Agatha Christie - The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

'I know someone living there,' he said. 'At St Mary Mead. An old lady. A very old lady by now. Perhaps she's dead, I don't know. But if not -'

The assistant commissioner took his subordinate's point, or at any rate he thought he did.

'Yes,' he said, 'it would give you an "in" in a way. One needs a bit of local gossip. The whole thing is a curious business.'

'The County have called us in?' Dermot asked.

'Yes. I've got the chief constable's letter here. They don't seem to feel that it's necessarily a local affair. The largest house in the neighbourhood, Gossington Hall, was recently sold as a residence for Marina Gregg, the film star, and her husband. They're shooting a film at their new studios, at Hellingforth, in which she is starring. A fête was held in the grounds in aid of the St John Ambulance. The dead woman – her name is Mrs Heather Badcock – was the local secretary of this and had done most of the administrative work for the fête. She seems to have been a competent, sensible person, well liked locally.'

'One of those bossy women?' suggested Craddock.

'Very possibly,' said the assistant commissioner. 'Still in my experience, bossy women seldom get themselves murdered. I can't think why not. When you come to think of it, it's rather a pity. There was a record attendance at the fête, it seems, good weather, everything running to plan. Marina Gregg and her husband held a kind of small private reception in Gossington Hall. About thirty or forty people attended this. The local notables, various people connected with the St John Ambulance Association, several friends of Marina Gregg herself, and a few people connected with the studios. All very peaceful, nice and happy. But, fantastically and improbably, Heather Badcock was poisoned there.'

Dermot Craddock said thoughtfully, 'An odd place to choose.'

'That's the chief constable's point of view. If anyone wanted to poison Heather Badcock, why choose that particular afternoon and circumstances? Hundreds of much simpler ways of doing it. A risky business anyway, you know, to slip a dose of deadly poison into a cocktail in the middle of twenty or thirty people milling about. Somebody ought to have seen something.'

'It definitely was in the drink?'

'Yes, it was definitely in the drink. We have the particulars here. One of those inexplicable names that doctors delight in, but actually a fairly common prescription in America.'

'In America. I see.'

'Oh, this country too. But these things are handed out much more freely on the other side of the Atlantic. Taken in small doses, beneficial.'

'Supplied on prescription or can it be bought freely?'

'No. You have to have a prescription.'

'Yes, it's odd,' said Dermot. 'Did Heather Badcock have any connection with these film people?'

'None whatever.'

'Any member of her own family at this do?'

'Her husband.'

'Her husband,' said Dermot thoughtfully.

'Yes, one always thinks that way,' agreed his superior officer, 'but the local man – Cornish, I think his name is – doesn't seem to think there's anything in that, although he does report that Badcock seemed ill at ease and nervous, but he agrees that respectable people often are like that when interviewed by the police. They appear to have been quite a devoted couple.'

'In other words, the police there don't think it's their pigeon. Well, it ought to be interesting. I take it I'm going down there, sir?'

'Yes. Better get there as soon as possible, Dermot. Who do you want with you?'

Dermot considered for a moment or two.

'Tiddler, I think,' he said thoughtfully. 'He's a good man and, what's more, he's a film fan. That might come in useful.'

The assistant commissioner nodded. 'Good luck to you,' he said.

'Well!' exclaimed Miss Marple, going pink with pleasure and surprise. 'This is a surprise. How are you, my dear boy though you're hardly a boy now. What are you – a Chief Inspector or this new thing they call a Commander?'

Dermot explained his present rank.

'I suppose I need hardly ask what you are doing down here,' said Miss Marple. 'Our local murder is considered worthy of the attention of Scotland Yard.'

'They handed it over to us,' said Dermot, 'and so, naturally, as soon as I got down here I came to headquarters.'

'Do you mean -' Miss Marple fluttered a little.

'Yes, Aunty,' said Dermot disrespectfully. 'I mean you.'

'I'm afraid,' said Miss Marple regretfully, 'I'm very much out of things nowadays. I don't get out much.'

'You get out enough to fall down and be picked up by a woman who's going to be murdered ten days later,' said Dermot Craddock.

Miss Marple made the kind of noise that would once have been written down as 'tut-tut'.

'I don't know where you hear these things,' she said.

'You should know,' said Dermot Craddock. 'You told me yourself that in a village everybody knows everything.

'And just off the record,' he added, 'did you think she was going to be murdered as soon as you looked at her?'

'Of course not, of course not,' exclaimed Miss Marple. 'What an idea!'

'You didn't see that look in her husband's eye that reminded you of Harry Simpson or David Jones or somebody you've known years ago, and subsequently pushed his wife off a precipice.'

'No, I did not!' said Miss Marple. 'I'm sure Mr Badcock would never do a wicked thing of that kind. At least,' she added thoughtfully, 'I'm nearly sure.'

'But human nature being what it is -' murmured Craddock, wickedly.

'Exactly,' said Miss Marple. She added, 'I daresay, after the first natural grief, he won't miss her very much…'

'Why? Did she bully him?'

'Oh no,' said Miss Marple, 'but I don't think that she – well, she wasn't a considerate woman. Kind, yes. Considerate – no. She would be fond of him and look after him when he was ill and see to his meals and be a good housekeeper, but I don't think she would ever – well, that she would ever even know what he might be feeling or thinking. That makes rather a lonely life for a man.'

'Ah,' said Dermot, 'and is his life less likely to be lonely in future?'

'I expect he'll marry again,' said Miss Marple. 'Perhaps quite soon. And probably, which is such a pity, a woman of much the same type. I mean he'll marry someone with a stronger personality than his own.'

'Anyone in view?' asked Dermot.

'Not that I know of,' said Miss Marple. She added regretfully, 'But I know so little.'

'Well, what do you think?' urged Dermot Craddock. 'You've never been backward in thinking things.'

'I think,' said Miss Marple, unexpectedly, 'that you ought to go and see Mrs Bantry.'

'Mrs Bantry? Who is she? One of the film lot?'

'No,' said Miss Marple, 'she lives in the East Lodge at Gossington. She was at the party that day. She used to own Gossington at one time. She and her husband, Colonel Bantry.'

'She was at the party. And she saw something?'

'I think she must tell you herself what it was she saw. You mayn't think it has any bearing on the matter, but I think it might be – just might be – suggestive. Tell her I sent you to her and – ah yes, perhaps you'd better just mention the Lady of Shalott.'

Dermot Craddock looked at her with his head just slightly on one side.

'The Lady of Shalott,' he said. 'Those are the code words, are they?'

'I don't know that I should put it that way,' said Miss Marple, 'but it will remind her of what I mean.'

Dermot Craddock got up. 'I shall be back,' he warned her.

'That is very nice of you,' said Miss Marple. 'Perhaps if you have time, you would come and have tea with me one day. If you still drink tea,' she added rather wistfully. 'I know that so many young people nowadays only go out to drinks and things. They think that afternoon tea is a very outmoded affair.'