'What, the private lives of film stars?'
'Oh no,' said Miss Marple, 'not that! That all seems to be most natural, given the circumstances and the money involved and the opportunities for propinquity. Oh, no, that's natural enough. I mean the way they're written about. I'm rather old-fashioned, you know, and I feel that that really shouldn't be allowed.'
'It's news,' said Dermot Craddock, 'and some pretty nasty things can be said in the way of fair comment.'
'I know,' said Miss Marple. 'It makes me sometimes very angry. I expect you think it's silly of me reading all these. But one does so badly want to be in things and of course sitting here in the house I can't really know as much about things as I would like to.'
'That's just what I thought,' said Dermot Craddock, 'and that's why I've come to tell you about them.'
'But, my dear boy, excuse me, would your superiors really approve of that?'
'I don't see why not,' said Dermot. 'Here,' he added, 'I have a list. A list of people who were there on that landing during the short time of Heather Badcock's arrival until her death. We've eliminated a lot of people, perhaps precipitately, but I don't think so. We've eliminated the mayor and his wife and Alderman somebody and his wife and a great many of the locals, though we've kept in the husband. If I remember rightly you were always very suspicious of husbands.'
'They are often the obvious suspects,' said Miss Marple, apologetically, 'and the obvious is so often right.'
'I couldn't agree with you more,' said Craddock.
'But which husband, my dear boy, are you referring to?'
'Which one do you think?' asked Dermot. He eyed her sharply.
Miss Marple looked at him.
'Jason Rudd?' she asked.
'Ah!' said Craddock. 'Your mind works just as mine does. I don't think it was Arthur Badcock, because you see, I don't think that Heather Badcock was meant to be killed. I think the intended victim was Marina Gregg.'
'That would seem almost certain, wouldn't it?' said Miss Marple.
'And so,' said Craddock, 'as we both agree on that, the field widens. To tell you who was there on that day, what they saw or said they saw, and where they were or said they were, is only a thing you could have observed for yourself if you'd been there. So my superiors, as you call them, couldn't possibly object to my discussing that with you, could they?'
'That's very nicely put, my dear boy,' said Miss Marple.
'I'll give you a little prйcis of what I was told mad then we'll come to the list.'
He gave a brief rйsumй of what he had heard, and then he produced his list.
'It must be one of these,' he said. 'My godfather, Sir Henry Clithering, told me that you once had a club here. You called it the Tuesday Night Club. You all dined with each other in turn and then someone would tell a story - a story of some real life happening which had ended in mystery. A mystery of which only the teller of the tale knew the answer. And every time, so my godfather told me, you guessed right. So I thought I'd come along and see if you'd do a bit of guessing for me this morning.'
'I think that is rather a frivolous way of putting it,' said Miss Marple, reproving, 'but there is one question I should like to ask.'
'Yes?'
'What about the children?'
'The children? There's only one. An imbecile child in a sanatorium in America. Is that what you mean?'
'No,' said Miss Marple, 'that's not what I mean. It's very sad of course. One of those tragedies that seem to happen and there's no one to blame for it. No, I meant the children that I've seen mentioned in some article here.' She tapped the papers in front of her. 'Children that Marina Gregg adopted. Two boys, I think, and a girl. In one case a mother with a lot of children and very little money to bring them up in this country, wrote to her, and asked if she couldn't take a child. There was a lot of very silly false sentiment written about that. About the mother's unselfishness and the wonderful home and education and future the child was going to have. I can't find out much about the other two. One I think was a foreign refugee and the other was some American child. Marina Gregg adopted them at different times. I'd like to know what's happened to them.'
Dermot Craddock looked at her curiously. 'It's odd that you should think of that,' he said. 'I did just vaguely wonder about those children myself. But how do you connect them up?'
'Well,' said Miss Marple, 'as far as I can hear or find out, they're not living with her now, are they?'
'I expect they were provided for,' said Craddock. 'In fact, I think that the adoption laws would insist on that. There was probably money settled on them in trust.'
'So when she got - tired of them,' said Miss Marple with a very faint pause before the word 'tired,' 'they were dismissed! After being brought up in luxury with every advantage. Is that it?'
'Probably,' said Craddock. 'I don't know exactly.' He continued to look at her curiously.
'Children feel things, you know,' said Miss Marple, nodding her head. 'They feel things more than the people around them ever imagine. The sense of hurt, of being rejected, of not belonging. It's a thing that you don't get over just because of advantages. Education is no substitute for it, or comfortable living, or an assured income, or a start in a profession. It's the sort of thing that might rankle.'
'Yes. But all the same, isn't it rather far-fetched to think that - Well, what exactly do you think?'
'I haven't got as far as that,' said Miss Marple. 'I just wondered where they were now and how old they would be now? Grown up, I should imagine, from what I've read here.'
'I could find out, I suppose,' said Dermot Craddock slowly.
'Oh, I don't want to bother you in any way, or even to suggest that my little idea's worthwhile at all.'
'There's no harm,' said Dermot Craddock, 'in having that checked up on.' He made a note in his little book. 'Now do you want to look at my little list?'
'I don't really think I should be able to do anything useful about that. You see, I wouldn't know who the people were.'
'Oh, I could give you a running commentary,' said Craddock. 'Here we are. Jason Rudd, husband, (husbands always highly suspicious). Everyone says that Jason Rudd adores her. That is suspicious in itself, don't you think?'
'Not necessarily,' said Miss Marple with dignity.
'He's been very active in trying to conceal the fact that his wife was the object of attack. He hasn't hinted any suspicion of such a thing to the police. I don't know why he thinks we're such asses as not to think of it for ourselves. We've considered it from the first. But anyway, that's his story. He was afraid that knowledge of that fact might get to his wife's ears and that she'd go into a panic about it.'
'Is she the sort of woman who goes into panics?'
'Yes, she's neurasthenic, throws temperaments, has nervous breakdowns, gets in states.'
'That might not mean any lack of courage,' Miss Marple objected.
'On the other hand,' said Craddock, 'if he knows quite well that she was the object of attack, it's also possible that she may know who did it.'
'You mean she knows who did it - but does not want to disclose the fact?'
'I just say it's a possibility, and if so, one rather wonders why not? It looks as though the motive, the root of the matter, was something she didn't want to come to her husband's ear.'
'That is certainly an interesting thought,' said Miss Marple.
'Here are a few more names. The secretary, Ella Zielinsky. An extremely competent and efficient young woman.'
'In love with the husband, do you think?' asked Miss Marple.
'I should think definitely,' answered Craddock, 'but why should you think so?'
'Well, it so often happens,' said Miss Marple. 'And therefore not very fond of poor Marina Gregg, I expect?'
'Therefore possible motive for murder,' said Craddock.
'A lot of secretaries and employees are in love with their employers' husbands,' said Miss Marple, 'but very, very few of them try to poison them.'
'Well, we must allow for exceptions,' said Craddock. 'Then there were two local and one London photographer, and two members of the Press. None of them seems likely but we will follow them up. There was the woman who was formerly married to Marina Gregg's second or third husband. She didn't like it when Marina Gregg took her husband away. Still, that's about eleven or twelve years ago. It seems unlikely that she'd make a visit here at this juncture on purpose to poison Marina because of that. Then there's a man called Ardwyck Fenn. He was once a very close friend of Marina Gregg's. He hasn't seen her for years. He was not known to be in this part of the world and it was a great surprise when he turned up on this occasion.'
'She would be startled then when she saw him?'
'Presumably yes.'
'Startled - and possibly frightened.'
'"The doom has come upon me,"' said Craddock. 'That's the idea. Then there was young Hailey Preston dodging about that day, doing his stuff. Talks a good deal but definitely heard nothing, saw nothing and knew nothing. Almost too anxious to say so. Does anything there ring a bell?'
'Not exactly,' said Miss Marple. 'Plenty of interesting possibilities. But I'd still like to know a little more about the children.'
He looked at her curiously. 'You've got quite a bee in your bonnet about that, haven't you?' he said. 'All right, I'll find out.'
Chapter 13
'I suppose it couldn't possibly have been the mayor?' said Inspector Cornish wistfully.
He tapped the paper with the list of names on it with his pencil. Dermot Craddock grinned.
'Wishful thinking?' he asked.
'You could certainly call it that,' said Cornish. 'Pompous, canting old hypocrite!' he went on. 'Everybody's got it in for him. Throws his weight about, ultra sanctimonious, and neck deep in graft for years past!'
'Can't you ever bring it home to him?'
'No,' said Cornish. 'He's too slick for that. He's always just on the right side of the law.'
'It's tempting, I agree,' said Dermot Craddock, 'but I think you'll have to banish that rosy picture from your mind, Frank.'
'I know, I know,' said Cornish. 'He's a possible, but a wildly improbable. Who else have we got?'
Both men studied the list again. There were still eight names on it.
'We're pretty well agreed,' said Craddock, 'that there's nobody missed out from here?' There was a faint question in his voice. Cornish answered it.
'I think you can be pretty sure that's the lot. After Mrs Bantry came the vicar, and after that the Badcocks. There were then eight people on the stairs. The mayor and his wife, Joshua Grice and wife from Lower Farm. Donald McNeil of the Much Benham Herald Argus. Ardwyck Fenn, U.S.A., Miss Lola Brewster, U.S.A., Moving Picture Star. There you are. In addition there was an arty photographer from London with a camera set up on the angle of the stairs. If, as you suggest, this Mrs Bantry's story of Marina Gregg having a "frozen look" was occasioned by someone she saw on the stairs, you've got to take your pick among that lot. Mayor regretfully out. Grices out - never been away from St Mary Mead I should say. That leaves four. Local journalist unlikely, photographer girl had been there for half an hour already, so why should Marina react so late in the day? What does that leave?'
'Sinister strangers from America,' said Craddock with a faint smile.
'You've said it.'
'They're our best suspects by far, I agree,' said Craddock. 'They turned up unexpectedly. Ardwyck Fenn was an old flame of Marina's whom she had not seen for years. Lola Brewster was once married to Marina Gregg's third husband, who got a divorce from her in order to marry Marina. It was not, I gather, a very amicable divorce.'
'I'd put her down as Suspect Number One,' said Cornish.
'Would you, Frank? After a lapse of about fifteen years or so, and having remarried twice herself since then?'
Cornish said that you never knew with women. Dermot accepted that as a general dictum, but remarked that it seemed odd to him to say the least of it.
'But you agree that it lies between them?'
'Possibly. But I don't like it very much. What about the hired help who were serving the drinks?'
'Discounting the "frozen look" we've heard so much about? Well, we've checked up in a general way. Local catering from Market Basing had the job - for the fкte, I mean. Actually in the house, there was the butler, Giuseppe, in charge; and two local girls from the studios canteen. I know both of them. Not over-bright, but harmless.'
'Pushing it back at me, are you? I'll go and have a word with the reporter chap. He might have seen something helpful. Then to London. Ardwyck Fenn, Lola Brewster - and the photographer girl - what's her name? - Margot Bence. She also might have seen something.'
Cornish nodded. 'Lola Brewster is my best bet,' he said. He looked curiously at Craddock. 'You don't seem as sold on her as I am.'
'I'm thinking of the difficulties,' said Dermot slowly.
'Difficulties?'
'Of putting poison into Marina's glass without anybody seeing her.'
'Well, that's the same for everybody, isn't it? It was a mad thing to do.'
