permanently.'
'Very well put,' said Mrs Bantry, nodding approval.
'She had no money to speak of,' mused Dermot, 'so nobody stood to gain by her death. Nobody seems to have disliked her to the point of hatred. I don't suppose she was blackmailing anybody?'
'She wouldn't have dreamed of doing such a thing, I'm sure,' said Mrs Bantry. 'She was the conscientious and high-principled kind.'
'And her husband wasn't having an affair with someone else?'
'I shouldn't think so,' said Mrs Bantry, 'I only saw him at the party. He looked like a bit of chewed string. Nice but wet.'
'Doesn't leave much, does it?' said Dermot Craddock. 'One falls back on the assumption she knew something.'
'Knew something?'
'To the detriment of somebody else.'
Mrs Bantry shook her head again. 'I doubt it,' she said. 'I doubt it very much. She struck me as the kind of woman who if she had known anything about anyone, couldn't have helped talking about it.'
'Well, that washes that out,' said Dermot Craddock, 'so we'll come, if we may, to my reasons for coming to see you. Miss Marple, for whom I have the greatest admiration and respect, told me that I was to say to you the Lady of Shalott.'
'Oh, that!' said Mrs Bantry.
'Yes,' said Craddock. 'That! Whatever it is.'
'People don't read much Tennyson nowadays,' said Mrs Bantry.
'A few echoes come back to me,' said Dermot Craddock. 'She looked out to Camelot, didn't she?
Out flew the web and floated wide;
'Exactly. She did,' said Mrs Bantry.
'I beg your pardon. Who did? Did what?'
'Looked like that,' said Mrs Bantry.
'Who looked like what?'
'Marina Gregg.'
'Ah, Marina Gregg. When was this?'
'Didn't Jane Marple tell you?'
'She didn't tell me anything. She sent me to you.'
'That's tiresome of her,' said Mrs Bantry, 'because she can always tell things better than I can. My husband always used to say that I was so abrupt that he didn't know what I was talking about. Anyway, it may have been only my fancy. But when you see anyone looking like that you can't help remembering it.'
'Please tell me,' said Dermot Craddock.
'Well, it was at the party. I call it a party because what can one call things? But it was just a sort of reception up at the top of the stairs where they've made a kind of recess. Marina Gregg was there and her husband. They fetched some of us in. They fetched me, I suppose, because I once owned the house, and they fetched Heather Badcock and her husband because she'd done all the running of the fete, and the arrangements. And we happened to go up the stairs at about the same time, so I was standing there, you see, when I noticed it.'
'Quite. When you noticed what?'
'Well, Mrs Badcock went into a long spiel as people do when they meet celebrities. You know, how wonderful it was, and what a thrill and they'd always hoped to see them. And she went into a long story of how she'd once met her years ago and how exciting it had been. And I thought, in my own mind, you know, what a bore it must be for these poor celebrities to have to say all the right things. And then I noticed that Marina Gregg wasn't saying the right things. She was just staring.'
'Staring – at Mrs Badcock?'
'No – no, it looked as though she'd forgotten Mrs Badcock altogether. I mean, I don't believe she'd even heard what Mrs Badcock was saying. She was just staring with what I call this Lady of Shalott look, as though she'd seen something awful. Something frightening, something that she could hardly believe she saw and couldn't bear to see.'
'The curse has come upon me?' suggested Dermot Craddock.
'Yes, just that. That's why I call it the Lady of Shalott look.'
'But what was she looking at, Mrs Bantry?'
'Well, I wish I knew,' said Mrs Bantry.
'She was at the top of the stairs, you say?'
'She was looking over Mrs Badcock's head – no, more over one shoulder, I think.'
'Straight at the middle of the staircase?'
'It might have been a little to one side.'
'And there were people coming up the staircase?'
'Oh yes, I should think about five or six people.'
'Was she looking at one of these people in particular?'
'I can't possibly tell,' said Mrs Bantry. 'You see, I wasn't facing that way. I was looking at her. My back was to the stairs. I thought perhaps she was looking at one of the pictures.'
'But she must know the pictures quite well if she's living in the house.'
'Yes, yes, of course. No, I suppose she must have been looking at one of the people. I wonder which.'
'We have to try and find out,' said Dermot Craddock. 'Can you remember at all who the people were?'
'Well, I know the mayor was one of them with his wife. There was someone who I think was a reporter, with red hair, because I was introduced to him later, but I can't remember his name. I never hear names. Galbraith – something like that. Then there was a big black man. I don't mean a negro – I just mean very dark, forceful looking. And an actress with him. A bit overblonde and the minky kind. And old General Barnstaple from Much Benham. He's practically ga-ga now, poor old man. I don't think he could have been anybody's doom. Oh! and the Grices from the farm.'
'Those are all the people you can remember?'
'Well, there may have been others. But you see I wasn't well, I mean I wasn't noticing particularly. I know that the mayor and General Barnstaple and the Americans did arrive about that time. And there were people taking photographs. One I think was a local man, and there was a girl from London, an arty-looking girl with long hair and a rather large camera.'
'And you think it was one of those people who brought that look to Marina Gregg's face?'
'I didn't really think anything,' said Mrs Bantry with complete frankness. 'I just wondered what on earth made her look like that and then I didn't think of it any more. But afterwards one remembers about these things. But of course,' added Mrs Bantry with honesty, 'I may have imagined it. After all, she may have had a sudden toothache or a safety pin run into her or a sudden violent colic. The sort of thing where you try to go on as usual and not to show anything, but your face can't help looking awful.'
Dermot Craddock laughed. 'I'm glad to see you're a realist, Mrs Bantry,' he said. 'As you say, it may have been something of that kind. But it's certainly just one interesting little fact that might be a pointer.'
He shook his head and departed to present his official credentials in Much Benham.
Chapter 9
