'Is that your last word, Mrs. Haymes?'
'I've nothing else to say.'
II
Craddock came away from his interview with Phillipa Haymes feeling angry and baffled.
'Obstinate as a mule,' he said to himself angrily. He was fairly sure that Phillipa was lying, but he hadn't succeeded in breaking down her obstinate denials.
He wished he knew a little more about ex-Captain Haymes. His information was meagre. An unsatisfactory Army record, but nothing to suggest that Haymes was likely to turn criminal.
And anyway Haymes didn't fit in with the oiled door.
Someone in the house had done that, or someone with easy access to it.
He stood looking up the staircase, and suddenly he wondered what Julia had been doing up in the attic. An attic, he thought, was an unlikely place for the fastidious Julia to visit.
What had she been doing up there?
He ran lightly up to the first floor. There was no one about. He opened the door out of which Julia had come and went up the narrow stairs to the attic.
There were trunks there, old suitcases, various broken articles of furniture, a chair with a leg off, a broken china lamp, part of an old dinner service.
He turned to the trunks and opened the lid of one. Clothes. Old-fashioned, quite good quality women's clothes. Clothes belonging, he supposed, to Miss Blacklog, or to her sister who had died.
He opened another trunk.
Curtains.
He passed to a small attache-case. It had papers in it and letters. Very old letters, yellowed with time.
He looked at the outside of the case which had the initials C.L.B. on it. He deduced correctly that it had belonged to Letitia's sister Charlotte. He unfolded one of the letters. It began:
Dearest Charlotte,
Yesterday Belle felt well enough to go for a picnic. R.G. also took a day off. The Asuogel flotation has gone splendidly; R.G. is terribly pleased about it. The Preference shares are at a premium.
He skipped the rest and looked at the signature:
Your loving sister,
Letitia.
He picked up another.
Darling Charlotte,
I wish you would sometimes make up your mind to see people. You do exaggerate, you know. It isn't nearly as bad as you think. And people really don't mind things like that. It's not the disfigurement you think it is.
He nodded his head. He remembered Belle Goedler saying that Charlotte Blacklog had a disfigurement or deformity of some kind. Letitia had, in the end, resigned her job, to go and look after her sister. These letters all breathed the anxious spirit of her affection and love for an invalid. She had written her sister, apparently, long accounts of everyday happenings, of any little detail that she thought might interest the sick girl. And Charlotte had kept these letters. Occasionally odd snapshots had been enclosed.
Excitement suddenly flooded Craddock's mind. Here, it might be, he would find a clue. In these letters there would be written down things that Letitia Blacklog herself had long forgotten. Here was a faithful picture of the past and somewhere amongst it, there might be a clue that would help him to identify the unknown.
Photographs, too. There might, just possibly, be a photograph of Sonia Goedler here that the person who had taken the other photos out of the album did not know about.
Inspector Craddock packed the letters up again, carefully, closed the case, and started down the stairs. Letitia Blacklog, standing on the landing below, looked at him in amazement.
'Was that you up in the attic? I heard footsteps. I couldn't imagine who-'
'Miss Blacklog, I have found some letters here, written by you to your sister Charlotte many years ago. Will you allow me to take them away and read them?'
She flushed angrily.
'Must you do a thing like that? Why? What good can they be to you?'
'They might give me a picture of Sonia Goedler, of her character – there may be some allusion – some incident – that will help.'
'They are private letters, Inspector.'
'I know.'
'I suppose you will take them anyway… You have the power to do so, I suppose, or you can easily get it. Take them – take them! But you'll find very little about Sonia. She married and went away only a year or two after I began to work for Randall Goedler.'
Craddock said obstinately: 'There may be something-' He added, 'We've got to try everything. I assure you the danger is very real.'
She said, biting her lips: 'I know. Bunny is dead – from taking an aspirin tablet that was meant for me. It may be Patrick, or Julia, or Phillipa, or Mitzi next – somebody young with their life in front of them. Somebody who drinks a glass of wine that is poured out for me, or eats a chocolate that is sent to me. Oh! take the letters – take them away. And afterwards burn them. They don't mean anything to anyone but me and Charlotte. It's all over – gone – past. Nobody remembers now…'
Her hand went up to the choker of false pearls she was wearing. Craddock thought how incongruous it looked with her tweed coat and skirt.
She said again: 'Take the letters.'
III
It was the following afternoon that the Inspector called at the Vicarage.
It was a dark, gusty day… Miss Marple had her chair pulled close to the fire and was knitting. Bunch was on hands and knees, crawling about the floor, cutting out material to a pattern.
She sat back and pushed a mop of hair out of her eyes, looking up expectantly at Craddock.
'I don't know if it's a breach of confidence,' said the Inspector, addressing himself to Miss Marple, 'but I'd like you to look at this letter.'
He explained the circumstances of his discovery in the attic.
'It's rather a touching collection of letters,' he said. 'Miss Blacklog poured out everything in the hopes of sustaining her sister's interest in life and keeping her health good. There's a very clear picture of an old father in the background – old Dr. Blacklog. A real old pig-headed bully, absolutely set in his ways, and convinced that everything he thought and said was right. Probably killed thousands of patients through obstinacy. He wouldn't stand for any new ideas or methods.'
'I don't really know that I blame him there,' said Miss Marple. 'I always feel that the young doctors are only too anxious to experiment. After they've whipped out all our teeth, and administered quantities of very peculiar glands, and removed bits of our insides, they then confess that nothing can be done for us. I really prefer the old- fashioned remedy of big black bottles of medicine. After all, one can always pour those down the sink.'
She took the letter that Craddock handed her.
He said: 'I want you to read it because I think that that generation is more easily understood by you than by me. I don't know really quite how these people's minds worked.'
Miss Marple unfolded the fragile paper.
Dearest Charlotte,
I've not written for two days because we've been having the most terrible domestic complications. Randall's
