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II
Craddock came away from his interview with Phillipa Haymes feeling angry and baffled.
“Obstinate as a mule,” he said to himself angrily.
He was fairly sure that Phillipa was lying, but he hadn’t succeeded in breaking down her obstinate denials.
He wished he knew a little more about ex-Captain Haymes. His information was meagre. An unsatisfactory Army record, but nothing to suggest that Haymes was likely to turn criminal.
And anyway Haymes didn’t fit in with the oiled door.
Someone in the house had done that, or someone with easy access to it.
He stood looking up the staircase, and suddenly he wondered what Julia had been doing up in the attic. An attic, he thought, was an unlikely place for the fastidious Julia to visit.
What had she been doing up there?
He ran lightly up to the first floor. There was no one about. He opened the door out of which Julia had come and went up the n
arrow stairs to the attic.
There were trunks there, old suitcases, various broken articles of furniture, a chair with a leg off, a broken china lamp, part of an old dinner service.
He turned to the trunks and opened the lid of one.
Clothes. Old-fashioned, quite good-quality women’s clothes. Clothes belonging, he supposed, to Miss Blacklock, or to her sister who had died.
He opened another trunk.
Curtains.
He passed to a small attaché-case. It had papers in it and letters. Very old letters, yellowed with time.
He looked at the outside of the case which had the initials C.L.B. on it. He deduced correctly that it had belonged to Letitia’s sister Charlotte. He unfolded one of the letters. It began
Dearest Charlotte.
Yesterday Belle felt well enough to go for a picnic. R.G. also took a day off. The Asvogel flotation has gone splendidly, R.G. is terribly pleased about it. The Preference shares are at a premium.
He skipped the rest and looked at the signature:
Your loving sister, Letitia.
He picked up another.
Darling Charlotte.
I wish you would sometimes make up your mind to see people. You do exaggerate, you know. It isn’t nearly as bad as you think. And people really don’t mind things like that. It’s not the disfigurement you think it is.
He nodded his head. He remembered Belle Goedler saying that Charlotte Blacklock had a disfigurement or deformity of some kind. Letitia had, in the end, resigned her job, to go and look after her sister. These letters all breathed the anxious spirit of her affection and love for an invalid. She had written her sister, apparently, long accounts of everyday happenings, of any little detail that she thought might interest the sick girl. And Charlotte had kept these letters. Occasionally odd snapshots had been enclosed.
Excitement suddenly flooded Craddock’s mind. Here, it might be, he would find a clue. In these letters there would be written down things that Letitia Blacklock herself had long forgotten. Here was a faithful picture of the past and somewhere amongst it, there might be a clue that would help him to identify the unknown. Photographs, too. There might, just possibly, be a photograph of Sonia Goedler here that the person who had taken the other photos out of the album did not know about.
Inspector Craddock packed the letters up again, carefully, closed the case, and started down the stairs.
Letitia Blacklock, standing on the landing below, looked at him in amazement.
“Was that you up in the attic? I heard footsteps. I couldn’t imagine who—”
“Miss Blacklock, I have found some letters here, written by you to your sister Charlotte many years ago. Will you allow me to take them away and read them?”
She flushed angrily.
“Must you do a thing like that? Why? What good can they be to you?”
“They might give me a picture of Sonia Goedler, of her character—there may be some allusion—some incident—that will help.”
“They are private letters, Inspector.”
“I know.”
“I suppose you will take them anyway … You have the power to do so, I suppose, or you can easily get it. Take them—take them! But you’ll find very little about Sonia. She married and went away only a year or two after I began to work for Randall Goedler.”
Craddock said obstinately:
“There may be something.” He added, “We’ve got to try everything. I assure you the danger is very real.”
She said, biting her lips:
“I know. Bunny is dead—from taking an aspirin tablet that was meant for me. It may be Patrick, or Julia, or Phillipa, or Mitzi next—somebody young with their life in front of them. Somebody who drinks a glass of wine that is poured out for me, or eats a chocolate that is sent to me. Oh! take the letters—take them away. And afterwards burn them. They don’t mean anything to anyone but me and Charlotte. It’s all over—gone—past. Nobody remembers now….”
Her hand went up to the choker of false pearls she was wearing. Caddock thought how incongruous it looked with her tweed coat and skirt.
She said again:
“Take the letters.”
III
It was the following afternoon that the Inspector called at the Vicarage.
It was a dark gusty day.
Miss Marple had her chair pulled close to the fire and was knitting. Bunch was on hands and knees, crawling about the floor, cutting out material to a pattern.
She sat back and pushed a mop of hair out of her eyes, looking up expectantly at Craddock.
“I don’t know if it’s a breach of confidence,” said the Inspector, addressing himself to Miss Marple, “but I’d like you to look at this letter.”
He explained the circumstances of his discovery in the attic.
“It’s rather a touching collection of letters,” he said. “Miss Blacklock poured out everything in the hopes of sustaining her sister’s interest in life and keeping her health good. There’s a very clear picture of an old father in the background—old Dr. Blacklock. A real old pig-headed bully, absolutely set in his ways, and convinced that everything he thought and said was right. Probably killed thousands of patients through obstinacy. He wouldn’t stand for any new ideas or methods.”
“I don’t really know that I blame him there,” said Miss Marple. “I always feel that the young doctors are only too anxious to experiment. After they’ve whipped out all our teeth, and administered quantities of very peculiar glands, and removed bits of our insides, they then confess that nothing can be done for us. I really prefer the old-fashioned remedy of big black bottles of medicine. After all, one can always pour those down the sink.”
She took the letter that Craddock handed her.
He said: “I want you to read it because I think that that generation is more easily understood by you than by me. I don’t know really quite how these people’s minds worked.”
Miss Marple unfolded the fragile paper.
Dearest Charlotte,
I’ve not written for two days because we’ve been having the most terrible domestic complications. Randall’s sister Sonia (you remember her? She came to take you out in the car that day? How I wish you would go out more). Sonia has declared her intention of marrying one Dmitri Stamfordis. I have only seen him once. Very attractive—not to be trusted, I should say. R.G. raves against him and says he is a crook and a swindler. Belle, bless her, just smiles and lies on her sofa. Sonia, who though she looks so impassive has really a terrific temper, is simply wild with R.G. I really thought yesterday she was going to murder him!
I’ve done my best. I’ve talked to Sonia and I’ve talked to R.G. and I’ve got them both into a more reasonable frame of mind and then they come together and it all starts over again! You’ve no idea how tiring it is. R.G. has been making enquiries—and it does really seem as though this Stamfordis man was thoroughly undesirable.
In the meantime business is being neglected. I carry on at the office and in a way it’s rather fun because R.G. gives me a free hand. He said to me yesterday: “Thank Heaven, there’s one sane person in the world. You’re never likely to fall in love with a crook, Blackie, are you?” I said I didn’t think I was likely to fall in love with anybody. R.G. said: “Let’s start a few new hares in the City.” He’s really rather a mischievous devil sometimes and he sails terribly near the wind. “You’re quite determined to keep me on the straight and narrow path aren’t you, Blackie?” he said the other day. And I shall too! I can’t understand how people can’t see when a thing’s dishonest—but R.G. really and truly doesn’t. He only knows what is actually against the law.
Belle only laughs at all this. She thinks the fuss about Sonia is all nonsense. “Sonia has her own money,” she said. “Why shouldn’t she marry this man if she wants to?” I said it might turn out to be a terrible mistake and Belle said, “It’s never a mistake to marry a man you want to marry—even if you regret it.” And then she said, “I suppose Sonia d
oesn’t want to break with Randall because of money. Sonia’s very fond of money.”
No more now. How is father? I won’t say Give him my love. But you can if you think it’s better to do so. Have you seen more people? You really must not be morbid, darling.
Sonia asks to be remembered to you. She has just come in and is closing and unclosing her hands like an angry cat sharpening its claws. I think she and R.G. have had another row. Of course Sonia can be very irritating. She stares you down with that cool stare of hers.
Lots of love, darling, and buck up. This iodine treatment may make a lot of difference. I’ve been enquiring about it and it really does seem to have good results.
Your loving sister,
Letitia.
Miss Marple folded the letter and handed it back. She looked abstracted.
“Well, what do you think about her?” Craddock urged. “What picture do you get of her?”
“Of Sonia? It’s difficult, you know, to see anyone through another person’s mind … Determined to get her own way—that, definitely, I think. And wanting the best of two worlds….”
“Closing and unclosing her hands like an angry cat,” murmured Craddock. “You know, that reminds me of someone….”
He frowned.
“Making enquiries …” murmured Miss Marple.
“If we could get hold of the result of those inquiries,” said Craddock.
“Does that letter remind you of anything in St. Mary Mead?” asked Bunch, rather indistinctly since her mouth was full of pins.
“I really can’t say it does, dear … Dr. Blacklock is, perhaps, a little like Mr. Curtiss the Wesleyan Minister. He wouldn’t let his child wear a plate on her teeth. Said it was the Lord’s Will if her teeth stuck out. ‘After all,’ I said to him, ‘you do trim your beard and cut your hair. It might be the Lord’s Will that your hair should grow out.’ He said that was quite different. So like a man. But that doesn’t help us with our present problem.”
“We’ve never traced that revolver, you know. It wasn’t Rudi Scherz. If I knew who had had a revolver in Chipping Cleghorn—”
“Colonel Easterbrook has one,” said Bunch. “He keeps it in his collar drawer.”
