4:50 From Paddington (Miss Marple 8)

“Throwing discretion aside, Doctor, there are people who stand to benefit pretty considerably from Luther Crackenthorpe’s death.” The doctor nodded. “He’s an old man—and a hale and hearty one. He may live to be ninety odd?”

“Easily. He spends his life taking care of himself, and his constitution is sound.”

“And his sons—and daughter—are all getting on, and they are all feeling the pinch?”

“You leave Emma out of it. She’s no poisoner. These attacks only happen when the others are there—not when she and he are alone.”

“An elementary precaution—if she’s the one,” the inspector thought, but was careful not to say aloud.

He paused, choosing his words carefully.

“Surely—I’m ignorant on these matters—but supposing just as a hypothesis that arsenic was administered—hasn’t Crackenthorpe been very lucky not to succumb?”

“Now there,” said the doctor, “you have got something odd. It is exactly that fact that leads me to believe that I have been, as old Morris puts it, a damned fool. You see, it’s obviously not a case of small doses of arsenic administered regularly—which is what you might call the classic method of arsenic poisoning. Crackenthorpe has never had any chronic gastric trouble. In a way, that’s what makes these sudden violent attacks seem unlikely. So, assuming they are not due to natural causes, it looks as though the poisoner is muffing it every time—which hardly makes sense.”

“Giving an inadequate dose, you mean?”

“Yes. On the other hand, Crackenthorpe’s got a strong constitution and what might do in another man, doesn’t do him in. There’s always personal idiosyncrasy to be reckoned with. But you’d think that by now the poisoner—unless he’s unusually timid—would have stepped up the dose. Why hasn’t he?

“That is,” he added, “if there is a poisoner which there probably isn’t! Probably all my ruddy imagination from start to finish.”

“It’s an odd problem,” the inspector agreed. “It doesn’t seem to make sense.”

II

“Inspector Craddock!”

The eager whisper made the inspector jump.

He had been just on the point of ringing the front doorbell. Alexander and his friend Stoddart-West emerged cautiously from the shadows.

“We heard your car, and we wanted to get hold of you.”

“Well, let’s come inside.” Craddock’s hand went out to the door bell again, but Alexander pulled at his coat with the eagerness of a pawing dog.

“We’ve found a clue,” he breathed.

“Yes, we’ve found a clue,” Stoddart-West echoed.

“Damn that girl,” thought Craddock unamiably.

“Splendid,” he said in a perfunctory manner. “Let’s go inside the house and look at it.”

“No,” Alexander was insistent. “Someone’s sure to interrupt. Come to the harness room. We’ll guide you.”

Somewhat unwillingly, Craddock allowed himself to be guided round the corner of the house and along to the stableyard. Stoddart-West pushed open a heavy door, stretched up, and turned on a rather feeble electric light. The harness room, once the acme of Victorian spit and polish, was now the sad repository of everything that no one wanted. Broken garden chairs, rusted old garden implements, a vast decrepit mowing-machine, rusted spring mattresses, hammocks, and disintegrated tennis nets.

“We come here a good deal,” said Alexander. “One can really be private here.”

There were certain tokens of occupancy about. The decayed mattresses had been piled up to make a kind of divan, there was an old rusted table on which reposed a large tin of chocolate biscuits, there was a hoard of apples, a tin of toffees, and a jig-saw puzzle.

“It really is a clue, sir,” said Stoddart-West eagerly, his eyes gleaming behind his spectacles. “We found it this afternoon.”

“We’ve been hunting for days. In the bushes—”

“And inside hollow trees—”

“And we went through the ash bins—”

“There were some jolly interesting things there, as a matter of fact—”

“And then we went into the boiler house—”

“Old Hillman keeps a great galvanized tub there full of waste paper—”

“For when the boiler goes out and he wants to start it again—”

“Any odd paper that’s blowing about. He picks it up and shoves it in there—”

“And that’s where we found it—”

“Found WHAT?” Craddock interrupted the duet.

“The clue. Careful, Stodders, get your gloves on.”

Importantly, Stoddart-West, in the best detective story tradition, drew on a pair of rather dirty gloves and took from his pocket a Kodak photographic folder. From this he extracted in his gloved fingers with the utmost care a soiled and crumpled envelope which he handed importantly to the inspector.

Both boys held their breath in excitement.

Craddock took it with due solemnity. He liked the boys and he was ready to enter into the spirit of the thing.

The letter had been through the post, there was no enclosure inside, it was just a torn envelope—addressed to Mrs. Martine Crackenthorpe, 126 Elvers Crescent, N.10.

“You see?” said Alexander breathlessly. “It shows she was here— Uncle Edmund’s French wife, I mean—the one there’s all the fuss about. She must have actually been here and dropped out somewhere. So it looks, doesn’t it—”

Stoddart-West broke in:

“It looks as though she was the one who got murdered— I mean, don’t you think, sir, that it simply must have been her in the sarcophagus?”

They waited anxiously.

Craddock played up.

“Possible, very possible,” he said.

“This is important, isn’t it?”

“You’ll test it for fingerprints, won’t you, sir?”

“Of course,” said Craddock.

Stoddart-West gave a deep sigh.

“Smashing luck for us, wasn’t it?” he said. “On our last day, too.”

“Last day?”

“Yes,” said Alexander. “I’m going to Stodders’ place tomorrow for the last few days of the holidays. Stodders’ people have got a smashing house— Queen Anne, isn’t it?”

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“William and Mary,” said Stoddart-West.

“I thought your mother said—”

“Mum’s French. She doesn’t really know about English architecture.”

“But your father said it was built—”

Craddock was examining the envelope.

Clever of Lucy Eyelesbarrow. How had she managed to fake the post mark? He peered closely, but the light was too feeble. Great fun for the boys, of course, but rather awkward for him. Lucy, drat her, hadn’t considered that angle. If this were genuine, it would enforce a course of action. There….

Beside him a learned architectural argument was being hotly pursued. He was deaf to it.

“Come on, boys,” he said, “we’ll go into the house. You’ve been very helpful.”

Eighteen

I

Craddock was escorted by the boys through the back door into the house. This was, it seemed, their common mode of entrance. The kitchen was bright and cheerful. Lucy, in a large white apron, was rolling out pastry. Leaning against the dresser, watching her with a kind of dog-like attention, was Bryan Eastley. With one hand he tugged at his large fair moustache.

“Hallo, Dad,” said Alexander kindly. “You out here again?”

“I like it out here,” said Bryan, and added: “Miss Eyelesbarrow doesn’t mind.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Lucy. “Good evening, Inspector Craddock.”

“Coming to detect in the kitchen?” asked Bryan with interest.

“Not exactly. Mr. Cedric Crackenthorpe is still here, isn’t he?”

“Oh, yes, Cedric’s here. Do you want him?”

“I’d like a word with him—yes, please.”

“I’ll go and see if he’s in,” said Bryan. “He may have gone round to the local.”

He unpropped himself from the dresser.

“Thank you so much,” said Lucy to him. “My hands are all over flour or I’d go.”

“What are you making?” asked Stoddart-West anxiously.

“Peach flan.”

“Good-oh,” said Stoddart-West.

“Is it nearly suppertime?” asked Alexander.

“No.”

“Gosh! I’m terribly hungry.”

“There’s the end of the ginger cake in the larder.”