Pocket Full of Rye - Agatha Christie [38]
“I mean, it does fit,” said Miss Marple. “It was rye in his pocket, wasn’t it? One newspaper said so. The others just said cereal, which might mean anything. Farmer’s Glory or Cornflakes—or even maize—but it was rye?”
Inspector Neele nodded.
“There you are,” said Miss Marple, triumphantly. “Rex Fortescue. Rex means King. In his Counting House. And Mrs. Fortescue the Queen in the parlour, eating bread and honey. And so, of course, the murderer had to put that clothes-peg on poor Gladys’s nose.”
Inspector Neele said:
“You mean the whole setup is crazy?”
“Well, one mustn’t jump to conclusions—but it is certainly very odd. But you really must make inquiries about blackbirds. Because there must be blackbirds!”
It was at this point that Sergeant Hay came into the room saying urgently, “Sir.”
He broke off at sight of Miss Marple. Inspector Neele, recovering himself, said:
“Thank you, Miss Marple. I’ll look into the matter. Since you are interested in the girl, perhaps you would care to look over the things from her room. Sergeant Hay will show you them presently.”
Miss Marple, accepting her dismissal, twittered her way out.
“Blackbirds!” murmured Inspector Neele to himself.
Sergeant Hay stared.
“Yes, Hay, what is it?”
“Sir,” said Sergeant Hay, urgently again. “Look at this.”
He produced an article wrapped in a somewhat grubby handkerchief.
“Found it in the shrubbery,” said Sergeant Hay. “Could have been chucked there from one of the back windows.”
He tipped the object down on the desk in front of the inspector, who leaned forward and inspected it with rising excitement. The exhibit was a nearly full pot of marmalade.
The inspector stared at it without speech. His face assumed a peculiarly wooden and stupid appearance. In actual fact this meant that Inspector Neele’s mind was racing once more round an imaginary track. A moving picture was enacting itself before the eyes of his mind. He saw a new pot of marmalade, he saw hands carefully removing its cover, he saw a small quantity of marmalade removed, mixed with a preparation of taxine and replaced in the pot, the top smoothed over and the lid carefully replaced. He broke off at this point to ask Sergeant Hay:
“They don’t take marmalade out of the pot and put it into fancy pots?”
“No, sir. Got into the way of serving it in its own pot during the war when things were scarce, and it’s gone on like that ever since.”
Neele murmured:
“That made it easier, of course.”
“What’s more,” said Sergeant Hay, “Mr. Fortescue was the only one that took marmalade for breakfast (and Mr. Percival when he was at home). The others had jam or honey.”
Neele nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “That made it very simple, didn’t it?”
After a slight gap the moving picture went on in his mind. It was the breakfast table now. Rex Fortescue stretching out his hand for the marmalade pot, taking out a spoonful of marmalade and spreading it on his toast and butter. Easier, far easier that way than the risk and difficulty of insinuating it into his coffee cup. A foolproof method of administering the poison! And afterwards? Another gap and a picture that was not quite so clear. The replacing of that pot of marmalade by another with exactly the same amount taken from it. And then an open window. A hand and an arm flinging out that pot into the shrubbery. Whose hand and arm?
Inspector Neele said in a businesslike voice:
“Well, we’ll have of course to get this analysed. See if there are any traces of taxine. We can’t jump to conclusions.”
“No, sir. There may be fingerprints too.”
“Probably not the ones we want,” said Inspector Neele gloomily. “There’ll be Gladys’s, of course, and Crump’s and Fortescue’s own. Then probably Mrs. Crump’s, the grocer’s assistant and a few others! If anyone put taxine in here they’d take care not to go playing about with their own fingers all over the pot. Anyway, as I say, we mustn’t jump to conclusions. How do they order marmalade and where is it kept?”
The industrious Sergeant Hay had his answer pat for all these questions.
“Marmalade and jams comes in in batches of