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The two men rounded the corner of the shrubbery.
“Well, there you are,” said Raymond West. “That’s it.”
Horace Bindler took a deep, appreciative2 breath.
“But my dear,” he cried, “how wonderful.” His voice rose in a high
able. Out of this world! A period piece of the best.”
“I thought you’d like it,” said Raymond West, complacently6.
said happily. “I do think, don’t you, that it’s rather amusing to have a col-
lection of monstrosities? The idea came to me one night seven years ago in
think this beats it. What’s it called?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” said Raymond.
“I suppose it’s got a name?”
“It must have. But the fact is that it’s never referred to round here as
anything but Greenshaw’s Folly.”
“Greenshaw being the man who built it?”
“Yes. In eighteen-sixty or seventy or thereabouts. The local success story
of the time. Barefoot boy who had risen to immense prosperity. Local
opinion is divided as to why he built this house, whether it was sheer ex-
latter, it didn’t impress them. He either went bankrupt or the next thing to
it. Hence the name, Greenshaw’s Folly.”
Horace’s camera clicked. “There,” he said in a satisfied voice. “Remind
me to show you No. 310 in my collection. A really incredible marble man-
telpiece in the Italian manner.” He added, looking at the house, “I can’t
conceive of how Mr. Greenshaw thought of it all.”
“Rather obvious in some ways,” said Raymond. “He had visited the
fortunately, he seems to have travelled in the Orient. The influence of the
the traces of a Venetian palace.”
“One wonders how he ever got hold of an architect to carry out these
ideas.”
“No difficulty about that, I expect,” he said. “Probably the architect re-
tired with a good income for life while poor old Greenshaw went bank-
rupt.”
“Could we look at it from the other side?” asked Horace, “or are we tres-
passing!”
“We’re trespassing15 all right,” said Raymond, “but I don’t think it will
matter.”
He turned towards the corner of the house and Horace skipped after
him.
school. No playing fields or brisk efficiency.”
“Oh, a Greenshaw lives here still,” said Raymond over his shoulder. “The
house itself didn’t go in the crash. Old Greenshaw’s son inherited it. He
Probably never had a penny to spend. His daughter lives here now. Old
lady—very eccentric.”
Greenshaw’s Folly as a means of entertaining his guest. These literary crit-
Tomorrow there would be the Sunday papers, and for today Raymond
West congratulated himself on suggesting a visit to Greenshaw’s Folly to
enrich Horace Bindler’s well-known collection of monstrosities.
They turned the corner of the house and came out on a neglected lawn.
In one corner of it was a large artificial rockery, and bending over it was a
figure at sight of which Horace clutched Raymond delightedly by the arm.
“My dear,” he exclaimed, “do you see what she’s got on? A sprigged print
dress. Just like a housemaid—when there were housemaids. One of my
most cherished memories is staying at a house in the country when I was
quite a boy where a real housemaid called you in the morning, all crack-
ling in a print dress and a cap. Yes, my boy, really—a cap. Muslin with
streamers. No, perhaps it was the parlourmaid who had the streamers.
But anyway she was a real housemaid and she brought in an enormous
The figure in the print dress had straightened up and had turned to-
kempt locks of iron-grey fell wispily on her shoulders, a straw hat rather
The coloured print dress she wore fell nearly to her ankles. Out of a
weather-beaten, not-too-clean face, shrewd eyes surveyed them apprais-
ingly.
“I must apologize for trespassing, Miss Greenshaw,” said Raymond West,
as he advanced towards her, “but Mr. Horace Bindler who is staying with
me—”
Horace bowed and removed his hat.
“—is most interested in—er—ancient history and—er—fine buildings.”
Raymond West spoke with the ease of a well-known author who knows
“It is a fine house,” she said appreciatively. “My grandfather built it—be-
tonish the natives.”
“I’ll say he did that, ma’am,” said Horace Bindler.
“Mr. Bindler is the well-known literary critic,” said Raymond West.
mained unimpressed.
“I consider it,” said Miss Greenshaw, referring to the house, “as a monu-
ment to my grandfather’s genius. Silly fools come here, and ask me why I
don’t sell it and go and live in a flat. What would I do in a flat? It’s my
home and I live in it,” said Miss Greenshaw. “Always have lived here.” She
considered, brooding over the past. “There were three of us. Laura mar-
ried the curate. Papa wouldn’t give her any money, said clergymen ought
to be unworldly. She died, having a baby. Baby died too. Nettie ran away
with the riding master. Papa cut her out of his will, of course. Handsome
him. Anyway, she didn’t live long. They had a son. He writes to me some-
times, but of course he isn’t a Greenshaw. I’m the last of the Greenshaws.”
rakish angle of the straw hat. Then, turning, she said sharply,
“Yes, Mrs. Cresswell, what is it?”
Approaching them from the house was a figure that, seen side by side
with Miss Greenshaw, seemed ludicrously dissimilar. Mrs. Cresswell had a
ulously arranged curls and rolls. It was as though she had dressed her
head to go as a French marquise to a fancy-dress party. The rest of her
silk but was actually one of the shinier varieties of black rayon. Although
and the final pronunciation of them with an exaggerated aspirate gave
rise to a suspicion that at some remote period in her youth she might have
had trouble over dropping her h’s.
rived. I have asked Alfred to go down for it and he refuses to do so.”
Rather unexpectedly, Miss Greenshaw gave a cackle of laughter.
“Refuses, does he?”
“Alfred, madam, has been most disobliging.”
Miss Greenshaw raised two earth-stained fingers to her lips, suddenly
produced an ear-splitting whistle and at the same time yelled:
“Alfred. Alfred, come here.”
Round the corner of the house a young man appeared in answer to the
summons, carrying a spade in his hand. He had a bold, handsome face
and as he drew near he cast an unmistakably malevolent42 glance towards
Mrs. Cresswell.
“You wanted me, miss?” he said.
“Yes, Alfred. I hear you’ve refused to go down for the fish. What about it,
eh?”
Alfred spoke in a surly voice.
“I’ll go down for it if you wants it, miss. You’ve only got to say.”
“I do want it. I want it for my supper.”
“Right you are, miss. I’ll go right away.”
mured below her breath:
“Really! It’s unsupportable.”
“Now that I think of it,” said Miss Greenshaw, “a couple of strange visit-
ors are just what we need aren’t they, Mrs. Cresswell?”
Mrs. Cresswell looked puzzled.
“I’m sorry, madam—”
“For you-know-what,” said Miss Greenshaw, nodding her head. “Benefi-
ciary to a will mustn’t witness it. That’s right, isn’t it?” She appealed to
Raymond West.
“Quite correct,” said Raymond.
“I know enough law to know that,” said Miss Greenshaw. “And you two
She flung down her trowel on her weeding basket.
“Would you mind coming up to the library with me?”
“Delighted,” said Horace eagerly.
She led the way through french windows and through a vast yellow and
gold drawing room with faded brocade on the walls and dust covers ar-
ranged over the furniture, then through a large dim hall, up a staircase
and into a room on the first floor.
“My grandfather’s library,” she announced.
Horace looked round the room with acute pleasure. It was a room, from
his point of view, quite full of monstrosities. The heads of sphinxes ap-
bronze representing, he thought, Paul and Virginia, and a vast bronze
“A fine lot of books,” said Miss Greenshaw.
Raymond was already looking at the books. From what he could see
deed, any book which appeared to have been read. They were all superbly
bound sets of the classics as supplied ninety years ago for furnishing a
gentleman’s library. Some novels of a bygone period were included. But
they too showed little signs of having been read.
pulled out a parchment document.
“My will,” she explained. “Got to leave your money to someone—or so
they say. If I died without a will I suppose that son of a horse-coper would
Don’t see why his son should inherit this place. No,” she went on, as
though answering some unspoken objection, “I’ve made up my mind. I’m
leaving it to Cresswell.”
“Your housekeeper50?”
“Yes. I’ve explained it to her. I make a will leaving her all I’ve got and
then I don’t need to pay her any wages. Saves me a lot in current ex-
penses, and it keeps her up to the mark. No giving me notice and walking
off at any minute. Very la-di-dah and all that, isn’t she? But her father was
about.”
She had by now unfolded the parchment. Picking up a pen she dipped it
in the inkstand and wrote her signature, Katherine Dorothy Greenshaw.
“That’s right,” she said. “You’ve seen me sign it, and then you two sign it,
and that makes it legal.”
She handed the pen to Raymond West. He hesitated a moment, feeling
an unexpected repulsion to what he was asked to do. Then he quickly
brought at least six demands a day.
Horace took the pen from him and added his own minute signature.
“That’s done,” said Miss Greenshaw.
She moved across to the bookcase and stood looking at them uncer-
tainly, then she opened a glass door, took out a book and slipped the fol-
ded parchment inside.
“I’ve my own places for keeping things,” she said.
title as she replaced the book.
Miss Greenshaw gave another cackle of laughter.
“Best seller in its day,” she remarked. “Not like your books, eh?”
rather surprised that she even knew he wrote books. Although Raymond
West was quite a name in literature, he could hardly be described as a
“I wonder,” Horace demanded breathlessly, “if I might just take a photo-
graph of the clock?”
“By all means,” said Miss Greenshaw. “It came, I believe, from the Paris
exhibition.”
“Very probably,” said Horace. He took his picture.
“This room’s not been used much since my grandfather’s time,” said
Miss Greenshaw. “This desk’s full of old diaries of his. Interesting, I should
think. I haven’t the eyesight to read them myself. I’d like to get them pub-
lished, but I suppose one would have to work on them a good deal.”
“You could engage someone to do that,” said Raymond West.
“Could I really? It’s an idea, you know. I’ll think about it.”
Raymond West glanced at his watch.
“Pleased to have seen you,” said Miss Greenshaw graciously. “Thought
you were the policeman when I heard you coming round the corner of the
house.”
“Why a policeman?” demanded Horace, who never minded asking ques-
tions.
Miss Greenshaw responded unexpectedly.
“If you want to know the time, ask a policeman,” she carolled, and with
this example of Victorian wit, nudged Horace in the ribs and roared with
laughter.
“It’s been a wonderful afternoon,” sighed Horace as they walked home.
“Really, that place has everything. The only thing the library needs is a
body. Those old-fashioned detective stories about murder in the library—
that’s just the kind of library I’m sure the authors had in mind.”
“If you want to discuss murder,” said Raymond, “you must talk to my
Aunt Jane.”
“Your Aunt Jane? Do you mean Miss Marple?” He felt a little at a loss.
The charming old-world lady to whom he had been introduced the night
before seemed the last person to be mentioned in connection with
murder.
“Oh, yes,” said Raymond. “Murder is a speciality of hers.”
“But my dear, how intriguing59. What do you really mean?”
“I mean just that,” said Raymond. He paraphrased60: “Some commit
murder, some get mixed-up in murders, others have murder thrust upon
them. My Aunt Jane comes into the third category.”
“You are joking.”
“Not in the least. I can refer you to the former Commissioner61 of Scotland
the CID.”
Horace said happily that wonders would never cease. Over the tea table
they gave Joan West, Raymond’s wife, Lou Oxley her niece, and old Miss
Marple, a résumé of the afternoon’s happenings, recounting in detail
everything that Miss Greenshaw had said to them.
about the whole setup. That duchess-like creature, the housekeeper—ar-
senic, perhaps, in the teapot, now that she knows her mistress has made
the will in her favour?”
“Tell us, Aunt Jane,” said Raymond. “Will there be murder or won’t
there? What do you think?”
air, “that you shouldn’t joke about these things as much as you do, Ray-
“Oh, really, darling,” said Joan West, affectionately. “Wouldn’t that be
rather too obvious?”
“It’s all very well to make a will,” said Raymond, “I don’t suppose really
the poor old thing has anything to leave except that awful white elephant
of a house, and who would want that?”
“A film company possibly,” said Horace, “or a hotel or an institution?”
“They’d expect to buy it for a song,” said Raymond, but Miss Marple was
shaking her head.
“You know, dear Raymond, I cannot agree with you there. About the
ers who make money easily, but can’t keep it. He may have gone broke, as
you say, but hardly bankrupt or else his son would not have had the
acter to his father. A miser. A man who saved every penny. I should say
that in the course of his lifetime he probably put by a very good sum. This
Miss Greenshaw appears to have taken after him, to dislike spending
money, that is. Yes, I should think it quite likely that she had quite a good
sum tucked away.”
“In that case,” said Joan West, “I wonder now—what about Lou?”
They looked at Lou as she sat, silent, by the fire.
Lou was Joan West’s niece. Her marriage had recently, as she herself
put it, come unstuck, leaving her with two young children and a bare suffi-
ciency of money to keep them on.
“I mean,” said Joan, “if this Miss Greenshaw really wants someone to go
through diaries and get a book ready for publication. . . .”
“It’s an idea,” said Raymond.
Lou said in a low voice:
“It’s work I could do—and I’d enjoy it.”
“I’ll write to her,” said Raymond.
“I wonder,” said Miss Marple thoughtfully, “what the old lady meant by
that remark about a policeman?”
“Oh, it was just a joke.”
“It reminded me,” said Miss Marple, nodding her head vigorously, “yes,
it reminded me very much of Mr. Naysmith.”
“He kept bees,” said Miss Marple, “and was very good at doing the ac-
rostics in the Sunday papers. And he liked giving people false impressions
just for fun. But sometimes it led to trouble.”
Everybody was silent for a moment, considering Mr. Naysmith, but as
there did not seem to be any points of resemblance between him and Miss
bit disconnected in her old age.
Horace Bindler went back to London without having collected any more
monstrosities and Raymond West wrote a letter to Miss Greenshaw telling
her that he knew of a Mrs. Louisa Oxley who would be competent to un-
written in spidery old-fashioned handwriting, in which Miss Greenshaw
declared herself anxious to avail herself of the services of Mrs. Oxley, and
making an appointment for Mrs. Oxley to come and see her.
Lou duly kept the appointment, generous terms were arranged and she
started work on the following day.
them up on my way back. How fantastic the whole setup is! That old wo-
man has to be seen to be believed.”
On the evening of her first day at work she returned and described her
day.
“I’ve hardly seen the housekeeper,” she said. “She came in with coffee
and prisms, and would hardly speak to me. I think she disapproves78 deeply
between her and the gardener, Alfred. He’s a local boy and fairly lazy, I
should imagine, and he and the housekeeper won’t speak to each other.
Miss Greenshaw said in her rather grand way, ‘There have always been
was so in my grandfather’s time. There were three men and a boy in the
On the following day Lou returned with another piece of news.
“Just fancy,” she said, “I was asked to ring up the nephew this morning.”
“Miss Greenshaw’s nephew?”
“Yes. It seems he’s an actor playing in the company that’s doing a sum-
mer season at Boreham on Sea. I rang up the theatre and left a message
asking him to lunch tomorrow. Rather fun, really. The old girl didn’t want
the housekeeper to know. I think Mrs. Cresswell has done something that’s
annoyed her.”
mond.
“It’s exactly like a serial, isn’t it? Reconciliation83 with the nephew, blood
is thicker than water — another will to be made and the old will des-
troyed.”
“Aunt Jane, you’re looking very serious.”
“Was I, my dear? Have you heard anymore about the policeman?”
Lou looked bewildered. “I don’t know anything about a policeman.”
“That remark of hers, my dear,” said Miss Marple, “must have meant
something.”
Lou arrived at her work the next day in a cheerful mood. She passed
through the open front door—the doors and windows of the house were
always open. Miss Greenshaw appeared to have no fear of burglars, and
and were of no marketable value.
Lou had passed Alfred in the drive. When she first caught sight of him
he had been leaning against a tree smoking a cigarette, but as soon as he
had caught sight of her he had seized a broom and begun diligently85 to
sweep leaves. An idle young man, she thought, but good-looking. His fea-
tures reminded her of someone. As she passed through the hall on her
way upstairs to the library she glanced at the large picture of Nathaniel
Greenshaw which presided over the mantelpiece, showing him in the
resting on the gold albert across his capacious stomach. As her glance
swept up from the stomach to the face with its heavy jowls, its bushy eye-
brows and its flourishing black moustache, the thought occurred to her
that Nathaniel Greenshaw must have been handsome as a young man. He
had looked, perhaps, a little like Alfred. . . .
She went into the library, shut the door behind her, opened her type-
writer and got out the diaries from the drawer at the side of the desk.
Through the open window she caught a glimpse of Miss Greenshaw in a
puce-coloured sprigged print, bending over the rockery, weeding assidu-
ously. They had had two wet days, of which the weeds had taken full ad-
vantage.
Lou, a town-bred girl, decided that if she ever had a garden it would
never contain a rockery which needed hand weeding. Then she settled
down to her work.
When Mrs. Cresswell entered the library with the coffee tray at half past
eleven, she was clearly in a very bad temper. She banged the tray down
on the table, and observed to the universe.
“Company for lunch—and nothing in the house! What am I supposed to
do, I should like to know? And no sign of Alfred.”
“I dare say. A nice soft job.”
Mrs. Cresswell swept out of the room and banged the door behind her.
Lou grinned to herself. She wondered what “the nephew” would be like.
She finished her coffee and settled down to her work again. It was so ab-
sorbing that time passed quickly. Nathaniel Greenshaw, when he started
passage relating to the personal charm of a barmaid in the neighbouring
town, Lou reflected that a good deal of editing would be necessary.
As she was thinking this, she was startled by a scream from the garden.
Jumping up, she ran to the open window. Miss Greenshaw was staggering
away from the rockery towards the house. Her hands were clasped to her
cognized with stupefaction to be the shaft of an arrow.
breast. She called up to Lou in a failing voice: “. . . shot. . . he shot me . . .
with an arrow . . . get help. . . .”
Lou rushed to the door. She turned the handle, but the door would not
was locked in. She rushed back to the window.
“I’m locked in.”
Miss Greenshaw, her back towards Lou, and swaying a little on her feet
was calling up to the housekeeper at a window farther along.
“Ring police . . . telephone. . . .”
Then, lurching from side to side like a drunkard she disappeared from
Lou’s view through the window below into the drawing room. A moment
later Lou heard a crash of broken china, a heavy fall, and then silence. Her
imagination reconstructed the scene. Miss Greenshaw must have
staggered blindly into a small table with a Sèvres tea set on it.
Desperately93 Lou pounded on the door, calling and shouting. There was
no creeper or drainpipe outside the window that could help her to get out
that way.
Tired at last of beating on the door, she returned to the window. From
the window of her sitting room farther along, the housekeeper’s head ap-
peared.
“Come and let me out, Mrs. Oxley. I’m locked in.”
“So am I.”
“Oh dear, isn’t it awful? I’ve telephoned the police. There’s an extension
in this room, but what I can’t understand, Mrs. Oxley, is our being locked
in. I never heard a key turn, did you?”
“No. I didn’t hear anything at all. Oh dear, what shall we do? Perhaps Al-
fred might hear us.” Lou shouted at the top of her voice, “Alfred, Alfred.”
“Gone to his dinner as likely as not. What time is it?”
Lou glanced at her watch.
“Twenty-five past twelve.”
whenever he can.”
“Do you think—do you think—”
Lou meant to ask “Do you think she’s dead?” but the words stuck in her
throat.
There was nothing to do but wait. She sat down on the window-sill. It
came round the corner of the house. She leant out of the window and he
looked up at her, shading his eyes with his hand. When he spoke his voice
“What’s going on here?” he asked disapprovingly98.
From their respective windows, Lou and Mrs. Cresswell poured a flood
of excited information down on him.
The constable produced a notebook and pencil. “You ladies ran upstairs
and locked yourselves in? Can I have your names, please?”
“No. Somebody else locked us in. Come and let us out.”
The constable said reprovingly, “All in good time,” and disappeared
through the window below.
Once again time seemed infinite. Lou heard the sound of a car arriving,
and, after what seemed an hour, but was actually three minutes, first Mrs.
than the original constable.
The sergeant cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you, madam,” he said, “what I’ve already told
Mrs. Cresswell here. Miss Greenshaw is dead.”
“Murdered,” said Mrs. Cresswell. “That’s what it is—murder.”
“Could have been an accident—some country lads shooting with bows
and arrows.”
Again there was the sound of a car arriving. The sergeant said:
“That’ll be the MO,” and started downstairs.
But it was not the MO. As Lou and Mrs. Cresswell came down the stairs a
young man stepped hesitatingly through the front door and paused, look-
ing round him with a somewhat bewildered air.
Then, speaking in a pleasant voice that in some way seemed familiar to
Lou — perhaps it had a family resemblance to Miss Greenshaw’s — he
asked:
“Excuse me, does—er—does Miss Greenshaw live here?”
“May I have your name if you please,” said the sergeant advancing upon
him.
“Fletcher,” said the young man. “Nat Fletcher. I’m Miss Green-shaw’s
nephew, as a matter of fact.”
“Indeed, sir, well—I’m sorry—I’m sure—”
“Has anything happened?” asked Nat Fletcher.
“There’s been an—accident—your aunt was shot with an arrow—penet-
“Your h’aunt’s been murdered, that’s what’s ’appened. Your h ’aunt’s
been murdered.”
wander from one to the other of the four people in the room. It was the
evening of the same day. He had called at the Wests’ house to take Lou Ox-
ley once more over her statement.
“You are sure of the exact words? Shot—he shot me—with an arrow—get
help?”
Lou nodded.
“And the time?”
“I looked at my watch a minute or two later—it was then twelve twenty-
five.”
“Your watch keeps good time?”
“I looked at the clock as well.”
The inspector turned to Raymond West.
“It appears, sir, that about a week ago you and a Mr. Horace Bindler
were witnesses to Miss Greenshaw’s will?”
Horace Bindler had paid to Greenshaw’s Folly.
shaw distinctly told you, did she, that her will was being made in favour of
Mrs. Cresswell, the housekeeper, that she was not paying Mrs. Cresswell
any wages in view of the expectations Mrs. Cresswell had of profiting by
her death?”
“That is what she told me—yes.”
“Would you say that Mrs. Cresswell was definitely aware of these facts?”
“I should say undoubtedly107. Miss Greenshaw made a reference in my
presence to beneficiaries not being able to witness a will and Mrs. Cress-
well clearly understood what she meant by it. Moreover, Miss Greenshaw
herself told me that she had come to this arrangement with Mrs. Cress-
well.”
“So Mrs. Cresswell had reason to believe she was an interested party.
pect now if it wasn’t for the fact that she was securely locked in her room
like Mrs. Oxley here, and also that Miss Greenshaw definitely said a man
shot her—”
“She definitely was locked in her room?”
“Oh yes. Sergeant Cayley let her out. It’s a big old-fashioned lock with a
big old-fashioned key. The key was in the lock and there’s not a chance
that it could have been turned from inside or any hanky-panky of that
kind. No, you can take it definitely that Mrs. Cresswell was locked inside
that room and couldn’t get out. And there were no bows and arrows in the
room and Miss Greenshaw couldn’t in any case have been shot from a
window—the angle forbids it—no, Mrs. Cresswell’s out of it.”
He paused and went on:
“Would you say that Miss Greenshaw, in your opinion, was a practical
joker?”
Miss Marple looked up sharply from her corner.
“So the will wasn’t in Mrs. Cresswell’s favour after all?” she said.
Inspector Welch looked over at her in a rather surprised fashion.
“That’s a very clever guess of yours, madam,” he said. “No. Mrs. Cress-
well isn’t named as beneficiary.”
“Just like Mr. Naysmith,” said Miss Marple, nodding her head. “Miss
Greenshaw told Mrs. Cresswell she was going to leave her everything and
so got out of paying her wages; and then she left her money to somebody
else. No doubt she was vastly pleased with herself. No wonder she
chortled when she put the will away in Lady Audley’s Secret.”
“It was lucky Mrs. Oxley was able to tell us about the will and where it
was put,” said the inspector. “We might have had a long hunt for it other-
wise.”
“A Victorian sense of humour,” murmured Raymond West. “So she left
her money to her nephew after all,” said Lou.
The inspector shook his head.
“No,” he said, “she didn’t leave it to Nat Fletcher. The story goes around
here — of course I’m new to the place and I only get the gossip that’s
secondhand—but it seems that in the old days both Miss Greenshaw and
her sister were set on the handsome young riding master, and the sister
got him. No, she didn’t leave the money to her nephew—” He paused, rub-
bing his chin, “She left it to Alfred,” he said.
“Alfred—the gardener?” Joan spoke in a surprised voice.
“Yes, Mrs. West. Alfred Pollock.”
“But why?” cried Lou.
Miss Marple coughed and murmured:
“I should imagine, though perhaps I am wrong, that there may have
been—what we might call family reasons.”
“You could call them that in a way,” agreed the inspector. “It’s quite
well-known in the village, it seems, that Thomas Pollock, Alfred’s grand-
father, was one of old Mr. Greenshaw’s by-blows.”
“Of course,” cried Lou, “the resemblance! I saw it this morning.”
She remembered how after passing Alfred she had come into the house
and looked up at old Greenshaw’s portrait.
“I dare say,” said Miss Marple, “that she thought Alfred Pollock might
have a pride in the house, might even want to live in it, whereas her
nephew would almost certainly have no use for it whatever and would
sell it as soon as he could possibly do so. He’s an actor, isn’t he? What play
Trust an old lady to wander from the point, thought Inspector Welch,
but he replied civilly:
“I believe, madam, they are doing a season of James Barrie’s plays.”
“Barrie,” said Miss Marple thoughtfully.
“What Every Woman Knows,” said Inspector Welch, and then blushed.
“Name of a play,” he said quickly. “I’m not much of a theatregoer myself,”
he added, “but the wife went along and saw it last week. Quite well done,
she said it was.”
“Barrie wrote some very charming plays,” said Miss Marple, “though I
must say that when I went with an old friend of mine, General Easterly, to
see Barrie’s Little Mary—” she shook her head sadly, “—neither of us knew
where to look.”
The inspector, unacquainted with the play Little Mary looked completely
fogged. Miss Marple explained:
“When I was a girl, Inspector, nobody ever mentioned the word stom-
ach.”
The inspector looked even more at sea. Miss Marple was murmuring
titles under her breath.
“The Admirable Crichton. Very clever. Mary Rose—a charming play. I
cried, I remember. Quality Street I didn’t care for so much. Then there was
A Kiss for Cinderella. Oh, of course.”
Inspector Welch had no time to waste on theatrical110 discussion. He re-
turned to the matter in hand.
“The question is,” he said, “did Alfred Pollock know that the old lady had
made a will in his favour? Did she tell him?” He added: “You see—there’s
an archery club over at Boreham Lovell and Alfred Pollock’s a member.
He’s a very good shot indeed with a bow and arrow.”
“Then isn’t your case quite clear?” asked Raymond West. “It would fit in
with the doors being locked on the two women—he’d know just where
they were in the house.”
The inspector looked at him. He spoke with deep melancholy111.
“He’s got an alibi,” said the inspector.
“Maybe, sir,” said Inspector Welch. “You’re talking as a writer.”
“Easy enough to say that alibis are suspicious,” went on Inspector
Welch, “but unfortunately we’ve got to deal with facts.”
He sighed.
“We’ve got three good suspects,” he said. “Three people who, as it
happened, were very close upon the scene at the time. Yet the odd thing is
that it looks as though none of the three could have done it. The house-
keeper I’ve already dealt with—the nephew, Nat Fletcher, at the moment
Miss Greenshaw was shot, was a couple of miles away filling up his car at
a garage and asking his way—as for Alfred Pollock six people will swear
that he entered the Dog and Duck at twenty past twelve and was there for
an hour having his usual bread and cheese and beer.”
“Deliberately establishing an alibi,” said Raymond West hopefully.
“Maybe,” said Inspector Welch, “but if so, he did establish it.”
There was a long silence. Then Raymond turned his head to where Miss
Marple sat upright and thoughtful.
“It’s up to you, Aunt Jane,” he said. “The inspector’s baffled, the ser-
geant’s baffled, I’m baffled, Joan’s baffled, Lou is baffled. But to you, Aunt
Jane, it is crystal clear. Am I right?”
“I wouldn’t say that, dear,” said Miss Marple, “not crystal clear, and
murder, dear Raymond, isn’t a game. I don’t suppose poor Miss Green-
planned and quite cold-blooded. It’s not a thing to make jokes about!”
sound. One treats a thing lightly to take away from the—well, the horror
of it.”
“That is, I believe, the modern tendency,” said Miss Marple, “All these
wars, and having to joke about funerals. Yes, perhaps I was thoughtless
when I said you were callous.”
“It isn’t,” said Joan, “as though we’d known her at all well.”
“That is very true,” said Miss Marple. “You, dear Joan, did not know her
at all. I did not know her at all. Raymond gathered an impression of her
from one afternoon’s conversation. Lou knew her for two days.”
“Come now, Aunt Jane,” said Raymond, “tell us your views. You don’t
mind, Inspector?”
“Not at all,” said the inspector politely.
“Well, my dear, it would seem that we have three people who had, or
might have thought they had, a motive to kill the old lady. And three quite
simple reasons why none of the three could have done so. The house-
keeper could not have done so because she was locked in her room and
because Miss Greenshaw definitely stated that a man shot her. The
gardener could not have done it because he was inside the Dog and Duck
at the time the murder was committed, the nephew could not have done it
because he was still some distance away in his car at the time of the
murder.”
“Very clearly put, madam,” said the inspector.
“And since it seems most unlikely that any outsider should have done it,
where, then, are we?”
“That’s what the inspector wants to know,” said Raymond West.
“One so often looks at a thing the wrong way round,” said Miss Marple
apologetically. “If we can’t alter the movements or the position of those
three people, then couldn’t we perhaps alter the time of the murder?”
“You mean that both my watch and the clock were wrong?” asked Lou.
“No dear,” said Miss Marple, “I didn’t mean that at all. I mean that the
murder didn’t occur when you thought it occurred.”
“But I saw it,” cried Lou.
“Well, what I have been wondering, my dear, was whether you weren’t
meant to see it. I’ve been asking myself, you know, whether that wasn’t
the real reason why you were engaged for this job.”
“What do you mean, Aunt Jane?”
“Well, dear, it seems odd. Miss Greenshaw did not like spending money,
and yet she engaged you and agreed quite willingly to the terms you
asked. It seems to me that perhaps you were meant to be there in that lib-
rary on the first floor, looking out of the window so that you could be the
key witness—someone from outside of irreproachable118 good faith—to fix a
definite time and place for the murder.”
“But you can’t mean,” said Lou, incredulously, “that Miss Greenshaw in-
tended to be murdered.”
“What I mean, dear,” said Miss Marple, “is that you didn’t really know
Miss Greenshaw. There’s no real reason, is there, why the Miss Greenshaw
you saw when you went up to the house should be the same Miss Green-
shaw that Raymond saw a few days earlier? Oh, yes, I know,” she went on,
dress and the strange straw hat, and had unkempt hair. She corresponded
exactly to the description Raymond gave us last weekend. But those two
women, you know, were much of an age and height and size. The house-
keeper, I mean, and Miss Greenshaw.”
“But the housekeeper is fat!” Lou exclaimed. “She’s got an enormous
Miss Marple coughed.
“But my dear, surely, nowadays I have seen—er—them myself in shops
most indelicately displayed. It is very easy for anyone to have a—a bust—
of any size and dimension.”
“What are you trying to say?” demanded Raymond.
“I was just thinking, dear, that during the two or three days Lou was
working there, one woman could have played the two parts. You said
yourself, Lou, that you hardly saw the housekeeper, except for the one
moment in the morning when she brought you in the tray with coffee.
One sees those clever artists on the stage coming in as different characters
with only a minute or two to spare, and I am sure the change could have
slipped on and off.”
“Aunt Jane! Do you mean that Miss Greenshaw was dead before I star-
“Not dead. Kept under drugs, I should say. A very easy job for an un-
scrupulous122 woman like the housekeeper to do. Then she made the ar-
rangements with you and got you to telephone to the nephew to ask him
to lunch at a definite time. The only person who would have known that
this Miss Greenshaw was not Miss Greenshaw would have been Alfred.
And if you remember, the first two days you were working there it was
wet, and Miss Greenshaw stayed in the house. Alfred never came into the
house because of his feud with the housekeeper. And on the last morning
Alfred was in the drive, while Miss Greenshaw was working on the rock-
ery—I’d like to have a look at that rockery.”
“Do you mean it was Mrs. Cresswell who killed Miss Greenshaw?”
“I think that after bringing you your coffee, the woman locked the door
on you as she went out, carried the unconscious Miss Greenshaw down to
the drawing room, then assumed her ‘Miss Greenshaw’ disguise and went
out to work on the rockery where you could see her from the window. In
due course she screamed and came staggering to the house clutching an
arrow as though it had penetrated123 her throat. She called for help and was
careful to say ‘he shot me’ so as to remove suspicion from the house-
keeper. She also called up to the housekeeper’s window as though she saw
her there. Then, once inside the drawing room, she threw over a table
and was able a few moments later to lean her head out of the window and
tell you that she, too, was locked in.”
“But she was locked in,” said Lou.
“I know. That is where the policeman comes in.”
“What policeman?”
“Exactly — what policeman? I wonder, Inspector, if you would mind
telling me how and when you arrived on the scene?”
The inspector looked a little puzzled.
“At twelve twenty-nine we received a telephone call from Mrs. Cress-
well, housekeeper to Miss Greenshaw, stating that her mistress had been
shot. Sergeant Cayley and myself went out there at once in a car and ar-
rived at the house at twelve thirty-five. We found Miss Greenshaw dead
and the two ladies locked in their rooms.”
“So, you see, my dear,” said Miss Marple to Lou. “The police constable
you saw wasn’t a real police constable. You never thought of him again—
one doesn’t—one just accepts one more uniform as part of the law.”
“But who—why?”
“As to who—well, if they are playing A Kiss for Cinderella, a policeman is
the principal character. Nat Fletcher would only have to help himself to
the costume he wears on the stage. He’d ask his way at a garage being
careful to call attention to the time—twelve twenty-five, then drive on
quickly, leave his car round a corner, slip on his police uniform and do his
‘act.’”
“But why?—why?”
“Someone had to lock the housekeeper’s door on the outside, and
someone had to drive the arrow through Miss Greenshaw’s throat. You
can stab anyone with an arrow just as well as by shooting it—but it needs
force.”
“You mean they were both in it?”
“Oh yes, I think so. Mother and son as likely as not.”
“But Miss Greenshaw’s sister died long ago.”
“Yes, but I’ve no doubt Mr. Fletcher married again. He sounds the sort of
man who would, and I think it possible that the child died too, and that
this so-called nephew was the second wife’s child, and not really a relation
at all. The woman got a post as housekeeper and spied out the land. Then
he wrote as her nephew and proposed to call upon her—he may have
made some joking reference to coming in his policeman’s uniform—or
asked her over to see the play. But I think she suspected the truth and re-
fused to see him. He would have been her heir if she had died without
making a will — but of course once she had made a will in the house-
keeper’s favour (as they thought) then it was clear sailing.”
“But why use an arrow?” objected Joan. “So very far-fetched.”
“Not far-fetched at all, dear. Alfred belonged to an archery club—Alfred
was meant to take the blame. The fact that he was in the pub as early as
twelve twenty was most unfortunate from their point of view. He always
left a little before his proper time and that would have been just right—”
she shook her head. “It really seems all wrong—morally, I mean, that Al-
fred’s laziness should have saved his life.”
The inspector cleared his throat.
“Well, madam, these suggestions of yours are very interesting. I shall
have, of course, to investigate—”
Miss Marple and Raymond West stood by the rockery and looked down at
that gardening basket full of dying vegetation.
Miss Marple murmured:
“Alyssum, saxifrage, cytisus, thimble campanula . . . Yes, that’s all the
proof I need. Whoever was weeding here yesterday morning was no
gardener—she pulled up plants as well as weeds. So now I know I’m right.
Thank you, dear Raymond, for bringing me here. I wanted to see the place
for myself.”
She and Raymond both looked up at the outrageous125 pile of Greenshaw’s
Folly.
A cough made them turn. A handsome young man was also looking at
the house.
“Plaguey big place,” he said. “Too big for nowadays—or so they say. I
dunno about that. If I won a football pool and made a lot of money, that’s
the kind of house I’d like to build.”
He smiled bashfully at them.
“Reckon I can say so now — that there house was built by my great-
grandfather,” said Alfred Pollock. “And a fine house it is, for all they call it
Greenshaw’s Folly!”
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