Agatha Christie – A Murder Is Announced

‘It might be important,’ said Miss Marple. ‘He may have told her who it was.’

Rydesdale stared at her.

‘Who what was?’

‘I express myself so badly. Who it was who put him up to it, I mean.’

‘So you think someone put him up to it?’

Miss Marple’s eyes widened in surprise.

‘Oh, but surely—I mean…Here’s a personable young man—who filches a little bit here and a little bit there—alters a small cheque, perhaps helps himself to a small piece of jewellery if it’s left lying around, or takes a little money from the till—all sorts of small petty thefts. Keeps himself going in ready money so that he can dress well, and take a girl about—all that sort of thing. And then suddenly he goes off, with a revolver, and holds up a room full of people, and shoots at someone. He’d never have done a thing like that—not for a moment! He wasn’t that kind of person. It doesn’t make sense.’

Craddock drew in his breath sharply. That was what Letitia Blacklock had said. What the Vicar’s wife had said. What he himself felt with increasing force. It didn’t make sense. And now Sir Henry’s old Pussy was saying it, too, with complete certainty in her fluting old lady’s voice.

‘Perhaps you’ll tell us, Miss Marple,’ he said, and his voice was suddenly aggressive, ‘what did happen, then?’

She turned on him in surprise.

‘But how should I know what happened? There was an account in the paper—but it says so little. One can make conjectures, of course, but one has no accurate information.’

‘George,’ said Sir Henry, ‘would it be very unorthodox if Miss Marple were allowed to read the notes of the interviews Craddock had with these people at Chipping Cleghorn?’

‘It may be unorthodox,’ said Rydesdale, ‘but I’ve not got where I am by being orthodox. She can read them. I’d be curious to hear what she has to say.’

Miss Marple was all embarrassment.

‘I’m afraid you’ve been listening to Sir Henry. Sir Henry is always too kind. He thinks too much of any little observations I may have made in the past. Really, I have no gifts—no gifts at all—except perhaps a certain knowledge of human nature. People, I find, are apt to be far too trustful. I’m afraid that I have a tendency always to believe the worst. Not a nice trait. But so often justified by subsequent events.’

‘Read these,’ said Rydesdale, thrusting the typewritten sheets upon her. ‘They won’t take you long. After all, these people are your kind—you must know a lot of people like them. You may be able to spot something that we haven’t. The case is just going to be closed. Let’s have an amateur’s opinion on it before we shut up the files. I don’t mind telling you that Craddock here isn’t satisfied. He says, like you, that it doesn’t make sense.’

There was silence whilst Miss Marple read. She put the typewritten sheets down at last.

‘It’s very interesting,’ she said with a sigh. ‘All the different things that people say—and think. The things they see—or think that they see. And all so complex, nearly all so trivial and if one thing isn’t trivial, it’s so hard to spot which one—like a needle in a haystack.’

Craddock felt a twinge of disappointment. Just for a moment or two, he wondered if Sir Henry might be right about this funny old lady. She might have put her finger on something—old people were often very sharp. He’d never, for instance, been able to conceal anything from his own great aunt Emma. She had finally told him that his nose twitched when he was about to tell a lie.

But just a few fluffy generalities, that was all that Sir Henry’s famous Miss Marple could produce. He felt annoyed with her and said rather curtly:

‘The truth of the matter is that the facts are indisputable. Whatever conflicting details these people give, they all saw one thing. They saw a masked man with a revolver and a torch open the door and hold them up, and whether they think he said “Stick ’em up” or “Your money or your life,” or whatever phrase is associated with a hold-up in their minds, they saw him.’