4.50 From Paddington Page 12

  “Not mine. Miss Eyelesbarrow’s.”

  “You make ’em just as good,” said Quimper loyally.

  “Will you come and see Father?”

  She rose and the doctor followed her. Miss Marple watched them leave the room.

  “Miss Crackenthorpe is a very devoted daughter, I see,” she said.

  “Can’t imagine how she sticks the old man myself,” said the outspoken Cedric.

  “She has a very comfortable home here, and father is very much attached to her,” said Harold quickly.

  “Em’s all right,” said Cedric. “Born to be an old maid.”

  There was a faint twinkle in Miss Marple’s eye as she said:

  “Oh, do you think so?”

  Harold said quickly:

  “My brother didn’t use the term old maid in any derogatory sense, Miss Marple.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t offended,” said Miss Marple. “I just wondered if he was right. I shouldn’t say myself that Miss Crackenthorpe would be an old maid. She’s the type, I think, that’s quite likely to marry late in life—and make a success of it.”

  “Not very likely living here,” said Cedric. “Never sees anybody she could marry.”

  Miss Marple’s twinkle became more pronounced than ever.

  “There are always clergymen—and doctors.”

  Her eyes, gentle and mischievous, went from one to another.

  It was clear that she had suggested to them something that they had never thought of and which they did not find overpleasing.

  Miss Marple rose to her feet, dropping as she did so, several little woolly scarves and her bag.

  The three brothers were most attentive picking things up.

  “So kind of you,” fluted Miss Marple. “Oh, yes, and my little blue muffler. Yes—as I say—so kind to ask me here. I’ve been picturing, you know, just what your home was like—so that I can visualize dear Lucy working here.”

  “Perfect home conditions—with murder thrown in,” said Cedric.

  “Cedric!” Harold’s voice was angry.

  Miss Marple smiled up at Cedric.

  “Do you know who you remind me of? Young Thomas Eade, our bank manager’s son. Always out to shock people. It didn’t do in banking circles, of course, so he went to the West Indies… He came home when his father died and inherited quite a lot of money. So nice for him. He was always better at spending money than making it.”

  II

  Lucy took Miss Marple home. On her way back a figure stepped out of the darkness and stood in the glare of the headlights just as she was about to turn into the back lane. He held up his hand and Lucy recognized Alfred Crackenthorpe.

  “That’s better,” he observed, as he got in. “Brr, it’s cold! I fancied I’d like a nice bracing walk. I didn’t. Taken the old lady home all right?”

  “Yes. She enjoyed herself very much.”

  “One could see that. Funny what a taste old ladies have for any kind of society, however dull. And, really, nothing could be duller than Rutherford Hall. Two days here is about as much as I can stand. How do you manage to stick it out, Lucy? Don’t mind if I call you Lucy, do you?”

  “Not at all. I don’t find it dull. Of course with me it’s not a permanency.”

  “I’ve been watching you—you’re a smart girl, Lucy. Too smart to waste yourself cooking and cleaning.”

  “Thank you, but I prefer cooking and cleaning to the office desk.”

  “So would I. But there are other ways of living. You could be a freelance.”

  “I am.”

  “Not this way. I mean, working for yourself, pitting your wits against—”

  “Against what?”

  “The powers that be! All the silly pettifogging rules and regulations that hamper us all nowadays. The interesting thing is there’s always a way round them if you’re smart enough to find it. And you’re smart. Come now, does the idea appeal to you?”

  “Possibly.”

  Lucy manoeuvred the car into the stableyard.

  “Not going to commit yourself?”

  “I’d have to hear more.”

  “Frankly, my dear girl, I could use you. You’ve got the sort of manner that’s invaluable—creates confidence.”

  “Do you want me to help you sell gold bricks?”

  “Nothing so risky. Just a little by-passing of the law—no more.” His hand slipped up her arm. “You’re a damned attractive girl, Lucy. I’d like you as a partner.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  “Meaning nothing doing? Think about it. Think of the fun. The pleasure you’d get out of outwitting all the sober-sides. The trouble is, one needs capital.”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t got any.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t a touch! I’ll be laying my hands on some before long. My revered Papa can’t live forever, mean old brute. When he pops off, I lay my hands on some real money. What about it, Lucy?”

  “What are the terms?”

  “Marriage if you fancy it. Women seem to, no matter how advanced and self-supporting they are. Besides, married women can’t be made to give evidence against their husbands.”

  “Not so flattering!”

  “Come off it, Lucy. Don’t you realize I’ve fallen for you?”

  Rather to her surprise Lucy was aware of a queer fascination. There was a quality of charm about Alfred, perhaps due to sheer animal magnetism. She laughed and slipped from his encircling arm.

  “This is no time for dalliance. There’s dinner to think about.”

  “So there is, Lucy, and you’re a lovely cook. What’s for dinner?”

  “Wait and see! You’re as bad as the boys!”

  They entered the house and Lucy hurried to the kitchen. She was rather surprised to be interrupted in her preparations by Harold Crackenthorpe.

  “Miss Eyelesbarrow, can I speak to you about something?”

  “Would later do, Mr. Crackenthorpe? I’m rather behind hand.”

  “Certainly. Certainly. After dinner?”

  “Yes, that will do.”

  Dinner was duly served and appreciated. Lucy finished washing up and came out into the hall to find Harold Crackenthorpe waiting for her.

  “Yes, Mr. Crackenthorpe?”

  “Shall we come in here?” He opened the door of the drawing room and led the way. He shut the door behind her.

  “I shall be leaving early in the morning,” he explained, “but I want to tell you how struck I have been by your ability.”

  “Thank you,” said Lucy, feeling a little surprised.

  “I feel that your talents are wasted here—definitely wasted.”

  “Do you? I don’t.”

  At any rate, he can’t ask me to marry him, thought Lucy. He’s got a wife already.

  “I suggest that having very kindly seen us through this lamentable crisis, you call upon me in London. If you will ring up and make an appointment, I will leave instructions with my secretary. The truth is that we could use someone of your outstanding ability in the firm. We could discuss fully in what field your talents would be most ably employed. I can offer you, Miss Eyelesbarrow, a very good salary indeed with brilliant prospects. I think you will be agreeably surprised.”

  His smile was magnanimous.

  Lucy said demurely:

  “Thank you, Mr. Crackenthorpe, I’ll think about it.”

  “Don’t wait too long. These opportunities should not be missed by a young woman anxious to make her way in the world.”

  Again his teeth flashed.

  “Good night, Miss Eyelesbarrow, sleep well.”

  “Well,” said Lucy to herself, “well…this is all very interesting….”

  On her way up to bed, Lucy encountered Cedric on the stairs.

  “Look here, Lucy, there’s something I want to say to you.”

  “Do you want me to marry you and come to Ibiza and look after you?”

  Cedric looked very much taken aback, and slightly alarmed.

  “I never thought of su
ch a thing.”

  “Sorry. My mistake.”

  “I just wanted to know if you’ve a timetable in the house?”

  “Is that all? There’s one on the hall table.”

  “You know,” said Cedric, reprovingly, “you shouldn’t go about thinking everyone wants to marry you. You’re quite a good-looking girl but not as good-looking as all that. There’s a name for that sort of thing—it grows on you and you get worse. Actually, you’re the last girl in the world I should care to marry. The last girl.”

  “Indeed?” said Lucy. “You needn’t rub it in. Perhaps you’d prefer me as a stepmother?”

  “What’s that?” Cedric stared at her stupefied.

  “You heard me,” said Lucy, and went into her room and shut the door.

  Fourteen

  I

  Dermot Craddock was fraternizing with Armand Dessin of the Paris Prefecture. The two men had met on one or two occasions and got on well together. Since Craddock spoke French fluently, most of their conversation was conducted in that language.

  “It is an idea only,” Dessin warned him, “I have a picture here of the corps de ballet—that is she, the fourth from the left—it says anything to you, yes?”

  Inspector Craddock said that actually it didn’t. A strangled young woman is not easy to recognize, and in this picture all the young women concerned were heavily made up and were wearing extravagant bird headdresses.

  “It could be,” he said. “I can’t go further than that. Who was she? What do you know about her?”

  “Almost less than nothing,” said the other cheerfully. “She was not important, you see. And the Ballet Maritski—it is not important, either. It plays in suburban theatres and goes on tour—it has no real names, no stars, no famous ballerinas. But I will take you to see Madame Joilet who runs it.”

  Madame Joilet was a brisk business-like Frenchwoman with a shrewd eye, a small moustache, and a good deal of adipose tissue.

  “Me, I do not like the police!” She scowled at them, without camouflaging her dislike of the visit. “Always, if they can, they make me embarrassments.”

  “No, no, Madame, you must not say that,” said Dessin, who was a tall thin melancholy-looking man. “When have I ever caused you embarrassments?”

  “Over that little fool who drank the carbolic acid,” said Madame Joilet promptly. “And all because she has fallen in love with the chef d’orchestre—who does not care for women and has other tastes. Over that you made the big brouhaha! Which is not good for my beautiful ballet.”

  “On the contrary, big box office business,” said Dessin. “And that was three years ago. You should not bear malice. Now about this girl, Anna Stravinska.”

  “Well, what about her?” said Madame cautiously.

  “Is she Russian?” asked Inspector Craddock.

  “No, indeed. You mean, because of her name? But they all call themselves names like that, these girls. She was not important, she did not dance well, she was not particularly good-looking. Elle était assez bien, c’est tout. She danced well enough for the corps de ballet—but no solos.”

  “Was she French?”

  “Perhaps. She had a French passport. But she told me once that she had an English husband.”

  “She told you that she had an English husband? Alive—or dead?”

  Madame Joilet shrugged her shoulders.

  “Dead, or he had left her. How should I know which? These girls—there is always some trouble with men—”

  “When did you last see her?”

  “I take my company to London for six weeks. We play at Tor-quay, at Bournemouth, at Eastbourne, at somewhere else I forget and at Hammersmith. Then we come back to France, but Anna—she does not come. She sends a message only that she leaves the company, that she goes to live with her husband’s family—some nonsense of that kind. I did not think it is true, myself. I think it more likely that she has met a man, you understand.”

  Inspector Craddock nodded. He perceived that that was what Madame Joilet would invariably think.

  “And it is no loss to me. I do not care. I can get girls just as good and better to come and dance, so I shrug the shoulders and do not think of it anymore. Why should I? They are all the same, these girls, mad about men.”

  “What date was this?”

  “When we return to France? It was—yes—the Sunday before Christmas. And Anna she leaves two—or is it three—days before that? I cannot remember exactly… But the end of the week at Hammersmith we have to dance without her—and it means rearranging things… It was very naughty of her—but these girls—the moment they meet a man they are all the same. Only I say to everybody. ‘Zut, I do not take her back, that one!’”

  “Very annoying for you.”

  “Ah! Me—I do not care. No doubt she passes the Christmas holiday with some man she has picked up. It is not my affair. I can find other girls—girls who will leap at the chance of dancing in the Ballet Maritski and who can dance as well—or better than Anna.”

  Madame Joilet paused and then asked with a sudden gleam of interest:

  “Why do you want to find her? Has she come into money?”

  “On the contrary,” said Inspector Craddock politely. “We think she may have been murdered.”

  Madame Joilet relapsed into indifference.

  “Ca se peut! It happens. Ah, well! She was a good Catholic. She went to Mass on Sundays, and no doubt to confession.”

  “Did she ever speak to you, Madame, of a son?”

  “A son? Do you mean she had a child? That, now, I should consider most unlikely. These girls, all—all of them know a useful address to which to go. M. Dessin knows that as well as I do.”

  “She may have had a child before she adopted a stage life,” said Craddock. “During the war, for instance.”

  “Ah! dans la guerre. That is always possible. But if so, I know nothing about it.”

  “Who amongst the other girls were her closest friends?”

  “I can give you two or three names—but she was not very intimate with anyone.”

  They could get nothing else useful from Madame Joilet.

  Shown the compact, she said Anna had one of that kind, but so had most of the other girls. Anna had perhaps bought a fur coat in London—she did not know. “Me, I occupy myself with the rehearsals, with the stage lighting, with all the difficulties of my business. I have not time to notice what my artists wear.”

  After Madame Joilet, they interviewed the girls whose names she had given them. One or two of them had known Anna fairly well, but they all said that she had not been one to talk much about herself, and that when she did, it was, so one girl said, mostly lies.

  “She liked to pretend things—stories about having been the mistress of a Grand Duke—or of a great English financier—or how she worked for the Resistance in the war. Even a story about being a film star in Hollywood.”

  Another girl said:

  “I think that really she had had a very tame bourgeois existence. She liked to be in ballet because she thought it was romantic, but she was not a good dancer. You understand that if she were to say, ‘My father was a draper in Amiens,’ that would not be romantic! So instead she made up things.”

  “Even in London,” said the first girl, “she threw out hints about a very rich man who was going to take her on a cruise round the world, because she reminded him of his dead daughter who had died in a car accident. Quelle blague!”

  “She told me she was going to stay with a rich lord in Scotland,” said the second girl. “She said she would shoot the deer there.”

  None of this was helpful. All that seemed to emerge from it was that Anna Stravinska was a proficient liar. She was certainly not shooting deer with a a peer in Scotland, and it seemed equally unlikely that she was on the sun deck of a liner cruising round the world. But neither was there any real reason to believe that her body had been found in a sarcophagus at Rutherford Hall. The identification by the girls and Madame Joilet was very
uncertain and hesitating. It looked something like Anna, they all agreed. But really! All swollen up—it might be anybody!

  The only fact that was established was that on the 19th of December Anna Stravinska had decided not to return to France, and that on the 20th December a woman resembling her in appearance had travelled to Brackhampton by the 4:33 train and had been strangled.

  If the woman in the sarcophagus was not Anna Stravinska, where was Anna now?

  To that, Madame Joilet’s answer was simple and inevitable.

  “With a man!”

  And it was probably the correct answer, Craddock reflected ruefully.

  One other possibility had to be considered—raised by the casual remark that Anna had once referred to having an English husband.

  Had that husband been Edmund Crackenthorpe?

  It seemed unlikely, considering the word picture of Anna that had been given him by those who knew her. What was much more probable was that Anna had at one time known the girl Martine sufficiently intimately to be acquainted with the necessary details. It might have been Anna who wrote that letter to Emma Crackenthorpe and, if so, Anna would have been quite likely to have taken fright at any question of an investigation. Perhaps she had even thought it prudent to sever her connection with the Ballet Maritski. Again, where was she now?

  And again, inevitably, Madame Joilet’s answer seemed the most likely.

  With a man….

  II

  Before leaving Paris, Craddock discussed with Dessin the question of the woman named Martine. Dessin was inclined to agree with his English colleague that the matter had probably no connection with the woman found in the sarcophagus. All the same, he agreed, the matter ought to be investigated.

  He assured Craddock that the Sûreté would do their best to discover if there actually was any record of a marriage between Lieutenant Edmund Crackenthorpe of the 4th Southshire Regiment and a French girl whose Christian name was Martine. Time—just prior to the fall of Dunkirk.