Pocket Full of Rye - Agatha Christie [74]
“But, surely,” Inspector Neele objected, “she would have told?”
Miss Marple asked sharply:
“What was the first thing she said to you when you questioned her?”
“She said: ‘I didn’t do it,’ ” Inspector Neele said.
“Exactly,” said Miss Marple, triumphantly. “Don’t you see that’s exactly what she would say? If she broke an ornament, you know, Gladys would always say: ‘I didn’t do it, Miss Marple. I can’t think how it happened.’ They can’t help it, poor dears. They’re very upset at what they’ve done and their great idea is to avoid blame. You don’t think that a nervous young woman who had murdered someone when she didn’t mean to murder him is going to admit it, do you? That would have been quite out of character.”
“Yes,” Neele said, “I suppose it would.”
He ran his mind back over his interview with Gladys. Nervous, upset, guilty, shifty-eyed, all those things. They might have had a small significance, or a big one. He could not really blame himself for having failed to come to the right conclusion.
“Her first idea, as I say,” went on Miss Marple, “would be to deny it all. Then in a confused way she would try to sort it all out in her mind. Perhaps Albert hadn’t known how strong the stuff was, or he’d made a mistake and given her too much of it. She’d think of excuses for him and explanations. She’d hope he’d get in touch with her, which, of course, he did. By telephone.”
“Do you know that?” asked Neele sharply.
Miss Marple shook her head.
“No. I admit I’m assuming it. But there were unexplained calls that day. That is to say, people rang up and, when Crump or Mrs. Crump answered, the phone was hung up. That’s what he’d do, you know. Ring up and wait until Gladys answered the phone, and then he’d make an appointment with her to meet him.”
“I see,” said Neele. “You mean she had an appointment to meet him on the day she died.”
Miss Marple nodded vigorously.
“Yes, that was indicated. Mrs. Crump was right about one thing. The girl had on her best nylon stockings and her good shoes. She was going to meet someone. Only she wasn’t going out to meet him. He was coming to Yewtree Lodge. That’s why she was on the look out that day and flustered and late with tea. Then, as she brought the second tray into the hall, I think she looked along the passage to the side door, and saw him there, beckoning to her. She put the tray down and went out to meet him.”
“And then he strangled her,” said Neele.
Miss Marple pursed her lips together. “It would only take a minute,” she said, “but he couldn’t risk her talking. She had to die, poor, silly, credulous girl. And then—he put a clothes-peg on her nose!” Stern anger vibrated the old lady’s voice. ‘To make it fit in with the rhyme. The rye, the blackbirds, the countinghouse, the bread and honey, and the clothes-peg—the nearest he could get to a little dickey bird that nipped off her nose—”
“And I suppose at the end of it all he’ll go to Broadmoor and we shan’t be able to hang him because he’s crazy!” said Neele slowly.
“I think you’ll hang him all right,” said Miss Marple. “And he’s not crazy, Inspector, not for a moment!”
Inspector Neele looked hard at her.
“Now see here, Miss Marple, you’ve outlined a theory to me. Yes—yes—although you say you know, it’s only a theory. You’re saying that a man is responsible for these crimes, who called himself Albert Evans, who picked up the girl Gladys at a holiday camp and used her for his own purposes. This Albert Evans was someone who wanted revenge for the old Blackbird Mine business. You’re suggesting, aren’t you, that Mrs. MacKenzie’s son, Don MacKenzie, didn’t die at Dunkirk. That he’s still alive, that he’s behind all this?”
But to Inspector Neele’s surprise, Miss Marple was shaking her head violently.
“Oh no!” she said, “oh no! I’m not suggesting that at all. Don’t you see, Inspector Neele, all this blackbird business is really a complete fake. It was used, that was all, used by somebody who heard about the blackbirds—the ones in the library and in the pie. The blackbirds were genuine enough. They