Agatha Christie – A Murder Is Announced

She stopped and her face grew pink. Miss Marple turned her head to see Miss Blacklock standing behind them—she must just have come in.

‘Coffee and gossip, Bunny?’ said Miss Blacklock, with quite a shade of reproach in her voice. ‘Good morning, Miss Marple. Cold, isn’t it?’

The doors flew open with a clang and Bunch Harmon came into the Bluebird with a rush.

‘Hallo,’ she said, ‘am I too late for coffee?’

‘No, dear,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Sit down and have a cup.’

‘We must get home,’ said Miss Blacklock. ‘Done your shopping, Bunny?’

Her tone was indulgent once more, but her eyes still held a slight reproach.

‘Yes—yes, thank you, Letty. I must just pop into the chemists in passing and get some aspirin and some cornplasters.’

As the doors of the Bluebird swung to behind them, Bunch asked:

‘What were you talking about?’

Miss Marple did not reply at once. She waited whilst Bunch gave the order, then she said:

‘Family solidarity is a very strong thing. Very strong. Do you remember some famous case—I really can’t remember what it was. They said the husband poisoned his wife. In a glass of wine. Then, at the trial, the daughter said she’d drunk half her mother’s glass—so that knocked the case against her father to pieces. They do say—but that may be just rumour—that she never spoke to her father or lived with him again. Of course, a father is one thing—and a nephew or a distant cousin is another. But still there it is—no one wants a member of their own family hanged, do they?’

‘No,’ said Bunch, considering. ‘I shouldn’t think they would.’

Miss Marple leaned back in her chair. She murmured under her breath, ‘People are really very alike, everywhere.’

‘Who am I like?’

‘Well, really, dear, you are very much like yourself. I don’t know that you remind me of anyone in particular. Except perhaps—’

‘Here it comes,’ said Bunch.

‘I was just thinking of a parlourmaid of mine, dear.’

‘A parlourmaid? I should make a terrible parlourmaid.’

‘Yes, dear, so did she. She was no good at all at waiting at table. Put everything on the table crooked, mixed up the kitchen knives with the dining-room ones, and her cap (this was a long time ago, dear) her cap was never straight.’

Bunch adjusted her hat automatically.

‘Anything else?’ she demanded anxiously.

‘I kept her because she was so pleasant to have about the house—and because she used to make me laugh. I liked the way she said things straight out. Came to me one day, “Of course, I don’t know, ma’am,” she says, “but Florrie, the way she sits down, it’s just like a married woman.” And sure enough poor Florrie was in trouble—the gentlemanly assistant at the hairdresser’s. Fortunately it was in good time, and I was able to have a little talk with him, and they had a very nice wedding and settled down quite happily. She was a good girl, Florrie, but inclined to be taken in by a gentlemanly appearance.’

‘She didn’t do a murder, did she?’ asked Bunch. ‘The parlourmaid, I mean.’

‘No, indeed,’ said Miss Marple. ‘She married a Baptist Minister and they had a family of five.’

‘Just like me,’ said Bunch. ‘Though I’ve only got as far as Edward and Susan up to date.’

She added, after a minute or two:

‘Who are you thinking about now, Aunt Jane?’

‘Quite a lot of people, dear, quite a lot of people,’ said Miss Marple, vaguely.

‘In St Mary Mead?’

‘Mostly…I was really thinking about Nurse Ellerton—really an excellent kindly woman. Took care of an old lady, seemed really fond of her. Then the old lady died. And another came and she died. Morphia. It all came out. Done in the kindest way, and the shocking thing was that the woman herself really couldn’t see that she’d done anything wrong. They hadn’t long to live in any case, she said, and one of them had cancer and quite a lot of pain.’

‘You mean—it was a mercy killing?’

‘No, no. They signed their money away to her. She liked money, you know…

‘And then there was that young man on the liner—Mrs Pusey at the paper shop, her nephew. Brought home stuff he’d stolen and got her to dispose of it. Said it was things that he’d bought abroad. She was quite taken in. And then when the police came round and started asking questions, he tried to bash her on the head, so that she shouldn’t be able to give him away…Not a nice young man—but very good-looking. Had two girls in love with him. He spent a lot of money on one of them.’