Murder at the Vicarage - Agatha Christie [30]
‘I tried to tell you on three separate occasions,’ I said. ‘And each time you shut me up and refused to listen.’
‘That’s just a way of speaking, sir. You could have told me perfectly well if you had had a mind to. The clock and the note seemed to tally perfectly. Now, according to you, the clock was all wrong. I never knew such a case. What’s the sense of keeping a clock a quarter of an hour fast anyway?’
‘It is supposed,’ I said, ‘to induce punctuality.’
‘I don’t think we need go further into that now, Inspector,’ said Colonel Melchett tactfully. ‘What we want now is the true story from both Mrs Protheroe and young Redding. I telephoned to Haydock and asked him to bring Mrs Protheroe over here with him. They ought to be here in about a quarter of an hour. I think it would be as well to have Redding here first.’
‘I’ll get on to the station,’ said Inspector Slack, and took up the telephone.
‘And now,’ he said, replacing the receiver, ‘we’ll get to work on this room.’ He looked at me in a meaningful fashion.
‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘you’d like me out of the way.’
The Inspector immediately opened the door for me. Melchett called out:
‘Come back when young Redding arrives, will you, Vicar? You’re a friend of his and you may have sufficient influence to persuade him to speak the truth.’
I found my wife and Miss Marple with their heads together.
‘We’ve been discussing all sorts of possibilities,’ said Griselda. ‘I wish you’d solve the case, Miss Marple, like you did the time Miss Wetherby’s gill of picked shrimps disappeared. And all because it reminded you of something quite different about a sack of coals.’
‘You’re laughing, my dear,’ said Miss Marple, ‘but after all, that is a very sound way of arriving at the truth. It’s really what people call intuition and make such a fuss about. Intuition is like reading a word without having to spell it out. A child can’t do that because it has had so little experience. But a grown-up person knows the word because they’ve seen it often before. You catch my meaning, Vicar?’
‘Yes,’ I said slowly, ‘I think I do. You mean that if a thing reminds you of something else – well, it’s probably the same kind of thing.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And what precisely does the murder of Colonel Protheroe remind you of ?’
Miss Marple sighed.
‘That is just the difficulty. So many parallels come to the mind. For instance, there was Major Hargreaves, a church-warden and a man highly respected in every way. And all the time he was keeping a separate second establishment – a former housemaid, just think of it! And five children – actually five children – a terrible shock to his wife and daughter.’
I tried hard to visualize Colonel Protheroe in the rôle of secret sinner and failed.
‘And then there was that laundry business,’ went on Miss Marple. ‘Miss Hartnell’s opal pin – left most imprudently in a frilled blouse and sent to the laundry. And the woman who took it didn’t want it in the least and wasn’t by any means a thief. She simply hid it in another woman’s house and told the police she’d seen this other woman take it. Spite, you know, sheer spite. It’s an astonishing motive – spite. A man in it, of course. There always is.’
This time I failed to see any parallel, however remote.
‘And then there was poor Elwell’s daughter – such a pretty ethereal girl – tried to stifle her little brother. And there was the money for the Choir Boys’ Outing (before your time, Vicar) actually taken by the organist. His wife was sadly in debt. Yes, this case makes one think so many things – too many. It’s very hard to arrive at the truth.’
‘I wish you would tell me,’ I said, ‘who were the seven suspects?’
‘The seven suspects?’
‘You said you could think of seven people who would – well, be glad of Colonel Protheroe’s death.’
‘Did I? Yes, I remember I did.’
‘Was that true?’
‘Oh! Certainly it was true. But I mustn’t mention names. You can think of them quite