Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple 1)

“Miss Cram came to see me this afternoon,” said Miss Marple. “I met her in the village and I asked her if she would like to see my garden.”

“Is she fond of gardens?” asked Griselda.

“I don’t think so,” said Miss Marple, with a faint twinkle. “But it makes a very useful excuse for talk, don’t you think?”

“What did you make of her?” asked Griselda. “I don’t believe she’s really so bad.”

“She volunteered a lot of information—really a lot of information,” said Miss Marple. “About herself, you know, and her people. They all seem to be dead or in India. Very sad. By the way, she has gone to Old Hall for the weekend.”

“What?”

“Yes, it seems Mrs. Protheroe asked her—or she suggested it to Mrs. Protheroe—I don’t quite know which way about it was. To do some secretarial work for her—there are so many letters to cope with. It turned out rather fortunately. Dr. Stone being away, she has nothing to do. What an excitement this barrow has been.”

“Stone?” said Raymond. “Is that the archaeologist fellow?”

“Yes, he is excavating a barrow. On the Protheroe property.”

“He’s a good man,” said Raymond. “Wonderfully keen on his job. I met him at a dinner not long ago and we had a most interesting talk. I must look him up.”

“Unfortunately,” I said, “he’s just gone to London for the weekend. Why, you actually ran into him at the station this afternoon.”

“I ran into you. You had a little fat man with you—with glasses on.”

“Yes—Dr. Stone.”

“But, my dear fellow—that wasn’t Stone.”

“Not Stone?”

“Not the archaeologist. I know him quite well. The man wasn’t Stone—not the faintest resemblance.”

We stared at each other. In particular I stared at Miss Marple.

“Extraordinary,” I said.

“The suitcase,” said Miss Marple.

“But why?” said Griselda.

“It reminds me of the time the man went round pretending to be the Gas Inspector,” murmured Miss Marple. “Quite a little haul, he got.”

“An impostor,” said Raymond West. “Now this is really interesting.”

“The question is, has it anything to do with the murder?” said Griselda.

“Not necessarily,” I said. “But—” I looked at Miss Marple.

“It is,” she said, “a Peculiar Thing. Another Peculiar Thing.”

“Yes,” I said, rising. “I rather feel the Inspector ought to be told about this at once.”

Twenty-two

Inspector Slack’s orders, once I had got him on the telephone, were brief and emphatic. Nothing was to “get about.” In particular, Miss Cram was not to be alarmed. In the meantime, a search was to be instituted for the suitcase in the neighbourhood of the barrow.

Griselda and I returned home very excited over this new development. We could not say much with Dennis present, as we had faithfully promised Inspector Slack to breath no word to anybody.

In any case, Dennis was full of his own troubles. He came into my study and began fingering things and shuffling his feet and looking thoroughly embarrassed.

“What is it, Dennis?” I said at last.

“Uncle Len, I don’t want to go to sea.”

I was astonished. The boy had been so very decided about his career up to now.

“But you were so keen on it.”

“Yes, but I’ve changed my mind.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to go into finance.”

I was even more surprised.

“What do you mean—finance?”

“Just that. I want to go into the city.”

“But, my dear boy, I am sure you would not like the life. Even if I obtained a post for you in a bank—”

Dennis said that wasn’t what he meant. He didn’t want to go into a bank. I asked him what exactly he did mean, and of course, as I suspected, the boy didn’t really know.

By “going into finance,” he simply meant getting rich quickly, which with the optimism of youth he imagined was a certainty if one “went into the city.” I disabused him of this notion as gently as I could.

“What’s put it into your head?” I asked. “You were so satisfied with the idea of going to sea.”

“I know, Uncle Len, but I’ve been thinking. I shall want to marry some day—and, I mean, you’ve got to be rich to marry a girl.”

“Facts disprove your theory,” I said.

“I know—but a real girl. I mean, a girl who’s used to things.”

It was very vague, but I thought I knew what he meant.

“You know,” I said gently, “all girls aren’t like Lettice Protheroe.”

He fired up at once.

“You’re awfully unfair to her. You don’t like her. Griselda doesn’t either. She says she’s tiresome.”

From the feminine point of view Griselda is quite right. Lettice is tiresome. I could quite realize, however, that a boy would resent the adjective.

“If only people made a few allowances. Why even the Hartley Napiers are going about grousing about her at a time like this! Just because she left their old tennis party a bit early. Why should she stay if she was bored? Jolly decent of her to go at all, I think.”

“Quite a favour,” I said, but Dennis suspected no malice. He was full of his own grievances on Lettice’s behalf.

“She’s awfully unselfish really. Just to show you, she made me stay. Naturally I wanted to go too. But she wouldn’t hear of it. Said it was too bad on the Napiers. So, just to please her, I stopped on a quarter of an hour.”

The young have very curious views on unselfishness.

“And now I hear Susan Hartley Napier is going about everywhere saying Lettice has rotten manners.”

“If I were you,” I said, “I shouldn’t worry.”

“It’s all very well, but—”

He broke off.

“I’d—I’d do anything for Lettice.”

“Very few of us can do anything for anyone else,” I said. “However much we wish it, we are powerless.”

“I wish I were dead,” said Dennis.

Poor lad. Calf love is a virulent disease. I forebore to say any of the obvious and probably irritating things which come so easily to one’s lips. Instead, I said goodnight, and went up to bed.

I took the eight o’clock service the following morning and when I returned found Griselda sitting at the breakfast table with an open note in her hand. It was from Anne Protheroe.

“Dear Griselda,—If you and the Vicar could come up and lunch here quietly today, I should be so very grateful. Something very strange has occurred, and I should like Mr. Clement’s advice.

Please don’t mention this when you come, as I have said nothing to anyone.

With love,

Yours affectionately,

Anne Protheroe.”

“We must go, of course,” said Griselda.

I agreed.

“I wonder what can have happened?”

I wondered too.

“You know,” I said to Griselda, “I don’t feel we are really at the end of this case yet.”

“You mean not till someone has really been arrested?”

“No,” I said, “I didn’t mean that. I mean that there are ramifications, undercurrents, that we know nothing about. There are a whole lot of things to clear up before we get at the truth.”