The Murder at the Vicarage mm-1 Read online

  After we had had coffee, Anne said quietly:

  "I want to have a little talk with the vicar. I will take him up to my sitting-room."

  At last I was to learn the reason of our summons. I rose and followed her up the stairs. She paused at the door of the room. As I was about to speak, she stretched out a hand to stop me. She remained listening, looking down towards the hall.

  "Good. They are going out into the garden. No - don't go in there. We can go straight up."

  Much to my surprise she led the way along the corridor to the extremity of the wing. Here a narrow ladder-like staircase rose to the floor above, and she mounted it, I following. We found ourselves in a dusty boarded passage. Anne opened a door and led one into a large dim attic which was evidently used as a lumber room. There were trunks there, old broken furniture, a few stacked pictures, and the many countless odds and ends which a lumber room collects.

  My surprise was so evident that she smiled faintly.

  "First of all, I must explain. I am sleeping very lightly just now. Last night - or rather this morning about three o'clock, I was convinced that I heard someone moving about the house. I listened for some time, and at last got up and came out to see. Out on the landing I realised that the sounds came, not from down below, but from up above. I came along to the foot of these stairs. Again I thought I heard a sound. I called up, "Is anybody there?" But there was no answer, and I heard nothing more, so I assumed that my nerves had been playing tricks on me, and went back to bed.

  "However, early this morning, I came up here - simply out of curiosity. And I found this!"

  She stooped down and turned round a picture that was leaning against the wall with the back of the canvas towards us.

  I gave a gasp of surprise. The picture was evidently a portrait in oils, but the face had been hacked and cut in such a savage way as to render it unrecognizable. Moreover, the cuts were clearly quite fresh.

  "What an extraordinary thing," I said.

  "Isn't it? Tell me, can you think of any explanation?"

  I shook my head.

  "There's a kind of savagery about it," I said, "that I don't like. It looks as though it had been done in a fit of maniacal rage."

  "Yes, that's what I thought."

  "What is the portrait?"

  "I haven't the least idea. I have never seen it before. All these things were in the attic when I married Lucius and came here to live. I have never been through them or bothered about them."

  "Extraordinary," I commented.

  I stooped down and examined the other pictures. They were very much what you would expect to find - some very mediocre landscapes, some oleographs and a few cheaply-framed reproductions.

  There was nothing else helpful. A large old-fashioned trunk, of the kind that used to be called an "ark," had the initials E.P. upon it. I raised the lid. It was empty. Nothing else in the attic was the least suggestive.

  "It really is a most amazing occurrence," I said. "It's so - senseless."

  "Yes," said Anne. "That frightens me a little."

  There was nothing more to see. I accompanied her down to her sitting-room where she closed the door.

  "Do you think I ought to do anything about it? Tell the police?"

  I hesitated.

  "It's hard to say on the face of it whether -"

  "It has anything to do with the murder or not," finished Anne. "I know. That's what is so difficult. On the face of it, there seems no connection whatever."

  "No," I said, "but it is another Peculiar Thing."

  We both sat silent with puzzled brows.

  "What are your plans, if I may ask?" I said presently.

  She lifted her head.

  "I'm going to live here for at least another six months!" She said it defiantly. "I don't want to. I hate the idea of living here. But I think it's the only thing to be done. Otherwise people will say that I ran away - that I had a guilty conscience."

  "Surely not."

  "Oh! yes, they will. Especially when -" She paused and then said: "When the six months are up - I am going marry Lawrence." Her eyes met mine. "We're neither of us going to wait any longer."

  "I supposed," I said, "that that would happen."

  Suddenly she broke down, burying her head in her hands.

  "You don't know how grateful I am to you - you don't know. We'd said good-bye to each other - he was going away. I feel - I feel not so awful about Lucius's death. If we'd been planning to go away together, and he'd died then - it would be so awful now. But you made us both see how wrong it would be. That's why I'm grateful."

  "I, too, am thankful," I said gravely.

  "All the same, you know," she sat up. "Unless the real murderer is found they'll always think it was Lawrence - oh! yes, they will. And especially when he marries me."

  "My dear, Dr. Haydock's evidence made it perfectly clear -"

  "What do people care about evidence? They don't even know about it. And medical evidence never means anything to outsiders anyway. That's another reason why I'm staying on here. Mr. Clement, I'm going to find out the truth."

  Her eyes flashed as she spoke. She added:

  "That's why I asked that girl here."

  "Miss Cram?"

  "Yes."

  "You did ask her, then. I mean, it was your idea?"

  "Entirely. Oh! as a matter of fact, she whined a bit. At the inquest - she was there when I arrived. No, I asked her here deliberately."

  "But surely," I cried, "you don't think that that silly young woman could have anything to do with the crime?"

  "It's awfully easy to appear silly, Mr. Clement. It's one of the easiest things in the world."

  "Then you really think?"

  "No, I don't. Honestly, I don't. What I do think is that that girl knows something - or might know something. I wanted to study her at close quarters."

  "And the very night she arrives, that picture is slashed," I said thoughtfully.

  "You think she did it? But why? It seems so utterly absurd and impossible."

  "It seems to me utterly impossible and absurd that your husband should have been murdered in my study," I said bitterly. "But he was."

  "I know." She laid her hand on my arm. "It's dreadful for you. I do realise that, though I haven't said very much about it."

  I took the blue lapis lazuli ear-ring from my pocket and held it out to her.

  "This is yours, I think?"

  "Oh! yes." She held out her hand for it with a pleased smile. "Where did you find it?"

  But I did not put the jewel into her outstretched hand.

  "Would you mind," I said, "if I kept it a little longer?"

  "Why, certainly." She looked puzzled and a little inquiring. I did not satisfy her curiosity.

  Instead I asked her how she was situated financially.

  "It is an impertinent question," I said, "but I really do not mean it as such."

  "I don't think it's impertinent at all. You and Griselda are the best friends I have here. And I like that funny old Miss Marple. Lucius was very well off, you know. He left things pretty equally divided between me and Lettice. Old Hall goes to me, but Lettice is to be allowed to choose enough furniture to furnish a small house, and she is left a separate sum for the purpose of buying one, so as to even things up."

  "What are her plans, do you know?"

  Anne made a comical grimace.

  "She doesn't tell them to me. I imagine she will leave here as soon as possible. She doesn't like me - she never has. I dare say it's my fault, though I've really always tried to be decent. But I suppose any girl resents a young stepmother."

  "Are you fond of her?" I asked bluntly.

  She did not reply at once, which convinced me that Anne Protheroe is a very honest woman.

  "I was at first," she said. "She was such a pretty little girl. I don't think I am now. I don't know why. Perhaps it's because she doesn't like me. I like being liked, you know."

  "We all do," I said, and Anne Protheroe smile
d.

  I had one more task to perform. That was to get a word alone with Lettice Protheroe. I managed that easily enough, catching sight of her in the deserted drawing-room. Griselda and Gladys Cram were out in the garden.

  I went in and shut the door.

  "Lettice," I said, "I want to speak to you about something."

  She looked up indifferently.

  "Yes?"

  I had thought beforehand what to say. I held out the lapis ear-ring and said quietly:

  "Why did you drop that in my study?"

  I saw her stiffen for a moment - it was almost instantaneous. Her recovery was so quick that I myself could hardly have sworn to the movement. Then she said carelessly:

  "I never dropped anything in your study. That's not mine. That's Anne's."

  "I know that," I said.

  "Well, why ask me, then? Anne must have dropped it."

  "Mrs. Protheroe has only been in my study once since the murder, and then she was wearing black and so would not have been likely to have had on a blue ear-ring."

  "In that case," said Lettice, "I suppose she must have dropped it before." She added: "That's only logical."

  "It's very logical," I said. "I suppose you don't happen to remember when your stepmother was wearing these ear-rings last?"

  "Oh!" She looked at me with a puzzled, trustful gaze. "Is it very important?"

  "It might be," I said.

  "I'll try and think." She sat there knitting her brows. I have never seen Lettice Protheroe look more charming than she did at that moment. "Oh! yes," she said suddenly. "She had them on - on Thursday. I remember now."

  "Thursday," I said slowly, "was the day of the murder. Mrs. Protheroe came to the study in the garden that day, but if you remember, in her evidence, she only came as far as the study window, not inside the room."

  "Where did you find this?"

  "Rolled underneath the desk."

  "Then it looks, doesn't it," said Lettice coolly, "as though she hadn't spoken the truth?"

  "You mean that she came right in and stood by the desk?"

  "Well, it looks like it, doesn't it?"

  Her eyes met mine serenely.

  "If you want to know," she said calmly, "I never have thought she was speaking the truth."

  "And I know you are not, Lettice."

  "What do you mean?"

  She was startled.

  "I mean," I said, "that the last time I saw this ear-ring was on Friday morning when I came up here with Colonel Melchett. It was lying with its fellow on your stepmother's dressing-table. I actually handled them both."

  "Oh -!" She wavered, then suddenly flung herself sideways over the arm of her chair and burst into tears. Her short fair hair hung down almost touching the floor. It was a strange attitude - beautiful and unrestrained.

  I let her sob for some moments in silence and then I said very gently:

  "Lettice, why did you do it?"

  "What?"

  She sprang up, flinging her hair wildly back. She looked wild - almost terrified.

  "What do you mean?"

  "What made you do it? Was it jealousy? Dislike of Anne?"

  "Oh! - oh! yes." She pushed the hair back from her face and seemed suddenly to regain complete self-possession. "Yes, you can call it jealousy. I've always disliked Anne - ever since she came queening it here. I put the damned thing under the desk. I hoped it would get her into trouble. It would have done if you hadn't been such a Nosey Parker, fingering things on dressing-tables. Anyway, it isn't a clergyman's business to go about helping the police."

  It was a spiteful, childish outburst. I took no notice of it. Indeed, at that moment, she seemed a very pathetic child indeed.

  Her childish attempt at vengeance against Anne seemed hardly to be taken seriously. I told her so, and added that I should return the ear-ring to her and say nothing of the circumstances in which I had found it. She seemed rather touched by that.

  "That's nice of you," she said.

  She paused a minute and then said, keeping her face averted and evidently choosing her words with care.

  "You know, Mr. Clement, I should - I should get Dennis away from here soon, if I were you. I - I think it would be better."

  "Dennis?" I raised my eyebrows in slight surprise but with a trace of amusement too.

  "I think it would be better." She added, still in the same awkward manner: "I'm sorry about Dennis. I didn't think he - anyway, I'm sorry."

  We left it at that.

  Chapter XXIII

  On the way back, I proposed to Griselda that we should make a detour and go round by the barrow. I was anxious to see if the police were at work and if so, what they had found. Griselda, however, had things to do at home, so I was left to make the expedition on my own.

  I found Constable Hurst in charge of operations.

  "No sign so far, sir," he reported. "And yet it stands to reason that this is the only place for a cache."

  His use of the word cache puzzled me for a moment, as he pronounced it catch, but his real meaning occurred to me almost at once.

  "Whatimeantersay is, sir, where else could the young woman be going starting into the wood by that path? It leads to Old Hall, and it leads here, and that's about all."

  "I suppose," I said, "that Inspector Slack would disdain such a simple course as asking the young lady straight out."

  "Anxious not to put the wind up her," said Hurst. "Anything she writes to Stone or he writes to her may throw light on things - once she knows we're on to her, she'd shut up like that."

  Like what exactly was left in doubt, but I personally doubted Miss Gladys Cram ever being shut up in the way described. It was impossible to imagine her as other than overflowing with conversation.

  "When a man's an h'impostor, you want to know why he's an h'impostor," said Constable Hurst didactically.

  "Naturally," I said.

  "And the answer is to be found in this here barrow - or else why was he for ever messing about with it?"

  "A raison d'кtre for prowling about," I suggested, but this bit of French was too much for the constable. He revenged himself for not understanding it by saying coldly:

  "That's the h'amateur's point of view."

  "Anyway, you haven't found the suit-case," I said.

  "We shall do, sir. Not a doubt of it."

  "I'm not so sure," I said. "I've been thinking. Miss Marple said it was quite a short time before the girl reappeared empty-handed. In that case, she wouldn't have had time to get up here and back."

  "You can't take any notice of what old ladies say. When they've seen something curious, and are waiting all eager like, why, time simply flies for them. And anyway, no lady knows anything about time."

  I often wonder why the whole world is so prone to generalise. Generalisations are seldom or ever true and are usually utterly inaccurate. I have a poor sense of time myself (hence the keeping of my clock fast) and Miss Marple, I should say, has a very acute one. Her clocks keep time to the minute and she herself is rigidly punctual on every occasion.

  However, I had no intention of arguing with Constable Hurst on the point. I wished him good-afternoon and good luck and went on my way.

  It was just as I was nearing home that the idea came to me. There was nothing to lead up to it. It just flashed into my brain as a possible solution.

  You will remember that on my first search of the path, the day after the murder, I had found the bushes disturbed in a certain place. They proved, or so I thought at the time, to have been disturbed by Lawrence, bent on the same errand as myself.

  But I remembered that afterwards he and I together had come upon another faintly marked trail which proved to be that of the inspector. On thinking it over, I distinctly remembered that the first trail (Lawrence's) had been much more noticeable than the second, as though more than one person had been passing that way. And I reflected that that was probably what had drawn Lawrence's attention to it in the first instance. Supposing that it had origina
lly been made by either Dr. Stone or else Miss Cram?

  I remembered, or else I imagined remembering, that there had been several withered leaves on broken twigs. If so, the trail could not have been made the afternoon of our search.

  I was just approaching the spot in question. I recognised it easily enough and once more forced my way through the bushes. This time I noticed fresh twigs broken. Someone had passed this way since Lawrence and myself.

  I soon came to the place where I had encountered Lawrence. The faint trail, however, persisted farther, and I continued to follow it. Suddenly it widened out into a little clearing which showed signs of recent upheaval. I say a clearing, because the denseness of the undergrowth was thinned out there, but the branches of the trees met overhead and the whole place was not more than a few feet across.

  On the other side, the undergrowth grew densely again, and it seemed quite clear that no one had forced a way through it recently. Nevertheless, it seemed to have been disturbed in one place.

  I went across and kneeled down, thrusting the bushes aside with both hands. A glint of a shiny brown surface rewarded me. Full of excitement, I thrust my arm in and with a good deal of difficulty I extracted a small brown suit-case.

  I uttered an ejaculation of triumph. I had been successful. Coldly snubbed by Constable Hurst, I had yet proved right in my reasoning. Here without doubt was the suit-case carried by Miss Cram. I tried the hasp, but it was locked.

  As I rose to my feet I noticed a small brownish crystal lying on the ground. Almost automatically, I picked it up and slipped it into my pocket.

  Then grasping my find by the handle, I retraced my steps to the path.

  As I climbed over the stile into the lane, an agitated voice near at hand called out:

  "Oh! Mr. Clement. You've found it! How clever of you!"

  Mentally registering the fact that in the art of seeing without being seen, Miss Marple had no rival, I balanced my find on the palings between us.

  "That's the one," said Miss Marple. "I'd know it anywhere."

  This, I thought, was a slight exaggeration. There are thousands of cheap shiny suit-cases all exactly alike. No one could recognise one particular one seen from such a distance away by moonlight, but I realised that the whole business of the suit-case was Miss Marple's particular triumph and, as such, she was entitled to a little pardonable exaggeration.