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“No other sinister possibilities?”
“I think, really, it is casual information we need. I see no reason to believe that there is any sinister suggestion in any of the coach passengers—or any sinister suggestion about the people living in The Old Manor House. But one of those three sisters may have known or remembered something that the girl or Michael once said. Clotilde used to take the girl abroad. Therefore, she may know of something that occurred on some foreign trip perhaps. Something that the girl said or mentioned or did on some trip. Some man that the girl met. Something which has nothing to do with The Old Manor House here. It is difficult because only by talking, by casual information, can you get any clue. The second sister, Mrs. Glynne, married fairly early, has spent time, I gather, in India and in Africa. She may have heard of something through her husband, or through her husband’s relations, through various things that are unconnected with The Old Manor House here although she has visited it from time to time. She knew the murdered girl presumably, but I should think she knew her much less well than the other two. But that does not mean that she may not know some significant facts about the girl. The third sister is more scatty, more localized, does not seem to have known the girl as well. But still, she too may have information about possible lovers—or boyfriends—seen the girl with an unknown man. That’s her, by the way, passing the hotel now.”
Miss Marple, however occupied by her tête-à-tête, had not relinquished the habits of a lifetime. A public thoroughfare was always to her an observation post. All the passersby, either loitering or hurrying, had been noticed automatically.
“Anthea Bradbury-Scott—the one with the big parcel. She’s going to the post office, I suppose. It’s just round the corner, isn’t it?”
“Looks a bit daft to me,” said Professor Wanstead, “all that floating hair—grey hair too—a kind of Ophelia of fifty.”
“I thought of Ophelia too, when I first saw her. Oh dear, I wish I knew what I ought to do next. Stay here at the Golden Boar for a day or two, or go on with the coach tour. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. If you stick your fingers in it long enough, you ought to come up with something—even if one does get pricked in the process.”
Thirteen
BLACK AND RED CHECK
I
Mrs. Sandbourne returned just as the party was sitting down to lunch. Her news was not good. Miss Temple was still unconscious. She certainly could not be moved for several days.
Having given the bulletin, Mrs. Sandbourne turned the conversation to practical matters. She produced suitable timetables of trains for those who wished to return to London and proposed suitable plans for the resumption of the tour on the morrow or the next day. She had a list of suitable short expeditions in the near neighbourhood for this afternoon—small groups in hired cars.
Professor Wanstead drew Miss Marple aside as they went out of the dining room—
“You may want to rest this afternoon. If not, I will call for you here in an hour’s time. There is an interesting church you might care to see—?”
“That would be very nice,” said Miss Marple.
II
Miss Marple sat quite still in the car that had come to fetch her. Professor Wanstead had called for her at the time he had said.
“I thought you might enjoy seeing this particular church. And a very pretty village, too,” he explained. “There’s no reason really why one should not enjoy the local sights when one can.”
“It’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” Miss Marple had said.
She had looked at him with that slightly fluttery gaze of hers.
“Very kind,” she said. “It just seems—well, I don’t want to say it seems heartless, but well, you know what I mean.”
“My dear lady, Miss Temple is not an old friend of yours or anything like that. Sad as this accident has been.”
“Well,” said Miss Marple again, “this is very kind of you.”
Professor Wanstead had opened the door of the car and Miss Marple got into it. It was, she presumed, a hired car. A kindly thought to take an elderly lady to see one of the sights of the neighbourhood. He might have taken somebody younger, more interesting and certainly better looking. Miss Marple looked at him thoughtfully once or twice as they drove through the village. He was not looking at her. He was gazing out of his own window.
When they had left the village behind and were on a second class country road twisting round the hillside, he turned his head and said to her,
“We are not going to a church, I am afraid.”
“No,” said Miss Marple, “I thought perhaps we weren’t.”
“Yes, the idea would have come to you.”
“Where are we going, may I ask?”
“We are going to a hospital, in Carristown.”
“Ah yes, that was where Miss Temple was taken?”
It was a question, though it hardly needed to be one.
“Yes,” he said. “Mrs. Sandbourne saw her and brought me back a letter from the Hospital Authorities. I have just finished talking to them on the telephone.”
“Is she going on well?”
“No. Not going on very well.”
“I see. At least—I hope I don’t see,” said Miss Marple.
“Her recovery is very problematical but there is nothing that can be done. She may not recover consciousness again. On the other hand she may have a few lucid intervals.”
“And you are taking me there? Why? I am not a friend of hers, you know. I only just met her for the first time on this trip.”
“Yes, I realize that. I’m taking you there because in one of the lucid intervals she has had, she asked for you.”
“I see,” said Miss Marple. “I wonder why she should ask for me, why she should have thought that I—that I could be useful in any way to her, or do anything. She is a woman of perception. In her way, you know, a great woman. As Headmistress of Fallowfield she occupied a prominent position in the educational world.”
“The best girls’ school there is, I suppose?”
“Yes. She was a great personality. She was herself a woman of considerable scholarship. Mathematics were her speciality, but she was an ‘all round’—what I should call an educator. Was interested in education, what girls were fitted for, how to encourage them. Oh, many other things. It is sad and very cruel if she dies,” said Miss Marple. “It will seem such a waste of a life. Although she had retired from her Headmistresship she still exercised a lot of power. This accident—” She stopped. “Perhaps you do not want us to discuss the accident?”
“I think it is better that we should do so. A big boulder crashed down the hillside. It has been known to happen before though only at very long divided intervals of time. However, somebody came and spoke to me about it,” said Professor Wanstead.
“Came and spoke to you about the accident? Who was it?”
“The two young people. Joanna Crawford and Emlyn Price.”
“What did they say?”
