“He was absolutely businesslike about it all,” continued Florence. “Said if the test was successful she’d have a contract, and he said that as she was young and inexperienced she ought to let a lawyer look at it before she signed it. But she wasn’t to pass on that, he’d said that. He asked her if she’d have trouble with her parents, and Pam said she probably would, and he said, ‘Well, of course that’s always a difficulty with anyone as young as you are, but I think if it was put to them that this was a wonderful chance that wouldn’t happen once in a million times, they’d see reason.’ But anyway, he said, it wasn’t any good going into that until they knew the result of the test. She mustn’t be disappointed if it failed. He told her about Hollywood and about Vivien Leigh, how she’d suddenly taken London by storm, and how these sensational leaps into fame did happen. He himself had come back from America to work with the Lenville Studios and put some pep into the English film companies.”
Miss Marple nodded.
Florence went on, “So it was all arranged. Pam was to go into Danemouth after the rally and meet him at his hotel and he’d take her along to the studios. They’d got a small testing studio in Danemouth, he told her. She’d have her test and she could catch the bus home afterward. She could say she’d been shopping, and he’d let her know the result of the test in a few days, and if it was favorable Mr. Harmsteiter, the boss, would come along and talk to her parents.”
“Well, of course, it sounded too wonderful! I was green with envy! Pam got through the rally without turning a hair — we always call her a regular poker face. Then, when she said that she was going into Danemouth to Woolworth’s, she just winked at me.”
“I saw her start off down the footpath.” Florence began to cry. “I ought to have stopped her! I ought to have stopped her! I ought to have known a thing like that couldn’t be true! I ought to have told someone. Oh, dear, I wish I was dead!”
“There, there.” Miss Marple patted her on the shoulder. “It’s quite all right. No one will blame you, Florence. You’ve done the right thing in telling me.”
She devoted some minutes to cheering the child up.
Five minutes later she was telling the girl’s story to Superintendent Harper. The latter looked very grim. “The clever devil!” he said. “I’ll cook his goose for him! This puts rather a different aspect on things.”
“Yes, it does.”
Harper looked at her sideways. “It doesn’t surprise you?”
“I expected something of the kind,” Miss Marple said.
Superintendent Harper said curiously, “What put you on to this particular girl? They all looked scared to death and there wasn’t a pin to choose between them, as far as I could see.”
Miss Marple said gently, “You haven’t had as much experience with girls telling lies as I have. Florence looked at you very straight, if you remember, and stood very rigid and just fidgeted with her feet like the others. But you didn’t watch her as she went out of the door. I knew at once then that she’d got something to hide. They nearly always relax too soon. My little maid Janet always did. She’d explain quite convincingly that the mice had eaten the end of a cake and give herself away by smirking as she left the room.”
“I’m very grateful to you,” said Harper. He added thoughtfully, “Lenville Studios, eh?”
Miss Marple said nothing. She rose to her feet. “I’m afraid,” she said, “I must hurry away. So glad to have been able to help you.”
“Are you going back to the hotel?”
“Yes, to pack up. I must go back to St. Mary Mead as soon as possible. There’s a lot for me to do there.”
Miss Marple passed out through the French windows of her drawing room, tripped down her neat garden path, through a garden gate, in through the vicarage garden gate, across the vicarage garden and up to the drawing-room window, where she tapped gently on the pane. The vicar was busy in his study composing his Sunday sermon, but the vicar’s wife, who was young and pretty, was admiring the progress of her offspring across the hearth rug. “Can I come in, Griselda?”