The trial of Lawrence Redding and Anne Protheroe is a matter of public knowledge. I do not propose to go into it. I will only mention that great credit was reflected upon Inspector Slack, whose zeal and intelligence had resulted in the criminals being brought to justice. Naturally, nothing was said of Miss Marple’s share in the business. She herself would have been horrified at the thought of such a thing.
Lettice came to see me just before the trial took place. She drifted through my study window, wraith-like as ever. She told me then that she had all along been convinced of her stepmother’s complicity. The loss of the yellow beret had been a mere excuse for searching the study. She hoped against hope that she might find something the police had overlooked.
“You see,” she said in her dreamy voice, “they didn’t hate her like I did. And hate makes things easier for you.”
Disappointed in the result of her search, she had deliberately dropped Anne’s ear-ring by the desk.
“Since I knew she had done it, what did it matter? One way was as good as another. She had killed him.”
I sighed a little. There are always some things that Lettice will never see. In some respects she is morally colour blind.
“What are you going to do, Lettice?” I asked.
“When – when it’s all over, I am going abroad.” She hesitated and then went on. “I am going abroad with my mother.”
I looked up, startled.
She nodded.
“Didn’t you ever guess? Mrs. Lestrange is my mother. She is – is dying, you know. She wanted to see me and so she came down here under an assumed name. Dr. Haydock helped her. He’s a very old friend of hers – he was keen about her once – you can see that! In a way, he still is. Men always went batty about mother, I believe. She’s awfully attractive even now. Anyway, Dr. Haydock did everything he could to help her. She didn’t come down here under her own name because of the disgusting way people talk and gossip. She went to see father that night and told him she was dying and had a great longing to see something of me. Father was a beast. He said she’d forfeited all claim, and that I thought she was dead – as though I had ever swallowed that story! Men like father never see an inch before their noses!”
“But mother is not the sort to give in. She thought it only decent to go to father first, but when he turned her down so brutally she sent a note to me, and I arranged to leave the tennis party early and meet her at the end of the footpath at a quarter past six. We just had a hurried meeting and arranged when to meet again. We left each other before half-past six. Afterwards I was terrified that she would be suspected of having killed father. After all, she had got a grudge against him. That’s why I got hold of that old picture of her up in the attic and slashed it about. I was afraid the police might go nosing about and get hold of it and recognise it. Dr. Haydock was frightened too. Sometimes, I believe, he really thought she had done it! Mother is rather a – desperate kind of person. She doesn’t count consequences.”
She paused.
“It’s queer. She and I belong to each other. Father and I didn’t. But mother – well, anyway, I’m going abroad with her. I shall be with her till – till the end…”
She got up and I took her hand.
“God bless you both,” I said. “Some day, I hope, there is a lot of happiness coming to you, Lettice.”
“There should be,” she said, with an attempt at a laugh.
“There hasn’t been much so far – has there? Oh, well, I don’t suppose it matters. Good-bye, Mr. Clement. You’ve been frightfully decent to me always – you and Griselda.”
Griselda!
I had to own to her how terribly the anonymous letter had upset me, and first she laughed, and then solemnly read me a lecture.