Best Detective Stories of Agatha Christie

Miss Marple, that sweet-faced – and, some said, vinegartongued – elderly spinster who lived in the house next to the rectory, was interviewed very early – within half an hour of the discovery of the crime. She was approached by Police Constable Palk, importantly thumbing a notebook. “If you don’t mind, ma’am, I’ve a few questions to ask you.” Miss Marple said, “In connexion with the murder of Mrs Spenlow?”

Palk was startled. “May I ask, madam, how you got to know of it?”

“The fish,” said Miss Marple.

The reply was perfectly intelligible to Constable Palk. He assumed correctly that the fishmonger’s boy had brought it, together with Miss Marple’s evening meal.

Miss Marple continued gently. “Lying on the floor in the sitting room, strangled – possibly by a very narrow belt. But whatever it was, it was taken away.”

Palk’s face was wrathful. “How that young Fred gets to know everything – “

Miss Marple cut him short adroitly. She said, “There’s a pin in your tunic.”

Constable Palk looked down, startled. He said, “They do say, ‘See a pin and pick it up, all the day you’ll have good luck.”‘

“I hope that will come true. Now what is it you want me to tell you?”

Constable Palk cleared his throat, looked important, and consulted his notebook. “Statement was made to me by Mr Arthur Spenlow, husband of the deceased. Mr Spenlow says that at two-thirty, as far as he can say, he was rung up by Miss Marple, and asked if he would come over at a quarter Past three as she was anxious to consult him about something. Now, ma’am, is that true?”

“Certainly not,” said Miss Marple.

“You did not ring up Mr Spenlow at two-thirty!”

“Neither at two-thirty nor any other time.”

“Ah,” said Constable Palk, and sucked his moustache with a good deal of satisfaction.

“What else did Mr Spenlow say?”

“Mr Spenlow’s statement was that he came over here as requested, leaving his own house at ten minutes Past three; that on arrival here he was informed by the maid-servant that Miss Marple was ‘not at home’.

“That part of it is true,” said Miss Marple. “He did come here, but I was at a meeting at the Women’s Institute.”

“Ah,” said Constable Palk again.

Miss Marple exclaimed, “Do tell me, Constable, do you suspect Mr Spenlow?”

“It’s not for me to say at this stage, but it looks to me as though somebody, naming no names, had been trying to be artful.”

Miss Marple said thoughtfully, “Mr Spenlow?”

She liked Mr Spenlow. He was a small, spare man, stiff and conventional in speech, the acme of respectability. It seemed odd that he should have come to live in the country, he had so clearly lived in towns all his life. To Miss Marple he confided the reason. He said, “I have always intended, ever since I was a small boy, to live in the country some day and have a garden of my own. I have always been very much attached to flowers. My wife, you know, kept a flower shop. That’s where I saw her first.”

A dry statement, but it opened up a vista of romance. A younger, prettier Mrs Spenlow, seen against a background of flowers.

Mr Spenlow, however, really knew nothing about flowers. He had no idea of seeds, of cuttings, of bedding out, of annuals or perennials. He had only a vision – a vision of a small cottage garden thickly planted with sweet-smelling, brightly coloured blossoms. He had asked, almost pathetically, for instruction, and had noted down Miss Marple’s replies to questions in a little book.

He was a man of quiet method. It was, perhaps, because of this trait, that the police were interested in him when his wife was found murdered. With patience and perseverance they learned a good deal about the late Mrs Spenlow – and soon all St Mary Mead knew it, too.

The late Mrs Spenlow had begun life as a between-maid in a large house. She had left that position to marry the second gardener, and with him had started a flower shop in London. The shop had prospered. Not so the gardener, who before long had sickened and died.

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