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Twenty-one
I
It was a tired and depressed Inspector Craddock who came to see Miss
Marple the following day.
“Sit down and be comfortable,” she said. “I can see you’ve had a very
hard time.”
“I don’t like to be defeated,” said Inspector Craddock. “Two murders
within twenty-four hours. Ah well, I’m poorer at my job than I thought I
was. Give me a nice cup of tea, Aunt Jane, with some thin bread and butter
and soothe me with your earliest remembrances of St. Mary Mead.”
Miss Marple clicked with her tongue in a sympathetic manner.
“Now it’s no good talking like that, my dear boy, and I don’t think bread
and butter is at all what you want. Gentlemen, when they’ve had a disap-
pointment, want something stronger than tea.”
As usual, Miss Marple said the word “gentlemen” in the way of someone
describing a foreign species.
“I should advise a good stiff whisky and soda,” she said.
“Would you really, Aunt Jane? Well, I won’t say no.”
“And I shall get it for you myself,” said Miss Marple, rising to her feet.
“Oh, no, don’t do that. Let me. Or what about Miss What’s-her-name?”
“We don’t want Miss Knight fussing about in here,” said Miss Marple.
“She won’t be bringing my tea for another twenty minutes so that gives us
a little peace and quiet. Clever of you to come to the window and not
through the front door. Now we can have a nice quiet little time by
ourselves.”
She went to a corner cupboard, opened it and produced a bottle, a sy-
phon of soda and a glass.
“You are full of surprises,” said Dermot Craddock. “I’d no idea that’s
what you kept in your corner cupboard. Are you quite sure you’re not a
secret drinker, Aunt Jane?”
“Now, now,” Miss Marple admonished him. “I have never been an ad-
vocate of teetotalism. A little strong drink is always advisable on the
premises in case there is a shock or an accident. Invaluable at such times.
Or, of course, if a gentleman should arrive suddenly. There!” said Miss
Marple, handing him her remedy with an air of quiet triumph. “And you
don’t need to joke anymore. Just sit quietly there and relax.”
“Wonderful wives there must have been in your young days,” said
Dermot Craddock.
“I’m sure, my dear boy, you would find the young lady of the type you
refer to as a very inadequate helpmeet nowadays. Young ladies were not
encouraged to be intellectual and very few of them had university degrees
or any kind of academic distinction.”
“There are things that are preferable to academic distinctions,” said
Dermot. “One of them is knowing when a man wants whisky and soda and
giving it to him.”
Miss Marple smiled at him affectionately.
“Come,” she said, “tell me all about it. Or as much as you are allowed to
tell me.”
“I think you probably know as much as I do. And very likely you have
something up your sleeve. How about your dogsbody, your dear Miss
Knight? What about her having committed the crime?”
“Now why should Miss Knight have done such a thing?” demanded Miss
Marple, surprised.
“Because she’s the most unlikely person,” said Dermot. “It so often
seems to hold good when you produce your answer.”
“Not at all,” said Miss Marple with spirit. “I have said over and over
again, not only to you, my dear Dermot—if I may call you so—that it is al-
ways the obvious person who has done the crime. One thinks so often of
the wife or the husband and so very often it is the wife or the husband.”
“Meaning Jason Rudd?” He shook his head. “That man adores Marina
Gregg |
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