Nemesis - Agatha Christie [94]
‘I was only really sure that last evening when Miss Cooke prevented me, by very distinct words of warning, from drinking the cup of coffee that Clotilde Bradbury-Scott had just set down in front of me. She phrased it very cleverly, but the warning was clearly there. Later, when I was wishing those two goodnight, one of them took my hand in both of hers giving me a particularly friendly and affectionate handshake. And in doing so she passed something into my hand, which, when I examined it later, I found to be a high-powered whistle. I took it to bed with me, accepted the glass of milk which was urged upon me by my hostess, and wished her goodnight, being careful not to change my simple and friendly attitude.’
‘You didn’t drink the milk?’
‘Of course not,’ said Miss Marple. ‘What do you take me for?’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Professor Wanstead. ‘It surprises me that you didn’t lock your door.’
‘That would have been quite the wrong thing to do,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I wanted Clotilde Bradbury-Scott to come in. I wanted to see what she would say or do. I thought it was almost certain that she would come in when sufficient time had elapsed, to make sure that I had drunk the milk, and was in an unconscious sleep from which presumably I would not have woken up again.’
‘Did you help Miss Cooke to conceal herself in the wardrobe?’
‘No. It was a complete surprise when she came out of that suddenly. I suppose,’ said Miss Marple thoughtfully, thinking it over, ‘I suppose she slipped in there just when I had gone down the passage to the — er — to the bathroom.’
‘You knew the two women were in the house?’
‘I thought they would be at hand somewhere after they’d given me the whistle. I do not think it was a difficult house to which to gain access, there were no shuttered windows or burglar alarms or anything of that kind. One of them came back on the pretext of having left a handbag and a scarf. Between them they probably managed to leave a window unfastened, and I should imagine they came back into the house almost as soon as they left it, while the inhabitants inside were going up to bed.’
‘You took a big risk, Miss Marple.’
‘I hoped for the best,’ said Miss Marple. ‘One cannot go through life without attracting certain risks if they are necessary.’
‘Your tip about the parcel dispatched to that charity, by the way, was entirely successful. It contained a brand new brightly coloured man’s polo-necked jumper in scarlet and black checks. Most noticeable. What made you think of that?’
‘Well,’ said Miss Marple, ‘that was really very simple. The description that Emlyn and Joanna gave of the figure they had seen made it seem almost certain that these very bright coloured and noticeable clothes were meant to be noticed, and that therefore it would be very important that they should not be hidden locally or kept among the person’s own belongings. They must be got out of the way as soon as could be. And really there is only one way successfully of disposing of something. That is through the general post. Anything in the nature of clothes can be very easily dispatched to charities. Think how pleased the people who collect winter garments for Unemployed Mothers, or whatever the name of the charity, would be to find a nearly brand new woollen jumper. All I had to do was to find out the address where it had been sent.’
‘And you asked them that at the post office?’ The Home Secretary looked slightly shocked.
‘Not directly, of course. I mean, I had to be a little flustered and explain how I’d put the wrong address on some clothes that I was sending to a charity and could they by any chance tell me if the parcel one of my kind hostesses had brought up there, had been sent off. And a very nice woman there did her best and remembered