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II
“Well!” exclaimed Miss Marple, going pink with pleasure and surprise.
“This is a surprise. How are you, my dear boy—though you’re hardly a boy
now. What are you—a Chief-Inspector or this new thing they call a Com-
mander?”
Dermot explained his present rank.
“I suppose I need hardly ask what you are doing down here,” said Miss
land Yard.”
“They handed it over to us,” said Dermot, “and so, naturally, as soon as I
got down here I came to headquarters.”
“Do you mean—” Miss Marple fluttered a little.
“Yes, Aunty,” said Dermot disrespectfully. “I mean you.”
“I’m afraid,” said Miss Marple regretfully, “I’m very much out of things
nowadays. I don’t get out much.”
“You get out enough to fall down and be picked up by a woman who’s
going to be murdered ten days later,” said Dermot Craddock.
Miss Marple made the kind of noise that would once have been written
down as “tut-tut.”
“I don’t know where you hear these things,” she said.
“You should know,” said Dermot Craddock. “You told me yourself that in
a village everybody knows everything.
“And just off the record,” he added, “did you think she was going to be
murdered as soon as you looked at her?”
“Of course not, of course not,” exclaimed Miss Marple. “What an idea!”
“You didn’t see that look in her husband’s eye that reminded you of
“No, I did not!” said Miss Marple. “I’m sure Mr. Badcock would never do
a wicked thing of that kind. At least,” she added thoughtfully, “I’m nearly
sure.”
“But human nature being what it is—” murmured Craddock, wickedly.
“Exactly,” said Miss Marple. She added, “I daresay, after the first natural
grief, he won’t miss her very much….”
“Oh no,” said Miss Marple, “but I don’t think that she—well, she wasn’t a
considerate woman. Kind, yes. Considerate—no. She would be fond of him
and look after him when he was ill and see to his meals and be a good
housekeeper5, but I don’t think she would ever—well, that she would ever
even know what he might be feeling or thinking. That makes rather a
lonely life for a man.”
“Ah,” said Dermot, “and is his life less likely to be lonely in future?”
“I expect he’ll marry again,” said Miss Marple. “Perhaps quite soon. And
probably, which is such a pity, a woman of much the same type. I mean
he’ll marry someone with a stronger personality than his own.”
“Anyone in view?” asked Dermot.
“Not that I know of,” said Miss Marple. She added regretfully, “But I
know so little.”
“Well, what do you think?” urged Dermot Craddock. “You’ve never been
backward in thinking things.”
“I think,” said Miss Marple, unexpectedly, “that you ought to go and see
Mrs. Bantry.”
“Mrs. Bantry? Who is she? One of the film lot?”
was at the party that day. She used to own Gossington at one time. She and
her husband, Colonel Bantry.”
“She was at the party. And she saw something?”
“I think she must tell you herself what it was she saw. You mayn’t think
it has any bearing on the matter, but I think it might be—just might be—
suggestive. Tell her I sent you to her and—ah yes, perhaps you’d better
just mention the Lady of Shalott.”
Dermot Craddock looked at her with his head just slightly on one side.
“The Lady of Shalott,” he said. “Those are the code words, are they?”
“I don’t know that I should put it that way,” said Miss Marple, “but it will
remind her of what I mean.”
Dermot Craddock got up. “I shall be back,” he warned her.
“That is very nice of you,” said Miss Marple. “Perhaps if you have time,
you would come and have tea with me one day. If you still drink tea,” she
added rather wistfully. “I know that so many young people nowadays only
go out to drinks and things. They think that afternoon tea is a very out-
moded affair.”
“I’m not as young as all that,” said Dermot Craddock. “Yes, I’ll come and
have tea with you one day. We’ll have tea and gossip and talk about the
village. Do you know any of the film stars, by the way, or any of the studio
lot?”
“Not a thing,” said Miss Marple, “except what I hear,” she added.
“Well, you usually hear a good deal,” said Dermot Craddock. “Goodbye.
It’s been very nice to see you.”
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