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The vicar’s wife came round the corner of the vicarage with her arms full
of chrysanthemums2. A good deal of rich garden soil was attached to her
strong brogue shoes and a few fragments of earth were adhering to her
She had a slight struggle in opening the vicarage gate which hung, rust-
ing it to sit even more rakishly than it had done before. “Bother!” said
Bunch.
Christened by her optimistic parents Diana, Mrs. Harmon had become
Bunch at an early age for somewhat obvious reasons and the name had
stuck to her ever since. Clutching the chrysanthemums, she made her way
through the gate to the churchyard, and so to the church door.
with patches of blue here and there. Inside, the church was dark and cold;
it was unheated except at service times.
“Brrrrrh!” said Bunch expressively7. “I’d better get on with this quickly. I
don’t want to die of cold.”
With the quickness born of practice she collected the necessary
thought Bunch to herself. “I get so tired of these scraggy chrysanthem-
ums.” Her nimble fingers arranged the blooms in their holders.
tions, for Bunch Harmon herself was neither original nor artistic, but it
did so the sun came out.
It shone through the east window of somewhat crude coloured glass,
mostly blue and red—the gift of a wealthy Victorian churchgoer. The ef-
Bunch. Suddenly she stopped, staring ahead of her. On the chancel steps
It was a man lying there, huddled over on himself. Bunch knelt down by
him and slowly, carefully, she turned him over. Her fingers went to his
pulse—a pulse so feeble and fluttering that it told its own story, as did the
almost greenish pallor of his face. There was no doubt, Bunch thought,
that the man was dying.
He was a man of about forty-five, dressed in a dark, shabby suit. She
laid down the limp hand she had picked up and looked at his other hand.
saw that the fingers were closed over what seemed to be a large wad or
handkerchief which he was holding tightly to his chest. All round the
clenched hand there were splashes of a dry brown fluid which, Bunch
guessed, was dry blood. Bunch sat back on her heels, frowning.
Up till now the man’s eyes had been closed but at this point they sud-
moved, and Bunch bent forward to catch the words, or rather the word. It
was only one word that he said:
“Sanctuary.”
There was, she thought, just a very faint smile as he breathed out this
word. There was no mistaking it, for after a moment he said it again,
“Sanctuary. . . .”
more Bunch’s fingers went to his pulse. It was still there, but fainter now
and more intermittent21. She got up with decision.
“Don’t move,” she said, “or try to move. I’m going for help.”
The man’s eyes opened again but he seemed now to be fixing his atten-
tion on the coloured light that came through the east window. He mur-
mured something that Bunch could not quite catch. She thought, startled,
that it might have been her husband’s name.
“Julian?” she said. “Did you come here to find Julian?” But there was no
answer. The man lay with eyes closed, his breathing coming in slow, shal-
low fashion.
Bunch turned and left the church rapidly. She glanced at her watch and
nodded with some satisfaction. Dr. Griffiths would still be in his surgery. It
was only a couple of minutes’ walk from the church. She went in, without
waiting to knock or ring, passing through the waiting room and into the
doctor’s surgery.
“You must come at once,” said Bunch. “There’s a man dying in the
church.”
Some minutes later Dr. Griffiths rose from his knees after a brief exam-
ination.
“Can we move him from here into the vicarage? I can attend to him bet-
ter there—not that it’s any use.”
“Of course,” said Bunch. “I’ll go along and get things ready. I’ll get
Harper and Jones, shall I? To help you carry him.”
“Thanks. I can telephone from the vicarage for an ambulance, but I’m
afraid—by the time it comes. . . .” He left the remark unfinished.
Bunch said, “Internal bleeding?”
Dr. Griffiths nodded. He said, “How on earth did he come here?”
“I think he must have been here all night,” said Bunch, considering.
“Harper unlocks the church in the morning as he goes to work, but he
doesn’t usually come in.”
It was about five minutes later when Dr. Griffiths put down the tele-
phone receiver and came back into the morning room where the injured
man was lying on quickly arranged blankets on the sofa. Bunch was mov-
ing a basin of water and clearing up after the doctor’s examination.
“Well, that’s that,” said Griffiths. “I’ve sent for an ambulance and I’ve
notified the police.” He stood, frowning, looking down on the patient who
lay with closed eyes. His left hand was plucking in a nervous, spasmodic
way at his side.
“He was shot,” said Griffiths. “Shot at fairly close quarters. He rolled his
handkerchief up into a ball and plugged the wound with it so as to stop
the bleeding.”
“Could he have gone far after that happened?” Bunch asked.
“Oh, yes, it’s quite possible. A mortally wounded man has been known
to pick himself up and walk along a street as though nothing had
needn’t have been shot in the church. Oh no. He may have been shot some
distance away. Of course, he may have shot himself and then dropped the
revolver and staggered blindly towards the church. I don’t quite know
why he made for the church and not for the vicarage.”
“Oh, I know that,” said Bunch. “He said it: ‘Sanctuary.’”
The doctor stared at her. “Sanctuary?”
“Here’s Julian,” said Bunch, turning her head as she heard her hus-
band’s steps in the hall. “Julian! Come here.”
The Reverend Julian Harmon entered the room. His vague, scholarly
manner always made him appear much older than he really was. “Dear
Bunch explained with her usual economy of words. “He was in the
church, dying. He’d been shot. Do you know him, Julian? I thought he said
your name.”
The vicar came up to the sofa and looked down at the dying man. “Poor
fellow,” he said, and shook his head. “No, I don’t know him. I’m almost
sure I’ve never seen him before.”
At that moment the dying man’s eyes opened once more. They went
from the doctor to Julian Harmon and from him to his wife. The eyes
stayed there, staring into Bunch’s face. Griffiths stepped forward.
“If you could tell us,” he said urgently.
But with eyes fixed on Bunch, the man said in a weak voice, “Please—
“So that’s all you can tell me, Mrs. Harmon?”
“That’s all,” said Bunch. “These are the things out of his coat pockets.”
On a table at Sergeant Hayes’s elbow was a wallet, a rather battered old
watch with the initials W.S. and the return half of a ticket to London.
Nothing more.
“You’ve found out who he is?” asked Bunch.
“A Mr. and Mrs. Eccles phoned up the station. He’s her brother, it seems.
Name of Sandbourne. Been in a low state of health and nerves for some
time. He’s been getting worse lately. The day before yesterday he walked
out and didn’t come back. He took a revolver with him.”
“And he came out here and shot himself with it?” said Bunch. “Why?”
Bunch interrupted him. “I don’t mean that. I mean, why here?”
Since Sergeant Hayes obviously did not know the answer to that one, he
“Yes,” said Bunch again. “But why?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Harmon,” said Sergeant Hayes. “There’s no account-
ing. If the balance of the mind is disturbed—”
Bunch finished for him. “They may do it anywhere. But it still seems to
me unnecessary to take a bus out to a small country place like this. He
didn’t know anyone here, did he?”
“Not so far as can be ascertained,” said Sergeant Hayes. He coughed in
an apologetic manner and said, as he rose to his feet, “It may be as Mr.
and Mrs. Eccles will come out and see you, ma’am—if you don’t mind, that
is.”
“Of course I don’t mind,” said Bunch. “It’s very natural. I only wish I had
something to tell them.”
“I’ll be getting along,” said Sergeant Hayes.
“I’m only so thankful,” said Bunch, going with him to the front door,
“that it wasn’t murder.”
A car had driven up at the vicarage gate. Sergeant Hayes, glancing at it,
remarked: “Looks as though that’s Mr. and Mrs. Eccles come here now,
ma’am, to talk with you.”
Exactly what she had expected Mr. and Mrs. Eccles to be like, Bunch
could not have said, but she was conscious, as she greeted them, of a feel-
look about her. She had a small, mean, pursed-up mouth. Her voice was
thin and reedy.
“It’s been a terrible shock, Mrs. Harmon, as you can imagine,” she said.
“Oh, I know,” said Bunch. “It must have been. Do sit down. Can I offer
you—well, perhaps it’s a little early for tea—”
Mr. Eccles waved a pudgy hand. “No, no, nothing for us,” he said. “It’s
very kind of you, I’m sure. Just wanted to . . . well . . . what poor William
said and all that, you know?”
“He’s been abroad a long time,” said Mrs. Eccles, “and I think he must
have had some very nasty experiences. Very quiet and depressed he’s
been, ever since he came home. Said the world wasn’t fit to live in and
Bunch stared at them both for a moment or two without speaking.
“Pinched my husband’s revolver, he did,” went on Mrs. Eccles. “Without
our knowing. Then it seems he come here by bus. I suppose that was nice
feeling on his part. He wouldn’t have liked to do it in our house.”
“Poor fellow, poor fellow,” said Mr. Eccles, with a sigh. “It doesn’t do to
judge.”
There was another short pause, and Mr. Eccles said, “Did he leave a mes-
His bright, rather pig-like eyes watched Bunch closely. Mrs. Eccles, too,
leaned forward as though anxious for the reply.
“No,” said Bunch quietly. “He came into the church when he was dying,
for sanctuary.”
Mrs. Eccles said in a puzzled voice. “Sanctuary? I don’t think I quite
. . . .”
Mr. Eccles interrupted. “Holy place, my dear,” he said impatiently.
“That’s what the vicar’s wife means. It’s a sin—suicide, you know. I expect
“He tried to say something just before he died,” said Bunch. “He began,
‘Please,’ but that’s as far as he got.”
said. “It’s terribly upsetting, isn’t it?”
“There, there, Pam,” said her husband. “Don’t take on. These things can’t
be helped. Poor Willie. Still, he’s at peace now. Well, thank you very much,
Mrs. Harmon. I hope we haven’t interrupted you. A vicar’s wife is a busy
lady, we know that.”
They shook hands with her. Then Eccles turned back suddenly to say,
“Oh yes, there’s just one other thing. I think you’ve got his coat here,
haven’t you?”
“His coat?” Bunch frowned.
Mrs. Eccles said, “We’d like all his things, you know. Sentimental40-like.”
“He had a watch and a wallet and a railway ticket in the pockets,” said
Bunch. “I gave them to Sergeant Hayes.”
“That’s all right, then,” said Mr. Eccles. “He’ll hand them over to us, I ex-
pect. His private papers would be in the wallet.”
“There was a pound note in the wallet,” said Bunch. “Nothing else.”
“No letters? Nothing like that?”
Bunch shook her head.
“Well, thank you again, Mrs. Harmon. The coat he was wearing—per-
Bunch frowned in an effort of remembrance.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think . . . let me see. The doctor and I took his
coat off to examine his wound.” She looked round the room vaguely. “I
must have taken it upstairs with the towels and basin.”
“I wonder now, Mrs. Harmon, if you don’t mind . . . We’d like his coat,
you know, the last thing he wore. Well, the wife feels rather sentimental
about it.”
“Of course,” said Bunch. “Would you like me to have it cleaned first? I’m
afraid it’s rather—well—stained.”
“Oh, no, no, no, that doesn’t matter.”
Bunch frowned. “Now I wonder where . . . excuse me a moment.” She
went upstairs and it was some few minutes before she returned.
“I’m so sorry,” she said breathlessly, “my daily woman must have put it
aside with other clothes that were going to the cleaners. It’s taken me
quite a long time to find it. Here it is. I’ll do it up for you in brown paper.”
her farewell the Eccleses departed.
Bunch went slowly back across the hall and entered the study. The Rev-
erend Julian Harmon looked up and his brow cleared. He was composing
a sermon and was fearing that he’d been led astray by the interest of the
“Yes, dear?” he said hopefully.
“Julian,” said Bunch. “What’s Sanctuary exactly?”
Julian Harmon gratefully put aside his sermon paper.
cella in which stood the statue of a god. The Latin word for altar ‘ara’ also
means protection.” He continued learnedly: “In three hundred and ninety-
initely recognized. The earliest mention of the right of sanctuary in Eng-
land is in the Code of Laws issued by Ethelbert in A.D. six hundred. . . .”
He continued for some time with his exposition but was, as often, dis-
concerted by his wife’s reception of his erudite pronouncement.
“Darling,” she said. “You are sweet.”
Bending over, she kissed him on the tip of his nose. Julian felt rather like
a dog who has been congratulated on performing a clever trick.
“The Eccleses have been here,” said Bunch.
The vicar frowned. “The Eccleses? I don’t seem to remember. . . .”
“You don’t know them. They’re the sister and her husband of the man in
the church.”
“My dear, you ought to have called me.”
“There wasn’t any need,” said Bunch. “They were not in need of consola-
tion. I wonder now. . . .” She frowned. “If I put a casserole in the oven to-
morrow, can you manage, Julian? I think I shall go up to London for the
sales.”
“The sails?” Her husband looked at her blankly. “Do you mean a yacht
or a boat or something?”
Portman’s. You know, sheets, tablecloths47 and towels and glass- cloths. I
don’t know what we do with our glass-cloths, the way they wear through.
Besides,” she added thoughtfully, “I think I ought to go and see Aunt Jane.”
That sweet old lady, Miss Jane Marple, was enjoying the delights of the
metropolis48 for a fortnight, comfortably installed in her nephew’s studio
flat.
“So kind of dear Raymond,” she murmured. “He and Joan have gone to
America for a fortnight and they insisted I should come up here and enjoy
myself. And now, dear Bunch, do tell me what it is that’s worrying you.”
Bunch was Miss Marple’s favourite godchild, and the old lady looked at
her with great affection as Bunch, thrusting her best felt hat farther on the
back of her head, started her story.
Bunch finished. “I see,” she said. “Yes, I see.”
“That’s why I felt I had to see you,” said Bunch. “You see, not being
clever—”
“But you are clever, my dear.”
“No, I’m not. Not clever like Julian.”
“Julian, of course, has a very solid intellect,” said Miss Marple.
“That’s it,” said Bunch. “Julian’s got the intellect, but on the other hand,
I’ve got the sense.”
“You have a lot of common sense, Bunch, and you’re very intelligent.”
“You see, I don’t really know what I ought to do. I can’t ask Julian be-
cause—well, I mean, Julian’s so full of rectitude. . . .”
This statement appeared to be perfectly understood by Miss Marple,
who said, “I know what you mean, dear. We women—well, it’s different.”
She went on. “You told me what happened, Bunch, but I’d like to know
first exactly what you think.”
“It’s all wrong,” said Bunch. “The man who was there in the church, dy-
ing, knew all about Sanctuary. He said it just the way Julian would have
said it. I mean, he was a well-read, educated man. And if he’d shot himself,
he wouldn’t drag himself to a church afterwards and say ‘sanctuary.’
Sanctuary means that you’re pursued, and when you get into a church
you’re safe. Your pursuers can’t touch you. At one time even the law
couldn’t get at you.”
She looked questioningly at Miss Marple. The latter nodded. Bunch went
on, “Those people, the Eccleses, were quite different. Ignorant and coarse.
And there’s another thing. That watch—the dead man’s watch. It had the
initials W.S. on the back of it. But inside—I opened it—in very small letter-
ing there was ‘To Walter from his father’ and a date. Walter. But the Ec-
cleses kept talking of him as William or Bill.”
Miss Marple seemed about to speak but Bunch rushed on. “Oh, I know
you’re not always called the name you’re baptized by. I mean, I can under-
stand that you might be christened William and called ‘Porgy’ or ‘Carrots’
or something. But your sister wouldn’t call you William or Bill if your
name was Walter.”
“You mean that she wasn’t his sister?”
“I’m quite sure she wasn’t his sister. They were horrid—both of them.
They came to the vicarage to get his things and to find out if he’d said any-
thing before he died. When I said he hadn’t I saw it in their faces—relief. I
think myself,” finished Bunch, “it was Eccles who shot him.”
“Murder?” said Miss Marple.
“Yes,” said Bunch. “Murder. That’s why I came to you, darling.”
Bunch’s remark might have seemed incongruous to an ignorant listener,
murder.
“He said ‘please’ to me before he died,” said Bunch. “He wanted me to do
something for him. The awful thing is I’ve no idea what.”
point that had already occurred to Bunch. “But why was he there at all?”
she asked.
“You mean,” said Bunch, “if you wanted sanctuary you might pop into a
church anywhere. There’s no need to take a bus that only goes four times
a day and come out to a lonely spot like ours for it.”
“He must have come there for a purpose,” Miss Marple thought. “He
must have come to see someone. Chipping Cleghorn’s not a big place,
Bunch. Surely you must have some idea of who it was he came to see?”
Bunch reviewed the inhabitants of her village in her mind before rather
doubtfully shaking her head. “In a way,” she said, “it could be anybody.”
“He never mentioned a name?”
“He said Julian, or I thought he said Julian. It might have been Julia, I
suppose. As far as I know, there isn’t any Julia living in Chipping Cleg-
horn.”
She screwed up her eyes as she thought back to the scene. The man ly-
ing there on the chancel steps, the light coming through the window with
its jewels of red and blue light.
“Jewels,” said Miss Marple thoughtfully.
“I’m coming now,” said Bunch, “to the most important thing of all. The
reason why I’ve really come here today. You see, the Eccleses made a great
fuss about having his coat. We took it off when the doctor was seeing him.
It was an old, shabby sort of coat—there was no reason they should have
wanted it. They pretended it was sentimental, but that was nonsense.
“Anyway, I went up to find it, and as I was just going up the stairs I re-
membered how he’d made a kind of picking gesture with his hand, as
sewn up again with a different thread. So I unpicked it and I found a little
piece of paper inside. I took it out and I sewed it up again properly with
thread that matched. I was careful and I don’t really think that the Ec-
cleses would know I’ve done it. I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure. And I
took the coat down to them and made some excuse for the delay.”
“The piece of paper?” asked Miss Marple.
Bunch opened her handbag. “I didn’t show it to Julian,” she said, “be-
cause he would have said that I ought to have given it to the Eccleses. But I
thought I’d rather bring it to you instead.”
“A cloakroom ticket,” said Miss Marple, looking at it. “Paddington Sta-
tion.”
“He had a return ticket to Paddington in his pocket,” said Bunch.
The eyes of the two women met.
“This calls for action,” said Miss Marple briskly. “But it would be advis-
able, I think, to be careful. Would you have noticed at all, Bunch dear,
whether you were followed when you came to London today?”
“Followed!” exclaimed Bunch. “You don’t think—”
“Well, I think it’s possible,” said Miss Marple. “When anything is pos-
sible, I think we ought to take precautions.” She rose with a brisk move-
ment. “You came up here ostensibly, my dear, to go to the sales. I think the
right thing to do, therefore, would be for us to go to the sales. But before
we set out, we might put one or two little arrangements in hand. I don’t
suppose,” Miss Marple added obscurely, “that I shall need the old speckled
It was about an hour and a half later that the two ladies, rather the
worse for wear and battered in appearance, and both clasping parcels of
breath. “With a J on it, too. So fortunate that Raymond’s wife’s name is
Joan. I shall put them aside until I really need them and then they will do
for her if I pass on sooner than I expect.”
“I really did need the glass-cloths,” said Bunch. “And they were very
managed to snatch from me.”
entered the Apple Bough at that moment. After looking around vaguely
for a moment or two, she hurried to their table. She laid down an envel-
ope by Miss Marple’s elbow.
“There you are, miss,” she said briskly.
“Oh, thank you, Gladys,” said Miss Marple. “Thank you very much. So
kind of you.”
“Always pleased to oblige, I’m sure,” said Gladys. “Ernie always says to
me, ‘Everything what’s good you learned from that Miss Marple of yours
that you were in service with,’ and I’m sure I’m always glad to oblige you,
miss.”
“Such a dear girl,” said Miss Marple as Gladys departed again. “Always
so willing and so kind.”
She looked inside the envelope and then passed it on to Bunch. “Now be
very careful, dear,” she said. “By the way, is there still that nice young in-
spector at Melchester that I remember?”
“I don’t know,” said Bunch. “I expect so.”
“Well, if not,” said Miss Marple thoughtfully. “I can always ring up the
“Of course he’d remember you,” said Bunch. “Everybody would remem-
ber you. You’re quite unique.” She rose.
Arrived at Paddington, Bunch went to the luggage office and produced
the cloakroom ticket. A moment or two later a rather shabby old suitcase
was passed across to her, and carrying this she made her way to the plat-
form.
The journey home was uneventful. Bunch rose as the train approached
Chipping Cleghorn and picked up the old suitcase. She had just left her
suitcase from her hand and rushed off with it.
“Stop!” Bunch yelled. “Stop him, stop him. He’s taken my suitcase.”
The ticket collector who, at this rural station, was a man of somewhat
slow processes, had just begun to say, “Now, look here, you can’t do that
—” when a smart blow on the chest pushed him aside, and the man with
the suitcase rushed out from the station. He made his way towards a wait-
ing car. Tossing the suitcase in, he was about to climb after it, but before
he could move a hand fell on his shoulder, and the voice of Police Con-
stable Abel said, “Now then, what’s all this?”
Bunch arrived, panting, from the station. “He snatched my suitcase. I
just got out of the train with it.”
“Nonsense,” said the man. “I don’t know what this lady means. It’s my
suitcase. I just got out of the train with it.”
have guessed that Police Constable Abel and Mrs. Harmon spent long half
hours in Police Constable Abel’s off-time discussing the respective merits
“You say, madam, that this is your suitcase?” said Police Constable Abel.
“Yes,” said Bunch. “Definitely.”
“And you, sir?”
“I say this suitcase is mine.”
The man was tall, dark and well-dressed, with a drawling voice and a
superior manner. A feminine voice from inside the car said, “Of course it’s
your suitcase, Edwin. I don’t know what this woman means.”
“We’ll have to get this clear,” said Police Constable Abel. “If it’s your suit-
case, madam, what do you say is inside it?”
“Clothes,” said Bunch. “A long speckled coat with a beaver collar, two
wool jumpers and a pair of shoes.”
“Well, that’s clear enough,” said Police Constable Abel. He turned to the
other.
“I am a theatrical70 costumer,” said the dark man importantly. “This suit-
case contains theatrical properties which I brought down here for an ama-
teur performance.”
“Right, sir,” said Police Constable Abel. “Well, we’ll just look inside, shall
we, and see? We can go along to the police station, or if you’re in a hurry
we’ll take the suitcase back to the station and open it there.”
Moss.”
The police constable, holding the suitcase, went back into the station.
“Just taking this into the parcels office, George,” he said to the ticket col-
lector.
Police Constable Abel laid the suitcase on the counter of the parcels of-
fice and pushed back the clasp. The case was not locked. Bunch and Mr.
Edwin Moss stood on either side of him, their eyes regarding each other
vengefully.
“Ah!” said Police Constable Abel, as he pushed up the lid.
fur collar. There were also two wool jumpers and a pair of country shoes.
“Exactly as you say, madam,” said Police Constable Abel, turning to
Bunch.
Nobody could have said that Mr. Edwin Moss underdid things. His dis-
may and compunction were magnificent.
“I do apologize,” he said. “I really do apologize. Please believe me, dear
lady, when I tell you how very, very sorry I am. Unpardonable—quite un-
pardonable—my behaviour has been.” He looked at his watch. “I must
rush now. Probably my suitcase has gone on the train.” Raising his hat
once more, he said meltingly to Bunch, “Do, do forgive me,” and rushed
hurriedly out of the parcels office.
“Are you going to let him get away?” asked Bunch in a conspiratorial73
whisper to Police Constable Abel.
“He won’t get too far, ma’am,” he said. “That’s to say he won’t get far un-
observed, if you take my meaning.”
“Oh,” said Bunch, relieved.
“That old lady’s been on the phone,” said Police Constable Abel, “the one
as was down here a few years ago. Bright she is, isn’t she? But there’s been
was out to see you about it tomorrow morning.”
It was the inspector who came, the Inspector Craddock whom Miss Marple
remembered. He greeted Bunch with a smile as an old friend.
“Crime in Chipping Cleghorn again,” he said cheerfully. “You don’t lack
for sensation here, do you, Mrs. Harmon?”
“I could do with rather less,” said Bunch. “Have you come to ask me
questions or are you going to tell me things for a change?”
“I’ll tell you some things first,” said the inspector. “To begin with, Mr.
and Mrs. Eccles have been having an eye kept on them for some time.
There’s reason to believe they’ve been connected with several robberies in
this part of the world. For another thing, although Mrs. Eccles has a
brother called Sandbourne who has recently come back from abroad, the
man you found dying in the church yesterday was definitely not Sand-
bourne.”
“I knew that he wasn’t,” said Bunch. “His name was Walter, to begin
with, not William.”
The inspector nodded. “His name was Walter St. John, and he escaped
forty-eight hours ago from Charrington Prison.”
“Of course,” said Bunch softly to herself, “he was being hunted down by
the law, and he took sanctuary.” Then she asked, “What had he done?”
“I’ll have to go back rather a long way. It’s a complicated story. Several
years ago there was a certain dancer doing turns at the music halls. I don’t
expect you’ll have ever heard of her, but she specialized76 in an Arabian
Night turn, ‘Aladdin in the Cave of Jewels’ it was called. She wore bits of
rhinestone77 and not much else.
“She wasn’t much of a dancer, I believe, but she was—well—attractive.
things he gave her a very magnificent emerald necklace.”
“The historic jewels of a Rajah?” murmured Bunch ecstatically.
Inspector Craddock coughed. “Well, a rather more modern version, Mrs.
Harmon. The affair didn’t last very long, broke up when our potentate’s
attention was captured by a certain film star whose demands were not
quite so modest.
“Zobeida, to give the dancer her stage name, hung onto the necklace,
the theatre, and there was a lingering suspicion in the minds of the au-
thorities that she herself might have engineered its disappearance80. Such
“The necklace was never recovered, but during the course of the invest-
igation the attention of the police was drawn to this man, Walter St. John.
He was a man of education and breeding who had come down in the
world, and who was employed as a working jeweller with a rather ob-
“There was evidence that this necklace had passed through his hands. It
was, however, in connection with the theft of some other jewellery that he
was finally brought to trial and convicted and sent to prison. He had not
very much longer to serve, so his escape was rather a surprise.”
“But why did he come here?” asked Bunch.
“We’d like to know that very much, Mrs. Harmon. Following up his trial,
it seems that he went first to London. He didn’t visit any of his old associ-
been a theatrical dresser. She won’t say a word of what he came for, but
“I see,” said Bunch. “He left it in the cloakroom at Paddington and then
he came down here.”
“By that time,” said Inspector Craddock, “Eccles and the man who calls
himself Edwin Moss were on his trail. They wanted that suitcase. They
saw him get on the bus. They must have driven out in a car ahead of him
and been waiting for him when he left the bus.”
“And he was murdered?” said Bunch.
“Yes,” said Craddock. “He was shot. It was Eccles’s revolver, but I rather
fancy it was Moss who did the shooting. Now, Mrs. Harmon, what we want
to know is, where is the suitcase that Walter St. John actually deposited at
Paddington Station?”
Bunch grinned. “I expect Aunt Jane’s got it by now,” she said. “Miss
Marple, I mean. That was her plan. She sent a former maid of hers with a
suitcase packed with her things to the cloakroom at Paddington and we
exchanged tickets. I collected her suitcase and brought it down by train.
She seemed to expect that an attempt would be made to get it from me.”
It was Inspector Craddock’s turn to grin. “So she said when she rang up.
I’m driving up to London to see her. Do you want to come, too, Mrs. Har-
mon?”
“Wel-l,” said Bunch, considering. “Wel-l, as a matter of fact, it’s very for-
tunate. I had a toothache last night so I really ought to go to London to see
the dentist, oughtn’t I?”
“Definitely,” said Inspector Craddock. . . .
Miss Marple looked from Inspector Craddock’s face to the eager face of
Bunch Harmon. The suitcase lay on the table. “Of course, I haven’t opened
it,” the old lady said. “I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing till somebody
torian smile, “it’s locked.”
“Like to make a guess at what’s inside, Miss Marple?” asked the in-
spector.
“I should imagine, you know,” said Miss Marple, “that it would be
flew up. The sunlight coming through the window lit up what seemed like
an inexhaustible treasure of sparkling jewels, red, blue, green, orange.
“Aladdin’s Cave,” said Miss Marple. “The flashing jewels the girl wore to
dance.”
“Ah,” said Inspector Craddock. “Now, what’s so precious about it, do you
think, that a man was murdered to get hold of it?”
“She was a shrewd girl, I expect,” said Miss Marple thoughtfully. “She’s
dead, isn’t she, Inspector?”
“Yes, died three years ago.”
“Had the stones taken out of their setting and fastened here and there on
her theatrical costume, where everyone would take them for merely col-
that, of course, was what was stolen. No wonder it never came on the mar-
ket. The thief soon discovered the stones were false.”
“Here is an envelope,” said Bunch, pulling aside some of the glittering
stones.
Inspector Craddock took it from her and extracted two official-looking
papers from it. He read aloud, “‘Marriage Certificate between Walter Ed-
mund St. John and Mary Moss.’ That was Zobeida’s real name.”
“So they were married,” said Miss Marple. “I see.”
“What’s the other?” asked Bunch.
“A birth certificate of a daughter, Jewel.”
“Jewel?” cried Bunch. “Why, of course. Jewel! Jill! That’s it. I see now
why he came to Chipping Cleghorn. That’s what he was trying to say to
me. Jewel. The Mundys, you know. Laburnum Cottage. They look after a
granddaughter. Yes, I remember now, her name was Jewel, only, of course,
they call her Jill.
“Mrs. Mundy had a stroke about a week ago, and the old man’s been
been trying hard to find a good home for Jill somewhere. I didn’t want her
taken away to an institution.
“I suppose her father heard about it in prison and he managed to break
away and get hold of this suitcase from the old dresser he or his wife left it
with. I suppose if the jewels really belonged to her mother, they can be
used for the child now.”
“I should imagine so, Mrs. Harmon. If they’re here.”
“Oh, they’ll be here all right,” said Miss Marple cheerfully. . . .
“Thank goodness you’re back, dear,” said the Reverend Julian Harmon,
greeting his wife with affection and a sigh of content. “Mrs. Burt always
tries to do her best when you’re away, but she really gave me some very
them to Tiglath Pileser, but even he wouldn’t eat them so I had to throw
them out of the window.”
“Tiglath Pileser,” said Bunch, stroking the vicarage cat, who was purring
against her knee, “is very particular about what fish he eats. I often tell
him he’s got a proud stomach!”
“And your tooth, dear? Did you have it seen to?”
“Yes,” said Bunch. “It didn’t hurt much, and I went to see Aunt Jane
again, too. . . .”
“Dear old thing,” said Julian. “I hope she’s not failing at all.”
“Not in the least,” said Bunch, with a grin.
The following morning Bunch took a fresh supply of chrysanthemums
to the church. The sun was once more pouring through the east window,
and Bunch stood in the jewelled light on the chancel steps. She said very
softly under her breath, “Your little girl will be all right. I’ll see that she is.
I promise.”
Then she tidied up the church, slipped into a pew and knelt for a few
moments to say her prayers before returning to the vicarage to attack the
piled-up chores of two neglected days.
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