Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple 1)

“Actually to hospital? Oh, that’s a great relief! I am so very glad to hear it. He’ll be quite safe there. When you say ‘nothing to be done,’ you don’t mean that he won’t recover?”

“It’s very doubtful,” I said.

Miss Marple’s eyes had gone to the cachet box.

“I suppose he took an overdose?” she said.

Melchett, I think, was in favour of being reticent. Perhaps I might have been under other circumstances. But my discussion of the case with Miss Marple was too fresh in my mind for me to have the same view, though I must admit that her rapid appearance on the scene and eager curiosity repelled me slightly.

“You had better look at this,” I said, and handed her Protheroe’s unfinished letter.

She took it and read it without any appearance of surprise.

“You had already deduced something of the kind, had you not?” I asked.

“Yes—yes, indeed. May I ask you, Mr. Clement, what made you come here this evening? That is a point which puzzles me. You and Colonel Melchett—not at all what I should have expected.”

I explained the telephone call and that I believed I had recognized Hawes’s voice. Miss Marple nodded thoughtfully.

“Very interesting. Very providential—if I may use the term. Yes, it brought you here in the nick of time.”

“In the nick of time for what?” I said bitterly.

Miss Marple looked surprised.

“To save Mr. Hawes’s life, of course.”

“Don’t you think,” I said, “that it might be better if Hawes didn’t recover? Better for him—better for everyone. We know the truth now and—”

I stopped—for Miss Marple was nodding her head with such a peculiar vehemence that it made me lose the thread of what I was saying.

“Of course,” she said. “Of course! That’s what he wants you to think! That you know the truth—and that it’s best for everyone as it is. Oh, yes, it all fits in—the letter, and the overdose, and poor Mr. Hawes’s state of mind and his confession. It all fits in—but it’s wrong….”

We stared at her.

“That’s why I am so glad Mr. Hawes is safe—in hospital—where no one can get at him. If he recovers, he’ll tell you the truth.”

“The truth?”

“Yes—that he never touched a hair of Colonel Protheroe’s head.”

“But the telephone call,” I said. “The letter—the overdose. It’s all so clear.”

“That’s what he wants you to think. Oh, he’s very clever! Keeping the letter and using it this way was very clever indeed.”

“Who do you mean,” I said, “by ‘he’?”

“I mean the murderer,” said Miss Marple.

She added very quietly:

“I mean Mr. Lawrence Redding….”

Thirty

We stared at her. I really think that for a moment or two we really believed she was out of her mind. The accusation seemed so utterly preposterous.

Colonel Melchett was the first to speak. He spoke kindly and with a kind of pitying tolerance.

“That is absurd, Miss Marple,” he said. “Young Redding has been completely cleared.”

“Naturally,” said Miss Marple. “He saw to that.”

“On the contrary,” said Colonel Melchett dryly. “He did his best to get himself accused of the murder.”

“Yes,” said Miss Marple. “He took us all in that way—myself as much as anyone else. You will remember, dear Mr. Clement, that I was quite taken aback when I heard Mr. Redding had confessed to the crime. It upset all my ideas and made me think him innocent—when up to then I had felt convinced that he was guilty.”

“Then it was Lawrence Redding you suspected?”

“I know that in books it is always the most unlikely person. But I never find that rule applies in real life. There it is so often the obvious that is true. Much as I have always liked Mrs. Protheroe, I could not avoid coming to the conclusion that she was completely under Mr. Redding’s thumb and would do anything he told her, and, of course, he is not the kind of young man who would dream of running away with a penniless woman. From his point of view it was necessary that Colonel Protheroe should be removed—and so he removed him. One of those charming young men who have no moral sense.”

Colonel Melchett had been snorting impatiently for some time. Now he broke out.

“Absolute nonsense—the whole thing! Redding’s time is fully accounted for up to 6:50 and Haydock says positively Protheroe couldn’t have been shot then. I suppose you think you know better than a doctor. Or do you suggest that Haydock is deliberately lying—the Lord knows why?”

“I think Dr. Haydock’s evidence was absolutely truthful. He is a very upright man. And, of course, it was Mrs. Protheroe who actually shot Colonel Protheroe—not Mr. Redding.”

Again we stared at her. Miss Marple arranged her lace fichu, pushed back the fleecy shawl that draped her shoulders, and began to deliver a gentle old-maidish lecture comprising the most astounding statements in the most natural way in the world.

“I have not thought it right to speak until now. One’s own belief—even so strong as to amount to knowledge—is not the same as proof. And unless one has an explanation that will fit all the facts (as I was saying to dear Mr. Clement this evening) one cannot advance it with any real conviction. And my own explanation was not quite complete—it lacked just one thing—but suddenly, just as I was leaving Mr. Clement’s study, I noticed the palm in the pot by the window—and—well, there the whole thing was! Clear as daylight!”

“Mad—quite mad,” murmured Melchett to me.

But Miss Marple beamed on us serenely and went on in her gentle ladylike voice.

“I was very sorry to believe what I did—very sorry. Because I liked them both. But you know what human nature is. And to begin with, when first he and then she both confessed in the most foolish way—well, I was more relieved than I could say. I had been wrong. And I began to think of other people who had a possible motive for wishing Colonel Protheroe out of the way.”

“The seven suspects!” I murmured.

She smiled at me.

“Yes, indeed. There was that man Archer—not likely, but primed with drink (so inflaming) you never know. And, of course, there was your Mary. She’s been walking out with Archer a long time, and she’s a queer-tempered girl. Motive and opportunity—why, she was alone in the house! Old Mrs. Archer could easily have got the pistol from Mr. Redding’s house for either of those two. And then, of course, there was Lettice—wanting freedom and money to do as she liked. I’ve known many cases where the most beautiful and ethereal girls have shown next to no moral scruple—though, of course, gentlemen never wish to believe it of them.”

I winced.