Miss Marple cut off reminiscences of Cousin Caroline by saying firmly: 'Thank you so much, Vicar,' and replacing the receiver.
There was an awed expression on her face. One of the great mysteries of St Mary Mead was what made the vicar remember certain things - only outstripped by the greater mystery of what the vicar could manage to forget!
'The taxi's here, dear,' said Miss Knight, bustling in. 'It's a very old one, and not too clean I should say. I don't really like you driving in a thing like that. You might pick up some germ or other.'
'Nonsense,' said Miss Marple. Setting her hat firmly on her head and buttoning up her summer coat, she went out to the waiting taxi.
'Good morning, Roberts,' she said.
'Good morning, Miss Marple. You're early this morning. Where do you want to go?'
'Gossington Hall, please,' said Miss Marple.
'I'd better come with you, hadn't I, dear,' said Miss Knight. 'It won't take a minute just to slip on outdoor shoes.'
'No, thank you,' said Miss Marple, firmly. 'I'm going by myself. Drive on, Inch. I mean Roberts.'
Mr Roberts drove on, merely remarking:
'Ah, Gossington Hall. Great changes there and everywhere nowadays. All that development. Never thought anything like that'd come to St Mary Mead.'
Upon arrival at Gossington Hall Miss Marple rang the bell and asked to see Mr Jason Rudd.
Giuseppe's successor, a rather shaky-looking elderly man, conveyed doubt.
'Mr Rudd,' he said, 'does not see anybody without an appointment, madam. And today especially -'
'I have no appointment,' said Miss Marple, 'but I will wait,' she added.
She stepped briskly past him into the hall and sat down on a hall chair.
'I'm afraid it will be quite impossible this morning, madam.'
'In that case,' said Miss Marple, 'I shall wait until this afternoon.'
Baffled, the new butler retired. Presently a young man came to Miss Marple. He had a pleasant manner and a cheerful, slightly American voice.
'I've seen you before,' said Miss Marple. 'In the Development. You asked me the way to Blenheim Close.'
Harley Preston smiled good-naturedly. 'I guess you did your best, but you misdirected me badly.'
'Dear me, did I?' said Miss Marple. 'So many Closes, aren't there. Can I see Mr Rudd?'
'Why, now, that's too bad,' said Harley Preston. 'Mr Rudd's a busy man and he's - er - fully occupied this morning and really can't be disturbed.'
'I'm sure he's very busy,' said Miss Marple. 'I came here quite prepared to wait.'
'Why, I'd suggest now,' said Hailey Preston, 'that you should tell me what it is you want. I deal with all these things for Mr Rudd, you see. Everyone has to see me first.'
'I'm afraid,' said Miss Marple, 'that I want to see Mr Rudd himself. And,' she added, 'I shall wait here until I do.'
She settled herself more firmly in the large oak chair.
Hailey Preston hesitated, started to speak, finally turned away and went upstairs.
He returned with a large man in tweeds.
'This is Dr Gilchrist. Miss - er -'
'Miss Marple.'
'So you're Miss Marple,' said Dr Gilchrist. He looked at her with a good deal of interest.
Hailey Preston slipped away with celerity.
'I've heard about you,' said Dr Gilchrist. 'From Dr Haydock.'
'Dr Haydock is a very old friend of mine.'
'He certainly is. Now you want to see Mr Jason Rudd? Why?'
'It is necessary that I should,' said Miss Marple.
Dr Gilchrist's eyes appraised her.
'And you're camping here until you do?' he asked.
'Exactly.'
'You would, too,' said Dr Gilchrist. 'In that case I will give you a perfectly good reason why you cannot see Mr Rudd. His wife died last night in her sleep.'
'Dead? exclaimed Miss Marples. 'How?'
'An overdose of sleeping stuff. We don't want the news to leak out to the Press for a few hours. So I'll ask you to keep this knowledge to yourself for the moment.'
'Of course. Was it an accident?'
'That is definitely my view,' said Gilchrist.
'But it could be suicide.'
'It could - but most unlikely.'
'Or someone could have given it to her?'
Gilchrist shrugged his shoulders.
'A most remote contingency. And a thing,' he added firmly, 'that would be quite impossible to prove.'
'I see,' said Miss Marple. She took a deep breath. 'I'm sorry, but it's more necessary than ever that I should see Mr Rudd.'
Gilchrist looked at her.
'Wait here,' he said.
Chapter 23
Jason Rudd looked up as Gilchrist entered.
'There's an old dame downstairs,' said the doctor; 'looks about a hundred. Wants to see you. Won't take no and says she'll wait. She'll wait till this afternoon, I gather, or she'll wait till this evening and she's quite capable, I should say, of spending the night here. She's got something she badly wants to say to you. I'd see her if I were you.'
Jason Rudd looked up from his desk. His face was white and strained.
'Is she mad?'
'No. Not in the least.'
'I don't see why I - Oh, all right - send her up. What does it matter?'
Gilchrist nodded, went out of the room and called to Hailey Preston.
'Mr Rudd can spare you a few minutes now, Miss Marple,' said Hailey Preston, appearing again by her side.
'Thank you. That's very kind of him,' said Miss Marple as she rose to her feet. 'Have you been with Mr Rudd long?' she asked.
'Why, I've worked with Mr Rudd for the last two and a half years. My job is public relations generally.'
'I see.' Miss Marple looked at him thoughtfully. 'You remind me very much,' she said, 'of someone I knew called Gerald French.'
'Indeed? What did Gerald French do?'
'Not very much,' said Miss Marple, 'but he was a very good talker.' She sighed. 'He had had an unfortunate past.'
'You don't say,' said Halley Preston, slightly ill at ease. 'What kind of a past?'
'I won't repeat it,' said Miss Marple. 'He didn't like it talked about.'
Jason Rudd rose from his desk and looked with some surprise at the slender elderly lady who was advancing towards him.
'You wanted to see me?' he said. 'What can I do for you?'
'I am very sorry about your wife's death,' said Miss Marple. 'I can see it has been a great grief to you and I want you to believe that I should not intrude upon you now or offer you sympathy unless it was absolutely necessary. But there are things that need badly to be cleared up unless an innocent man is going to suffer.'
'An innocent man? I don't understand you.'
'Arthur Badcock,' said Miss Marple. 'He is with the police now, being questioned.'
'Questioned in connection with my wife's death? But that's absurd, absolutely absurd. He's never been near the place. He didn't even know her.'
'I think he knew her,' said Miss Marple. 'He was married to her once.'
'Arthur Badcock? But - he was - he was Heather Badcock's husband. Aren't you perhaps,' - he spoke kindly and apologetically - 'Making a little mistake?'
'He was married to both of them,' said Miss Marple. 'He was married to your wife when she was very young, before she went into pictures.'
Jason Rudd shook his head.
'My wife was first married to a man called Alfred Beadle. He was in real estate. They were not suited and they parted almost immediately.'
'Then Alfred Beadle changed his name to Badcock,' said Miss Marple. 'He's in a real estate firm here. It's odd how some people never seem to like to change their job and want to go on doing the same thing. I expect really that's why Marina Gregg felt that he was no use to her. He couldn't have kept up with her.'
'What you've told me is most surprising.'
'I can assure you that I am not romancing or imagining things. What I am telling you is sober fact. These things get round very quickly in a village, you know, though they take a little longer,' she added, 'in reaching the Hall.'
'Well,' Jason Rudd stalled, uncertain what to say, then he accepted the position, 'and what do you want me to do for you, Miss Marple?' he asked.
'I want, if I may, to stand on the stairs at the spot where you and your wife received guests on the day of the fкte.'
He shot a quick doubtful glance at her. Was this, after all, just another sensation-seeker? But Miss Marple's face was grave and composed.
'Why certainly,' he said, 'if you want to do so. Come with me.'
He led her to the staircase head and paused in the hollowed-out bay at the top of it.
'You've made a good many changes in the house since the Bantrys were here,' said Miss Marple. 'I like this. Now, let me see. The tables would be about here, I suppose, and you and your wife would be standing '
'My wife stood here.' Jason showed her the place. 'People came up the stairs, she shook hands with them and passed them on to me.'
'She stood here,' said Miss Marple.
She moved over and took her place where Marina Gregg had stood. She remained there quite quietly without moving. Jason Rudd watched her. He was perplexed but interested. She raised her right hand slightly as though shaking, looked down the stairs as though to see people coming up it. Then she looked straight ahead of her. On the wall half-way up the stairs was a large picture, a copy of an Italian Old Master. On either side of it were narrow windows, one giving out on the garden and the other giving on to the end of the stables and the weathercock. But Miss Marple looked at neither of these. Her eyes were fixed on the picture itself.
'Of course you always hear a thing right the first time,' she said. 'Mrs Bantry told me that your wife stared at the picture and her face "froze," as she put it.' She looked at the rich red and blue robes of the Madonna, a Madonna with her head slightly back, laughing up at the Holy Child that she was holding up in her arms. 'Giacomo Bellini's "Laughing Madonna",' she said. 'A religious picture, but also a painting of a happy mother with her child. Isn't that so Mr Rudd?'
'I would say so, yes.'
'I understand now,' said Miss Marple. 'I understand quite well. The whole thing is really very simple, isn't it?' She looked at Jason Rudd.
'Simple?'
'I think you know how simple it is,' said Miss Marple. There was a peal on the bell below.
'I don't think,' said Jason Rudd, 'I quite understand.' He looked down the stairway. There was a sound of voices.
'I know that voice,' said Miss Marple, 'it's Inspector Craddock's voice, isn't it?'
'Yes, it seems to be Inspector Craddock.'
'He wants to see you, too. Would you mind very much if he joined us?'
'Not at all as far as I am concerned. Whether he will agree -'
'I think he will agree,' said Miss Marple. 'There's really not much time now to be lost is there? We've got to the moment when we've got to understand just how everything happened.'
'I thought you said it was simple,' said Jason Rudd.
'It was so simple,' said Miss Marple, 'that one just couldn't see it.'
The decayed butler arrived at this moment up the stairs.
'Inspector Craddock is here, sir,' he said.
'Ask him to join us here, please,' said Jason Rudd.
The butler disappeared again and a moment or two later Dermot Craddock came up the stairs.
'You!' he said to Miss Marple, 'how did you get here?'
'I came in Inch,' said Miss Marple, producing the usual confused effect that that remark always caused.
From slightly behind her Jason Rudd rapped his forehead interrogatively. Dermot Craddock shook his head.
'I was saying to Mr Rudd,' said Miss Marple, '- has the butler gone away -'
Dermot Craddock cast a look down the stairs.
'Oh, yes,' he said, 'he's not listening. Sergeant Tiddler will see to that.'
'Then that is all right,' said Miss Marple. 'We could of course have gone into a room to talk, but I prefer it like this. Here we are on the spot where the thing happened, which makes it so much easier to understand.'
'You are talking,' said Jason Rudd, 'of the day of the fкte here, the day when Heather Badcock was poisoned.'
'Yes,' said Miss Marple, 'and I'm saying that it is all very simple if one only looks at it in the proper way. It all began, you see, with Heather Badcock being the kind of person she was. It was inevitable, really, that something of that kind should happen some day to Heather.'
'I don't understand what you mean,' said Jason Rudd. 'I don't understand at all.'
'No, it has to be explained a little. You see, when my friend, Mrs Bantry who was here, described the scene to me, she quoted a poem that was a great favourite in my youth, a poem of dear Lord Tennyson's. "The Lady of Shalott".' She raised her voice a little.
"The mirror crack'd from ride to side:
'The Curse is come upon me,' cried
The Lady of Shalott."
That's what Mrs Bantry saw, or thought she saw, though actually she misquoted and said doom instead of curse perhaps a better word in the circumstances. She saw your wife speaking to Heather Badcock and heard Heather Badcock speaking to your wife and she saw this look of doom on your wife's face.'
