Miss Marple's final cases - Agatha Christie [3]
They shook hands with her. Then Eccles turned back suddenly to say, ‘Oh yes, there’s just one other thing. I think you’ve got his coat here, haven’t you?’
‘His coat?’ Bunch frowned.
Mrs Eccles said, ‘We’d like all his things, you know. Sentimental-like.’
‘He had a watch and a wallet and a railway ticket in the pockets,’ said Bunch. ‘I gave them to Sergeant Hayes.’
‘That’s all right, then,’ said Mr Eccles. ‘He’ll hand them over to us, I expect. His private papers would be in the wallet.’
‘There was a pound note in the wallet,’ said Bunch. ‘Nothing else.’
‘No letters? Nothing like that?’
Bunch shook her head.
‘Well, thank you again, Mrs Harmon. The coat he was wearing—perhaps the sergeant’s got that too, has he?’
Bunch frowned in an effort of remembrance.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think…let me see. The doctor and I took his coat off to examine his wound.’ She looked round the room vaguely. ‘I must have taken it upstairs with the towels and basin.’
‘I wonder now, Mrs Harmon, if you don’t mind…We’d like his coat, you know, the last thing he wore. Well, the wife feels rather sentimental about it.’
‘Of course,’ said Bunch. ‘Would you like me to have it cleaned first? I’m afraid it’s rather—well—stained.’
‘Oh, no, no, no, that doesn’t matter.’
Bunch frowned. ‘Now I wonder where…excuse me a moment.’ She went upstairs and it was some few minutes before she returned.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said breathlessly, ‘my daily woman must have put it aside with other clothes that were going to the cleaners. It’s taken me quite a long time to find it. Here it is. I’ll do it up for you in brown paper.’
Disclaiming their protests she did so; then once more effusively bidding her farewell the Eccleses departed.
Bunch went slowly back across the hall and entered the study. The Reverend Julian Harmon looked up and his brow cleared. He was composing a sermon and was fearing that he’d been led astray by the interest of the political relations between Judaea and Persia, in the reign of Cyrus.
‘Yes, dear?’ he said hopefully.
‘Julian,’ said Bunch. ‘What’s Sanctuary exactly?’
Julian Harmon gratefully put aside his sermon paper.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Sanctuary in Roman and Greek temples applied to the cella in which stood the statue of a god. The Latin word for altar “ara” also means protection.’ He continued learnedly: ‘In three hundred and ninety-nine A.D. the right of sanctuary in Christian churches was finally and definitely recognized. The earliest mention of the right of sanctuary in England is in the Code of Laws issued by Ethelbert in A.D. six hundred…’
He continued for some time with his exposition but was, as often, disconcerted by his wife’s reception of his erudite pronouncement.
‘Darling,’ she said. ‘You are sweet.’
Bending over, she kissed him on the tip of his nose. Julian felt rather like a dog who has been congratulated on performing a clever trick.
‘The Eccleses have been here,’ said Bunch.
The vicar frowned. ‘The Eccleses? I don’t seem to remember…’
‘You don’t know them. They’re the sister and her husband of the man in the church.’
‘My dear, you ought to have called me.’
‘There wasn’t any need,’ said Bunch. ‘They were not in need of consolation. I wonder now…’ She frowned. ‘If I put a casserole in the oven tomorrow, can you manage, Julian? I think I shall go up to London for the sales.’
‘The sails?’ Her husband looked at her blankly. ‘Do you mean a yacht or a boat or something?’
Bunch laughed. ‘No, darling. There’s a special white sale at Burrows and Portman’s. You know, sheets, table cloths and towels and glass-cloths. I don’t know what we do with our glass-cloths, the way they wear through. Besides,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘I think I ought to go and see Aunt Jane.’
II
That sweet old lady, Miss Jane Marple, was enjoying the delights of the metropolis for a fortnight, comfortably installed in her nephew’s studio flat.
‘So kind of dear Raymond,’ she