A Murder Is Announced

She was all incoherent delight and pleasure at seeing Sir Henry, and became quite flustered when introduced to the Chief Constable and Detective-Inspector Craddock.

‘But really, Sir Henry, how fortunate…how very fortunate. So long since I have seen you…Yes, my rheumatism. Very bad of late. Of course I couldn’t have afforded this hotel (really fantastic what they charge nowadays) but Raymond-my nephew, Raymond West, you may remember him-’

‘Everyone knowshis name.’

‘Yes, the dear boy has been so successful with his clever books-he prides himself upon never writing about anything pleasant. The dear boy insisted on paying all my expenses. And his dear wife is making a name for herself too, as an artist. Mostly jugs of dying flowers and broken combs on window-sills. I never dare tell her, but I still admire Blair Leighton and Alma Tadema. Oh, but I’m chattering. And the Chief Constable himself-indeed I never expected-so afraid I shall be taking up his time-’

‘Completely ga-ga,’ thought the disgusted Detective-Inspector Craddock.

‘Come into the Manager’s private room,’ said Rydesdale. ‘We can talk better there.’

When Miss Marple had been disentangled from her wool, and her spare knitting pins collected, she accompanied them, fluttering and protesting, to Mr Rowlandson’s comfortable sitting-room.

‘Now, Miss Marple, let’s hear what you have to tell us,’ said the Chief Constable.

Miss Marple came to the point with unexpected brevity.

‘It was a cheque,’ she said. ‘He altered it.’

‘He?’

‘The young man at the desk here, the one who is supposed to have staged that hold-up and shot himself.’

‘He altered a cheque, you say?’

Miss Marple nodded.

‘Yes. I have it here.’ She extracted it from her bag and laid it on the table. ‘It came this morning with my others from the Bank. You can see, it was for seven pounds, and he altered it to seventeen. A stroke in front of the 7, andteen added after the word seven with a nice artistic little blot just blurring the whole word. Really very nicely done. A certain amount ofpractice, I should say. It’s the same ink, because I wrote the cheque actually at the desk. I should think he’d done it quite often before, wouldn’t you?’

‘He picked the wrong person to do it to, this time,’ remarked Sir Henry.

Miss Marple nodded agreement.

‘Yes. I’m afraid he would never have gone very far in crime. I was quite the wrong person. Some busy young married woman, or some girl having a love affair-that’s the kind who write cheques for all sorts of different sums and don’t really look through their passbooks carefully. But an old woman who has to be careful of the pennies, and who has formed habits-that’s quite the wrong person to choose. Seventeen pounds is a sum Inever write a cheque for. Twenty pounds, a round sum, for the monthly wages and books. And as for my personal expenditure, I usually cash seven-it used to be five, but everything has gone up so.’

‘And perhaps he reminded you of someone?’ prompted Sir Henry, mischief in his eye.

Miss Marple smiled and shook her head at him.

‘You are very naughty, Sir Henry. As a matter of fact hedid. Fred Tyler, at the fish shop. Always slipped an extra 1 in the shillings column. Eating so much fish as we do nowadays, it made a long bill, and lots of people never added it up. Just ten shillings in his pocket every time, not much but enough to get himself a few neckties and take Jessie Spragge (the girl in the draper’s) to the pictures. Cut a splash, that’s what these young fellows want to do. Well, the very first week I was here, there was a mistake in my bill. I pointed it out to the young man and he apologized very nicely and looked very much upset, but I thought to myself then: “You’ve got a shifty eye, young man.”

‘What I mean by a shifty eye,’ continued Miss Marple, ‘is the kind that looks very straight at you and never looks away or blinks.’

Craddock gave a sudden movement of appreciation. He thought to himself ‘Jim Kelly to the life,’ remembering a notorious swindler he had helped to put behind bars not long ago.

‘Rudi Scherz was a thoroughly unsatisfactory character,’ said Rydesdale. ‘He’s got a police record in Switzerland, we find.’

‘Made the place too hot for him, I suppose, and came over here with forged papers?’ said Miss Marple.

‘Exactly,’ said Rydesdale.

‘He was going about with the little red-haired waitress from the dining-room,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Fortunately I don’t think her heart’s affected at all. She just liked to have someone a bit “different”, and he used to give her flowers and chocolates which the English boys don’t do much. Has she told you all she knows?’ she asked, turning suddenly to Craddock. ‘Or not quite all yet?’

‘I’m not absolutely sure,’ said Craddock cautiously.