Sir Henry stared at her. “Now why on earth do you think that?”
Miss Marple got rather pink. “Well, it was given out on the wireless that she was missing from her home since last night. And her home was Daneleigh Vale that’s not very far from here and she was last seen at the Girl Guide rally up on Danebury Downs. That’s very close indeed. In fact, she’d have to pass through Danemouth to get home. So it does rather fit in, doesn’t it? I mean it looks as though she might have seen or perhaps heard something that no one was supposed to see and hear. If so, of course, she’d be a source of danger to the murderer and she’d have to be removed. Two things like that must be connected, don’t you think?”
Sir Henry said, his voice dripping a little, “You think a second murder?”
“Why not?” Her quiet, placid gaze met his. “When anyone has committed one murder he doesn’t shrink from another, does he? Nor even from a third.”
“A third? You don’t think there will be a third murder?”
“I think it’s just possible. Yes, I think it’s highly possible.”
“Miss Marple,” said Sir Henry, “you frighten me. Do you know who is going to be murdered?”
Miss Marple said, “I’ve a very good idea.”
Colonel Melchett and Superintendent Harper looked at each other. Harper had come over to Much Benham for a consultation. Melchett said gloomily, “Well, we know where we are or rather where we aren’t!”
“Where we aren’t expresses it better, sir.”
“We’ve got two deaths to take into account,” said Melchett. “Two murders. Ruby Keene and the child, Pamela Reeves. Not much to identify her by, poor kid, but enough. One shoe escaped burning and has been identified as hers, and a button from her Girl Guide uniform. A fiendish business, superintendent.”
Superintendent Harper said very quietly, “I’ll say you’re right, sir.”
“I’m glad to say Haydock is quite certain she was dead before the car was set on fire. The way she was lying thrown across the seat shows that. Probably knocked on the head, poor kid.”
“Or strangled, perhaps.”
“You think so?”
“Well, sir, there are murderers like that.”
“I know. I’ve seen the parents. The poor girl’s mother’s beside herself. Damned painful, the whole thing. The point for us to settle is: are the two murders connected?”
The superintendent ticked off the points on his fingers. “Attended rally of Girl Guides on Danebury Downs. Stated by companion to be normal and cheerful. Did not return with three companions by the bus to Medchester. Said to them that she was going to Danemouth to Woolworth’s and would take the bus home from there. That’s likely enough. Woolworth’s in Danemouth is a big affair. The girl lived in the back country and didn’t get many chances of going into town. The main road into Danemouth from the downs does a big round inland; Pamela Reeves took a short cut over two fields and a footpath and lane which would bring her into Danemouth near the Majestic Hotel. The lane, in fact, actually passes the hotel on the west side. It’s possible, therefore, that she overheard or saw something, something concerning Ruby Keene which would have proved dangerous to the murderer say, for instance, that she heard him arranging to meet Ruby Keene at eleven that evening. He realizes that this schoolgirl has overheard and he has to silence her.”
Colonel Melchett said, “That’s presuming, Harper, that the Ruby Keene crime was premeditated, not spontaneous.”
Superintendent Harper agreed. “I believe it was, sir. It looks as though it would be the other way, sudden violence, a fit of passion or jealousy, but I’m beginning to think that that’s not so. I don’t see, otherwise, how you can account for the death of the child. If she was a witness of the actual crime it would be late at night, round about eleven p.m., and what would she be doing round about the Majestic Hotel at that time of night? Why, at nine o’clock her parents were getting anxious because she hadn’t returned.”
“The alternative is that she went to meet someone in Danemouth unknown to her family and friends, and that her death is quite unconnected with the other death.”