Murder at the Vicarage - Agatha Christie [69]
His use of the word cache puzzled me for a moment, as he pronounced it catch, but his real meaning occurred to me almost at once.
‘Whatimeantersay is, sir, where else could the young woman be going starting into the wood by that path? It leads to Old Hall, and it leads here, and that’s about all.’
‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘that Inspector Slack would disdain such a simple course as asking the young lady straight out.’
‘Anxious not to put the wind up her,’ said Hurst. ‘Anything she writes to Stone or he writes to her may throw light on things – once she knows we’re on to her, she’d shut up like that.’
Like what exactly was left in doubt, but I personally doubted Miss Gladys Cram ever being shut up in the way described. It was impossible to imagine her as other than overflowing with conversation.
‘When a man’s an h’impostor, you want to know why he’s an h’impostor,’ said Constable Hurst didactically.
‘Naturally,’ I said.
‘And the answer is to be found in this here barrow – or else why was he for ever messing about with it?’
‘A raison d’ être for prowling about,’ I suggested, but this bit of French was too much for the constable. He revenged himself for not understanding it by saying coldly:
‘That’s the h’amateur’s point of view.’
‘Anyway, you haven’t found the suitcase,’ I said.
‘We shall do, sir. Not a doubt of it.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ I said. ‘I’ve been thinking. Miss Marple said it was quite a short time before the girl reappeared empty-handed. In that case, she wouldn’t have had time to get up here and back.’
‘You can’t take any notice of what old ladies say. When they’ve seen something curious, and are waiting all eager like, why, time simply flies for them. And anyway, no lady knows anything about time.’
I often wonder why the whole world is so prone to generalize. Generalizations are seldom if ever true and are usually utterly inaccurate. I have a poor sense of time myself (hence the keeping of my clock fast) and Miss Marple, I should say, has a very acute one. Her clocks keep time to the minute and she herself is rigidly punctual on every occasion.
However, I had no intention of arguing with Constable Hurst on the point. I wished him good afternoon and good luck and went on my way.
It was just as I was nearing home that the idea came to me. There was nothing to lead up to it. It just flashed into my brain as a possible solution.
You will remember that on my first search of the path, the day after the murder, I had found the bushes disturbed in a certain place. They proved, or so I thought at the time, to have been disturbed by Lawrence, bent on the same errand as myself.
But I remembered that afterwards he and I together had come upon another faintly marked trail which proved to be that of the Inspector. On thinking it over, I distinctly remembered that the first trail (Lawrence’s) had been much more noticeable than the second, as though more than one person had been passing that way. And I reflected that that was probably what had drawn Lawrence’s attention to it in the first instance. Supposing that it had originally been made by either Dr Stone or else Miss Cram?
I remembered, or else I imagined remembering, that there had been several withered leaves on broken twigs. If so, the trail could not have been made the afternoon of our search.
I was just approaching the spot in question. I recognized it easily enough and once more forced my way through the bushes. This time I noticed fresh twigs broken. Someone had passed this way since Lawrence and myself.
I soon came to the place where I had encountered Lawrence. The faint trail, however, persisted farther, and I continued to follow it. Suddenly it widened out into a little clearing, which showed signs of recent upheaval. I say a clearing, because the denseness of the undergrowth was thinned out there, but the branches of the trees met overhead and the whole place was not more than a few feet across.
On the other side, the undergrowth grew densely again, and it seemed quite clear that no one had forced a way