“That’s what worries me. You see, Henry, it looks to me as though possibly the fact that I know them might have a bearing on the case. That’s the only connection I can find. Neither of them, I gather, ever saw the girl before. That’s what they say, and there’s no reason to disbelieve them. It’s most unlikely they should know her. Then isn’t it possible that she was decoyed away and her body deliberately left in the house of friends of mine?” Clithering said, “I think that’s far-fetched.” “It’s possible, though,” persisted the other. “Yes, but unlikely. What do you want me to do?” Conway Jefferson said bitterly, “I’m an invalid. I disguise the fact, refuse to face it, but now it comes home to me. I can’t go about as I’d like to, asking questions, looking into things. I’ve got to stay here meekly grateful for such scraps of information as the police are kind enough to dole out to me. Do you happen to know Melchett, by the way, the chief constable of Radfordshire?” “Yes, I’ve met him.” Something stirred in Sir Henry’s brain. A face and figure noted unseeingly as he passed through the lounge. A straight-backed old lady whose face was familiar. It linked up with the last time he had seen Melchett. He said, “Do you mean you want me to be a kind of amateur sleuth? That’s not my line.”
Jefferson said, “You’re not an amateur, that’s just it.”
“I’m not a professional anymore. I’m on the retired list now.”
Jefferson said, “That simplifies matters.”
“You mean that if I were still at Scotland Yard I couldn’t butt in? That’s perfectly true.”
“As it is,” said Jefferson, “your experience qualifies you to take an interest in the case, and any cooperation you offer will be welcomed.” Clithering said slowly, “Etiquette permits, I agree. But what do you really want, Conway? To find out who killed this girl?”
“Just that.”
“You’ve no idea yourself?” “None whatever.”
Sir Henry said slowly, “You probably won’t believe me, but you’ve got an expert at solving mysteries sitting downstairs in the lounge at this minute. Someone who’s better than I am at it, and who, in all probability, may have some local dope.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Downstairs in the lounge, by the third pillar from the left, there sits an old lady with a sweet, placid, spinsterish face and a mind that has plumbed the depths of human iniquity and taken it as all in the day’s work. Her name’s Miss Marple. She comes from the village of St. Mary Mead, which is a mile and a half from Gossington; she’s a friend of the Bantrys and, where crime is concerned, she’s the goods, Conway.”
Jefferson stared at him with thick puckered brows. He said heavily, “You’re joking.”
“No, I’m not. You spoke of Melchett just now. The last time I saw Melchett there was a village tragedy. Girl supposed to have drowned herself. Police, quite rightly, suspected that it wasn’t suicide but murder. They thought they knew who did it. Along to me comes old Miss Marple, fluttering and Clithering. She’s afraid, she says, they’ll hang the wrong person. She’s got no evidence, but she knows who did do it. Hands me a piece of paper with a name written on it. And, Jefferson, she was right!”
Conway Jefferson’s brows came down lower than ever. He grunted disbelievingly.
“Woman’s intuition, I suppose,” he said skeptically.
“No, she doesn’t call it that. Specialized knowledge is her claim.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Well, you know, Jefferson, we use it in police work. We get a burglary and we usually know pretty well who did it of the regular crowd, that is. We know the sort of burglar who acts in a particular sort of way. Miss Marple has an interesting, though occasionally trivial, series of parallels from village life.”
Jefferson said skeptically, “What is she likely to know about a girl who’s been brought up in a theatrical milieu and probably never been in a village in her life?”
“I think,” said Sir Henry Clithering firmly, “that she might have ideas.”
Miss Marple flushed with pleasure as Sir Henry bore down upon her. “Oh, Sir Henry, this is indeed a great piece of luck, meeting you here.”