The Body in the Library (16 page)

“He was absolutely businesslike about it all,” continued Florence. “Said if the test was successful she'd have a contract, and he said that as she was young and inexperienced she ought to let a lawyer look at it before she signed it. But she wasn't to pass on that
he'd
said that. He asked her if she'd have trouble with her parents, and Pam said she probably would, and he said: ‘Well, of course, that's always a difficulty with anyone as young as you are, but I think if it was put to them that this was a wonderful chance that wouldn't happen once in a million times, they'd see reason.' But, anyway, he said, it wasn't any good going into that until they knew the result of the test. She mustn't be disappointed if it failed. He told her about Hollywood and about Vivien Leigh—how she'd suddenly taken London by storm—and how these sensational leaps into fame did happen. He himself had come back from America to work with the Lemville Studios and put some pep into the English film companies.”

Miss Marple nodded.

Florence went on:

“So it was all arranged. Pam was to go into Danemouth after the rally and meet him at his hotel and he'd take her along to the studios (they'd got a small testing studio in Danemouth, he told her). She'd have her test and she could catch the bus home afterwards. She could say she'd been shopping, and he'd let her know the result of the test in a few days, and if it was favourable Mr. Harmsteiter, the boss, would come along and talk to her parents.

“Well, of course, it sounded too wonderful! I was green with envy! Pam got through the rally without turning a hair—we always
call her a regular poker face. Then, when she said she was going into Danemouth to Woolworth's she just winked at me.

“I saw her start off down the footpath.” Florence began to cry. “I ought to have stopped her. I ought to have stopped her. I ought to have known a thing like that couldn't be true. I ought to have told someone. Oh dear, I wish I was
dead!
”

“There, there.” Miss Marple patted her on the shoulder. “It's quite all right. No one will blame you. You've done the right thing in telling me.”

She devoted some minutes to cheering the child up.

Five minutes later she was telling the story to Superintendent Harper. The latter looked very grim.

“The clever devil!” he said. “By God, I'll cook his goose for him. This puts rather a different aspect on things.”

“Yes, it does.”

Harper looked at her sideways.

“It doesn't surprise you?”

“I expected something of the kind.”

Superintendent Harper said curiously:

“What put you on to this particular girl? They all looked scared to death and there wasn't a pin to choose between them as far as I could see.”

Miss Marple said gently:

“You haven't had as much experience with girls telling lies as I have. Florence looked at you very straight, if you remember, and stood very rigid and just fidgeted with her feet like the others. But you didn't watch her as she went out of the door. I knew at once then that she'd got something to hide. They nearly always relax too soon. My little maid Janet always did. She'd explain quite convinc
ingly that the mice had eaten the end of a cake and give herself away by smirking as she left the room.”

“I'm very grateful to you,” said Harper.

He added thoughtfully: “Lemville Studios, eh?”

Miss Marple said nothing. She rose to her feet.

“I'm afraid,” she said, “I must hurry away. So glad to have been able to help you.”

“Are you going back to the hotel?”

“Yes—to pack up. I must go back to St. Mary Mead as soon as possible. There's a lot for me to do there.”

I

M
iss Marple passed out through the french windows of her drawing room, tripped down her neat garden path, through a garden gate, in through the vicarage garden gate, across the vicarage garden, and up to the drawing room window, where she tapped gently on the pane.

The vicar was busy in his study composing his Sunday sermon, but the vicar's wife, who was young and pretty, was admiring the progress of her offspring across the hearthrug.

“Can I come in, Griselda?”

“Oh, do, Miss Marple. Just
look
at David! He gets so angry because he can only crawl in reverse. He wants to get to something and the more he tries the more he goes backwards into the coal box!”

“He's looking very bonny, Griselda.”

“He's not bad, is he?” said the young mother, endeavouring to assume an indifferent manner. “Of course I don't
bother
with him much. All the books say a child should be left alone as much as possible.”

“Very wise, dear,” said Miss Marple. “Ahem, I came to ask if there was anything special you are collecting for at the moment.”

The vicar's wife turned somewhat astonished eyes upon her.

“Oh, heaps of things,” she said cheerfully. “There always are.”

She ticked them off on her fingers.

“There's the Nave Restoration Fund, and St. Giles's Mission, and our Sale of Work next Wednesday, and the Unmarried Mothers, and a Boy Scouts' Outing, and the Needlework Guild, and the Bishop's Appeal for Deep Sea Fishermen.”

“Any of them will do,” said Miss Marple. “I thought I might make a little round—with a book, you know—if you would authorize me to do so.”

“Are you up to something? I believe you are. Of course I authorize you. Make it the Sale of Work; it would be lovely to get some real money instead of those awful sachets and comic pen-wipers and depressing children's frocks and dusters all done up to look like dolls.

“I suppose,” continued Griselda, accompanying her guest to the window, “you wouldn't like to tell me what it's all about?”

“Later, my dear,” said Miss Marple, hurrying off.

With a sigh the young mother returned to the hearthrug and, by way of carrying out her principles of stern neglect, butted her son three times in the stomach so that he caught hold of her hair and pulled it with gleeful yells. Then they rolled over and over in a grand rough-and-tumble until the door opened and the vicarage maid announced to the most influential parishioner (who didn't like children):

“Missus is in here.”

Whereupon Griselda sat up and tried to look dignified and more what a vicar's wife should be.

II

Miss Marple, clasping a small black book with pencilled entries in it, walked briskly along the village street until she came to the crossroads. Here she turned to the left and walked past the
Blue Boar
until she came to Chatsworth, alias “Mr. Booker's new house.”

She turned in at the gate, walked up to the front door and knocked briskly.

The door was opened by the blonde young woman named Dinah Lee. She was less carefully made-up than usual, and in fact looked slightly dirty. She was wearing grey slacks and an emerald jumper.

“Good morning,” said Miss Marple briskly and cheerfully. “May I just come in for a minute?”

She pressed forward as she spoke, so that Dinah Lee, who was somewhat taken aback at the call, had no time to make up her mind.

“Thank you so much,” said Miss Marple, beaming amiably at her and sitting down rather gingerly on a “period” bamboo chair.

“Quite warm for the time of year, is it not?” went on Miss Marple, still exuding geniality.

“Yes, rather. Oh, quite,” said Miss Lee.

At a loss how to deal with the situation, she opened a box and offered it to her guest. “Er—have a cigarette?”

“Thank you so much, but I don't smoke. I just called, you know, to see if I could enlist your help for our Sale of Work next week.”

“Sale of Work?” said Dinah Lee, as one who repeats a phrase in a foreign language.

“At the vicarage,” said Miss Marple. “Next Wednesday.”

“Oh!” Miss Lee's mouth fell open. “I'm afraid I couldn't—”

“Not even a small subscription—half a crown perhaps?”

Miss Marple exhibited her little book.

“Oh—er—well, yes, I dare say I could manage that.”

The girl looked relieved and turned to hunt in her handbag.

Miss Marple's sharp eyes were looking round the room.

She said:

“I see you've no hearthrug in front of the fire.”

Dinah Lee turned round and stared at her. She could not but be aware of the very keen scrutiny the old lady was giving her, but it aroused in her no other emotion than slight annoyance. Miss Marple recognized that. She said:

“It's rather dangerous, you know. Sparks fly out and mark the carpet.”

“Funny old Tabby,” thought Dinah, but she said quite amiably if somewhat vaguely:

“There used to be one. I don't know where it's got to.”

“I suppose,” said Miss Marple, “it was the fluffy, woolly kind?”

“Sheep,” said Dinah. “That's what it looked like.”

She was amused now. An eccentric old bean, this.

She held out a half crown. “Here you are,” she said.

“Oh, thank you, my dear.”

Miss Marple took it and opened the little book.

“Er—what name shall I write down?”

Dinah's eyes grew suddenly hard and contemptuous.

“Nosey old cat,” she thought, “that's all she came for—prying around for scandal!”

She said clearly and with malicious pleasure:

“Miss Dinah Lee.”

Miss Marple looked at her steadily.

She said:

“This is Mr. Basil Blake's cottage, isn't it?”

“Yes, and
I
'm Miss Dinah Lee!”

Her voice rang out challengingly, her head went back, her blue eyes flashed.

Very steadily Miss Marple looked at her. She said:

“Will you allow me to give you some advice, even though you may consider it impertinent?”

“I
shall
consider it impertinent. You had better say nothing.”

“Nevertheless,” said Miss Marple, “I am going to speak. I want to advise you, very strongly, not to continue using your maiden name in the village.”

Dinah stared at her. She said:

“What—what do you mean?”

Miss Marple said earnestly:

“In a very short time you may need all the sympathy and goodwill you can find. It will be important to your husband, too, that he shall be thought well of. There is a prejudice in old-fashioned country districts against people living together who are not married. It has amused you both, I dare say, to pretend that that is what you are doing. It kept people away, so that you weren't bothered with what I expect you would call ‘old frumps.' Nevertheless, old frumps have their uses.”

Dinah demanded:

“How did you know we are married?”

Miss Marple smiled a deprecating smile.

“Oh, my dear,” she said.

Dinah persisted.

“No, but how
did
you know? You didn't—you didn't go to Somerset House?”

A momentary flicker showed in Miss Marple's eyes.

“Somerset House? Oh, no. But it was quite easy to
guess.
Everything, you know, gets round in a village. The—er—the kind of quarrels you have—typical of early days of marriage. Quite—
quite
unlike an illicit relationship. It has been said, you know (and, I think, quite truly), that you can only really get under anybody's skin if you are married to them. When there is no—no
legal
bond, people are much more careful, they have to keep assuring themselves how happy and halcyon everything is. They have, you see, to
justify
themselves. They dare not quarrel! Married people, I have noticed, quite enjoy their battles and the—er—appropriate reconciliations.”

She paused, twinkling benignly.

“Well, I—” Dinah stopped and laughed. She sat down and lit a cigarette. “You're absolutely marvellous!” she said.

Then she went on:

“But why do you want us to own up and admit to respectability?”

Miss Marple's face was grave. She said:

“Because, any minute now,
your husband may be arrested for murder.
”

III

For several moments Dinah stared at her. Then she said incredulously:

“Basil? Murder? Are you joking?”

“No, indeed. Haven't you seen the papers?”

Dinah caught her breath.

“You mean—that girl at the Majestic Hotel. Do you mean they suspect Basil of killing her?”

“Yes.”

“But it's nonsense!”

There was the whir of a car outside, the bang of a gate. Basil Blake flung open the door and came in, carrying some bottles. He said:

“Got the gin and the vermouth. Did you—?”

He stopped and turned incredulous eyes on the prim, erect visitor.

Dinah burst out breathlessly:

“Is she mad? She says you're going to be arrested for the murder of that girl Ruby Keene.”

“Oh, God!” said Basil Blake. The bottles dropped from his arms on to the sofa. He reeled to a chair and dropped down in it and buried his face in his hands. He repeated: “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

Dinah darted over to him. She caught his shoulders.

“Basil, look at me! It isn't true! I know it isn't true! I don't believe it for a moment!”

His hand went up and gripped hers.

“Bless you, darling.”

“But why should they think—You didn't even
know
her, did you?”

“Oh, yes, he knew her,” said Miss Marple.

Basil said fiercely:

“Be quiet, you old hag. Listen, Dinah darling, I hardly knew her at all. Just ran across her once or twice at the Majestic. That's all, I swear that's all.”

Dinah said, bewildered:

“I don't understand. Why should anyone suspect you, then?”

Basil groaned. He put his hands over his eyes and rocked to and fro.

Miss Marple said:

“What did you do with the hearthrug?”

His reply came mechanically:

“I put it in the dustbin.”

Miss Marple clucked her tongue vexedly.

“That was stupid—very stupid. People don't put good hearthrugs in dustbins. It had spangles in it from her dress, I suppose?”

“Yes, I couldn't get them out.”

Dinah cried: “But what are you both talking about?”

Basil said sullenly:

“Ask her. She seems to know all about it.”

“I'll tell you what I think happened, if you like,” said Miss Marple. “You can correct me, Mr. Blake, if I go wrong. I think that after having had a violent quarrel with your wife at a party and after having had, perhaps, rather too much—er—to drink, you drove down here. I don't know what time you arrived—”

Basil Blake said sullenly:

“About two in the morning. I meant to go up to town first, then when I got to the suburbs I changed my mind. I thought Dinah might come down here after me. So I drove down here. The place was all dark. I opened the door and turned on the light and I saw—and I saw—”

He gulped and stopped. Miss Marple went on:

“You saw a girl lying on the hearthrug—a girl in a white evening dress—strangled. I don't know whether you recognized her then—”

Basil Blake shook his head violently.

“I couldn't look at her after the first glance—her face was all blue—swollen. She'd been dead some time and she was
there
—in
my
room!”

He shuddered.

Miss Marple said gently:

“You weren't, of course, quite yourself. You were in a fuddled state and your nerves are not good. You were, I think, panic-stricken. You didn't know what to do—”

“I thought Dinah might turn up any minute. And she'd find me there with a dead body—a girl's dead body—and she'd think I'd killed her. Then I got an idea—it seemed, I don't know why, a good idea at the time—I thought: I'll put her in old Bantry's library. Damned pompous old stick, always looking down his nose, sneering at me as artistic and effeminate. Serve the pompous old brute right, I thought. He'll look a fool when a dead lovely is found on his hearthrug.” He added, with a pathetic eagerness to explain: “I was a bit drunk, you know, at the time. It really seemed positively
amusing
to me. Old Bantry with a dead blonde.”

“Yes, yes,” said Miss Marple. “Little Tommy Bond had very much the same idea. Rather a sensitive boy with an inferiority complex, he said teacher was always picking on him. He put a frog in the clock and it jumped out at her.

“You were just the same,” went on Miss Marple, “only of course, bodies are more serious matters than frogs.”

Basil groaned again.

“By the morning I'd sobered up. I realized what I'd done. I was scared stiff. And then the police came here—another damned pompous ass of a Chief Constable. I was scared of him—and the
only way I could hide it was by being abominably rude. In the middle of it all Dinah drove up.”

Dinah looked out of the window.

She said:

“There's a car driving up now … there are men in it.”

“The police, I think,” said Miss Marple.

Basil Blake got up. Suddenly he became quite calm and resolute. He even smiled. He said:

“So I'm for it, am I? All right, Dinah sweet, keep your head. Get on to old Sims—he's the family lawyer—and go to Mother and tell her everything about our marriage. She won't bite. And don't worry.
I didn't do it.
So it's bound to be all right, see, sweetheart?”