Murder at the Vicarage Read online

  “They were smiling and talking,” said Miss Marple. “They seemed very happy to be together, if you know what I mean.”

  “They didn’t seem upset or disturbed in any way?”

  “Oh, no! Just the opposite.”

  “Deuced odd,” said the Colonel. “There’s something deuced odd about the whole thing.”

  Miss Marple suddenly took our breath away by remarking in a placid voice:

  “Has Mrs. Protheroe been saying that she committed the crime now?”

  “Upon my soul,” said the Colonel, “how did you come to guess that, Miss Marple?”

  “Well, I rather thought it might happen,” said Miss Marple. “I think dear Lettice thought so, too. She’s really a very sharp girl. Not always very scrupulous, I’m afraid. So Anne Protheroe says she killed her husband. Well, well. I don’t think it’s true. No, I’m almost sure it isn’t true. Not with a woman like Anne Protheroe. Although one never can be quite sure about anyone, can one? At least that’s what I’ve found. When does she say she shot him?”

  “At twenty minutes past six. Just after speaking to you.”

  Miss Marple shook her head slowly and pityingly. The pity was, I think, for two full-grown men being so foolish as to believe such a story. At least that is what we felt like.

  “What did she shoot him with?”

  “A pistol.”

  “Where did she find it?”

  “She brought it with her.”

  “Well, that she didn’t do,” said Miss Marple, with unexpected decision. “I can swear to that. She’d no such thing with her.”

  “You mightn’t have seen it.”

  “Of course I should have seen it.”

  “If it had been in her handbag.”

  “She wasn’t carrying a handbag.”

  “Well, it might have been concealed—er—upon her person.”

  Miss Marple directed a glance of sorrow and scorn upon him.

  “My dear Colonel Melchett, you know what young women are nowadays. Not ashamed to show exactly how the creator made them. She hadn’t so much as a handkerchief in the top of her stocking.”

  Melchett was obstinate.

  “You must admit that it all fits in,” he said. “The time, the overturned clock pointing to 6:22—”

  Miss Marple turned on me.

  “Do you mean you haven’t told him about that clock yet?”

  “What about the clock, Clement?”

  I told him. He showed a good deal of annoyance.

  “Why on earth didn’t you tell Slack this last night?”

  “Because,” I said, “he wouldn’t let me.”

  “Nonsense, you ought to have insisted.”

  “Probably,” I said, “Inspector Slack behaves quite differently to you than he does to me. I had no earthly chance of insisting.”

  “It’s an extraordinary business altogether,” said Melchett. “If a third person comes along and claims to have done this murder, I shall go into a lunatic asylum.”

  “If I might be allowed to suggest—” murmured Miss Marple.

  “Well?”

  “If you were to tell Mr. Redding what Mrs. Protheroe has done and then explain that you don’t really believe it is her. And then if you were to go to Mrs. Protheroe and tell her that Mr. Redding is all right—why then, they might each of them tell you the truth. And the truth is helpful, though I dare say they don’t know very much themselves, poor things.”

  “It’s all very well, but they are the only two people who had a motive for making away with Protheroe.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Colonel Melchett,” said Miss Marple.

  “Why, can you think of anyone else?”

  “Oh! yes, indeed. Why,” she counted on her fingers, “one, two, three, four, five, six—yes, and a possible seven. I can think of at least seven people who might be very glad to have Colonel Protheroe out of the way.”

  The Colonel looked at her feebly.

  “Seven people? In St. Mary Mead?”

  Miss Marple nodded brightly.

  “Mind you I name no names,” she said. “That wouldn’t be right. But I’m afraid there’s a lot of wickedness in the world. A nice honourable upright soldier like you doesn’t know about these things, Colonel Melchett.”

  I thought the Chief Constable was going to have apoplexy.

  Ten

  His remarks on the subject of Miss Marple as we left the house were far from complimentary.

  “I really believe that wizened-up old maid thinks she knows everything there is to know. And hardly been out of this village all her life. Preposterous. What can she know of life?”

  I said mildly that though doubtless Miss Marple knew next to nothing of Life with a capital L, she knew practically everything that went on in St. Mary Mead.

  Melchett admitted that grudgingly. She was a valuable witness—particularly valuable from Mrs. Protheroe’s point of view.

  “I suppose there’s no doubt about what she says, eh?”

  “If Miss Marple says she had no pistol with her, you can take it for granted that it is so,” I said. “If there was the least possibility of such a thing, Miss Marple would have been on to it like a knife.”

  “That’s true enough. We’d better go and have a look at the studio.”

  The so-called studio was a mere rough shed with a skylight. There were no windows and the door was the only means of entrance or egress. Satisfied on this score, Melchett announced his intention of visiting the Vicarage with the Inspector.

  “I’m going to the police station now.”

  As I entered through the front door, a murmur of voices caught my ear. I opened the drawing room door.

  On the sofa beside Griselda, conversing animatedly, sat Miss Gladys Cram. Her legs, which were encased in particularly shiny pink stockings, were crossed, and I had every opportunity of observing that she wore pink striped silk knickers.

  “Hullo, Len,” said Griselda.

  “Good morning, Mr. Clement,” said Miss Cram. “Isn’t the news about the Colonel really too awful? Poor old gentleman.”

  “Miss Cram,” said my wife, “very kindly came in to offer to help us with the Guides. We asked for helpers last Sunday, you remember.”

  I did remember, and I was convinced, and so, I knew from her tone, was Griselda, that the idea of enrolling herself among them would never have occurred to Miss Cram but for the exciting incident which had taken place at the Vicarage.

  “I was only just saying to Mrs. Clement,” went on Miss Cram, “you could have struck me all of a heap when I heard the news. A murder? I said. In this quiet one-horse village—for quiet it is, you must admit—not so much as a picture house, and as for Talkies! And then when I heard it was Colonel Protheroe—why, I simply couldn’t believe it. He didn’t seem the kind, somehow, to get murdered.”

  “And so,” said Griselda, “Miss Cram came round to find out all about it.”

  I feared this plain speaking might offend the lady, but she merely flung her head back and laughed uproariously, showing every tooth she possessed.

  “That’s too bad. You’re a sharp one, aren’t you, Mrs. Clement? But it’s only natural, isn’t it, to want to hear the ins and outs of a case like this? And I’m sure I’m willing enough to help with the Guides in any way you like. Exciting, that’s what it is. I’ve been stagnating for a bit of fun. I have, really I have. Not that my job isn’t a very good one, well paid, and Dr. Stone quite the gentleman in every way. But a girl wants a bit of life out of office hours, and except for you, Mrs. Clement, who is there in the place to talk to except a lot of old cats?”

  “There’s Lettice Protheroe,” I said.

  Gladys Cram tossed her head.

  “She’s too high and mighty for the likes of me. Fancies herself the country, and wouldn’t demean herself by noticing a girl who had to work for her living. Not but what I did hear her talking of earning her living herself. And who’d employ her, I should like to know? Why, she’d be fired i
n less than a week. Unless she went as one of those mannequins, all dressed up and sidling about. She could do that, I expect.”

  “She’d make a very good mannequin,” said Griselda. “She’s got such a lovely figure.” There’s nothing of the cat about Griselda. “When was she talking of earning her own living?”

  Miss Cram seemed momentarily discomfited, but recovered herself with her usual archness.

  “That would be telling, wouldn’t it?” she said. “But she did say so. Things not very happy at home, I fancy. Catch me living at home with a stepmother. I wouldn’t sit down under it for a minute.”

  “Ah! but you’re so high spirited and independent,” said Griselda gravely, and I looked at her with suspicion.

  Miss Cram was clearly pleased.

  “That’s right. That’s me all over. Can be led, not driven. A palmist told me that not so very long ago. No. I’m not one to sit down and be bullied. And I’ve made it clear all along to Dr. Stone that I must have my regular times off. These scientific gentlemen, they think a girl’s a kind of machine—half the time they just don’t notice her or remember she’s there. Of course, I don’t know much about it,” confessed the girl.

  “Do you find Dr. Stone pleasant to work with? It must be an interesting job if you are interested in archaeology.”

  “It still seems to me that digging up people that are dead and have been dead for hundreds of years isn’t—well, it seems a bit nosy, doesn’t it? And there’s Dr. Stone so wrapped up in it all, that half the time he’d forget his meals if it wasn’t for me.”

  “Is he at the barrow this morning?” asked Griselda.

  Miss Cram shook her head.

  “A bit under the weather this morning,” she explained. “Not up to doing any work. That means a holiday for little Gladys.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Oh! It’s nothing much. There’s not going to be a second death. But do tell me, Mr. Clement, I hear you’ve been with the police all morning. What do they think?”

  “Well,” I said slowly, “there is still a little—uncertainty.”

  “Ah!” cried Miss Cram. “Then they don’t think it is Mr. Lawrence Redding after all. So handsome, isn’t he? Just like a movie star. And such a nice smile when he says good morning to you. I really couldn’t believe my ears when I heard the police had arrested him. Still, one has always heard they’re very stupid—the county police.”

  “You can hardly blame them in this instance,” I said. “Mr. Redding came in and gave himself up.”

  “What?” the girl was clearly dumbfounded. “Well—of all the poor fish! If I’d committed a murder, I wouldn’t go straight off and give myself up. I should have thought Lawrence Redding would have had more sense. To give in like that! What did he kill Protheroe for? Did he say? Was it just a quarrel?”

  “It’s not absolutely certain that he did kill him,” I said.

  “But surely—if he says he has—why really, Mr. Clement, he ought to know.”

  “He ought to, certainly,” I agreed. “But the police are not satisfied with his story.”

  “But why should he say he’d done it if he hasn’t?”

  That was a point on which I had no intention of enlightening Miss Cram. Instead I said rather vaguely:

  “I believe that in all prominent murder cases, the police receive numerous letters from people accusing themselves of the crime.”

  Miss Cram’s reception of this piece of information was:

  “They must be chumps!” in a tone of wonder and scorn.

  “Well,” she said with a sigh, “I suppose I must be trotting along.” She rose. “Mr. Redding accusing himself of the murder will be a bit of news of Dr. Stone.”

  “Is he interested?” asked Griselda.

  Miss Cram furrowed her brows perplexedly.

  “He’s a queer one. You never can tell with him. All wrapped up in the past. He’d a hundred times rather look at a nasty old bronze knife out of those humps of ground than he would see the knife Crippen cut up his wife with, supposing he had a chance to.”

  “Well,” I said, “I must confess I agree with him.”

  Miss Cram’s eyes expressed incomprehension and slight contempt. Then, with reiterated good-byes, she took her departure.

  “Not such a bad sort, really,” said Griselda, as the door closed behind her. “Terribly common, of course, but one of those big, bouncing, good-humoured girls that you can’t dislike. I wonder what really brought her here?”

  “Curiosity.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Now, Len, tell me all about it. I’m simply dying to hear.”

  I sat down and recited faithfully all the happenings of the morning, Griselda interpolating the narrative with little exclamations of surprise and interest.

  “So it was Anne Lawrence was after all along! Not Lettice. How blind we’ve all been! That must have been what old Miss Marple was hinting at yesterday. Don’t you think so?”

  “Yes,” I said, averting my eyes.

  Mary entered.

  “There’s a couple of men here—come from a newspaper, so they say. Do you want to see them?”

  “No,” I said, “certainly not. Refer them to Inspector Slack at the police station.”

  Mary nodded and turned away.

  “And when you’ve got rid of them,” I said, “come back here. There’s something I want to ask you.”

  Mary nodded again.

  It was some few minutes before she returned.

  “Had a job getting rid of them,” she said. “Persistent. You never saw anything like it. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “I expect we shall be a good deal troubled with them,” I said. “Now, Mary, what I want to ask you is this: Are you quite certain you didn’t hear the shot yesterday evening?”

  “The shot what killed him? No, of course I didn’t. If I had of done, I should have gone in to see what had happened.”

  “Yes, but—” I was remembering Miss Marple’s statement that she had heard a shot “in the woods.” I changed the form of my question. “Did you hear any other shot—one down in the wood, for instance?”

  “Oh! That.” The girl paused. “Yes, now I come to think of it, I believe I did. Not a lot of shots, just one. Queer sort of bang it was.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Now what time was that?”

  “Time?”

  “Yes, time.”

  “I couldn’t say, I’m sure. Well after teatime. I do know that.”

  “Can’t you get a little nearer than that?”

  “No, I can’t. I’ve got my work to do, haven’t I? I can’t go on looking at clocks the whole time—and it wouldn’t be much good anyway—the alarm loses a good three-quarters every day, and what with putting it on and one thing and another, I’m never exactly sure what time it is.”

  This perhaps explains why our meals are never punctual. They are sometimes too late and sometimes bewilderingly early.

  “Was it long before Mr. Redding came?”

  “No, it wasn’t long. Ten minutes—a quarter of an hour—not longer than that.”

  I nodded my head, satisfied.

  “Is that all?” said Mary. “Because what I mean to say is, I’ve got the joint in the oven and the pudding boiling over as likely as not.”

  “That’s all right. You can go.”

  She left the room, and I turned to Griselda.

  “Is it quite out of the question to induce Mary to say sir or ma’am?”

  “I have told her. She doesn’t remember. She’s just a raw girl, remember?”

  “I am perfectly aware of that,” I said. “But raw things do not necessarily remain raw for ever. I feel a tinge of cooking might be induced in Mary.”

  “Well, I don’t agree with you,” said Griselda. “You know how little we can afford to pay a servant. If once we got her smartened up at all, she’d leave. Naturally. And get higher wages. But as long as Mary can’t cook and has those awful manners—well, we’re safe, nobody else wou
ld have her.”

  I perceived that my wife’s methods of housekeeping were not so entirely haphazard as I had imagined. A certain amount of reasoning underlay them. Whether it was worthwhile having a maid at the price of her not being able to cook, and having a habit of throwing dishes and remarks at one with the same disconcerting abruptness, was a debatable matter.

  “And anyway,” continued Griselda, “you must make allowances for her manners being worse than usual just now. You can’t expect her to feel exactly sympathetic about Colonel Protheroe’s death when he jailed her young man.”

  “Did he jail her young man?”

  “Yes, for poaching. You know, that man, Archer. Mary has been walking out with him for two years.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Darling Len, you never know anything.”

  “It’s queer,” I said, “that everyone says the shot came from the woods.”

  “I don’t think it’s queer at all,” said Griselda. “You see, one so often hears shots in the wood. So naturally, when you do hear a shot, you just assume as a matter of course that it is in the wood. It probably just sounds a bit louder than usual. Of course, if one were in the next room, you’d realize that it was in the house, but from Mary’s kitchen with the window right the other side of the house, I don’t believe you’d ever think of such a thing.”

  The door opened again.

  “Colonel Melchett’s back,” said Mary. “And that police inspector with him, and they say they’d be glad if you’d join them. They’re in the study.”

  Eleven

  I saw at a glance that Colonel Melchett and Inspector Slack had not been seeing eye to eye about the case. Melchett looked flushed and annoyed and the Inspector looked sulky.

  “I’m sorry to say,” said Melchett, “that Inspector Slack doesn’t agree with me in considering young Redding innocent.”

  “If he didn’t do it, what does he go and say he did it for?” asked Slack sceptically.

  “Mrs. Protheroe acted in an exactly similar fashion, remember, Slack.”

  “That’s different. She’s a woman, and women act in that silly way. I’m not saying she did it for a moment. She heard he was accused and she trumped up a story. I’m used to that sort of game. You wouldn’t believe the fool things I’ve known women do. But Redding’s different. He’s got his head screwed on all right. And if he admits he did it, well, I say he did do it. It’s his pistol—you can’t get away from that. And thanks to this business of Mrs. Protheroe, we know the motive. That was the weak point before, but now we know it—why, the whole thing’s plain sailing.”