A Murder Is Announced_ A Miss Marple Mystery - Agatha Christie [31]
“And perhaps he reminded you of someone?” prompted Sir Henry, mischief in his eye.
Miss Marple smiled and shook her head at him.
“You are very naughty, Sir Henry. As a matter of fact he did. Fred Tyler, at the fish shop. Always slipped an extra 1 in the shillings column. Eating so much fish as we do nowadays, it made a long bill, and lots of people never added it up. Just ten shillings in his pocket every time, not much but enough to get himself a few neckties and take Jessie Spragge (the girl in the draper’s) to the pictures. Cut a splash, that’s what these young fellows want to do. Well, the very first week I was here, there was a mistake in my bill. I pointed it out to the young man and he apologized very nicely and looked very much upset, but I thought to myself then: ‘You’ve got a shifty eye, young man.’
“What I mean by a shifty eye,” continued Miss Marple, “is the kind that looks very straight at you and never looks away or blinks.”
Craddock gave a sudden movement of appreciation. He thought to himself “Jim Kelly to the life,” remembering a notorious swindler he had helped to put behind bars not long ago.
“Rudi Scherz was a thoroughly unsatisfactory character,” said Rydesdale. “He’s got a police record in Switzerland, we find.”
“Made the place too hot for him, I suppose, and came over here with forged papers?” said Miss Marple.
“Exactly,” said Rydesdale.
“He was going about with the little red-haired waitress from the dining room,” said Miss Marple. “Fortunately I don’t think her heart’s affected at all. She just liked to have someone a bit ‘different,’ and he used to give her flowers and chocolates which the English boys don’t do much. Has she told you all she knows?” she asked, turning suddenly to Craddock. “Or not quite all yet?”
“I’m not absolutely sure,” said Craddock cautiously.
“I think there’s a little to come,” said Miss Marple. “She’s looking very worried. Brought me kippers instead of herrings this morning, and forgot the milk jug. Usually she’s an excellent waitress. Yes, she’s worried. Afraid she might have to give evidence or something like that. But I expect”—her candid blue eyes swept over the manly proportions and handsome face of Detective-Inspector Craddock with truly feminine Victorian appreciation—“that you will be able to persuade her to tell you all she knows.”
Detective-Inspector Craddock blushed and Sir Henry chuckled.
“It might be important,” said Miss Marple. “He may have told her who it was.”
Rydesdale stared at her.
“Who what was?”
“I express myself so badly. Who it was who put him up to it, I mean.”
“So you think someone put him up to it?”
Miss Marple’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Oh, but surely—I mean … Here’s a personable young man—who filches a little bit here and a little bit there—alters a small cheque, perhaps helps himself to a small piece of jewellery if it’s left lying around, or takes a little money from the till—all sorts of small petty thefts. Keeps himself going in ready money so that he can dress well, and take a girl about—all that sort of thing. And then suddenly he goes off, with a revolver, and holds up a room full of people, and shoots at someone. He’d never have done a thing like that—not for a moment! He wasn’t that kind of person. It doesn’t make sense.”
Craddock drew in his breath sharply. That was what Letitia Blacklock had said. What the Vicar’s wife had said. What he himself felt with increasing force. It didn’t make sense. And now Sir Henry’s old Pussy was saying it, too, with complete certainty in her fluting old lady’s voice.
“Perhaps you’ll tell us, Miss Marple,” he said, and his voice was suddenly aggressive, “what did happen, then?”
She turned