Agatha Christie - They Do It With Mirrors

On the palm of his hand he held out the small black automatic.

Carrie Louise looked at it.

'No, I don't think so.'

'I found it in the piano stool. It has recently been fired.

We haven't had time to check on it fully yet, but I should say that it is almost certainly the weapon with which Mr Gulbrandsen was shot.'

She frowned.

'And you found it in the piano stool?'

'Under some very old music. Music that I should say had not been played for years.'

'Hidden, then?'

'Yes. You remember who was at the piano last night?'

'Stephen Restarick.'

'He was playing?'

'Yes. Just softly. A funny melancholy little tune.'

'When did he stop playing, Mrs Serrocold?'

'When did he stop? I don't know.'

'But he did stop? He didn't go on playing all through the quarrel.'

'No. The music just died down.'

'Did he get up from the piano stool?'

'I don't know. I've no idea what he did until he came over to the study door to try and fit a key to it.'

'Can you think of any reason why Stephen Restarick should shoot Mr Gulbrandsen?'

'None whatever.' She added thoughtfully, 'I don't believe he did.'

'Gulbrandsen might have found out something discreditable about him.'

'That seems to me very unlikely.'

Inspector Curry had a wild wish to reply:

'Pigs may fly but they're very unlikely birds.' It had been a saying of his grandmother's. Miss Marple, he thought, was sure to know it.

Carrie Louise came down the broad stairway and three people converged upon her from different directions, Gina from the long corridor, Miss Marple from the library, and Juliet Bellever from the Great Hall.

Gina spoke first.

'Darling!' she exclaimed passionately. 'Are you all right? They haven't bullied you or given you third degree or anything?'

'Of course not, Gina. What odd ideas you have! Inspector Curry was charming and most considerate.'

'So he ought to be,' said Miss Bellever. 'Now, Carrie, I've got all your letters here and a parcel. I was going to bring them up to you.'

'Bring them into the library,' said Carrie Louise.

All four of them went into the library.

Carrie Louise sat down and began opening her letters.

There were about twenty or thirty of them.

As she opened them, she handed them to Miss Bellever, who sorted them into heaps, explaining to Miss Marple as she did so:

'Three main categories. One - from relations of the boys. Those I hand over to Dr Maverick. Begging letters I deal with myself. And the rest are personal - and Cara gives me notes on how to deal with them.'

The correspondence once disposed of, Mrs Serrocold turned her attention to the parcel, cutting the string with scissors.

Out of the neat wrappings there appeared an attractive box of chocolates tied up with gold ribbon.

'Someone must think it's my birthday,' said Mrs Serrocold with a smile.

She slipped off the ribbon and opened the box. Inside was a visiting card. Carrie Louise looked at it with slight surprise.

'With love from Alex,' she said. 'How odd of him to send me a box of chocolates by post on the same day he was coming down here.'

Uneasiness stirred in Miss Marple's mind.

She said quickly:

'Wait a minute, Carrie Louise. Don't eat one yet.' Mrs Serrocold looked faintly surprised.

'I was going to hand them round.'

'Well, don't. Wait while I ask - Is Alex about the house, do you know, Gina?'

Gina said quickly: 'Alex was in the Hall just now, I think.'

She went across, opened the door, and called him.

Alex Restarick appeared in the doorway a moment later.

'Madonna darling! So you're up. None the worse?'

He came across to Mrs Serrocold and kissed her gently on both cheeks.

Miss Marple said:

'Carrie Louise wants to thank you for the chocolates.' Alex looked surprised.

'What chocolates?'

'These chocolates,' said Carrie Louise.

'But I never sent you any chocolates, darling.'

'The box has got your card in,' said Miss Bellever.

Alex peered down.

'So it has. How odd. How very odd… I certainly didn't send them.'

'What a very extraordinary thing,' said Miss Bellever.

'They look absolutely scrumptious,' said Gina, peering into the box. 'Look, Grandam, there are your favourite Kirsch ones in the middle.'

Miss Marple gently but firmly took the box away from her. Without a word she took it out of the room and went to find Lewis Serrocold. It took her some time because he had gone over to the College - she found him in Dr Maverick's room there. She put the box on the table in front of him. He listened to her brief account of the circumstances. His face grew suddenly stem and hard.

Carefully, he and the doctor lifted out chocolate after chocolate and examined them.

'I think,' said Dr Maverick, 'that these ones I have put aside have almost certainly been tampered with. You see the unevenness of the chocolate coating underneath? The next thing to do is to get them analysed.'

'But it seems incredible,' said Miss Marple. 'Why, everyone in the house might have been poisoned?

Lewis nodded. His face was still white and hard.

'Yes. There is a ruthlessness - a disregard -' he broke off. 'Actually I think all these particular chocolates are Kirsch flavouring. That is Caroline's favourite. So, you see, there is knowledge behind this.'

Miss Marple said quietly:

'If it is as you suspect - if there is - poison - in these chocolates, then I'm afraid Carrie Louise will have to know what is going on. She must be put upon her guard.' Lewis Serrocold said heavily:

'Yes. She will have to know that someone wants to kill her. I think that she will find it almost impossible to believe.'

"Ere, Miss. Is it true as there's an 'ideous poisoner at work?'

Gina pushed the hair back from her forehead and jumped as the hoarse whisper reached her. There was paint on her cheek and paint on her slacks. She and her selected helpers had been busy on the backcloth of the Nile at Sunset for their next theatrical production.

It was one of these helpers who was now asking the question. Ernie, the boy who had given her such valuable lessons in the manipulation of locks. Ernie's fingers were equally dexterous at stage carpentry, and he was one of the most enthusiastic theatrical assistants.

His eyes now were bright and beady with pleasurable anticipation.

Ernie shut one eye.

'It's all round the dorms,' he said. 'But look 'ere, Miss, it wasn't one of us. Not a thing like that. And nobody wouldn't do a thing to Mrs Serrocold. Even Jenkins wouldn't cosh her. 'Tisn't as though it was the old bitch.

Wouldn't 'alf like to poison 'er, I wouldn't.'

'Don't talk like that about Miss Bellever.'

'Sorry, Miss. It slipped out. What poison was it, Miss?

Strickline, was it? Makes you arch your back and die in agonies, that does. Or was it Prussian acid?'

'I don't know what you're talking about, Ernie.' Ernie winked again.

'Not 'alfyou don't! Mr Alex it was done it, so they say.

Brought them chocs down from London. But that's a lie.

Mr Alex wouldn't do a thing like that, would he, Miss?'

'Of course he wouldn't,' said Gina.

'Much more likely to be Mr Baumgarten. When he's giving us P.T. he makes the most awful faces, and Don and I think as he's batty.'

'Just move that turpentine out of the way.'

Ernie obeyed, murmuring to himself:

'Don't 'arf see life 'ere! Old Gulbrandsen done in yesterday and now a secret poisoner. D'you think it's the same person doing both? What 'ud you say, Miss, if I told you as I know oo it was done 'im in?'

'You can't possibly know anything about it.'

'Coo, carn't I neither? Supposin' I was outside last night and aw something.'