Miss Marple and Mystery (67 page)

‘Well,’ said Melchett, ‘that seems to make the matter quite clear, eh?’

‘It does, sir,’ agreed the Inspector. ‘Sandford’s our man. Not a leg to stand upon. The thing’s as plain as daylight. It’s my opinion as the girl and her father were out to – well – practically blackmail him. He’s no money to speak of – he didn’t want the matter to get to his young lady’s ears. He was desperate and he acted accordingly. What do you say, sir?’ he added, addressing Sir Henry deferentially.

‘It seems so,’ admitted Sir Henry. ‘And yet – I can hardly picture Sand-ford committing any violent action.’

But he knew as he spoke that that objection was hardly valid. The meekest animal, when cornered, is capable of amazing actions.

‘I should like to see the boy, though,’ he said suddenly. ‘The one who heard the cry.’

Jimmy Brown proved to be an intelligent lad, rather small for his age, with a sharp, rather cunning face. He was eager to be questioned and was rather disappointed when checked in his dramatic tale of what he had heard on the fatal night.

‘You were on the other side of the bridge, I understand,’ said Sir Henry. ‘Across the river from the village. Did you see anyone on that side as you came over the bridge?’

‘There was someone walking up in the woods. Mr Sandford, I think it was, the architecting gentleman who’s building the queer house.’

The three men exchanged glances. ‘That was about ten minutes or so before you heard the cry?’ The boy nodded. ‘Did you see anyone else – on the village side of the river?’

‘A man came along the path that side. Going slow and whistling he was. Might have been Joe Ellis.’

‘You couldn’t possibly have seen who it was,’ said the Inspector sharply. ‘What with the mist and its being dusk.’

‘It’s on account of the whistle,’ said the boy. ‘Joe Ellis always whistles the same tune – “I wanner be happy” – it’s the only tune he knows.’

He spoke with the scorn of the modernist for the old-fashioned. ‘Anyone might whistle a tune,’ said Melchett. ‘Was he going towards the bridge?’

‘No. Other way – to village.’

‘I don’t think we need concern ourselves with this unknown man,’ said Melchett. ‘You heard the cry and the splash and a few minutes later you saw the body floating downstream and you ran for help, going back to the bridge, crossing it, and making straight for the village. You didn’t see anyone near the bridge as you ran for help?’

‘I think as there were two men with a wheelbarrow on the river path; but they were some way away and I couldn’t tell if they were going or coming and Mr Giles’s place was nearest – so I ran there.’

‘You did well, my boy,’ said Melchett. ‘You acted very creditably and with presence of mind. You’re a scout, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Very good. Very good indeed.’

Sir Henry was silent – thinking. He took a slip of paper from his pocket, looked at it, shook his head. It didn’t seem possible – and yet –

He decided to pay a call on Miss Marple.

She received him in her pretty, slightly overcrowded old-style drawing-room.

‘I’ve come to report progress,’ said Sir Henry. ‘I’m afraid that from our point of view things aren’t going well. They are going to arrest Sand-ford. And I must say I think they are justified.’

‘You have found nothing in – what shall I say – support of my theory, then?’ She looked perplexed – anxious. ‘Perhaps I have been wrong – quite wrong. You have such wide experience – you would surely detect it if it were so.’

‘For one thing,’ said Sir Henry, ‘I can hardly believe it. And for another we are up against an unbreakable alibi. Joe Ellis was fixing shelves in the kitchen all the evening and Mrs Bartlett was watching him do it.’

Miss Marple leaned forward, taking in a quick breath. ‘But that can’t be so,’ she said. ‘It was Friday night.’

‘Friday night?’

‘Yes – Friday night. On Friday evenings Mrs Bartlett takes the laundry she has done round to the different people.’

Sir Henry leaned back in his chair. He remembered the boy Jimmy’s story of the whistling man and – yes – it would all fit in.

He rose, taking Miss Marple warmly by the hand. ‘I think I see my way,’ he said. ‘At least I can try . . .’

Five minutes later he was back at Mrs Bartlett’s cottage and facing Joe Ellis in the little parlour among the china dogs.

‘You lied to us, Ellis, about last night,’ he said crisply. ‘You were not in the kitchen here fixing the dresser between eight and eight-thirty. You were seen walking along the path by the river towards the bridge a few minutes before Rose Emmott was murdered.’

The man gasped.

‘She weren’t murdered – she weren’t. I had naught to do with it. She threw herself in, she did. She was desperate like. I wouldn’t have harmed a hair on her head, I wouldn’t.’

‘Then why did you lie as to where you were?’ asked Sir Henry keenly. The man’s eyes shifted and lowered uncomfortably. ‘I was scared. Mrs B. saw me around there and when we heard just afterwards what had happened – well, she thought it might look bad for me. I fixed I’d say I was working here, and she agreed to back me up. She’s a rare one, she is. She’s always been good to me.’

Without a word Sir Henry left the room and walked into the kitchen. Mrs Bartlett was washing up at the sink.

‘Mrs Bartlett,’ he said, ‘I know everything. I think you’d better confess – that is, unless you want Joe Ellis hanged for something he didn’t do . . . No. I see you don’t want that. I’ll tell you what happened. You were out taking the laundry home. You came across Rose Emmott. You thought she’d given Joe the chuck and was taking up with this stranger. Now she was in trouble – Joe was prepared to come to the rescue – marry her if need be, and if she’d have him. He’s lived in your house for four years. You’ve fallen in love with him. You want him for yourself. You hated this girl – you couldn’t bear that this worthless little slut should take your man from you. You’re a strong woman, Mrs Bartlett. You caught the girl by the shoulders and shoved her over into the stream. A few minutes later you met Joe Ellis. The boy Jimmy saw you together in the distance – but in the darkness and the mist he assumed the perambulator was a wheelbarrow and two men wheeling it. You persuaded Joe that he might be suspected and you concocted what was supposed to be an alibi for him, but which was really an alibi for
you
. Now then, I’m right, am I not?’

He held his breath. He had staked all on this throw.

She stood before him rubbing her hands on her apron, slowly making up her mind.

‘It’s just as you say, sir,’ she said at last, in her quiet subdued voice (a dangerous voice, Sir Henry suddenly felt it to be). ‘I don’t know what came over me. Shameless – that’s what she was. It just came over me – she shan’t take Joe from me. I haven’t had a happy life, sir. My husband, he was a poor lot – an invalid and cross-grained. I nursed and looked after him true. And then Joe came here to lodge. I’m not such an old woman, sir, in spite of my grey hair. I’m just forty, sir. Joe’s one in a thousand. I’d have done anything for him – anything at all. He was like a little child, sir, so gentle and believing. He was mine, sir, to look after and see to. And this – this –’ She swallowed – checked her emotion. Even at this moment she was a strong woman. She stood up straight and looked at Sir Henry curiously. ‘I’m ready to come, sir. I never thought anyone would find out. I don’t know how you knew, sir – I don’t, I’m sure.’

Sir Henry shook his head gently. ‘It was not I who knew,’ he said – and he thought of the piece of paper still reposing in his pocket with the words on it written in neat old-fashioned handwriting.

‘Mrs Bartlett, with whom Joe Ellis lodges at 2 Mill Cottages.’

Miss Marple had been right again.

‘The Hound of Death’ was first published in the hardback The Hound of Death and Other Stories (Odhams Press, 1933). No previous appearances have been found.

It was from William P. Ryan, American newspaper correspondent, that I first heard of the affair. I was dining with him in London on the eve of his return to New York and happened to mention that on the morrow I was going down to Folbridge.

He looked up and said sharply: ‘Folbridge, Cornwall?’

Now only about one person in a thousand knows that there is a Folbridge in Cornwall. They always take it for granted that the Folbridge, Hampshire, is meant. So Ryan’s knowledge aroused my curiosity.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Do you know it?’

He merely replied that he was darned. He then asked if I happened to know a house called Trearne down there.

My interest increased.

‘Very well indeed. In fact, it’s to Trearne I’m going. It’s my sister’s house.’

‘Well,’ said William P. Ryan. ‘If that doesn’t beat the band!’

I suggested that he should cease making cryptic remarks and explain himself.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘To do that I shall have to go back to an experience of mine at the beginning of the war.’

I sighed. The events which I am relating to took place in 1921. To be reminded of the war was the last thing any man wanted. We were, thank God, beginning to forget . . . Besides, William P. Ryan on his war experiences was apt, as I knew, to be unbelievably long-winded.

But there was no stopping him now. ‘At the start of the war, as I dare say you know, I was in Belgium for my paper – moving about some. Well, there’s a little village – I’ll call it X. A one horse place if there ever was one, but there’s quite a big convent there. Nuns in white what do you call ’em – I don’t know the name of the order. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Well, this little burgh was right in the way of the German advance. The Uhlans arrived –’

I shifted uneasily. William P. Ryan lifted a hand reassuringly. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘This isn’t a German atrocity story. It might have been, perhaps, but it isn’t. As a matter of fact, the boot’s on the other leg. The Huns made for that convent – they got there and the whole thing blew up.’

‘Oh!’ I said, rather startled. ‘Odd business, wasn’t it? Of course, off hand, I should say the Huns had been celebrating and had monkeyed round with their own explosives. But is seems they hadn’t anything of that kind with them. They weren’t the high explosive johnnies. Well, then, I ask you, what should a pack of nuns know about high explosive? Some nuns, I should say!’

‘It is odd,’ I agreed. ‘I was interested in hearing the peasants’ account of the matter. They’d got it all cut and dried. According to them it was a slap-up one hundred percent efficient first-class modern miracle. It seems one of the nuns had got something of a reputation – a budding saint – went into trances and saw visions. And according to them she worked the stunt. She called down the lightning to blast the impious Hun – and it blasted him all right – and everything else within range. A pretty efficient miracle, that!

‘I never really got at the truth of the matter – hadn’t time. But miracles were all the rage just then – angels at Mons and all that. I wrote up the thing, put in a bit of sob stuff, and pulled the religious stop out well, and sent it to my paper. It went down very well in the States. They were liking that kind of thing just then.

‘But (I don’t know if you’ll understand this) in writing, I got kinder interested. I felt I’d like to know what really had happened. There was nothing to see at the spot itself. Two walls still left standing, and on one of them was a black powder mark that was the exact shape of a great hound.

‘The peasants round about were scared to death of that mark. They called it the Hound of Death and they wouldn’t pass that way after dark.

‘Superstition’s always interesting. I felt I’d like to see the lady who worked the stunt. She hadn’t perished, it seemed. She’d gone to England with a batch of other refugees. I took the trouble to trace her. I found she’d been sent to Trearne, Folbridge, Cornwall.’

I nodded. ‘My sister took in a lot of Belgian refugees the beginning of the war. About twenty.’

‘Well, I always meant, if I had time, to look up the lady. I wanted to hear her own account of the disaster. Then, what with being busy and one thing and another, it slipped my memory. Cornwall’s a bit out of the way anyhow. In fact, I’d forgotten the whole thing till your mentioning Folbridge just now brought it back.’

‘I must ask my sister,’ I said. ‘She may have heard something about it. Of course, the Belgians have all been repatriated long ago.’

‘Naturally. All the same, in case your sister does know anything I’ll be glad if you pass it on to me.’

‘Of course I will,’ I said heartily.

And that was that.

It was the second day after my arrival at Trearne that the story recurred to me. My sister and I were having tea on the terrace.

‘Kitty,’ I said, ‘didn’t you have a nun among your Belgians?’

‘You don’t mean Sister Marie Angelique, do you?’

‘Possibly I do,’ I said cautiously. ‘Tell me about her.’

‘Oh! my dear, she was the most uncanny creature. She’s still here, you know.’

‘What? In the house?’

‘No, no, in the village. Dr Rose – you remember Dr Rose?’

I shook my head. ‘I remember an old man of about eighty-three.’

‘Dr Laird. Oh! he died. Dr Rose has only been here a few years. He’s quite young and very keen on new ideas. He took the most enormous interest in Sister Marie Angelique. She has hallucinations and things, you know, and apparently is most frightfully interesting from a medical point of view. Poor thing, she’d nowhere to go – and really was in my opinion quite potty – only impressive, if you know what I mean – well, as I say, she’d nowhere to go, and Dr Rose very kindly fixed her up in the village. I believe he’s writing a monograph or whatever it is that doctors write, about her.’

She paused and then said: ‘But what do you know about her?’

‘I heard a rather curious story.’

I passed on the story as I had received it from Ryan. Kitty was very much interested.

‘She looks the sort of person who could blast you – if you know what I mean,’ she said.

‘I really think,’ I said, my curiosity heightened, ‘that I must see this young woman.’

‘Do. I’d like to know what you think of her. Go and see Dr Rose first. Why not walk down to the village after tea?’

I accepted the suggestion.

I found Dr Rose at home and introduced myself. He seemed a pleasant young man, yet there was something about his personality that rather repelled me. It was too forceful to be altogether agreeable.

The moment I mentioned Sister Marie Angelique he stiffened to attention. He was evidently keenly interested. I gave him Ryan’s account of the matter.

‘Ah!’ he said thoughtfully. ‘That explains a great deal.’

He looked up quickly at me and went on. ‘The case is really an extraordinarily interesting one. The woman arrived here having evidently suffered some severe mental shock. She was in a state of great mental excitement also. She was given to hallucinations of a most startling character. Her personality is most unusual. Perhaps you would like to come with me and call upon her. She is really well worth seeing.’

I agreed readily.

We set out together. Our objective was a small cottage on the outskirts of the village. Folbridge is a most picturesque place. It lies at the mouth of the river Fol mostly on the east bank, the west bank is too precipitous for building, though a few cottages do cling to the cliffside there. The doctor’s own cottage was perched on the extreme edge of the cliff on the west side. From it you looked down on the big waves lashing against the black rocks.

The little cottage to which we were now proceeding lay inland out of the sight of the sea.

‘The district nurse lives here,’ explained Dr Rose. ‘I have arranged for Sister Marie Angelique to board with her. It is just as well that she should be under skilled supervision.’

‘Is she quite normal in her manner?’ I asked curiously. ‘You can judge for yourself in a minute,’ he replied, smiling.

The district nurse, a dumpy pleasant little body, was just setting out on her bicycle when we arrived.

‘Good evening, nurse, how’s your patient?’ called out the doctor. ‘She’s much as usual, doctor. Just sitting there with her hands folded and her mind far away. Often enough she’ll not answer when I speak to her, though for the matter of that it’s little enough English she understands even now.’

Rose nodded, and as the nurse bicycled away, he went up to the cottage door, rapped sharply and entered.

Sister Marie Angelique was lying in a long chair near the window. She turned her head as we entered.

It was a strange face – pale, transparent looking, with enormous eyes. There seemed to be an infinitude of tragedy in those eyes.

‘Good evening, my sister,’ said the doctor in French. ‘Good evening, M. le docteur.’

‘Permit me to introduce a friend, Mr Anstruther.’

I bowed and she inclined her head with a faint smile. ‘And how are you today?’ inquired the doctor, sitting down beside her.

‘I am much the same as usual.’ She paused and then went on. ‘Nothing seems real to me. Are they days that pass – or months – or years? I hardly know. Only my dreams seem real to me.’

‘You still dream a lot, then?’

‘Always – always – and, you understand? – the dreams seem more real than life.’

‘You dream of your own country – of Belgium?’

She shook her head. ‘No. I dream of a country that never existed – never. But you know this, M. le docteur. I have told you many times.’ She stopped and then said abruptly: ‘But perhaps this gentleman is also a doctor – a doctor perhaps for the diseases of the brain?’

‘No, no.’ Rose said reassuring, but as he smiled I noticed how extraordinarily pointed his canine teeth were, and it occurred to me that there was something wolf-like about the man. He went on:

‘I thought you might be interested to meet Mr Anstruther. He knows something of Belgium. He has lately been hearing news of your convent.’

Her eyes turned to me. A faint flush crept into her cheeks. ‘It’s nothing, really,’ I hastened to explain. ‘But I was dining the other evening with a friend who was describing the ruined walls of the convent to me.’

‘So it is ruined!’

It was a soft exclamation, uttered more to herself than to us. Then looking at me once more she asked hesitatingly: ‘Tell me, Monsieur, did your friend say how – in what way – it was ruined?’

‘It was blown up,’ I said, and added: ‘The peasants are afraid to pass that way at night.’

‘Why are they afraid?’

‘Because of a black mark on a ruined wall. They have a superstitious fear of it.’

She leaned forward.

‘Tell me, Monsieur – quick – quick – tell me! What is that mark like?’

‘It has the shape of a huge hound,’ I answered. ‘The peasants call it the Hound of Death.’

‘Ah!’

A shrill cry burst from her lips.

‘It is true then – it is true. All that I remember is true. It is not some black nightmare. It happened! It happened!’

‘What happened, my sister?’ asked the doctor in a low voice.

She turned to him eagerly. ‘
I remembered
. There on the steps, I remembered. I remembered the way of it. I used the power as we used to use it. I stood on the altar steps and I bade them to come no farther. I told them to depart in peace. They would not listen, they came on although I warned them. And so –’ She leaned forward and made a curious gesture. ‘And so I loosed the Hound of Death on them . . .’

She lay back on her chair shivering all over, her eyes closed.

The doctor rose, fetched a glass from a cupboard, half-filled it with water, added a drop or two from a little bottle which he produced from his pocket, then took the glass to her.

‘Drink this,’ he said authoritatively.

She obeyed – mechanically as it seemed. Her eyes looked far away as though they contemplated some inner vision of her own.

‘But then it is all true,’ she said. ‘Everything. The City of the Circles, the People of the Crystal – everything. It is all true.’

‘It would seem so,’ said Rose.

His voice was low and soothing, clearly designed to encourage and not to disturb her train of thought.

‘Tell me about the City,’ he said. ‘The City of Circles, I think you said?’

She answered absently and mechanically. ‘Yes – there were three circles. The first circle for the chosen, the second for the priestesses and the outer circle for the priests.’

‘And in the centre?’

She drew her breath sharply and her voice sank to a tone of indescribable awe.

‘The House of the Crystal . . .’

As she breathed the words, her right hand went to her forehead and her finger traced some figure there.

Her figure seemed to grow more rigid, her eyes closed, she swayed a little – then suddenly she sat upright with a jerk, as though she had suddenly awakened.

‘What is it?’ she said confusedly. ‘What have I been saying?’

‘It is nothing,’ said Rose. ‘You are tired. You want to rest. We will leave you.’

She seemed a little dazed as we took our departure. ‘Well,’ said Rose when we were outside. ‘What do you think of it?’ He shot a sharp glance sideways at me.

‘I suppose her mind must be totally unhinged,’ I said slowly. ‘It struck you like that?’

‘No – as a matter of fact, she was – well, curiously convincing. When listening to her I had the impression that she actually had done what she claimed to do – worked a kind of gigantic miracle. Her belief that she did so seems genuine enough. That is why –’

‘That is why you say her mind must be unhinged. Quite so. But now approach the matter from another angle. Supposing that she did actually work that miracle – supposing that she did, personally, destroy a building and several hundred human beings.’

‘By the mere exercise of will?’ I said with a smile. ‘I should not put it quite like that. You will agree that one person could destroy a multitude by touching a switch which controlled a system of mines.’