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Her tone was indulgent once more, but her eyes still held a slight reproach.
“Yes—yes, thank you, Letty. I must just pop into the chemists in passing and get some aspirin and some cornplasters.”
As the doors of the Bluebird swung to behind them, Bunch asked:
“What were you talking about?”
Miss Marple did not reply at once. She waited whilst Bunch gave the order, then she said:
“Family solidarity is a very strong thing. Very strong. Do you remember some famous case—I really can’t remember what it was. They said the husband poisoned his wife. In a glass of wine. Then, at the trial, the daughter said she’d drunk half her mother’s glass—so that knocked the case against her father to pieces. They do say—but that may be just rumour—that she never spoke to her father or lived with him again. Of course, a father is one thing—and a nephew or a distant cousin is another. But still there it is—no one wants a member of their own family hanged, do they?”
“No,” said Bunch, considering. “I shouldn’t think they would.”
Miss Marple leaned back in her chair. She murmured under her breath, “People are really very alike, everywhere.”
“Who am I like?”
“Well, really, dear, you are very much like yourself. I don’t know that you remind me of anyone in particular. Except perhaps—”
“Here it comes,” said Bunch.
“I was just thinking of a parlourmaid of mine, dear.”
“A parlourmaid? I should make a terrible parlourmaid.”
“Yes, dear, so did she. She was no good at all at waiting at table. Put everything on the table crooked, mixed up the kitchen knives with the dining room ones, and her cap (this was a long time ago, dear) her cap was never straight.”
Bunch adjusted her hat automatically.
“Anything else?” she demanded anxiously.
“I kept her because she was so pleasant to have about the house—and because she used to make me laugh. I liked the way she said things straight out. Came to me one day, ‘Of course, I don’t know, ma’am,’ she says, ‘but Florrie, the way she sits down, it’s just like a married woman.’ And sure enough poor Florrie was in trouble—the gentlemanly assistant at the hairdresser’s. Fortunately it was in good time, and I was able to have a little talk with him, and they had a very nice wedding and settled down quite happily. She was a good girl, Florrie, but inclined to be taken in by a gentlemanly appearance.”
“She didn’t do a murder, did she?” asked Bunch. “The parlourmaid, I mean.”
“No, indeed,” said Miss Marple. “She married a Baptist Minister and they had a family of five.”
“Just like me,” said Bunch. “Though I’ve only got as far as Edward and Susan up to date.”
She added, after a minute or two:
“Who are you thinking about now, Aunt Jane?”
“Quite a lot of people, dear, quite a lot of people,” said Miss Marple, vaguely.
“In St. Mary Mead?”
“Mostly … I was really thinking about Nurse Ellerton—really an excellent kindly woman. Took care of an old lady, seemed really fond of her. Then the old lady died. And another came and she died. Morphia. It all came out. Done in the kindest way, and the shocking thing was that the woman herself really couldn’t see that she’d done anything wrong. They hadn’t long to live in any case, she said, and one of them had cancer and quite a lot of pain.”
“You mean—it was a mercy killing?”
“No, no. They signed their money away to her. She liked money, you know….
“And then there was that young man on the liner—Mrs. Pusey at the paper shop, her nephew. Brought home stuff he’d stolen and got her to dispose of it. Said it was things that he’d bought abroad. She was quite taken in. And then when the police came round and started asking questions, he tried to bash her on the head, so that she shouldn’t be able to give him away … Not a nice young man—but very good-looking. Had two girls in love with him. He spent a lot of money on one of them.”
“The nastiest one, I suppose,” said Bunch.
“Yes, dear. And there was Mrs. Cray at the wool shop. Devoted to her son, spoilt him, of course. He got in with a very queer lot. Do you remember Joan Croft, Bunch?”
“N-no, I don’t think so.”
“I thought you might have seen her when you were with me on a visit. Used to stalk about smoking a cigar or a pipe. We had a Bank hold-up once, and Joan Croft was in the Bank at the time. She knocked the man down and took his revolver away from him. She was congratulated on her courage by the Bench.”
Bunch listened attentively. She seemed to be learning by heart.
“And—?” she prompted.
“That girl at St. Jean des Collines that summer. Such a quiet girl—not so much quiet as silent. Everybody liked her, but they never got to know her much better … We heard afterwards that her husband was a forger. It made her feel cut off from people. It made her, in the end, a little queer. Brooding does, you know.”
“Any Anglo-Indian Colonels in your reminiscences, darling?”
“Naturally, dear. There was Major Vaughan at The Larches and Colonel Wright at Simla Lodge. Nothing wrong with either of them. But I do remember Mr. Hodgson, the Bank Manager, went on a cruise and married a woman young enough to be his daughter. No idea of where she came from—except what she told him of course.”
“And that wasn’t true?”
“No, de
ar, it definitely wasn’t.”
“Not bad,” said Bunch, nodding, and ticking people off on her fingers. “We’ve had devoted Dora, and handsome Patrick, and Mrs. Swettenham and Edmund, and Phillipa Haymes, and Colonel Easterbrook and Mrs. Easterbrook—and if you ask me, I should say you’re absolutely right about her. But there wouldn’t be any reason for her murdering Letty Blacklock.”
“Miss Blacklock, of course, might know something about her that she didn’t want known.”
“Oh, darling, that old Tanqueray stuff? Surely that’s dead as the hills.”
“It might not be. You see, Bunch, you are not the kind that minds much about what people think of you.”
“I see what you mean,” said Bunch suddenly. “If you’d been up against it, and then, rather like a shivering stray cat, you’d found a home and cream and a warm stroking hand and you were called Pretty Pussy and somebody thought the world of you … You’d do a lot to keep that … Well, I must say, you’ve presented me with a very complete gallery of people.”
“You didn’t get them all right, you know,” said Miss Marple, mildly.
“Didn’t I? Where did I slip up? Julia? Julia, pretty Julia is peculiar.”
“Three and sixpence,” said the sulky waitress, materialising out of the gloom.
“And,” she added, her bosom heaving beneath the bluebirds, “I’d like to know, Mrs. Harmon, why you call me peculiar. I had an Aunt who joined the Peculiar People, but I’ve always been good Church of England myself, as the late Rev. Hopkinson can tell you.”
“I’m terribly sorry,” said Bunch. “I was just quoting a song. I didn’t mean you at all. I didn’t know your name was Julia.”
“Quite a coincidence,” said the sulky waitress, cheering up. “No offence, I’m sure, but hearing my name, as I thought—well, naturally if you think someone’s talking about you, it’s only human nature to listen. Thank you.”
She departed with her tip.
“Aunt Jane,” said Bunch, “don’t look so upset. What is it?”
“But surely,” murmured Miss Marple. “That couldn’t be so. There’s no reason—”
