“But what do you mean at Gossington?” Miss Wetherby nodded with infinite meaning. “Then Colonel Bantry too-” Again Miss Wetherby nodded. “Oh!”
There was a pause as the ladies savored this new addition to village scandal. “What a wicked woman!” trumpeted Miss Hartnell with righteous wrath. “Quite, quite abandoned, I’m afraid!” “And Colonel Bantry such a nice quiet man…”
Miss Wetherby said zestfully, “Those quiet ones are often the worst. Jane Marple always says so.”
Mrs. Price Ridley was among the last to hear the news. A rich and dictatorial widow, she lived in a large house next door to the vicarage. Her informant was her little maid, Clara. “A woman, you say, Clara? Found dead on Colonel Bantry’s hearth rug?”
“Yes, mum. And they say, mum, as she hadn’t anything on at all, mum not a stitch!”
“That will do, Clara. It is not necessary to go into details.”
“No, mum, and they say, mum, that at first they thought it was Mr. Blake’s young lady what comes down for the weekends with ‘im to Mr. Booker’s new ‘ouse. But now they say it’s quite a different young lady. And the fishmonger’s young man, he says he’d never have believed it of Colonel Bantry not with him handing round the plate on Sundays and all.”
“There is a lot of wickedness in the world, Clara,” said Mrs. Price Ridley. “Let this be a warning to you.”
“Yes, mum. Mother, she never will let me take a place where there’s a gentleman in the ‘ouse.”
“That will do, Clara,” said Mrs. Price Ridley.
It was only a step from Mrs. Price Ridley’s house to the vicarage. Mrs. Price Ridley was fortunate enough to find the vicar in his study. The vicar, a gentle, middle-aged man was always the last to hear anything. “Such a terrible thing,” said Mrs. Price Ridley, panting a little because she had come rather fast. “I felt I must have your advice, your counsel about it, dear vicar.”
Mr. Clement looked mildly alarmed. He said, “Has anything happened?”
“Has anything happened!” Mrs. Price Ridley repeated the question dramatically. “The most terrible scandal! None of us had any idea of it. An abandoned woman, completely unclothed, strangled on Colonel Bantry’s hearth rug!”
The vicar stared. He said, “You… you are feeling quite well?”
“No wonder you can’t believe it! I couldn’t at first! The hypocrisy of the man! All these years.”
“Please tell me exactly what all this is about.”
Mrs. Price Ridley plunged into a full-swing narrative. When she had finished, the Reverend Mr. Clement said mildly, “But there is nothing, is there, to point to Colonel Bantry’s being involved in this?”
“Oh, dear vicar, you are so unworldly! But I must tell you a little story. Last Thursday — or was it the Thursday before well, it doesn’t matter — I was going to London by the cheap day train. Colonel Bantry was in the same carriage. He looked, I thought, very abstracted. And nearly the whole way he buried himself behind The Times. As though, you know, he didn’t want to talk.” The vicar nodded his head with complete comprehension and possible sympathy. “At Paddinton I said goodbye. He had offered to call me a taxi, but I was taking the bus down to Oxford Street; but he got into one, and I distinctly heard him tell the driver to go to- Where do you think?” Mr. Clement looked inquiring. “An address in St. John’s Wood!” Mrs. Price Ridley bellowed triumphantly. The vicar remained completely [missing text]
“That, I consider, proves it,” said Mrs. Price Ridley.
At Gossington Mrs. Bantry and Miss Marple were in the drawing room. “You know,” said Mrs. Bantry, “I can’t help feeling glad they’ve taken the body away. It’s not nice to have a body in one’s house.”
Miss Marple nodded. “I know, dear. I know just how you feel.”
“You can’t,” said Mrs. Bantry. “Not until you’ve had one. I know you had one next door once, but that’s not the same thing. I only hope,” — she went on — “that Arthur won’t take a dislike to the library. We sit there so much. What are you doing, Jane?” For Miss Marple, with a glance at her watch, was rising to her feet.