The Mirror Crack'd - Agatha Christie [94]
Jason Rudd shook his head.
‘I don’t think so. She certainly never said anything to me. I don’t think,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘she would recognize him.’
‘Probably not,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘he’s quite innocent of wanting to kill her or anything of that kind. Remember that,’ she added to Dermot Craddock as he went down the stairs.
‘He’s not been in any real danger, I can assure you,’ said Craddock, ‘but of course when we found out that he had actually been Miss Marina Gregg’s first husband we naturally had to question him on the point. Don’t worry about him, Aunt Jane,’ he added in a low murmur, then he hurried down the stairs.
Miss Marple turned to Jason Rudd. He was standing there like a man in a daze, his eyes far away.
‘Would you allow me to see her?’ said Miss Marple.
He considered her for a moment or two, then he nodded.
‘Yes, you can see her. You seem to — understand her very well.’
He turned and Miss Marple followed him. He preceded her into the big bedroom and drew the curtains slightly aside.
Marina Gregg lay in the great white shell of the bed — her eyes closed, her hands folded.
So, Miss Marple thought, might the Lady of Shalott have lain in the boat that carried her down to Camelot. And there, standing musing, was a man with a rugged, ugly face, who might pass as a Lancelot of a later day.
Miss Marple said gently, ‘It’s very fortunate for her that she — took an overdose. Death was really the only way of escape left to her. Yes — very fortunate she took that overdose — or — was given it?’
His eyes met hers, but he did not speak.
He said brokenly, ‘She was — so lovely — and she had suffered so much.’
Miss Marple looked back against the still figure.
She quoted softly the last lines of the poem:
‘He said: “She has a lovely face;
God in His mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.” ’
E-Book Extras
The Marples
Essay by Charles Osborne
The Marples
The Murder at the Vicarage ;
The Thirteen Problems ;
The Body in the Library ;
The Moving Finger ;
A Murder Is Announced ;
They Do It with Mirrors ;
A Pocket Full of Rye ;
4.50 from Paddington ;
The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side ;
A Caribbean Mystery ;
At Bertram’s Hotel ;
Nemesis ;
Sleeping Murder ;
Miss Marple’s Final Cases
1. The Murder at the Vicarage (1930)
The murder of Colonel Protheroe — shot through the head — is a shock to everyone in St. Mary Mead, though hardly an unpleasant one. Now even the vicar, who had declared that killing the detested Protheroe would be ‘doing the world at large a favour,’ is a suspect — the Colonel has been dispatched in the clergyman’s study, no less. But tiny St. Mary Mead is overpopulated with suspects. There is of course the faithless Mrs Protheroe; and there is of course her young lover — an artist, to boot. Perhaps more surprising than the revelation of the murderer is the detective who will crack the case: ‘a whitehaired old lady with a gentle, appealing manner.’ Miss Jane Marple has arrived on the scene, and crime literature’s private men’s club of great detectives will never be the same.
Saturday Review of Literature: ‘When she really hits her stride, as she does here, Agatha Christie is hard to surpass.’
2. The Thirteen Problems (1932)
Over six Tuesday evenings a group gathers at Miss Marple’s house to ponder unsolved crimes. The company is inclined to forget their elderly hostess as they become mesmerized by the sinister tales they tell one another. But it is always Miss Marple’s quiet genius that names the criminal or the means of the misdeed. As indeed is true in subsequent gatherings at the country home of Colonel and Mrs Bantry, where another set of terrible wrongs is related by the assembled guests — and righted, by Miss Marple.
The stories: ‘The Tuesday Night Club’; ‘The Idol House of Astarte’; ‘Ingots of Gold’; ‘The Bloodstained Pavement’; ‘Motive v Opportunity