4_50 From Paddington - Agatha Christie [86]
“Actually on the train,” said Miss Marple thoughtfully.
“It doesn’t really prove anything. The awful thing is all this suspicion. Not to know. And perhaps we never shall know!”
“Of course we shall know, dear,” said Miss Marple briskly. “I mean—all this isn’t going to stop just at this point. The one thing I do know about murderers is that they can never let well alone. Or perhaps one should say—ill alone. At any rate,” said Miss Marple with finality, “they can’t once they’ve done a second murder. Now don’t get too upset, Lucy. The police are doing all they can, and looking after everybody—and the great thing is that Elspeth McGillicuddy will be here very soon now!”
Twenty-six
I
“Now, Elspeth, you’re quite clear as to what I want you to do?”
“I’m clear enough,” said Mrs. McGillicuddy, “but what I say to you is, Jane, that it seems very odd.”
“It’s not odd at all,” said Miss Marple.
“Well, I think so. To arrive at the house and to ask almost immediately whether I can—er—go upstairs.”
“It’s very cold weather,” Miss Marple pointed out, “and after all, you might have eaten something that disagreed with you and—er—have to ask to go upstairs. I mean, these things happen. I remember poor Louisa Felby came to see me once and she had to ask to go upstairs five times during one little half hour. That,” added Miss Marple parenthetically, “was a bad Cornish pasty.”
“If you’d just tell me what you’re driving at, Jane,” said Mrs. McGillicuddy.
“That’s just what I don’t want to do,” said Miss Marple.
“How irritating you are, Jane. First you make me come all the way back to England before I need—”
“I’m sorry about that,” said Miss Marple; “but I couldn’t do anything else. Someone, you see, may be killed at any moment. Oh, I know they’re all on their guard and the police are taking all the precautions they can, but there’s always the outside chance that the murderer might be too clever for them. So you see, Elspeth, it was your duty to come back. After all, you and I were brought up to do our duty, weren’t we?”
“We certainly were,” said Mrs. McGillicuddy, “no laxness in our young days.”
“So that’s quite all right,” said Miss Marple, “and that’s the taxi now,” she added, as a faint hoot was heard outside the house.
Mrs. McGillicuddy donned her heavy pepper-and-salt coat and Miss Marple wrapped herself up with a good many shawls and scarves. Then the two ladies got into the taxi and were driven to Rutherford Hall.
II
“Who can this be driving up?” Emma asked, looking out of the window, as the taxi swept past it. “I do believe it’s Lucy’s old aunt.”
“What a bore,” said Cedric.
He was lying back in a long chair looking at Country Life with his feet reposing on the side of the mantelpiece.
“Tell her you’re not at home.”
“When you say tell her I’m not at home, do you mean that I should go out and say so? Or that I should tell Lucy to tell her aunt so?”
“Hadn’t thought of that,” said Cedric. “I suppose I was thinking of our butler and footman days, if we ever had them. I seem to remember a footman before the war. He had an affair with the kitchen maid and there was a terrific rumpus about it. Isn’t there one of those old hags about the place cleaning?”
But at that moment the door was opened by Mrs. Hart, whose afternoon it was for cleaning the brasses, and Miss Marple came in, very fluttery, in a whirl of shawls and scarves, with an uncompromising figure behind her.
“I do hope,” said Miss Marple, taking Emma’s hand, “that we are not intruding. But you see, I’m going home the day after tomorrow, and I couldn’t bear not to come over and see you and say good-bye, and thank you again