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Miss Marple sat herself upright in bed.
“But please,” she said, “if you are wanted—if you are needed there and would like to go—”
“No, no, I couldn’t hear of it,” cried Miss Knight. “Oh, no, I never meant anything like that. Why, what would Mr. Raymond West say? He explained to me that being here might turn out to be a permanency. I should never dream of not fulfilling my obligations. I was only just mentioning the fact in passing, so don’t worry, dear,” she added, patting Miss Marple on the shoulder. “We’re not going to be deserted! No, no, indeed we’re not! We’re going to be looked after and cosseted and made very happy and comfortable always.”
She went out of the room. Miss Marple sat with an air of determination, staring at her tray and failing to eat anything. Finally she picked up the receiver of the telephone and dialled with vigour.
“Dr. Haydock?”
“Yes?”
“Jane Marple here.”
“And what’s the matter with you? In need of my professional services?”
“No,” said Miss Marple. “But I want to see you as soon as possible.”
When Dr. Haydock came, he found Miss Marple still in bed waiting for him.
“You look the picture of health,” he complained.
“That is why I wanted to see you,” said Miss Marple. “To tell you that I am perfectly well.”
“An unusual reason for sending for the doctor.”
“I’m quite strong, I’m quite fit, and it’s absurd to have anybody living in the house. So long as someone comes every day and does the cleaning and all that I don’t see any need at all for having someone living here permanently.”
“I dare say you don’t, but I do,” said Dr. Haydock.
“It seems to me you’re turning into a regular old fussbudget,” said Miss Marple unkindly.
“And don’t call me names!” said Dr. Haydock. “You’re a very healthy woman for your age; you were pulled down a bit by bronchitis which isn’t good for the elderly. But to stay alone in a house at your age is a risk. Supposing you fall down the stairs one evening or fall out of bed or slip in the bath. There you’d lie and nobody’d know about it.”
“One can imagine anything,” said Miss Marple. “Miss Knight might fall down the stairs and I’d fall over her rushing out to see what had happened.”
“It’s no good your bullying me,” said Dr. Haydock. “You’re an old lady and you’ve got to be looked after in a proper manner. If you don’t like this woman you’ve got, change her and get somebody else.”
“That’s not always so easy,” said Miss Marple.
“Find some old servant of yours, someone that you like, and who’s lived with you before. I can see this old hen irritates you. She’d irritate me. There must be some old servant somewhere. That nephew of yours is one of the best-selling authors of the day. He’d make it worth her while if you found the right person.”
“Of course dear Raymond would do anything of that kind. He is most generous,” said Miss Marple. “But it’s not so easy to find the right person. Young people have their own lives to live, and so many of my faithful old servants, I am sorry to say, are dead.”
“Well, you’re not dead,” said Dr. Haydock, “and you’ll live a good deal longer if you take proper care of yourself.”
He rose to his feet.
“Well,” he said. “No good my stopping here. You look as fit as a fiddle. I shan’t waste time taking your blood pressure or feeling your pulse or asking you questions. You’re thriving on all this local excitement, even if you can’t get about to poke your nose in as much as you’d like to do. Goodbye, I’ve got to go now and do some real doctoring. Eight to ten cases of German measles, half a dozen whooping coughs, and a suspected scarlet fever as well as my regulars!”
Dr. Haydock went out breezily—but Miss Marple was frowning… Something that he had said…what was it? Patients to see…the usual village ailments…village ailments? Miss Marple pushed her breakfast tray farther away with a purposeful gesture. Then she rang up Mrs. Bantry.
“Dolly? Jane here. I want to ask you something. Now pay attention. Is it true that you told Inspector Craddock that Heather Badcock told Marina Gregg a long pointless story about how she had chicken pox and got up in spite of it to go and meet Marina and get her autograph?”
“That was it more or less.”
“Chicken pox?”
“Well, something like that. Mrs. Allcock was talking to me about vodka at the time, so I wasn’t really listening closely.”
“You’re sure,” Miss Marple took a breath, “that she didn’t say whooping cough?”
“Whooping cough?” Mrs. Bantry sounded astounded. “Of course not. She wouldn’t have had to powder her face and do it up for whooping cough.”
“I see—that’s what you went by—her special mention of makeup?”
“Well, she laid stress on it—she wasn’t the makingup kind. But I think you’re right, it wasn’t chicken pox… Nettlerash, perhaps.”
“You only say that,” said Miss Marple coldly, “because you once had nettlerash yourself and couldn’t go to a wedding. You’re hopeless, Dolly, quite hopeless.”
She put the receiver down with a bang, cutting off Mrs. Bantry’s astonished protest of “Really, Jane.”
Miss Marple made a ladylike noise of vexation like a cat sneezing to indicate profound disgust. Her mind reverted to the problem of her own domestic comfort. Faithful Florence? Could faithful Florence, that grenadier of a former parlourmaid be persuaded to leave her comfortable small house and come back to St. Mary Mead to look after her erstwhile mistress? Faithful Florence had always been very devoted to her. But faithful Florence was very attached to her own little house. Miss Marple shook her head vexedly. A gay rat-tat-tat sounded at the door. On Miss Marple’s calling “Come in” Cherry entered.
“Come for your tray,” she said. “Has anything happened? You’re looking rather upset, aren’t you?”
“I feel so helpless,” said Miss Marple. “Old and helpless.”
“Don’t worry,” said Cherry, picking up the tray. “You’re very far from helpless. You don’t know the things I hear about you in this place! Why practically everybody in the Development knows about you now. All sorts of extraordinary things you’ve done. They don’t think of you as the old and helpless kind. It’s she puts it into your head.”
“She?”
Cherry gave a vigorous nod of her head backwards towards the door behind her.
“Pussy, pussy,” she said. “Your Miss Knight. Don’t you let her get you down.”
“She’s very kind,” said Miss Marple, “really very kind,” she added, in the tone of one who convinces herself.
“Care killed the cat, they say,” said Cherry. “You don’t want kindness rubbed into your skin, so to speak, do you?”
“Oh, well,” said Miss Marple sighing, “I suppose we all have our troubles.”
“I should say we do,” said Cherry. “I oughtn’t to complain but I feel sometimes that if I live next door to Mrs. Hartwell any longer there’s going to be a regrettable incident. Sour-faced old cat, always gossiping and complaining. Jim’s pretty fed up too. He had a first-class row with her last night. Just because we had The Messiah on a bit loud! You can’t object to The Messiah, can you? I mean, it’s religious.”
“Did she object?”
“She created something terrible,” said Cherry. “Banged on the wall and shouted and one thing and another.”
“Do you have to have your music turned on so loud?” asked Miss Marple.
“Jim likes it that way,” said Cherry. “He says you don’t get the tone unless you have full volume.”
“It might,” suggested Miss Marple, “be a little trying for anyone if they weren’t musical.”
“It’s these houses being semi-detached,” said Cherry. “Thin as anything, the walls. I’m not so keen really on all this new building, when you come to think of it. It looks all very prissy and
nice but you can’t express your personality without somebody being down on you like a ton of bricks.”
Miss Marple smiled at her.
“You’ve got a lot of personality to express, Cherry,” she said.
“D’you think so?” Cherry was pleased and she laughed. “I wonder,” she began. Suddenly she looked embarrassed. She put down the tray and came back to the bed.
“I wonder if you’d think it cheek if I asked you something? I mean—you’ve only got to say ‘out of the question’ and that’s that.”
“Something you want me to do?”
“Not quite. It’s those rooms over the kitchen. They’re never used nowadays, are they?”
“No.”
“Used to be a gardener and wife there once, so I heard. But that’s old stuff. What I wondered—what Jim and I wondered—is if we could have them. Come and live here, I mean.”
Miss Marple stared at her in astonishment.
“But your beautiful new house in the Development?”
“We’re both fed up with it. We like gadgets, but you can have gadgets anywhere—get them on HP and there would be a nice lot of room here, especially if Jim could have the room over the stables. He’d fix it up like new, and he could have all his construction models there, and wouldn’t have to clear them away all the time. And if we had our stereogram there too, you’d hardly hear it.”
“Are you really serious about this, Cherry?”
“Yes, I am. Jim and I, we’ve talked about it a lot. Jim could fix things for you anytime—you know, plumbing or a bit of carpentry, and I’d look after you every bit as well as your Miss Knight does. I know you think I’m a bit slap-dash—but I’d try and take trouble with the beds and the washing-up—and I’m getting quite a dab hand at cooking. Did Beef Stroganoff last night, it’s quite easy, really.”
