A Murder Is Announced, стр. 42

‘I’ll put a lamp by you before I go,’ said Bunch. ‘It’s so dark in here. There’s going to be a storm, I think.’

She lifted the small reading lamp to the other side of the table where it would throw light on Miss Marple’s knitting as she sat in a wide highbacked chair.

As the flex pulled across the table, Tiglath Pileser the cat leapt upon it and bit and clawed it violently.

‘No, Tiglath Pileser, you mustn’t…He really is awful. Look, he’s nearly bitten it through-it’s all frayed. Don’t you understand, you idiotic puss, that you may get a nasty electric shock if you do that?’

‘Thank you, dear,’ said Miss Marple, and put out a hand to turn on the lamp.

‘It doesn’t turn on there. You have to press that silly little switch half-way along the flex. Wait a minute. I’ll take these flowers out of the way.’

She lifted a bowl of Christmas roses across the table. Tiglath Pileser, his tail switching, put out a mischievous paw and clawed Bunch’s arm. She spilled some of the water out of the vase. It fell on the frayed area of flex and on Tiglath Pileser himself, who leapt to the floor with an indignant hiss.

Miss Marple pressed the small pear-shaped switch. Where the water had soaked the frayed flex there was a flash and a crackle.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Bunch. ‘It’s fused. Now I suppose all the lights in here are off.’ She tried them. ‘Yes, they are. So stupid being all on the same thingummibob. And it’s made a burn on the table, too. Naughty Tiglath Pileser-it’s all his fault. Aunt Jane-what’s the matter? Did it startle you?’

‘It’s nothing, dear. Just something I saw quite suddenly which I ought to have seen before…’

‘I’ll go and fix the fuse and get the lamp from Julian’s study.’

‘No, dear, don’t bother. You’ll miss your bus. I don’t want any more light. I just want to sit quietly and-think about something. Hurry dear, or you won’t catch your bus.’

When Bunch had gone, Miss Marple sat quite still for about two minutes. The air of the room was heavy and menacing with the gathering storm outside.

Miss Marple drew a sheet of paper towards her.

She wrote first:Lamp? and underlined it heavily.

After a moment or two, she wrote another word.

Her pencil travelled down the paper, making brief cryptic notes…

In the rather dark living-room of Boulders with its low ceiling and latticed window panes, Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Murgatroyd were having an argument.

‘The trouble with you, Murgatroyd,’ said Miss Hinchcliffe, ‘is that you won’ttry.’

‘But I tell you, Hinch, I can’t remember a thing.’

‘Now look here, Amy Murgatroyd, we’re going to do some constructive thinking. So far we haven’t shone on the detective angle. I was quite wrong over that door business. You didn’t hold the door open for the murderer after all. You’re cleared, Murgatroyd!’

Miss Murgatroyd gave a rather watery smile.

‘It’s just our luck to have the only silent cleaning woman in Chipping Cleghorn,’ continued Miss Hinchcliffe. ‘Usually I’m thankful for it, but this time it means we’ve got off to a bad start. Everybody else in the place knows about that second door in the drawing-room being used-and we only heard about it yesterday-’

‘I still don’t quite understand how-’

‘It’s perfectly simple. Our original premises were quite right. You can’t hold open a door, wave a torch and shoot with a revolver all at the same time. We kept in the revolver and the torch and cut out the door. Well, we were wrong. It was the revolver we ought to have cut out.’

‘But hedid have a revolver,’ said Miss Murgatroyd. ‘I saw it. It was there on the floor beside him.’

‘When he was dead, yes. It’s all quite clear.He didn’t fire that revolver-’

‘Then who did?’

‘That’s what we’re going to find out. But whoever did it, the same person put a couple of poisoned aspirin tablets by Letty Blacklock’s bed-and thereby bumped off poor Dora Bunner. And that couldn’t have been Rudi Scherz, because he’s as dead as a doornail. It was someone who was in the room that night of the hold-up and probably someone who was at the birthday party, too. And the only personthat lets out is Mrs Harmon.’

‘You think someone put those aspirins there the day of the birthday party?’

‘Why not?’

‘But how could they?’

‘Well, we all went to the loo, didn’t we?’ said Miss Hinchcliffe coarsely. ‘And I washed my hands in the bathroom because of that sticky cake. And little Sweetie Easterbrook powdered her grubby little face in Blacklock’s bedroom, didn’t she?’

‘Hinch! Do you thinkshe -?’

‘I don’t know yet. Rather obvious, if she did. I don’t think if you were going to plant some tablets, that you’d want to be seen in the bedroom at all. Oh, yes, there were plenty of opportunities.’

‘The men didn’t go upstairs.’

‘There are back stairs. After all, if a man leaves the room, you don’t follow him to see if he really is going where you think he is going. It wouldn’t be delicate! Anyway, don’targue, Murgatroyd. I want to get back to the original attempt on Letty Blacklock. Now, to begin with, get the facts firmly into your head, because it’s all going to depend upon you.’

Miss Murgatroyd looked alarmed.

‘Oh, dear, Hinch, you know what a muddle I get into!’

‘It’s not a question of your brains, or the grey fluff that passes for brains with you. It’s a question ofeyes. It’s a question of what yousaw.’

‘But I didn’t seeanything.’

‘The trouble with you is, Murgatroyd, as I said just now, that you won’ttry. Now pay attention. This is what happened. Whoever it is that’s got it in for Letty Blacklock was there in that room that evening. He (I sayhe because it’s easier, but there’s no reason why it should be a man more than a woman except, of course, that men are dirty dogs), well, he has previously oiled that seconddoor that leads out of the drawing-room and which is supposed to be nailed up or something. Don’t ask mewhen he did it, because that confuses things. Actually, by choosing my time, I could walk into any house in Chipping Cleghorn and do anything I liked there for half an hour or so with no one being the wiser. It’s just a question of working out where the daily women are and when the occupiers are out and exactly where they’ve gone and how long they’ll be. Just good staff work. Now, to continue. He’s oiled that second door. It will open without a sound. Here’s the set-up: Lights go out, door A (the regular door) opens with a flourish. Business with torch and hold-up lines. In the meantime, while we’re all goggling, X (that’s the best term to use) slips quietly out by door B into the dark hall, comes up behind that Swiss idiot, takes a couple of shots at Letty Blacklock and then shoots the Swiss. Drops the revolver, where lazy thinkers like you will assume it’s evidence that the Swiss did the shooting, and nips back into the room again by the time that someone gets a lighter going. Got it?’

‘Yes-ye-es, but who was it?’

‘Well, ifyou don’t know, Murgatroyd, nobody does!’

‘Me?’ Miss Murgatroyd fairly twittered in alarm. ‘But I don’t know anythingat all. I don’treally, Hinch!’

‘Use that fluff of yours you call a brain. To begin with, where was everybody when the lights went out?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Yes, you do. You’re maddening, Murgatroyd. You know whereyou were, don’t you? You were behind the door.’

‘Yes-yes, I was. It knocked against my corn when it flew open.’

‘Why don’t you go to a proper chiropodist instead of messing about yourself with your feet?. You’ll give yourself blood poisoning one of these days. Come on, now-you’rebehind the door.I’m standing against the mantelpiece with my tongue hanging out for a drink. Letty Blacklock is by the table near the archway, getting the cigarettes. Patrick Simmons has gone through the archway into the small room where Letty Blacklock has had the drinks put. Agreed?’

‘Yes, yes, I remember all that.’

‘Good, now somebody else followed Patrick into that room or was just starting to follow him. One of the men. The annoying thing is that I can’t remember whether it was Easterbrook or Edmund Swettenham. Do you remember?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘You wouldn’t! And there was someone else who went through to the small room: Phillipa Haymes. I remember that distinctly because I remember noticing what a nice flat back she has, and I thought to myself “that girl would look well on a horse.” I was watching her and thinking just that. She went over to the mantelpiece in the other room. I don’t know what it was she wanted there, because at that moment the lights went out.

‘So that’s the position. In the drawing-room are Patrick Simmons, Phillipa Haymes, andeither Colonel Easterbrook or Edmund Swettenham-we don’t know which. Now, Murgatroyd, pay attention. The most probable thing is that it wasone of those three who did it. If anyone wanted to get out of that far door, they’d naturally take care to put themselves in a convenient place when the lights went out. So, as I say, in all probability, it’s one of those three. And in that case, Murgatroyd, there’s not a thing you can do about it!’

Miss Murgatroyd brightened perceptibly.

‘On the other hand,’ continued Miss Hinchcliffe, ‘there’s the possibility that itwasn’t one of those three. And that’s where you come in, Murgatroyd.’

‘But how shouldI know anything about it?’

‘As I said before if you don’t nobody does.’

‘But I don’t! I reallydon’t! I couldn’t see anythingat all!’

‘Oh, yes, you could. You’re the only person whocould see. You were standing behind the door. You couldn’t lookat the torch-because the door was between you and it. You were facing the other way, the same way as the torch was pointing. The rest of us were just dazzled. Butyou weren’t dazzled.’

‘No-no, perhaps not, but I didn’tsee anything, the torch went round and round-’

‘Showing youwhat? It rested onfaces, didn’t it? And on tables? And on chairs?’

‘Yes-yes, it did…Miss Bunner, her mouth wide open and her eyes popping out of her head, staring and blinking.’