Sir Henry said grimly, “I’ve been sent for, urgently, to get at the truth. I mean to do my utmost.” He added, “Where do you want Miss Marple to help you?”
“With some girls. Some of those Girls Guides. We’ve found half a dozen or so, the ones who were most friendly with Pamela Reeves. It’s possible that they may know something. You see, I’ve been thinking. It seems to me that if that girl was going to Woolworth’s she would have tried to persuade one of the other girls to go with her. So I think it’s possible that Woolworth’s was only an excuse. If so, I’d like to know where the girl was really going. She may have let slip something. If so, I feel Miss Marple’s the person to get it out of these girls. I’d say she knows a thing or two about girls.”
“It sounds to me the kind of village domestic problem that is right up Miss Marple’s street. She’s very sharp, you know.”
The superintendent smiled. He said, “I’ll say you’re right. Nothing much gets past her.”
Miss Marple looked up at their approach and welcomed them eagerly. She listened to the superintendent’s request and at once acquiesced. “I should like to help you very much, superintendent, and I think that perhaps I could be of some use. What with the Sunday school, you know, and Brownies and our Guides, and the orphanage quite near. I’m on the committee, you know, and often run in to have a little talk with the matron and their servants. I usually have very young maids. Oh, yes, I’ve quite a lot of experience in when a girl is speaking the truth and when she’s holding something back.”
“In fact, you’re an expert,” said Sir Henry.
Miss Marple flashed him a reproachful glance and said, “Oh, please don’t laugh at me Sir Henry.”
“I shouldn’t dream of laughing at you. You’ve had the laugh on me too many times.”
“One does see so much evil in a village,” murmured Miss Marple in an explanatory voice.
“By the way,” said Sir Henry, “I’ve cleared up one point you asked me about. The superintendent tells me that there were nail clippings in Ruby’s wastepaper basket.”
Miss Marple said thoughtfully, “There were? Then that’s that.”
“Why did you want to know Miss Marple?” asked the superintendent.
Miss Marple said, “It was one of the things that well, that seemed wrong when I looked at the body. The hands were wrong somehow, and I couldn’t at first think why. Then I realized that girls who are very much made up, and all that, usually have very long fingernails. Of course, I know that girls everywhere do bite their nails; it’s one of those habits that are very hard to break oneself of. But vanity often does a lot to help. Still, I presumed that this girl hadn’t cured herself. And then the little boy Peter, you know, he said something which showed that her nails had been long, only she caught one and broke it. So then, of course, she might have trimmed off the rest to make an even appearance, and I asked about clippings and Sir Henry said he’d find out.”
Sir Henry remarked, “You said just now ‘one of the things that seemed wrong when I looked at the body.’ Was there something else?”
Miss Marple nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes!” she said. “There was the dress. The dress was all wrong.”
Both men looked at her curiously. “Now, why?” said Sir Henry.
“Well, you see, it was an old dress. Josie said so, definitely, and I could see for myself that it was shabby and rather worn. Now, that’s all wrong.”
“I don’t see why.”
Miss Marple got a little pink. “Well, the idea is, isn’t it, that Ruby Keene changed her dress and went off to meet someone on whom she presumably had what my young nephews call a ‘crush’?”
The superintendent’s eyes twinkled a little. “That’s the theory. She’d got a date with someone, a boy friend, as the saying goes.”
“Then why,” demanded Miss Marple, “was she wearing an old dress?”
The superintendent scratched his head thoughtfully. He said, “I see your point. You think she’d wear a new one?”