“Well, then, don’t you think you’re being rather silly?”
Mary sniffed.
“I was a bit upset like after the inquest and all. And a girl has her feelings. But I wouldn’t like to cause the mistress inconvenience.”
“Then that’s all right,” I said.
I left the kitchen to find Griselda and Dennis waiting for me in the hall. “Well?” exclaimed Griselda.
“She’s staying,” I said, and sighed.
“Len,” said my wife, “you have been clever.”
I felt rather inclined to disagree with her. I did not think I had been clever. It is my firm opinion that no servant could be a worse one than Mary. Any change, I consider, would have been a change for the better.
But I like to please Griselda. I detailed the heads of Mary’s grievance.
“How like Lettice,” said Dennis. “She couldn’t have left that yellow beret of hers here on Wednesday. She was wearing it for tennis on Thursday.”
“That seems to me highly probable,” I said.
“She never knows where she’s left anything,” said Dennis, with a kind of affectionate pride and admiration that I felt was entirely uncalled for. “She loses about a dozen things every day.”
“A remarkably attractive trait,” I observed.
Any sarcasm missed Dennis.
“She is attractive,” he said, with a deep sigh. “People are always proposing to her – she told me so.”
“They must be illicit proposals if they’re made to her down here,” I remarked. “We haven’t got a bachelor in the place.”
“There’s Dr. Stone,” said Griselda, her eyes dancing.
“He asked her to come and see the barrow the other day,” I admitted.
“Of course he did,” said Griselda. “She is attractive, Len. Even bald-headed archæologists feel it.”
“Lots of S.A.,” said Dennis sapiently.
And yet Lawrence Redding is completely untouched by Lettice’s charm. Griselda, however, explained that with the air of one who knew she was right.
“Lawrence has got lots of S.A. himself. That kind always likes the – how shall I put it – the Quaker type. Very unrestrained and diffident. The kind of women whom everybody calls cold. I think Anne is the only woman who could ever hold Lawrence. I don’t think they’ll ever tire of each other. All the same, I think he’s been rather stupid in one way. He’s rather made use of Lettice, you know. I don’t think he ever dreamed she cared – he’s awfully modest in some ways – but I have a feeling she does.”
“She can’t bear him,” said Dennis positively. “She told me so.”
I have never seen anything like the pitying silence with which Griselda received this remark.
I went into my study. There was, to my fancy, still a rather eerie feeling in the room. I knew that I must get over this. Once give in to that feeling, and I should probably never use the study again. I walked thoughtfully over to the writing table. Here Protheroe had sat, red faced, hearty, self-righteous, and here, in a moment of time, he had been struck down. Here, where I was standing, an enemy had stood…
And so – no more Protheroe…
Here was the pen his fingers had held.
On the floor was a faint dark stain – the rug had been sent to the cleaners, but the blood had soaked through.
I shivered.
“I can’t use this room,” I said aloud. “I can’t use it.”
Then my eye was caught by something – a mere speck of bright blue. I bent down. Between the floor and the desk I saw a small object. I picked it up.
I was standing staring at it in the palm of my hand when Griselda came in.
“I forgot to tell you, Len. Miss Marple wants us to go over to-night after dinner. To amuse the nephew. She’s afraid of his being dull. I said we’d go.”
“Very well, my dear.”
“What are you looking at?”
“Noting.”
I closed my hand, and looking at my wife, observed:
“If you don’t amuse Master Raymond West, my dear, he must be very hard to please.”
My wife said: “Don’t be ridiculous, Len,” and turned pink.
She went out again, and I unclosed my hand.