Pocket Full of Rye - Agatha Christie [36]
Inspector Neele looked at her with interest.
“I know just what you mean, Miss Marple,” he said.
Miss Marple coughed apologetically.
“I wonder—I suppose it would be great presumption on my part—if only I could assist you in my very humble and, I’m afraid, very feminine way. This is a wicked murderer, Inspector Neele, and the wicked should not go unpunished.”
“That’s an unfashionable belief nowadays, Miss Marple,” Inspector Neele said rather grimly. “Not that I don’t agree with you.”
“There is an hotel near the station, or there’s the Golf Hotel,” said Miss Marple tentatively, “and I believe there’s a Miss Ramsbottom in this house who is interested in foreign missions.”
Inspector Neele looked at Miss Marple appraisingly.
“Yes,” he said. “You’ve got something there, maybe. I can’t say that I’ve had great success with the lady.”
“It’s really very kind of you, Inspector Neele,” said Miss Marple. “I’m so glad you don’t think I’m just a sensation hunter.”
Inspector Neele gave a sudden, rather unexpected smile. He was thinking to himself that Miss Marple was very unlike the popular idea of an avenging fury. And yet, he thought that was perhaps exactly what she was.
“Newspapers,” said Miss Marple, “are often so sensational in their accounts. But hardly, I fear, as accurate as one might wish.” She looked inquiringly at Inspector Neele. “If one could be sure of having just the sober facts.”
“They’re not particularly sober,” said Neele. “Shorn of undue sensation, they’re as follows. Mr. Fortescue died in his office as a result of taxine poisoning. Taxine is obtained from the berries and leaves of yew trees.”
“Very convenient,” Miss Marple said.
“Possibly,” said Inspector Neele, “but we’ve no evidence as to that. As yet, that is.” He stressed the point because it was here that he thought Miss Marple might be useful. If any brew or concoction of yewberries had been made in the house, Miss Marple was quite likely to come upon traces of it. She was the sort of old pussy who would make homemade liqueurs, cordials and herb teas herself. She would know methods of making and methods of disposal.
“And Mrs. Fortescue?”
“Mrs. Fortescue had tea with the family in the library. The last person to leave the room and the tea table was Miss Elaine Fortescue, her stepdaughter. She states that as she left the room Mrs. Fortescue was pouring herself out another cup of tea. Some twenty minutes or half hour later Miss Dove, who acts as housekeeper, went in to remove the tea tray. Mrs. Fortescue was still sitting on the sofa, dead. Beside her was a tea cup a quarter full and in the dregs of it was potassium cyanide.”
“Which is almost immediate in its action, I believe,” said Miss Marple.
“Exactly.”
“Such dangerous stuff,” murmured Miss Marple. “One has it to take wasps’ nests but I’m always very, very careful.”
“You’re quite right,” said Inspector Neele. “There was a packet of it in the gardener’s shed here.”
“Again very convenient,” said Miss Marple. She added, “Was Mrs. Fortescue eating anything?”
“Oh, yes. They’d had quite a sumptuous tea.”
“Cake, I suppose? Bread and butter? Scones, perhaps? Jam? Honey?”
“Yes, there was honey and scones, chocolate cake and swiss roll and various other plates of things.” He looked at her curiously. “The potassium cyanide was in the tea, Miss Marple.”
“Oh, yes, yes. I quite understand that. I was just getting the whole picture, so to speak. Rather significant, don’t you think?”
He looked at her in a slightly puzzled fashion. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes were bright.
“And the third death, Inspector Neele?”
“Well, the facts there seem clear enough, too. The girl, Gladys, took in the tea tray, then she brought the next tray into the hall, but left it there. She’d been rather absentminded all the day, apparently. After that no one saw her. The cook, Mrs. Crump, jumped to the conclusion