Agatha Christie – A Murder Is Announced

But she said at once, frankly, ‘I shan’t be any help to you. Because I shut my eyes. I hate being dazzled. And then there were shots and I screwed them up tighter than ever. And I did wish, oh, I did wish, that it had been a quiet murder. I don’t like bangs.’

‘So you didn’t see anything.’ The Inspector smiled at her. ‘But you heard—?’

‘Oh, my goodness, yes, there was plenty to hear. Doors opening and shutting, and people saying silly things and gasping and old Mitzi screaming like a steam engine—and poor Bunny squealing like a trapped rabbit. And everyone pushing and falling over everyone else. However, when there really didn’t seem to be any more bangs coming, I opened my eyes. Everyone was out in the hall then, with candles. And then the lights came on and suddenly it was all as usual—I don’t mean really as usual, but we were ourselves again, not just—people in the dark. People in the dark are quite different, aren’t they?’

‘I think I know what you mean, Mrs Harmon.’

Mrs Harmon smiled at him.

‘And there he was,’ she said. ‘A rather weaselly-looking foreigner—all pink and surprised-looking—lying there dead—with a revolver beside him. It didn’t—oh, it didn’t seem to make sense, somehow.’

It did not make sense to the Inspector, either.

The whole business worried him.

Chapter 8

Enter Miss Marple

I

Craddock laid the typed transcript of the various interviews before the Chief Constable. The latter had just finished reading the wire received from the Swiss Police.

‘So he had a police record all right,’ said Rydesdale. ‘H’m—very much as one thought.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Jewellery…h’m, yes…falsified entries…yes…cheque…Definitely a dishonest fellow.’

‘Yes, sir—in a small way.’

‘Quite so. And small things lead to large things.’

‘I wonder, sir.’

The Chief Constable looked up.

‘Worried, Craddock?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Why? It’s a straightforward story. Or isn’t it? Let’s see what all these people you’ve been talking to have to say.’

He drew the report towards him and read it through rapidly.

‘The usual thing—plenty of inconsistencies and contradictions. Different people’s accounts of a few moments of stress never agree. But the main picture seems clear enough.’

‘I know, sir—but it’s an unsatisfactory picture. If you know what I mean—it’s the wrong picture.’

‘Well, let’s take the facts. Rudi Scherz took the 5.20 bus from Medenham to Chipping Cleghorn arriving there at six o’clock. Evidence of conductor and two passengers. From the bus stop he walked away in the direction of Little Paddocks. He got into the house with no particular difficulty—probably through the front door. He held up the company with a revolver, he fired two shots, one of which slightly wounded Miss Blacklock, then he killed himself with a third shot, whether accidentally or deliberately there is not sufficient evidence to show. The reasons why he did all this are profoundly unsatisfactory, I agree. But why isn’t really a question we are called upon to answer. A Coroner’s jury may bring it in suicide—or accidental death. Whichever verdict it is, it’s the same as far as we’re concerned. We can write finis.’

‘You mean we can always fall back upon Colonel Easter-brook’s psychology,’ said Craddock gloomily.

Rydesdale smiled.

‘After all, the Colonel’s probably had a good deal of experience,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty sick of the psychological jargon that’s used so glibly about everything nowadays—but we can’t really rule it out.’

‘I still feel the picture’s all wrong, sir.’

‘Any reason to believe that somebody in the set-up at Chipping Cleghorn is lying to you?’

Craddock hesitated.

‘I think the foreign girl knows more than she lets on. But that may be just prejudice on my part.’

‘You think she might possibly have been in it with this fellow? Let him into the house? Put him up to it?’

‘Something of the kind. I wouldn’t put it past her. But that surely indicates that there really was something valuable, money or jewellery, in the house, and that doesn’t seem to have been the case. Miss Blacklock negatived it quite decidedly. So did the others. That leaves us with the proposition that there was something valuable in the house that nobody knew about—’