At Bertram's Hotel (Miss Marple 11)

It was a fine night and he walked home to Bertram’s Hotel after first getting into a bus which took him in the opposite direction. It was midnight when he got in and Bertram’s Hotel at midnight usually preserved a decorous appearance of everyone having gone to bed. The lift was on a higher floor so the Canon walked up the stairs. He came to his room, inserted the key in the lock, threw the door open and entered!

Good gracious, was he seeing things? But who—how—he saw the upraised arm too late….

Stars exploded in a kind of Guy Fawkes’ display within his head….

Chapter Eight

I

The Irish Mail rushed through the night. Or, more correctly, through the darkness of the early morning hours.

At intervals the diesel engine gave its weird banshee warning cry. It was travelling at well over eighty miles an hour. It was on time.

Then, with some suddenness, the pace slackened as the brakes came on. The wheels screamed as they gripped the metals. Slower…slower…The guard put his head out of the window noting the red signal ahead as the train came to a final halt. Some of the passengers woke up. Most did not.

One elderly lady, alarmed by the suddenness of the deceleration, opened the door and looked out along the corridor. A little way along one of the doors to the line was open. An elderly cleric with a thatch of thick white hair was climbing up from the permanent way. She presumed he had previously climbed down to the line to investigate. The morning air was distinctly chilly. Someone at the end of the corridor said: “Only a signal.” The elderly lady withdrew into her compartment and tried to go to sleep again.

Farther up the line, a man waving a lantern was running towards the train from a signal box. The fireman climbed down from the engine. The guard who had descended from the train came along to join him. The man with the lantern arrived, rather short of breath and spoke in a series of gasps.

“Bad crash ahead…Goods train derailed….”

The engine driver looked out of his cab, then climbed down also to join the others.

At the rear of the train, six men who had just climbed up the embankment boarded the train through a door left open for them in the last coach. Six passengers from different coaches met them. With well-rehearsed speed, they proceeded to take charge of the postal van, isolating it from the rest of the train. Two men in Balaclava helmets at front and rear of the compartment stood on guard, coshes in hand.

A man in railway uniform went forward along the corridor of the stationary train, uttering explanations to such as demanded them.

“Block on the line ahead. Ten minutes’ delay, maybe, not much more….” It sounded friendly and reassuring.

By the engine, the driver and the fireman lay neatly gagged and trussed up. The man with the lantern called out:

“Everything OK here.”

The guard lay by the embankment, similarly gagged and tied.

The expert cracksmen in the postal van had done their work. Two more neatly trussed bodies lay on the floor. The special mailbags sailed out to where other men on the embankment awaited them.

In their compartments, passengers grumbled to each other that the railways were not what they used to be.

Then, as they settled themselves to sleep again, there came through the darkness the roar of an exhaust.

“Goodness,” murmured a woman. “Is that a jet plane?”

“Racing car, I should say.”

The roar died away….

II

On the Bedhampton Motorway, nine miles away, a steady stream of night lorries was grinding its way north. A big white racing car flashed past them.

Ten minutes later, it turned off the motorway.

The garage on the corner of the B road bore the sign CLOSED. But the big doors swung open and the white car was driven straight in, the doors closing again behind it. Three men worked at lightning speed. A fresh set of number plates were attached. The driver changed his coat and cap. He had worn white sheepskin before. Now he wore black leather. He drove out again. Three minutes after his departure, an old Morris Oxford, driven by a clergyman, chugged out onto the road and proceeded to take a route through various turning and twisting country lanes.

A station wagon, driven along a country road, slowed up as it came upon an old Morris Oxford stationary by the hedge, with an elderly man standing over it.

The driver of the station wagon put out a head.

“Having trouble? Can I help?”

“Very good of you. It’s my lights.”

The two drivers approached each other—listened. “All clear.”

Various expensive American-style cases were transferred from the Morris Oxford to the station wagon.

A mile or two farther on, the station wagon turned off on what looked like a rough track but which presently turned out to be the back way to a large and opulent mansion. In what had been a stableyard, a big white Mercedes car was standing. The driver of the station wagon opened its boot with a key, transferred the cases to the boot, and drove away again in the station wagon.

In a nearby farmyard a cock crowed noisily.

Chapter Nine

I

Elvira Blake looked up at the sky, noted that it was a fine morning and went into a telephone box. She dialled Bridget’s number in Onslow Square. Satisfied by the response, she said:

“Hallo? Bridget?”

“Oh Elvira, is that you?” Bridget’s voice sounded agitated.

“Yes. Has everything been all right?”

“Oh no. It’s been awful. Your cousin, Mrs. Melford, rang up Mummy yesterday afternoon.”

“What, about me?”

“Yes. I thought I’d done it so well when I rang her up at lunchtime. But it seems she got worried about your teeth. Thought there might be something really wrong with them. Abscesses or something. So she rang up the dentist herself and found, of course, that you’d never been there at all. So then she rang up Mummy and unfortunately Mummy was right there by the telephone. So I couldn’t get there first. And naturally Mummy said she didn’t know anything about it, and that you certainly weren’t staying here. I didn’t know what to do.”

“What did you do?”

“Pretended I knew nothing about it. I did say that I thought you’d said something about going to see some friends at Wimbledon.”

“Why Wimbledon?”

“It was the first place came into my head.”

Elvira sighed. “Oh well, I suppose I’ll have to cook up something. An old governess, perhaps, who lives at Wimbledon. All this fussing does make things so complicated. I hope Cousin Mildred doesn’t make a real fool of herself and ring up the police or something like that.”

“Are you going down there now?”

“Not till this evening. I’ve got a lot to do first.”

“You got to Ireland. Was it—all right?”

“I found out what I wanted to know.”

“You sound—sort of grim.”

“I’m feeling grim.”

“Can’t I help you, Elvira? Do anything?”

“Nobody can help me really…It’s a thing I have to do myself. I hoped something wasn’t true, but it is true. I don’t know quite what to do about it.”

“Are you in danger, Elvira?”

“Don’t be melodramatic, Bridget. I’ll have to be careful, that’s all. I’ll have to be very careful.”

“Then you are in danger.”

Elvira said after a moment’s pause, “I expect I’m just imagining things, that’s all.”

“Elvira, what are you going to do about that bracelet?”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’ve arranged to get some money from someone, so I can go and—what’s the word—redeem it. Then just take it back to Bollards.”

“D’you think they’ll be all right about it?—No, Mummy, it’s just the laundry. They say we never sent that sheet. Yes, Mummy, yes, I’ll tell the manageress. All right then.”