It was a spiteful, childish outburst. I took no notice of it. Indeed, at that moment, she seemed a very pathetic child indeed.
Her childish attempt at vengeance against Anne seemed hardly to be taken seriously. I told her so, and added that I should return the ear-ring to her and say nothing of the circumstances in which I had found it. She seemed rather touched by that.
“That’s nice of you,” she said.
She paused a minute and then said, keeping her face averted and evidently choosing her words with care.
“You know, Mr. Clement, I should – I should get Dennis away from here soon, if I were you. I – I think it would be better.”
“Dennis?” I raised my eyebrows in slight surprise but with a trace of amusement too.
“I think it would be better.” She added, still in the same awkward manner: “I’m sorry about Dennis. I didn’t think he – anyway, I’m sorry.”
We left it at that.
CHAPTER XXIII
On the way back, I proposed to Griselda that we should make a detour and go round by the barrow. I was anxious to see if the police were at work and if so, what they had found. Griselda, however, had things to do at home, so I was left to make the expedition on my own.
I found Constable Hurst in charge of operations.
“No sign so far, sir,” he reported. “And yet it stands to reason that this is the only place for a cache.”
His use of the word cache puzzled me for a moment, as he pronounced it catch, but his real meaning occurred to me almost at once.
“Whatimeantersay is, sir, where else could the young woman be going starting into the wood by that path? It leads to Old Hall, and it leads here, and that’s about all.”
“I suppose,” I said, “that Inspector Slack would disdain such a simple course as asking the young lady straight out.”
“Anxious not to put the wind up her,” said Hurst. “Anything she writes to Stone or he writes to her may throw light on things – once she knows we’re on to her, she’d shut up like that.”
Like what exactly was left in doubt, but I personally doubted Miss Gladys Cram ever being shut up in the way described. It was impossible to imagine her as other than overflowing with conversation.
“When a man’s an h’impostor, you want to know why he’s an h’impostor,” said Constable Hurst didactically.
“Naturally,” I said.
“And the answer is to be found in this here barrow – or else why was he for ever messing about with it?”
“A raison d’être for prowling about,” I suggested, but this bit of French was too much for the constable. He revenged himself for not understanding it by saying coldly:
“That’s the h’amateur’s point of view.”
“Anyway, you haven’t found the suit-case,” I said.
“We shall do, sir. Not a doubt of it.”
“I’m not so sure,” I said. “I’ve been thinking. Miss Marple said it was quite a short time before the girl reappeared empty-handed. In that case, she wouldn’t have had time to get up here and back.”
“You can’t take any notice of what old ladies say. When they’ve seen something curious, and are waiting all eager like, why, time simply flies for them. And anyway, no lady knows anything about time.”
I often wonder why the whole world is so prone to generalise. Generalisations are seldom or ever true and are usually utterly inaccurate. I have a poor sense of time myself (hence the keeping of my clock fast) and Miss Marple, I should say, has a very acute one. Her clocks keep time to the minute and she herself is rigidly punctual on every occasion.
However, I had no intention of arguing with Constable Hurst on the point. I wished him good-afternoon and good luck and went on my way.
It was just as I was nearing home that the idea came to me. There was nothing to lead up to it. It just flashed into my brain as a possible solution.
You will remember that on my first search of the path, the day after the murder, I had found the bushes disturbed in a certain place. They proved, or so I thought at the time, to have been disturbed by Lawrence, bent on the same errand as myself.