ‘Is it bad?’ she said, ‘really bad?’

‘You could call it that,’ said Jason Rudd. ‘The poor woman’s dead.’

‘Dead!’ Mrs Bantry was really shocked. She said, as she had said before, ‘But she looked so well just now.’

‘I know. I know,’ said Jason. He stood there, scowling. ‘What a thing to happen!’

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