Agatha Christie - They Do It With Mirrors

'Mrs Serrocold and Miss Marple,' said Inspector Curry. 'Which is Miss Marple?'

'The old lady with white hair. She was a school friend of Mrs Serrocold's. She came on a visit about four days ago.'

'Well, thank you, Miss Bellever. All that you have told us is quite clear. I'll go into things with Mr Serrocold now. Ah, but perhaps - Miss Marple's an old lady, isn't she? I'll just have a word with her first and then she can go off to bed. Rather cruel to keep an old lady like that up,' said Inspector Curry virtuously. 'This must have been a shock to her.'

'I'll tell her, shall I?'

'If you please.'

Miss Bellever went out. Inspector Curry looked at the ceiling.

'Gulbrandsen?' he said. 'Why Gulbrandsen? Two hundred odd maladjusted youngsters on the premises.

No reason any of them shouldn't have done it. Probably one of them did. But why Gulbrandsen? The stranger within the gates.'

Sergeant Lake said: 'Of course we don't know everything yet.'

Inspector Curry said:

'So far, we don't know anything at all.'

He jumped up and was gallant when Miss Marple came in. She seemed a little flustered and he hurried to put her at her ease.

'Now don't upset yourself, m'am.' The old ones like M'am, he thought. To them, police officers were definitely of the lower classes and should show respect to their betters. 'This is all very distressing, I know. But we've just got to get the facts clear. Get it all clear.'

'Oh yes, I know,' said Miss Marple. 'So difficult, isn't it? To be clear about anything, I mean. Because if you're looking at one thing, you can't be looking at another. And one so often looks at the wrong thing, though whether because one happens to do so or because you're meant to, it's very hard to say. Misdirection, the conjurers call it. So clever, aren't they? And I never have known how they manage with a bowl of goldfish - because really that cannot fold up small, can it?'

Inspector Curry blinked a little and said soothingly: 'Quite so. Now, m'am, I've had an account of this evening's events from Miss Bellever. A most anxious time for all of you, I'm sure.'

'Yes, indeed. It was all so dramatic, you know.'

'First this to-do between Mr Serrocold and' - he looked down at a note he had made - 'this Edgar Lawson.'

'A very odd young man,' said Miss Marple. 'I have felt all along that there was something wrong about him.'

'I'm sure you have,' said Inspector Curry. 'And then, after that excitement was over, there came Mr Gulbrandsen's death. I understand that you went with Mrs Serrocold to see the - er - the body.'

'Yes, I did. She asked me to come with her. We are very old friends.'

'Quite so. And you went along to Mr Gulbrandsen's room. Did you touch anything while you were in the room, either of you?'

'Oh no. Mr Serrocold warned us not to.'

'Did you happen to notice, ma'm, whether there was a letter or a piece of paper, say, in the typewriter?'

'There wasn't,' said Miss Marple promptly. 'I noticed that at once because it seemed to me odd. Mr Gulbrandsen was sitting there at the typewriter so he must have been typing something. Yes, I thought it very odd.'

Inspector Curry looked at her sharply. He said: 'Did you have much conversation with Mr Gulbrandsen while he was here?'

'Very little.'

'There is nothing especial - or significant that you can remember?' Miss Marple considered.

'He asked me about Mrs Serrocold's health. In particular, about her heart.'

'Her heart? Is there something wrong with her heart?'

'Nothing whatever, I understand.' Inspector Curry was silent for a moment or two, then he said: 'You heard a shot this evening during the quarrel between Mr Serrocold and Edgar Lawson?'

'I didn't actually hear it myself. I am a little deaf, you know. But Mrs Serrocold mentioned it as being outside in the park.'

'Mr Gulbrandsen left the party immediately after dinner, I understand?'

'Yes, he said he had letters to write.'

'He didn't show any wish for a business conference with Mr Serrocold?'

'No.' Miss Marple added: 'You see, they'd already had one little talk.'

'They had? When? I understood that Mr Serrocold only returned home just before dinner.'

'That's quite true, but he walked up through the park, and Mr Gulbrandsen went out to meet him and they walked up and down the terrace together.'

'Who else knows this?'

'I shouldn't think anybody else,' said Miss Marple.

'Unless, of course, Mr Serrocold told Mrs Serrocold. I just happened to be looking out of my window - at some birds.'

'Birds?'

'Birds,' Miss Marple added after a moment or two: 'I thought, perhaps, they might be siskins.' Inspector Curry was uninterested in siskins.

'You didn't,' he said delicately, 'happen to - er overhear anything of what they said?' Innocent china blue eyes met his.

'Only fragments, I'm afraid,' said Miss Marple gently.

'And those fragments?''

'Miss Marple was silent for a moment, then she said: 'I do not know the actual subject of their conversation, but their immediate concern was to keep whatever it was from the knowledge of Mrs Serrocold. To spare her - that was how Mr Gulbrandsen put it, and Mr Serrocold said, "I agree that it is she who must be considered." They also mentioned a "big responsibility" and that they should, perhaps, "take outside advice."' She paused. 'I think you know, you had better ask Mr Serrocold himself about all this.'

'We shall do so, m'am. Now there is nothing else that struck you as unusual this evening?' Miss Marple considered.

'It was all so unusual if you know what I mean '

'Quite so. Quite so.' Something flickered into Miss Marple's memory.

'There was one rather unusual incident. Mr Serrocold stopped Mrs Serrocold from taking her medicine. Miss Bellever was quite put out about it.' She smiled in a deprecating fashion. 'But that, of course, is such a little thing…'

'Yes, of course. Well, thank you, Miss Marple.''

'As Miss Marple went out of the room, Sergeant Lake said: 'She's old, but she's sharp…'

Lewis Serrocold came into the office and immediately the whole focus of the room shifted. He turned to close the door behind him, and in doing so he created an atmosphere of privacy. He walked over and sat down, not in the chair Miss Marple had just vacated, but in his own chair behind the desk. Miss Bellever had settled Inspector Curry in a chair drawn up to one side of the desk, as though unconsciously she had reserved Lewis Serrocold's chair against his coming.

When he had sat down, Lewis Serrocold looked at the two police officers thoughtfully. His face looked drawn and tired. It was the face of a man who was passing through a severe ordeal, and it surprised Inspector Curry a little because, though Christian Gulbrandsen's death must undeniably have been a shock to Lewis Serrocold, yet Gulbrandsen had not been a close friend or relation, only a rather remote connection by marriage.

In an odd way, the tables seemed to have been turned.

It did not seem as though Lewis Serrocold had come into the room to answer police questioning. It seemed rather that Lewis Serrocold had arrived to preside over a court of inquiry. It irritated Inspector Curry a little.

He said briskly:

'Now, Mr Serrocold -'

Lewis Serrocold still seemed lost in thought. He said with a sigh: 'How difficult it is to know the right thing to do.'

Inspector Curry said: 'I think we will be the judges of that, Mr Serrocold.

Now about Mr Gulbrandsen, he arrived unexpectedly, I understand?'

'Quite unexpectedly.'

'You did not know he was coming.'

'I had not the least idea of it.'

'And you have no idea of why he came?' Lewis Serrocold said quietly: 'Oh yes, I know why he came. He told me.'