Miss Marple's Final Cases Read online

  ‘Do you think she’ll be at the desk again tomorrow morning?’ demanded Alicia.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sybil, ‘I do.’

  But they were wrong. The doll was not at the desk. Instead, she was on the window sill, looking out into the street. And again there was an extraordinary naturalness about her position.

  ‘It’s all frightfully silly, isn’t it?’ said Alicia Coombe, as they were snatching a quick cup of tea that afternoon. By common consent they were not having it in the fitting-room, as they usually did, but in Alicia Coombe’s own room opposite.

  ‘Silly in what way?’

  ‘Well, I mean, there’s nothing you can get hold of. Just a doll that’s always in a different place.’

  As day followed day it seemed a more and more apt observation. It was not only at night that the doll now moved. At any moment when they came into the fitting-room, after they had been absent even a few minutes, they might find the doll in a different place. They could have left her on the sofa and find her on a chair. Then she’d be on a different chair. Sometimes she’d be in the window seat, sometimes at the desk again.

  ‘She just moves about as she likes,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘And I think, Sybil, I think it’s amusing her.’

  The two women stood looking down at the inert sprawling figure in its limp, soft velvet, with its painted silk face.

  ‘Some old bits of velvet and silk and a lick of paint, that’s all it is,’ said Alicia Coombe. Her voice was strained. ‘I suppose, you know, we could — er — we could dispose of her.’

  ‘What do you mean, dispose of her?’ asked Sybil. Her voice sounded almost shocked.

  ‘Well,’ said Alicia Coombe, ‘we could put her in the fire, if there was a fire. Burn her, I mean, like a witch…Or of course,’ she added matter-of-factly, ‘we could just put her in the dustbin.’

  ‘I don’t think that would do,’ said Sybil. ‘Somebody would probably take her out of the dustbin and bring her back to us.’

  ‘Or we could send her somewhere,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘You know, to one of those societies who are always writing and asking for something — for a sale or a bazaar. I think that’s the best idea.’

  ‘I don’t know…’ said Sybil. ‘I’d be almost afraid to do that.’

  ‘Afraid?’

  ‘Well, I think she’d come back,’ said Sybil.

  ‘You mean, she’d come back here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Like a homing pigeon?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I mean.’

  ‘I suppose we’re not going off our heads, are we?’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘Perhaps I’ve really gone gaga and perhaps you’re just humouring me, is that it?’

  ‘No,’ said Sybil. ‘But I’ve got a nasty frightening feeling — a horrid feeling that she’s too strong for us.’

  ‘What? That mess of rags?’

  ‘Yes, that horrible limp mess of rags. Because, you see, she’s so determined.’

  ‘Determined?’

  ‘To have her own way! I mean, this is her room now!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alicia Coombe, looking round, ‘it is, isn’t it? Of course, it always was, when you come to think of it — the colours and everything…I thought she fitted in here, but it’s the room that fits her. I must say,’ added the dressmaker, with a touch of briskness in her voice, ‘it’s rather absurd when a doll comes and takes possession of things like this. You know, Mrs Groves won’t come in here any longer and clean.’

  ‘Does she say she’s frightened of the doll?’

  ‘No. She just makes excuses of some kind or other.’ Then Alicia added with a hint of panic, ‘What are we going to do, Sybil? It’s getting me down, you know. I haven’t been able to design anything for weeks.’

  ‘I can’t keep my mind on cutting out properly,’ Sybil confessed. ‘I make all sorts of silly mistakes. Perhaps,’ she said uncertainly, ‘your idea of writing to the psychical research people might do some good.’

  ‘Just make us look like a couple of fools,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘I didn’t seriously mean it. No, I suppose we’ll just have to go on until —’

  ‘Until what?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Alicia, and she laughed uncertainly.

  On the following day Sybil, when she arrived, found the door of the fitting-room locked.

  ‘Miss Coombe, have you got the key? Did you lock this last night?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alicia Coombe, ‘I locked it and it’s going to stay locked.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I just mean I’ve given up the room. The doll can have it. We don’t need two rooms. We can fit in here.’

  ‘But it’s your own private sitting-room.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want it any more. I’ve got a very nice bedroom. I can make a bed-sitting room out of that, can’t I?’

  ‘Do you mean you’re really not going into that fitting-room ever again?’ said Sybil incredulously.

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean.’

  ‘But — what about cleaning? It’ll get in a terrible state.’

  ‘Let it!’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘If this place is suffering from some kind of possession by a doll, all right — let her keep possession. And clean the room herself.’ And she added, ‘She hates us, you know.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Sybil. ‘The doll hates us?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alicia. ‘Didn’t you know? You must have known. You must have seen it when you looked at her.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sybil thoughtfully, ‘I suppose I did. I suppose I felt that all along — that she hated us and wanted to get us out of there.’

  ‘She’s a malicious little thing,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘Anyway, she ought to be satisfied now.’

  Things went on rather more peacefully after that. Alicia Coombe announced to her staff that she was giving up the use of the fitting-room for the present — it made too many rooms to dust and clean, she explained.

  But it hardly helped her to overhear one of the work girls saying to another on the evening of the same day, ‘She really is batty, Miss Coombe is now. I always thought she was a bit queer — the way she lost things and forgot things. But it’s really beyond anything now, isn’t it? She’s got a sort of thing about that doll downstairs.’

  ‘Ooo, you don’t think she’ll go really bats, do you?’ said the other girl. ‘That she might knife us or something?’

  They passed, chattering, and Alicia sat up indignantly in her chair. Going bats indeed! Then she added ruefully, to herself, ‘I suppose, if it wasn’t for Sybil, I should think myself that I was going bats. But with me and Sybil and Mrs Groves too, well, it does look as though there was something in it. But what I don’t see is, how is it going to end?’

  Three weeks later, Sybil said to Alicia Coombe, ‘We’ve got to go into that room sometimes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, I mean, it must be in a filthy state. Moths will be getting into things, and all that. We ought just to dust and sweep it and then lock it up again.’

  ‘I’d much rather keep it shut up and not go back in there,’ said Alicia Coombe.

  Sybil said, ‘Really, you know, you’re even more superstitious than I am.’

  ‘I suppose I am,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘I was much more ready to believe in all this than you were, but to begin with, you know — I — well, I found it exciting in an odd sort of way. I don’t know. I’m just scared, and I’d rather not go into that room again.’

  ‘Well, I want to,’ said Sybil, ‘and I’m going to.’

  ‘You know what’s the matter with you?’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘You’re simply curious, that’s all.’

  ‘All right, then I’m curious. I want to see what the doll’s done.’

  ‘I still think it’s much better to leave her alone,’ said Alicia. ‘Now we’ve got out of that room, she’s satisfied. You’d better leave her satisified.’ She gave an exasperated sigh. ‘What nonsense we are talking!’

  ‘Yes. I know we’re
talking nonsense, but if you tell me of any way of not talking nonsense — come on, now, give me the key.’

  ‘All right, all right.’

  ‘I believe you’re afraid I’ll let her out or something. I should think she was the kind that could pass through doors or windows.’

  Sybil unlocked the door and went in.

  ‘How terribly odd,’ she said.

  ‘What’s odd?’ said Alicia Coombe, peering over her shoulder.

  ‘The room hardly seems dusty at all, does it? You’d think, after being shut up all this time —’

  ‘Yes, it is odd.’

  ‘There she is,’ said Sybil.

  The doll was on the sofa. She was not lying in her usual limp position. She was sitting upright, a cushion behind her back. She had the air of the mistress of the house, waiting to receive people.

  ‘Well,’ said Alicia Coombe, ‘she seems at home all right, doesn’t she? I almost feel I ought to apologize for coming in.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Sybil.

  She backed out, pulling the door to, and locked it again.

  The two women gazed at each other.

  ‘I wish I knew,’ said Alicia Coombe, ‘why it scares us so much…’

  ‘My goodness, who wouldn’t be scared?’

  ‘Well, I mean, what happens, after all? It’s nothing really — just a kind of puppet that gets moved around the room. I expect it isn’t the puppet itself — it’s a poltergeist.’

  ‘Now that is a good idea.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t really believe it. I think it’s — it’s that doll.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t know where she really came from?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ said Alicia. ‘And the more I think of it the more I’m perfectly certain that I didn’t buy her, and that nobody gave her to me. I think she — well, she just came.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll — ever go?’

  ‘Really,’ said Alicia, ‘I don’t see why she should…She’s got all she wants.’

  But it seemed that the doll had not got all she wanted. The next day, when Sybil went into the showroom, she drew in her breath with a sudden gasp. Then she called up the stairs.

  ‘Miss Coombe, Miss Coombe, come down here.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  Alicia Coombe, who had got up late, came down the stairs, hobbling a little precariously for she had rheumatism in her right knee.

  ‘What is the matter with you, Sybil?’

  ‘Look. Look what’s happened now.’

  They stood in the doorway of the showroom. Sitting on a sofa, sprawled easily over the arm of it, was the doll.

  ‘She’s got out,’ said Sybil, ‘She’s got out of that room! She wants this room as well.’

  Alicia Coombe sat down by the door. ‘In the end,’ she said, ‘I suppose she’ll want the whole shop.’

  ‘She might,’ said Sybil.

  ‘You nasty, sly, malicious brute,’ said Alicia, addressing the doll. ‘Why do you want to come and pester us so? We don’t want you.’

  It seemed to her, and to Sybil too, that the doll moved very slightly. It was as though its limbs relaxed still further. A long limp arm was lying on the arm of the sofa and the half-hidden face looked as if it were peering from under the arm. And it was a sly, malicious look.

  ‘Horrible creature,’ said Alicia. ‘I can’t bear it! I can’t bear it any longer.’

  Suddenly, taking Sybil completely by surprise, she dashed across the room, picked up the doll, ran to the window, opened it, and flung the doll out into the street. There was a gasp and a half cry of fear from Sybil.

  ‘Oh, Alicia, you shouldn’t have done that! I’m sure you shouldn’t have done that!’

  ‘I had to do something,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘I just couldn’t stand it any more.’

  Sybil joined her at the window. Down below on the pavement the doll lay, loose-limbed, face down.

  ‘You’ve killed her,’ said Sybil.

  ‘Don’t be absurd…How can I kill something that’s made of velvet and silk, bits and pieces. It’s not real.’

  ‘It’s horribly real,’ said Sybil.

  Alicia caught her breath.

  ‘Good heavens. That child —’

  A small ragged girl was standing over the doll on the pavement. She looked up and down the street — a street that was not unduly crowded at this time of the morning though there was some automobile traffic; then, as though satisfied, the child bent, picked up the doll, and ran across the street.

  ‘Stop, stop!’ called Alicia.

  She turned to Sybil.

  ‘That child mustn’t take the doll. She mustn’t! That doll is dangerous — it’s evil. We’ve got to stop her.’

  It was not they who stopped her. It was the traffic. At that moment three taxis came down one way and two tradesmen’s vans in the other direction. The child was marooned on an island in the middle of the road. Sybil rushed down the stairs, Alicia Coombe following her. Dodging between a tradesman’s van and a private car, Sybil, with Alicia Coombe directly behind her, arrived on the island before the child could get through the traffic on the opposite side.

  ‘You can’t take that doll,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘Give her back to me.’

  The child looked at her. She was a skinny little girl about eight years old, with a slight squint. Her face was defiant.

  ‘Why should I give ’er to you?’ she said. ‘Pitched her out of the window, you did — I saw you. If you pushed her out of the window you don’t want her, so now she’s mine.’

  ‘I’ll buy you another doll,’ said Alicia frantically. ‘We’ll go to a toy shop — anywhere you like — and I’ll buy you the best doll we can find. But give me back this one.’

  ‘Shan’t,’ said the child.

  Her arms went protectingly round the velvet doll.

  ‘You must give her back,’ said Sybil. ‘She isn’t yours.’

  She stretched out to take the doll from the child and at that moment the child stamped her foot, turned, and screamed at them.

  ‘Shan’t! Shan’t! Shan’t! She’s my very own. I love her. You don’t love her. You hate her. If you didn’t hate her you wouldn’t have pushed her out of the window. I love her, I tell you, and that’s what she wants. She wants to be loved.’

  And then like an eel, sliding through the vehicles, the child ran across the street, down an alleyway, and out of sight before the two older women could decide to dodge the cars and follow.

  ‘She’s gone,’ said Alicia.

  ‘She said the doll wanted to be loved,’ said Sybil.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Alicia, ‘perhaps that’s what she wanted all along…to be loved…’

  In the middle of the London traffic the two frightened women stared at each other.

  In A Glass Darkly

  ‘I’ve no explanation of this story. I’ve no theories about the why and wherefore of it. It’s just a thing — that happened.

  All the same, I sometimes wonder how things would have gone if I’d noticed at the time just that one essential detail that I never appreciated until so many years afterwards. If I had noticed it — well, I suppose the course of three lives would have been entirely altered. Somehow — that’s a very frightening thought.

  For the beginning of it all, I’ve got to go back to the summer of 1914 — just before the war — when I went down to Badgeworthy with Neil Carslake. Neil was, I suppose, about my best friend. I’d known his brother Alan too, but not so well. Sylvia, their sister, I’d never met. She was two years younger than Alan and three years younger than Neil. Twice, while we were at school together, I’d been going to spend part of the holidays with Neil at Badgeworthy and twice something had intervened. So it came about that I was twenty-three when I first saw Neil and Alan’s home.

  We were to be quite a big party there. Neil’s sister Sylvia had just got engaged to a fellow called Charles Crawley. He was, so Neil said, a good deal older than she was, but a thoroughly dec
ent chap and quite reasonably well-off.

  We arrived, I remember, about seven o’clock in the evening. Everyone had gone to his room to dress for dinner. Neil took me to mine. Badgeworthy was an attractive, rambling old house. It had been added to freely in the last three centuries and was full of little steps up and down, and unexpected staircases. It was the sort of house in which it’s not easy to find your way about. I remember Neil promised to come and fetch me on his way down to dinner. I was feeling a little shy at the prospect of meeting his people for the first time. I remember saying with a laugh that it was the kind of house one expected to meet ghosts in the passages, and he said carelessly that he believed the place was said to be haunted but that none of them had ever seen anything, and he didn’t even know what form the ghost was supposed to take.

  Then he hurried away and I set to work to dive into my suitcases for my evening clothes. The Carslakes weren’t well-off; they clung on to their old home, but there were no menservants to unpack for you or valet you.

  Well, I’d just got to the stage of tying my tie. I was standing in front of the glass. I could see my own face and shoulders and behind them the wall of the room — a plain stretch of wall just broken in the middle by a door — and just as I finally settled my tie I noticed that the door was opening.

  I don’t know why I didn’t turn around — I think that would have been the natural thing to do; anyway, I didn’t. I just watched the door swing slowly open — and as it swung I saw into the room beyond.

  It was a bedroom — a larger room than mine — with two bedsteads in it, and suddenly I caught my breath.

  For at the foot of one of those beds was a girl and round her neck were a pair of man’s hands and the man was slowly forcing her backwards and squeezing her throat as he did so, so that the girl was being slowly suffocated.

  There wasn’t the least possibility of a mistake. What I saw was perfectly clear. What was being done was murder.

  I could see the girl’s face clearly, her vivid golden hair, the agonized terror of her beautiful face, slowly suffusing with blood. Of the man I could see his back, his hands, and a scar that ran down the left side of his face towards his neck.