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DEATH BY DROWNING
Sir Henry Clithering, Ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard, was staying with
his friends the Bantrys at their place near the little village of St. Mary
On Saturday morning, coming down to breakfast at the pleasant guestly
hour of ten-fifteen, he almost collided with his hostess, Mrs. Bantry, in the
Colonel Bantry was sitting at the table, his face rather redder than usual.
“‘Morning, Clithering,” he said. “Nice day. Help yourself.”
Sir Henry obeyed. As he took his seat, a plate of kidneys and bacon in
front of him, his host went on:
“Dolly’s a bit upset this morning.”
“Yes—er—I rather thought so,” said Sir Henry mildly.
to moods or excitement. As far as Sir Henry knew, she felt keenly on one
subject only—gardening.
“Yes,” said Colonel Bantry. “Bit of news we got this morning upset her.
Girl in the village — Emmott’s daughter — Emmott who keeps the Blue
Boar.”
“Oh, yes, of course.”
“Ye-es,” said Colonel Bantry ruminatively6. “Pretty girl. Got herself into
trouble. Usual story. I’ve been arguing with Dolly about that. Foolish of
me. Women never see sense. Dolly was all up in arms for the girl—you
know what women are—men are brutes—all the rest of it, etcetera. But
it’s not so simple as all that—not in these days. Girls know what they’re
Don Juan, I should have said.”
“It is this man Sandford who got the girl into trouble?”
“So it seems. Of course I don’t know anything personally,” said the Col-
onel cautiously. “It’s all gossip and chat. You know what this place is! As I
say, I know nothing. And I’m not like Dolly—leaping to conclusions, fling-
ing accusations11 all over the place. Damn it all, one ought to be careful in
what one says. You know—inquest and all that.”
“Inquest?”
Colonel Bantry stared.
“Yes. Didn’t I tell you? Girl drowned herself. That’s what all the pother’s
about.”
“That’s a nasty business,” said Sir Henry.
“Of course it is. Don’t like to think of it myself. Poor pretty little devil.
Her father’s a hard man by all accounts. I suppose she just felt she couldn’t
face the music.”
He paused.
“That’s what’s upset Dolly so.”
“Where did she drown herself?”
and a bridge across. They think she threw herself off that. Well, well, it
doesn’t bear thinking about.”
proceeded to distract his mind from painful matters by an absorption in
the newest iniquities15 of the government.
Sir Henry was only mildly interested by the village tragedy. After break-
hat over his eyes and contemplated18 life from a peaceful angle.
It was about half past eleven when a neat parlourmaid tripped across
the lawn.
“If you please, sir, Miss Marple has called, and would like to see you.”
“Miss Marple?”
Sir Henry sat up and straightened his hat. The name surprised him. He
remembered Miss Marple very well—her gentle quiet old-maidish ways,
her amazing penetration19. He remembered a dozen unsolved and hypo-
thetical cases—and how in each case this typical “old maid of the village”
had leaped unerringly to the right solution of the mystery. Sir Henry had a
very deep respect for Miss Marple. He wondered what had brought her to
see him.
Miss Marple was sitting in the drawing room—very upright as always, a
“Sir Henry—I am so glad. So fortunate to find you. I just happened to
hear that you were staying down here . . . I do hope you will forgive
me. . . .”
“This is a great pleasure,” said Sir Henry, taking her hand. “I’m afraid
Mrs. Bantry’s out.”
“Yes,” said Miss Marple. “I saw her talking to Footit, the butcher, as I
passed. Henry Footit was run over yesterday—that was his dog. One of
butchers always seem to have.”
“Yes,” said Sir Henry helpfully.
“I was glad to get here when she wasn’t at home,” continued Miss
Marple. “Because it was you I wanted to see. About this sad affair.”
“Henry Footit?” asked Sir Henry, slightly bewildered.
Miss Marple threw him a reproachful glance.
“No, no. Rose Emmott, of course. You’ve heard?”
Sir Henry nodded.
“Bantry was telling me. Very sad.”
He was a little puzzled. He could not conceive why Miss Marple should
want to see him about Rose Emmott.
her manner had changed. It was grave, and had a certain dignity.
“You may remember, Sir Henry, that on one or two occasions we played
what was really a pleasant kind of game. Propounding25 mysteries and giv-
ing solutions. You were kind enough to say that I—that I did not do too
badly.”
“You beat us all,” said Sir Henry warmly. “You displayed an absolute
genius for getting to the truth. And you always instanced, I remember,
some village parallel which had supplied you with the clue.”
He smiled as he spoke, but Miss Marple did not smile. She remained
very grave.
“What you said has emboldened26 me to come to you now. I feel that if I
say something to you—at least you will not laugh at me.”
He realized suddenly that she was in deadly earnest.
“Certainly, I will not laugh,” he said gently.
“Sir Henry—this girl—Rose Emmott. She did not drown herself—she was
murdered . . . And I know who murdered her.”
Sir Henry was silent with sheer astonishment27 for quite three seconds.
have been making the most ordinary statement in the world for all the
emotion she showed.
“This is a very serious statement to make, Miss Marple,” said Sir Henry
when he had recovered his breath.
She nodded her head gently several times.
“I know—I know—that is why I have come to you.”
“But, my dear lady, I am not the person to come to. I am merely a
private individual nowadays. If you have knowledge of the kind you
claim, you must go to the police.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” said Miss Marple.
“But why not?”
“Because, you see, I haven’t got any—what you call knowledge.”
“You mean it’s only a guess on your part?”
“You can call it that, if you like, but it’s not really that at all. I know. I’m
Drewitt—well, he’d simply laugh. And really, I don’t know that I’d blame
him. It’s very difficult to understand what you might call specialized30
knowledge.”
“Such as?” suggested Sir Henry.
Miss Marple smiled a little.
“If I were to tell you that I know because of a man called Pease-good
sold vegetables to my niece several years ago—”
She stopped eloquently32.
“A very appropriate name for the trade,” murmured Sir Henry. “You
mean that you are simply judging from the facts in a parallel case.”
“I know human nature,” said Miss Marple. “It’s impossible not to know
human nature living in a village all these years. The question is, do you be-
lieve me, or don’t you?”
She looked at him very straight. The pink flush had heightened on her
Sir Henry was a man with a very vast experience of life. He made his de-
cisions quickly without beating about the bush. Unlikely and fantastic as
Miss Marple’s statement might seem, he was instantly aware that he ac-
cepted it.
“I do believe you, Miss Marple. But I do not see what you want me to do
in the matter, or why you have come to me.”
“I have thought and thought about it,” said Miss Marple. “As I said, it
would be useless going to the police without any facts. I have no facts.
What I would ask you to do is to interest yourself in the matter—Inspector
Drewitt would be most flattered, I am sure. And, of course, if the matter
wax in your hands.”
She looked at him appealingly.
“And what data are you going to give me to work upon?”
“I thought,” said Miss Marple, “of writing a name—the name—on a piece
the—the person—is not involved in any way—well, I shall have been quite
wrong.”
She paused and then added with a slight shiver. “It would be so dreadful
—so very dreadful—if an innocent person were to be hanged.”
“What on earth—” cried Sir Henry, startled.
She turned a distressed37 face upon him.
“I may be wrong about that—though I don’t think so. Inspector Drewitt,
gence is sometimes most dangerous. It does not take one far enough.”
notebook, tore out a leaf, carefully wrote a name on it and folding it in
two, handed it to Sir Henry.
He opened it and read the name. It conveyed nothing to him, but his
piece of paper in his pocket.
“Well, well,” he said. “Rather an extraordinary business, this. I’ve never
done anything like it before. But I’m going to back my judgment—of you,
Miss Marple.”
Sir Henry was sitting in a room with Colonel Melchett, the Chief Constable
of the county, and Inspector Drewitt.
The Chief Constable was a little man of aggressively military demean-
can’t really tell you why I’m doing it.” (Strict truth this!)
“My dear fellow, we’re charmed. It’s a great compliment.”
“Honoured, Sir Henry,” said the Inspector.
The Chief Constable was thinking: “Bored to death, poor fellow, at the
Bantrys. The old man abusing the government and the old woman bab-
bling on about bulbs.”
The Inspector was thinking: “Pity we’re not up against a real teaser. One
of the best brains in England, I’ve heard it said. Pity it’s all such plain sail-
ing.”
Aloud, the Chief Constable said:
the girl had pitched herself in. She was in the family way, you understand.
on each arm—upper arm. Caused before death. Just where a fellow would
have taken her by the arms and flung her in.”
“Would that require much strength?”
“I think not. There would be no struggle—the girl would be taken un-
awares. It’s a footbridge of slippery wood. Easiest thing in the world to
pitch her over—there’s no handrail that side.”
“You know for a fact that the tragedy occurred there?”
woods on the other side. He heard a kind of scream from the bridge and a
splash. It was dusk you know—difficult to see anything. Presently he saw
something white floating down in the water and he ran and got help. They
got her out, but it was too late to revive her.”
Sir Henry nodded.
“The boy saw no one on the bridge?”
“No. But, as I tell you, it was dusk, and there’s mist always hanging
about there. I’m going to question him as to whether he saw anyone about
just afterwards or just before. You see he naturally assumed that the girl
had thrown herself over. Everybody did to start with.”
“Still, we’ve got the note,” said Inspector Drewitt. He turned to Sir
Henry.
“Note in the dead girl’s pocket, sir. Written with a kind of artist’s pencil
“And what did it say?”
“It was from young Sandford. ‘All right,’ that’s how it ran. ‘I’ll meet you
at the bridge at eight thirty.—R.S.’ Well, it was near as might be to eight
thirty—a few minutes after—when Jimmy Brown heard the cry and the
splash.”
“I don’t know whether you’ve met Sandford at all?” went on Colonel
Melchett. “He’s been down here about a month. One of these modern day
ton. God knows what it’s going to be like—full of new-fangled stuff, I sup-
Well, that’s neither here nor there, but it shows the kind of chap Sandford
is. Bolshie, you know—no morals.”
“Seduction,” said Sir Henry mildly, “is quite an old-established crime
though it does not, of course, date back so far as murder.”
Colonel Melchett stared.
“Oh! yes,” he said. “Quite. Quite.”
“Well, Sir Henry,” said Drewitt, “there it is—an ugly business, but plain.
This young Sandford gets the girl into trouble. Then he’s all for clearing off
back to London. He’s got a girl there—nice young lady—he’s engaged to be
married to her. Well, naturally this business, if she gets to hear of it, may
evening, no one about—he catches her by the shoulders and pitches her
in. A proper young swine—and deserves what’s coming to him. That’s my
opinion.”
Sir Henry was silent for a minute or two. He perceived a strong under-
current of local prejudice. A new-fangled architect was not likely to be
popular in the conservative village of St. Mary Mead.
“There is no doubt, I suppose, that this man, Sandford, was actually the
father of the coming child?” he asked.
“He’s the father all right,” said Drewitt. “Rose Emmott let out as much to
her father. She thought he’d marry her. Marry her! Not he!”
“Dear me,” thought Sir Henry. “I seem to be back in mid-Victorian melo-
drama. Unsuspecting girl, the villain from London, the stern father, the be-
trayal—we only need the faithful village lover. Yes, I think it’s time I asked
about him.”
And aloud he said:
“Hadn’t the girl a young man of her own down here?”
“You mean Joe Ellis?” said the Inspector. “Good fellow Joe. Carpenter-
ing’s his trade. Ah! If she’d stuck to Joe—”
Colonel Melchett nodded approval.
“Stick to your own class,” he snapped.
“How did Joe Ellis take this affair?” asked Sir Henry.
“Nobody knew how he was taking it,” said the Inspector. “He’s a quiet
fellow, is Joe. Close. Anything Rose did was right in his eyes. She had him
on a string all right. Just hoped she’d come back to him someday—that
was his attitude, I reckon.”
“I’d like to see him,” said Sir Henry.
“Oh! We’re going to look him up,” said Colonel Melchett. “We’re not neg-
lecting any line. I thought myself we’d see Emmott first, then Sandford,
and then we can go on and see Ellis. That suits you, Clithering?”
Sir Henry said it would suit him admirably.
They found Tom Emmott at the Blue Boar. He was a big burly man of
“Glad to see you, gentlemen—good morning, Colonel. Come in here and
we can be private. Can I offer you anything, gentlemen? No? It’s as you
please. You’ve come about this business of my poor girl. Ah! She was a
pardon, but that’s what he is—till he came along. Promised her marriage,
he did. But I’ll have the law on him. Drove her to it, he did. Murdering
swine. Bringing disgrace on all of us. My poor girl.”
“Your daughter distinctly told you that Mr. Sandford was responsible for
her condition?” asked Melchett crisply.
“She did. In this very room she did.”
“And what did you say to her?” asked Sir Henry.
“Say to her?” The man seemed momentarily taken aback.
“Yes. You didn’t, for example, threaten to turn her out of the house.”
“I was a bit upset—that’s only natural. I’m sure you’ll agree that’s only
natural. But, of course, I didn’t turn her out of the house. I wouldn’t do
that’s what I say. What’s the law for? He’d got to do the right by her. And if
he didn’t, by God, he’d got to pay.”
He brought down his fist on the table.
“What time did you last see your daughter?” asked Melchett.
“Yesterday—teatime.”
“What was her manner then?”
“Well, much as usual. I didn’t notice anything. If I’d known—”
“But you didn’t know,” said the Inspector drily.
They took their leave.
“Emmott hardly creates a favourable55 impression,” said Sir Henry
thoughtfully.
“Bit of a blackguard,” said Melchett. “He’d have bled Sandford all right if
he’d had the chance.”
Their next call was on the architect. Rex Sandford was very unlike the
picture Sir Henry had unconsciously formed of him. He was a tall young
man, very fair and very thin. His eyes were blue and dreamy, his hair was
untidy and rather too long. His speech was a little too ladylike.
Colonel Melchett introduced himself and his companions. Then passing
straight to the object of his visit, he invited the architect to make a state-
ment as to his movements on the previous evening.
“You understand,” he said warningly. “I have no power to compel a
statement from you and any statement you make may be used in evidence
against you. I want the position to be quite clear to you.”
“I—I don’t understand,” said Sandford.
“You understand that the girl Rose Emmott was drowned last night?”
ible.”
He ran his hands through his hair, making it untidier still.
“I never meant any harm,” he said piteously. “I never thought. I never
dreamt she’d take it that way.”
He sat down at a table and buried his face in his hands.
“Do I understand you to say, Mr. Sandford, that you refuse to make a
statement as to where you were last night at eight thirty?”
“No, no—certainly not. I was out. I went for a walk.”
“You went to meet Miss Emmott?”
“No. I went by myself. Through the woods. A long way.”
“Then how do you account for this note, sir, which was found in the
dead girl’s pocket?”
And Inspector Drewitt read it unemotionally aloud.
“Now, sir,” he finished. “Do you deny that you wrote that?”
“No—no. You’re right. I did write it. Rose asked me to meet her. She in-
sisted. I didn’t know what to do. So I wrote that note.”
“Ah, that’s better,” said the Inspector.
“But I didn’t go!” Sandford’s voice rose high and excited. “I didn’t go! I
felt it would be much better not. I was returning to town tomorrow. I felt
it would be better not—not to meet. I intended to write from London and
—and make—some arrangement.”
“You are aware, sir, that this girl was going to have a child, and that she
had named you as its father?”
“Was that statement true, sir?”
Sandford buried his face deeper.
“Ah!” Inspector Drewitt could not disguise the satisfaction. “Now about
this ‘walk’ of yours. Is there anyone who saw you last night?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. As far as I can remember, I didn’t meet
anybody.”
“That’s a pity.”
“What do you mean?” Sandford stared wildly at him. “What does it mat-
ter whether I was out for a walk or not? What difference does that make
to Rose drowning herself?”
“Ah!” said the Inspector. “But you see, she didn’t. She was thrown in de-
liberately, Mr. Sandford.”
“She was—” It took him a minute or two to take in all the horror of it.
“My God! Then—”
He dropped into a chair.
Colonel Melchett made a move to depart.
“You understand, Sandford,” he said. “You are on no account to leave
this house.”
The three men left together. The Inspector and the Chief Constable ex-
changed glances.
“That’s enough, I think, sir,” said the Inspector.
“Yes. Get a warrant made out and arrest him.”
“Excuse me,” said Sir Henry, “I’ve forgotten my gloves.”
He reentered the house rapidly. Sandford was sitting just as they had
“I have come back,” said Sir Henry, “to tell you that I personally, am
not at liberty to reveal. But I am going to ask you, if you will, to tell me as
And — and she made a dead seat at me. Before God, that’s true. She
wouldn’t let me alone. And it was lonely down here, and nobody liked me
much, and—and, as I say she was amazingly pretty and she seemed to
know her way about and all that—” His voice died away. He looked up.
“And then this happened. She wanted me to marry her. I didn’t know
what to do. I’m engaged to a girl in London. If she ever gets to hear of this
—and she will, of course—well, it’s all up. She won’t understand. How
could she? And I’m a rotter, of course. As I say, I didn’t know what to do. I
avoided seeing Rose again. I thought I’d get back to town—see my lawyer
I’ve been! And it’s all so clear—the case against me. But they’ve made a
mistake. She must have done it herself.”
“Did she ever threaten to take her life?”
Sandford shook his head.
“Never. I shouldn’t have said she was that sort.”
“What about a man called Joe Ellis?”
“The carpenter fellow? Good old village stock. Dull fellow—but crazy
about Rose.”
“He might have been jealous?” suggested Sir Henry.
lence.”
“Well,” said Sir Henry. “I must be going.”
He rejoined the others.
“You know, Melchett,” he said, “I feel we ought to have a look at this
other fellow—Ellis—before we do anything drastic. Pity if you made an ar-
motive for murder—and a pretty common one, too.”
“That’s true enough,” said the Inspector. “But Joe Ellis isn’t that kind. He
wouldn’t hurt a fly. Why, nobody’s ever seen him out of temper. Still, I
agree we’d better just ask him where he was last night. He’ll be at home
in a bit of washing.”
and neat. A big stout woman of middle-age opened the door to them. She
had a pleasant face and blue eyes.
“Good morning, Mrs. Bartlett,” said the Inspector. “Is Joe Ellis here?”
“Came back not ten minutes ago,” said Mrs. Bartlett. “Step inside, will
you, please, sirs.”
with stuffed birds, china dogs, a sofa and several useless pieces of fur-
niture.
She hurriedly arranged seats for them, picked up a whatnot bodily to
make further room and went out calling:
“Joe, there’s three gentlemen want to see you.”
A voice from the back kitchen replied:
“I’ll be there when I’ve cleaned myself.”
Mrs. Bartlett smiled.
“Come in, Mrs. Bartlett,” said Colonel Melchett. “Sit down.”
“Oh, no, sir, I couldn’t think of it.”
Mrs. Bartlett was shocked at the idea.
careless tone.
“Couldn’t have a better, sir. A real steady young fellow. Never touches a
drop of drink. Takes a pride in his work. And always kind and helpful
dresser in the kitchen. And any little thing that wants doing in the house—
why, Joe does it as a matter of course, and won’t hardly take thanks for it.
Ah! there aren’t many young fellows like Joe, sir.”
“Some girl will be lucky someday,” said Melchett carelessly. “He was
rather sweet on that poor girl, Rose Emmott, wasn’t he?”
Mrs. Bartlett sighed.
“It made me tired, it did. Him worshipping the ground she trod on and
her not caring a snap of the fingers for him.”
“Where does Joe spend his evenings, Mrs. Bartlett?”
“Here, sir, usually. He does some odd piece of work in the evenings,
sometimes, and he’s trying to learn bookkeeping by correspondence.”
“Ah! really. Was he in yesterday evening?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re sure, Mrs. Bartlett?” said Sir Henry sharply.
She turned to him.
“Quite sure, sir.”
“He didn’t go out, for instance, somewhere about eight to eight thirty?”
“Oh, no.” Mrs. Barlett laughed. “He was fixing the kitchen dresser for me
doubt.
A moment later Ellis himself entered the room.
He was a tall broad-shouldered young man, very good-looking in a rus-
tic way. He had shy, blue eyes and a good-tempered smile. Altogether an
Melchett opened the conversation. Mrs. Bartlett withdrew to the kit-
chen.
“We are investigating the death of Rose Emmott. You knew her, Ellis.”
“Yes.” He hesitated, then muttered, “Hoped to marry her one day. Poor
lass.”
“You have heard of what her condition was?”
“Yes.” A spark of anger showed in his eyes. “Let her down, he did. But
’twere for the best. She wouldn’t have been happy married to him. I
reckoned she’d come to me when this happened. I’d have looked after
her.”
“In spite of—”
“’Tweren’t her fault. He led her astray with fine promises and all. Oh!
she told me about it. She’d no call to drown herself. He weren’t worth it.”
“Where were you, Ellis, last night at eight thirty?”
Was it Sir Henry’s fancy, or was there really a shade of constraint77 in the
ready—almost too ready—reply.
“I was here. Fixing up a contraption in the kitchen for Mrs. B. You ask
her. She’ll tell you.”
“He was too quick with that,” thought Sir Henry. “He’s a slow-thinking
man. That popped out so pat that I suspect he’d got it ready beforehand.”
Then he told himself that it was imagination. He was imagining things—
yes, even imagining an apprehensive78 glint in those blue eyes.
A few more questions and answers and they left. Sir Henry made an ex-
cuse to go to the kitchen. Mrs. Bartlett was busy at the stove. She looked
up with a pleasant smile. A new dresser was fixed against the wall. It was
not quite finished. Some tools lay about and some pieces of wood.
“That’s what Ellis was at work on last night?” said Sir Henry.
“Yes, sir, it’s a nice bit of work, isn’t it? He’s a very clever carpenter, Joe
is.”
No apprehensive gleam in her eye—no embarrassment79.
But Ellis—had he imagined it? No, there had been something.
“I must tackle him,” thought Sir Henry.
Turning to leave the kitchen, he collided with a perambulator.
“Not woken the baby up, I hope,” he said.
Mrs. Bartlett’s laugh rang out.
“Oh, no, sir. I’ve no children—more’s the pity. That’s what I take the
laundry on, sir.”
“Oh! I see—”
He paused then said on an impulse:
“Mrs. Bartlett. You knew Rose Emmott. Tell me what you really thought
of her.”
She looked at him curiously.
“Well, sir, I thought she was flighty. But she’s dead—and I don’t like to
speak ill of the dead.”
“But I have a reason—a very good reason for asking.”
He spoke persuasively80.
She seemed to consider, studying him attentively81. Finally she made up
her mind.
“She was a bad lot, sir,” she said quietly. “I wouldn’t say so before Joe.
She took him in good and proper. That kind can—more’s the pity. You
know how it is, sir.”
Yes, Sir Henry knew. The Joe Ellises of the world were peculiarly vulner-
able. They trusted blindly. But for that very cause the shock of discovery
might be greater.
wall. Joe Ellis had been working indoors all yesterday evening. Mrs. Bart-
lett had actually been there watching him. Could one possibly get round
that? There was nothing to set against it—except possibly that suspicious
readiness in replying on Joe Ellis’s part—that suggestion of having a story
pat.
“Well,” said Melchett, “that seems to make the matter quite clear, eh?”
“It does, sir,” agreed the Inspector. “Sandford’s our man. Not a leg to
stand upon. The thing’s as plain as daylight. It’s my opinion as the girl and
speak of—he didn’t want the matter to get to his young lady’s ears. He was
desperate and he acted accordingly. What do you say, sir?” he added, ad-
“It seems so,” admitted Sir Henry. “And yet—I can hardly picture Sand-
“I should like to see the boy, though,” he said suddenly. “The one who
heard the cry.”
Jimmy Brown proved to be an intelligent lad, rather small for his age,
with a sharp, rather cunning face. He was eager to be questioned and was
rather disappointed when checked in his dramatic tale of what he had
heard on the fatal night.
“You were on the other side of the bridge, I understand,” said Sir Henry.
“Across the river from the village. Did you see anyone on that side as you
came over the bridge?”
“There was someone walking up in the woods. Mr. Sandford, I think it
was, the architecting gentleman who’s building the queer house.”
The three men exchanged glances.
“That was about ten minutes or so before you heard the cry?”
The boy nodded.
“Did you see anyone else—on the village side of the river?”
“A man came along the path that side. Going slow and whistling he was.
Might have been Joe Ellis.”
“You couldn’t possibly have seen who it was,” said the Inspector
sharply. “What with the mist and its being dusk.”
“It’s on account of the whistle,” said the boy. “Joe Ellis always whistles
He spoke with the scorn of the modernist for the old-fashioned.
“Anyone might whistle a tune,” said Melchett. “Was he going towards
the bridge?”
“No. Other way—to village.”
“I don’t think we need concern ourselves with this unknown man,” said
Melchett. “You heard the cry and the splash and a few minutes later you
saw the body floating downstream and you ran for help, going back to the
bridge, crossing it, and making straight for the village. You didn’t see any-
one near the bridge as you ran for help?”
“I think as there were two men with a wheelbarrow on the river path;
but they were some way away and I couldn’t tell if they were going or
coming and Mr. Giles’s place was nearest—so I ran there.”
“You did well, my boy,” said Melchett. “You acted very creditably and
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good. Very good indeed.”
Sir Henry was silent—thinking. He took a slip of paper from his pocket,
looked at it, shook his head. It didn’t seem possible—and yet—
He decided to pay a call on Miss Marple.
She received him in her pretty, slightly overcrowded old-style drawing
room.
“I’ve come to report progress,” said Sir Henry. “I’m afraid that from our
point of view things aren’t going well. They are going to arrest Sandford.
“You have found nothing in—what shall I say—support of my theory,
then?” She looked perplexed—anxious. “Perhaps I have been wrong—
quite wrong. You have such wide experience—you would surely detect it
if it were so.”
“For one thing,” said Sir Henry, “I can hardly believe it. And for another
kitchen all the evening and Mrs. Bartlett was watching him do it.”
Miss Marple leaned forward, taking in a quick breath.
“But that can’t be so,” she said. “It was Friday night.”
“Friday night?”
“Yes—Friday night. On Friday evenings Mrs. Bartlett takes the laundry
she has done round to the different people.”
Sir Henry leaned back in his chair. He remembered the boy Jimmy’s
story of the whistling man and—yes—it would all fit in.
He rose, taking Miss Marple warmly by the hand.
“I think I see my way,” he said. “At least I can try. . . .”
Five minutes later he was back at Mrs. Bartlett’s cottage and facing Joe
Ellis in the little parlour among the china dogs.
“You lied to us, Ellis, about last night,” he said crisply. “You were not in
the kitchen here fixing the dresser between eight and eight thirty. You
were seen walking along the path by the river towards the bridge a few
minutes before Rose Emmott was murdered.”
threw herself in, she did. She was desperate like. I wouldn’t have harmed
a hair on her head, I wouldn’t.”
“Then why did you lie as to where you were?” asked Sir Henry keenly.
The man’s eyes shifted and lowered uncomfortably.
“I was scared. Mrs. B. saw me around there and when we heard just af-
terwards what had happened—well, she thought it might look bad for me.
I fixed I’d say I was working here, and she agreed to back me up. She’s a
rare one, she is. She’s always been good to me.”
Without a word Sir Henry left the room and walked into the kitchen.
Mrs. Bartlett was washing up at the sink.
“Mrs. Bartlett,” he said, “I know everything. I think you’d better confess
—that is, unless you want Joe Ellis hanged for something he didn’t do . . .
No. I see you don’t want that. I’ll tell you what happened. You were out
taking the laundry home. You came across Rose Emmott. You thought
she’d given Joe the chuck and was taking up with this stranger. Now she
was in trouble—Joe was prepared to come to the rescue—marry her if
need be, and if she’d have him. He’s lived in your house for four years.
You’ve fallen in love with him. You want him for yourself. You hated this
girl—you couldn’t bear that this worthless little slut should take your man
from you. You’re a strong woman, Mrs. Bartlett. You caught the girl by the
shoulders and shoved her over into the stream. A few minutes later you
met Joe Ellis. The boy Jimmy saw you together in the distance—but in the
darkness and the mist he assumed the perambulator was a wheelbarrow
and two men wheeling it. You persuaded Joe that he might be suspected
was really an alibi for you. Now then, I’m right, am I not?”
He held his breath. He had staked all on this throw.
She stood before him rubbing her hands on her apron, slowly making
up her mind.
dangerous voice, Sir Henry suddenly felt it to be). “I don’t know what
came over me. Shameless—that’s what she was. It just came over me—she
shan’t take Joe from me. I haven’t had a happy life, sir. My husband, he
in spite of my grey hair. I’m just forty, sir. Joe’s one in a thousand. I’d have
done anything for him—anything at all. He was like a little child, sir, so
gentle and believing. He was mine, sir, to look after and see to. And this—
this—” She swallowed—checked her emotion. Even at this moment she
was a strong woman. She stood up straight and looked at Sir Henry curi-
ously. “I’m ready to come, sir. I never thought anyone would find out. I
don’t know how you knew, sir—I don’t, I’m sure.”
Sir Henry shook his head gently.
“It was not I who knew,” he said—and he thought of the piece of paper
ioned handwriting.
“Mrs. Bartlett, with whom Joe Ellis lodges at 2 Mill Cot-
tages.”
Miss Marple had been right again.
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