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“I don’t see that,” I said. “Colonel Protheroe merely wrote that he couldn’t wait any longer—”
“At twenty minutes past six?” said Miss Marple. “Your maid, Mary, had already told him that you wouldn’t be in till half past six at the earliest, and he appeared to be quite willing to wait until then. And yet at twenty past six he sits down and says he ‘can’t wait any longer.’”
I stared at the old lady, feeling an increased respect for her mental powers. Her keen wits had seen what we had failed to perceive. It was an odd thing—a very odd thing.
“If only,” I said, “the letter hadn’t been dated—”
Miss Marple nodded her head.
“Exactly,” she said. “If it hadn’t been dated!”
I cast my mind back, trying to recall that sheet of notepaper and the blurred scrawl, and at the top that neatly printed 6:20. Surely these figures were on a different scale to the rest of the letter. I gave a gasp.
“Supposing,” I said, “it wasn’t dated. Supposing that round about 6:30 Colonel Protheroe got impatient and sat down to say he couldn’t wait any longer. And as he was sitting there writing, someone came in through the window—”
“Or through the door,” suggested Griselda.
“He’d hear the door and look up.”
“Colonel Protheroe was rather deaf, you remember,” said Miss Marple.
“Yes, that’s true. He wouldn’t hear it. Whichever way the murderer came, he stole up behind the Colonel and shot him. Then he saw the note and the clock and the idea came to him. He put 6:20 at the top of the letter and he altered the clock to 6:22. It was a clever idea. It gave him, or so he would think, a perfect alibi.”
“And what we want to find,” said Griselda, “is someone who has a cast-iron alibi for 6:20, but no alibi at all for—well, that isn’t so easy. One can’t fix the time.”
“We can fix it within very narrow limits,” I said. “Haydock places 6:30 as the outside limit of time. I suppose one could perhaps shift it to 6:35 from the reasoning we have just been following out, it seems clear that Protheroe would not have got impatient before 6:30. I think we can say we do know pretty well.”
“Then that shot I heard—yes, I suppose it is quite possible. And I thought nothing about it—nothing at all. Most vexing. And yet, now I try to recollect, it does seem to me that it was different from the usual sort of shot one hears. Yes, there was a difference.”
“Louder?” I suggested.
No, Miss Marple didn’t think it had been louder. In fact, she found it hard to say in what way it had been different, but she still insisted that it was.
I thought she was probably persuading herself of the fact rather than actually remembering it, but she had just contributed such a valuable new outlook to the problem that I felt highly respectful towards her.
She rose, murmuring that she must really get back—it had been so tempting just to run over and discuss the case with dear Griselda. I escorted her to the boundary wall and the back gate and returned to find Griselda wrapped in thought.
“Still puzzling over that note?” I asked.
“No.”
She gave a sudden shiver and shook her shoulders impatiently.
“Len, I’ve been thinking. How badly someone must have hated Anne Protheroe!”
“Hated her?”
“Yes. Don’t you see? There’s no real evidence against Lawrence—all the evidence against him is what you might call accidental. He just happens to take it into his head to come here. If he hadn’t—well, no one would have thought of connecting him with the crime. But Anne is different. Suppose someone knew that she was here at exactly 6:20—the clock and the time on the letter—everything pointing to her. I don’t think it was only because of an alibi it was moved to that exact time—I think there was more in it than that—a direct attempt to fasten the business on her. If it hadn’t been for Miss Marple saying she hadn’t got the pistol with her and noticing that she was only a moment before going down to the studio—Yes, if it hadn’t been for that …” She shivered again. “Len, I feel that someone hated Anne Protheroe very much. I—I don’t like it.”
Twelve
I was summoned to the study when Lawrence Redding arrived. He looked haggard, and, I thought, suspicious. Colonel Melchett greeted him with something approaching cordiality.
“We want to ask you a few questions—here, on the spot,” he said.
Lawrence sneered slightly.
“Isn’t that a French idea? Reconstruction of the crime?”
“My dear boy,” said Colonel Melchett, “don’t take that tone with us. Are you aware that someone else has also confessed to committing the crime which you pretend to have committed?”
The effect of these words on Lawrence was painful and immediate.
“S-s-omeone else?” he stammered. “Who—who?”
“Mrs. Protheroe,” said Colonel Melchett, watching him.
“Absurd. She never did it. She couldn’t have. It’s impossible.”
Melchett interrupted him.
“Strangely enough, we did not believe her story. Neither, I may say, do we believe yours. Dr. Haydock says positively that the murder could not have been committed at the time you say it was.”
“Dr. Haydock says that?”
“Yes, so, you see, you are cleared whether you like it or not. And now we want you to help us, to tell us exactly what occurred.”
Lawrence still hesitated.
“You’re not deceiving me about—about Mrs. Protheroe? You really don’t suspect her?”
“On my word of honour,” said Colonel Melchett.
Lawrence drew a deep breath.
“I’ve been a fool,” he said. “An absolute fool. How could I have thought for one minute that she did it—”
“Suppose you tell us all about it?” suggested the Chief Constable.
“There’s not much to tell. I—I met Mrs. Protheroe that afternoon—” He paused.
“We know all about that,” said Melchett. “You may think that your feeling for Mrs. Protheroe and hers for you was a dead secret, but in reality it was known and commented upon. In any case, everything is bound to come out now.”
“Very well, then. I expect you are right. I had promised the Vicar here (he glanced at me) to—to go right away. I met Mrs. Protheroe that evening in the studio at a quarter past six. I told her of what I had decided. She, too, agreed that it was the only thing to do. We—we said good-bye to each other.
“We left the studio, and almost at once Dr. Stone joined us. Anne managed to seem marvellously natural. I couldn’t do it. I went off with Stone to the Blue Boar and had a drink. Then I thought I’d go home, but when I got to the corner of this road, I changed my mind and decided to come along and see the Vicar. I felt I wanted someone to talk to about the matter.
“At the door, the maid told me the Vicar was out, but would be in shortly, but that Colonel Protheroe was in the study waiting for him. Well, I didn’t l
ike to go away again—looked as though I were shirking meeting him. So I said I’d wait too, and I went into the study.”
He stopped.
“Well?” said Colonel Melchett.
“Protheroe was sitting at the writing table—just as you found him. I went up to him—touched him. He was dead. Then I looked down and saw the pistol lying on the floor beside him. I picked it up—and at once saw that it was my pistol.
“That gave me a turn. My pistol! And then, straightaway I leaped to one conclusion. Anne must have bagged my pistol some time or other—meaning it for herself if she couldn’t bear things any longer. Perhaps she had had it with her today. After we parted in the village she must have come back here and—and—oh! I suppose I was mad to think of it. But that’s what I thought. I slipped the pistol in my pocket and came away. Just outside the Vicarage gate, I met the Vicar. He said something nice and normal about seeing Protheroe—suddenly I had a wild desire to laugh. His manner was so ordinary and everyday and there was I all strung up. I remember shouting out something absurd and seeing his face change. I was nearly off my head, I believe. I went walking—walking—at last I couldn’t bear it any longer. If Anne had done this ghastly thing, I was, at least, morally responsible. I went and gave myself up.”
There was a silence when he had finished. Then the Colonel said in a businesslike voice:
“I would like to ask just one or two questions. First, did you touch or move the body in any way?”
“No, I didn’t touch it at all. One could see he was dead without touching him.”
“Did you notice a note lying on the blotter half concealed by his body?”
