Chapter 16

When Craddock got to 4 Madison Road he found Lucy Eyelesbarrow with Miss
Marple.

He hesitated for a moment on his plan of campaign and then decided that
Lucy Eyelesbarrow might prove a valuable ally.

After greetings, he solemnly drew out his notecase, extracted three pound
notes, added three shillings and pushed them across the table to Miss
Marple.

"What's this Inspector?"

"Consultation fee. You're a consultant - on murder! Pulse, temperature,
local reactions, possible deep-seated cause of said murder. I'm just the
poor harassed local G.P."

Miss Marple looked at him and twinkled. He grinned at her. Lucy
Eyelesbarrow gave a faint gasp and then laughed.

"Why, Inspector Craddock – you're human after all."

"Oh, well, I'm not strictly on duty this afternoon."

"I told you we had met before," said Miss Marple to Lucy. "Sir Henry
Clithering is his godfather - a very old friend of mine."

"Would you like to hear, Miss Eyelesbarrow, what my godfather said about
her - the first time we met? He described her as just the finest detective
God ever made - natural genius cultivated in a suitable soil. He told me
never to despise the" – Dermot Craddock paused for a moment to seek for a
synonym for “old pussies" – “– er – elderly ladies. He said they could
usually tell you what might have happened, what ought to have happened, and
even what actually did happen! And," he said, "they can tell you why it
happened, he added, that this particular - er - elderly lady - was at the
top of the class."

"Well!" said Lucy. "That seems to be a testimonial all right."

Miss Marple was pink and confused and looked unusually dithery.

"Dear Sir Henry," she murmured. "Always so kind. Really I'm not at all
clever - just, perhaps, a slight knowledge of human nature - living, you
know, in a village –"

She added, with more composure:

"Of course, I am somewhat handicapped, by not actually being on the spot.
It is so helpful, I always feel, when people remind you of other people -
because types are alike everywhere and that is such a valuable guide."

Lucy looked a little puzzled, but Craddock nodded comprehendingly.

"But you've been to tea there, haven't you?" he said.

"Yes, indeed. Most pleasant. I was a little disappointed that I didn't see
old Mr. Crackenthorpe – but one can't have everything."



"Do you feel that if you saw the person who had done the murder, you'd
know?" asked Lucy.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, dear. One is always inclined to guess - and
guessing would be very wrong when it is a question of anything as serious
as murder. All one can do is to observe the people concerned - or who might
have been concerned - and see of whom they remind you."

"Like Cedric and the bank manager?"

Miss Marple corrected her.

"The bank manager's son, dear. Mr. Eade himself was far more like Mr.
Harold - a very conservative man - but perhaps a little too fond of money -
the sort of man, too, who would go a long way to avoid scandal."

Craddock smiled, and said:

"And Alfred?"

"Jenkins at the garage," Miss Marple replied promptly. "He didn't exactly
appropriate tools? - but he used to exchange a broken or inferior jack for
a good one. And I believe he wasn't very honest over batteries - though I
don't understand these things very well. I know Raymond left off dealing
with him and went to the garage on the Milchester road. As for Emma,"
continued Miss Marple thoughtfully, "she reminds me very much of Geraldine
Webb - always very quiet, almost dowdy – and bullied a good deal by her
elderly mother. Quite a surprise to everybody when the mother died
unexpectedly and Geraldine came into a nice sum of money and went and had
her hair cut and permed, and went off on a cruise, and came back married to
a very nice barrister. They had two children."

The parallel was clear enough. Lucy said, rather uneasily: "Do you think
you ought to have said what you did about Emma marrying? It seemed to upset
the brothers."

Miss Marple nodded.

"Yes," she said. "So like men - quite unable to see what's going on under
their eyes. I don't believe you noticed yourself."

"No," admitted Lucy. "I never thought of anything of that kind. They both
seemed to me –"

"So old?" said Miss Marple smiling a little. "But Dr. Quimper isn't much
over forty, I should say, though he's going grey on the temples, and it's
obvious that he's longing for some kind of home life; and Emma
Crackenthorpe is under forty – not too old to marry and have a family. The
doctor's wife died quite young having a baby, so I have heard."

"I believe she did. Emma said something about it one day."

"He must be lonely," said Miss Marple. "A busy hardworking doctor needs a
wife – someone sympathetic - not too young."

"Listen, darling," said Lucy. "Are we investigating crime, or are we
match-making?"

Miss Marple twinkled.

"I'm afraid I am rather romantic. Because I am an old maid, perhaps. You
know, dear Lucy, that, as far as I am concerned, you have fulfilled your
contract. If you really want a holiday abroad before taking up your next
engagement, you would have time still for a short trip."

"And leave Rutherford Hall? Never! I'm the complete sleuth by now. Almost
as bad as the boys. They spend their entire time looking for clues. They
looked all through the dustbins yesterday. Most unsavoury - and they hadn't
really the faintest idea what they were looking for. If they come to you in
triumph, Inspector Craddock, bearing a torn scrap of paper with Martine -
if you value your life keep away from the Long Barn! On it, you'll know
that I've taken pity on them and concealed it in the pigsty!"

"Why the pigsty, dear?" asked Miss Marple with interest. "Do they keep
pigs?"

"Oh, no, not nowadays. It's just - I go there sometimes."

For some reason Lucy blushed. Miss Marple looked at her with increased
interest.

"Who's at the house now?" asked Craddock.

"Cedric's there, and Bryan's down for the weekend. Harold and Alfred are
coming down tomorrow. They rang up this morning. I somehow got the
impression that you had been putting the cat among the pigeons, Inspector
Craddock."

Craddock smiled.

"I shook them up a little. Asked them to account for their movements on
Friday, 20th December."

"And could they?"

"Harold could. Alfred couldn't - or wouldn't."

"I think alibis must be terribly difficult," said Lucy. "Times and places
and dates. They must be hard to check up on, too."

"It takes time and patience – but we manage." He glanced at his watch.
"I'll be coming along to Rutherford Hall presently to have a word with
Cedric, but I want to get hold of Dr. Quimper first."

"You'll be just about right. He has his surgery at six and he's usually
finished about half past. I must get back and deal with dinner."

"I'd like your opinion on one thing, Miss Eyelesbarrow. What's the family
view about this Martine business - amongst themselves?"

Lucy replied promptly.

"They're all furious with Emma for going to you about it - and with Dr.
Quimper who, it seemed, encouraged her to do so. Harold and Alfred think it
was a try on and not genuine. Emma isn't sure. Cedric thinks it was phoney,
too, but he doesn't take it as seriously as the other two. Bryan, on the
other hand, seems quite sure that it's genuine."

"Why, I wonder?"

"Well, Bryan's rather like that. Just accepts things at their face value.
He thinks it was Edmund's wife - or rather widow – and that she had
suddenly to go back to France, but that they'll hear from her again
sometimes. The fact that she hasn't written, or anything, up to now, seems
to him to be quite natural because he never writes letters himself. Bryan's
rather sweet. Just like a dog that wants to be taken for a walk."

"And do you take him for a walk, dear?" asked Miss Marple. "To the
pigsties, perhaps?"

Lucy shot a keen glance at her.

"So many gentlemen in the house, coming and going," mused Miss Marple.

When Miss Marple uttered the word “gentlemen" she always gave it its full
Victorian flavour - an echo from an era actually before her own time. You
were conscious at once of dashing full-blooded (and probably whiskered)
males, sometimes wicked, but always gallant.

"You're such a handsome girl," pursued Miss Marple, appraising Lucy. "I
expect they pay you a good deal of attention, don't they?"

Lucy flushed slightly. Scrappy remembrances passed across her mind. Cedric,
leaning against the pigsty wall. Bryan sitting disconsolately on the
kitchen table. Alfred's fingers touching hers as he helped her collect the
coffee cups.

"Gentlemen," said Miss Marple, in the tone of one speaking of some alien
and dangerous species, “are all very much alike in some ways - even if
they are quite old…."

"Darling," cried Lucy. "A hundred years ago you would certainly have been
burned as a witch!"

And she told her story of old Mr. Crackenthorpe's conditional proposal of
marriage.

"In fact," said Lucy, “they've all made what you might call advances to me
in a way. Harold's was very correct – an advantageous financial position
in the City. I don't think it's my attractive appearance – they must think
I know something."

She laughed.

But Inspector Craddock did not laugh.

"Be careful," he said. "They might murder you instead of making advances to
you.

"I suppose it might be simpler," Lucy agreed.

Then she gave a slight shiver.

"One forgets," she said. "The boys have been having such fun that one
almost thought of it all as a game. But it's not a game."

"No," said Miss Marple. "Murder isn't a game."

She was silent for a moment or two before she said:

"Don't the boys go back to school soon?"

"Yes, next week. They go tomorrow to James Stoddart-West's home for the
last few days of the holidays."

"I'm glad of that," said Miss Marple gravely. "I shouldn't like anything to
happen while they're there."

"You mean to old Mr. Crackenthorpe. Do you think he's going to be murdered
next?"

"Oh, no," said Miss Marple. "He'll be all right. I meant to the boys."

"To the boys?"

"Well, to Alexander."

"But surely –"

"Hunting about, you know – looking for clues. Boys love that sort of
things – but it might be very dangerous."

Craddock looked at her thoughtfully.

"You're not prepared to believe, are you, Miss Marple, that it's a case of
an unknown woman murdered by an unknown man? You tie it up definitely
connection, yes."

"I think there's a definite connection, yes."

"All we know about the murderer is that he's a tall dark man. That's what
your friend says and all she can say. There are three tall dark men at
Rutherford Hall. On the day of the inquest, you know, I came out to see the
three brothers standing waiting on the pavement for the car to draw up.
They had their backs to me and it was astonishing how, in their heavy
overcoats, they looked all alike. Three tall dark men. And yet, actually,
they're all three quite different types." He sighed. "It makes it very
difficult."

"I wonder," murmured Miss Marple. "I have been wondering – whether it
might perhaps be all much simpler than we suppose. Murders so often are
quite simple - with an obvious rather sordid motive…."

"Do you believe in the mysterious Martine, Miss Marple?"

"I'm quite ready to believe that Edmund Crackenthorpe either married, or
meant to marry, a girl called Martine. Emma Crackenthorpe showed you his
letter, I understand, and from what I've seen of her and from what Lucy
tells me, I should say Emma Crackenthorpe is quite incapable of making up a
thing of that kind - indeed, why should she?"

"So granted Martine," said Craddock thoughtfully, "there is a motive of a
kind. Martine's reappearance with a son would diminish the Crackenthorpe
inheritance – though hardly to a point, one would think, to active murder.
They're all very hard up –"

"Even Harold?" Lucy demanded incredulously.

"Even the prosperous-looking Harold Crackenthorpe is not the sober and
conservative financier the appears to be. He's been plunging heavily and
mixing himself up in some rather undesirable ventures. A large sum of
money, soon, might avoid a crash."

"But if so –” said Lucy, and stopped.

"Yes, Miss Eyelesbarrow –"

"I know, dear," said Miss Marple. "The wrong murder, that's what you mean."

"Yes. Martine's death wouldn't do Harold - or any of the others - any good.
Not until –"

"Not until Luther Crackenthorpe died. Exactly. That occurred to me. And Mr.
Crackenthorpe, senior, I gather from his doctor, is a much better life than
any outsider would imagine."

"He'll last for years," said Lucy. Then she frowned.

"Yes?" Craddock spoke encouragingly.

"He was rather ill at Christmas-time," said Lucy. "He said the doctor made
a lot of fuss about it – ‘Anyone would have thought I'd been poisoned by
the fuss he made.' That's what he said."

She looked inquiringly at Craddock.

"Yes," said Craddock. "That's really what I want to ask Dr. Quimper about."

"Well, I must go," said Lucy. "Heavens, it's late."

Miss Marple put down her knitting and picked up The Times with a half-done
crossword puzzle.

"I wish I had a dictionary here," she murdered. "Tontine and Tokay – I
always mix those two words up. One, I believe, is a Hungarian wine."

"That's Tokay," said Lucy, looking back from the door. "But one's a
five-letter word and one's a seven. What's the clue?"

"Oh, it wasn't in the crossword," said Miss Marple vaguely. "It was in my
head."

Inspector Craddock looked at her very hard. Then he said good-bye and went.

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