The Mirror Crack'd - Agatha Christie [28]
‘They handed it over to us,’ said Dermot, ‘and so, naturally, as soon as I got down here I came to headquarters.’
‘Do you mean —’ Miss Marple fluttered a little.
‘Yes, Aunty,’ said Dermot disrespectfully. ‘I mean you.’
‘I’m afraid,’ said Miss Marple regretfully, ‘I’m very much out of things nowadays. I don’t get out much.’
‘You get out enough to fall down and be picked up by a woman who’s going to be murdered ten days later,’ said Dermot Craddock.
Miss Marple made the kind of noise that would once have been written down as ‘tut-tut’.
‘I don’t know where you hear these things,’ she said.
‘You should know,’ said Dermot Craddock. ‘You told me yourself that in a village everybody knows everything.
‘And just off the record,’ he added, ‘did you think she was going to be murdered as soon as you looked at her?’
‘Of course not, of course not,’ exclaimed Miss Marple. ‘What an idea!’
‘You didn’t see that look in her husband’s eye that reminded you of Harry Simpson or David Jones or somebody you’ve known years ago, and subsequently pushed his wife off a precipice.’
‘No, I did not!’ said Miss Marple. ‘I’m sure Mr Badcock would never do a wicked thing of that kind. At least,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘I’m nearly sure.’
‘But human nature being what it is —’ murmured Craddock, wickedly.
‘Exactly,’ said Miss Marple. She added, ‘I daresay, after the first natural grief, he won’t miss her very much…’
‘Why? Did she bully him?’
‘Oh no,’ said Miss Marple, ‘but I don’t think that she — well, she wasn’t a considerate woman. Kind, yes. Considerate — no. She would be fond of him and look after him when he was ill and see to his meals and be a good housekeeper, but I don’t think she would ever — well, that she would ever even know what he might be feeling or thinking. That makes rather a lonely life for a man.’
‘Ah,’ said Dermot, ‘and is his life less likely to be lonely in future?’
‘I expect he’ll marry again,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Perhaps quite soon. And probably, which is such a pity, a woman of much the same type. I mean he’ll marry someone with a stronger personality than his own.’
‘Anyone in view?’ asked Dermot.
‘Not that I know of,’ said Miss Marple. She added regretfully, ‘But I know so little.’
‘Well, what do you think?’ urged Dermot Craddock. ‘You’ve never been backward in thinking things.’
‘I think,’ said Miss Marple, unexpectedly, ‘that you ought to go and see Mrs Bantry.’
‘Mrs Bantry? Who is she? One of the film lot?’
‘No,’ said Miss Marple, ‘she lives in the East Lodge at Gossington. She was at the party that day. She used to own Gossington at one time. She and her husband, Colonel Bantry.’
‘She was at the party. And she saw something?’
‘I think she must tell you herself what it was she saw. You mayn’t think it has any bearing on the matter, but I think it might be — just might be — suggestive. Tell her I sent you to her and — ah yes, perhaps you’d better just mention the Lady of Shalott.’
Dermot Craddock looked at her with his head just slightly on one side.
‘The Lady of Shalott,’ he said. ‘Those are the code words, are they?’
‘I don’t know that I should put it that way,’ said Miss Marple, ‘but it will remind her of what I mean.’
Dermot Craddock got up. ‘I shall be back,’ he warned her.
‘That is very nice of you,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Perhaps if you have time, you would come and have tea with me one day. If you still drink tea,’ she added rather wistfully. ‘I know that so many young people nowadays only go out to drinks and things. They think that afternoon tea is a very outmoded affair.’
‘I’m not as young as all that,’ said Dermot Craddock. ‘Yes, I’ll come and have tea with you one day. We’ll have tea and gossip and talk about the village. Do you know any of the film stars, by the way, or any of the studio lot?’
‘Not a thing,’ said Miss Marple, ‘except what I hear,’ she added.
‘Well, you usually hear a good deal,’ said Dermot Craddock. ‘Goodbye. It’s been very nice to see