The Thirteen Problems - Agatha Christie [50]
‘A very bold and perfect crime,’ said Sir Henry. ‘Almost the perfect crime. If it had been Miss Barton who had died in the Canaries, suspicion might attach to Amy Durrant and her connection with the Barton family might have been discovered; but the change of identity and the double crime, as you may call it, effectually did away with that. Yes, almost the perfect crime.’
‘What happened to her?’ asked Mrs Bantry. ‘What did you do in the matter, Dr Lloyd?’
‘I was in a very curious position, Mrs Bantry. Of evidence as the law understands it, I still have very little. Also, there were certain signs, plain to me as a medical man, that though strong and vigorous in appearance, the lady was not long for this world. I went home with her and saw the rest of the family—a charming family, devoted to their eldest sister and without an idea in their heads that she might prove to have committed a crime. Why bring sorrow on them when I could prove nothing? The lady’s admission to me was unheard by anyone else. I let Nature take its course. Miss Amy Barton died six months after my meeting with her. I have often wondered if she was cheerful and unrepentant up to the last.’
‘Surely not,’ said Mrs Bantry.
‘I expect so,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Mrs Trout was.’
Jane Helier gave herself a little shake.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘It’s very, very thrilling. I don’t quite understand now who drowned which. And how does this Mrs Trout come into it?’
‘She doesn’t, my dear,’ said Miss Marple. ‘She was only a person—not a very nice person—in the village.’
‘Oh!’ said Jane. ‘In the village. But nothing ever happens in a village, does it?’ She sighed. ‘I’m sure I shouldn’t have any brains at all if I lived in a village.’
Chapter 9
The Four Suspects
The conversation hovered round undiscovered and unpunished crimes. Everyone in turn vouchsafed their opinion: Colonel Bantry, his plump amiable wife, Jane Helier, Dr Lloyd, and even old Miss Marple. The one person who did not speak was the one best fitted in most people’s opinion to do so. Sir Henry Clithering, ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard, sat silent, twisting his moustache—or rather stroking it—and half smiling, as though at some inward thought that amused him.
‘Sir Henry,’ said Mrs Bantry at last. ‘If you don’t say something I shall scream. Are there a lot of crimes that go unpunished, or are there not?’
‘You’re thinking of newspaper headlines, Mrs Bantry. SCOTLAND YARD AT FAULT AGAIN. And a list of unsolved mysteries to follow.’
‘Which really, I suppose, form a very small percentage of the whole?’ said Dr Lloyd.
‘Yes; that is so. The hundreds of crimes that are solved and the perpetrators punished are seldom heralded and sung. But that isn’t quite the point at issue, is it? When you talk of undiscovered crimes and unsolved crimes, you are talking of two different things. In the first category come all the crimes that Scotland Yard never hears about, the crimes that no one even knows have been committed.’
‘But I suppose there aren’t very many of those?’ said Mrs Bantry.
‘Aren’t there?’
‘Sir Henry! You don’t mean there are?’
‘I should think,’ said Miss Marple thoughtfully, ‘that there must be a very large number.’
The charming old lady, with her old-world unruffled air, made her statement in a tone of the utmost placidity.
‘My dear Miss Marple,’ said Colonel Bantry.
‘Of course,’ said Miss Marple, ‘a lot of people are stupid. And stupid people get found out, whatever they do. But there are quite a number of people who aren’t stupid, and one shudders to think of what they might accomplish unless they had very strongly rooted principles.’
‘Yes,’ said Sir Henry, ‘there are a lot of people who aren’t stupid. How often