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MISS MARPLE TELLS A STORY
I don’t think I’ve ever told you, my dears—you, Raymond, and you, Joan,
about the rather curious little business that happened some years ago
now. I don’t want to seem vain in any way—of course I know that in com-
parison with you young people I’m not clever at all — Raymond writes
those very modern books all about rather unpleasant young men and wo-
men—and Joan paints those very remarkable1 pictures of square people
ews) I am hopelessly Victorian. I admire Mr. Alma-Tadema and Mr. Frede-
ric Leighton and I suppose to you they seem hopelessly vieux jeu. Now let
me see, what was I saying? Oh, yes—that I didn’t want to appear vain—but
I couldn’t help being just a teeny weeny bit pleased with myself, because,
just by applying a little common sense, I believe I really did solve a prob-
lem that had baffled cleverer heads than mine. Though really I should
have thought the whole thing was obvious from the beginning. . . .
Well, I’ll tell you my little story, and if you think I’m inclined to be con-
ceited about it, you must remember that I did at least help a fellow
The first I knew of this business was one evening about nine o’clock
when Gwen—(you remember Gwen? My little maid with red hair) well—
Gwen came in and told me that Mr. Petherick and a gentleman had called
to see me. Gwen had shown them into the drawing room—quite rightly. I
was sitting in the dining room because in early spring I think it is so
I directed Gwen to bring in the cherry brandy and some glasses and I
hurried into the drawing room. I don’t know whether you remember Mr.
Petherick? He died two years ago, but he had been a friend of mine for
many years as well as attending to all my legal business. A very shrewd
very nice lad and very up to date—but somehow I don’t feel quite the con-
fidence I had with Mr. Petherick.
I explained to Mr. Petherick about the fires and he said at once that he
and his friend would come into the dining room—and then he introduced
his friend—a Mr. Rhodes. He was a youngish man—not much over forty—
and I saw at once there was something very wrong. His manner was most
fellow was suffering from strain.
When we were settled in the dining room and Gwen had brought the
cherry brandy, Mr. Petherick explained the reason for his visit.
“Miss Marple,” he said, “you must forgive an old friend for taking a
liberty. What I have come here for is a consultation8.”
I couldn’t understand at all what he meant, and he went on:
“In a case of illness one likes two points of view—that of the specialist
and that of the family physician. It is the fashion to regard the former as
of more value, but I am not sure that I agree. The specialist has experience
only in his own subject—the family doctor has, perhaps, less knowledge—
but a wider experience.”
I knew just what he meant, because a young niece of mine not long be-
eases without consulting her own doctor whom she considered an old
dodderer, and the specialist had ordered some very expensive treatment,
and later found that all the child was suffering from was a rather unusual
I just mention this—though I have a horror of digressing—to show that I
appreciate Mr. Petherick’s point—but I still hadn’t any idea what he was
driving at.
“If Mr. Rhodes is ill—” I said, and stopped—because the poor man gave a
most dreadful laugh.
He said: “I expect to die of a broken neck in a few months’ time.”
And then it all came out. There had been a case of murder lately in
Barnchester—a town about twenty miles away. I’m afraid I hadn’t paid
much attention to it at the time, because we had been having a lot of ex-
citement in the village about our district nurse, and outside occurrences
like an earthquake in India and a murder in Barnchester, although of
course far more important really—had given way to our own little local
excitements. I’m afraid villages are like that. Still, I did remember having
read about a woman having been stabbed in a hotel, though I hadn’t re-
membered her name. But now it seemed that this woman had been Mr.
Rhodes’s wife—and as if that wasn’t bad enough—he was actually under
suspicion of having murdered her himself.
All this Mr. Petherick explained to me very clearly, saying that, although
the Coronor’s jury had brought in a verdict of murder by a person or per-
sons unknown, Mr. Rhodes had reason to believe that he would probably
be arrested within a day or two, and that he had come to Mr. Petherick
and placed himself in his hands. Mr. Petherick went on to say that they
had that afternoon consulted Sir Malcolm Olde, K.C., and that in the event
of the case coming to trial Sir Malcolm had been briefed to defend Mr.
Rhodes.
Sir Malcolm was a young man, Mr. Petherick said, very up to date in his
methods, and he had indicated a certain line of defence. But with that line
cialist’s point of view. Give Sir Malcolm a case and he sees only one point
—the most likely line of defence. But even the best line of defence may ig-
nore completely what is, to my mind, the vital point. It takes no account of
what actually happened.”
Then he went on to say some very kind and flattering things about my
permission to tell me the story of the case in the hopes that I might be able
to suggest some explanation.
I could see that Mr. Rhodes was highly sceptical of my being of any use
and he was annoyed at being brought here. But Mr. Petherick took no no-
tice and proceeded to give me the facts of what occurred on the night of
March 8th.
Mr. and Mrs. Rhodes had been staying at the Crown Hotel in
Barnchester. Mrs. Rhodes who (so I gathered from Mr. Petherick’s careful
immediately after dinner. She and her husband occupied adjoining rooms
with a connecting door. Mr. Rhodes, who is writing a book on prehistoric15
flints, settled down to work in the adjoining room. At eleven o’clock he ti-
died up his papers and prepared to go to bed. Before doing so, he just
glanced into his wife’s room to make sure that there was nothing she
wanted. He discovered the electric light on and his wife lying in bed
stabbed through the heart. She had been dead at least an hour—probably
longer. The following were the points made. There was another door in
Mrs. Rhodes’s room leading into the corridor. This door was locked and
According to Mr. Rhodes nobody had passed through the room in which
he was sitting except a chambermaid bringing hot- water bottles. The
knife. There were no fingerprints19 on it.
The situation boiled down to this—no one but Mr. Rhodes and the cham-
bermaid had entered the victim’s room.
“That was our first line of enquiry,” said Mr. Petherick. “Mary Hill is a
local woman. She had been chambermaid at the Crown for ten years.
There seems absolutely no reason why she should commit a sudden as-
sault on a guest. She is, in any case, extraordinarily22 stupid, almost half-
committed the crime.”
Mr. Petherick went on to mention a few additional details. At the head
of the staircase in the Crown Hotel is a kind of miniature lounge where
people sometimes sit and have coffee. A passage goes off to the right and
the last door in it is the door into the room occupied by Mr. Rhodes. The
passage then turns sharply to the right again and the first door round the
corner is the door into Mrs. Rhodes’s room. As it happened, both these
doors could be seen by witnesses. The first door—that into Mr. Rhodes’s
room, which I will call A, could be seen by four people, two commercial
travellers and an elderly married couple who were having coffee. Accord-
ing to them nobody went in or out of door A except Mr. Rhodes and the
chambermaid. As to the other door in the passage B, there was an electri-
cian at work there and he also swears that nobody entered or left door B
except the chambermaid.
It was certainly a very curious and interesting case. On the face of it, it
looked as though Mr. Rhodes must have murdered his wife. But I could see
Petherick was a very shrewd man.
about some woman who had written threatening letters to his wife. His
story, I gathered, had been unconvincing in the extreme. Appealed to by
Mr. Petherick, he explained himself.
“Frankly,” he said, “I never believed it. I thought Amy had made most of
it up.”
life embroidering29 everything that happens to them. The amount of adven-
tures that, according to her own account, happened to her in a year was
simply incredible. If she slipped on a bit of banana peel it was a case of
near escape from death. If a lampshade caught fire she was rescued from
a burning building at the hazard of her life. Her husband got into the
habit of discounting her statements. Her tale as to some woman whose
on her—well—Mr. Rhodes had simply not taken any notice of it. The incid-
ent had happened before he married his wife and although she had read
him letters couched in crazy language, he had suspected her of composing
them herself. She had actually done such a thing once or twice before. She
ment.
Now, all that seemed to me very natural—indeed, we have a young wo-
man in the village who does much the same thing. The danger with such
people is that when anything at all extraordinary really does happen to
them, nobody believes they are speaking the truth. It seemed to me that
that was what had happened in this case. The police, I gathered, merely
believed that Mr. Rhodes was making up this unconvincing tale in order to
I asked if there had been any women staying by themselves in the hotel.
It seemed there were two—a Mrs. Granby, an Anglo-Indian widow, and a
Miss Carruthers, rather a horsey spinster who dropped her g’s. Mr. Pether-
had seen either of them near the scene of the crime and there was nothing
to connect either of them with it in any way. I asked him to describe their
personal appearance. He said that Mrs. Granby had reddish hair rather
untidily done, was sallow-faced and about fifty years of age. Her clothes
were rather picturesque36, being made mostly of native silk, etc. Miss Car-
ruthers was about forty, wore pince-nez, had close-cropped hair like a
man and wore mannish coats and skirts.
“Dear me,” I said, “that makes it very difficult.”
Mr. Petherick looked enquiringly at me, but I didn’t want to say any-
more just then, so I asked what Sir Malcolm Olde had said.
Sir Malcolm was confident of being able to call conflicting medical testi-
mony and to suggest some way of getting over the fingerprint20 difficulty. I
asked Mr. Rhodes what he thought and he said all doctors were fools but
he himself couldn’t really believe that his wife had killed herself. “She
wasn’t that kind of woman,” he said simply—and I believed him. Hyster-
ical people don’t usually commit suicide.
I thought a minute and then I asked if the door from Mrs. Rhodes’s room
led straight into the corridor. Mr. Rhodes said no—there was a little hall-
the hallway that was locked and bolted on the inside.
“In that case,” I said, “the whole thing seems remarkably38 simple.”
And really, you know, it did . . . the simplest thing in the world. And yet
no one seemed to have seen it that way.
Both Mr. Petherick and Mr. Rhodes were staring at me so that I felt quite
embarrassed.
“Perhaps,” said Mr. Rhodes, “Miss Marple hasn’t quite appreciated the
difficulties.”
“Yes,” I said, “I think I have. There are four possibilities. Either Mrs.
Rhodes was killed by her husband, or by the chambermaid, or she com-
mitted suicide, or she was killed by an outsider whom nobody saw enter
or leave.”
“And that’s impossible,” Mr. Rhodes broke in. “Nobody could come in or
go out through my room without my seeing them, and even if anyone did
manage to come in through my wife’s room without the electrician seeing
them, how the devil could they get out again leaving the door locked and
bolted on the inside?”
Mr. Petherick looked at me and said: “Well, Miss Marple?” in an encour-
aging manner.
“I should like,” I said, “to ask a question. Mr. Rhodes, what did the cham-
bermaid look like?”
He said he wasn’t sure—she was tallish, he thought—he didn’t remem-
ber if she was fair or dark. I turned to Mr. Petherick and asked the same
question.
He said she was of medium height, had fairish hair and blue eyes and
rather a high colour.
Mr. Rhodes said: “You are a better observer than I am, Petherick.”
I ventured to disagree. I then asked Mr. Rhodes if he could describe the
maid in my house. Neither he nor Mr. Petherick could do so.
“Don’t you see what that means?” I said. “You both came here full of
your own affairs and the person who let you in was only a parlourmaid.
The same applies to Mr. Rhodes at the hotel. He saw her uniform and her
the same woman in a different capacity. He has looked at her as a person.
“That’s what the woman who did the murder counted upon.”
As they still didn’t see, I had to explain.
“I think,” I said, “that this is how it went. The chambermaid came in by
door A, passed through Mr. Rhodes’s room into Mrs. Rhodes’s room with
the hot-water bottle and went out through the hallway into passage B. X—
as I will call our murderess—came in by door B into the little hallway, con-
cealed herself in—well, in a certain apartment, ahem—and waited until
the chambermaid had passed out. Then she entered Mrs. Rhodes’s room,
took the stiletto from the dressing table (she had doubtless explored the
wiped the handle of the stiletto, locked and bolted the door by which she
had entered, and then passed out through the room where Mr. Rhodes
was working.”
Mr. Rhodes cried out: “But I should have seen her. The electrician would
have seen her go in.”
“No,” I said. “That’s where you’re wrong. You wouldn’t see her—not if
she were dressed as a chambermaid.” I let it sink in, then I went on, “You
were engrossed in your work—out of the tail of your eye you saw a cham-
bermaid come in, go into your wife’s room, come back and go out. It was
the same dress—but not the same woman. That’s what the people having
coffee saw—a chambermaid go in and a chambermaid come out. The elec-
trician did the same. I dare say if a chambermaid were very pretty a gen-
tleman might notice her face—human nature being what it is—but if she
were just an ordinary middle-aged42 woman—well—it would be the cham-
bermaid’s dress you would see—not the woman herself.”
Mr. Rhodes cried: “Who was she?”
“Well,” I said, “that is going to be a little difficult. It must be either Mrs.
Granby or Miss Carruthers. Mrs. Granby sounds as though she might wear
the other hand, Miss Carruthers with her close- cropped mannish head
might easily put on a wig to play her part. I dare say you will find out eas-
ily enough which of them it is. Personally, I incline myself to think it will
be Miss Carruthers.”
And really, my dears, that is the end of the story. Carruthers was a false
Mrs. Rhodes, who was a most reckless and dangerous driver, had run over
her little girl, and it had driven the poor woman off her head. She con-
cealed her madness very cunningly except for writing distinctly insane
latters to her intended victim. She had been following her about for some
time, and she laid her plans very cleverly. The false hair and maid’s dress
she posted in a parcel first thing the next morning. When taxed with the
truth she broke down and confessed at once. The poor thing is in Broad-
crime.
Mr. Petherick came to me afterwards and brought me a very nice letter
from Mr. Rhodes—really, it made me blush. Then my old friend said to
me: “Just one thing—why did you think it was more likely to be Carruthers
than Granby? You’d never seen either of them.”
“Well,” I said. “It was the g’s. You said she dropped her g’s. Now, that’s
done by a lot of hunting people in books, but I don’t know many people
who do it in reality—and certainly no one under sixty. You said this wo-
man was forty. Those dropped g’s sounded to me like a woman who was
I shan’t tell you what Mr. Petherick said to that—but he was very com-
plimentary — and I really couldn’t help feeling just a teeny weeny bit
pleased with myself.
And it’s extraordinary how things turn out for the best in this world. Mr.
Rhodes has married again—such a nice, sensible girl—and they’ve got a
dear little baby and — what do you think? — they asked me to be god-
mother. Wasn’t it nice of them?
Now I do hope you don’t think I’ve been running on too long. . . .
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