Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple 1)

“You know, dear Mr. Clement, this should be watered oftener. Poor thing, it needs it badly. Your maid should water it every day. I suppose it is she who attends to it?”

“As much,” I said, “as she attends to anything.”

“A little raw at present,” suggested Miss Marple.

“Yes,” I said. “And Griselda steadily refuses to attempt to sack her. Her idea is that only a thoroughly undesirable maid will remain with us. However, Mary herself gave us notice the other day.”

“Indeed. I always imagined she was very fond of you both.”

“I haven’t noticed it,” I said. “But, as a matter of fact, it was Lettice Protheroe who upset her. Mary came back from the inquest in rather a temperamental state and found Lettice here and—well, they had words.”

“Oh!” said Miss Marple. She was just about to step through the window when she stopped suddenly, and a bewildering series of changes passed over her face.

“Oh, dear!” she muttered to herself. “I have been stupid. So that was it. Perfectly possible all the time.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She turned a worried face upon me.

“Nothing. An idea that has just occurred to me. I must go home and think things out thoroughly. Do you know, I believe I have been extremely stupid—almost incredibly so.”

“I find that hard to believe,” I said gallantly.

I escorted her through the window and across the lawn.

“Can you tell me what it is that has occurred to you so suddenly?” I asked.

“I would rather not—just at present. You see, there is still a possibility that I may be mistaken. But I do not think so. Here we are at my garden gate. Thank you so much. Please do not come any further.”

“Is the note still a stumbling block?” I asked, as she passed through the gate and latched it behind her.

She looked at me abstractedly.

“The note? Oh! Of course that wasn’t the real note. I never thought it was. Goodnight, Mr. Clement.”

She went rapidly up the path to the house, leaving me staring after her.

I didn’t know what to think.

Twenty-seven

Griselda and Dennis had not yet returned. I realized that the most natural thing would have been for me to go up to the house with Miss Marple and fetch them home. Both she and I had been so entirely taken up with our preoccupation over the mystery that we had forgotten anybody existed in the world except ourselves.

I was just standing in the hall, wondering whether I would not even now go over and join them, when the doorbell rang.

I crossed over to it. I saw there was a letter in the box, and presuming that this was the cause of the ring, I took it out.

As I did so, however, the bell rang again, and I shoved the letter hastily into my pocket and opened the front door.

It was Colonel Melchett.

“Hallo, Clement. I’m on my way home from town in the car. Thought I’d just look in and see if you could give me a drink.”

“Delighted,” I said. “Come into the study.”

He pulled off the leather coat that he was wearing and followed me into the study. I fetched the whisky and soda and two glasses. Melchett was standing in front of the fireplace, legs wide apart, stroking his closely cropped moustache.

“I’ve got one bit of news for you, Clement. Most astounding thing you’ve ever heard. But let that go for the minute. How are things going down here? Any more old ladies hot on the scent?”

“They’re not doing so badly,” I said. “One of them, at all events, thinks she’s got there.”

“Our friend, Miss Marple, eh?”

“Our friend, Miss Marple.”

“Women like that always think they know everything,” said Colonel Melchett.

He sipped his whisky and soda appreciatively.

“It’s probably unnecessary interference on my part, asking,” I said. “But I suppose somebody has questioned the fish boy. I mean, if the murderer left by the front door, there’s a chance the boy may have seen him.”

“Slack questioned him right enough,” said Melchett. “But the boy says he didn’t meet anybody. Hardly likely he would. The murderer wouldn’t be exactly courting observation. Lots of cover by your front gate. He would have taken a look to see if the road was clear. The boy had to call at the Vicarage, at Haydock’s, and at Mrs. Price Ridley’s. Easy enough to dodge him.”

“Yes,” I said, “I suppose it would be.”

“On the other hand,” went on Melchett, “if by any chance that rascal Archer did the job, and young Fred Jackson saw him about the place, I doubt very much whether he’d let on. Archer is a cousin of his.”

“Do you seriously suspect Archer?”

“Well, you know, old Protheroe had his knife into Archer pretty badly. Lots of bad blood between them. Leniency wasn’t Protheroe’s strong point.”

“No,” I said. “He was a very ruthless man.”

“What I say is,” said Melchett, “Live and let live. Of course, the law’s the law, but it never hurts to give a man the benefit of the doubt. That’s what Protheroe never did.”

“He prided himself on it,” I said.

There was a pause, and then I asked:

“What is this ‘astounding bit of news’ you promised me?”

“Well, it is astounding. You know that unfinished letter that Protheroe was writing when he was killed?”

“Yes.”

“We got an expert on it—to say whether the 6:20 was added by a different hand. Naturally we sent up samples of Protheroe’s handwriting. And do you know the verdict? That letter was never written by Protheroe at all.”

“You mean a forgery?”

“It’s a forgery. The 6:20 they think is written in a different hand again—but they’re not sure about that. The heading is in a different ink, but the letter itself is a forgery. Protheroe never wrote it.”

“Are they certain?”

“Well, they’re as certain as experts ever are. You know what an expert is! Oh! But they’re sure enough.”

“Amazing,” I said. Then a memory assailed me.

“Why,” I said, “I remember at the time Mrs. Protheroe said it wasn’t like her husband’s handwriting at all, and I took no notice.”

“Really?”

“I thought it one of those silly remarks women will make. If there seemed one thing sure on earth it was that Protheroe had written that note.”

We looked at each other.

“It’s curious,” I said slowly. “Miss Marple was saying this evening that that note was all wrong.”

“Confound the woman, she couldn’t know more about it if she had committed the murder herself.”

At that moment the telephone bell rang. There is a queer kind of psychology about a telephone bell. It rang now persistently and with a kind of sinister significance.

I went over and took up the receiver.

“This is the Vicarage,” I said. “Who’s speaking?”

A strange, high-pitched hysterical voice came over the wire:

“I want to confess,” it said. “My God, I want to confess.”

“Hallo,” I said, “hallo. Look here you’ve cut me off. What number was that?”

A languid voice said it didn’t know. It added that it was sorry I had been troubled.

I put down the receiver, and turned to Melchett.

“You once said,” I remarked, “that you would go mad if anyone else accused themselves of the crime.”

“What about it?”

“That was someone who wanted to confess … And the Exchange has cut us off.”

Melchett dashed over and took up the receiver.

“I’ll speak to them.”

“Do,” I said. “You may have some effect. I’ll leave you to it. I’m going out. I’ve a fancy I recognized that voice.”

Twenty-eight

I hurried down the village street. It was eleven o’clock, and at eleven o’clo

ck on a Sunday night the whole village of St. Mary Mead might be dead. I saw, however, a light in a first floor window as I passed, and, realizing that Hawes was still up, I stopped and rang the doorbell.

After what seemed a long time, Hawes’s landlady, Mrs. Sadler, laboriously unfastened two bolts, a chain, and turned a key and peered out at me suspiciously.

“Why, it’s Vicar!” she exclaimed.

“Good evening,” I said. “I want to see Mr. Hawes. I see there’s a light in the window, so he’s up still.”

“That may be. I’ve not seen him since I took up his supper. He’s had a quiet evening—no one to see him, and he’s not been out.”

I nodded, and passing her, went quickly up the stairs. Hawes has a bedroom and sitting room on the first floor.

I passed into the latter. Hawes was lying back in a long chair asleep. My entrance did not wake him. An empty cachet box and a glass of water, half full, stood beside him.

On the floor, by his left foot, was a crumpled sheet of paper with writing on it. I picked it up and straightened it out.

It began: “My dear Clement—”

I read it through, uttered an exclamation and shoved it into my pocket. Then I bent over Hawes and studied him attentively.

Next, reaching for the telephone which stood by his elbow, I gave the number of the Vicarage. Melchett must have been still trying to trace the call, for I was told that the number was engaged. Asking them to call me, I put the instrument down again.