scientists can alter your vital tissues and
you’ll develop froglike characteristics, well, everybody would believe that. And having
read in the papers about truth drugs, of
course Gladys would believe it absolutely
when he told her that that’s what it was.”
“When who told her?” asked Inspector
Neele.
“Albert Evans,” said Miss Marple. “Not of
course that that is really his name. But
anyway he met her last summer at a holiday
camp, and he flattered her up and made love
to her, and I should imagine told her some
story of injustice or persecution, or something
like that. Anyway, the point was that
Rex Fortescue had to be made to confess
what he had done and make restitution. I
don’t know this, of course. Inspector Neele, but I’m pretty sure about it. He got her to take
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a post here, and it’s really very easy nowadays
with the shortage of domestic staff, to obtain
a post where you want one. Staffs are
changing the whole time. Then they arranged
a date together. You remember on that last
postcard he said, “Remember our date.’ That
was to be the great day they were working for.
Gladys would put the drug that he gave her
into the top of the marmalade, so that Mr.
Fortescue would eat it at breakfast and she
would also put the rye in his pocket. I don’t
know what story he told her to account for
the rye, but as I told you from the beginning, Inspector Neele, Gladys Martin was a very credulous girl. In fact, there’s hardly anything
she wouldn’t believe if a personable
young man put it to her the right way.”
“Go on,” said Inspector Neele in a dazed
voice.
“The idea probably was,” continued Miss
Marple, “that Albert was going to call upon
him at the office that day, and that by that
time the truth drug would have worked, and
that Mr. Fortescue would have confessed
everything and so on and so on. You can
imagine the poor girl’s feelings when she
hears that Mr. Fortescue is dead.”
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“But, surely,” Inspector Neele objected,
“she would have told?”
Miss Marple asked sharply:
“What was the first thing she said to you
when you questioned her?”
“She said ‘I didn’t do it,’ ” Inspector Neele
said.
“Exactly,” said Miss Marple, triumphantly.
“Don’t you see that’s exactly what she would
say? If she broke an ornament, you know,
Gladys would always say, ‘I didn’t do it. Miss
Marple. I can’t think how it happened.’ They
can’t help it, poor dears. They’re very upset
at what they’ve done and their great idea is to
avoid blame. You don’t think that a nervous
young woman who had murdered someone
when she didn’t mean to murder him, is
going to admit it, do you? That would have
been quite out of character.”
“Yes,” Neele said, “I suppose it would.”
He ran his mind back over his interview
with Gladys. Nervous, upset, guilty, shiftyeyed,
all those things. They might have had
small significance, or a big one. He could not
really blame himself for having failed to come
to the right conclusion.
“Her first idea, as I say,” went on Miss
Marple, “would be to deny it all. Then in a
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confused way she would try to sort it all out
in her mind. Perhaps Albert hadn’t known
how strong the stuff was, or he’d made a
mistake and given her too much of it. She’d
think of excuses for him and explanations.
She’d hope he’d get in touch with her, which,
of course, he did. By telephone.”
“Do you know that?” asked Neele sharply.
Miss Marple shook her head.
“No. I admit I’m assuming it. But there
were unexplained calls that day. That is to
say, people rang up and when Crump, or
Mrs. Crump answered, the phone was hung
up. That’s what he’d do, you know. Ring up
and wait until Gladys answered the phone,
and then he’d make an appointment with her
to meet him.”
“I see,” said Neele. “You mean she had an
appointment to meet him on the day she died.”
Miss Marple nodded vigorously.
“Yes, that was indicated. Mrs. Crump was