Murder at the Vicarage - Agatha Christie [52]
‘I’m not referring to mere social position. Anyway, I should imagine Mrs Lestrange to be a déclassée. What I mean is a question of – personal refinement.’
‘You don’t see her with the same eyes as I do, sir. I may be a man – but I’m a police officer, too. They can’t get over me with their personal refinement. Why, that woman is the kind who could stick a knife into you without turning a hair.’
Curiously enough, I could believe Mrs Lestrange guilty of murder much more easily than I could believe her capable of blackmail.
‘But, of course, she can’t have been telephoning to the old lady next door and shooting Colonel Protheroe at one and the same time,’ continued the Inspector.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when he slapped his leg ferociously.
‘Got it,’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s the point of the telephone call. Kind of alibi. Knew we’d connect it with the first one. I’m going to look into this. She may have bribed some village lad to do the phoning for her. He’d never think of connecting it with the murder.’
The Inspector hurried off.
‘Miss Marple wants to see you,’ said Griselda, putting her head in. ‘She sent over a very incoherent note – all spidery and underlined. I couldn’t read most of it. Apparently she can’t leave home herself. Hurry up and go across and see her and find out what it is. I’ve got my old women coming in two minutes or I’d come myself. I do hate old women – they tell you about their bad legs and sometimes insist on showing them to you. What luck that the inquest is this afternoon! You won’t have to go and watch the Boys’ Club Cricket Match.’
I hurried off, considerably exercised in my mind as to the reason for this summons.
I found Miss Marple in what, I believe, is described as a fluster. She was very pink and slightly incoherent.
‘My nephew,’ she explained. ‘My nephew, Raymond West, the author. He is coming down today. Such a to-do. I have to see to everything myself. You cannot trust a maid to air a bed properly, and we must, of course, have a meat meal tonight. Gentlemen require such a lot of meat, do they not? And drink. There certainly should be some drink in the house – and a siphon.’
‘If I can do anything –’ I began.
‘Oh! How very kind. But I did not mean that. There is plenty of time really. He brings his own pipe and tobacco, I am glad to say. Glad because it saves me from knowing which kind of cigarettes are right to buy. But rather sorry, too, because it takes so long for the smell to get out of the curtains. Of course, I open the window and shake them well very early every morning. Raymond gets up very late – I think writers often do. He writes very clever books, I believe, though people are not really nearly so unpleasant as he makes out. Clever young men know so little of life, don’t you think?’
‘Would you like to bring him to dinner at the Vicarage?’ I asked, still unable to gather why I had been summoned.
‘Oh! No, thank you,’ said Miss Marple. ‘It’s very kind of you,’ she added.
‘There was – er – something you wanted to see me about, I think,’ I suggested desperately.
‘Oh! Of course. In all the excitement it had gone right out of my head.’ She broke off and called to her maid. ‘Emily – Emily. Not those sheets. The frilled ones with the monogram, and don’t put them too near the fire.’
She closed the door and returned to me on tiptoe.
‘It’s just rather a curious thing that happened last night,’ she explained. ‘I thought you would like to hear about it, though at the moment it doesn’t seem to make sense. I felt very wakeful last night – wondering about all this sad business. And I got up and looked out of my window. And what do you think I saw?’
I looked, inquiring.
‘Gladys Cram,’ said Miss Marple, with great emphasis. ‘As I live, going into the wood with a suitcase.’
‘A suitcase?’
‘Isn’t it extraordinary? What should she want with a suitcase in the wood at twelve o’clock at night?
‘You see,’ said Miss Marple, ‘I dare say it has nothing to do with the murder. But it is a Peculiar