Agatha Christie – A Murder Is Announced

‘But surely,’ said Miss Marple gently. ‘They couldn’t—actually—have seen anything at all…’

Craddock caught his breath. She’d got it! She was sharp, after all. He was testing her by that speech of his, but she hadn’t fallen for it. It didn’t actually make any difference to the facts, or to what happened, but she’d realized, as he’d realized, that those people who had seen a masked man holding them up couldn’t really have seen him at all.

‘If I understand rightly,’ Miss Marple had a pink flush on her cheeks, her eyes were bright and pleased as a child’s, ‘there wasn’t any light in the hall outside—and not on the landing upstairs either?’

‘That’s right,’ said Craddock.

‘And so, if a man stood in the doorway and flashed a powerful torch into the room, nobody could see anything but the torch, could they?’

‘No, they couldn’t. I tried it out.’

‘And so when some of them say they saw a masked man, etc., they are really, though they don’t realize it, recapitulating from what they saw afterwards—when the lights came on. So it really all fits in very well, doesn’t it, on the assumption that Rudi Scherz was the—I think, “fall guy” is the expression Imean?’

Rydesdale stared at her in such surprise that she grew pinker still.

‘I may have got the term wrong,’ she murmured. ‘I am not very clever about Americanisms—and I understand they change very quickly. I got it from one of Mr Dashiel Hammett’s stories. (I understand from my nephew Raymond that he is considered at the top of the tree in what is called the “tough” style of literature.) A “fall guy”, if I understand it rightly, means someone who will be blamed for a crime really committed by someone else. This Rudi Scherz seems to me exactly the right type for that. Rather stupid really, you know, but full of cupidity and probably extremely credulous.’

Rydesdale said, smiling tolerantly:

‘Are you suggesting that he was persuaded by someone to go out and take pot shots at a room full of people? Rather a tall order.’

‘I think he was told that it was a joke,’ said Miss Marple. ‘He was paid for doing it, of course. Paid, that is, to put an advertisement in the newspaper, to go out and spy out the household premises, and then, on the night in question, he was to go there, assume a mask and a black cloak and throw open a door, brandishing a torch, and cry “Hands up!”’

‘And fire off a revolver?’

‘No, no,’ said Miss Marple. ‘He never had a revolver.’

‘But everyone says—’ began Rydesdale, and stopped.

‘Exactly,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Nobody could possibly have seen a revolver even if he had one. And I don’t think he had. I think that after he’d called “Hands up” somebody came up quietly behind him in the darkness and fired those two shots over his shoulder. It frightened him to death. He swung round and as he did so, that other person shot him and then let the revolver drop beside him…’

The three men looked at her. Sir Henry said softly:

‘It’s a possible theory.’

‘But who is Mr X who came up in the darkness?’ asked the Chief Constable.

Miss Marple coughed.

‘You’ll have to find out from Miss Blacklock who wanted to kill her.’

Good for old Dora Bunner, thought Craddock. Instinct against intelligence every time.

‘So you think it was a deliberate attempt on Miss Blacklock’s life,’ asked Rydesdale.

‘It certainly has that appearance,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Though there are one or two difficulties. But what I was really wondering about was whether there mightn’t be a short cut. I’ve no doubt that whoever arranged this with Rudi Scherz took pains to tell him to keep his mouth shut, but if he talked to anybody it would probably be to that girl, Myrna Harris. And he may—he just may—have dropped some hint as to the kind of person who’d suggested the whole thing.’

‘I’ll see her now,’ said Craddock, rising.

Miss Marple nodded.

‘Yes, do, Inspector Craddock. I’ll feel happier when you have. Because once she’s told you anything she knows she’ll be much safer.’