A Murder Is Announced

‘Not very dark,’ said Bunch. ‘She’s got blue eyes.’

‘I hoped there might be a photo of Dmitri Stamfordis-but I suppose that was too much to hope for…Well’-he took up the letter-‘I’m sorry this doesn’t suggest anything to you, Miss Marple.’

‘Oh! but it does,’ said Miss Marple. ‘It suggests a good deal. Just read it through again, Inspector-especially where it says that Randall Goedler was making inquiries about Dmitri Stamfordis.’

Craddock stared at her.

The telephone rang.

Bunch got up from the floor and went out into the hall where, in accordance with the best Victorian traditions, the telephone had originally been placed and where it still was.

She re-entered the room to say to Craddock:

‘It’s for you.’

Slightly surprised, the Inspector went out to the instrument-carefully shutting the door of the living-room behind him.

‘Craddock? Rydesdale here.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’ve been looking through your report. In the interview you had with Phillipa Haymes I see she states positively that she hasn’t seen her husband since his desertion from the Army?’

‘That’s right, sir-she was most emphatic. But in my opinion she wasn’t speaking the truth.’

‘I agree with you. Do you remember a case about ten days ago-man run over by a lorry-taken to Milchester General with concussion and a fractured pelvis?’

‘The fellow who snatched a child practically from under the wheels of a lorry, and got run down himself?’

‘That’s the one. No papers of any kind on him and nobody came forward to identify him. Looked as though he might be on the run. He died last night without regaining consciousness. But he’s been identified-deserter from the Army-Ronald Haymes, ex-Captain in the South Loamshires.’

‘Phillipa Haymes’ husband?’

‘Yes. He’d got an old Chipping Cleghorn bus ticket on him, by the way-and quite a reasonable amount of money.’

‘So he did get money from his wife? I always thought he was the man Mitzi overheard talking to her in the summerhouse. She denied it flatly, of course. But surely, sir, that lorry accident was before-’

Rydesdale took the words out of his mouth.

‘Yes, he was taken to Milchester General on the 28th. The hold-up at Little Paddocks was on the 29th. That lets him out of any possible connection with it. But his wife, of course, knew nothing about the accident. She may have been thinking all along that hewas concerned in it. She’d hold her tongue-naturally-after all hewas her husband.’

‘It was a fairly gallant bit of work, wasn’t it, sir?’ said Craddock slowly.

‘Rescuing that child from the lorry? Yes. Plucky. Don’t suppose it was cowardice that made Haymes desert. Well, all that’s past history. For a man who’d blotted his copybook, it was a good death.’

‘I’m glad for her sake,’ said the Inspector. ‘And for that boy of theirs.’

‘Yes, he needn’t be too ashamed of his father. And the young woman will be able to marry again now.’

Craddock said slowly:

‘I was thinking of that, sir…It opens up-possibilities.’

‘You’d better break the news to her as you’re on the spot.’

‘I will, sir. I’ll push along there now. Or perhaps I’d better wait until she’s back at Little Paddocks. It may be rather a shock-and there’s someone else I rather want to have a word with first.’

Chapter 19. Reconstruction of the Crime

‘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.’