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Joanna said:
“And he killed Agnes? But surely that was quite unnecessary?”
“Perhaps it was, but what you don’t realize, my dear (not having killed anyone), is that your judgment is distorted afterwards and everything seems exaggerated. No doubt he heard the girl telephoning to Partridge, saying she’d been worried ever since Mrs. Symmington’s death, that there was something she didn’t understand. He can’t take any chances—this stupid, foolish girl has seen something, knows something.”
“Yet apparently he was at his office all that afternoon?”
“I should imagine he killed her before he went. Miss Holland was in the dining room and kitchen. He just went out into the hall, opened and shut the front door as though he had gone out, then slipped into the little cloakroom. When only Agnes was left in the house, he probably rang the front door bell, slipped back into the cloakroom, came out behind her and hit her on the head as she was opening the front door, and then after thrusting the body into the cupboard, he hurried along to his office, arriving just a little late if anyone had happened to notice it, but they probably didn’t. You see, no one was suspecting a man.”
“Abominable brute,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop.
“You’re not sorry for him, Mrs. Dane Calthrop?” I inquired.
“Not in the least. Why?”
“I’m glad to hear it, that’s all.”
Joanna said:
“But why Aimée Griffith? I know that the police have found the pestle taken from Owen’s dispensary—and the skewer too. I suppose it’s not so easy for a man to return things to kitchen drawers. And guess where they were? Superintendent Nash only told me just now when I met him on my way here. In one of those musty old deed-boxes in his office. Estate of Sir Jasper Harrington-West, deceased.”
“Poor Jasper,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop. “He was a cousin of mine. Such a correct old boy. He would have had a fit!”
“Wasn’t it madness to keep them?” I asked.
“Probably madder to throw them away,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop. “No one had any suspicions about Symmington.”
“He didn’t strike her with the pestle,” said Joanna. “There was a clock weight there too, with hair and blood on it. He pinched the pestle, they think, on the day Aimée was arrested, and hid the book pages in her house. And that brings me back to my original question. What about Aimée Griffith? The police actually saw her write that letter.”
“Yes, of course,” said Miss Marple. “She did write that letter.”
“But why?”
“Oh, my dear, surely you have realized that Miss Griffith had been in love with Symmington all her life?”
“Poor thing!” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop mechanically.
“They’d always been good friends, and I dare say she thought, after Mrs. Symmington’s death, that some day, perhaps—well—” Miss Marple coughed delicately. “And then the gossip began spreading about Elsie Holland and I expect that upset her badly. She thought of the girl as a designing minx worming her way into Symmington’s affections and quite unworthy of him. And so, I think, she succumbed to temptation. Why not add one more anonymous letter, and frighten the girl out of the place? It must have seemed quite safe to her and she took, as she thought, every precaution.”
“Well?” said Joanna. “Finish the story.”
“I should imagine,” said Miss Marple slowly, “that when Miss Holland showed that letter to Symmington he realized at once who had written it, and he saw a chance to finish the case once and for all, and make himself safe. Not very nice—no, not very nice, but he was frightened, you see. The police wouldn’t be satisfied until they’d got the anonymous letter writer. When he took the letter down to the police and he found they’d actually seen Aimée writing it, he felt he’d got a chance in a thousand of finishing the whole thing.
“He took the family to tea there that afternoon and as he came from the office with his attaché case, he could easily bring the tornout book pages to hide under the stairs and clinch the case. Hiding them under the stairs was a neat touch. It recalled the disposal of Agnes’s body, and, from the practical point of view, it was very easy for him. When he followed Aimée and the police, just a minute or two in the hall passing through would be enough.”
“All the same,” I said, “there’s one thing I can’t forgive you for, Miss Marple—roping in Megan.”
Miss Marple put down her crochet which she had resumed. She looked at me over her spectacles and her eyes were stern.
“My dear young man, something had to be done. There was no evidence against this very clever and unscrupulous man. I needed someone to help me, someone of high courage and good brains. I found the person I needed.”
“It was very dangerous for her.”
“Yes, it was dangerous, but we are not put into this world, Mr. Burton, to avoid danger when an innocent fellow-creature’s life is at stake. You understand me?”
I understood.
Fifteen
I
Morning in the High Street.
Miss Emily Barton comes out of the grocer’s with her shopping bag. Her cheeks are pink and her eyes are excited.
“Oh, dear, Mr. Burton, I really am in such a flutter. To think I really am going on a cruise at last!”
“I hope you’ll enjoy it.”
“Oh, I’m sure I shall. I should never have dared to go by myself. It does seem so providential the way everything has turned out. For a long time I’ve felt that I ought to part with Little Furze, that my means were really too straitened but I couldn’t bear the idea of strangers there. But now that you have bought it and are going to live there with Megan—it is quite different. And then dear Aimée, after her terrible ordeal, not quite knowing what to do with herself, and her brother getting married (how nice to think you have both settled down with us!) and agreeing to come with me. We mean to be away quite a long time. We might even”—Miss Emily dropped her voice—“go round the world! And Aimée is so splendid and so practical. I really do think, don’t you, that everything turns out for the best?”
Just for a fleeting moment I thought of Mrs. Symmington and Agnes Woddell in their graves in the churchyard and wondered if they would agree, and then I remembered that Agnes’s boy hadn’t been very fond of her and that Mrs. Symmington hadn’t been very nice to Megan and, what the hell? we’ve all got to die some time! And I agreed with happy Miss Emily that everything was for the best in the best of possible worlds.
I went along the High Street and in at the Symmingtons’ gate and Megan came out to meet me.
It was not a romantic meeting because an out-size Old English sheepdog came out with Megan and nearly knocked me over with his ill-timed exuberance.
“Isn’t he adorable?” said Megan.
“A little overwhelming. Is he ours?”
“Yes, he’s a wedding present from Joanna. We have had nice wedding presents, haven’t we? That fluffy woolly thing that we don’t know what it’s for from Miss Marple, and the lovely Crown Derby tea set from Mr. Pye, and Elsie has sent me a toast-rack—”
“How typical,” I interjected.
“And she’s got a post with a dentist and is very happy. And—where was I?”
“Enumerating wedding presents. Don’t forget if you change your mind you’ll have to send them all back.”
“I shan’t change my mind. What else have we got? Oh, yes, Mrs. Dane Calthrop has sent an Egyptian scarab.”
“Original woman,” I said.
“Oh! Oh! but you don’t know the best. Partridge has actually sent me a present. It’s the most hideous teacloth you’ve ever seen. But I think she must like me now because she says she embroidered it all with her own hands.”
“In a design of sour grapes and thistles, I suppose?”
“No, true lovers’ knots.”
“Dear, dear,” I said, “Partridge is coming on.”
Megan had dragged me into the house.
She said:
“There?
??s just one thing I can’t make out. Besides the dog’s own collar and lead, Joanna has sent an extra collar and lead. What do you think that’s for?”
“That,” I said, “is Joanna’s little joke.”
* * *
