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She gave a faint, rather whinnying old lady’s laugh.
“Oh surely!”
“No, I suppose I ought not to say such things. But you know, really crimes are very interesting. Sometimes the most extraordinary things have happened.”
“Have you any definite feeling yourself, Miss Marple? I should be interested to hear,” said Clotilde.
“Well, one does think of possibilities.”
“Mr. Caspar,” said Miss Cooke. “You know, I didn’t like the look of that man from the first. He looked to me—well, I thought he might have something to do with espionage or something. You know, perhaps come to this country to look for atomic secrets or something.”
“I don’t think we’ve got any atomic secrets round here,” said Mrs. Glynne.
“Of course we haven’t,” said Anthea. “Perhaps it was someone who was following her. Perhaps it was someone who was tracking her because she was a criminal of some kind.”
“Nonsense,” said Clotilde. “She was the Headmistress, retired, of a very well-known school, she was a very fine scholar. Why should anyone be trying to track her down?”
“Oh, I don’t know. She might have gone peculiar or something.”
“I’m sure,” said Mrs. Glynne, “that Miss Marple has some ideas.”
“Well, I have some ideas,” said Miss Marple. “It seems to me that—well, the only people that could be … Oh dear, this is so difficult to say. But I mean there are two people who just spring into one’s mind as possibilities logically. I mean, I don’t think that it’s really so at all because I’m sure they’re both very nice people, but I mean there’s nobody else really logically who could be suspected, should I say.”
“Who do you mean? This is very interesting.”
“Well, I don’t think I ought to say such things. It’s only a—sort of wild conjecture.”
“Who do you think might have rolled the boulder down? Who do you think could have been the person that Joanna and Emlyn Price saw?”
“Well, what I did think was that—that perhaps they hadn’t seen anybody.”
“I don’t quite understand,” said Anthea, “they hadn’t seen anybody?”
“Well, perhaps they might have made it all up.”
“What—about seeing someone?”
“Well, it’s possible, isn’t it.”
“Do you mean as a sort of joke or a sort of unkind idea? What do you mean?”
“Well, I suppose—one does hear of young people doing very extraordinary things nowadays,” said Miss Marple. “You know, putting things in horses’ eyes, smashing Legation windows and attacking people. Throwing stones, at people, and it’s usually being done by somebody young, isn’t it? And they were the only young people, weren’t they?”
“You mean Emlyn Price and Joanna might have rolled over that boulder?”
“Well, they’re the only sort of obvious people, aren’t they?” said Miss Marple.
“Fancy!” said Clotilde. “Oh, I should never have thought of that. But I see—yes, I just see that there could be something in what you say. Of course, I don’t know what those two were like. I haven’t been travelling with them.”
“Oh, they were very nice,” said Miss Marple. “Joanna seemed to me a particularly—you know, capable girl.”
“Capable of doing anything?” asked Anthea.
“Anthea,” said Clotilde, “do be quiet.”
“Yes. Quite capable,” said Miss Marple. “After all, if you’re going to do what may result in murder, you’d have to be rather capable so as to manage not to be seen or anything.”
“They must have been in it together, though,” suggested Miss Barrow.
“Oh yes,” said Miss Marple. “They were in it together and they told roughly the same story. They are the—well, they are the obvious suspects, that’s all I can say. They were out of sight of the others. All the other people were on the lower path. They could have gone up to the top of the hill, they could have rocked the boulder. Perhaps they didn’t mean to kill Miss Temple specially. They may have meant it just as a—well, just as a piece of anarchy or smashing something or someone—anyone in fact. They rolled it over. And then of course they told the story of seeing someone there. Some rather peculiar costume or other which also sounds very unlikely and—well, I oughtn’t to say these things but I have been thinking about it.”
“It seems to me a very interesting thought,” said Mrs. Glynne. “What do you think, Clotilde?”
“I think it’s a possibility. I shouldn’t have thought of it myself.”
“Well,” said Miss Cooke, rising to her feet, “we must be going back to the Golden Boar now. Are you coming with us, Miss Marple?”
“Oh no,” said Miss Marple. “I suppose you don’t know. I’ve forgotten to tell you. Miss Bradbury-Scott very kindly asked me to come back and stay another night—or two nights—here.”
“Oh, I see. Well, I’m sure that’ll be very nice for you. Much more comfortable. They seem rather a noisy lot that have arrived at the Golden Boar this evening.”
“Won’t you come round and have some coffee with us after dinner?” suggested Clotilde. “It’s quite a warm evening. We can’t offer you dinner because I’m afraid we haven’t got enough in the house, but if you’ll come in and have some coffee with us….”
“That would be very nice,” said Miss Cooke. “Yes, we will certainly avail ourselves of your hospitality.”
Twenty-one
THE CLOCK STRIKES THREE
I
Miss Cooke and Miss Barrow arrived very promptly at 8:45. One wore beige lace and the other one a shade of olive green. During dinner Anthea had asked Miss Marple about these two ladies.
“It seems very funny of them,” she said, “to want to stay behind.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Miss Marple. “I think it is really quite natural. They have a rather exact plan, I imagine.”
“What do you mean by a plan?” asked Mrs. Glynne.
“Well, I should think they are always prepared for various eventualities and have a plan for dealing with them.”
“Do you mean,” said Anthea, with some interest, “do you mean that they had a plan for dealing with murder?”
“I wish,” said Mrs. Glynne, “that you wouldn’t talk of poor Miss Temple’s death as murder.”
“But of course it’s murder,” said Anthea. “All I wonder is who wanted to murder her? I should think probably some pupil of hers at the school who always hated her and had it in for her.”
“Do you think hate can last as long as that?” asked Miss Marple.
“Oh, I should think so. I should think you could hate anyone for years.”
“No,” said Miss Marple, “I think hate would die out. You could try and keep it up artificially, but I think you would fail. It’s not as strong a force as love,” she added.
“Don’t you think that Miss Cooke or Miss Barrow or both of them might have done the murder?”
“Why should they?” said Mrs. Glynne. “Really, Anthea! They seemed very nice women to me.”
“I think there’s something rather mysterious about them,” said Anthea. “Don’t you, Clotilde?”
“I think perhaps you’re right,” said Clotilde. “They seemed to me to be slightly artificial, if you know what I mean.”
“I think there’s something very sinister about them,” said Anthea.
“You’ve got such an imagination always,” said Mrs. Glynne. “Anyway, they were walking along the bottom path, weren’t they? You saw them there, didn’t you?” she said to Miss Marple.
“I can’t say that I noticed them particularly,” said Miss Marple. “In fact, I had no opportunity of doing so.”
“You mean—?”
“She wasn’t there,” said Clotilde. “She was here in our garden.”
“Oh, of course. I forgot.”
“A very nice, peaceful day it was,” said Miss Marple. “I enjoyed it very much. Tomorrow morning I would like to go
out and look again at that mass of white flowers coming into bloom at the end of the garden near that raised up mound. It was just beginning to come out the other day. It must be a mass of bloom now. I shall always remember that as part of my visit here, you know.”
“I hate it,” said Anthea. “I want it taken away. I want to build up a greenhouse again there. Surely if we save enough money we can do that, Clotilde?”
“We’ll leave that alone,” said Clotilde. “I don’t want that touched. What use is a greenhouse to us now? It would be years before grapes would bear fruit again.”
“Come,” said Mrs. Glynne, “we can’t go on arguing over that. Let us go into the drawing room. Our guests will be coming shortly for coffee.”
It was then that the guests had arrived. Clotilde brought in the tray of coffee. She poured out the cups and distributed them. She placed one before each guest and then brought one to Miss Marple. Miss Cooke leaned forward.
“Oh, do forgive me, Miss Marple, but really, do you know, I shouldn’t drink that if I were you. Coffee, I mean, at this time of night. You won’t sleep properly.”
“Oh, do you think so?” said Miss Marple. “I am quite used to coffee in the evening.”
“Yes, but this is very strong, good coffee. I should advise you not to drink it.”
Miss Marple looked at Miss Cooke. Miss Cooke’s face was very earnest, her fair, unnatural-looking hair flopped over one eye. The other eye blinked slightly.
“I see what you mean,” said Miss Marple. “Perhaps you are right. You know something, I gather, about diet.”
