right about one thing. The girl had on her
best nylon stockings and her good shoes. She
was going to meet someone. Only she wasn’t
going out to meet him. He was coming to
Yewtree Lodge. That’s why she was on the
look out that day and flustered and late with
tea. Then, as she brought the second tray into
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the hall, I think she looked along the passage
to the side door, and saw him there, beckoning
to her. She put the tray down and went
out to meet him.”
“And then he strangled her,” said Neele.
Miss Marple pursed her lips together. “It
would only take a minute,” she said, “but he
couldn’t risk her talking. She had to die, poor, silly, credulous girl. And then–he put
a clothes peg on her nose!” Stern anger
vibrated the old lady’s voice. “To make it fit
in with the rhyme. The rye, the blackbirds, the counting-house, the bread and honey, and
the clothes peg–the nearest he could get to a little dicky bird that nipped off her nose—-”
“And I suppose at the end of it all he’ll go
to Broadmoor and we shan’t be able to hang
him because he’s crazy!” said Neele slowly.
“I think you’ll hang him all right,” said
Miss Marple. “And he’s not crazy. Inspector,
not for a moment!”
Inspector Neele looked hard at her.
“Now see here. Miss Marple, you’ve outlined
a theory to me. Yes–yes–although you
say you know, it’s only a theory. You’re saying
that a man is responsible for these crimes,
who called himself Albert Evans, who picked
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up the girl Gladys at a holiday camp and used
her for his own purposes. This Albert Evans
was someone who wanted revenge for the old
Blackbird Mine business. You’re suggesting, aren’t you, that Mrs. MacKenzie’s son, Don
MacKenzie, didn’t die at Dunkirk. That he’s
still alive, that he’s behind all this?”
But to Inspector Neele’s surprise. Miss
Marple was shaking her head violently.
“Oh no!” she said, “oh no\ I’m not
suggesting that at all. Don’t you see, Inspector Neele, all this blackbird business is
really a complete fake. It was used, that was
all, used by somebody who heard about the
blackbirds–the ones in the library and in the
pie. The blackbirds were genuine enough.
They were put there by someone who knew
about the old business, who wanted revenge
for it. But only the revenge of trying to
frighten Mr. Fortescue or to make him uncomfortable.
I don’t believe, you know, Inspector Neele, that children can really be
brought up and taught to wait and brood and
carry out revenge. Children, after all, have
got a lot of sense. But anyone whose father
had been swindled and perhaps left to die, might be willing to play a malicious trick on
the person who was supposed to have done it.
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That’s what happened, I think. And the killer
used it.”
“The killer,” said Inspector Neele. “Come
now. Miss Marple, let’s have your ideas
about the killer. Who was he?”
“You won’t be surprise,” said Miss
Marple. “Not really. Because you’ll see, as
soon as I tell you who he is, or rather who I
think he is, for one must be accurate must one
not?—you’ll see that he’s just the type of
person who would commit these murders.
He’s sane, brilliant and quite unscrupulous.
And he did it, of course, for money, probably
for a good deal of money.”
“Percival Fortescue?” Inspector Neele
spoke almost imploringly, but he knew as he
spoke that he was wrong. The picture of the
man that Miss Marple had built up for him
had no resemblance to Percival Fortescue.
“Oh, no,” said Miss Marple. “Not
Percival. Lance.”
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27
“YT’S impossible,” said Inspector Neele.
| He leaned back in his chair and
A watched Miss Marple with fascinated
eyes. As Miss Marple had said, he was not
surprised. His words were a denial, not of
probability, but of possibility. Lance
Fortescue fitted the description: Miss Marple
had outlined it well enough. But Inspector
Neele simply could not see how Lance could
be the answer.
Miss Marple leaned forward in her chair
and gently, persuasively, and rather in the