The Body in the Library (Miss Marple 3)

“I know perfectly. Well, as far as I’m aware, there was no one of the kind. Not by anything she ever said.”

“Thank you, Mr. Starr. Now will you just tell me in your own words exactly what happened last night?”

“Certainly. Ruby and I did our ten-thirty dance together—”

“No signs of anything unusual about her then?”

Raymond considered.

“I don’t think so. I didn’t notice what happened afterwards. I had my own partners to look after. I do remember noticing she wasn’t in the ballroom. At midnight she hadn’t turned up. I was very annoyed and went to Josie about it. Josie was playing bridge with the Jeffersons. She hadn’t any idea where Ruby was, and I think she got a bit of a jolt. I noticed her shoot a quick, anxious glance at Mr. Jefferson. I persuaded the band to play another dance and I went to the office and got them to ring up to Ruby’s room. There wasn’t any answer. I went back to Josie. She suggested that Ruby was perhaps asleep in her room. Idiotic suggestion really, but it was meant for the Jeffersons, of course! She came away with me and said we’d go up together.”

“Yes, Mr. Starr. And what did she say when she was alone with you?”

“As far as I can remember, she looked very angry and said: ‘Damned little fool. She can’t do this sort of thing. It will ruin all her chances. Who’s she with, do you know?’

“I said that I hadn’t the least idea. The last I’d seen of her was dancing with young Bartlett. Josie said: ‘She wouldn’t be with him. What can she be up to? She isn’t with that film man, is she?’”

Harper said sharply: “Film man? Who was he?”

Raymond said: “I don’t know his name. He’s never stayed here. Rather an unusual-looking chap—black hair and theatrical-looking. He has something to do with the film industry, I believe—or so he told Ruby. He came over to dine here once or twice and danced with Ruby afterwards, but I don’t think she knew him at all well. That’s why I was surprised when Josie mentioned him. I said I didn’t think he’d been here tonight. Josie said: ‘Well, she must be out with someone. What on earth am I going to say to the Jeffersons?’ I said what did it matter to the Jeffersons? And Josie said it did matter. And she said, too, that she’d never forgive Ruby if she went and messed things up.

“We’d got to Ruby’s room by then. She wasn’t there, of course, but she’d been there, because the dress she had been wearing was lying across a chair. Josie looked in the wardrobe and said she thought she’d put on her old white dress. Normally she’d have changed into a black velvet dress for our Spanish dance. I was pretty angry by this time at the way Ruby had let me down. Josie did her best to soothe me and said she’d dance herself so that old Prestcott shouldn’t get after us all. She went away and changed her dress and we went down and did a tango—exaggerated style and quite showy but not really too exhausting upon the ankles. Josie was very plucky about it—for it hurt her, I could see. After that she asked me to help her soothe the Jeffersons down. She said it was important. So, of course, I did what I could.”

Superintendent Harper nodded. He said:

“Thank you, Mr. Starr.”

To himself he thought: “It was important, all right! Fifty thousand pounds!”

He watched Raymond Starr as the latter moved gracefully away. He went down the steps of the terrace, picking up a bag of tennis balls and a racquet on the way. Mrs. Jefferson, also carrying a racquet, joined him and they went towards the tennis courts.

“Excuse me, sir.”

Sergeant Higgins, rather breathless, stood at Harper’s side.

The Superintendent, jerked from the train of thought he was following, looked startled.

“Message just come through for you from headquarters, sir. Labourer reported this morning saw glare as of fire. Half an hour ago they found a burnt-out car in a quarry. Venn’s Quarry—about two miles from here. Traces of a charred body inside.”

A flush came over Harper’s heavy features. He said:

“What’s come to Glenshire? An epidemic of violence? Don’t tell me we’re going to have a Rouse case now!”

He asked: “Could they get the number of the car?”

“No, sir. But we’ll be able to identify it, of course, by the engine number. A Minoan 14, they think it is.”

Eight

I

Sir Henry Clithering, as he passed through the lounge of the Majestic, hardly glanced at its occupants. His mind was preoccupied. Nevertheless, as is the way of life, something registered in his subconscious. It waited its time patiently.

Sir Henry was wondering as he went upstairs just what had induced the sudden urgency of his friend’s message. Conway Jefferson was not the type of man who sent urgent summonses to anyone. Something quite out of the usual must have occurred, decided Sir Henry.

Jefferson wasted no time in beating about the bush. He said:

“Glad you’ve come. Edwards, get Sir Henry a drink. Sit down, man. You’ve not heard anything, I suppose? Nothing in the papers yet?”

Sir Henry shook his head, his curiosity aroused.

“What’s the matter?”

“Murder’s the matter. I’m concerned in it and so are your friends the Bantrys.”

“Arthur and Dolly Bantry?” Clithering sounded incredulous.

“Yes, you see, the body was found in their house.”

Clearly and succinctly, Conway Jefferson ran through the facts. Sir Henry listened without interrupting. Both men were accustomed to grasping the gist of a matter. Sir Henry, during his term as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, had been renowned for his quick grip on essentials.

“It’s an extraordinary business,” he commented when the other had finished. “How do the Bantrys come into it, do you think?”

“That’s what worries me. You see, Henry, it looks to me as though possibly the fact that I know them might have a bearing on the case. That’s the only connection I can find. Neither of them, I gather, ever saw the girl before. That’s what they say, and there’s no reason to disbelieve them. It’s most unlikely they should know her. Then isn’t it possible that she was decoyed away and her body deliberately left in the house of friends of mine?”

Clithering said:

“I think that’s far-fetched.”

“It’s possible, though,” persisted the other.

“Yes, but unlikely. What do you want me to do?”

Conway Jefferson said bitterly:

“I’m an invalid. I disguise the fact—refuse to face it—but now it comes home to me. I can’t go about as I’d like to, asking questions, looking into things. I’ve got to stay here meekly grateful for such scraps of information as the police are kind enough to dole out to me. Do you happen to know Melchett, by the way, the Chief Constable of Radfordshire?”

“Yes, I’ve met him.”

Something stirred in Sir Henry’s brain. A face and figure noted unseeingly as he passed through the lounge. A straight-backed old lady whose face was familiar. It linked up with the last time he had seen Melchett.

He said:

“Do you mean you want me to be a kind of amateur sleuth? That’s not my line.”

Jefferson said:

“You’re not an amateur, that’s just it.”

“I’m not a professional anymore. I’m on the retired list now.”

Jefferson said: “That simplifies matters.”

“You mean that if I were still at Scotland Yard I couldn’t butt in? That’s perfectly true.”

“As it is,” said Jefferson, “your experience qualifies you to take an interest in the case, and any cooperation you offer will be welcomed.”

Clithering said slowly:

“Etiquette permits, I agree. But what do you really want, Conway? To find out who killed this girl?”

“Just that.”

“You’ve no idea yourself?”

“None whatever.”

Sir Henry said slowly:

“You probably won’t believe me, but you’ve got an expert at solvi

ng mysteries sitting downstairs in the lounge at this minute. Someone who’s better than I am at it, and who in all probability may have some local dope.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Downstairs in the lounge, by the third pillar from the left, there sits an old lady with a sweet, placid spinsterish face, and a mind that has plumbed the depths of human iniquity and taken it as all in the day’s work. Her name’s Miss Marple. She comes from the village of St. Mary Mead, which is a mile and a half from Gossington, she’s a friend of the Bantrys—and where crime is concerned she’s the goods, Conway.”

Jefferson stared at him with thick, puckered brows. He said heavily:

“You’re joking.”