4.50 From Paddington (16 page)

When Craddock got to 4 Madison Road he found Lucy Eyelesbarrow with Miss Marple.

He hesitated for a moment on his plan of campaign and then decided that Lucy Eyelesbarrow might prove a valuable ally. After greetings, he solemnly drew out his notecase, extracted three pound notes, added three shillings and pushed them across the table to Miss Marple.

“What's this, Inspector?”

“Consultation fee. You're a consultant - on murder! Pulse, temperature, local reactions, possible deep-seated cause of said murder. I'm just the poor harassed local G.P.”

Miss Marple looked at him and twinkled. He grinned at her. Lucy Eyelesbarrow gave a faint gasp and then laughed.

“Why, Inspector Craddock - you're human after all.”

“Oh, well, I'm not strictly on duty this afternoon.”

“I told you we had met before,” said Miss Marple to Lucy. “Sir Henry Clithering is his godfather - a very old friend of mine.”

“Would you like to hear, Miss Eyelesbarrow, what my godfather said about her - the first time we met? He described her as just the finest detective God ever made - natural genius cultivated in a suitable soil. He told me never to despise the -” Dermot Craddock paused for a moment to seek for a synonym for “old pussies” - “- er - elderly ladies. He said they could usually tell you what might have happened, what ought to have happened, and even what actually did happen! And,” he said, “they can tell you why it happened. He added that this particular - er - elderly lady - was at the top of the class.”

“Well!” said Lucy. “That seems to be a testimonial all right.”

Miss Marple was pink and confused and looked unusually dithery.

“Dear Sir Henry,” she murmured. “Always so kind. Really I'm not at all clever - just, perhaps, a slight knowledge of human nature - living, you know, in a village -”

She added, with more composure: “Of course, I am somewhat handicapped, by not actually being on the spot. It is so helpful, I always feel, when people remind you of other people - because types are alike everywhere and that is such a valuable guide.”

Lucy looked a little puzzled, but Craddock nodded comprehendingly.

“But you've been to tea there, haven't you?” he said.

“Yes, indeed. Most pleasant. I was a little disappointed that I didn't see old Mr. Crackenthorpe - but one can't have everything.”

“Do you feel that if you saw the person who had done the murder, you'd know?” asked Lucy.

“Oh, I wouldn't say that, dear. One is always inclined to guess - and guessing would be very wrong when it is a question of anything as serious as murder. All one can do is to observe the people concerned - or who might have been concerned - and see of whom they remind you.”

“Like Cedric and the bank manager?”

Miss Marple corrected her.

“The bank manager's son, dear. Mr. Eade himself was far more like Mr. Harold - a very conservative man - but perhaps a little too fond of money - the sort of man, too, who would go a long way to avoid scandal.”

Craddock smiled, and said:

“And Alfred?”

“Jenkins at the garage,” Miss Marple replied promptly. “He didn't exactly appropriate tools - but he used to exchange a broken or inferior jack for a good one. And I believe he wasn't very honest over batteries - though I don't understand these things very well. I know Raymond left off dealing with him and went to the garage on the Milchester road. As for Emma,” continued Miss Marple thoughtfully, “she reminds me very much of Geraldine Webb - always very quiet, almost dowdy - and bullied a good deal by her elderly mother. Quite a surprise to everybody when the mother died unexpectedly and Geraldine came into a nice sum of money and went and had her hair cut and permed, and went off on a cruise, and came back married to a very nice barrister. They had two children.”

The parallel was clear enough. Lucy said, rather uneasily: “Do you think you ought to have said what you did about Emma marrying? It seemed to upset the brothers.”

Miss Marple nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “So like men - quite unable to see what's going on under their eyes. I don't believe you noticed yourself.”

“No,” admitted Lucy. “I never thought of anything of that kind. They both seemed to me -”

“So old?” said Miss Marple smiling a little. “But Dr. Quimper isn't much over forty, I should say, though he's going grey on the temples, and it's obvious that he's longing for some kind of home life, and Emma Crackenthorpe is under forty - not too old to marry and have a family. The doctor's wife died quite young having a baby, so I have heard.”

“I believe she did. Emma said something about it one day.”

“He must be lonely,” said Miss Marple. “A busy hard-working doctor needs a wife - someone sympathetic - not too young.”

“Listen, darling,” said Lucy. “Are we investigating crime, or are we matchmaking?”

Miss Marple twinkled.

“I'm afraid I am rather romantic. Because I am an old maid, perhaps. You know, dear Lucy, that, as far as I am concerned, you have fulfilled your contract. If you really want a holiday abroad before taking up your next engagement, you would have time still for a short trip.”

“And leave Rutherford Hall? Never! I'm the complete sleuth by now. Almost as bad as the boys. They spend their entire time looking for clues. They looked all through the dustbins yesterday. Most unsavoury - and they hadn't really the faintest idea what they were looking for. If they come to you in triumph, Inspector Craddock, bearing a torn scrap of paper with 'Martine - if you value your life keep away from the Long Barn!' on it, you'll know that I've taken pity on them and concealed it in the pigsty!”

“Why the pigsty, dear?” asked Miss Marple with interest. “Do they keep pigs?”

“Oh, no, not nowadays. It's just - I go there sometimes.”

For some reason Lucy blushed. Miss Marple looked at her with increased interest.

“Who's at the house now?” asked Craddock.

“Cedric's there, and Bryan's down for the weekend. Harold and Alfred are coming down tomorrow. They rang up this morning. I somehow got the impression that you had been putting the cat among the pigeons, Inspector Craddock.”

Craddock smiled.

“I shook them up a little. Asked them to account for their movements on Friday, 20th December.”

“And could they?”

“Harold could. Alfred couldn't - or wouldn't.”

“I think alibis must be terribly difficult,” said Lucy. “Times and places and dates. They must be hard to check up on, too.”

“It takes time and patience - but we manage.” He glanced at his watch. “I'll be coming along to Rutherford Hall presently to have a word with Cedric, but I want to get hold of Dr. Quimper first.”

“You'll be just about right. He has his surgery at six and he's usually finished about half past. I must get back and deal with dinner.”

“I'd like your opinion on one thing, Miss Eyelesbarrow. What's the family view about this Martine business - amongst themselves?”

Lucy replied promptly.

“They're all furious with Emma for going to you about it - and with Dr. Quimper who, it seemed, encouraged her to do so. Harold and Alfred think it was a try on and not genuine. Emma isn't sure. Cedric thinks it was phoney, too, but he doesn't take it as seriously as the other two. Bryan, on the other hand, seems quite sure that it's genuine.”

“Why, I wonder?”

“Well, Bryan's rather like that. Just accepts things at their face value. He thinks it was Edmund's wife - or rather widow - and that she had suddenly to go back to France, but that they'll hear from her again sometime. The fact that she hasn't written, or anything, up to now, seems to him to be quite natural because he never writes letters himself. Bryan's rather sweet. Just like a dog that wants to be taken for a walk.”

“And do you take him for a walk, dear?” asked Miss Marple. “To the pigsties, perhaps?”

Lucy shot a keen glance at her.

“So many gentlemen in the house, coming and going,” mused Miss Marple.

When Miss Marple uttered the word “gentlemen” she always gave it its full Victorian flavour - an echo from an era actually before her own time. You were conscious at once of dashing full-blooded (and probably whiskered) males, sometimes wicked, but always gallant.

“You're such a handsome girl,” pursued Miss Marple, appraising Lucy. “I expect they pay you a good deal of attention, don't they?”

Lucy flushed slightly. Scrappy remembrances passed across her mind. Cedric, leaning against the pigsty wall. Bryan sitting disconsolately on the kitchen table. Alfred's fingers touching hers as he helped her collect the coffee cups.

“Gentlemen,” said Miss Marple, in the tone of one speaking of some alien and dangerous species, “are all very much alike in some ways - even if they are quite old...”

“Darling,” cried Lucy. “A hundred years ago you would certainly have been burned as a witch!”

And she told her story of old Mr. Crackenthorpe's conditional proposal of marriage.

“In fact,” said Lucy, “they've all made what you might call advances to me in a way. Harold's was very correct - an advantageous financial position in the City. I don't think it's my attractive appearance - they must think I know something.”

She laughed.

But Inspector Craddock did not laugh.

“Be careful,” he said. “They might murder you instead of making advances to you.”

“I suppose it might be simpler,” Lucy agreed.

Then she gave a slight shiver.

“One forgets,” she said. “The boys have been having such fun that one almost thought of it all as a game. But it's not a game.”

“No,” said Miss Marple. “Murder isn't a game.”

She was silent for a moment or two before she said:

“Don't the boys go back to school soon?”

“Yes, next week. They go tomorrow to James Stoddart-West's home for the last few days of the holidays.”

“I'm glad of that,” said Miss Marple gravely. “I shouldn't like anything to happen while they're there.”

“You mean to old Mr. Crackenthorpe. Do you think he's going to be murdered next?”

“Oh, no,” said Miss Marple. “He'll be all right. I meant to the boys.”

“To the boys?”

“Well, to Alexander.”

“But surely -”

“Hunting about, you know - looking for clues. Boys love that sort of thing - but it might be very dangerous.”

Craddock looked at her thoughtfully.

“You're not prepared to believe, are you, Miss Marple, that it's a case of an unknown woman murdered by an unknown man? You tie it up definitely with Rutherford Hall?”

“I think there's a definite connection, yes.”

“All we knew about the murderer is that he's a tall dark man. That's what your friend says and all she can say. There are three tall dark men at Rutherford Hall. On the day of the inquest, you know, I came out to see the three brothers standing waiting on the pavement for the car to draw up. They had their backs to me and it was astonishing how, in their heavy overcoats, they looked all alike. Three tall dark men. And yet, actually, they're all three quite different types.” He sighed. “It makes it very difficult.”

“I wonder,” murmured Miss Marple. “I have been wondering - whether it might perhaps be all much simpler than we suppose. Murders so often are quite simple - with an obvious rather sordid motive...”