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By Root 526 0

that led to the sidewalk of the park. There were cars parked along there and presently she stopped beside one particular car. Miss Marple was not particularly knowledgeable over cars but such cars as this one did not come her way very often, so she had noted and remembered it. She had acquired a little information about cars of this style from an enthusiastic great-nephew. It was a racing car. Some foreign make—she couldn’t remember the name now. Not only that, she had seen this car, or one exactly like it, seen it only yesterday in a side street close to Bertram’s Hotel. She had noticed it not only because of its size and its powerful and unusual appearance but because the number had awakened some vague memory, some trace of association in her memory. FAN 2266. It had made her think of her cousin Fanny Godfrey. Poor Fanny who stuttered, who had said “I have got t-t-t-wo s-s-s-potz….”

She walked along and looked at the number of this car. Yes, she was quite right. FAN 2266. It was the same car. Miss Marple, her footsteps growing more painful every moment, arrived deep in thought at the other side of Chelsea Bridge and by then was so exhausted that she hailed the first taxi she saw with decision. She was worried by the feeling that there was something she ought to do about things. But what things and what to do about them? It was all so indefinite. She fixed her eyes absently on some newsboards.

“Sensational developments in train robbery,” they ran. “Engine driver’s story,” said another one. Really! Miss Marple thought to herself, every day there seemed to be a bank holdup or a train robbery or a wage pay snatch.

Crime seemed to have got above itself.

Chapter Thirteen

Vaguely reminiscent of a large bumblebee, Chief-Inspector Fred Davy wandered around the confines of the Criminal Investigation Department, humming to himself. It was a well-known idiosyncrasy of his, and caused no particular notice except to give rise to the remark that “Father was on the prowl again.”

His prowling led him at last to the room where Inspector Campbell was sitting behind a desk with a bored expression. Inspector Campbell was an ambitious young man and he found much of his occupation tedious in the extreme. Nevertheless, he coped with the duties appointed to him and achieved a very fair measure of success in so doing. The powers that be approved of him, thought he should do well and doled out from time to time a few words of encouraging commendation.

“Good morning, sir,” said Inspector Campbell, respectfully, when Father entered his domain. Naturally he called Chief-Inspector Davy “Father” behind his back as everyone else did; but he was not yet of sufficient seniority to do such a thing to his face.

“Anything I can do for you, sir?” he inquired.

“La, la, boom, boom,” hummed the Chief-Inspector, slightly off key. “Why must they call me Mary when my name’s Miss Gibbs?” After this rather unexpected resurrection of a bygone musical comedy, he drew up a chair and sat down.

“Busy?” he asked.

“Moderately so.”

“Got some disappearance case or other on, haven’t you, to do with some hotel or other. What’s the name of it now? Bertram’s. Is that it?”

“Yes, that’s right, sir. Bertram’s Hotel.”

“Contravening the licensing hours? Call girls?”

“Oh no, sir,” said Inspector Campbell, slightly shocked at hearing Bertram’s Hotel being referred to in such a connection. “Very nice, quiet, old-fashioned place.”

“Is it now?” said Father. “Yes, is it now? Well, that’s interesting, really.”

Inspector Campbell wondered why it was interesting. He did not like to ask, as tempers in the upper hierarchy were notoriously short since the mail train robbery, which had been a spectacular success for the criminals. He looked at Father’s large, heavy, bovine face and wondered, as he had once or twice wondered before, how Chief-Inspector Davy had reached his present rank and why he was so highly thought of in the department. “All right in his day, I suppose,” thought Inspector Campbell, “but there are plenty of go-ahead chaps about who could do with some promotion,