Thirty-one
Colonel Melchett and I both stared at her.
“A trap? What kind of a trap?”
Miss Marple was a little diffident, but it was clear that she had a plan fully outlined.
“Supposing Mr. Redding were to be rung up on the telephone and warned.”
Colonel Melchett smiled.
“‘All is discovered. Fly!’ That’s an old wheeze, Miss Marple. Not that it isn’t often successful! But I think in this case young Redding is too downy a bird to be caught that way.”
“It would have to be something specific. I quite realize that,” said Miss Marple. “I would suggest—this is just a mere suggestion—that the warning should come from somebody who is known to have rather unusual views on these matters. Dr. Haydock’s conversation would lead anyone to suppose that he might view such a thing as murder from an unusual angle. If he were to hint that somebody—Mrs. Sadler—or one of her children—had actually happened to see the transposing of the cachets—well, of course, if Mr. Redding is an innocent man, that statement will mean nothing to him, but if he isn’t—”
“Well, he might just possibly do something foolish.”
“And deliver himself into our hands. It’s possible. Very ingenious, Miss Marple. But will Haydock stand for it? As you say, his views—”
Miss Marple interrupted him brightly.
“Oh, but that’s theory! So very different from practice, isn’t it? But anyway, here he is, so we can ask him.”
Haydock was, I think, rather astonished to find Miss Marple with us. He looked tired and haggard.
“It’s been a near thing,” he said. “A very near thing. But he’s going to pull through. It’s a doctor’s business to save his patient and I saved him, but I’d have been just as glad if I hadn’t pulled it off.”
“You may think differently,” said Melchett, “when you have heard what we have to tell you.”
And briefly and succinctly, he put Miss Marple’s theory of the crime before the doctor, ending up with her final suggestion.
We were then privileged to see exactly what Miss Marple meant by the difference between theory and practice.
Haydock’s views appeared to have undergone a complete transformation. He would, I think, have liked Lawrence Redding’s head on a charger. It was not, I imagine, the murder of Colonel Protheroe that so stirred his rancour. It was the assault on the unlucky Hawes.
“The damned scoundrel,” said Haydock. “The damned scoundrel! That poor devil Hawes. He’s got a mother and a sister too. The stigma of being the mother and sister of a murderer would have rested on them for life, and think of their mental anguish. Of all the cowardly dastardly tricks!”
For sheer primitive rage, commend me to a thoroughgoing humanitarian when you get him well roused.
“If this thing’s true,” he said, “you can count on me. The fellow’s not fit to live. A defenceless chap like Hawes.”
A lame dog of any kind can always count on Haydock’s sympathy.
He was eagerly arranging details with Melchett when Miss Marple rose and I insisted on seeing her home.
“It is most kind of you, Mr. Clement,” said Miss Marple, as we walked down the deserted street. “Dear me, past twelve o’clock. I hope Raymond has gone to bed and not waited up.”
“He should have accompanied you,” I said.
“I didn’t let him know I was going,” said Miss Marple.
I smiled suddenly as I remembered Raymond West’s subtle psychological analysis of the crime.
“If your theory turns out to be the truth—which I for one do not doubt for a minute,” I said, “you will have a very good score over your nephew.”
Miss Marple smiled also—an indulgent smile.
“I remember a saying of my Great Aunt Fanny’s. I was sixteen at the time and thought it particularly foolish.”
“Yes?” I inquired.
“She used to say: ‘The young people think the old people are fools; but the old people know the young people are fools!’”
Thirty-two
There is little more to be told. Miss Marple’s plan succeeded. Lawrence Redding was not an innocent man, and the hint of a witness of the change of capsule did indeed cause him to do “something foolish.” Such is the power of an evil conscience.
He was, of course, peculiarly placed. His first impulse, I imagine, must have been to cut and run. But there was his accomplice to consider. He could not leave without getting word to her, and he dared not wait till morning. So he went up to Old Hall that night—and two of Colonel Melchett’s most efficient officers followed him. He threw gravel at Anne Protheroe’s window, aroused her, and an urgent whisper brought her down to speak with him. Doubtless they felt safer outside than in—with the possibility of Lettice waking. But as it happened, the two police officers were able to overhear the conversation in full. It left the matter in no doubt. Miss Marple had been right on every count.
The trial of Lawrence Redding and Anne Protheroe is a matter of public knowledge. I do not propose to go into it. I will only mention that great credit was reflected upon Inspector Slack, whose zeal and intelligence had resulted in the criminals being brought to justice. Naturally, nothing was said of Miss Marple’s share in the business. She herself would have been horrified at the thought of such a thing.
Lettice came to see me just before the trial took place. She drifted through my study window, wraithlike as ever. She told me then that she had all along been convinced of her stepmother’s complicity. The loss of the yellow beret had been a mere excuse for searching the study. She hoped against hope that she might find something the police had overlooked.
“You see,” she said in her dreamy voice, “they didn’t hate her like I did. And hate makes things easier for you.”
Disappointed in the result of her search, she had deliberately dropped Anne’s earring by the desk.
“Since I knew she had done it, what did it matter? One way was as good as another. She had killed him.”
I sighed a little. There are always some things that Lettice will never see. In some respects she is morally colour blind.
“What are you going to do, Lettice?” I asked.
“When—when it’s all over, I am going abroad.” She hesitated and then went on. “I am going abroad with my mother.”
I looked up, startled.
She nodded.
“Didn’t you ever guess? Mrs. Lestrange is my mother. She is—is dying, you know. She wanted to see me and so she came down here under an assumed name. Dr. Haydock helped her. He’s a very old friend of hers—he was keen about her once—you can see that! In a way, he still is. Men always went batty about mother, I believe. She’s awfully attractive even now. Anyway, Dr. Haydock did everything he could to help her. She didn’t come down here under her own name because of the disgusting way people talk and gossip. She went to see father that night and told him she was dying and had a great longing to see something of me. Father was a beast. He said she’d forfeited all claim, and that I thought she was dead—as though I had ever swallowed that story! Men like father never see an inch before their noses!
“But mother is not the sort to give in. She thought it only decent to go to father first, but when he turned her down so brutally she sent a note to me, and I arranged to leave the tennis party early and meet her at the end of the footpath at a quarter past six. We just had a hurried meeting and arranged when to meet again. We left each other before half past six. Afterwards I was terrified that she would be suspected of having killed father. After all, she had got a grudge against him. That’s why I got hold of that old picture of her up in the attic and slashed it about. I was afraid the police might go nosing about and get hold of it and recognize it. Dr. Haydock was frightened too. Sometimes, I believe, he really thought she had done it! Mother is rather a—desperate kind of person. She doesn’t count consequences.”
She paused.
nd I didn’t. But mother—well, anyway, I’m going abroad with her. I shall be with her till—till the end….”
She got up and I took her hand.
“God bless you both,” I said. “Some day, I hope, there is a lot of happiness coming to you, Lettice.”
“There should be,” she said, with an attempt at a laugh. “There hasn’t been much so far—has there? Oh, well, I don’t suppose it matters. Good-bye, Mr. Clement. You’ve been frightfully decent to me always—you and Griselda.”
Griselda!
I had to own to her how terribly the anonymous letter had upset me, and first she laughed, and then solemnly read me a lecture.
“However,” she added, “I’m going to be very sober and Godfearing in future—quite like the Pilgrim fathers.”
I did not see Griselda in the rôle of a Pilgrim father.
She went on:
“You see, Len, I have a steadying influence coming into my life. It’s coming into your life, too, but in your case it will be a kind of—of rejuvenating one—at least, I hope so! You can’t call me a dear child half so much when we have a real child of our own. And, Len, I’ve decided that now I’m going to be a real ‘wife and mother’ (as they say in books), I must be a housekeeper too. I’ve bought two books on Household Management and one on Mother Love, and if that doesn’t turn me out a pattern I don’t know what will! They are all simply screamingly funny—not intentionally, you know. Especially the one about bringing up children.”
“You haven’t bought a book on How to Treat a Husband, have you?” I asked, with sudden apprehension as I drew her to me.
“I don’t need to,” said Griselda. “I’m a very good wife. I love you dearly. What more do you want?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Could you say, just for once, that you love me madly?”
“Griselda,” I said—“I adore you! I worship you! I am wildly, hopelessly and quite unclerically crazy about you!”
My wife gave a deep and contented sigh.
Then she drew away suddenly.
“Bother! Here’s Miss Marple coming. Don’t let her suspect, will you? I don’t want everyone offering me cushions and urging me to put my feet up. Tell her I’ve gone down to the golf links. That will put her off the scent—and it’s quite true because I left my yellow pullover there and I want it.”
Miss Marple came to the window, halted apologetically, and asked for Griselda.
“Griselda,” I said, “has gone to the golf links.”
An expression of concern leaped into Miss Marple’s eyes.
“Oh, but surely,” she said, “that is most unwise—just now.”
And then in a nice, old-fashioned, ladylike, maiden lady way, she blushed.
And to cover the moment’s confusion, we talked hurriedly of the Protheroe case, and of “Dr. Stone,” who had turned out to be a well-known cracksman with several different aliases. Miss Cram, by the way, had been cleared of all complicity. She had at last admitted taking the suitcase to the wood, but had done so in all good faith, Dr. Stone having told her that he feared the rivalry of other archaeologists who would not stick at burglary to gain their object of discrediting his theories. The girl apparently swallowed this not very plausible story. She is now, according to the village, looking out for a more genuine article in the line of an elderly bachelor requiring a secretary.
As we talked, I wondered very much how Miss Marple had discovered our latest secret. But presently, in a discreet fashion, Miss Marple herself supplied me with a clue.
“I hope dear Griselda is not overdoing it,” she murmured, and, after a discreet pause, “I was in the bookshop in Much Benham yesterday—”
Poor Griselda—that book on Mother Love has been her undoing!
“I wonder, Miss Marple,” I said suddenly, “if you were to commit a murder whether you would ever be found out.”
“What a terrible idea,” said Miss Marple, shocked. “I hope I could never do such a wicked thing.”
“But human nature being what it is,” I murmured.
Miss Marple acknowledged the hit with a pretty old-ladyish laugh.
“How naughty of you, Mr. Clement.” She rose. “But naturally you are in good spirits.”
She paused by the window.
“My love to dear Griselda—and tell her—that any little secret is quite safe with me.”
Really Miss Marple is rather a dear….
* * *
The Agatha Christie Collection
THE HERCULE POIROT MYSTERIES
Match your wits with the famous Belgian detective.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Murder on the Links
Poirot Investigates
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Big Four
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Peril at End House
Lord Edgware Dies
Murder on the Orient Express
Three Act Tragedy
Death in the Clouds
The A.B.C. Murders
Murder in Mesopotamia
Cards on the Table
Murder in the Mews
Dumb Witness
Death on the Nile
Appointment with Death
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
Sad Cypress
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
Evil Under the Sun
Five Little Pigs
The Hollow
The Labors of Hercules
Taken at the Flood
The Underdog and Other Stories
Mrs. McGinty’s Dead
After the Funeral
Hickory Dickory Dock
Dead Man’s Folly
Cat Among the Pigeons
The Clocks
Third Girl
Hallowe’en Party
Elephants Can Remember
Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case
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The Agatha Christie Collection
THE MISS MARPLE MYSTERIES
Join the legendary spinster sleuth from St. Mary Mead in solving murders far and wide.
The Murder at the Vicarage
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: The Complete Short Stories
THE TOMMY AND TUPPENCE MYSTERIES
Jump on board with the entertaining crime-solving couple from Young Adventurers Ltd.
The Secret Adversary
Partners in Crime
N or M?
By the Pricking of My Thumbs
Postern of Fate
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The Man in the Brown Suit
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Parker Pyne Investigates
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
Murder Is Easy
The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
And Then There Were None
Towards Zero
Death Comes as the End
Sparkling Cyanide
The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories
Crooked House
Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
They Came to Baghdad
Destination Unknown
Ordeal by Innocence
Double Sin and Other Stories
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bsp; The Pale Horse
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Endless Night
Passenger to Frankfurt
The Golden Ball and Other Stories
The Mousetrap and Other Plays
The Harlequin Tea Set
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About the Author
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.
She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. With The Murder in the Vicarage, published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Additional series characters include the husband-and-wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.
Many of Christie’s novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series. The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. Among her best-known film adaptations are Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978), with Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot, respectively. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.
Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain’s highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Her one hundred and twentieth anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2010.