Marple Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Note on Marple

  Evil in Small Places—Lucy Foley

  The Second Murder at the Vicarage—Val McDermid

  Miss Marple Takes Manhattan—Alyssa Cole

  The Unravelling—Natalie Haynes

  Miss Marple’s Christmas—Ruth Ware

  The Open Mind—Naomi Alderman

  The Jade Empress—Jean Kwok

  A Deadly Wedding Day—Dreda Say Mitchell

  Murder at the Villa Rosa—Elly Griffiths

  The Murdering Sort—Karen M. McManus

  The Mystery of the Acid Soil—Kate Mosse

  The Disappearance—Leigh Bardugo

  About the Authors

  Also by Agatha Christie

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Note on Marple

  Miss Jane Marple, literature’s preeminent amateur detective and one of Agatha Christie’s finest creations, first appeared in print in December 1927, in a short story called “The Tuesday Night Club.” Christie returned to this intriguing character—with the intention, as she herself put it, “to give old maids a voice”—in 1930’s The Murder at the Vicarage, which was followed by eleven further Marple novels, and several collections of short stories featuring St. Mary Mead’s sharpest mind, with the very last novel, Sleeping Murder, appearing posthumously in 1976, the year Christie died.

  Christie had noticed that women, especially those in their later years who remained unmarried, were often patronised, overlooked, and underestimated, but the world’s bestselling novelist knew well how little escapes such village stalwarts, that underneath demure lace caps could lurk the shrewdest of brains, capable of outsmarting even Scotland Yard’s finest. Evil, after all, is just as easily found in the most picturesque corner of England as in the meanest city streets—human nature is human nature, wherever you are. And so one of her most unforgettable characters came into being.

  Evil in Small Places

  Lucy Foley

  “I wonder, sometimes, if there isn’t a concentration of evil in small places.”

  “What do you mean, Jane?” Prudence looked across at her former schoolfriend, who sat in the armchair opposite with a small glass of cherry brandy. In the kind, warm glow of the fire the marks of old age were flatteringly blurred. Jane Marple was so little changed, in the important details, from her girlhood self. The quick, birdlike manner, the bright, inquisitive eyes, the sense of a quiet, perhaps even formidable intelligence.

  Just as Miss Marple opened her mouth to answer, a firecracker exploded in the darkness outside, followed by a series of shrieks and howls that might have come from the mouth of hell itself. Someone had begun to beat a drum. The two women could not see out as all the curtains had been drawn by Prudence’s maid at four p.m. sharp. Fairweather House—imposing, Georgian—faced on to the main street of Meon Maltravers. And outside in the gloaming, just beyond the windows, a pagan-looking throng was mustering.

  As the clamour from outside faded a little, Miss Marple spoke again. “One is aware there is a great deal of wrong-doing in cities and larger towns, of course. The newspapers are desperate to make sure that we do not miss a single grisly detail. But I wonder if there aren’t more terrible things happening in England’s villages and hamlets than in its metropolises.”

  Prudence pursed her lips. “Well, it’s not true of Meon Maltravers. This is a highly respectable place.”

  Meon Maltravers was a small town with red-tiled, flint walled buildings built hugger-mugger across the centuries along its sloping, cobbled streets, with soaring views over the South Downs towards the coast. It had certainly had the appearance of a respectable place when Miss Marple had arrived earlier, in the light of day. But now darkness had fallen. And just at this moment came a new round of caterwauling and shrieks from the street.

  Miss Marple raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

  Prudence waved a hand. “Just some local high jinks. Perfectly harmless. But you always did have a dark imagination, Jane.”

  “This isn’t imagination, dear. I’ve borne witness to it—” Miss Marple had been about to say “first hand” and speak to some of her experiences over the last few years, but, again, there was another small explosion outside. Perhaps it was no bad thing. Too much talk of evil had a way of discomfiting one’s companions, even those with constitutions as strong as Prudence’s.

  Instead, in the next window of relative calm, Miss Marple said: “People knowing one another’s business, that’s part of it. It gives rise to all sorts of misunderstandings and resentments. Boredom too: that’s another thing. No cinemas or theatres or restaurants to take people out of the humdrum. The terrible acts that are likely committed due to a simple lack of other things to do—”

  Prudence frowned and said, in her best head-girl voice (she had in fact been head-girl, all those years ago): “I’ve been made to feel very welcome here since I lost poor George fifteen years ago—which is no given thing, considering he lived here alone as a bachelor for so many years before Alice and I joined him.”

  Miss Marple looked to the mantlepiece. “That’s from the cruise, isn’t it?”

  The photograph showed a younger Prudence, alongside Alice, Prudence’s daughter from her first marriage, and the late George Fairweather. It had been the last time Miss Marple and Prudence had met: on a tour of the Norwegian Fjords. George Fairweather, considerably Prudence’s senior, had been a frail figure of a man, unsteady on his feet, with the mottled complexion of a windfall apple. As for Alice, she remembered a pretty girl dressed in clothes that seemed a little too luxurious for one so young.

  “Where is Alice now?” Miss Marple asked.

  “Oh, just outside the village. We’ve always been closer than most mothers and daughters. She married a local landowner, Sir Henry Tyson. They are quite the toast of Meon Maltravers—”

  Miss Marple gave a small cough. “And you really are part of things here? In my experience, in such places one is often considered a newcomer for several decades before being truly accepted into the fold. Fifteen years is like the blink of an eye.”

  Prudence drew herself up. “I’m head of the Parish Council, Jane!” she said, as though that settled everything. “And I’m certainly vieille garde when compared to our latest newcomer, the new choir mistress. She has been renting Badger’s Rest, an Arts and Crafts monstrosity on the outskirts of town, and there is much speculation about her.”

  Miss Marple leaned in. “Of what kind?”

  “She’s foreign, for one thing. French. Young, or less than forty, anyhow. Near to Alice’s age, in fact. And she used to be a rather successful opera singer, but the story is that she had some trouble with her vocal chords and had to leave the stage. Anyhow. She has ruffled a few feathers. An unaccompanied woman, you know how it is. Of course, I don’t give in to gossip.”

  Miss Marple nodded. “Of course.”

  “But Christopher Palfrey, our resident poet—and a very talented tenor—just published his latest collection, dedicated to ‘The Enchantress of Song.’ You can only imagine how that went with his wife, Annabelle—who’s not what one would have in mind for an ‘enchantress’ of any kind. She’s something of a Socialist, you know—always making a nuisance of herself, opposing some of the most sensible suggestions on the Parish Council, which I find very tiresome. Anyway, she must be spitting feathers over the book, no one has seen her smile for weeks . . . though that isn’t entirely unusual.”

  “I wonder why she’d choose to come and live here?” Miss Marple mused, apparently lost to her own line of thought. “The choir mistress, I mean. An unmarried, foreign woman? To come to such an out-of-the-way place—it seems strange, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s not so out
of the way as all that,” Prudence said, crisply. “We have a direct train to London, a mainline station. As you have seen yourself.”

  Miss Marple had wanted to visit the gardens at Honnington Manor—she’d had a rave review from Bunch Harmon about the Japanese maples and their astonishing autumn display at this time of year. It was too far to travel in a day. But Miss Marple had remembered, from their meeting on that cruise, that Prudence lived not far away. She had written to suggest a reunion. The two women hadn’t been exactly bosom friends at school, but Miss Marple had always been rather intrigued by her and thought it would make for an interesting visit.

  “Anyway,” Prudence continued. “You shall meet Celia Beautemps—the choir mistress—tonight. The rehearsal will be at her house; the church roof is being repaired. And hopefully you’ll see Alice again: she sings alto too. If she can get away, that is. She and Henry keep some animals—a few sheep and pigs.” And then, lest Miss Marple should look down on this enterprise, “Henry is very much a gentleman farmer, of course. But one has to find a way to make all that land pay.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes! Choir practice, of course. I did mention it, surely? We have so much to rehearse before Advent and it’s just around the corner now.”

  It was not at all what Miss Marple would have preferred. A quiet sit by the fire, some knitting—she was just beginning on an Argyll jumper for her nephew Raymond’s Christmas present.

  “Besides, I remember you having a lovely soprano, Jane,” Prudence said. “Clear as a bell. So if you wanted to join us—

  “It’s quite some time since I sang in the school choir, dear. I shall be perfectly happy to watch.”

  At this moment a gust of wind funnelled down the chimney and a shower of sparks exploded on to the hearthrug. Miss Marple stared deep into the flames as though seeing something in their midst. Prudence caught the direction of her gaze. “It’s far too low! I’ll ring for the maid immediately!”

  “No, no,” Miss Marple put up a hand. “I’m warm enough.”

  But Prudence had turned to ring the bell. A few seconds later the maid had appeared. “New logs! And be quick about it, girl.” Miss Marple watched as the flames took hold of the firewood, piled on top of everything below. She would now be far too hot. Here was the problem with staying in other peoples’ houses. Miss Marple didn’t do it, as a rule. Nothing was quite as you would have it yourself.

  “She’s rather a fool, that girl,” Prudence sighed, when the maid had retreated. “It’s so difficult to find good maids these days.”

  “I remember you saying the same thing last time I saw you, Prudence.”

  “I’m sure. George was always rather silly about the servants. He gave the house boy driving lessons, and even though he could be extremely parsimonious at other times, he paid for the former housekeeper’s daughter’s tuition; thought she was too gifted to spend the rest of her life as a scullery maid. He paid for our butler’s holiday to Brighton too. That sort of thing gives them ideas above their station, if you ask me.”

  Miss Marple couldn’t help but be a little amused by this Lady-of-the-Manor act from Prudence, a greengrocer’s daughter who had been on a full scholarship at school. Miss Marple also knew that after leaving she had worked for several years in various rather humble positions: a governess, a librarian. She had met her first husband, a pharmacist almost twice her age, while working as his assistant—and had met George as a young widow, while working as his secretary.

  “Of course,” Prudence said, “I let quite a few of them go when George’s heart troubles began and never rehired as it was simply too much to keep on a full staff—Goodness!” she cut herself off mid-sentence, with a glance up at the clock. “We better be going, or we’ll be late.”

  A few moments later they stepped out into the crisp November air, drawing their coats closely about them. Here they were confronted by a stream of masked figures, marching past the front door to the house. They were like something from a medieval painting; demons and fiends come to carry the sinners away. The acrid scent of burning paraffin caught at the back of the throat. Several of them were beating drums. All carried lighted torches and several groups had hoisted aloft life-size, papier-mâché figures with hideously distorted features: oversized heads and bulging eyes, clad in the red robes and caps of Catholic cardinals. There was a strange hum of energy about them. It felt dangerous, even flammable—as though any second the very air might ignite. Miss Marple paused, staring: at once fascinated and repelled.

  Prudence beckoned, in her head-girl manner, taking no notice of the throng. “This way.”

  They had to push their way through the crowd. Several times Miss Marple felt herself jostled—once she could have sworn that a hand reached out to give her a rather hard shove out of the way, and she struggled to regain her footing. It didn’t seem to matter a jot to these people that there were two elderly women in their midst. She heard the whoomp of the paraffin torches as they swayed above the masked heads, felt the heat of the flames on her cheeks, felt a little frisson of disquiet at being caught among these intent, anonymous figures who moved as one, like a herd or a marauding army.

  “I don’t understand,” Miss Marple said to Prudence, after they had managed to ford the flood of bodies and were standing on the other side of the road. “Guy Fawkes’ Night was two weeks ago. They had a bonfire in the fields by St. Mary Mead. Dr. Haydock contributed some Roman Candles and Griselda Clement—the vicar’s wife—produced some sort of spiced wine . . . what was it called? Something foreign. Glühwein, yes: that was it. Delicious—perhaps a touch too much cinnamon. Of course, I didn’t stay for long. Far too cold.”

  “Ah,” said Prudence, “but they do everything rather differently in Meon Maltravers, a little like the Cornish. Tonight’s revels commemorate not the death of a band of Catholic rebels but the immolation of seventeen Protestant martyrs at the town cross. It’s why they burn the cardinals—the figurines, you know. I suppose you could say it’s a sort of revenge, albeit several hundred years later.”

  “Revenge,” said Miss Marple, almost to herself. “Revenge and settling of scores. That’s another thing one finds a great deal of in small, out-of-the-way places.”

  “Well, though the score here is so many centuries old, it’s predominantly the youths of the town that are involved. And let me tell you,” Prudence said, casting a disapproving eye over the revels, “religion has very little to do with it at all. In fact, it feels rather apt that we should be going to choir practice tonight. We will form a bastion of Christian righteousness in the midst of these pagan goings-on.”

  They walked down the high street, away from the crowds and noise until they were on the outskirts of town.

  “This way,” Prudence said. “We’ll cut through the woods and it’ll take us the quick route to the back of the property.” She took out a small torch and switched it on.

  Now the street had dwindled to little more than a path between a black thicket of trees. The light from the streetlamps behind them was almost lost but the full moon filtered down in fingers of light between the tangled branches and the beam from Prudence’s torch bounced in front of them. It was only about five o’clock or so but it felt much later. It was hard to believe that only a hundred yards or so away were crowded streets and shops, noise and light. Every footstep was audible, every snapped twig. From the undergrowth around them came the secret rustlings of nocturnal animals.

  “How much further?” Miss Marple asked, stepping carefully over a tree root that had erupted up in the centre of the path.

  “Only a little way along here. We’re going via the back entrance, as it’s quicker. There’s a long driveway, but you reach it from the other end of the high street. You’ll see the house lights shortly. Madame Beautemps keeps them on all night, which has caused some controversy with the local bird-watching group; they’re convinced she’s frightened away all the screech owls. She really has set the cat among the pigeons.”

  “Or th
e owls,” Miss Marple said.

  “No, Jane,” Prudence said, “that’s not how the saying goes at all—” she stopped short as a terrible, unearthly, animal screeching split the air in two. For a long time afterwards, the echo of it seemed to ricochet among the trees.

  “How odd,” Prudence said. “There must be a few screech owls about after all. Where was I? Oh, yes. Celia Beautemps has made enemies of most members of our choir too. I told you about the Palfreys before, didn’t I? Then there’s Colonel Woodage—who sings bass—hates all the French; had a son who lost both legs trying to rescue a band of Gallic deserters in the war, you know. And she’s upset Mrs. Prufrock—the former choir mistress for the last three decades—for obvious reasons. We think Reverend Peabody must be in thrall to her, because he ousted poor Mrs. Prufrock from her position with no warning.”

  “I’d say her quarrel is with the Reverend, then, rather than with her replacement.”

  “Perhaps. But to add insult to injury, Madame Beautemps has insisted that Mrs. Prufrock shouldn’t be singing soprano, because she’s no longer able to hit the top notes. And there’s Gordon Kipling, master of hounds for the local hunt—also a bass—who is convinced she killed three of his animals: two days after she complained about their barking (he lives just a little way over there, beyond those trees) they ate rat poisoning and perished. And then—”

  Suddenly Prudence gave a very uncharacteristic scream. It happened so quickly. They didn’t spot the figure until it was almost upon them, as though it had sprung from the darkness itself. Mask-clad, moving towards them at speed from the opposite direction. Prudence was standing plumb in their way. There was a moment’s pause, in which the stranger seemed to hesitate, as though deciding whether to step around her. Then Miss Marple saw a hand shoot out; a second later, Prudence had fallen to the ground, the torch flying from her grip, the light going out with a little “pop.” Another few seconds and the figure had disappeared. They were alone again.