I
If Letitia Blacklock seemed slightly absentminded when Mrs. Harmon came to tea and brought a guest who was staying with her, Miss Marple, the guest in question, was hardly likely to notice the fact since it was the first time she had met her.
The old lady was very charming in her gentle gossipy fashion. She revealed herself almost at once to be one of those old ladies who have a constant preoccupation with burglars.
“They can get in anywhere, my dear,” she assured her hostess, “absolutely anywhere nowadays. So many new American methods. I myself pin my faith to a very old-fashioned device. A cabin hook and eye. They can pick locks and draw back bolts but a brass hook and eye defeats them. Have you ever tried that?”
“I’m afraid we’re not very good at bolts and bars,” said Miss Blacklock cheerfully. “There’s really nothing much to burgle.”
“A chain on the front door,” Miss Marple advised. “Then the maid need only open it a crack and see who is there and they can’t force their way in.”
“I expect Mitzi, our Mittel European, would love that.”
“The hold-up you had must have been very, very frightening,” said Miss Marple. “Bunch has been telling me all about it.”
“I was scared stiff,” said Bunch.
“It was an alarming experience,” admitted Miss Blacklock.
“It really seems like Providence that the man tripped himself up and shot himself. These burglars are so violent nowadays. How did he get in?”
“Well, I’m afraid we don’t lock our doors much.”
“Oh, Letty,” exclaimed Miss Bunner. “I forgot to tell you the Inspector was most peculiar this morning. He insisted on opening the second door—you know—the one that’s never been opened—the one over there. He hunted for the key and everything and said the door had been oiled. But I can’t see why because—”
Too late she got Miss Blacklock’s signal to be quiet, and paused openmouthed.
“Oh, Lotty, I’m so—sorry—I mean, oh, I do beg your pardon, Letty—oh, dear, how stupid I am.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Miss Blacklock, but she was annoyed. “Only I don’t think Inspector Craddock wants that talked about. I didn’t know you had been there when he was experimenting, Dora. You do understand, don’t you, Mrs. Harmon?”
“Oh, yes,” said Bunch. “We won’t breathe a word, will we, Aunt Jane. But I wonder why he—”
She relapsed into thought. Miss Bunner fidgeted and looked miserable, bursting out at last: “I always say the wrong thing—Oh, dear, I’m nothing but a trial to you, Letty.”
Miss Blacklock said quickly, “You’re my great comfort, Dora. And anyway in a small place like Chipping Cleghorn there aren’t really any secrets.”
“Now that is very true,” said Miss Marple. “I’m afraid, you know, that things do get round in the most extraordinary way. Servants, of course, and yet it can’t only be that, because one has so few servants nowadays. Still, there are the daily women and perhaps they are worse, because they go to everybody in turn and pass the news round.”
“Oh!” said Bunch Harmon suddenly. “I’ve got it! Of course, if that door could open too, someone might have gone out of here in the dark and done the hold-up—only of course they didn’t—because it was the man from the Royal Spa Hotel. Or wasn’t it?… No, I don’t see after all …” She frowned.
“Did it all happen in this room then?” asked Miss Marple, adding apologetically: “I’m afraid you must think me sadly curious, Miss Blacklock—but it really is so very exciting—just like something one reads about in the paper—I’m just longing to hear all about it and to picture it all, if you know what I mean—”
Immediately Miss Marple received a confused and voluble account from Bunch and Miss Bunner—with occasional emendations and corrections from Miss Blacklock.
In the middle of it Patrick came in and good-naturedly entered into the spirit of the recital—going so far as to enact himself the part of Rudi Scherz.
“And Aunt Letty was there—in the corner by the archway … Go and stand there, Aunt Letty.”
Miss Blacklock obeyed, and then Miss Marple was shown the actual bullet holes.
“What a marvellous—what a providential escape,” she gasped.
“I was just going to offer my guests cigarettes—” Miss Blacklock indicated the big silver box on the table.
“People are so careless when they smoke,” said Miss Bunner disapprovingly. “Nobody really respects good furniture as they used to do. Look at the horrid burn somebody made on this beautiful table by putting a cigarette down on it. Disgraceful.”
Miss Blacklock sighed.
“Sometimes, I’m afraid, one thinks too much of one’s possessions.”
“But it’s such a lovely table, Letty.”
Miss Bunner loved her friend’s possessions with as much fervour as though they had been her own. Bunch Harmon had always thought it was a very endearing trait in her. She showed no sign of envy.
“It is a lovely table,” said Miss Marple politely. “And what a very pretty china lamp on it.”
Again it was Miss Bunner who accepted the compliment as though she and not Miss Blacklock was the owner of the lamp.
“Isn’t it delightful? Dresden. There is a pair of them. The other’s in the spare room, I think.”
“You know where everything in this house is, Dora—or you think you do,” said Miss Blacklock, good-humouredly. “You care far more about my things than I do.”
Miss Bunner flushed.
“I do like nice things,” she said. Her voice was half defiant—half wistful.
“I must confess,” said Miss Marple, “that my own few possessions are very dear to me, too—so many memories, you know. It’s the same with photographs. People nowadays have so few photographs about. Now I like to keep all the pictures of my nephews and nieces as babies—and then as children—and so on.”
“You’ve got a horrible one of me, aged three,” said Bunch. “Holding a fox terrier and squinting.”
“I expect your aunt has many photographs of you,” said Miss Marple, turning to Patrick.
“Oh, we’re only distant cousins,” said Patrick.
“I believe Elinor did send me one of you as a baby, Pat,” said Miss Blacklock. “But I’m afraid I didn’t keep it. I’d really forgotten how many children she’d had or what their names were until she wrote me about you two being over here.”
“Another sign of the times,” said Miss Marple. “Nowadays one so often doesn’t know one’s younger relations at all. In the old days, with all the big family reunions, that would have been impossible.”
“I last saw Pat and Julia’s mother at a wedding thirty years ago,” said Miss Blacklock. “She was a very pretty girl.”
“That’s why she has such handsome children,” said Patrick with a grin.
“You’ve got a marvellous old album,” said Julia. “Do you remember, Aunt Letty, we looked through it the other day. The hats!”
“And how smart we thought ourselves,” said Miss Blacklock with a sigh.
“Never mind, Aunt Letty,” said Patrick, “Julia will come across a snapshot of herself in about thirty years’ time—and won’t she think she looks a guy!”
II
“Did you do that on purpose?” said Bunch, as she and Miss Marple were walking home. “Talk about photographs, I mean?”
“Well, my dear, it is interesting to know that Miss Blacklock didn’t know either of her two young relatives by sight … Yes—I think Inspector Craddock will be interested to hear that.”
Eleven. Miss marple comes to tea