Miss Marple looked round at her audience.
‘You see, perhaps, what I am coming to? It is, so often, the unexpected that happens in this world. I was so sure, and that, I think, was what blinded me. The result came as a shock to me. For it was proved, beyond any possible doubt, that Mr Sanders could not possibly have committed the crime . . .’
A surprised gasp came from Mrs Bantry. Miss Marple turned to her.
‘I know, my dear, that isn’t what you expected when I began this story. It wasn’t what I expected either. But facts are facts, and if one is proved to be wrong, one must just be humble about it and start again. That Mr Sanders was a murderer at heart I knew—and nothing ever occurred to upset that firm conviction of mine.
‘And now, I expect, you would like to hear the actual facts themselves. Mrs Sanders, as you know, spent the afternoon playing bridge with some friends, the Mortimers. She left them at about a quarter past six. From her friends’ house to the Hydro was about a quarter of an hour’s walk—less if one hurried. She must have come in then about six-thirty. No one saw her come in, so she must have entered by the side door and hurried straight up to her room. There she changed (the fawn coat and skirt she wore to the bridge party were hanging up in the cupboard) and was evidently preparing to go out again, when the blow fell. Quite possibly, they say, she never even knew who struck her. The sandbag, I understand, is a very efficient weapon. That looks as though the attackers were concealed in the room, possibly in one of the big wardrobe cupboards—the one she didn’t open.
‘Now as to the movements of Mr Sanders. He went out, as I have said, at about five-thirty—or a little after. He did some shopping at a couple of shops and at about six o’clock he entered the Grand Spa Hotel where he encountered two friends—the same with whom he returned to the Hydro later. They played billiards and, I gather, had a good many whiskies and sodas together. These two men (Hitchcock and Spender, their names were) were actually with him the whole time from six o’clock onwards. They walked back to the Hydro with him and he only left them to come across to me and Miss Trollope. That, as I told you, was about a quarter to seven—at which time his wife must have been already dead.
‘I must tell you that I talked myself to these two friends of his. I did not like them. They were neither pleasant nor gentlemanly men, but I was quite certain of one thing, that they were speaking the absolute truth when they said that Sanders had been the whole time in their company.
‘There was just one other little point that came up. It seems that while bridge was going on Mrs Sanders was called to the telephone. A Mr Littleworth wanted to speak to her. She seemed both excited and pleased about something—and incidentally made one or two bad mistakes. She left rather earlier than they had expected her to do.
‘Mr Sanders was asked whether he knew the name of Littleworth as being one of his wife’s friends, but he declared he had never heard of anyone of that name. And to me that seems borne out by his wife’s attitude—she too, did not seem to know the name of Littleworth. Nevertheless she came back from the telephone smiling and blushing, so it looks as though whoever it was did not give his real name, and that in itself has a suspicious aspect, does it not?
‘Anyway, that is the problem that was left. The burglar story, which seems unlikely—or the alternative theory that Mrs Sanders was preparing to go out and meet somebody. Did that somebody come to her room by means of the fire escape? Was there a quarrel? Or did he treacherously attack her?’
Miss Marple stopped.
‘Well?’ said Sir Henry. ‘What is the answer?’
‘I wondered if any of you could guess.’
‘I’m never good at guessing,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘It seems a pity that Sanders had such a wonderful alibi; but if it satisfied you it must have been all right.’
Jane Helier moved her beautiful head and asked a question.
‘Why,’ she said, ‘was the hat cupboard locked?’
‘How very clever of you, my dear,’ said Miss Marple, beaming. ‘That’s just what I wondered myself. Though the explanation was quite simple. In it were a pair of embroidered slippers and some pocket handkerchiefs that the poor girl was embroidering for her husband for Christmas. That’s why she locked the cupboard. The key was found in her handbag.’
‘Oh!’ said Jane. ‘Then it isn’t very interesting after all.’
‘Oh! but it is,’ said Miss Marple. ‘It’s just the one really interesting thing—the thing that made all the murderer’s plans go wrong.’
Everyone stared at the old lady.
‘I didn’t see it myself for two days,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I puzzled and puzzled—and then suddenly there it was, all clear. I went to the Inspector and asked him to try something and he did.’
‘What did you ask him to try?’
‘I asked him to fit that hat on the poor girl’s head—and of course he couldn’t. It wouldn’t go on. It wasn’t her hat, you see.’
Mrs Bantry stared.
‘But it was on her head to begin with?’
‘Not on her head—’
Miss Marple stopped a moment to let her words sink in, and then went on.
‘We took it for granted that it was poor Gladys’s body there; but we never looked at the
