At Bertram's Hotel (Miss Marple 11)

“The missing man is Canon Pennyfather, I understand,” said Inspector Campbell. He looked at his notes. “I’ve got Sergeant Wadell’s report. Perhaps you’ll tell me in your own words just what occurred.”

“I don’t think that Canon Pennyfather has really disappeared in the sense in which one would usually use that word,” said Miss Gorringe. “I think, you know, that he’s just met someone somewhere, some old friend or something like that, and has perhaps gone off with him to some scholarly meeting or reunion or something of that kind, on the Continent—he is so very vague.”

“You’ve known him for a long time?”

“Oh yes, he’s been coming here to stay for—let me see—oh five or six years at least, I should think.”

“You’ve been here some time yourself, ma’am,” said Chief-Inspector Davy, suddenly putting in a word.

“I have been here, let me think, fourteen years,” said Miss Gorringe.

“It’s a nice place,” repeated Davy again. “And Canon Pennyfather usually stayed here when he was in London? Is that right?”

“Yes. He always came to us. He wrote well beforehand to retain his room. He was much less vague on paper than he was in real life. He asked for a room from the 17th to the 21st. During that time he expected to be away for one or two nights, and he explained that he wished to keep his room on while he was away. He quite often did that.”

“When did you begin to get worried about him?” asked Campbell.

“Well, I didn’t really. Of course it was awkward. You see, his room was let on from the 23rd and when I realized—I didn’t at first—that he hadn’t come back from Lugano—”

“I’ve got Lucerne here in my notes,” said Campbell.

“Yes, yes, I think it was Lucerne. Some Archaeological Congress or other. Anyway, when I realized he hadn’t come back here and that his baggage was still here waiting in his room, it made things rather awkward. You see, we are very booked up at this time of year and I had someone else coming into his room. The Honourable Mrs. Saunders, who lives at Lyme Regis. She always has that room. And then his housekeeper rang up. She was worried.”

“The housekeeper’s name is Mrs. McCrae, so I understand from Archdeacon Simmons. Do you know her?”

“Not personally, no, but I have spoken to her on the telephone once or twice. She is, I think, a very reliable woman and has been with Canon Pennyfather for some years. She was worried naturally. I believe she and Archdeacon Simmons got in touch with near friends and relations but they knew nothing of Canon Pennyfather’s movements. And since he was expecting the Archdeacon to stay with him it certainly seemed very odd—in fact it still does—that the Canon should not have returned home.”

“Is this Canon usually as absentminded as that?” asked Father.

Miss Gorringe ignored him. This large man, presumably the accompanying sergeant, seemed to her to be pushing himself forward a little too much.

“And now I understand,” continued Miss Gorringe, in an annoyed voice, “and now I understand from Archdeacon Simmons that the Canon never even went to this conference in Lucerne.”

“Did he send any message to say he wouldn’t go?”

“I don’t think so—not from here. No telegram or anything like that. I really know nothing about Lucerne—I am really only concerned with our side of the matter. It has got into the evening papers, I see—the fact that he is missing, I mean. They haven’t mentioned he was staying here. I hope they won’t. We don’t want the Press here, our visitors wouldn’t like that at all. If you can keep them off us, Inspector Campbell, we should be very grateful. I mean it’s not as if he had disappeared from here.”

“His luggage is still here?”

“Yes. In the baggage room. If he didn’t go to Lucerne, have you considered the possibility of his being run over? Something like that?”

“Nothing like that has happened to him.”

“It really does seem very, very curious,” said Miss Gorringe, a faint flicker of interest appearing in her manner, to replace the annoyance. “I mean, it does make one wonder where he could have gone and why?”

Father looked at her comprehendingly.

“Of course,” he said. “You’ve only been thinking of it from the hotel angle. Very natural.”

“I understand,” said Inspector Campbell, referring once more to his notes, “that Canon Pennyfather left here about six thirty on the evening of Thursday the 19th. He had with him a small overnight bag and he left here in a taxi, directing the commissionaire to tell the driver to drive to the Athenaeum Club.”

Miss Gorringe nodded her head.

“Yes, he dined at the Athenaeum Club—Archdeacon Simmons told me that that was the place he was last seen.”

There was a firmness in Miss Gorringe’s voice as she transferred the responsibility of seeing the Canon last from Bertram’s Hotel to the Athenaeum Club.

“Well, it’s nice to get the facts straight,” said Father in a gentle rumbling voice. “We’ve got ’em straight now. He went off with his little blue BOAC bag or whatever he’d got with him—it was a blue BOAC bag, yes? He went off and he didn’t come back, and that’s that.”

“So you see, really I cannot help you,” said Miss Gorringe, showing a disposition to rise to her feet and get back to work.

“It doesn’t seem as if you could help us,” said Father, “but someone else might be able to,” he added.

“Someone else?”

“Why, yes,” said Father. “One of the staff perhaps.”

“I don’t think anyone knows anything; or they would certainly have reported it to me.”

“Well, perhaps they might. Perhaps they mightn’t. What I mean is, they’d have told you if they’d distinctly known anything. But I was thinking more of something he might have said.”

“What sort of thing?” said Miss Gorringe, looking perplexed.

“Oh, just some chance word that might give one a clue. Something like ‘I’m going to see an old friend tonight that I haven’t seen since we met in Arizona.’ Something like that. Or ‘I’m going to stay next week with a niece of mine for her daughter’s confirmation.’ With absentminded people, you know, clues like that are a great help. They show what was in the person’s mind. It may be that after his dinner at the Athenaeum, he gets into a taxi and thinks ‘Now where am I going?’ and having got—say—the confirmation in his mind—thinks he’s going off there.”

“Well, I see what you mean,” said Miss Gorringe doubtfully. “It seems a little unlikely.”

“Oh, one never knows one’s luck,” said Father cheerfully. “Then there are the various guests here. I suppose Canon Pennyfather knew some of them since he came here fairly often.”

“Oh yes,” said Miss Gorringe. “Let me see now. I’ve seen him talking to—yes, Lady Selina Hazy. Then there was the Bishop of Norwich. They’re old friends, I believe. They were at Oxford together. And Mrs. Jameson and her daughters. They come from the same part of the world. Oh yes, quite a lot of people.”

“You see,” said Father, “he might have talked to one of them. He might have just mentioned some little thing that would

give us a clue. Is there anyone staying here now that the Canon knew fairly well?”

Miss Gorringe frowned in thought.

“Well, I think General Radley is here still. And there’s an old lady who came up from the country—who used to stay here as a girl, so she told me. Let me see, I can’t remember her name at the moment, but I can find it for you. Oh yes, Miss Marple, that’s her name. I believe she knew him.”

“Well, we could make a start with those two. And there’d be a chambermaid, I suppose.”

“Oh yes,” said Miss Gorringe. “But she has been interviewed already by Sergeant Wadell.”

“I know. But not perhaps from this angle. What about the waiter who attended on his table. Or the headwaiter?”

“There’s Henry, of course,” said Miss Gorringe.

“Who’s Henry?” asked Father.

Miss Gorringe looked almost shocked. It was to her impossible that anyone should not know Henry.

“Henry has been here for more years than I can say,” she said. “You must have noticed him serving teas as you came in.”

“Kind of personality,” said Davy. “I remember noticing him.”

“I don’t know what we should do without Henry,” said Miss Gorringe with feeling. “He really is wonderful. He sets the tone of the place, you know.”

“Perhaps he might like to serve tea to me,” said Chief-Inspector Davy. “Muffins, I saw he’d got there. I’d like a good muffin again.”

“Certainly if you like,” said Miss Gorringe, rather coldly. “Shall I order two teas to be served to you in the lounge?” she added, turning to Inspector Campbell.

“That would—” the inspector began, when suddenly the door opened and Mr. Humfries appeared in his Olympian manner.

He looked slightly taken aback, then looked inquiringly at Miss Gorringe. Miss Gorringe explained.

“These are two gentlemen from Scotland Yard, Mr. Humfries,” she said.

“Detective-Inspector Campbell,” said Campbell.