The Mirror Crack'd - Agatha Christie [90]
‘I think he knew her,’ said Miss Marple. ‘He was married to her once.’
‘Arthur Badcock? But — he was — he was Heather Badcock’s husband. Aren’t you perhaps —’ he spoke kindly and apologetically — ‘Making a little mistake?’
‘He was married to both of them,’ said Miss Marple. ‘He was married to your wife when she was very young, before she went into pictures.’
Jason Rudd shook his head.
‘My wife was first married to a man called Alfred Beadle. He was in real estate. They were not suited and they parted almost immediately.’
‘Then Alfred Beadle changed his name to Badcock,’ said Miss Marple. ‘He’s in a real estate firm here. It’s odd how some people never seem to like to change their job and want to go on doing the same thing. I expect really that’s why Marina Gregg felt that he was no use to her. He couldn’t have kept up with her.’
‘What you’ve told me is most surprising.’
‘I can assure you that I am not romancing or imagining things. What I am telling you is sober fact. These things get round very quickly in a village, you know, though they take a little longer,’ she added, ‘in reaching the Hall.’
‘Well,’ Jason Rudd stalled, uncertain what to say, then he accepted the position, ‘and what do you want me to do for you, Miss Marple?’ he asked.
‘I want, if I may, to stand on the stairs at the spot where you and your wife received guests on the day of the fête.’
He shot a quick doubtful glance at her. Was this, after all, just another sensation-seeker? But Miss Marple’s face was grave and composed.
‘Why certainly,’ he said, ‘if you want to do so. Come with me.’
He led her to the staircase head and paused in the hollowed-out bay at the top of it.
‘You’ve made a good many changes in the house since the Bantrys were here,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I like this. Now, let me see. The tables would be about here, I suppose, and you and your wife would be standing —’
‘My wife stood here.’ Jason showed her the place. ‘People came up the stairs, she shook hands with them and passed them on to me.’
‘She stood here,’ said Miss Marple.
She moved over and took her place where Marina Gregg had stood. She remained there quite quietly without moving. Jason Rudd watched her. He was perplexed but interested. She raised her right hand slightly as though shaking, looked down the stairs as though to see people coming up it. Then she looked straight ahead of her. On the wall half-way up the stairs was a large picture, a copy of an Italian Old Master. On either side of it were narrow windows, one giving out on the garden and the other giving on to the end of the stables and the weathercock. But Miss Marple looked at neither of these. Her eyes were fixed on the picture itself.
‘Of course you always hear a thing right the first time,’ she said. ‘Mrs Bantry told me that your wife stared at the picture and her face “froze”, as she put it.’ She looked at the rich red and blue robes of the Madonna, a Madonna with her head slightly back, laughing up at the Holy Child that she was holding up in her arms. ‘Giacomo Bellini’s “Laughing Madonna”,’ she said. ‘A religious picture, but also a painting of a happy mother with her child. Isn’t that so Mr Rudd?’
‘I would say so, yes.’
‘I understand now,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I understand quite well. The whole thing is really very simple, isn’t it?’ She looked at Jason Rudd.
‘Simple?’
‘I think you know how simple it is,’ said Miss Marple. There was a peal on the bell below.
‘I don’t think,’ said Jason Rudd, ‘I quite understand.’ He looked down the stairway. There was a sound of voices.
‘I know that voice,’ said Miss Marple. ‘It’s Inspector Craddock’s voice, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it seems to be Inspector Craddock.’
‘He wants to see you, too. Would you mind very much if he joined us?’
‘Not at all as far as I am concerned. Whether he will agree —’
‘I think he will agree,’ said Miss Marple. ‘There’s really not much time now to be lost is there? We’ve got to the moment when we’ve got to understand just how everything happened.’
‘I thought you said it was simple,’ said Jason Rudd.
‘It was so simple,