4.50 From Paddington mm-8 Page 19

  "Yes," said Emma, "I remember you quite well. Do sit down."

  In the chair conveniently placed by the bed Lady Stoddart-West sat down. She said in a quiet low voice:

  "You must think it very strange of me coming here like this, but I have a reason. I think it is an important reason. You see, the boys have been telling me things. You can understand that they were very excited about the murder that happened here. I confess I did not like it at the time. I was nervous. I wanted to bring James home at once. But my husband laughed. He said that obviously it was a murder that had nothing to do with the house and the family, and he said that from what he remembered from his boyhood, and from James's letters, both he and Alexander were enjoying themselves so wildly that it would be sheer cruelty to bring them back. So I gave in and agreed that they should stay on until the time arranged for James to bring Alexander back with him."

  Emma said: "You think we ought to have sent your son home earlier?"

  "No, no, that is not what I mean at all. Oh, it is difficult for me, this! But what I have to say must be said. You see, they have picked up a good deal, the boys. They told me that this woman – the murdered woman – that the police have an idea that she may be a French girl whom your eldest brother – who was killed in the war – knew in France . That is so?"

  "It is a possibility," said Emma, her voice breaking slightly, "that we are forced to consider. It may have been so."

  "There is some reason for believing that the body is that of this girl, this Martine?"

  "I have told you, it is a possibility."

  "But why – why should they think that she was this Martine? Did she have letters on her – papers?"

  "No. Nothing of that kind. But you see, I had had a letter, from this Martine."

  "You had had a letter – from Martine?"

  "Yes. A letter telling me she was in England and would like to come and see me. I invited her down here, but got a telegram saying she was going back to France . Perhaps she did go back to France . We do not know. But since then an envelope was found here addressed to her. That seems to show that she had come down here. But I really don't see…" She broke off.

  Lady Stoddart-West broke in quickly:

  "You really do not see what concern it is of mine? That is very true. I should not in your place. But when I heard this – or rather, a garbled account of this – I had to come to make sure it was really so because, if it is –"

  "Yes?" said Emma.

  "Then I must tell you something that I had never intended to tell you. You see, I am Martine Dubois."

  Emma stared at her guest as though she could hardly take in the sense of her words.

  "You!" she said. "You are Martine?"

  The other nodded vigorously. "But, yes. It surprises you, I am sure, but it is true. I met your brother Edmund in the first days of the war. He was indeed billeted at our house. Well, you know the rest. We fell in love. We intended to be married, and then there was the retreat to Dunkirk , Edmund was reported missing. Later he was reported killed. I will not speak to you of that time. It was long ago and it is over. But I will say to you that I loved your brother very much…

  "Then came the grim realities of war. The Germans occupied France . I became a worker for the Resistance. I was one of those who was assigned to pass Englishmen through France to England . It was in that way that I met my present husband. He was an Air Force officer, parachuted into France to do special work. When the war ended we were married. I considered once or twice whether I should write to you or come and see you, but I decided against it. It could do no good, I thought, to rake up old memories. I had a new life and I had no wish to recall the old." She paused and then said: "But it gave me, I will tell you, a strange pleasure when I found that my son James's greatest friend at his school was a boy whom I found to be Edmund's nephew. Alexander, I may say, is very like Edmund, as I dare say you yourself appreciate. It seemed to me a very happy state of affairs that James and Alexander should be such friends."

  She leaned forward and placed her hand on Emma's arm. "But you see, dear Emma, do you not, that when I heard this story about the murder, about this dead woman being suspected to be the Martine that Edmund had known, that I had to come and tell you the truth. Either you or I must inform the police of the fact. Whoever the dead woman is, she is not Martine."

  "I can hardly take it in," said Emma, "that you, you should be the Martine that dear Edmund wrote to me about." She sighed, shaking her head, then she frowned perplexedly. "But I don't understand. Was it you, then, who wrote to me?"

  Lady Stoddart-West shook a vigorous head. "No, no, of course I did not write to you."

  "Then…" Emma stopped.

  "Then there was someone pretending to be Martine who wanted perhaps to get money out of you? That is what it must have been. But who can it be?"

  Emma said slowly: "I suppose there were people at the time, who knew?"

  The other shrugged her shoulders.

  "Probably, yes. But there was no one intimate with me, no one very close to me. I have never spoken of it since I came to England . And why wait all this time? It is curious, very curious."

  Emma said: "I don't understand it. We will have to see what Inspector Craddock has to say." She looked with suddenly softened eyes at her visitor. "I'm so glad to know you at last, my dear."

  "And I you… Edmund spoke of you very often. He was very fond of you. I am happy in my new life, but all the same, I do not quite forget."

  Emma leaned back and heaved a deep sigh. "It's a terrible relief," she said. "As long as we, feared that the dead woman might be Martine – it seemed to be tied up with the family. But now – oh, it's an absolute load off my back. I don't know who the poor soul was but she can't have had anything to do with us!"

  Chapter 23

  The streamlined secretary brought Harold Crackenthorpe his usual afternoon cup of tea.

  "Thanks, Miss Ellis, I shall be going home early today."

  "I'm sure you ought really not to have come at all, Mr. Crackenthorpe," said Miss Ellis. "You look quite pulled down still."

  "I'm all right," said Harold Crackenthorpe, but he did feel pulled down. No doubt about it, he'd had a very nasty turn. Ah, well, that was over.

  Extraordinary, he thought broodingly, that Alfred should have succumbed and the old man should have come through.

  After all, what was he – seventy-three – seventy-four? Been an invalid for years.

  If there was one person you'd have thought would have been taken off, it would have been the old man. But no. It had to be Alfred. Alfred who, as far as Harold knew, was a healthy wiry sort of chap. Nothing much the matter with him.

  He leaned back in his chair sighing. That girl was right. He didn't feel up to things yet, but he had wanted to come down to the office. Wanted to get the hang of how affairs were going. Touch and go, that's what it was! Touch and go. All this – he looked round him – the richly appointed office, the pale gleaming wood, the expensive modern chairs, it all looked prosperous enough, and a good thing too!

  That's where Alfred had always gone wrong. If you looked prosperous, people thought you were prosperous. There were no rumours going around as yet about his financial stability. All the same, the crash couldn't be delayed very long. Now, if only his father had passed out instead of Alfred, as surely, surely he ought to have done.

  Practically seemed to thrive on arsenic! Yes, if his father had succumbed – well, there wouldn't have been anything to worry about.

  Still, the great thing was not to seem worried. A prosperous appearance. Not like poor old Alfred who always looked seedy and shiftless, who looked in fact exactly what he was. One of those smalltime speculators, never going all out boldly for the big money. In with a shady crowd here, doing a doubtful deal there, never quite rendering himself liable to prosecution but going very near the edge. And where had it got him? Short periods of affluence and then back to seediness and shabbiness once more. No broad outlook about Alfred. Ta
ken all in all, you couldn't say Alfred was much loss. He'd never been particularly fond of Alfred and with Alfred out of the way the money that was coming to him from that old curmudgeon, his grandfather, would be sensibly increased, divided not into five shares but into four shares. Very much better.

  Harold's face brightened a little. He rose, took his hat and coat and left the office. Better take it easy for a day or two.

  He wasn't feeling too strong yet. His car was waiting below and very soon he was weaving through the London traffic to his house.

  Darwin, his manservant, opened the door.

  "Her ladyship has just arrived, sir," he said.

  For a moment Harold stared at him.

  Alice ! Good heavens, was it today that Alice was coming home? He'd forgotten all about it. Good thing Darwin had warned him. It wouldn't have looked so good if he'd gone upstairs and looked too astonished at seeing her. Not that it really mattered, he supposed. Neither Alice nor he had many illusions about the feeling they had for each other. Perhaps Alice was fond of him – he didn't know.

  All in all, Alice was a great disappointment to him. He hadn't been in love with her, of course, but though a plain woman she was quite a pleasant one. And her family and connections had undoubtedly been useful. Not perhaps as useful as they might have been, because in marrying Alice he had been considering the position of hypothetical children. Nice relations for his boys to have. But there hadn't been any boys, or girls either, and all that had remained had been he and Alice growing older together without much to say to each other and with no particular pleasure in each other's company.

  She stayed away a good deal with relations and usually went to the Riviera in the winter. It suited her and it didn't worry him.

  He went upstairs now into the drawing-room and greeted her punctiliously.

  "So you're back, my dear. Sorry I couldn't meet you, but I was held up in the City. I got back as early as I could. How was San Raphael?"

  Alice told him how San Raphael was.

  She was a thin woman with sandy-coloured hair, a well-arched nose and vague, hazel eyes. She talked in a well-bred, monotonous and rather depressing voice. It had been a good journey back, the Channel a little rough. The Customs, as usual, very trying at Dover .

  "You should come by air," said Harold, as he always did. "So much simpler."

  "I dare say, but I don't really like air travel. I never have. Makes me nervous."

  "Saves a lot of time," said Harold.

  Lady Alice Crackenthorpe did not answer. It was possible that her problem in life was not to save time but to occupy it.

  She inquired politely after her husband's health.

  "Emma's telegram quite alarmed me," she said. "You were all taken ill, I understand."

  "Yes, yes," said Harold.

  "I read in the paper the other day," said Alice , "of forty people in an hotel going down with food poisoning at the same time. All this refrigeration is dangerous, I think. People keep things too long in them."

  "Possibly," said Harold. Should he, or should he not mention arsenic? Somehow, looking at Alice , he felt himself quite unable to do so. In Alice 's world, he felt, there was no place for poisoning by arsenic. It was a thing you read about in the papers. It didn't happen to you or your own family. But it had happened in the Crackenthorpe family…

  He went up to his room and lay down for an hour or two before dressing for dinner. At dinner, tete-a-tete with his wife, the conversation ran on much the same lines. Desultory, polite. The mention of acquaintances and friends at San Raphael.

  "There's a parcel for you on the hall table, a small one," Alice said.

  "Is there? I didn't notice it."

  "It's an extraordinary thing but somebody was telling me about a murdered woman having been found in a barn, or something like that. She said it was at Rutherford Hall. I suppose it must be some other Rutherford Hall."

  "No," said Harold, "no, it isn't. It was in our barn, as a matter of fact."

  "Really, Harold! A murdered woman in the barn at Rutherford Hall – and you never told me anything about it."

  "Well, there hasn't been much time, really," said Harold, "and it was all rather unpleasant. Nothing to do with us, of course. The Press milled round a good deal. Of course we had to deal with the police and all that sort of thing."

  "Very unpleasant," said Alice . "Did they find out who did it?" she added, with rather perfunctory interest.

  "Not yet," said Harold.

  "What sort of a woman was she?"

  "Nobody knows. French apparently."

  "Oh, French," said Alice , and allowing for the difference in class, her tone was not unlike that of Inspector Bacon. "Very annoying for you all," she agreed.

  They went out from the dining-room and crossed into the small study where they usually sat when they were alone. Harold was feeling quite exhausted by now. "I'll go up to bed early," he thought.

  He picked up the small parcel from the hall table, about which his wife had spoken to him. It was a small neatly waxed parcel, done up with meticulous exactness. Harold ripped it open as he came to sit down in his usual chair by the fire.

  Inside was a small tablet box bearing the label, "Two to be taken nightly." With it was a small piece of paper with the chemist's heading in Brackhampton, "Sent by request of Doctor Quimper," was written on it.

  Harold Crackenthorpe frowned. He opened the box and looked at the tablets.

  Yes, they seemed to be the same tablets he had been having. But surely, surely Quimper had said that he needn't take any more? "You won't want them now."

  That's what Quimper had said.

  "What is it, dear?" said Alice . "You look worried."

  "Oh, it's just – some tablets. I've been taking them at night. But I rather thought the doctor said don't take any more."

  His wife said placidly: "He probably said don't forget to take them."

  "He may have done, I suppose," said Harold doubtfully.

  He looked across at her. She was watching him. Just for a moment or two he wondered – he didn't often wonder about Alice – exactly what she was thinking.

  That mild gaze of hers told him nothing.

  Her eyes were like windows in an empty house. What did Alice think about him, feel about him? Had she been in love with him once? He supposed she had. Or did she marry him because she thought he was doing well in the City, and she was tired of her own impecunious existence? Well, on the whole, she'd done quite well out of it.

  She'd got a car and a house in London , she could travel abroad when she felt like it and get herself expensive clothes, though goodness knows they never looked like anything on Alice . Yes, on the whole she'd done pretty well. He wondered if she thought so. She wasn't really fond of him, of course, but then he wasn't really fond of her. They had nothing in common, nothing to talk about, no memories to share. If there had been children – but there hadn't been any children – odd that there were no children in the family except young Edie's boy. Young Edie. She'd been a silly girl, making that foolish, hasty war-time marriage. Well, he'd given her good advice.

  He'd said: "It's all very well, these dashing young pilots, glamour, courage, all that, but he'll be no good in peacetime, you know. Probably be barely able to support you."

  And Edie had said, what did it matter?

  She loved Bryan and Bryan loved her, and he'd probably be killed quite soon. Why shouldn't they have some happiness? What was the good of looking to the future when they might all be bombed any minute. And after all, Edie had said, the future doesn't really matter because some day there'll be all grandfather's money.

  Harold squirmed uneasily in his chair.

  Really, that will of his grandfather's had been iniquitous! Keeping them all dangling on a string. The will hadn't pleased anybody.

  It didn't please the grandchildren and it made their father quite livid. The old boy was absolutely determined not to die. That's what made him take so much care of himself. But he'd have to
die soon.

  Surely, surely he'd have to die soon.

  Otherwise – all Harold's worries swept over him once more making him feel sick and tired and giddy.

  Alice was still watching him, he noticed.

  Those pale, thoughtful eyes, they made him uneasy somehow.

  "I think I shall go to bed," he said. "It's been my first day out in the City."

  "Yes," said Alice , "I think that's a good idea. I'm sure the doctor told you to take things easily at first."

  "Doctors always tell you that," said Harold.

  "And don't forget to take your tablets, dear," said Alice . She picked up the box and handed it to him.

  He said good-night and went upstairs. Yes, he needed the tablets. It would have been a mistake to leave them off too soon.

  He took two of them and swallowed them with a glass of water.

  Chapter 24

  "Nobody could have made more of a muck of it than I seem to have done," said Dermot Craddock gloomily.

  He sat, his long legs stretched out, looking somehow incongruous in faithful Florence 's somewhat over-furnished parlour.

  He was thoroughly tired, upset and dispirited.

  Miss Marple made soft, soothing noises of dissent. "No, no, you've done very good work, my dear boy. Very good work indeed."

  "I've done very good work, have I? I've let a whole family be poisoned, Alfred Crackenthorpe's dead and now Harold's dead too. What the hell's going on there? That's what I should like to know."

  "Poisoned tablets," said Miss Marple thoughtfully.

  "Yes. Devilishly cunning, really. They looked just like the tablets that he'd been having. There was a printed slip sent in with them 'by Doctor Quimper's instructions'. Well, Quimper never ordered them. There were chemist's labels used. The chemist knew nothing about it, either. No. That box of tablets came from Rutherford Hall."

  "Do you actually know it came from Rutherford Hall?"

  "Yes. We've had a thorough check up. Actually, it's the box that held the sedative tablets prescribed for Emma."