Florence looked uneasily at Miss Marple. Her eyes looked rather like those of one of her father’s calves.
Miss Marple said, “Sit down, Florence.”
Florence Small sat down obediently. Unrecognized by herself, she felt suddenly more at home, less uneasy. The unfamiliar and terrorizing atmosphere of a police station was replaced by something more familiar, the accustomed tone of command of somebody whose business it was to give orders.
Miss Marple said, “You understand, Florence, that it’s of the utmost importance that everything about poor Pamela’s doings on the day of her death should be known?”
Florence murmured that she quite understood.
“And I’m sure you want to do your best to help?” Florence’s eyes were wary as she said of course she did. “To keep back any piece of information is a very serious offense,” said Miss Marple.
The girl’s fingers twisted nervously in her lap. She swallowed once or twice. “I can make allowances,” went on Miss Marple, “for the fact that you are naturally alarmed at being brought into contact with the police. You are afraid, too, that you may be blamed for not having spoken sooner. Possibly you are afraid that you may also be blamed for not stopping Pamela at the time. But you’ve got to be a brave girl and make a clean breast of things. If you refuse to tell what you know now, it will be a very serious matter, indeed very serious, practically perjury, and for that, as you know, you can be sent to prison.” “I-I don’t-”
Miss Marple said sharply, “Now don’t prevaricate, Florence! Tell me all about it at once! Pamela wasn’t going to Woolworth’s, was she?” Florence licked her lips with a dry tongue and gazed imploringly at Miss Marple, like a beast about to be slaughtered. “Something to do with the films, wasn’t it?” asked Miss Marple.
A look of intense relief mingled with awe passed over Florence’s face. Her inhibitions left her. She gasped, “Oh, yes!”
“I thought so,” said Miss Marple. “Now I want you to tell me all the details, please.”
Words poured from Florence in a gush. “Oh, I’ve been ever so worried. I promised Pam, you see, I’d never say a word to a soul. And then, when she was found, all burned up in that car oh, it was horrible and I thought I should die, I felt it was all my fault. I ought to have stopped her. Only I never thought, not for a minute, that it wasn’t all right. And then I was asked if she’d been quite as usual that day and I said ‘Yes’ before I’d had time to think. And not having said anything then, I didn’t see how I could say anything later. And after all, I didn’t know anything, not really, only what Pam told me.” “What did Pam tell you?” “It was as we were walking up the lane to the bus on the way to the rally. She asked me if I could keep a secret, and I said yes, and she made me swear not to tell. She was going into Danemouth for a film test after the rally! She’d met a film producer just back from Hollywood, he was. He wanted a certain type, and he told Pam she was just what he was looking for. He warned her, though, not to build on it. You couldn’t tell, he said, not until you saw how a person photographed. It might be no good at all. It was a kind of Bergner part, he said. You had to have someone quite young for it. A schoolgirl, it was, who changes places with a revue artist and has a wonderful career. Pam’s acted in plays at school and she’s awfully good. He said he could see she could act, but she’d have to have some intensive training. It wouldn’t be all beer and skittles, he told her; it would be hard work — did she think she could stick it?”
Florence Small stopped for breath. Miss Marple felt rather sick as she listened to the glib rehash of countless novels and screen stories. Pamela Reeves, like most other girls, would have been warned against talking to strangers, but the glamour of the films would have obliterated all that.