would perhaps give a miss to an ancient church and its 14th-century glass. She would rest for a while and join them at the tea room which had been pointed out to her in the main street. Mrs Sandbourne agreed that she was being very sensible.
Miss Marple, resting on a comfortable bench outside the tea room, reflected on what she planned to do next and whether it would be wise to do it or not.
When the others joined her at teatime it was easy for her to attach herself unobtrusively to Miss Cooke and Miss Barrow and sit with them at a table for four. The fourth chair was occupied by Mr Caspar whom Miss Marple considered as not sufficiently conversant with the English language to matter.
Leaning across the table, as she nibbled a slice of Swiss roll, Miss Marple said to Miss Cooke.
'You know, I am quite sure we have met before. I have been wondering and wondering about it. I'm not as good as I was at remembering faces, but I'm sure I have met you somewhere.'
Miss Cooke looked kindly but doubtful. Her eyes went to her friend, Miss Barrow. So did Miss Marple's. Miss Barrow showed no signs of helping to probe the mystery.
'I don't know if you've ever stayed in my part of the world,' went on Miss Marple, 'I live in St Mary Mead. Quite a small village, you know. At least, not so small nowadays, there is so much building going on everywhere. Not very far from Much Benham and only twelve miles from the coast at Loomouth.'
'Oh,' said Miss Cooke, 'let me see. Well, I know Loomouth quite well and perhaps…'
Suddenly Miss Marple made a pleased exclamation.
'Why, of course! I was in my garden one day at St Mary Mead and you spoke to me as you were passing by on the foot path. You said you were staying down there, I remember, with a friend -'
'Of course,' said Miss Cooke. 'How stupid of me. I do remember you now. We spoke of how difficult it was nowadays to get anyone – to do job gardening, I mean anyone who was any use.'
'Yes. You were not living there, I think? You were staying with someone.'
'Yes, I was staying with… with…' for a moment Miss Cooke hesitated, with the air of one who hardly knows or remembers a name.
'With a Mrs Sutherland, was it?' suggested Miss Marple.
'No, no, it was… er… Mrs…'
' Hastings,' said Miss Barrow firmly as she took a piece of chocolate cake.
'Oh yes, in one of the new houses,' said Miss Marple.
' Hastings,' said Mr Caspar unexpectedly. He beamed.
'I have been to Hastings – I have been to Eastbourne, too.' He beamed again. 'Very nice, by the sea.'
'Such a coincidence,' said Miss Marple, 'meeting again so soon – such a small world, isn't it?'
'Oh, well, we are all so fond of gardens,' said Miss Cooke vaguely.
'Flowers very pretty,' said Mr Caspar. 'I like very much.' He beamed again.
'So many rare and beautiful shrubs,' said Miss Cooke.
Miss Marple went full speed ahead with a gardening conversation of some technicality. Miss Cooke responded. Miss Barrow put in an occasional remark.
Mr Caspar relapsed into smiling silence.
Later, as Miss Marple took her usual rest before dinner, she conned over what she had collected. Miss Cooke had admitted being in St Mary Mead. She had admitted walking past Miss Marple's house. Had agreed it was quite a coincidence. Coincidence? thought Miss Marple meditatively, turning the word over in her mouth rather as a child might do to a certain lollipop to decide its flavour. Was it a coincidence? Or had she had some reason to come there? Had she been sent there? Sent there for what reason? Was that a ridiculous thing to imagine?
'Any coincidence,' said Miss Marple to herself, 'is always worth noticing. You can throw it away later if it is only a coincidence.'
Miss Cooke and Miss Barrow appeared to be a perfectly normal pair of friends doing the kind of tour, which according to them, they did every year. They had been on an Hellenic cruise last year and a tour of bulbs in Holland the year before, and Northern Ireland the year before that. They seemed perfectly pleasant and ordinary people. But Miss Cooke, she thought, had for a moment looked as though she were about to disclaim her visit to St Mary Mead. She had looked at her friend, Miss Barrow, rather as though she were seeking instruction as to what to say. Miss Barrow was presumably the senior partner…'
'Of course, really, I may have been imagining all these things,' thought Miss Marple. 'They may have no significance whatever.'
The word danger came unexpectedly into her mind. Used by Mr Rafiel in his first letter, and there had been some reference to her needing a guardian angel in his second letter. Was she going into danger in this business? and why? From whom?
Surely not from Miss Cooke and Miss Barrow. Such an ordinary-looking couple. All the same Miss Cooke had dyed her hair and altered her style of hairdressing. Disguised her appearance as much as she could, in fact. Which was odd, to say the least of it! She considered once more her fellow travellers.
Mr Caspar, now, it would have been much easier to imagine that he might be dangerous. Did he understand more English than he pretended to do? She began to wonder about Mr Caspar.
Miss Marple had never quite succeeded in abandoning her Victorian view of foreigners. One never knew with foreigners. Quite absurd, of course, to feel like that – she had many friends from various foreign countries. All the same…? Miss Cooke, Miss Barrow, Mr Caspar, that young man with the wild hair – Emlyn Something, a revolutionary, a practising anarchist? Mr and Mrs Butler, such nice Americans – but perhaps…too good to be true?
'Really,' said Miss Marple, 'I must pull myself together.'
She turned her attention to the itinerary of their trip. Tomorrow, she thought, was going to be rather strenuous. A morning's sight-seeing drive, starting rather early, a long, rather athletic walk on a coastal path in the afternoon. Certain interesting marine flowering plants, it would be tiring. A tactful suggestion was appended. Anyone who felt like a rest could stay behind in their hotel, the Golden Boar, which had a very pleasant garden or could do a short excursion which would only take an hour, to a beauty spot nearby. She thought perhaps that she would do that.
But though she did not know it then, her plans were to be suddenly altered.
As Miss Marple came down from her room in the Golden Boar the next day after washing her hands before luncheon, a woman in a tweed coat and skirt came forward rather nervously and spoke to her.
'Excuse me, are you Miss Marple, Miss Jane Marple?'
'Yes, that is my name,' said Miss Marple, slightly surprised.
'My name is Mrs Glynne. Lavinia Glynne. I and my two sisters live near here and, well, we heard you were coming, you see -'
'You heard I was coming?' said Miss Marple with some slight surprise.
'Yes. A very old friend of ours wrote to us – oh, quite some time ago, it must have been three weeks ago, but he asked us to make a note of this date. The date of the Famous Houses and Gardens Tour. He said that a great friend of his, or a relation, I'm not quite sure which would be on that tour.'
Miss Marple continued to look surprised.
'I'm speaking of a Mr Rafiel,' said Mrs Glynne.
'Oh! Mr Rafiel,' said Miss Marple. 'You – you know that -'
'That he died? Yes. So sad. Just after his letter came. I think it must have been certainly very soon after he wrote to us. But we felt a special urgency to try to do what he had asked. He suggested, you know, that perhaps you would like to come and stay with us for a couple of nights. This part of the tour is rather strenuous. I mean, it's all right for the young people, but it is very trying for anyone older. It involves several miles of walking and a certain amount of climbing up difficult cliff paths and places. My sisters and I would be so very pleased if you could come and stay in our house here. It is only ten minutes' walk from the hotel and I'm sure we could show you many interesting things locally.'
Miss Marple hesitated a minute. She liked the look of Mrs Glynne, plump, good-natured, and friendly though a little shy. Besides – here again must be Mr Rafiel's instructions…the next step for her to take? Yes, it must be so.
She wondered why she felt nervous. Perhaps because she was now at home with the people in the tour, felt
