underlined. A good deal about how she hopes it won't be taking up our valuable time, but might possibly be of some slight assistance, etc., etc. What's her name? Jane – something – Murple – no, Marple, Jane Marple.'
'Ye Gods and Little Fishes,' said Sir Henry, 'can it be? George, it's my own particular, one and only, four starred Pussy. The super Pussy of all old Pussies. And she has managed somehow to be at Medenham Wells, instead of peacefully at home in St. Mary Mead, just at the right time to be mixed up in a murder. Once more a murder is announced – for the benefit and enjoyment of Miss Marple.'
'Well, Henry,' said Rydesdale sardonically. 'I'll be glad to see your paragon. Come on! We'll lunch at the Royal Spa and we'll interview the lady. Craddock, here, is looking highly sceptical.'
'Not at all, sir,' said Craddock politely.
He thought to himself that sometimes his godfather carried things a bit far.
II
Miss Jane Marple was very nearly, if not quite, as Craddock had pictured her. She was far more benignant than he had imagined and a good deal older. She seemed indeed very old. She had snow white hair and a pink crinkled face and very soft innocent blue eyes, and she was heavily enmeshed in fleecy wool. Wool round her shoulders in the form of a lacy cape and wool that she was knitting and which turned out to be a baby's shawl.
She was all incoherent delight and pleasure at seeing Sir Henry, and became quite flustered when introduced to the Chief Constable and Detective-Inspector Craddock.
'But really, Sir Henry, how fortunate… how very fortunate. So long since I have seen you… Yes, my rheumatism. Very bad of late. Of course I couldn't have afforded this hotel (really fantastic what they charge nowadays) but Raymond – my nephew, Raymond West, you may remember him?'
'Everyone knows his name.'
'Yes, the dear boy has been so successful with his clever books – he prides himself upon never writing about anything pleasant. The dear boy insisted on paying all my expenses. And his dear wife is making a name for herself too, as an artist. Mostly jugs of dying flowers and broken combs on window-sills. I never dare tell her, but I still admire Blair Leighton and Alma Tadema. Oh, but I'm chattering. And the Chief Constable himself – indeed I never expected – so afraid I shall be taking up his time-'
'Completely ga-ga,' thought the disgusted Detective-Inspector Craddock.
'Come into the Manager's private room,' said Rydesdale. 'We can talk better there.'
When Miss Marple had been disentangled from her wool, and her spare knitting pins collected, she accompanied them, fluttering and protesting, to Mr. Rowlandson's comfortable sitting-room.
'Now, Miss Marple, let's hear what you have to tell us,' said the Chief Constable.
Miss Marple came to the point with unexpected brevity.
'It was a cheque,' she said. 'He altered it.'
'He?'
'The young man at the desk here, the one who is supposed to have staged that hold-up and shot himself.'
'He altered a cheque, you say?'
Miss Marple nodded.
'Yes. I have it here.' She extracted it from her bag and laid it on the table. 'It came this morning with my others from the Bank. You can see it was for seven pounds, and he altered it to seventeen. A stroke in front of the 7, and teen added after the word seven with a nice artistic little blot just blurring the whole word. Really very nicely done. A certain amount of practice, I should say. It's the same ink, because I wrote the cheque actually at the desk. I should think he'd done it quite often before, wouldn't you?'
'He picked the wrong person this time,' remarked Sir Henry.
Miss Marple nodded agreement.
'Yes. I'm afraid he would never have gone very far in crime. I was quite the wrong person. Some busy young married woman, or some girl having a love affair – that's the kind who write cheques for all sorts of different sums and don't really look through their passbooks carefully. But an old woman who has to be careful of the pennies, and who has formed habits – that's quite the wrong person to choose. Seventeen pounds is a sum I never write a cheque for. Twenty pounds, a round sum, for the monthly wages and books. And as for my personal expenditure, I usually cash seven – it used to be five, but everything has gone up so.'
'And perhaps he reminded you of someone?' prompted Sir Henry, mischief in his eye.
Miss Marple smiled and shook her head at him.
'You are very naughty, Sir Henry. As a matter of fact he did. Fred Tyier, at the fish shop. Always slipped an extra 1 in the shillings column. Eating so much fish as we do nowadays, it made a long bill, and lots of people never added it up. Just ten shillings in his pocket every time, not much but enough to get himself a few neckties and take Jessie Spragge (the girl in the draper's) to the pictures. Cut a splash, that's what these young fellows want to do. Well, the very first week I was here, there was a mistake in my bill. I pointed it out to the young man and he apologised very nicely and looked very much upset, but I thought to myself then: 'You've got a shifty eye, young man.'
'What I mean by a shifty eye,' continued Miss Marple, 'is the kind that looks very straight at you and never looks away or blinks.'
Craddock gave a sudden movement of appreciation.
He thought to himself 'Jim Kelly to the life' remembering a notorious swindler he had helped to put behind bars not long ago.
'Rudi Scherz was a thoroughly unsatisfactory character,' said Rydesdale. 'He's got a police record in Switzerland, we find.'
'Made the place too hot for him, I suppose, and came over here with forged papers?' said Miss Marple.
'Exactly,' said Rydesdale.
'He was going about with the little red-haired waitress from the dining-room,' said Miss Marple. 'Fortunately I don't think her heart's affected at all. She just liked to have someone a bit 'different,' and he used to give her flowers and chocolates which the English boys don't do much. Has she told you all she knows?' she asked, turning suddenly to Craddock. 'Or not quite all yet?'
'I'm not absolutely sure,' said Craddock cautiously.
'I think there's a little to come,' said Miss Marple. 'She's looking very worried. Brought me kippers instead of herrings this morning, and forgot the milk jug. Usually she's an excellent waitress. Yes, she's worried. Afraid she might have to give evidence or something like that. But I expect' – her candid blue eyes swept over the manly proportions and handsome face of Detective-Inspector Craddock with truly feminine Victorian appreciation – 'that you will be able to persuade her to tell you all she knows.'
Detective-Inspector Craddock blushed and Sir Henry chuckled.
'It might be important,' said Miss Marple. 'He may have told her who it was.'
Rydesdale stared at her.
'Who what was?'
'I express myself so badly. Who it was who put him up to it, I mean.'
'So you think someone put him up to it?'
Miss Marple's eyes widened in surprise.
'Oh, but surely – I mean… Here's a personable young man – who niches a little bit here and a little bit there – alters a small cheque, perhaps helps himself to a small piece of jewellery if it's left lying around, or takes a little money from the till – all sorts of small petty thefts. Keeps himself going in ready money so that he can dress well, and take a girl about – all that sort of thing. And then suddenly he goes off, with a revolver, and holds up a room full of people, and shoots at someone. He'd never have done a thing like that – not for a moment! He wasn't that kind of person. It doesn't make sense.'
Craddock drew in his breath sharply. That was what Letitia Blacklog had said. What the Vicar's wife had
