'But how would he have known you had one?'
'These gangs have a most extraordinary communication service. They get to know everything about a place and who lives there.'
'What a lot you do know, Archie.'
'Ha. Yes. Seen a thing or two in my time. Still as you definitely remember seeing my revolver after the hold-up – well, that settles it. The revolver that Swiss fellow used can't have been mine, can it?'
'Of course it can't.'
'A great relief. I should have had to go to the police about it. And they ask a lot of awkward questions. Bound to. As a matter of fact I never took out a licence for it. Somehow, after a war, one forgets these peacetime regulations. I looked on it as a war souvenir, not as a firearm.'
'Yes, I see. Of course.'
'But all the same – where on earth can the damned thing be?'
'Perhaps Mrs. Butt took it. She's always seemed quite honest, but perhaps she felt nervous after the holdup and thought she'd like to – to have a revolver in the house. Of course, she'll never admit doing that. I shan't even ask her. She might get offended. And what should we do then? This is such a big house – I simply couldn't-'
'Quite so,' said Colonel Easterbrook. 'Better not say anything.'
Chapter 13
MORNING ACTIVITIES IN CHIPPING CLEGHORN (CONTINUED)
Miss Marple came out of the Vicarage gate and walked down the little lane that led into the main street.
She walked fairly briskly with the aid of the Rev. Julian Harmon's stout ashplant stick.
She passed the Red Cow and the butcher's and stopped for a brief moment to look into the window of Mr. Elliot's antique shop. This was cunningly situated next door to the Bluebird Tearooms and Cafe so that rich motorists, after stopping for a nice cup of tea and somewhat euphemistically named 'Home Made Cakes' of a bright saffron colour, could be tempted by Mr. Elliot's judiciously planned shop window.
In this antique bow frame, Mr. Elliot catered for all tastes. Two pieces of Waterford glass reposed on an impeccable wine cooler. A walnut bureau, made up of various bits and pieces proclaimed itself a Genuine Bargain and on a table, in the window itself, were a nice assortment of cheap doorknockers and quaint pixies, a few chipped bits of Dresden, a couple of sad-looking bead necklaces, a mug with 'A Present from Tunbridge Wells'on it, and some tit-bits of Victorian silver.
Miss Marple gave the window her rapt attention, and Mr. Elliot, an elderly obese spider, peeped out of his web to appraise the possibilities of this new fly.
But just as he decided that the charms of the Present from Tunbridge Wells were about to be too much for the lady who was staying at the Vicarage (for of course Mr. Elliot, like everybody else, knew exactly who she was), Miss Marple saw out of the corner of her eye Miss Dora Bunner entering the Bluebird Cafe, and immediately decided that what she needed to counteract the cold wind was a nice cup of morning coffee.
Four or five ladies were already engaged in sweetening their morning shopping by a pause for refreshment. Miss Marple, blinking a little in the gloom of the interior of the Bluebird, and hovering artistically, was greeted by the voice of Dora Bunner at her elbow.
'Oh, good morning, Miss Marple. Do sit down here. I'm all alone.'
'Thank you.'
Miss Marple subsided gratefully on to the rather angular little blue-painted arm-chair which the Bluebird affected.
'Such a sharp wind,' she complained. 'And I can't walk very fast because of my rheumatic leg.'
'Oh, I know. I had sciatica one year – and really, most of the time I was in agony.'
The two ladies talked rheumatism, sciatica and neuritis for some moments with avidity. A sulky-looking girl in a pink overall with a flight of bluebirds down the front of it took their order for coffee and cakes with a yawn and an air of weary patience.
'The cakes,' Miss Bunner said in a conspiratorial whisper, 'are really quite good here.'
'I was so interested in that very pretty girl I met as we were coming away from Miss Blacklog's the other day,' said Miss Marple. 'I think she said she does gardening. Or is she on the land? Hynes – was that her name?'
'Oh, yes, Phillipa Haymes. Our 'Lodger,' as we call her.' Miss Bunner laughed at her own humour.
'Such a nice quiet girl. A lady, if you know what I mean.'
'I wonder now. I knew a Colonel Haymes – in the Indian cavalry. Her father perhaps?'
'She's Mrs. Haymes. A widow. Her husband was killed in Sicily or Italy. Of course, it might be his father.'
'I wondered, perhaps, if there might be a little romance on the way?' Miss Marple suggested roguishly. 'With that tall young man?'
'With Patrick, do you mean? Oh, I don't-'
'No, I meant a young man with spectacles. I've seen him about.'
'Oh, of course, Edmund Swettenham. Sh! That's his mother, Mrs. Swettenham, over in the corner. I don't know, I'm sure. You think he admires her? He's such an odd young man – says the most disturbing things sometimes. He's supposed to be clever, you know,' said Miss Bunner with frank disapproval.
'Cleverness isn't everything,' said Miss Marple, shaking her head. 'Ah, here is our coffee.'
The sulky girl deposited it with a clatter. Miss Marple and Miss Bunner pressed cakes on each other.
'I was so interested to hear you were at school with Miss Blacklog. Yours is indeed an old friendship.'
'Yes, indeed.' Miss Bunner sighed. 'Very few people would be as loyal to their old friends as dear Miss Blacklog is. Oh, dear, those days seem a long time ago. Such a pretty girl and enjoyed life so much. It all seemed so sad.'
Miss Marple, though with no idea of what had seemed so sad, sighed and shook her head.
'Life is indeed hard,' she murmured.
'And sad affliction bravely borne,' murmured Miss Bunner, her eyes suffusing with tears. 'I always think of that verse. True patience; true resignation. Such courage and patience ought to be rewarded, that is what I say. What I feel is that nothing is too good for dear Miss Blacklog, and whatever good things come to her, she truly deserves them.'
'Money,' said Miss Marple, 'can do a lot to ease one's path in life.'
She felt herself safe in this observation since she judged that it must be Miss Blacklog's prospects of future affluence to which her friend referred.
The remark, however, started Miss Bunner on another train of thought.
'Money!' she exclaimed with bitterness. 'I don't believe, you know, that until one has really experienced it, one can know what money, or rather the lack of it, means.'
Miss Marple nodded her white head sympathetically.
Miss Bunner went on rapidly, working herself up, and speaking with a flushed face: 'I've heard people say so often 'I'd rather have flowers on the table than a meal without them.' But how many meals have those people ever missed? They don't know what it is – nobody knows who hasn't been through it – to be really hungry. Bread, you know, and a jar of meat paste, and a scrape of margarine. Day after day, and how one longs for a good plate of meat and two vegetables. And the shabbiness. Darning one's clothes and hoping it won't show. And applying for jobs and always being told you're too old. And then perhaps getting a job and after all one isn't strong enough. One faints. And you're back again. It's the rent – always the rent – that's got to be paid – otherwise you're out in the street. And in these days it leaves so little over. One's old age pension doesn't go far – indeed it doesn't.'
'I know,' said Miss Marple gently. She looked with compassion at Miss Bunner's twitching face.
'I wrote to Letty. I just happened to see her name in the paper. It was a luncheon in aid of Milchester
