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STRANGE JEST
“And this,” said Jane Helier, completing her introductions, “is Miss
Marple!”
Being an actress, she was able to make her point. It was clearly the cli-
max, the triumphant1 finale! Her tone was equally compounded of rever-
The odd part of it was that the object thus proudly proclaimed was
merely a gentle, fussy- looking, elderly spinster. In the eyes of the two
young people who had just, by Jane’s good offices, made her acquaintance,
people; the girl, Charmian Stroud, slim and dark — the man, Edward
you.” But there was doubt in her eyes. She flung a quick, questioning
glance at Jane Helier.
“Darling,” said Jane, answering the glance, “she’s absolutely marvellous.
Leave it all to her. I told you I’d get her here and I have.” She added to
Miss Marple, “You’ll fix it for them, I know. It will be easy for you.”
“Won’t you tell me,” she said, “what all this is about?”
“Jane’s a friend of ours,” Charmian broke in impatiently. “Edward and I
are in rather a fix. Jane said if we would come to her party, she’d intro-
duce us to someone who was—who would—who could—”
Edward came to the rescue. “Jane tells us you’re the last word in sleuths,
Miss Marple!”
The old lady’s eyes twinkled, but she protested modestly. “Oh, no, no!
Nothing of the kind. It’s just that living in a village as I do, one gets to
know so much about human nature. But really you have made me quite
curious. Do tell me your problem.”
“I’m afraid it’s terribly hackneyed—just buried treasure,” said Edward.
“Indeed? But that sounds most exciting!”
“I know. Like Treasure Island. But our problem lacks the usual romantic
tions like ‘four paces to the left, west by north.’ It’s horribly prosaic—just
where we ought to dig.”
“Have you tried at all?”
“I should say we’d dug about two solid square acres! The whole place is
ready to be turned into a market garden. We’re just discussing whether to
“But, of course, my dear.”
“Then let’s find a peaceful spot. Come on, Edward.” She led the way out
of the overcrowded and smoke-laden room, and they went up the stairs, to
a small sitting room on the second floor.
When they were seated, Charmian began abruptly. “Well, here goes!
The story starts with Uncle Mathew, uncle—or rather, great-great-uncle—
to both of us. He was incredibly ancient. Edward and I were his only rela-
tions. He was fond of us and always declared that when he died he would
leave his money between us. Well, he died last March and left everything
he had to be divided equally between Edward and myself. What I’ve just
said sounds rather callous—I don’t mean that it was right that he died—ac-
tually we were very fond of him. But he’d been ill for some time.
“The point is that the ‘everything’ he left turned out to be practically
Edward?”
The amiable Edward agreed. “You see,” he said, “we’d counted on it a
bit. I mean, when you know a good bit of money is coming to you, you
don’t—well—buckle down and try to make it yourself. I’m in the army—
not got anything to speak of outside my pay—and Charmian herself hasn’t
got a bean. She works as a stage manager in a repertory theatre—quite in-
teresting, and she enjoys it—but no money in it. We’d counted on getting
married, but weren’t worried about the money side of it because we both
knew we’d be jolly well-off someday.”
“And now, you see, we’re not!” said Charmian. “What’s more, Ansteys—
that’s the family place, and Edward and I both love it—will probably have
to be sold. And Edward and I feel we just can’t bear that! But if we don’t
find Uncle Mathew’s money, we shall have to sell.”
Edward said, “You know, Charmian, we still haven’t come to the vital
point.”
“Well, you talk, then.”
Edward turned to Miss Marple. “It’s like this, you see. As Uncle Mathew
grew older, he got more and more suspicious. He didn’t trust anybody.”
“Very wise of him,” said Miss Marple. “The depravity of human nature is
unbelievable.”
“Well, you may be right. Anyway, Uncle Mathew thought so. He had a
friend who lost his money in a bank, and another friend who was ruined
lion and bury it.”
“Ah,” said Miss Marple. “I begin to see.”
way, but he held that that didn’t really matter. The bulk of your money, he
said, should be ‘kept in a box under the bed or buried in the garden.’
Those were his words.”
Charmian went on. “And when he died, he left hardly anything at all in
securities, though he was very rich. So we think that that’s what he must
have done.”
large sums of money from time to time, and nobody knows what he did
with them. But it seems probable that he lived up to his principles, and
that he did buy gold and bury it.”
“He didn’t say anything before he died? Leave any paper? No letter?”
“That’s the maddening part of it. He didn’t. He’d been unconscious for
somedays, but he rallied before he died. He looked at us both and
pretty pair of doves.’ And then he tapped his eye—his right eye—and
“He tapped his eye,” said Miss Marple thoughtfully.
Edward said eagerly. “Does that convey anything to you? It made me
think of an Arsene Lupin story where there was something hidden in a
man’s glass eye. But Uncle Mathew didn’t have a glass eye.”
Miss Marple shook her head. “No—I can’t think of anything at the mo-
ment.”
Charmian said disappointedly, “Jane told us you’d say at once where to
dig!”
Miss Marple smiled. “I’m not quite a conjurer, you know. I didn’t know
your uncle, or what sort of man he was, and I don’t know the house or the
grounds.”
Charmian said, “If you did know them?”
“Well, it must be quite simple, really, mustn’t it?” said Miss Marple.
“Simple!” said Charmian. “You come down to Ansteys and see if it’s
simple!”
It is possible that she did not mean the invitation to be taken seriously,
but Miss Marple said briskly, “Well, really, my dear, that’s very kind of
you. I’ve always wanted to have the chance of looking for buried treasure.
And,” she added, looking at them with a beaming, late-Victorian smile,
“with a love interest, too!”
“You see!” said Charmian, gesturing dramatically.
They had just completed a grand tour of Ansteys. They had been round
the kitchen garden—heavily trenched. They had been through the little
woods, where every important tree had been dug round, and had gazed
sadly on the pitted surface of the once smooth lawn. They had been up to
They had been down to the cellars, where flagstones had been heaved un-
Miss Marple had been shown every antique piece of furniture that con-
tained or could be suspected of containing a secret drawer.
On a table in the morning room there was a heap of papers—all the pa-
pers that the late Mathew Stroud had left. Not one had been destroyed,
hope of spotting a hitherto unnoticed clue.
“Can you think of anywhere we haven’t looked?” demanded Charmian
hopefully.
Miss Marple shook her head. “You seem to have been very thorough, my
dear. Perhaps, if I may say so, just a little too thorough. I always think, you
know, that one should have a plan. It’s like my friend, Mrs. Eldritch, she
thorough that she polished the bathroom floor too much, and as Mrs.
and she had a very nasty fall and actually broke her leg! Most awkward,
because the bathroom door was locked, of course, and the gardener had to
get a ladder and come in through the window—terribly distressing28 to Mrs.
Eldritch, who had always been a very modest woman.”
Edward moved restlessly.
Miss Marple said quickly, “Please forgive me. So apt, I know, to fly off at
a tangent. But one thing does remind one of another. And sometimes that
is helpful. All I was trying to say was that perhaps if we tried to sharpen
our wits and think of a likely place—”
Edward said crossly, “You think of one, Miss Marple. Charmian’s brains
and mine are now only beautiful blanks!”
“Dear, dear. Of course—most tiring for you. If you don’t mind I’ll just
look through all this.” She indicated the papers on the table. “That is, if
“Oh, that’s all right. But I’m afraid you won’t find anything.”
She sat down by the table and methodically worked through the sheaf of
documents. As she replaced each one, she sorted them automatically into
tidy little heaps. When she had finished she sat staring in front of her for
some minutes.
Miss Marple came to herself with a little start. “I beg your pardon. Most
helpful.”
“You’ve found something relevant?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that, but I do believe I know what sort of man your
Uncle Mathew was. Rather like my own Uncle Henry, I think. Fond of
rather obvious jokes. A bachelor, evidently—I wonder why—perhaps an
early disappointment? Methodical up to a point, but not very fond of being
tied up—so few bachelors are!”
Behind Miss Marple’s back, Charmian made a sign to Edward. It said,
She’s gaga.
Miss Marple was continuing happily to talk of her deceased Uncle
Henry. “Very fond of puns, he was. And to some people, puns are most an-
cious man, too. Always was convinced the servants were robbing him.
And sometimes, of course, they were, but not always. It grew upon him,
and finally refused to eat anything but boiled eggs! Said nobody could
such a merry soul at one time—very fond of his coffee after dinner. He al-
ways used to say, ‘This coffee is very Moorish,’ meaning, you know, that
he’d like a little more.”
Edward felt that if he heard anymore about Uncle Henry he’d go mad.
“Fond of young people, too,” went on Miss Marple, “but inclined to tease
them a little, if you know what I mean. Used to put bags of sweets where a
child just couldn’t reach them.”
Casting politeness aside, Charmian said, “I think he sounds horrible!”
“Oh, no, dear, just an old bachelor, you know, and not used to children.
And he wasn’t at all stupid, really. He used to keep a good deal of money
in the house, and he had a safe put in. Made a great fuss about it—and
how very secure it was. As a result of his talking so much, burglars broke
in one night and actually cut a hole in the safe with a chemical device.”
“Served him right,” said Edward.
“Oh, but there was nothing in the safe,” said Miss Marple. “You see, he
really kept the money somewhere else—behind some volumes of sermons
in the library, as a matter of fact. He said people never took a book of that
kind out of the shelf!”
Edward interrupted excitedly. “I say, that’s an idea. What about the lib-
rary?”
But Charmian shook a scornful head. “Do you think I hadn’t thought of
that? I went through all the books Tuesday of last week, when you went
off to Portsmouth. Took them all out, shook them. Nothing there.”
Edward sighed. Then, rousing himself, he endeavoured to rid himself
tactfully of their disappointing guest. “It’s been awfully good of you to
come down as you have and try to help us. Sorry it’s been all a washout.
Feel we trespassed33 a lot on your time. However—I’ll get the car out, and
you’ll be able to catch the three thirty—”
“Oh,” said Miss Marple, “but we’ve got to find the money, haven’t we?
You mustn’t give up, Mr. Rossiter. ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try
again.’”
“You mean you’re going to—go on trying?”
“Strictly speaking,” said Miss Marple, “I haven’t begun yet. ‘First catch
your hare—’ as Mrs. Beaton says in her cookery book—a wonderful book
but terribly expensive; most of the recipes begin, ‘Take a quart of cream
and a dozen eggs.’ Let me see, where was I? Oh, yes. Well, we have, so to
speak, caught our hare—the hare being, of course, your Uncle Mathew,
and we’ve only got to decide now where he would have hidden the
money. It ought to be quite simple.”
“Simple?” demanded Charmian.
“Oh, yes, dear. I’m sure he would have done the obvious thing. A secret
drawer—that’s my solution.”
Edward said dryly, “You couldn’t put bars of gold in a secret drawer.”
“No, no, of course not. But there’s no reason to believe the money is in
gold.”
“He always used to say—”
“So did my Uncle Henry about his safe! So I should strongly suspect that
that was just a blind. Diamonds—now they could be in a secret drawer
quite easily.”
“But we’ve looked in all the secret drawers. We had a cabinetmaker
over to examine the furniture.”
“Did you, dear? That was clever of you. I should suggest your uncle’s
own desk would be the most likely. Was it the tall escritoire against the
wall there?”
“Yes. And I’ll show you.” Charmian went over to it. She took down the
flap. Inside were pigeonholes34 and little drawers. She opened a small door
in the centre and touched a spring inside the left-hand drawer. The bot-
revealing a shallow well beneath. It was empty.
“Now isn’t that a coincidence?” exclaimed Miss Marple. “Uncle Henry
“At any rate,” said Charmian, “there’s nothing there, as you can see.”
“I expect,” said Miss Marple, “your cabinetmaker was a young man. He
didn’t know everything. People were very artful when they made hiding
places in those days. There’s such a thing as a secret inside a secret.”
out, she stuck the point into what appeared to be a tiny wormhole in one
side of the secret recess. With a little difficulty she pulled out a small
drawer. In it was a bundle of faded letters and a folded paper.
fingers Edward unfolded the paper. He dropped it with an exclamation40 of
disgust.
“A damned cookery recipe. Baked ham!”
one out and glanced at it. “Love letters!”
Miss Marple reacted with Victorian gusto. “How interesting! Perhaps the
reason your uncle never married.”
Charmian read aloud:
“‘My ever dear Mathew, I must confess that the time seems
long indeed since I received your last letter. I try to occupy
to myself that I am indeed fortunate to see so much of the
globe, though little did I think when I went to America
that I should voyage off to these far islands!’ “
Charmain broke off. “Where is it from? Oh! Hawaii!” She went on:
with garlands of flowers. Mr. Gray has made some con-
verts but it is uphill work, and he and Mrs. Gray get sadly
discouraged. I try to do all I can to cheer and encourage
him, but I, too, am often sad for a reason you can guess,
dear Mathew. Alas, absence is a severe trial for a loving
cheered me greatly. Now and always you have my faithful
true love, Betty Martin.
friend, Matilda Graves, as usual. I hope heaven will par-
don this little subterfuge49.’”
Edward whistled. “A female missionary50! So that was Uncle Mathew’s ro-
mance. I wonder why they never married?”
“She seems to have gone all over the world,” said Charmian, looking
through the letters. “Mauritius—all sorts of places. Probably died of yellow
fever or something.”
A gentle chuckle made them start. Miss Marple was apparently51 much
amused. “Well, well,” she said. “Fancy that, now!”
Serve with a border of pureed spinach.’ What do you think of that, now?”
“I think it sounds filthy,” said Edward.
“No, no, actually it would be very good—but what do you think of the
whole thing?”
A sudden ray of light illuminated55 Edward’s face. “Do you think it’s a
code—cryptogram of some kind?” He seized it. “Look here, Charmian, it
might be, you know! No reason to put a cooking-recipe in a secret drawer
otherwise.”
“Exactly,” said Miss Marple. “Very, very significant.”
Charmian said, “I know what it might be—invisible ink! Let’s heat it.
Turn on the electric fire.”
Edward did so, but no signs of writing appeared under the treatment.
Miss Marple coughed. “I really think, you know, that you’re making it
rather too difficult. The recipe is only an indication, so to speak. It is, I
think, the letters that are significant.”
“The letters?”
“Especially,” said Miss Marple, “the signature.”
But Edward hardly heard her. He called excitedly, “Charmian! Come
here! She’s right. See—the envelopes are old, right enough, but the letters
themselves were written much later.”
“Exactly,” said Miss Marple.
“They’re only fake old. I bet anything old Uncle Mat faked them himself
—”
“Precisely,” said Miss Marple.
“The whole thing’s a sell. There never was a female missionary. It must
be a code.”
“My dear, dear children—there’s really no need to make it all so diffi-
joke, that was all.”
For the first time they gave her their full attention.
“Just exactly what do you mean, Miss Marple?” asked Charmian.
“I mean, dear, that you’re actually holding the money in your hand this
minute.”
Charmian stared down.
“The signature, dear. That gives the whole thing away. The recipe is just
an indication. Shorn of all the cloves and brown sugar and the rest of it,
what is it actually? Why, gammon and spinach to be sure! Gammon and
spinach! Meaning—nonsense! So it’s clear that it’s the letters that are im-
portant. And then, if you take into consideration what your uncle did just
before he died. He tapped his eye, you said. Well, there you are—that
gives you the clue, you see.”
Charmian said, “Are we mad, or are you?”
“Surely, my dear, you must have heard the expression meaning that
something is not a true picture, or has it quite died out nowadays? ‘All my
eye and Betty Martin.’”
—”
“Of course, Mr. Rossiter. As you have just said, there isn’t—there wasn’t
any such person. The letters were written by your uncle, and I dare say he
got a lot of fun out of writing them! As you say, the writing on the envel-
opes is much older—in fact, the envelope couldn’t belong to the letters,
anyway, because the postmark of one you are holding is eighteen fifty-
one.”
plains everything, doesn’t it?”
“Not to me,” said Edward.
“Well, of course,” said Miss Marple, “I dare say it wouldn’t to me if it
weren’t for my great-nephew Lionel. Such a dear little boy and a passion-
ate stamp collector. Knows all about stamps. It was he who told me about
the rare and expensive stamps and that a wonderful new find had come
eighteen fifty- one blue two- cent. It realized something like twenty- five
thousand dollars, I believe. Fancy! I should imagine that the other stamps
are something also rare and expensive. No doubt your uncle bought
ive stories.”
“What’s the matter?” demanded Charmian.
“Nothing. It’s only the awful thought that, but for Miss Marple, we might
have burned these letters in a decent, gentlemanly way!”
“Ah,” said Miss Marple, “that’s just what these old gentlemen who are
fond of their jokes never realize. Uncle Henry, I remember, sent a favour-
ite niece a five-pound note for a Christmas present. He put it in a Christ-
mas card, gummed the card together, and wrote on it, ‘Love and best
wishes. Afraid this is all I can manage this year.’”
“She, poor girl, was annoyed at what she thought was his meanness and
threw it all straight into the fire; then, of course, he had to give her an-
other.”
complete change.
drink the health of your Uncle Henry.”
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