cuttings or making enquiries, not, that is, until you found what you had to make enquiries about. She had been directed, first to the lawyer's office, then to read a letter – two letters – in her home, then to be sent on a pleasant and well run tour round some of the Famous Houses and Gardens of Great Britain.
From that she had come to the next stepping stone. The house she was in at this moment. The Old Manor House, Jocelyn St Mary, where lived Miss Clotilde Bradbury-Scott, Mrs Glynne and Miss Anthea Bradbury-Scott. Mr Rafiel had arranged that, arranged it beforehand. Some weeks before he died. Probably it was the next thing he had done after instructing his lawyers and after booking a seat on the tour in her name. Therefore, she was in this house for a purpose. It might be for only two nights, it might be for longer. There might be certain things arranged which would lead her to stay longer or she would be asked to stay longer. That brought her back to where she stood now.
Mrs Glynne and her two sisters. They must be concerned, implicated in whatever this was. She would have to find out what it was. The time was short. That was the only trouble. Miss Marple had no doubt for one moment that she had the capacity to find out things. She was one of those chatty, fluffy old ladies whom other people expect to talk, to ask questions that were, on the face of it, merely gossipy questions.
She would talk about her childhood and that would lead to one of the sisters talking about theirs. She'd talk about food she had eaten, servants she had had, daughters and cousins and relations, travel, marriages, births and yes deaths. There must be no show of special interest in her eyes when she heard about a death. Not at all.
Almost automatically she was sure she could come up with the right response such as, 'Oh dear me, how very sad!' She would have to find out relationships, incidents, life stories, see if any suggestive incidents would pop up, so to speak. It might be some incidents in the neighbourhood, not directly concerned with these three people. Something they could know about, talk about, or were pretty sure to talk about. Anyway, there would be something here, some clue, some pointer. The second day from now she would rejoin the tour unless she had by that time some indication that she was not to rejoin the tour. Her mind swept from the house to the coach and the people who had sat in it. It might be that what she was seeking had been there in the coach, and would be there again when she rejoined it. One person, several people, some innocent, (some not so innocent), some long past story. She frowned a little, trying to remember something. Something that had flashed in her mind that she had thought: Really I am sure – of what had she been sure?
Her mind went back to the three sisters. She must not be too long up here. She must unpack a few modest needs for two nights, something to change into this evening, night clothes, sponge bag, and then go down and rejoin her hostesses and make pleasant talk. A main point had to be decided. Were the three sisters to be her allies or were the three sisters enemies? They might fall into either category. She must think about that carefully.
There was a tap on the door and Mrs Glynne entered.
'I do hope you will be quite comfortable here. Can I help you to unpack? We have a very nice woman who comes in but she is only here in the morning. But she'll help you with anything.'
'Oh no, thank you,' said Miss Marple. 'I only took out just a few necessities.'
'I thought I'd show you the way downstairs again. It's rather a rambling house, you know. There are two staircases and it does make it a little difficult. Sometimes people lose their way.'
'Oh, it's very kind of you,' said Miss Marple.
'I hope then you will come downstairs and we will have a glass of sherry before lunch.'
Miss Marple accepted gratefully and followed her guide down the stairs. Mrs Glynne, she judged, was a good many years younger than she herself was. Fifty, perhaps. Not much more. Miss Marple negotiated the stairs carefully, her left knee was always a little uncertain. There was, however, a banister at one side of the stairs. Very beautiful stairs they were, and she remarked on them.
'It is really a very lovely house,' she said. 'Built I suppose in the 1700's. Am I right?'
'1780,' said Mrs Glynne.
She seemed pleased with Miss Marple's appreciation. She took Miss Marple into the drawing room. A large graceful room. There were one or two rather beautiful pieces of furniture. A Queen Anne desk and a William and Mary oystershell bureau. There were also some rather cumbrous Victorian settees and cabinets. The curtains were of chintz, faded and somewhat worn, the carpet was, Miss Marple thought, Irish. Possibly a Limerick Aubusson type. The sofa was ponderous and the velvet of it much worn. The other two sisters were already sitting there. They rose as Miss Marple came in and approached her, one with a glass of sherry, the other directing her to a chair.
'I don't know whether you like sitting rather high? So many people do.'
'I do,' said Miss Marple. 'It's so much easier. One's back, you know.'
The sisters appeared to know about the difficulties of backs. The eldest of the sisters was a tall handsome woman, dark with a black coil of hair. The other one might have been a good deal younger. She was thin with grey hair that had once been fair hanging untidily on her shoulders and a faintly wraith-like appearance. She could be cast successfully as a mature Ophelia, Miss Marple thought.
Clotilde, Miss Marple thought, was certainly no Ophelia, but she would have made a magnificent Clytemnestra she could have stabbed a husband in his bath with exultation. But since she had never had a husband, that solution wouldn't do. Miss Marple could not see her murdering anyone else but a husband and there had been no Agamemnon in this house.
Clotilde Bradbury-Scott, Anthea Bradbury-Scott, Lavinia Glynne. Clotilde was handsome, Lavinia was plain but pleasant-looking, Anthea had one eyelid which twitched from time to time. Her eyes were large and grey and she had an odd way of glancing round to right and then to left, and then suddenly in a rather strange manner, behind her over her shoulder. It was as though she felt someone was watching her all the time. Odd, thought Miss Marple. She wondered a little about Anthea.
They sat down and conversation ensued. Mrs Glynne left the room, apparently for the kitchen. She was, it seemed, the active domestic one of the three. The conversation took a usual course. Clotilde Bradbury-Scott explained that the house was a family one. It had belonged to her great-uncle and then to her uncle and when he had died it was left to her and her two sisters who had joined her there.
'He only had one son, you see,' explained Miss Bradbury-Scott, 'and he was killed in the war. We are really the last of the family, except for some very distant cousins.'
'A beautifully proportioned house,' said Miss Marple. 'Your sister tells me it was built about 1780.'
'Yes, I believe so. One could wish, you know, it was not quite so large and rambling.'
'Repairs too,' said Miss Marple, 'come very heavy nowadays.'
'Oh yes, indeed,' Clotilde sighed. 'And in many ways we have to let a lot of it just fall down. Sad, but there it is. A lot of the outhouses, for instance, and a greenhouse. We had a very beautiful big greenhouse.'
'Lovely muscat grapevine in it,' said Anthea. 'And Cherry Pie used to grow all along the walls inside. Yes, I really regret that very much. Of course, during the war one could not get any gardeners. We had a very young gardener and then he was called up. One does not of course grudge that, but all the same it was impossible to get things repaired and so the whole greenhouse fell down.'
'So did the little conservatory near the house.'
Both sisters sighed, with the sighing of those who have noted time passing, and times changing but not for the better.
There was a melancholy here in this house, thought Miss Marple. It was impregnated somehow with sorrow, a sorrow that could not be dispersed or removed since it had penetrated too deep. It had sunk in… She shivered suddenly.
Chapter 9
The meal was conventional. A small joint of mutton, roast potatoes, followed by a plum tart with a small jug of cream and rather indifferent pastry. There were a few pictures round the dining-room wall, family pictures, Miss Marple presumed, Victorian portraits without any particular merit, the sideboard was large and heavy, a handsome piece of plum-coloured, mahogany. The curtains were of dark crimson damask and at the big mahogany table ten people could easily have been seated.
