A Murder Is Announced (20 page)

Phillipa began picking up the pearls.

“I've never seen her so upset over anything,” she said. “Of course—she always wears them. Do you think, perhaps, that someone special gave them to her? Randall Goedler, perhaps?”

“It's possible,” said the Inspector slowly.

“They're not—they couldn't be—
real
by any chance?” Phillipa asked from where, on her knees, she was still collecting the white shining globules.

Taking one in his hand, Craddock was just about to reply contemptuously, “Real? Of course not!” when he suddenly stifled the words.

After all,
could
the pearls be real?

They were so large, so even, so white that their falseness seemed palpable, but Craddock remembered suddenly a police case where a
string of real pearls had been bought for a few shillings in a pawnbroker's shop.

Letitia Blacklock had assured him that there was no jewellery of value in the house. If these pearls were, by any chance, genuine, they must be worth a fabulous sum. And if Randall Goedler had given them to her—then they might be worth any sum you cared to name.

They looked false—they
must
be false, but—if they were real?

Why not? She might herself be unaware of their value. Or she might choose to protect her treasure by treating it as though it were a cheap ornament worth a couple of guineas at most. What would they be worth if real? A fabulous sum … Worth doing murder for—
if anybody knew about them.

With a start, the Inspector wrenched himself away from his speculations. Miss Marple was missing. He must go to the Vicarage.

III

He found Bunch and her husband waiting for him, their faces anxious and drawn.

“She hasn't come back,” said Bunch.

“Did she say she was coming back here when she left Boulders?” asked Julian.

“She didn't actually say so,” said Craddock slowly, throwing his mind back to the last time he had seen Jane Marple.

He remembered the grimness of her lips and the severe frosty light in those usually gentle blue eyes.

Grimness, an inexorable determination … to do what? To go where?

“She was talking to Sergeant Fletcher when I last saw her,” he said. “Just by the gate. And then she went through it and out. I took it she was going straight home to the Vicarage. I would have sent her in the car—but there was so much to attend to, and she slipped away very quietly. Fletcher may know something! Where's Fletcher?”

But Sergeant Fletcher, it seemed, as Craddock learned when he rang up Boulders, was neither to be found there nor had he left any message where he had gone. There was some idea that he had returned to Milchester for some reason.

The Inspector rang up headquarters in Milchester, but no news of Fletcher was to be found there.

Then Craddock turned to Bunch as he remembered what she had told him over the telephone.

“Where's that paper? You said she'd been writing something on a bit of paper.”

Bunch brought it to him. He spread it out on the table and looked down on it. Bunch leant over his shoulder and spelled it out as he read. The writing was shaky and not easy to read:

Lamp.

Then came the word “
Violets.
”

Then after a space:

Where is bottle of aspirin?

The next item in this curious list was more difficult to make out. “
Delicious death,
” Bunch read. “That's Mitzi's cake.”

“
Making enquiries,
” read Craddock.

“Inquiries? What about, I wonder? What's this?
Severe affliction bravely borne
… What on earth—!”

“
Iodine,
” read the Inspector. “
Pearls.
Ah, pearls.”

“And then
Lotty
—no, Letty. Her
e
's look like
o
's. And then
Berne.
And what's this?
Old Age Pension.
…”

They looked at each other in bewilderment.

Craddock recapitulated swiftly:

“Lamp. Violets. Where is bottle of aspirin? Delicious Death. Making enquiries. Severe affliction bravely borne. Iodine. Pearls. Letty. Berne. Old Age Pension.”

Bunch asked: “Does it mean anything? Anything at all? I can't see any connection.”

Craddock said slowly: “I've just a glimmer—but I don't see. It's odd that she should have put down that about pearls.”

“What about pearls? What does it mean?”

“Does Miss Blacklock always wear that three-tier choker of pearls?”

“Yes, she does. We laugh about it sometimes. They're so dreadfully false-looking, aren't they? But I suppose she thinks it's fashionable.”

“There might be another reason,” said Craddock slowly.

“You don't mean that they're
real.
Oh! they
couldn't
be!”

“How often have you had an opportunity of seeing real pearls of that size, Mrs. Harmon?”

“But they're so glassy.”

Craddock shrugged his shoulders.

“Anyway, they don't matter now. It's Miss Marple that matters. We've got to find her.”

They'd got to find her before it was too late—but perhaps it was
already too late? Those pencilled words showed that she was on the track … But that was dangerous—horribly dangerous. And where the hell was Fletcher?

Craddock strode out of the Vicarage to where he'd left his car. Search—that was all he could do—search.

A voice spoke to him out of the dripping laurels.

“Sir!” said Sergeant Fletcher urgently. “
Sir.
…”

D
inner was over at Little Paddocks. It had been a silent and uncomfortable meal.

Patrick, uneasily aware of having fallen from grace, only made spasmodic attempts at conversation—and such as he did make were not well received. Phillipa Haymes was sunk in abstraction. Miss Blacklock herself had abandoned the effort to behave with her normal cheerfulness. She had changed for dinner and had come down wearing her necklace of cameos but for the first time fear showed from her darkly circled eyes, and betrayed itself by her twitching hands.

Julia, alone, had maintained her air of cynical detachment throughout the evening.

“I'm sorry, Letty,” she said, “that I can't pack my bag and go. But I presume the police wouldn't allow it. I don't suppose I'll darken your roof—or whatever the expression is—for long. I should imagine that Inspector Craddock will be round with a warrant and the
handcuffs any moment. In fact I can't imagine why something of the kind hasn't happened already.”

“He's looking for the old lady—for Miss Marple,” said Miss Blacklock.

“Do you think she's been murdered, too?” Patrick asked with scientific curiosity. “But why? What could she know?”

“I don't know,” said Miss Blacklock dully. “Perhaps Miss Murgatroyd told her something.”

“If she's been murdered too,” said Patrick, “there seems to be logically only one person who could have done it.”

“Who?”

“Hinchcliffe, of course,” said Patrick triumphantly. “That's where she was last seen alive—at Boulders. My solution would be that she never left Boulders.”

“My head aches,” said Miss Blacklock in a dull voice. She pressed her fingers to her forehead. “Why should Hinch murder Miss Marple? It doesn't make sense.”

“It would if Hinch had really murdered Murgatroyd,” said Patrick triumphantly.

Phillipa came out of her apathy to say:

“Hinch wouldn't murder Murgatroyd.”

“She might have if Murgatroyd had blundered on something to show that she—Hinch—was the criminal.”

“Anyway, Hinch was at the station when Murgatroyd was killed.”

“She could have murdered Murgatroyd before she left.”

Startling them all, Letitia Blacklock suddenly screamed out:

“Murder, murder,
murder
—! Can't you talk of
anything
else? I'm frightened, don't you understand? I'm frightened. I wasn't before. I
thought I could take care of myself … But what can you do against a murderer who's waiting—and watching—and biding his time! Oh, God!”

She dropped her head forward on her hands. A moment later she looked up and apologized stiffly.

“I'm sorry. I—I lost control.”

“That's all right, Aunt Letty,” said Patrick affectionately. “I'll look after you.”

“You?” was all Letitia Blacklock said, but the disillusionment behind the word was almost an accusation.

That had been shortly before dinner, and Mitzi had then created a diversion by coming and declaring that she was not going to cook the dinner.

“I do not do anything more in this house. I go to my room. I lock myself in. I stay there until it is daylight. I am afraid—people are being killed—that Miss Murgatroyd with her stupid English face—who would want to kill
her?
Only a maniac! Then it is a maniac that is about! And a maniac does not care
who
he kills. But me, I do not want to be killed. There are shadows in the kitchen—and I hear noises—I think there is someone out in the yard and then I think I see a shadow by the larder door and then it is footsteps I hear. So I go now to my room and I lock the door and perhaps even I put the chest of drawers against it. And in the morning I tell that cruel hard policeman that I go away from here. And if he will not let me I say: ‘I scream and I scream and I scream until you have to let me go!'”

Everybody, with a vivid recollection of what Mitzi could do in the screaming line, shuddered at the threat.

“So I go to my room,” said Mitzi, repeating the statement once
more to make her intentions quite clear. With a symbolic action she cast off the cretonne apron she had been wearing. “Good night, Miss Blacklock. Perhaps in the morning, you may not be alive. So in case that is so, I say good-bye.”

She departed abruptly and the door, with its usual gentle little whine, closed softly after her.

Julia got up.

“I'll see to dinner,” she said in a matter-of-fact way. “Rather a good arrangement—less embarrassing for you all than having me sit down at table with you. Patrick (since he's constituted himself your protector, Aunt Letty) had better taste every dish first. I don't want to be accused of poisoning you on top of everything else.”

So Julia had cooked and served a really excellent meal.

Phillipa had come out to the kitchen with an offer of assistance but Julia had said firmly that she didn't want any help.

“Julia, there's something I want to say—”

“This is no time for girlish confidences,” said Julia firmly. “Go on back in the dining room, Phillipa.”

Now dinner was over and they were in the drawing room with coffee on the small table by the fire—and nobody seemed to have anything to say. They were waiting—that was all.

At 8:30 Inspector Craddock rang up.

“I shall be with you in about a quarter of an hour's time,” he announced. “I'm bringing Colonel and Mrs. Easterbrook and Mrs. Swettenham and her son with me.”

“But really, Inspector … I can't cope with people tonight—”

Miss Blacklock's voice sounded as though she were at the end of her tether.

“I know how you feel, Miss Blacklock. I'm sorry. But this is urgent.”

“Have you—found Miss Marple?”

“No,” said the Inspector, and rang off.

Julia took the coffee tray out to the kitchen where, to her surprise, she found Mitzi contemplating the piled-up dishes and plates by the sink.

Mitzi burst into a torrent of words.

“See what you do in my so nice kitchen! That frying pan—only,
only
for omelettes do I use it! And you, what have you used it for?”

“Frying onions.”

“Ruined—
ruined.
It will have now to be
washed
and never—
never
—do I wash my omelette pan. I rub it carefully over with a greasy newspaper, that is all. And this saucepan here that you have used—that one, I use him only for milk—”

“Well, I don't know what pans you use for what,” said Julia crossly. “You choose to go to bed and why on earth you've chosen to get up again, I can't imagine. Go away again and leave me to wash up in peace.”

“No, I will not let you use my kitchen.”

“Oh, Mitzi, you
are
impossible!”

Julia stalked angrily out of the kitchen and at that moment the doorbell rang.

“I do not go to the door,” Mitzi called from the kitchen. Julia muttered an impolite Continental expression under her breath and stalked to the front door.

It was Miss Hinchcliffe.

“'Evening,” she said in her gruff voice. “Sorry to barge in. Inspector's rung up, I expect?”

“He didn't tell us you were coming,” said Julia, leading the way to the drawing room.

“He said I needn't come unless I liked,” said Miss Hinchcliffe. “But I do like.”

Nobody offered Miss Hinchcliffe sympathy or mentioned Miss Murgatroyd's death. The ravaged face of the tall vigorous woman told its own tale, and would have made any expression of sympathy an impertinence.

“Turn all the lights on,” said Miss Blacklock. “And put more coal on the fire. I'm cold—horribly cold. Come and sit here by the fire, Miss Hinchcliffe. The Inspector said he would be here in a quarter of an hour. It must be nearly that now.”

“Mitzi's come down again,” said Julia.

“Has she? Sometimes I think that girl's mad—quite mad. But then perhaps we're all mad.”

“I've no patience with this saying that all people who commit crimes are mad,” barked Miss Hinchcliffe. “Horribly and intelligently sane—that's what I think a criminal is!”

The sound of a car was heard outside and presently Craddock came in with Colonel and Mrs. Easterbrook and Edmund and Mrs. Swettenham.

They were all curiously subdued.

Colonel Easterbrook said in a voice that was like an echo of his usual tones:

“Ha! A good fire.”

Mrs. Easterbrook wouldn't take off her fur coat and sat down close to her husband. Her face, usually pretty and rather vapid, was like a little pinched weasel face. Edmund was in one of his furious moods and scowled at everybody. Mrs. Swettenham made what was
evidently a great effort, and which resulted in a kind of parody of herself.

“It's awful—isn't it?” she said conversationally. “Everything, I mean. And really the less one says, the better. Because one doesn't know
who
next—like the Plague. Dear Miss Blacklock, don't you think you ought to have a little brandy? Just half a wineglass even? I always think there's nothing like brandy—such a wonderful stimulant. I—it seems so terrible of us—forcing our way in here like this, but Inspector Craddock
made
us come. And it seems so terrible—she hasn't been found, you know. That poor old thing from the Vicarage, I mean. Bunch Harmon is nearly frantic. Nobody knows
where
she went instead of going home. She didn't come to us. I've not even seen her today. And I should know if she
had
come to the house because I was in the drawing room—at the back, you know, and Edmund was in his study writing—and that's at the front—so if she'd come either way we
should
have seen. And oh, I do hope and pray that nothing has happened to that dear sweet old thing—all her faculties still and
everything.
”

“Mother,” said Edmund in a voice of acute suffering, “can't you shut up?”

“I'm sure, dear, I don't want to say a
word,
” said Mrs. Swettenham, and sat down on the sofa by Julia.

Inspector Craddock stood near the door. Facing him, almost in a row, were the three women. Julia and Mrs. Swettenham on the sofa. Mrs. Easterbrook on the arm of her husband's chair. He had not brought about this arrangement, but it suited him very well.

Miss Blacklock and Miss Hinchcliffe were crouching over the fire. Edmund stood near them. Phillipa was far back in the shadows.

Craddock began without preamble.

“You all know that Miss Murgatroyd's been killed,” he began. “We've reason to believe that the person who killed her was a woman. And for certain other reasons we can narrow it down still more. I'm about to ask certain ladies here to account for what they were doing between the hours of four and four-twenty this afternoon. I have already had an account of her movements from—from the young lady who has been calling herself Miss Simmons. I will ask her to repeat that statement. At the same time, Miss Simmons, I must caution you that you need not answer if you think your answers may incriminate you, and anything you say will be taken down by Constable Edwards and may be used as evidence in court.”

“You have to say that, don't you?” said Julia. She was rather pale, but composed. “I repeat that between four and four-thirty I was walking along the field leading down to the brook by Compton Farm. I came back to the road by that field with three poplars in it. I didn't meet anyone as far as I can remember. I did not go near Boulders.”

“Mrs. Swettenham?”

Edmund said, “Are you cautioning all of us?”

The Inspector turned to him.

“No. At the moment only Miss Simmons. I have no reason to believe that any other statement made will be incriminating, but anyone, of course, is entitled to have a solicitor present and to refuse to answer questions unless he
is
present.”

“Oh, but that would be very silly and a complete waste of time,” cried Mrs. Swettenham. “I'm sure I can tell you at once exactly what I was doing. That's what you want, isn't it? Shall I begin now?”

“Yes, please, Mrs. Swettenham.”

“Now, let me see.” Mrs. Swettenham closed her eyes, opened
them again. “Of course I had nothing
at all
to do with killing Miss Murgatroyd. I'm sure
everybody
here knows
that.
But I'm a woman of the world, I know quite well that the police have to ask all the most unnecessary questions and write the answers down very carefully, because it's all for what they call ‘the record.' That's it, isn't it?” Mrs. Swettenham flashed the question at the diligent Constable Edwards, and added graciously, “I'm not going too fast for you, I hope?”

Constable Edwards, a good shorthand writer, but with little social
savoir faire,
turned red to the ears and replied:

“It's quite all right, madam. Well, perhaps a
little
slower would be better.”

Mrs. Swettenham resumed her discourse with emphatic pauses where she considered a comma or a full stop might be appropriate.

“Well, of course it's difficult to say—exactly—because I've not got, really, a very good sense of time. And ever since the war quite half our clocks haven't gone at all, and the ones that do go are often either fast or slow or stop because we haven't wound them up.” Mrs. Swettenham paused to let this picture of confused time sink in and then went on earnestly, “What I
think
I was doing at four o'clock was turning the heel of my sock (and for some extraordinary reason I was going round the wrong way—in purl, you know, not plain) but if I
wasn't
doing that, I must have been outside snipping off the dead chrysanthemums—no, that was earlier—before the rain.”

“The rain,” said the Inspector, “started at 4:10 exactly.”