‘I don’t write detective stories,’ said Raymond West, horrified at the mere idea.
‘Easy enough to say that alibis are suspicious,’ went on Inspector Welch, ‘but unfortunately we’ve got to deal with facts.’
He sighed.
‘We’ve got three good
suspects,’ he said. ‘Three people who, as it happened, were very close upon the scene at the time. Yet the odd thing is that it looks as though none of the three could have done it. The housekeeper I’ve already dealt with—the nephew, Nat Fletcher, at the moment Miss Greenshaw was shot, was a couple of miles away filling up his car at a garage and asking his way—as for Alfred Pollock six people will swear that he entered the Dog and Duck at twenty past twelve and was there for an hour having his usual bread and cheese and beer.’
‘Deliberately establishing an alibi,’ said Raymond West hopefully.
‘Maybe,’ said Inspector Welch, ‘but if so, he did establish it.’
There was a long silence. Then Raymond turned his head to where Miss Marple sat upright and thoughtful.
‘It’s up to you, Aunt Jane,’ he said. ‘The inspector’s baffled, the sergeant’s baffled, I’m baffled, Joan’s baffled, Lou is baffled. But to you, Aunt Jane, it is crystal clear. Am I right?’
‘I wouldn’t say that, dear,’ said Miss Marple, ‘not crystal clear, and murder, dear Raymond, isn’t a game. I don’t suppose poor Miss Greenshaw wanted to die, and it was a particularly brutal murder. Very well planned and quite cold blooded. It’s not a thing to make jokes about!’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Raymond, abashed. ‘I’m not really as callous as I sound. One treats a thing lightly to take away from the—well, the horror of it.’
‘That is, I believe, the modern tendency,’ said Miss Marple, ‘All these wars, and having to joke about funerals. Yes, perhaps I was thoughtless when I said you were callous.’
‘It isn’t,’ said Joan, ‘as though we’d known her at all well.’
‘That is very true,’ said Miss Marple. ‘You, dear Joan, did not know her at all. I did not know her at all. Raymond gathered an impression of her from one afternoon’s conversation. Lou knew her for two days.’
‘Come now, Aunt Jane,’ said Raymond, ‘tell us your views. You don’t mind, Inspector?’
‘Not at all,’ said the inspector politely.
‘Well, my dear, it would seem that we have three people who had, or might have thought they had, a motive to kill the old lady. And three quite simple reasons why none of the three could have done so. The housekeeper could not have done so because she was locked in her room and because Miss Greenshaw definitely stated that a man shot her. The gardener could not have done it because he was inside the Dog and Duck at the time the murder was committed, the nephew could not have done it because he was still some distance away in his car at the time of the murder.’
‘Very clearly put, madam,’ said the inspector.
‘And since it seems most unlikely that any outsider should have done it, where, then, are we?’
‘That’s what the inspector wants to know,’ said Raymond West.
‘One so often looks at a thing the wrong way round,’ said Miss Marple apologetically. ‘If we can’t alter the movements or the position of those three people, then couldn’t we perhaps alter the time of the murder?’
‘You mean that both my watch and the clock were wrong?’ asked Lou.
‘No dear,’ said Miss Marple, ‘I didn’t mean that at all. I mean that the murder didn’t occur when you thought it occurred.’
‘But I saw it,’ cried Lou.
‘Well, what I have been wondering, my dear, was whether you weren’t meant to see it. I’ve been asking myself, you know, whether that wasn’t the real reason why you were engaged for this job.’
‘What do you mean, Aunt Jane?’
‘Well, dear, it seems odd. Miss Greenshaw did not like spending money, and yet she engaged you and agreed quite willingly to the terms you asked. It seems to me that perhaps you were meant to be there in that library on the first floor, looking out of the window so that you could be the key witness—someone from outside of irreproachable good faith—to fix a definite time and place for the murder.’
‘But you can’t mean,’ said Lou, incredulously, ‘that Miss Greenshaw intended to be murdered.’
‘What I mean, dear,’ said Miss Marple, ‘is that you didn’t really know Miss Greenshaw. There’s no real reason, is there, why the Miss Greenshaw you saw when you went up to the house should be the same Miss Greenshaw that Raymond saw a few days earlier? Oh, yes, I know,’ she went on, to prevent Lou’s reply, ‘she was wearing the peculiar old-fashioned print dress and the strange straw hat, and had unkempt hair. She corresponded exactly to the description Raymond gave us last week-end. But those two women, you know, were much of an age and height and size. The housekeeper, I mean, and Miss Greenshaw.’
‘But the housekeeper is fat!’ Lou exclaimed. ‘She’s got an enormous bosom.’
Miss Marple coughed.
‘But my dear, surely, nowadays I have seen—er—them myself in shops most indelicately displayed. It is very easy for anyone to have a—a bust—of any size and dimension.’
‘What are you trying to say?’ demanded Raymond.
‘I was just thinking, dear, that during the two or three days Lou was working there, one woman could have played the two parts. You said yourself, Lou, that you hardly saw the housekeeper, except for the one moment in the morning when she brought you in the tray with coffee. One sees those clever artists on the stage coming in as different characters with only a minute or two to spare, and I am sure the change could have been effected quite easily. That marquise head-dress could be just a wig slipped on and off.’
‘Aunt Jane! Do you mean that Miss Greenshaw was dead before I started work there?’
‘Not dead. Kept under drugs, I should say. A very easy job for an unscrupulous woman like the housekeeper to do. Then she made the arrangements with you and got you to telephone to the nephew to ask him to lunch at a definite time. The only person who would have known that this Miss Greenshaw was not Miss Greenshaw would have been Alfred. And if you remember, the first two days you were working there it was wet, and Miss Greenshaw stayed in the house. Alfred never came into the house because of his feud with the housekeeper. And on the last morning Alfred was in the drive, while Miss Greenshaw was working on the rockery—I’d like to have a look at that rockery.’
‘Do you mean it was Mrs Cresswell who killed Miss Greenshaw?’
‘I think that after bringing you your coffee, the woman locked the door on you as she went out, carried the unconscious Miss Greenshaw down to the drawing-room, then assumed her “Miss Greenshaw” disguise and went out to work on the rockery where you could see her from the window. In due course she screamed and came staggering to the house clutching an arrow as though it had penetrated her throat. She called for help and was careful to say “he shot me” so as to remove suspicion from the housekeeper. She also called up to the housekeeper’s window as though she saw her there. Then, once inside the drawing-room, she threw over a table with porcelain on it—and ran quickly upstairs, put on her marquise wig and was able a few moments later to lean her head out of the window and tell you that she, too, was locked in.’
‘But she was locked in,’ said Lou.
‘I know. That is where the policeman comes in.’
‘What policeman?’
‘Exactly—what policeman? I wonder, Inspector, if you would mind telling me how and when you arrived on the scene?’
The inspector looked a little puzzled.
‘At twelve twenty-nine we received a telephone call from Mrs Cresswell, housekeeper to Miss Greenshaw, stating that her mistress had been shot. Sergeant Cayley and myself went out there at once in a car and arrived at the house at twelve thirty-five. We found Miss Greenshaw dead and the two ladies locked in their rooms.’
‘So, you see, my dear,’ said Miss Marple to Lou. ‘The police constable you saw wasn’t a real police constable. You never thought of him again—one doesn’t—one just accepts one more uniform as part of the law.’
‘But who—why?’
‘As to who—well, if they are playing A Kiss for Cinderella, a policeman is the principal character. Nat Fletcher w
ould only have to help himself to the costume he wears on the stage. He’d ask his way at a garage being careful to call attention to the time—twelve twenty-five, then drive on quickly, leave his car round a corner, slip on his police uniform and do his “act”.’
‘But why?—why?’
‘Someone had to lock the housekeeper’s door on the outside, and someone had to drive the arrow through Miss Greenshaw’s throat. You can stab anyone with an arrow just as well as by shooting it—but it needs force.’
‘You mean they were both in it?’
‘Oh yes, I think so. Mother and son as likely as not.’
‘But Miss Greenshaw’s sister died long ago.’
‘Yes, but I’ve no doubt Mr Fletcher married again. He sounds the sort of man who would, and I think it possible that the child died too, and that this so-called nephew was the second wife’s child, and not really a relation at all. The woman got a post as housekeeper and spied out the land. Then he wrote as her nephew and proposed to call upon her—he may have made some joking reference to coming in his policeman’s uniform—or asked her over to see the play. But I think she suspected the truth and refused to see him. He would have been her heir if she had died without making a will—but of course once she had made a will in the housekeeper’s favour (as they thought) then it was clear sailing.’
‘But why use an arrow?’ objected Joan. ‘So very far fetched.’
‘Not far fetched at all, dear. Alfred belonged to an archery club—Alfred was meant to take the blame. The fact that he was in the pub as early as twelve twenty was most unfortunate from their point of view. He always left a little before his proper time and that would have been just right—’ she shook her head. ‘It really seems all wrong—morally, I mean, that Alfred’s laziness should have saved his life.’
The inspector cleared his throat.
‘Well, madam, these suggestions of yours are very interesting. I shall have, of course, to investigate—’
IV
Miss Marple and Raymond West stood by the rockery and looked down at that gardening basket full of dying vegetation.