The Moving Finger (Miss Marple 4)

I ate both chops in an attempt to atone for Joanna’s lapse. All the same, I wondered where my sister was. She had taken to be very mysterious about her doings of late.

It was half past three when Joanna burst into the drawing room. I had heard a car stop outside and I half expected to see Griffith, but the car drove on and Joanna came in alone.

Her face was very red and she seemed upset. I perceived that something had happened.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

Joanna opened her mouth, closed it again, sighed, plumped herself down in a chair and stared in front of her.

She said:

“I’ve had the most awful day.”

“What’s happened?”

“I’ve done the most incredible thing. It was awful—”

“But what—”

“I just started out for a walk, an ordinary walk—I went up over the hill and on to the moor. I walked miles—I felt like it. Then I dropped down into a hollow. There’s a farm there—A God-forsaken lonely sort of spot. I was thirsty and I wondered if they’d got any milk or something. So I wandered into the farmyard and then the door opened and Owen came out.”

“Yes?”

“He thought it might be the district nurse. There was a woman in there having a baby. He was expecting the nurse and he’d sent word to her to get hold of another doctor. It—things were going wrong.”

“Yes?”

“So he said—to me. ‘Come on, you’ll do—better than nobody.’ I said I couldn’t, and he said what did I mean? I said I’d never done anything like that, that I didn’t know anything—

“He said what the hell did that matter? And then he was awful. He turned on me. He said, ‘You’re a woman, aren’t you? I suppose you can do your durnedest to help another woman?’ And he went on at me—said I’d talked as though I was interested in doctoring and had said I wished I was a nurse. ‘All pretty talk, I suppose! You didn’t mean anything real by it, but this is real and you’re going to behave like a decent human being and not like a useless ornamental nitwit!’

“I’ve done the most incredible things, Jerry. Held instruments and boiled them and handed things. I’m so tired I can hardly stand up. It was dreadful. But he saved her—and the baby. It was born alive. He didn’t think at one time he could save it. Oh dear!”

Joanna covered her face with her hands.

I contemplated her with a certain amount of pleasure and mentally took my hat off to Owen Griffith. He’d brought Joanna slap up against reality for once.

I said, “There’s a letter for you in the hall. From Paul, I think.”

“Eh?” She paused for a minute and then said, “I’d no idea, Jerry, what doctors had to do. The nerve they’ve got to have!”

I went out into the hall and brought Joanna her letter. She opened it, glanced vaguely at its contents, and let it drop.

“He was—really—rather wonderful. The way he fought—the way he wouldn’t be beaten! He was rude and horrible to me—but he was wonderful.”

I observed Paul’s disregarded letter with some pleasure. Plainly, Joanna was cured of Paul.

Thirteen

I

Things never come when they are expected.

I was full of Joanna’s and my personal affairs and was quite taken aback the next morning when Nash’s voice said over the telephone: “We’ve got her, Mr. Burton!”

I was so startled I nearly dropped the receiver.

“You mean the—”

He interrupted.

“Can you be overheard where you are?”

“No, I don’t think so—well, perhaps—”

It seemed to me that the baize door to the kitchen had swung open a trifle.

“Perhaps you’d care to come down to the station?”

“I will. Right away.”

I was at the police station in next to no time. In an inner room Nash and Sergeant Parkins were together. Nash was wreathed in smiles.

“It’s been a long chase,” he said. “But we’re there at last.”

He flicked a letter across the table. This time it was all typewritten. It was, of its kind, fairly mild.

“It’s no use thinking you’re going to step into a dead woman’s shoes. The whole town is laughing at you. Get out now. Soon it will be too late. This is a warning. Remember what happened to that other girl. Get out and stay out.”

It finished with some mildly obscene language.

“That reached Miss Holland this morning,” said Nash.

“Thought it was funny she hadn’t had one before,” said Sergeant Parkins.

“Who wrote it?” I asked.

Some of the exultation faded out of Nash’s face.

He looked tired and concerned. He said soberly:

“I’m sorry about it, because it will hit a decent man hard, but there it is. Perhaps he’s had his suspicions already.”

“Who wrote it?” I reiterated.

“Miss Aimée Griffith.”

II

Nash and Parkins went to the Griffiths’ house that afternoon with a warrant.

By Nash’s invitation I went with them.

“The doctor,” he said, “is very fond of you. He hasn’t many friends in this place. I think if it is not too painful to you, Mr. Burton, that you might help him to bear up under the shock.”

I said I would come. I didn’t relish the job, but I thought I might be some good.

We rang the bell and asked for Miss Griffith and we were shown into the drawing room. Elsie Holland, Megan and Symmington were there having tea.

Nash behaved very circumspectly.

He asked Aimée if he might have a few words with her privately.

She got up and came towards us. I thought I saw just a faint hunted look in her eye. If so, it went again. She was perfectly normal and hearty.

“Want me? Not in trouble over my car lights again, I hope?”

She led the way out of the drawing room and across the hall into a small study.

As I closed the drawing room door, I saw Symmington’s head jerk up sharply. I supposed his legal training had brought him in contact with police cases, and he had recognized something in Nash’s manner. He half rose.

That is all I saw before I shut the door and followed the others.

Nash was saying his piece. He was very quiet and correct. He cautioned her and then told her that he must ask her to accompany him. He had a warrant for her arrest and he read out the charge—

I forget now the exact legal term. It was the letters, not murder yet.

Aimée Griffith flung up her head and bayed with laughter. She boomed out: “What ridiculous nonsense! As though I’d write a packet of indecent stuff like that. You must be mad. I’ve never written a word of the kind.”

Nash had produced the letter to Elsie Holland. He said:

“Do you deny having written this, Miss Griffith?”

If she hesitated it was only for a split second.

“Of course I do. I’ve never seen it before.”

Nash said quietly: “I must tell you, Miss Griffith, that you were observed to type that letter on the machine at the Women’s Institute between eleven and eleven thirty p.m. on the night before last. Yesterday you entered the post office with a bunch of letters in your hand—”

“I never posted this.”

“No, you did not. Whilst waiting for stamps, you dropped it inconspicuously on the floor, so that somebody should come along unsuspectingly and pick it up and post it.”

“I never—”

The door opened and Symmington came in. He said sharply: “What’s going on? Aimée, if there is anything wrong, you ought to be legally represented. If you wish me—”

She broke then. Covered her face with her hands and staggered to a chair. She said:

“Go away, Dick, go away. Not you! Not you!”

“You need a solicitor, my dear girl.”

“Not you. I—I—couldn’t bear it. I don’t want you to know—

all this.”

He understood then, perhaps. He said quietly:

“I’ll get hold of Mildmay, of Exhampton. Will that do?”

She nodded. She was sobbing now.

Symmington went out of the room. In the doorway he collided with Owen Griffith.

“What’s this?” said Owen violently. “My sister—”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Griffith. Very sorry. But we have no alternative.”

“You think she—was responsible for those letters?”

“I’m afraid there is no doubt of it, sir,” said Nash—he turned to Aimée, “You must come with us now, please, Miss Griffith—you shall have every facility for seeing a solicitor, you know.”