Agatha Christie - Complete Short Stories Of Miss Marple

As she was thinking this, she was startled by the scream from the garden. Jumping up, she ran to the open window. Below her Miss Greenshaw was staggering away from the rockery toward the house. Her hands were clasped to her breast, and between her hands there protruded a feathered shaft that Louise recognized with stupefaction to be the shaft of an arrow. Miss Greenshaw's head, in its battered straw hat, fell forward on her breast. She called up to Louise in a failing voice: '… shot… he shot me… with an arrow… get help…'

Louise rushed to the door. She turned the handle, but the door would not open. It took her a moment or two of futile endeavour to realize that she was locked in. She ran back to the window and called down.

'I'm locked in!'

Miss Greenshaw, her back toward Louise and swaying a little on her feet, was calling up to the housekeeper at a window farther along.

'Ring police… telephone…'

Then, lurching from side to side like a drunkard, Miss Greenshaw disappeared from Louise's view through the window and staggered into the drawing-room on the ground floor. A moment later Louise heard a crash of broken china, a heavy fall, and then silence. Her imagination reconstructed the scene. Miss Greenshaw must have stumbled blindly into a small table with a Sevres tea set on it.

Desperately Louise pounded on the library door, calling and shouting. There was no creeper or drainpipe outside the window that could help her to get out that way. Tired at last of beating on the door, Louise returned to the window. From the window of her sitting-room farther along the housekeeper's head appeared.

'Come and let me out, Mrs. Oxley. I'm locked in.'

'So am I,' said Louise.

'Oh, dear, isn't it awful? I've telephoned the police. There's an extension in this room, but what I can't understand, Mrs. Oxley, is our being locked in. I never heard a key turn, did you?'

'No, I didn't hear anything at all. Oh, dear, what shall we do? Perhaps Alfred might hear us.' Louise shouted at the top of her voice, 'Alfred, Alfred.'

'Gone to his dinner as likely as not. What time is it?' Louise glanced at her watch.

'Twenty-five past twelve.'

'He's not supposed to go until half-past, but he sneaks off earlier whenever he can.'

'Do you think - do you think -' Louise meant to ask, 'Do you think she's dead?' - but the words stuck in her throat.

There was nothing to do but wait. She sat down on the window sill. It seemed an eternity before the stolid helmeted figure of a police constable came round the corner of the house. She leaned out of the window and he looked up at her, shading his eyes with his hand.

'What's going on here?' he demanded.

From their respective windows Louise and Mrs. Cresswell poured a flood of excited information down on him. The constable produced a notebook and pencil. 'You ladies ran upstairs and locked yourselves in? Can I have your names, please?'

'Somebody locked us in. Come and let us out.'

The constable said reprovingly, 'All in good time,' and disappeared through the French window below.

Once again time seemed infinite. Louise heard the sound of a car arriving, and after what seemed an hour, but was actually only three minutes, first Mrs. Cresswell and then Louise were released by a police sergeant more alert than the original constable.

'Miss Greenshaw?' Louise's voice faltered. 'What - what's happened?' The sergeant cleared his throat.

'I'm sorry to have to tell you, madam,' he said, 'what I've already told Mrs. Cresswell here. Miss Greenshaw is dead.'

'Murdered,' said Mrs. Cresswell. 'That's what it is - murder?

The sergeant said dubiously, 'Could have been an accident - some country lads shooting arrows.'

Again there was the sound of a car arriving.

The sergeant said, 'That'll be the M.O.,' and he started downstairs.

But it was not the M.O. As Louise and Mrs. Cresswell came down the stairs, a young man stepped hesitatingly through the front door and paused, looking around him with a somewhat bewildered air. Then, speaking in a pleasant voice that in some way seemed familiar to Louise - perhaps it reminded her of Miss Greenshaw's - he asked, 'Excuse me, does - er - does Miss Greenshaw live here?'

'May I have your name if you please?' said the sergeant, advancing upon him.

'Fletcher,' said the young man. 'Nat Fletcher. I'm Miss Greenshaw's nephew, as a matter of fact.'

'Indeed, sir, well - I'm sorry -'

'Has anything happened?' asked Nat Fletcher.

'There's been an - accident. Your aunt was shot with an arrow - penetrated the jugular vein -'

Mrs. Cresswell spoke hysterically and without her usual refinement: 'Your h'aunt's been murdered, that's what's happened. Your h'aunt's been murdered.'

Inspector Welch drew his chair a little nearer to the table and let his gaze wander from one to the other of the four people in the room. It was evening of the same day. He had called at the Wests' house to take Louise Oxley once more over her statement.

'You are sure of the exact words? Shot - he shot me - with an arrow - get help?' Louise nodded.

'And the time?'

'I looked at my watch a minute or two later - it was then twelve twenty-five -'

'Your watch keeps good time?'

'I looked at the clock as well.' Louise left no doubt of her accuracy.

The inspector turned to Raymond West.

'It appears, sir, that about a week ago you and a Mr. Horace Bindler were witnesses to Miss Greenshaw's will?'

Briefly Raymond recounted the events of the afternoon visit he and Horace Bindler had paid to Greenshaw's Folly.

'This testimony of yours may be important,' said Welch. 'Miss Greenshaw distinctly told you, did she, that her will was being made in favour of Mrs. Cresswell, the housekeeper, and that she was not paying Mrs. Cresswell any wages in view of the expectations Mrs. Cresswell had of profiting by her death?'

'That is what she told me - yes.'

'Would you say that Mrs. Cresswell was definitely aware of these facts?'

'I should say undoubtedly. Miss Greenshaw made a reference in my presence to beneficiaries not being able to witness a will, and Mrs. Cresswell clearly understood what she meant by it. Moreover, Miss Greenshaw herself told me that she had come to this arrangement with Mrs. Cresswell.'

'So Mrs. Cresswell had reason to believe she was an interested party. Motive clear enough in her case, and I daresay she'd be our chief suspect now if it wasn't for the fact that she was securely locked in her room like Mrs. Oxley here, and also that Miss Greenshaw definitely said a man shot her -'

'She definitely was locked in her room?'

'Oh yes. Sergeant Cayley let her out. It's a big old-fashioned lock with a big old-fashioned key. The key was in the lock and there's not a chance that it could have been turned from inside or any hanky-panky of that kind. No, you can take it definitely that Mrs. Cresswell was locked inside that room and couldn't get out. And there were no bows and arrows in the room and Miss Greenshaw couldn't in any case have been shot from her window - the angle forbids it. No, Mrs. Cresswell's out.' He paused, then went on: 'Would you say that Miss Greenshaw, in your opinion, was a practical joker?'

Miss Marple looked up sharply from her corner. 'So the will wasn't in Mrs. Cresswell's favour after all?' she said.

Inspector Welch looked over at her in a rather surprised fashion. 'That's a very clever guess of yours, madam,' he said. 'No, Mrs. Cresswell isn't named as beneficiary.'

'Just like Mr. Naysmith,' said Miss Marple, nodding her head. 'Miss Greenshaw told Mrs. Cresswell she was going to leave her everything and so got out of paying her wages, and then she left her money to somebody else. No doubt she was vastly pleased with herself. No wonder she chortled when she put the will away in Lady Audley's Secret.'