Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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First published in Great Britain by Collins, The Crime Club 1957

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Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008196585

Ebook Edition © December 2016 ISBN: 9780007422357

Version 2019-01-11

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Also by Agatha Christie

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1

Mrs McGillicuddy panted along the platform in the wake of the porter carrying her suitcase. Mrs McGillicuddy was short and stout, the porter was tall and free-striding. In addition, Mrs McGillicuddy was burdened with a large quantity of parcels; the result of a day’s Christmas shopping. The race was, therefore, an uneven one, and the porter turned the corner at the end of the platform whilst Mrs McGillicuddy was still coming up the straight.

No. 1 Platform was not at the moment unduly crowded, since a train had just gone out, but in the no-man’s-land beyond, a milling crowd was rushing in several directions at once, to and from undergrounds, left-luggage offices, tea-rooms, inquiry offices, indicator boards, and the two outlets, Arrival and Departure, to the outside world.

Mrs McGillicuddy and her parcels were buffeted to and fro, but she arrived eventually at the entrance to No. 3 Platform, and deposited one parcel at her feet whilst she searched her bag for the ticket that would enable her to pass the stern uniformed guardian at the gate.

At that moment, a Voice, raucous yet refined, burst into speech over her head.

‘The train standing at Platform 3,’ the Voice told her, ‘is the 4.50 for Brackhampton, Milchester, Waverton, Carvil Junction, Roxeter and stations to Chadmouth. Passengers for Brackhampton and Milchester travel at the rear of the train. Passengers for Vanequay change at Roxeter.’ The Voice shut itself off with a click, and then reopened conversation by announcing the arrival at Platform 9 of the 4.35 from Birmingham and Wolverhampton.

Mrs McGillicuddy found her ticket and presented it. The man clipped it, murmured: ‘On the right—rear portion.’

Mrs McGillicuddy padded up the platform and found her porter, looking bored and staring into space, outside the door of a third-class carriage.

‘Here you are, lady.’

‘I’m travelling first-class,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy.

‘You didn’t say so,’ grumbled the porter. His eye swept her masculine-looking pepper-and-salt tweed coat disparagingly.

Mrs McGillicuddy, who had said so, did not argue the point. She was sadly out of breath.

The porter retrieved the suitcase and marched with it to the adjoining coach where Mrs McGillicuddy was installed in solitary splendour. The 4.50 was not much patronized, the first-class clientele preferring either the faster morning express, or the 6.40 with dining-car. Mrs McGillicuddy handed the porter his tip which he received with disappointment, clearly considering it more applicable to third-class than to first-class travel. Mrs McGillicuddy, though prepared to spend money on comfortable travel after a night journey from the North and a day’s feverish shopping, was at no time an extravagant tipper.

She settled herself back on the plush cushions with a sigh and opened her magazine. Five minutes later, whistles blew, and the train started. The magazine slipped from Mrs McGillicuddy’s hand, her head dropped sideways, three minutes later she was asleep. She slept for thirty-five minutes and awoke refreshed. Resettling her hat which had slipped askew she sat up and looked out of the window at what she could see of the flying countryside. It was quite dark now, a dreary misty December day—Christmas was only five days ahead. London had been dark and dreary; the country was no less so, though occasionally rendered cheerful with its constant clusters of lights as the train flashed through towns and stations.

‘Serving last tea now,’ said an attendant, whisking open the corridor door like a jinn. Mrs McGillicuddy had already partaken of tea at a large department store. She was for the moment amply nourished. The attendant went on down the corridor uttering his monotonous cry. Mrs McGillicuddy looked up at the rack where her various parcels reposed, with a pleased expression. The face towels had been excellent value and just what Margaret wanted, the space gun for Robby and the rabbit for Jean were highly satisfactory, and that evening coatee was just the thing she herself needed, warm but dressy. The pullover for Hector, too … her mind dwelt with approval on the soundness of her purchases.

Her satisfied gaze returned to the window, a train travelling in the opposite direction rushed by with a screech, making the windows rattle and causing her to start. The train clattered over points and passed through a station.

Then it began suddenly to slow down, presumably in obedience to a signal. For some minutes it crawled along, then stopped, presently it began to move forward again. Another up-train passed them, though with less vehemence than the first one. The train gathered speed again. At that moment another train, also on a down-line, swerved inwards towards them, for a moment with almost alarming effect. For a time the two trains ran parallel, now one gaining a little, now the other. Mrs McGillicuddy looked from her window through the windows of the parallel carriages. Most of the blinds were down, but occasionally the occupants of the carriages were visible. The other train was not very full and there were many empty carriages.

At the moment when the two trains gave the illusion of being stationary, a blind in one of the carriages flew up with a snap. Mrs McGillicuddy looked into the lighted first-class carriage that was only a few feet away.

Then she drew her breath in with a gasp and half-rose to her feet.

Standing with his back to the window and to her was a man. His hands were round the throat of a woman who faced him, and he was slowly, remorselessly, strangling her. Her eyes were starting from their sockets, her face was purple and congested. As Mrs McGillicuddy watched fascinated, the end came; the body went limp and crumpled in the man’s hands.

At the same moment, Mrs McGillicuddy’s train slowed down again and the other began to gain speed. It passed forward and a moment or two later it had vanished from sight.

Almost automatically Mrs McGillicuddy’s hand went up to the communication cord, then paused, irresolute. After all, what use would it be ringing the cord of the train in which she was travelling? The horror of what she had seen at such close quarters, and the unusual circumstances, made her feel paralysed. Some immediate action was necessary—but what?

The door of her compartment was drawn back and a ticket collector said, ‘Ticket, please.’

Mrs McGillicuddy turned to him with vehemence.

‘A woman has been strangled,’ she said. ‘In a train that has just passed. I saw it.’

The ticket collector looked at her doubtfully.

‘I beg your pardon, madam?’

‘A man strangled a woman! In a train. I saw it—through there.’ She pointed to the window.

The ticket collector looked extremely doubtful.

‘Strangled?’ he said disbelievingly.

‘Yes, strangled! I saw it, I tell you. You must do something at once!’

The ticket collector coughed apologetically.

‘You don’t think, madam, that you may have had a little nap and—er—’ he broke off tactfully.

‘I have had a nap, but if you think this was a dream, you’re quite wrong. I saw it, I tell you.’

The ticket collector’s eyes dropped to the open magazine lying on the seat. On the exposed page was a girl being strangled whilst a man with a revolver threatened the pair from an open doorway.

He said persuasively: ‘Now don’t you think, madam, that you’d been reading an exciting story, and that you just dropped off, and awaking a little confused—’

Mrs McGillicuddy interrupted him.

‘I saw it,’ she said. ‘I was as wide awake as you are. And I looked out of the window into the window of the train alongside, and a man was strangling a woman. And what I want to know is, what are you going to do about it?’

‘Well—madam—’

‘You’re going to do something, I suppose?’

The ticket collector sighed reluctantly and glanced at his watch.

‘We shall be in Brackhampton in exactly seven minutes. I’ll report what you’ve told me. In what direction was the train you mention going?’

‘This direction, of course. You don’t suppose I’d have been able to see this if a train had flashed past going in the other direction?’

The ticket collector looked as though he thought Mrs McGillicuddy was quite capable of seeing anything anywhere as the fancy took her. But he remained polite.

‘You can rely on me, madam,’ he said. ‘I will report your statement. Perhaps I might have your name and address—just in case …’

Mrs McGillicuddy gave him the address where she would be staying for the next few days and her permanent address in Scotland, and he wrote them down. Then he withdrew with the air of a man who has done his duty and dealt successfully with a tiresome member of the travelling public.

Mrs McGillicuddy remained frowning and vaguely unsatisfied. Would the ticket collector report her statement? Or had he just been soothing her down? There were, she supposed vaguely, a lot of elderly women travelling around, fully convinced that they had unmasked communist plots, were in danger of being murdered, saw flying saucers and secret space ships, and reported murders that had never taken place. If the man dismissed her as one of those …

The train was slowing down now, passing over points and running through the bright lights of a large town.

Mrs McGillicuddy opened her handbag, pulled out a receipted bill which was all she could find, wrote a rapid note on the back of it with her ball-pen, put it into a spare envelope that she fortunately happened to have, stuck the envelope down and wrote on it.

The train drew slowly into a crowded platform. The usual ubiquitous Voice was intoning:

‘The train now arriving at Platform 1 is the 5.38 for Milchester, Waverton, Roxeter, and stations to Chadmouth. Passengers for Market Basing take the train now waiting at No. 3 platform. No. 1 bay for stopping train to Carbury.’

Mrs McGillicuddy looked anxiously along the platform. So many passengers and so few porters. Ah, there was one! She hailed him authoritatively.

‘Porter! Please take this at once to the Stationmaster’s office.’

She handed him the envelope, and with it a shilling.

Then, with a sigh, she leaned back. Well, she had done what she could. Her mind lingered with an instant’s regret on the shilling … Sixpence would really have been enough …

Her mind went back to the scene she had witnessed. Horrible, quite horrible … She was a strong-nerved woman, but she shivered. What a strange—what a fantastic thing to happen to her, Elspeth McGillicuddy! If the blind of the carriage had not happened to fly up … But that, of course, was Providence.

Providence had willed that she, Elspeth McGillicuddy, should be a witness of the crime. Her lips set grimly.

Voices shouted, whistles blew, doors were banged shut. The 5.38 drew slowly out of Brackhampton station. An hour and five minutes later it stopped at Milchester.

Mrs McGillicuddy collected her parcels and her suitcase and got out. She peered up and down the platform. Her mind reiterated its former judgment: not enough porters. Such porters as there were seemed to be engaged with mail bags and luggage vans. Passengers nowadays seemed always expected to carry their own cases. Well, she couldn’t carry her suitcase and her umbrella and all her parcels. She would have to wait. In due course she secured a porter.

‘Taxi?’

‘There will be something to meet me, I expect.’

Outside Milchester station, a taxi-driver who had been watching the exit came forward. He spoke in a soft local voice.

‘Is it Mrs McGillicuddy? For St Mary Mead?’

Mrs McGillicuddy acknowledged her identity. The porter was recompensed, adequately if not handsomely. The car, with Mrs McGillicuddy, her suitcase, and her parcels drove off into the night. It was a nine-mile drive. Sitting bolt upright in the car, Mrs McGillicuddy was unable to relax. Her feelings yearned for expression. At last the taxi drove along the familiar village street and finally drew up at its destination; Mrs McGillicuddy got out and walked up the brick path to the door. The driver deposited the cases inside as the door was opened by an elderly maid. Mrs McGillicuddy passed straight through the hall to where, at the open sitting-room door, her hostess awaited her; an elderly frail old lady.

‘Elspeth!’

‘Jane!’

They kissed and, without preamble or circumlocution, Mrs McGillicuddy burst into speech.

‘Oh, Jane!’ she wailed. ‘I’ve just seen a murder!’

CHAPTER 2

True to the precepts handed down to her by her mother and grandmother—to wit: that a true lady can neither be shocked nor surprised—Miss Marple merely raised her eyebrows and shook her head, as she said:

‘Most distressing for you, Elspeth, and surely most unusual. I think you had better tell me about it at once.’

That was exactly what Mrs McGillicuddy wanted to do. Allowing her hostess to draw her nearer to the fire, she sat down, pulled off her gloves and plunged into a vivid narrative.

Miss Marple listened with close attention. When Mrs McGillicuddy at last paused for breath, Miss Marple spoke with decision.

‘The best thing, I think, my dear, is for you to go upstairs and take off your hat and have a wash. Then we will have supper—during which we will not discuss this at all. After supper we can go into the matter thoroughly and discuss it from every aspect.’

Mrs McGillicuddy concurred with this suggestion. The two ladies had supper, discussing, as they ate, various aspects of life as lived in the village of St Mary Mead. Miss Marple commented on the general distrust of the new organist, related the recent scandal about the chemist’s wife, and touched on the hostility between the schoolmistress and the village institute. They then discussed Miss Marple’s and Mrs McGillicuddy’s gardens.

‘Paeonies,’ said Miss Marple as she rose from table, ‘are most unaccountable. Either they do—or they don’t do. But if they do establish themselves, they are with you for life, so to speak, and really most beautiful varieties nowadays.’

They settled themselves by the fire again, and Miss Marple brought out two old Waterford glasses from a corner cupboard, and from another cupboard produced a bottle.

‘No coffee to-night for you, Elspeth,’ she said. ‘You are already over-excited (and no wonder!) and probably would not sleep. I prescribe a glass of my cowslip wine, and later, perhaps, a cup of camomile tea.’

Mrs McGillicuddy acquiescing in these arrangements, Miss Marple poured out the wine.

‘Jane,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy, as she took an appreciative sip, ‘you don’t think, do you, that I dreamt it, or imagined it?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Miss Marple with warmth.

Mrs McGillicuddy heaved a sigh of relief.

‘That ticket collector,’ she said, ‘he thought so. Quite polite, but all the same—’

‘I think, Elspeth, that that was quite natural under the circumstances. It sounded—and indeed was—a most unlikely story. And you were a complete stranger to him. No, I have no doubt at all that you saw what you’ve told me you saw. It’s very extraordinary—but not at all impossible. I recollect myself being interested when a train ran parallel to one on which I was travelling, to notice what a vivid and intimate picture one got of what was going on in one or two of the carriages. A little girl, I remember once, playing with a teddy bear, and suddenly she threw it deliberately at a fat man who was asleep in the corner and he bounced up and looked most indignant, and the other passengers looked so amused. I saw them all quite vividly. I could have described afterwards exactly what they looked like and what they had on.’

Mrs McGillicuddy nodded gratefully.

‘That’s just how it was.’

‘The man had his back to you, you say. So you didn’t see his face?’

‘No.’

‘And the woman, you can describe her? Young, old?’

‘Youngish. Between thirty and thirty-five, I should think. I couldn’t say closer than that.’

‘Good-looking?’

‘That again, I couldn’t say. Her face, you see, was all contorted and—’

Miss Marple said quickly:

‘Yes, yes, I quite understand. How was she dressed?’

‘She had on a fur coat of some kind, a palish fur. No hat. Her hair was blonde.’

‘And there was nothing distinctive that you can remember about the man?’

Mrs McGillicuddy took a little time to think carefully before she replied.

‘He was tallish—and dark, I think. He had a heavy coat on so that I couldn’t judge his build very well.’ She added despondently, ‘It’s not really very much to go on.’

‘It’s something,’ said Miss Marple. She paused before saying: ‘You feel quite sure, in your own mind, that the girl was—dead?’

‘She was dead, I’m sure of it. Her tongue came out and—I’d rather not talk about it …’

‘Of course not. Of course not,’ said Miss Marple quickly. ‘We shall know more, I expect, in the morning.’

‘In the morning?’

‘I should imagine it will be in the morning papers. After this man had attacked and killed her, he would have a body on his hands. What would he do? Presumably he would leave the train quickly at the first station—by the way, can you remember if it was a corridor carriage?’

‘No, it was not.’

‘That seems to point to a train that was not going far afield. It would almost certainly stop at Brackhampton. Let us say he leaves the train at Brackhampton, perhaps arranging the body in a corner seat, with her face hidden by the fur collar to delay discovery. Yes—I think that that is what he would do. But of course it will be discovered before very long—and I should imagine that the news of a murdered woman discovered on a train would be almost certain to be in the morning papers—we shall see.’

But it was not in the morning papers.

Miss Marple and Mrs McGillicuddy, after making sure of this, finished their breakfast in silence. Both were reflecting.

After breakfast, they took a turn round the garden. But this, usually an absorbing pastime, was to-day somewhat half-hearted. Miss Marple did indeed call attention to some new and rare species she had acquired for her rock-garden but did so in an almost absent-minded manner. And Mrs McGillicuddy did not, as was customary, counter-attack with a list of her own recent acquisitions.

‘The garden is not looking at all as it should,’ said Miss Marple, but still speaking absent-mindedly. ‘Doctor Haydock has absolutely forbidden me to do any stooping or kneeling—and really, what can you do if you don’t stoop or kneel? There’s old Edwards, of course—but so opinionated. And all this jobbing gets them into bad habits, lots of cups of tea and so much pottering—not any real work.’

‘Oh, I know,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy. ‘Of course, there’s no question of my being forbidden to stoop, but really, especially after meals—and having put on weight’—she looked down at her ample proportions—‘it does bring on heartburn.’

There was a silence and then Mrs McGillicuddy planted her feet sturdily, stood still, and turned on her friend.

‘Well?’ she said.

It was a small insignificant word, but it acquired full significance from Mrs McGillicuddy’s tone, and Miss Marple understood its meaning perfectly.

‘I know,’ she said.

The two ladies looked at each other.

‘I think,’ said Miss Marple, ‘we might walk down to the police station and talk to Sergeant Cornish. He’s intelligent and patient, and I know him very well, and he knows me. I think he’ll listen—and pass the information on to the proper quarter.’

Accordingly, some three-quarters of an hour later, Miss Marple and Mrs McGillicuddy were talking to a fresh-faced grave man between thirty and forty who listened attentively to what they had to say.

Frank Cornish received Miss Marple with cordiality and even deference. He set chairs for the two ladies, and said: ‘Now what can we do for you, Miss Marple?’

Miss Marple said: ‘I would like you, please, to listen to my friend Mrs McGillicuddy’s story.’

And Sergeant Cornish had listened. At the close of the recital he remained silent for a moment or two.

Then he said:

‘That’s a very extraordinary story.’ His eyes, without seeming to do so, had sized Mrs McGillicuddy up whilst she was telling it.

On the whole, he was favourably impressed. A sensible woman, able to tell a story clearly; not, so far as he could judge, an over-imaginative or a hysterical woman. Moreover, Miss Marple, so it seemed, believed in the accuracy of her friend’s story and he knew all about Miss Marple. Everybody in St Mary Mead knew Miss Marple; fluffy and dithery in appearance, but inwardly as sharp and as shrewd as they make them.

He cleared his throat and spoke.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘you may have been mistaken—I’m not saying you were, mind—but you may have been. There’s a lot of horse-play goes on—it mayn’t have been serious or fatal.’

‘I know what I saw,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy grimly.

‘And you won’t budge from it,’ thought Frank Cornish, ‘and I’d say that, likely or unlikely, you may be right.’

Aloud he said: ‘You reported it to the railway officials, and you’ve come and reported it to me. That’s the proper procedure and you may rely on me to have inquiries instituted.’

He stopped. Miss Marple nodded her head gently, satisfied. Mrs McGillicuddy was not quite so satisfied, but she did not say anything. Sergeant Cornish addressed Miss Marple, not so much because he wanted her ideas, as because he wanted to hear what she would say.

‘Granted the facts are as reported,’ he said, ‘what do you think has happened to the body?’

‘There seems to be only two possibilities,’ said Miss Marple without hesitation. ‘The most likely one, of course, is that the body was left in the train, but that seems improbable now, for it would have been found some time last night, by another traveller, or by the railway staff at the train’s ultimate destination.’

Frank Cornish nodded.

‘The only other course open to the murderer would be to push the body out of the train on to the line. It must, I suppose, be still on the track somewhere as yet undiscovered—though that does seem a little unlikely. But there would be, as far as I can see, no other way of dealing with it.’

‘You read about bodies being put in trunks,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy, ‘but no-one travels with trunks nowadays, only suitcases, and you couldn’t get a body into a suitcase.’

‘Yes,’ said Cornish. ‘I agree with you both. The body, if there is a body, ought to have been discovered by now, or will be very soon. I’ll let you know any developments there are—though I dare say you’ll read about them in the papers. There’s the possibility, of course, that the woman, though savagely attacked, was not actually dead. She may have been able to leave the train on her own feet.’

‘Hardly without assistance,’ said Miss Marple. ‘And if so, it will have been noticed. A man, supporting a woman whom he says is ill.’

‘Yes, it will have been noticed,’ said Cornish. ‘Or if a woman was found unconscious or ill in a carriage and was removed to hospital, that, too, will be on record. I think you may rest assured that you’ll hear about it all in a very short time.’

But that day passed and the next day. On that evening Miss Marple received a note from Sergeant Cornish.

In regard to the matter on which you consulted me, full inquiries have been made, with no result. No woman’s body has been found. No hospital has administered treatment to a woman such as you describe, and no case of a woman suffering from shock or taken ill, or leaving a station supported by a man has been observed. You may take it that the fullest inquiries have been made. I suggest that your friend may have witnessed a scene such as she described but that it was much less serious than she supposed.

CHAPTER 3

‘Less serious? Fiddlesticks!’ said Mrs McGillicuddy. ‘It was murder!’

She looked defiantly at Miss Marple and Miss Marple looked back at her.

‘Go on, Jane,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy. ‘Say it was all a mistake! Say I imagined the whole thing! That’s what you think now, isn’t it?’

‘Anyone can be mistaken,’ Miss Marple pointed out gently. ‘Anybody, Elspeth—even you. I think we must bear that in mind. But I still think, you know, that you were most probably not mistaken … You use glasses for reading, but you’ve got very good far sight—and what you saw impressed you very powerfully. You were definitely suffering from shock when you arrived here.’

‘It’s a thing I shall never forget,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy with a shudder. ‘The trouble is, I don’t see what I can do about it!’

‘I don’t think,’ said Miss Marple thoughtfully, ‘that there’s anything more you can do about it.’ (If Mrs McGillicuddy had been alert to the tones of her friend’s voice, she might have noticed a very faint stress laid on the you.) ‘You’ve reported what you saw—to the railway people and to the police. No, there’s nothing more you can do.’

‘That’s a relief, in a way,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy, ‘because as you know, I’m going out to Ceylon immediately after Christmas—to stay with Roderick, and I certainly do not want to put that visit off—I’ve been looking forward to it so much. Though of course I would put it off if I thought it was my duty,’ she added conscientiously.

‘I’m sure you would, Elspeth, but as I say, I consider you’ve done everything you possibly could do.’

‘It’s up to the police,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy. ‘And if the police choose to be stupid—’

Miss Marple shook her head decisively.

‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘the police aren’t stupid. And that makes it interesting, doesn’t it?’

Mrs McGillicuddy looked at her without comprehension and Miss Marple reaffirmed her judgment of her friend as a woman of excellent principles and no imagination.

‘One wants to know,’ said Miss Marple, ‘what really happened.’

‘She was killed.’

‘Yes, but who killed her, and why, and what happened to her body? Where is it now?’

‘That’s the business of the police to find out.’

‘Exactly—and they haven’t found out. That means, doesn’t it, that the man was clever—very clever. I can’t imagine, you know,’ said Miss Marple, knitting her brows, ‘how he disposed of it … You kill a woman in a fit of passion—it must have been unpremeditated, you’d never choose to kill a woman in such circumstances just a few minutes before running into a big station. No, it must have been a quarrel—jealousy—something of that kind. You strangle her—and there you are, as I say, with a dead body on your hands and on the point of running into a station. What could you do except as I said at first, prop the body up in a corner as though asleep, hiding the face, and then yourself leave the train as quickly as possible. I don’t see any other possibility—and yet there must have been one …’

Miss Marple lost herself in thought.

Mrs McGillicuddy spoke to her twice before Miss Marple answered.

‘You’re getting deaf, Jane.’

‘Just a little, perhaps. People do not seem to me to enunciate their words as clearly as they used to do. But it wasn’t that I did not hear you. I’m afraid I wasn’t paying attention.’

‘I just asked about the trains to London to-morrow. Would the afternoon be all right? I’m going to Margaret’s and she isn’t expecting me before teatime.’

‘I wonder, Elspeth, if you would mind going up by the 12.15? We could have an early lunch.’

‘Of course and—’

Miss Marple went on, drowning her friend’s words:

‘And I wonder, too, if Margaret would mind if you didn’t arrive for tea—if you arrived about seven, perhaps?’

Mrs McGillicuddy looked at her friend curiously.

‘What’s on your mind, Jane?’

‘I suggest, Elspeth, that I should travel up to London with you, and that we should travel down again as far as Brackhampton in the train you travelled by the other day. You would then return to London from Brackhampton and I would come on here as you did. I, of course, would pay the fares,’ Miss Marple stressed this point firmly.

Mrs McGillicuddy ignored the financial aspect.

‘What on earth do you expect, Jane?’ she asked. ‘Another murder?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Miss Marple, shocked. ‘But I confess I should like to see for myself, under your guidance, the—the—really it is most difficult to find the correct term—the terrain of the crime.’

So accordingly on the following day Miss Marple and Mrs McGillicuddy found themselves in two opposite corners of a first-class carriage speeding out of London by the 4.50 from Paddington. Paddington had been even more crowded than on the preceding Friday—as there were now only two days to go before Christmas, but the 4.50 was comparatively peaceful—at any rate, in the rear portion.

On this occasion no train drew level with them, or they with another train. At intervals trains flashed past them towards London. On two occasions trains flashed past them the other way going at high speed. At intervals Mrs McGillicuddy consulted her watch doubtfully.

‘It’s hard to tell just when—we’d passed through a station I know …’ But they were continually passing through stations.

‘We’re due in Brackhampton in five minutes,’ said Miss Marple.

A ticket collector appeared in the doorway. Miss Marple raised her eyes interrogatively. Mrs McGillicuddy shook her head. It was not the same ticket collector. He clipped their tickets, and passed on staggering just a little as the train swung round a long curve. It slackened speed as it did so.

‘I expect we’re coming into Brackhampton,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy.

‘We’re getting into the outskirts, I think,’ said Miss Marple.

There were lights flashing past outside, buildings, an occasional glimpse of streets and trams. Their speed slackened further. They began crossing points.

‘We’ll be there in a minute,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy, ‘and I can’t really see this journey has been any good at all. Has it suggested anything to you, Jane?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Miss Marple in a rather doubtful voice.

‘A sad waste of good money,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy, but with less disapproval than she would have used had she been paying for herself. Miss Marple had been quite adamant on that point.

‘All the same,’ said Miss Marple, ‘one likes to see with one’s own eyes where a thing happened. This train’s just a few minutes late. Was yours on time on Friday?’

‘I think so. I didn’t really notice.’

The train drew slowly into the busy length of Brackhampton station. The loudspeaker announced hoarsely, doors opened and shut, people got in and out, milled up and down the platform. It was a busy crowded scene.

Easy, thought Miss Marple, for a murderer to merge into that crowd, to leave the station in the midst of that pressing mass of people, or even to select another carriage and go on in the train wherever its ultimate destination might be. Easy to be one male passenger amongst many. But not so easy to make a body vanish into thin air. That body must be somewhere.

Mrs McGillicuddy had descended. She spoke now from the platform, through the open window.

‘Now take care of yourself, Jane,’ she said. ‘Don’t catch a chill. It’s a nasty treacherous time of year, and you’re not so young as you were.’

‘I know,’ said Miss Marple.

‘And don’t let’s worry ourselves any more over all this. We’ve done what we could.’

Miss Marple nodded, and said:

‘Don’t stand about in the cold, Elspeth. Or you’ll be the one to catch a chill. Go and get yourself a good hot cup of tea in the Restaurant Room. You’ve got time, twelve minutes before your train back to town.’

‘I think perhaps I will. Good-bye, Jane.’

‘Good-bye, Elspeth. A happy Christmas to you. I hope you find Margaret well. Enjoy yourself in Ceylon, and give my love to dear Roderick—if he remembers me at all, which I doubt.’

‘Of course he remembers you—very well. You helped him in some way when he was at school—something to do with money that was disappearing from a locker—he’s never forgotten it.’

‘Oh, that!’ said Miss Marple.

Mrs McGillicuddy turned away, a whistle blew, the train began to move. Miss Marple watched the sturdy thickset body of her friend recede. Elspeth could go to Ceylon with a clear conscience—she had done her duty and was freed from further obligation.

Miss Marple did not lean back as the train gathered speed. Instead she sat upright and devoted herself seriously to thought. Though in speech Miss Marple was woolly and diffuse, in mind she was clear and sharp. She had a problem to solve, the problem of her own future conduct; and, perhaps strangely, it presented itself to her as it had to Mrs McGillicuddy, as a question of duty.

Mrs McGillicuddy had said that they had both done all that they could do. It was true of Mrs McGillicuddy but about herself Miss Marple did not feel so sure.

It was a question, sometimes, of using one’s special gifts … But perhaps that was conceited … After all, what could she do? Her friend’s words came back to her, ‘You’re not so young as you were …’

Dispassionately, like a general planning a campaign, or an accountant assessing a business, Miss Marple weighed up and set down in her mind the facts for and against further enterprise. On the credit side were the following:

 1. My long experience of life and human nature.

 2. Sir Henry Clithering and his godson (now at Scotland Yard, I believe), who was so very nice in the Little Paddocks case.

 3. My nephew Raymond’s second boy, David, who is, I am almost sure, in British Railways.

 4. Griselda’s boy Leonard who is so very knowledgeable about maps.

Miss Marple reviewed these assets and approved them. They were all very necessary, to reinforce the weaknesses on the debit side—in particular her own bodily weakness.

‘It is not,’ thought Miss Marple, ‘as though I could go here, there and everywhere, making inquiries and finding out things.’

Yes, that was the chief objection, her own age and weakness. Although, for her age, her health was good, yet she was old. And if Dr Haydock had strictly forbidden her to do practical gardening he would hardly approve of her starting out to track down a murderer. For that, in effect, was what she was planning to do—and it was there that her loophole lay. For if heretofore murder had, so to speak, been forced upon her, in this case it would be that she herself set out deliberately to seek it. And she was not sure that she wanted to do so … She was old—old and tired. She felt at this moment, at the end of a tiring day, a great reluctance to enter upon any project at all. She wanted nothing at all but to march home and sit by the fire with a nice tray of supper, and go to bed, and potter about the next day just snipping off a few things in the garden, tidying up in a very mild way, without stooping, without exerting herself …

‘I’m too old for any more adventures,’ said Miss Marple to herself, watching absently out of the window the curving line of an embankment …

A curve …

Very faintly something stirred in her mind … Just after the ticket collector had clipped their tickets …

It suggested an idea. Only an idea. An entirely different idea …

A little pink flush came into Miss Marple’s face. Suddenly she did not feel tired at all!

‘I’ll write to David to-morrow morning,’ she said to herself.

And at the same time another valuable asset flashed through her mind.

‘Of course. My faithful Florence!’

Miss Marple set about her plan of campaign methodically and making due allowance for the Christmas season which was a definitely retarding factor.

She wrote to her great-nephew, David West, combining Christmas wishes with an urgent request for information.

Fortunately she was invited, as on previous years, to the vicarage for Christmas dinner, and here she was able to tackle young Leonard, home for the Christmas season, about maps.

Maps of all kinds were Leonard’s passion. The reason for the old lady’s inquiry about a large-scale map of a particular area did not rouse his curiosity. He discoursed on maps generally with fluency, and wrote down for her exactly what would suit her purpose best. In fact, he did better. He actually found that he had such a map amongst his collection and he lent it to her, Miss Marple promising to take great care of it and return it in due course.

‘Maps,’ said his mother, Griselda, who still, although she had a grown-up son, looked strangely young and blooming to be inhabiting the shabby old vicarage. ‘What does she want with maps? I mean, what does she want them for?’

‘I don’t know,’ said young Leonard, ‘I don’t think she said exactly.’

‘I wonder now …’ said Griselda. ‘It seems very fishy to me … At her age the old pet ought to give up that sort of thing.’

Leonard asked what sort of thing, and Griselda said elusively:

‘Oh, poking her nose into things. Why maps, I wonder?’

In due course Miss Marple received a letter from her great-nephew David West. It ran affectionately:

‘Dear Aunt Jane,—Now what are you up to? I’ve got the information you wanted. There are only two trains that can possibly apply—the 4.33 and the 5 o’clock. The former is a slow train and stops at Haling Broadway, Barwell Heath, Brackhampton and then stations to Market Basing. The 5 o’clock is the Welsh express for Cardiff, Newport and Swansea. The former might be overtaken somewhere by the 4.50, although it is due in Brackhampton five minutes earlier and the latter passes the 4.50 just before Brackhampton.

In all this do I smell some village scandal of a fruity character? Did you, returning from a shopping spree in town by the 4.50, observe in a passing train the mayor’s wife being embraced by the Sanitary Inspector? But why does it matter which train it was? A week-end at Porthcawl perhaps? Thank you for the pullover. Just what I wanted. How’s the garden? Not very active this time of year, I should imagine.

Yours ever,

David’

Miss Marple smiled a little, then considered the information thus presented to her. Mrs McGillicuddy had said definitely that the carriage had not been a corridor one. Therefore—not the Swansea express. The 4.33 was indicated.

Also some more travelling seemed unavoidable. Miss Marple sighed, but made her plans.

She went up to London as before on the 12.15, but this time returned not by the 4.50, but by the 4.33 as far as Brackhampton. The journey was uneventful, but she registered certain details. The train was not crowded—4.33 was before the evening rush hour. Of the first-class carriages only one had an occupant—a very old gentleman reading the New Statesman. Miss Marple travelled in an empty compartment and at the two stops, Haling Broadway and Barwell Heath, leaned out of the window to observe passengers entering and leaving the train. A small number of third-class passengers got in at Haling Broadway. At Barwell Heath several third-class passengers got out. Nobody entered or left a first-class carriage except the old gentleman carrying his New Statesman.

As the train neared Brackhampton, sweeping around a curve of line, Miss Marple rose to her feet and stood experimentally with her back to the window over which she had drawn down the blind.

Yes, she decided, the impetus of the sudden curving of the line and the slackening of speed did throw one off one’s balance back against the window and the blind might, in consequence, very easily fly up. She peered out into the night. It was lighter than it had been when Mrs McGillicuddy had made the same journey—only just dark, but there was little to see. For observation she must make a daylight journey.

On the next day she went up by the early morning train, purchased four linen pillow-cases (tut-tutting at the price!) so as to combine investigation with the provision of household necessities, and returned by a train leaving Paddington at twelve fifteen. Again she was alone in a first-class carriage. ‘This taxation,’ thought Miss Marple, ‘that’s what it is. No one can afford to travel first class except business men in the rush hours. I suppose because they can charge it to expenses.’

About a quarter of an hour before the train was due at Brackhampton, Miss Marple got out the map with which Leonard had supplied her and began to observe the country-side. She had studied the map very carefully beforehand, and after noting the name of a station they passed through, she was soon able to identify where she was just as the train began to slacken for a curve. It was a very considerable curve indeed. Miss Marple, her nose glued to the window, studied the ground beneath her (the train was running on a fairly high embankment) with close attention. She divided her attention between the country outside and the map until the train finally ran into Brackhampton.

That night she wrote and posted a letter addressed to Miss Florence Hill, 4 Madison Road, Brackhampton … On the following morning, going to the County library, she studied a Brackhampton directory and gazetteer, and a County history.

Nothing so far had contradicted the very faint and sketchy idea that had come to her. What she had imagined was possible. She would go no further than that.

But the next step involved action—a good deal of action—the kind of action for which she, herself, was physically unfit. If her theory were to be definitely proved or disproved, she must at this point have help from some other source. The question was—who? Miss Marple reviewed various names and possibilities, rejecting them all with a vexed shake of the head. The intelligent people on whose intelligence she could rely were all far too busy. Not only had they all got jobs of varying importance, their leisure hours were usually apportioned long beforehand. The unintelligent who had time on their hands were simply, Miss Marple decided, no good.

She pondered in growing vexation and perplexity.

Then suddenly her forehead cleared. She ejaculated aloud a name.

‘Of course!’ said Miss Marple. ‘Lucy Eyelesbarrow!’

CHAPTER 4

The name of Lucy Eyelesbarrow had already made itself felt in certain circles.

Lucy Eyelesbarrow was thirty-two. She had taken a First in Mathematics at Oxford, was acknowledged to have a brilliant mind and was confidently expected to take up a distinguished academic career.

But Lucy Eyelesbarrow, in addition to scholarly brilliance, had a core of good sound common sense. She could not fail to observe that a life of academic distinction was singularly ill rewarded. She had no desire whatever to teach and she took pleasure in contacts with minds much less brilliant than her own. In short, she had a taste for people, all sorts of people—and not the same people the whole time. She also, quite frankly, liked money. To gain money one must exploit shortage.

Lucy Eyelesbarrow hit at once upon a very serious shortage—the shortage of any kind of skilled domestic labour. To the amazement of her friends and fellow-scholars, Lucy Eyelesbarrow entered the field of domestic labour.

Her success was immediate and assured. By now, after a lapse of some years, she was known all over the British Isles. It was quite customary for wives to say joyfully to husbands, ‘It will be all right. I can go with you to the States. I’ve got Lucy Eyelesbarrow!’ The point of Lucy Eyelesbarrow was that once she came into a house, all worry, anxiety and hard work went out of it. Lucy Eyelesbarrow did everything, saw to everything, arranged everything. She was unbelievably competent in every conceivable sphere. She looked after elderly parents, accepted the care of young children, nursed the sickly, cooked divinely, got on well with any old crusted servants there might happen to be (there usually weren’t), was tactful with impossible people, soothed habitual drunkards, was wonderful with dogs. Best of all she never minded what she did. She scrubbed the kitchen floor, dug in the garden, cleaned up dog messes, and carried coals!

One of her rules was never to accept an engagement for any long length of time. A fortnight was her usual period—a month at most under exceptional circumstances. For that fortnight you had to pay the earth! But, during that fortnight, your life was heaven. You could relax completely, go abroad, stay at home, do as you pleased, secure that all was going well on the home front in Lucy Eyelesbarrow’s capable hands.

Naturally the demand for her services was enormous. She could have booked herself up if she chose for about three years ahead. She had been offered enormous sums to go as a permanency. But Lucy had no intention of being a permanency, nor would she book herself for more than six months ahead. And within that period, unknown to her clamouring clients, she always kept certain free periods which enabled her either to take a short luxurious holiday (since she spent nothing otherwise and was handsomely paid and kept) or to accept any position at short notice that happened to take her fancy, either by reason of its character, or because she ‘liked the people’. Since she was now at liberty to pick and choose amongst the vociferous claimants for her services, she went very largely by personal liking. Mere riches would not buy you the services of Lucy Eyelesbarrow. She could pick and choose and she did pick and choose. She enjoyed her life very much and found in it a continual source of entertainment.

Lucy Eyelesbarrow read and re-read the letter from Miss Marple. She had made Miss Marple’s acquaintance two years ago when her services had been retained by Raymond West, the novelist, to go and look after his old aunt who was recovering from pneumonia. Lucy had accepted the job and had gone down to St Mary Mead. She had liked Miss Marple very much. As for Miss Marple, once she had caught a glimpse out of her bedroom window of Lucy Eyelesbarrow really trenching for sweet peas in the proper way, she had leaned back on her pillows with a sigh of relief, eaten the tempting little meals that Lucy Eyelesbarrow brought to her, and listened, agreeably surprised, to the tales told by her elderly irascible maidservant of how ‘I taught that Miss Eyelesbarrow a crochet pattern what she’d never heard of! Proper grateful, she was.’ And had surprised her doctor by the rapidity of her convalescence.

Miss Marple wrote asking if Miss Eyelesbarrow could undertake a certain task for her—rather an unusual one. Perhaps Miss Eyelesbarrow could arrange a meeting at which they could discuss the matter.

Lucy Eyelesbarrow frowned for a moment or two as she considered. She was in reality fully booked up. But the word unusual, and her recollection of Miss Marple’s personality, carried the day and she rang up Miss Marple straight away explaining that she could not come down to St Mary Mead as she was at the moment working, but that she was free from 2 to 4 on the following afternoon and could meet Miss Marple anywhere in London. She suggested her own club, a rather nondescript establishment which had the advantage of having several small dark writing-rooms which were usually empty.

Miss Marple accepted the suggestion and on the following day the meeting took place.

Greetings were exchanged; Lucy Eyelesbarrow led her guest to the gloomiest of the writing-rooms, and said: ‘I’m afraid I’m rather booked up just at present, but perhaps you’ll tell me what it is you want me to undertake?’

‘It’s very simple, really,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Unusual, but simple. I want you to find a body.’

For a moment the suspicion crossed Lucy’s mind that Miss Marple was mentally unhinged, but she rejected the idea. Miss Marple was eminently sane. She meant exactly what she had said.

‘What kind of a body?’ asked Lucy Eyelesbarrow with admirable composure.

‘A woman’s body,’ said Miss Marple. ‘The body of a woman who was murdered—strangled actually—in a train.’

Lucy’s eyebrows rose slightly.

‘Well, that’s certainly unusual. Tell me about it.’

Miss Marple told her. Lucy Eyelesbarrow listened attentively, without interrupting. At the end she said:

‘It all depends on what your friend saw—or thought she saw –?’

She left the sentence unfinished with a question in it.

‘Elspeth McGillicuddy doesn’t imagine things,’ said Miss Marple. ‘That’s why I’m relying on what she said. If it had been Dorothy Cartwright, now—it would have been quite a different matter. Dorothy always has a good story, and quite often believes it herself, and there is usually a kind of basis of truth but certainly no more. But Elspeth is the kind of woman who finds it very hard to make herself believe that anything at all extraordinary or out of the way could happen. She’s almost unsuggestible, rather like granite.’

‘I see,’ said Lucy thoughtfully. ‘Well, let’s accept it all. Where do I come in?’

‘I was very much impressed by you,’ said Miss Marple, ‘and you see, I haven’t got the physical strength nowadays to get about and do things.’

‘You want me to make inquiries? That sort of thing? But won’t the police have done all that? Or do you think they have been just slack?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Miss Marple. ‘They haven’t been slack. It’s just that I’ve got a theory about the woman’s body. It’s got to be somewhere. If it wasn’t found in the train, then it must have been pushed or thrown out of the train—but it hasn’t been discovered anywhere on the line. So I travelled down the same way to see if there was anywhere where the body could have been thrown off the train and yet wouldn’t have been found on the line—and there was. The railway line makes a big curve before getting into Brackhampton, on the edge of a high embankment. If a body were thrown out there, when the train was leaning at an angle, I think it would pitch right down the embankment.’

‘But surely it would still be found—even there?’

‘Oh, yes. It would have to be taken away … But we’ll come to that presently. Here’s the place—on this map.’

Lucy bent to study where Miss Marple’s finger pointed.

‘It is right in the outskirts of Brackhampton now,’ said Miss Marple, ‘but originally it was a country house with extensive park and grounds and it’s still there, untouched—ringed round with building estates and small suburban houses. It’s called Rutherford Hall. It was built by a man called Crackenthorpe, a very rich manufacturer, in 1884. The original Crackenthorpe’s son, an elderly man, is living there still with, I understand, a daughter. The railway encircles quite half of the property.’

‘And you want me to do—what?’

Miss Marple replied promptly.

‘I want you to get a post there. Everyone is crying out for efficient domestic help—I should not imagine it would be difficult.’

‘No, I don’t suppose it would be difficult.’

‘I understand that Mr Crackenthorpe is said locally to be somewhat of a miser. If you accept a low salary, I will make it up to the proper figure which should, I think, be rather more than the current rate.’

‘Because of the difficulty?’

‘Not the difficulty so much as the danger. It might, you know, be dangerous. It’s only right to warn you of that.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Lucy pensively, ‘that the idea of danger would deter me.’

‘I didn’t think it would,’ said Miss Marple. ‘You’re not that kind of person.’

‘I dare say you thought it might even attract me? I’ve encountered very little danger in my life. But do you really believe it might be dangerous?’

‘Somebody,’ Miss Marple pointed out, ‘has committed a very successful crime. There has been no hue-and-cry, no real suspicion. Two elderly ladies have told a rather improbable story, the police have investigated it and found nothing in it. So everything is nice and quiet. I don’t think that this somebody, whoever he may be, will care about the matter being raked up—especially if you are successful.’

‘What do I look for exactly?’

‘Any signs along the embankment, a scrap of clothing, broken bushes—that kind of thing.’

Lucy nodded.

‘And then?’

‘I shall be quite close at hand,’ said Miss Marple. ‘An old maidservant of mine, my faithful Florence, lives in Brackhampton. She has looked after her old parents for years. They are now both dead, and she takes in lodgers—all most respectable people. She has arranged for me to have rooms with her. She will look after me most devotedly, and I feel I should like to be close at hand. I would suggest that you mention you have an elderly aunt living in the neighbourhood, and that you want a post within easy distance of her, and also that you stipulate for a reasonable amount of spare time so that you can go and see her often.’

Again Lucy nodded.

‘I was going to Taormina the day after to-morrow,’ she said. ‘The holiday can wait. But I can only promise three weeks. After that, I am booked up.’

‘Three weeks should be ample,’ said Miss Marple. ‘If we can’t find out anything in three weeks, we might as well give up the whole thing as a mare’s nest.’

Miss Marple departed, and Lucy, after a moment’s reflection, rang up a Registry Office in Brackhampton, the manageress of which she knew very well. She explained her desire for a post in the neighbourhood so as to be near her ‘aunt’. After turning down, with a little difficulty and a good deal of ingenuity, several more desirable places, Rutherford Hall was mentioned.

‘That sounds exactly what I want,’ said Lucy firmly.

The Registry Office rang up Miss Crackenthorpe, Miss Crackenthorpe rang up Lucy.

Two days later Lucy left London en route for Rutherford Hall.

Driving her own small car, Lucy Eyelesbarrow drove through an imposing pair of vast iron gates. Just inside them was what had originally been a small lodge which now seemed completely derelict, whether through war damage, or merely through neglect, it was difficult to be sure. A long winding drive led through large gloomy clumps of rhododendrons up to the house. Lucy caught her breath in a slight gasp when she saw the house which was a kind of miniature Windsor Castle. The stone steps in front of the door could have done with attention and the gravel sweep was green with neglected weeds.

She pulled an old-fashioned wrought-iron bell, and its clamour sounded echoing away inside. A slatternly woman, wiping her hands on her apron, opened the door and looked at her suspiciously.

‘Expected, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Miss Something-barrow, she told me.’

‘Quite right,’ said Lucy.

The house was desperately cold inside. Her guide led her along a dark hall and opened a door on the right. Rather to Lucy’s surprise, it was quite a pleasant sitting-room, with books and chintz-covered chairs.

‘I’ll tell her,’ said the woman, and went away shutting the door after having given Lucy a look of profound disfavour.

After a few minutes the door opened again. From the first moment Lucy decided that she liked Emma Crackenthorpe.

She was a middle-aged woman with no very outstanding characteristics, neither good-looking nor plain, sensibly dressed in tweeds and pullover, with dark hair swept back from her forehead, steady hazel eyes and a very pleasant voice.

She said: ‘Miss Eyelesbarrow?’ and held out her hand.

Then she looked doubtful.

‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘if this post is really what you’re looking for? I don’t want a housekeeper, you know, to supervise things. I want someone to do the work.’

Lucy said that that was what most people needed.

Emma Crackenthorpe said apologetically:

‘So many people, you know, seem to think that just a little light dusting will answer the case—but I can do all the light dusting myself.’

‘I quite understand,’ said Lucy. ‘You want cooking and washing-up, and housework and stoking the boiler. That’s all right. That’s what I do. I’m not at all afraid of work.’

‘It’s a big house, I’m afraid, and inconvenient. Of course we only live in a portion of it—my father and myself, that is. He is rather an invalid. We live quite quietly, and there is an Aga stove. I have several brothers, but they are not here very often. Two women come in, a Mrs Kidder in the morning, and Mrs Hart three days a week to do brasses and things like that. You have your own car?’

‘Yes. It can stand out in the open if there’s nowhere to put it. It’s used to it.’

‘Oh, there are any amount of old stables. There’s no trouble about that.’ She frowned a moment, then said, ‘Eyelesbarrow—rather an unusual name. Some friends of mine were telling me about a Lucy Eyelesbarrow—the Kennedys?’

‘Yes. I was with them in North Devon when Mrs Kennedy was having a baby.’

Emma Crackenthorpe smiled.

‘I know they said they’d never had such a wonderful time as when you were there seeing to everything. But I had the idea that you were terribly expensive. The sum I mentioned—’

‘That’s quite all right,’ said Lucy. ‘I want particularly, you see, to be near Brackhampton. I have an elderly aunt in a critical state of health and I want to be within easy distance of her. That’s why the salary is a secondary consideration. I can’t afford to do nothing. If I could be sure of having some time off most days?’

‘Oh, of course. Every afternoon, till six, if you like?’

‘That seems perfect.’

Miss Crackenthorpe hesitated a moment before saying: ‘My father is elderly and a little—difficult sometimes. He is very keen on economy, and he says things sometimes that upset people. I wouldn’t like—’

Lucy broke in quickly:

‘I’m quite used to elderly people, of all kinds,’ she said. ‘I always manage to get on well with them.’

Emma Crackenthorpe looked relieved.

‘Trouble with father!’ diagnosed Lucy. ‘I bet he’s an old tartar.’

She was apportioned a large gloomy bedroom which a small electric heater did its inadequate best to warm, and was shown round the house, a vast uncomfortable mansion. As they passed a door in the hall a voice roared out:

‘That you, Emma? Got the new girl there? Bring her in. I want to look at her.’

Emma flushed, glanced at Lucy apologetically.

The two women entered the room. It was richly upholstered in dark velvet, the narrow windows let in very little light, and it was full of heavy mahogany Victorian furniture.

Old Mr Crackenthorpe was stretched out in an invalid chair, a silver-headed stick by his side.

He was a big gaunt man, his flesh hanging in loose folds. He had a face rather like a bulldog, with a pugnacious chin. He had thick dark hair flecked with grey, and small suspicious eyes.

‘Let’s have a look at you, young lady.’

Lucy advanced, composed and smiling.

‘There’s just one thing you’d better understand straight away. Just because we live in a big house doesn’t mean we’re rich. We’re not rich. We live simply—do you hear?—simply! No good coming here with a lot of high-falutin ideas. Cod’s as good a fish as turbot any day, and don’t you forget it. I don’t stand for waste. I live here because my father built the house and I like it. After I’m dead they can sell it up if they want to—and I expect they will want to. No sense of family. This house is well built—it’s solid, and we’ve got our own land around us. Keeps us private. It would bring in a lot if sold for building land but not while I’m alive. You won’t get me out of here until you take me out feet first.’

He glared at Lucy.

‘Your home is your castle,’ said Lucy.

‘Laughing at me?’

‘Of course not. I think it’s very exciting to have a real country place all surrounded by town.’

‘Quite so. Can’t see another house from here, can you? Fields with cows in them—right in the middle of Brackhampton. You hear the traffic a bit when the wind’s that way—but otherwise it’s still country.’

He added, without pause or change of tone, to his daughter:

‘Ring up that damn’ fool of a doctor. Tell him that last medicine’s no good at all.’

Lucy and Emma retired. He shouted after them:

‘And don’t let that damned woman who sniffs dust in here. She’s disarranged all my books.’

Lucy asked:

‘Has Mr Crackenthorpe been an invalid long?’

Emma said, rather evasively:

‘Oh, for years now … This is the kitchen.’

The kitchen was enormous. A vast kitchen range stood cold and neglected. An Aga stood demurely beside it.

Lucy asked times of meals and inspected the larder. Then she said cheerfully to Emma Crackenthorpe:

‘I know everything now. Don’t bother. Leave it all to me.’

Emma Crackenthorpe heaved a sigh of relief as she went up to bed that night.

‘The Kennedys were quite right,’ she said. ‘She’s wonderful.’

Lucy rose at six the next morning. She did the house, prepared vegetables, assembled, cooked and served breakfast. With Mrs Kidder she made the beds and at eleven o’clock they sat down to strong tea and biscuits in the kitchen. Mollified by the fact that Lucy ‘had no airs about her’, and also by the strength and sweetness of the tea, Mrs Kidder relaxed into gossip. She was a small spare woman with a sharp eye and tight lips.

‘Regular old skinflint he is. What she has to put up with! All the same, she’s not what I call down-trodden. Can hold her own all right when she has to. When the gentlemen come down she sees to it there’s something decent to eat.’

‘The gentlemen?’

‘Yes. Big family it was. The eldest, Mr Edmund, he was killed in the war. Then there’s Mr Cedric, he lives abroad somewhere. He’s not married. Paints pictures in foreign parts. Mr Harold’s in the City, lives in London—married an earl’s daughter. Then there’s Mr Alfred, he’s got a nice way with him, but he’s a bit of a black sheep, been in trouble once or twice—and there’s Miss Edith’s husband, Mr Bryan, ever so nice, he is—she died some years ago, but he’s always stayed one of the family, and there’s Master Alexander, Miss Edith’s little boy. He’s at school, comes here for part of the holidays always; Miss Emma’s terribly set on him.’

Lucy digested all this information, continuing to press tea on her informant. Finally, reluctantly, Mrs Kidder rose to her feet.

‘Seem to have got along a treat, we do, this morning,’ she said wonderingly. ‘Want me to give you a hand with the potatoes, dear?’

‘They’re all done ready.’

‘Well, you are a one for getting on with things! I might as well be getting along myself as there doesn’t seem anything else to do.’

Mrs Kidder departed and Lucy, with time on her hands, scrubbed the kitchen table which she had been longing to do, but which she had put off so as not to offend Mrs Kidder whose job it properly was. Then she cleaned the silver till it shone radiantly. She cooked lunch, cleared it away, washed it up, and at two-thirty was ready to start exploration. She had set out the tea things ready on a tray, with sandwiches and bread and butter covered with a damp napkin to keep them moist.

She strolled round the gardens which would be the normal thing to do. The kitchen garden was sketchily cultivated with a few vegetables. The hot-houses were in ruins. The paths everywhere were overgrown with weeds. A herbaceous border near the house was the only thing that showed free of weeds and in good condition and Lucy suspected that that had been Emma’s hand. The gardener was a very old man, somewhat deaf, who was only making a show of working. Lucy spoke to him pleasantly. He lived in a cottage adjacent to the big stableyard.

Leading out of the stableyard a back drive led through the park which was fenced off on either side of it, and under a railway arch into a small back lane.

Every few minutes a train thundered along the main line over the railway arch. Lucy watched the trains as they slackened speed going round the sharp curve that encircled the Crackenthorpe property. She passed under the railway arch and out into the lane. It seemed a little-used track. On the one side was the railway embankment, on the other was a high wall which enclosed some tall factory buildings. Lucy followed the lane until it came out into a street of small houses. She could hear a short distance away the busy hum of main road traffic. She glanced at her watch. A woman came out of a house nearby and Lucy stopped her.

‘Excuse me, can you tell me if there is a public telephone near here?’

‘Post office just at the corner of the road.’

Lucy thanked her and walked along until she came to the post office which was a combination shop and post office. There was a telephone box at one side. Lucy went into it and made a call. She asked to speak to Miss Marple. A woman’s voice spoke in a sharp bark.

‘She’s resting. And I’m not going to disturb her! She needs her rest—she’s an old lady. Who shall I say called?’

‘Miss Eyelesbarrow. There’s no need to disturb her. Just tell her that I’ve arrived and everything is going on well and that I’ll let her know when I’ve any news.’

She replaced the receiver and made her way back to Rutherford Hall.

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