Alone with Miss Marple, Dinah Blake turned to her. She said:
“I don’t know who you are, but you’ve got to understand this—Basil didn’t do it.”
Miss Marple said:
“I know he didn’t. I know who did do it. But it’s not going to be easy to prove. I’ve an idea that something you said—just now—may help. It gave me an idea—the connection I’d been trying to find—now what was it?”
Sixteen
I
“I’m home, Arthur!” declared Mrs. Bantry, announcing the fact like a Royal Proclamation as she flung open the study door.
Colonel Bantry immediately jumped up, kissed his wife, and declared heartily: “Well, well, that’s splendid!”
The words were unimpeachable, the manner very well done, but an affectionate wife of as many years’ standing as Mrs. Bantry was not deceived. She said immediately:
“Is anything the matter?”
“No, of course not, Dolly. What should be the matter?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Bantry vaguely. “Things are so queer, aren’t they?”
She threw off her coat as she spoke and Colonel Bantry picked it up as carefully and laid it across the back of the sofa.
All exactly as usual—yet not as usual. Her husband, Mrs. Bantry thought, seemed to have shrunk. He looked thinner, stooped more; they were pouches under his eyes and those eyes were not ready to meet hers.
He went on to say, still with that affectation of cheerfulness:
“Well, how did you enjoy your time at Danemouth?”
“Oh! it was great fun. You ought to have come, Arthur.”
“Couldn’t get away, my dear. Lot of things to attend to here.”
“Still, I think the change would have done you good. And you like the Jeffersons?”
“Yes, yes, poor fellow. Nice chap. All very sad.”
“What have you been doing with yourself since I’ve been away?”
“Oh, nothing much. Been over the farms, you know. Agreed that Anderson shall have a new roof—can’t patch it up any longer.”
“How did the Radfordshire Council meeting go?”
“I—well—as a matter of fact I didn’t go.”
“Didn’t go? But you were taking the chair?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, Dolly—seems there was some mistake about that. Asked me if I’d mind if Thompson took it instead.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Bantry.
She peeled off a glove and threw it deliberately into the wastepaper basket. Her husband went to retrieve it, and she stopped him, saying sharply:
“Leave it. I hate gloves.”
Colonel Bantry glanced at her uneasily.
Mrs. Bantry said sternly:
“Did you go to dinner with the Duffs on Thursday?”
“Oh, that! It was put off. Their cook was ill.”
“Stupid people,” said Mrs. Bantry. She went on: “Did you go to the Naylors’ yesterday?”
“I rang up and said I didn’t feel up to it, hoped they’d excuse me. They quite understood.”
“They did, did they?” said Mrs. Bantry grimly.
She sat down by the desk and absentmindedly picked up a pair of gardening scissors. With them she cut off the fingers, one by one, of her second glove.
“What are you doing, Dolly?”
“Feeling destructive,” said Mrs. Bantry.
She got up. “Where shall we sit after dinner, Arthur? In the library?”
“Well—er—I don’t think so—eh? Very nice in here—or the drawing room.”
“I think,” said Mrs. Bantry, “that we’ll sit in the library!”
Her steady eye met his. Colonel Bantry drew himself up to his full height. A sparkle came into his eye.
He said:
“You’re right, my dear. We’ll sit in the library!”
II
Mrs. Bantry put down the telephone receiver with a sigh of annoyance. She had rung up twice, and each time the answer had been the same: Miss Marple was out.
Of a naturally impatient nature, Mrs. Bantry was never one to acquiesce in defeat. She rang up in rapid succession the vicarage, Mrs. Price Ridley, Miss Hartnell, Miss Wetherby, and, as a last resource, the fishmonger who, by reason of his advantageous geographical position, usually knew where everybody was in the village.
The fishmonger was sorry, but he had not seen Miss Marple at all in the village that morning. She had not been her usual round.
“Where can the woman be?” demanded Mrs. Bantry impatiently aloud.
There was a deferential cough behind her. The discreet Lorrimer murmured:
“You were requiring Miss Marple, madam? I have just observed her approaching the house.”
Mrs. Bantry rushed to the front door, flung it open, and greeted Miss Marple breathlessly:
“I’ve been trying to get you everywhere. Where have you been?” She glanced over her shoulder. Lorrimer had discreetly vanished. “Everything’s too awful! People are beginning to cold-shoulder Arthur. He looks years older. We must do something, Jane. You must do something!”
Miss Marple said:
“You needn’t worry, Dolly,” in a rather peculiar voice.
Colonel Bantry appeared from the study door.
“Ah, Miss Marple. Good morning. Glad you’ve come. My wife’s been ringing you up like a lunatic.”
“I thought I’d better bring you the news,” said Miss Marple, as she followed Mrs. Bantry into the study.
“News?”
“Basil Blake has just been arrested for the murder of Ruby Keene.”
“Basil Blake?” cried the Colonel.
“But he didn’t do it,” said Miss Marple.
Colonel Bantry took no notice of this statement. It is doubtful if he even heard it.
“Do you mean to say he strangled that girl and then brought her along and put her in my library?”
“He put her in your library,” said Miss Marple. “But he didn’t kill her.”
“Nonsense! If he put her in my library, of course he killed her! The two things go together.”
“Not necessarily. He found her dead in his own cottage.”
“A likely story,” said the Colonel derisively. “If you find a body, why, you ring up the police—naturally—if you’re an honest man.”
“Ah,” said Miss Marple, “but we haven’t all got such iron nerves as you have, Colonel Bantry. You belong to the old school. This younger generation is different.”
“Got no stamina,” said the Colonel, repeating a well-worn opinion of his.
“Some of them,” said Miss Marple, “have been through a bad time. I’ve heard a good deal about Basil. He did A.R.P. work, you know, when he was only eighteen. He went into a burning house and brought out four children, one after another. He went back for a dog, although they told him it wasn’t safe. The building fell in on him. They got him out, but his chest was badly crushed and he had to lie in plaster for nearly a year and was ill for a long time after that. That’s when he got interested in designing.”
“Oh!” The Colonel coughed and blew his nose. “I—er—never knew that.”
“He doesn’t talk about it,” said Miss Marple.
“Er—quite right. Proper spirit. Must be more in the young chap than I thought. Always thought he’d shirked the war, you know. Shows you ought to be careful in jumping to conclusions.”
Colonel Bantry looked ashamed.
“But, all the same”—his indignation revived—“what did he mean trying to fasten a murder on me?”
“I don’t think he saw it like that,” said Miss Marple. “He thought of it more as a—as a joke. You see, he was rather under the influence of alcohol at the time.”
“Bottled, was he?” said Colonel Bantry, with an Englishman’s sympathy for alcoholic excess. “Oh, well, can’t judge a fellow by what he does when he’s drunk. When I was at Cambridge, I remember I put a certain utensil—well, well, never mind. Deuce of a row there was about it.”
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He chuckled, then checked himself sternly. He looked piercingly at Miss Marple with eyes that were shrewd and appraising. He said: “You don’t think he did the murder, eh?”
“I’m sure he didn’t.”
“And you think you know who did?”
Miss Marple nodded.
Mrs. Bantry, like an ecstatic Greek chorus, said: “Isn’t she wonderful?” to an unhearing world.
“Well, who was it?”