The Mirror Crack'd - Agatha Christie [46]
‘You mean you’re looking for some special story about someone?’
‘No,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I’m just looking for odd mentions of people and a way of life and something — some little something that might help.’ She returned to her perusal of the magazines and Cherry removed her vacuum cleaner to the upper floor. Miss Marple’s face was pink and interested, and being slightly deaf now, she did not hear the footsteps that came along the garden path towards the drawing-room window. It was only when a slight shadow fell on the page that she looked up. Dermot Craddock was standing smiling at her.
‘Doing your homework, I see,’ he remarked.
‘Inspector Craddock, how very nice to see you. And how kind to spare time to come and see me. Would you like a cup of coffee, or possibly a glass of sherry?’
‘A glass of sherry would be splendid,’ said Dermot. ‘Don’t you move,’ he added. ‘I’ll ask for it as I come in.’
He went round by the side door and presently joined Miss Marple.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘is that bumph giving you ideas?’
‘Rather too many ideas,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I’m not often shocked, you know, but this does shock me a little.’
‘What, the private lives of film stars?’
‘Oh no,’ said Miss Marple, ‘not that! That all seems to be most natural, given the circumstances and the money involved and the opportunities for propinquity. Oh, no, that’s natural enough. I mean the way they’re written about. I’m rather old-fashioned, you know, and I feel that that really shouldn’t be allowed.’
‘It’s news,’ said Dermot Craddock, ‘and some pretty nasty things can be said in the way of fair comment.’
‘I know,’ said Miss Marple. ‘It makes me sometimes very angry. I expect you think it’s silly of me reading all these. But one does so badly want to be in things and of course sitting here in the house I can’t really know as much about things as I would like to.’
‘That’s just what I thought,’ said Dermot Craddock, ‘and that’s why I’ve come to tell you about them.’
‘But, my dear boy, excuse me, would your superiors really approve of that?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Dermot. ‘Here,’ he added, ‘I have a list. A list of people who were there on that landing during the short time of Heather Badcock’s arrival until her death. We’ve eliminated a lot of people, perhaps precipitately, but I don’t think so. We’ve eliminated the mayor and his wife and Alderman somebody and his wife and a great many of the locals, though we’ve kept in the husband. If I remember rightly you were always very suspicious of husbands.’
‘They are often the obvious suspects,’ said Miss Marple, apologetically, ‘and the obvious is so often right.’
‘I couldn’t agree with you more,’ said Craddock.
‘But which husband, my dear boy, are you referring to?’
‘Which one do you think?’ asked Dermot. He eyed her sharply.
Miss Marple looked at him.
‘Jason Rudd?’ she asked.
‘Ah!’ said Craddock. ‘Your mind works just as mine does. I don’t think it was Arthur Badcock, because you see, I don’t think that Heather Badcock was meant to be killed. I think the intended victim was Marina Gregg.’
‘That would seem almost certain, wouldn’t it?’ said Miss Marple.
‘And so,’ said Craddock, ‘as we both agree on that, the field widens. To tell you who was there on that day, what they saw or said they saw, and where they were or said they were, is only a thing you could have observed for yourself if you’d been there. So my superiors, as you call them, couldn’t possibly object to my discussing that with you, could they?’
‘That’s very nicely put, my dear boy,’ said Miss Marple.
‘I’ll give you a little précis of what I was told and then we’ll come to the list.’
He gave a brief résumé of what he had heard, and then he produced his list.
‘It must be one of these,’ he said. ‘My godfather, Sir Henry Clithering, told me that you once had a club here. You called it the Tuesday Night Club. You all dined