4:50 From Paddington (Miss Marple 8)

“Leaves me well within the limit, unfortunately. But really, Inspector, strangling young women is not my favourite form of Christmas fun.”

“I hope not, Mr. Crackenthorpe.”

Inspector Bacon merely looked disapproving.

“There would be a remarkable absence of peace and good will about such an action, don’t you agree?”

Cedric addressed this question to Inspector Bacon who merely grunted. Inspector Craddock said politely:

“Well, thank you, Mr. Crackenthorpe. That will be all.”

“And what do you think of him?” Craddock asked as Cedric shut the door behind him.

Bacon grunted again.

“Cocky enough for anything,” he said. “I don’t care for the type myself. A loose-living lot, these artists, and very likely to be mixed up with a disreputable class of woman.”

Craddock smiled.

“I don’t like the way he dresses, either,” went on Bacon. “No respect—going to an inquest like that. Dirtiest pair of trousers I’ve seen in a long while. And did you see his tie? Looked as though it was made of coloured string. If you ask me, he’s the kind that would easily strangle a woman and make no bones about it.”

“Well, he didn’t strangle this one—if he didn’t leave Majorca until the 21st. And that’s a thing we can verify easily enough.”

Bacon threw him a sharp glance.

“I notice that you’re not tipping your hand yet about the actual date of the crime.”

“No, we’ll keep that dark for the present. I always like to have something up my sleeve in the early stages.”

Bacon nodded in full agreement.

“Spring it on ’em when the time comes,” he said. “That’s the best plan.”

“And now,” said Craddock, “we’ll see what our correct City gentleman has to say about it all.”

Harold Crackenthorpe, thin-lipped, had very little to say about it. It was most distasteful—a very unfortunate incident. The newspapers, he was afraid… Reporters, he understood, had already been asking for interviews… All that sort of thing… Most regrettable….

Harold’s staccato unfinished sentences ended. He leaned back in his chair with the expression of a man confronted with a very bad smell.

The inspector’s probing produced no result. No, he had no idea who the woman was or could be. Yes, he had been at Rutherford Hall for Christmas. He had been unable to come down until Christmas Eve—but had stayed on over the following weekend.

“That’s that, then,” said Inspector Craddock, without pressing his questions further. He had already made up his mind that Harold Crackenthorpe was not going to be helpful.

He passed on to Alfred, who came into the room with a nonchalance that seemed just a trifle overdone.

Craddock looked at Alfred Crackenthorpe with a faint feeling of recognition. Surely he had seen this particular member of the family somewhere before? Or had it been his picture in the paper? There was something discreditable attached to the memory. He asked Alfred his occupation and Alfred’s answer was vague.

“I’m in insurance at the moment. Until recently I’ve been interested in putting a new type of talking machine on the market. Quite revolutionary. I did very well out of that as a matter of fact.”

Inspector Craddock looked appreciative—and no one could have had the least idea that he was noticing the superficially smart appearance of Alfred’s suit and gauging correctly the low price it had cost. Cedric’s clothes had been disreputable, almost threadbare, but they had been originally of good cut and excellent material. Here there was a cheap smartness that told its own tale. Craddock passed pleasantly on to his routine questions. Alfred seemed interested—even slightly amused.

“It’s quite an idea, that the woman might once have had a job here. Not as a lady’s maid; I doubt if my sister has ever had such a thing. I don’t think anyone has nowadays. But, of course, there is a good deal of foreign domestic labour floating about. We’ve had Poles—and a temperamental German or two. As Emma definitely didn’t recognize the woman, I think that washes your idea out, Inspector, Emma’s got a very good memory for a face. No, if the woman came from London… What gives you the idea she came from London, by the way?”

He slipped the question in quite casually, but his eyes were sharp and interested.

Inspector Craddock smiled and shook his head.

Alfred looked at him keenly.

“Not telling, eh? Return ticket in her coat pocket, perhaps, is that it?”

“It could be, Mr. Crackenthorpe.”

“Well, granting she came from London, perhaps the chap she came to meet had the idea that the Long Barn would be a nice place to do a quiet murder. He knows the setup here, evidently. I should go looking for him if I were you, Inspector.”

“We are,” said Inspector Craddock, and made the two little words sound quiet and confident.

He thanked Alfred and dismissed him.

“You know,” he said to Bacon, “I’ve seen that chap somewhere before….”

Inspector Bacon gave his verdict.

“Sharp customer,” he said. “So sharp that he cuts himself sometimes.”

II

“I don’t suppose you want to see me,” said Bryan Eastley apologetically, coming into the room and hesitating by the door. “I don’t exactly belong to the family—”

“Let me see, you are Mr. Bryan Eastley, the husband of Miss Edith Crackenthorpe, who died five years ago?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, it’s very kind of you, Mr. Eastley, especially if you know something that you think could assist us in some way?”

“But I don’t. Wish I did. Whole thing seems so ruddy peculiar, doesn’t it? Coming along and meeting some fellow in that draughty old barn, in the middle of winter. Wouldn’t be my cup of tea!”

“It is certainly very perplexing,” Inspector Craddock agreed.

“Is it true that she was a foreigner? Word seems to have got round to that effect.”

“Does that fact suggest anything to you?” The inspector looked at him sharply, but Bryan seemed amiably vacuous.

“No, it doesn’t, as a matter of fact.”

“Maybe she was French,” said Inspector Bacon, with dark suspicion.

Bryan was roused to slight animation. A look of interest came into his blue eyes, and he tugged at his big fair moustache.

“Really? Gay Paree?” He shook his head. “On the whole it seems to make it even more unlikely, doesn’t it? Messing about in the barn, I mean. You haven’t had any other sarcophagus murders, have you? One of these fellows with an urge—or a complex? Thinks he’s Caligula or someone like that?”

Inspector Craddock did not even trouble to reject this speculation. Instead he asked in a casual manner:

“Nobody in the family got any French connections, or—or—relationships that you know of?”

Bryan said that the Crackenthorpes weren’t a very gay lot.

“Harold’s respectably married,” he said. “Fish-faced woman, some impoverished peer’s daughter. Don’t think Alfred cares about women much—spends his life going in for shady deals which usually go wrong in the end. I dare say Cedric’s got a few Spanish señoritas jumping through hoops for him in Ibiza. Women rather fall for Cedric. Doesn’t always shave and looks as though he never washes. Don’t see why that should be attractive to women, but apparently it is—I say, I’m n

ot being very helpful, am I?”

He grinned at them.

“Better get young Alexander on the job. He and James Stoddart- West are out hunting for clues in a big way. Bet you they turn up something.”

Inspector Craddock said he hoped they would. Then he thanked Bryan Eastley and said he would like to speak to Miss Emma Crackenthorpe.

III

Inspector Craddock looked with more attention at Emma Crackenthorpe than he had done previously. He was still wondering about the expression that he had surprised on her face before lunch.

A quiet woman. Not stupid. Not brilliant either. One of those comfortable pleasant women whom men were inclined to take for granted, and who had the art of making a house into a home, giving it an atmosphere of restfulness and quiet harmony. Such, he thought, was Emma Crackenthorpe.

Women such as this were often underrated. Behind their quiet exterior they had force of character, they were to be reckoned with. Perhaps, Craddock thought, the clue to the mystery of the dead woman in the sarcophagus was hidden away in the recesses of Emma’s mind.

Whilst these thoughts were passing through his head, Craddock was asking various unimportant questions.

“I don’t suppose there is much that you haven’t already told Inspector Bacon,” he said. “So I needn’t worry you with many questions.”

“Please ask me anything you like.”

“As Mr. Wimborne told you, we have reached the conclusion that the dead woman was not a native of these parts. That may be a relief to you—Mr. Wimborne seemed to think it would be—but it makes it really more difficult for us. She’s less easily identified.”

“But didn’t she have anything—a handbag? Papers?”

Craddock shook his head.

“No handbag, nothing in her pockets.”

“You’ve no idea of her name—of where she came from—anything at all?”

Craddock thought to himself: She wants to know—she’s very anxious to know—who the woman is. Has she felt like that all along, I wonder? Bacon didn’t give me that impression—and he’s a shrewd man….