Miss Marple's final cases - Agatha Christie [40]
‘It’s not a bit lifelike,’ said Alicia Coombe, staring at the doll. ‘And yet, in a funny way, she does seem alive, doesn’t she?’
II
‘Oo, it did give me a turn,’ said Mrs Groves, as she went round the showroom, dusting. ‘Such a turn as I hardly like to go into the fitting-room any more.’
‘What’s given you a turn?’ demanded Miss Coombe who was sitting at a writing-table in the corner, busy with various accounts. ‘This woman,’ she added more for her own benefit than that of Mrs Groves, ‘thinks she can have two evening dresses, three cocktail dresses, and a suit every year without ever paying me a penny for them! Really, some people!’
‘It’s that doll,’ said Mrs Groves.
‘What, our doll again?’
‘Yes, sitting up there at the desk, like a human. Oo, it didn’t half give me a turn!’
‘What are you talking about?’
Alicia Coombe got up, strode across the room, across the landing outside, and into the room opposite—the fitting-room. There was a small Sheraton desk in one corner of it, and there, sitting in a chair drawn up to it, her long floppy arms on the desk, sat the doll.
‘Sombody seems to have been having fun,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘Fancy sitting her up like that. Really, she looks quite natural.’
Sybil Fox came down the stairs at this moment, carrying a dress that was to be tried on that morning.
‘Come here, Sybil. Look at our doll sitting at my private desk and writing letters now.’
The two women looked.
‘Really,’ said Alicia Coombe, ‘it’s too ridiculous! I wonder who propped her up there. Did you?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Sybil. ‘It must have been one of the girls from upstairs.’
‘A silly sort of joke, really,’ said Alicia Coombe. She picked up the doll from the desk and threw her back on the sofa.
Sybil laid the dress over a chair carefully, then she went out and up the stairs to the workroom.
‘You know the doll,’ she said, ‘the velvet doll in Miss Coombe’s room downstairs—in the fitting room?’
The forewoman and three girls looked up.
‘Yes, miss, of course we know.’
‘Who sat her up at the desk this morning for a joke?’
The three girls looked at her, then Elspeth, the forewoman, said, ‘Sat her up at the desk? I didn’t.’
‘Nor did I,’ said one of the girls. ‘Did you, Marlene?’ Marlene shook her head.
‘This your bit of fun, Elspeth?’
‘No, indeed,’ said Elspeth, a stern woman who looked as though her mouth should always be filled with pins. ‘I’ve more to do than going about playing with dolls and sitting them up at desks.’
‘Look here,’ said Sybil, and to her surprise her voice shook slightly. ‘It was—it was quite a good joke, only I’d just like to know who did it.’
The three girls bristled.
‘We’ve told you, Mrs Fox. None of us did it, did we, Marlene?’
‘I didn’t,’ said Marlene, ‘and if Nellie and Margaret say they didn’t, well then, none of us did.’
‘You’ve heard what I had to say,’ said Elspeth. ‘What’s this all about anyway, Mrs Fox?’
‘Perhaps it was Mrs Groves?’ said Marlene.
Sybil shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t be Mrs Groves. It gave her quite a turn.’
‘I’ll come down and see for myself,’ said Elspeth.
‘She’s not there now,’ said Sybil. ‘Miss Coombe took her away from the desk and threw her back on the sofa. Well—’ she paused—‘what I mean is, someone must have stuck her up there in the chair at the writing-desk—thinking it was funny. I suppose. And—and I don’t see why they won’t say so.’
‘I’ve told you twice, Mrs Fox,’ said Margaret. ‘I don’t see why you should go on accusing us of telling lies. None of us would do a silly thing like that.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Sybil, ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. But—but who else could possibly have done it?’
‘Perhaps she got up and walked there herself,’ said Marlene, and giggled.
For some reason Sybil