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‘It’s rather awkward, you see. I was to fit on Mrs Spenlow’s new dress this afternoon. Three-thirty, she said.’
Miss Hartnell consulted her wrist watch. ‘It’s a little past the half-hour now.’
‘Yes. I have knocked three times, but there doesn’t seem to be any answer, so I was wondering if perhaps Mrs Spenlow might have gone out and forgotten. She doesn’t forget appointments as a rule, and she wants the dress to wear the day after tomorrow.’
Miss Hartnell entered the gate and walked up the path to join Miss Politt outside the door of Laburnum Cottage.
‘Why doesn’t Gladys answer the door?’ she demanded. ‘Oh, no, of course, it’s Thursday—Gladys’s day out. I expect Mrs Spenlow has fallen asleep. I don’t expect you’ve made enough noise with this thing.’
Seizing the knocker, she executed a deafening rat-a-tat-tat, and in addition thumped upon the panels of the door. She also called out in a stentorian voice, ‘What ho, within there!’
There was no response.
Miss Politt murmured, ‘Oh, I think Mrs Spenlow must have forgotten and gone out, I’ll call round some other time.’ She began edging away down the path.
‘Nonsense,’ said Miss Hartnell firmly. ‘She can’t have gone out. I’d have met her. I’ll just take a look through the windows and see if I can find any signs of life.’
She laughed in her usual hearty manner, to indicate that it was a joke, and applied a perfunctory glance to the nearest window-pane—perfunctory because she knew quite well that the front room was seldom used, Mr and Mrs Spenlow preferring the small back sitting-room.
Perfunctory as it was, though, it succeeded in its object. Miss Hartnell, it is true, saw no signs of life. On the contrary, she saw, through the window, Mrs Spenlow lying on the hearthrug—dead.
‘Of course,’ said Miss Hartnell, telling the story afterwards, ‘I managed to keep my head. That Politt creature wouldn’t have had the least idea of what to do. “Got to keep our heads,” I said to her. “You stay here, and I’ll go for Constable Palk.” She said something about not wanting to be left, but I paid no attention at all. One has to be firm with that sort of person. I’ve always found they enjoy making a fuss. So I was just going off when, at that very moment, Mr Spenlow came round the corner of the house.’
Here Miss Hartnell made a significant pause. It enabled her audience to ask breathlessly, ‘Tell me, how did he look?’
Miss Hartnell would then go on, ‘Frankly, I suspected something at once! He was far too calm. He didn’t seem surprised in the least. And you may say what you like, it isn’t natural for a man to hear that his wife is dead and display no emotion whatever.’
Everybody agreed with this statement.
The police agreed with it, too. So suspicious did they consider Mr Spenlow’s detachment, that they lost no time in ascertaining how that gentleman was situated as a result of his wife’s death. When they discovered that Mrs Spenlow had been the monied partner, and that her money went to her husband under a will made soon after their marriage, they were more suspicious than ever.
Miss Marple, that sweet-faced—and, some said, vinegar-tongued—elderly spinster who lived in the house next to the rectory, was interviewed very early—within half an hour of the discovery of the crime. She was approached by Police Constable Palk, importantly thumbing a notebook. ‘If you don’t mind, ma’am, I’ve a few questions to ask you.’
Miss Marple said, ‘In connection with the murder of Mrs Spenlow?’
Palk was startled. ‘May I ask, madam, how you got to know of it?’
‘The fish,’ said Miss Marple.
The reply was perfectly intelligible to Constable Palk. He assumed correctly that the fishmonger’s boy had brought it, together with Miss Marple’s evening meal.
Miss Marple continued gently. ‘Lying on the floor in the sitting-room, strangled—possibly by a very narrow belt. But whatever it was, it was taken away.’
Palk’s face was wrathful. ‘How that young Fred gets to know everything—’
Miss Marple cut him short adroitly. She said, ‘There’s a pin in your tunic.’
Constable Palk looked down, startled. He said, ‘They do say, “See a pin and pick it up, all the day you’ll have good luck.” ’
‘I hope that will come true. Now what is it you want me to tell you?’
Constable Palk cleared his throat, looked important, and consulted his notebook. ‘Statement was made to me by Mr Arthur Spenlow, husband of the deceased. Mr Spenlow says that at two-thirty, as far as he can say, he was rung up by Miss Marple, and asked if he would come over at a quarter past three as she was anxious to consult him about something. Now, ma’am, is that true?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Miss Marple.
‘You did not ring up Mr Spenlow at two-thirty?’
‘Neither at two-thirty nor any other time.’
‘Ah,’ said Constable Palk, and sucked his moustache with a good deal of satisfaction.
‘What else did Mr Spenlow say?’
‘Mr Spenlow’s statement was that he came over here as requested, leaving his own house at ten minutes past three; that on arrival here he was informed by the maid-servant that Miss Marple was “not at ’ome”.’
‘That part of it is true,’ said Miss Marple. ‘He did come here, but I was at a meeting at the Women’s Institute.’
‘Ah,’ said Constable Palk again.
Miss Marple exclaimed, ‘Do tell me, Constable, do you suspect Mr Spenlow?’
‘It’s not for me to say at this stage, but it looks to me as though somebody, naming no names, has been trying to be artful.’
Miss Marple said thoughtfully, ‘Mr Spenlow?’
She liked Mr Spenlow. He was a small, spare man, stiff and conventional in speech, the acme of respectability. It seemed odd that he should have come to live in the country, he had so clearly lived in towns all his life. To Miss Marple he confided the reason. He said, ‘I have always intended, ever since I was a small boy, to live in the country some day and have a garden of my own. I have always been very much attached to flowers. My wife, you know, kept a flower shop. That’s where I saw her first.’
A dry statement, but it opened up a vista of romance. A younger, prettier Mrs Spenlow, seen against a background of flowers.
Mr Spenlow, however, really knew nothing about flowers. He had no idea of seeds, of cuttings, of bedding out, of annuals or perennials. He had only a vision—a vision of a small cottage garden thickly planted with sweet-smelling, brightly coloured blossoms. He had asked, almost pathetically, for instruction, and had noted down Miss Marple’s replies to questions in a little book.
He was a man of quiet method. It was, perhaps, because of this trait, that the police were interested in him when his wife was found murdered. With patience and perseverance they learned a good deal about the late Mrs Spenlow—and soon all St Mary Mead knew it, too.
The late Mrs Spenlow had begun life as a between-maid in a large house. She had left that position to marry the second gardener, and with him had started a flower shop in London. The shop had prospered. Not so the gardener, who before long had sicke
ned and died.
His widow carried on the shop and enlarged it in an ambitious way. She had continued to prosper. Then she had sold the business at a handsome price and embarked upon matrimony for the second time—with Mr Spenlow, a middle-aged jeweller who had inherited a small and struggling business. Not long afterwards, they had sold the business and came down to St Mary Mead.
Mrs Spenlow was a well-to-do woman. The profits from her florist’s establishment she had invested—‘under spirit guidance’, as she explained to all and sundry. The spirits had advised her with unexpected acumen.
All her investments had prospered, some in quite a sensational fashion. Instead, however, of this increasing her belief in spiritualism, Mrs Spenlow basely deserted mediums and sittings, and made a brief but wholehearted plunge into an obscure religion with Indian affinities which was based on various forms of deep breathing. When, however, she arrived at St Mary Mead, she had relapsed into a period of orthodox Church-of-England beliefs. She was a good deal at the vicarage, and attended church services with assiduity. She patronized the village shops, took an interest in the local happenings, and played village bridge.
A humdrum, everyday life. And—suddenly—murder.
II
Colonel Melchett, the chief constable, had summoned Inspector Slack.
Slack was a positive type of man. When he had made up his mind, he was sure. He was quite sure now. ‘Husband did it, sir,’ he said.
‘You think so?’
‘Quite sure of it. You’ve only got to look at him. Guilty as hell. Never showed a sign of grief or emotion. He came back to the house knowing she was dead.’
‘Wouldn’t he at least have tried to act the part of the distracted husband?’
‘Not him, sir. Too pleased with himself. Some gentlemen can’t act. Too stiff.’
‘Any other woman in his life?’ Colonel Melchett asked.
