There was by now no one else in the shop. Miss Marple looked with distaste at the jacket of the book, a naked girl with blood-stained markings on her face and a sinister-looking killer bending over her with a blood-stained knife in his hand.
“Really,” she said, “I don’t like these horrors nowadays.”
“Gone a bit too far with some of their jackets, haven’t they,” said Mrs. Vinegar. “Not everyone as likes them. Too fond of violence in every way, I’d say nowadays.”
Miss Marple detached a second book. “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,” she read. “Oh dear, it’s a sad world one lives in.”
“Oh yes, I know. Saw in yesterday’s paper, I did, some woman left her baby outside a supermarket and then someone else comes along and wheels it away. And all for no reason as far as one can see. The police found her all right. They all seem to say the same things, whether they steal from a supermarket or take away a baby. Don’t know what came over them, they say.”
“Perhaps they really don’t,” suggested Miss Marple.
Mrs. Vinegar looked even more like vinegar.
“Take me a lot to believe that, it would.”
Miss Marple looked round—the post office was still empty. She advanced to the window.
“If you are not too busy, I wonder if you could answer a question of mine,” said Miss Marple. “I have done something extremely stupid. Of late years I make so many mistakes. This was a parcel addressed to a charity. I send them clothes—pullovers and children’s woollies, and I did it up and addressed it and it was sent off—and only this morning it came to me suddenly that I’d made a mistake and written the wrong address. I don’t suppose any list is kept of the address of parcels—but I thought someone might have just happened to remember it. The address I meant to put was The Dockyard and Thames Side Welfare Association.”
Mrs. Vinegar was looking quite kindly now, touched by Miss Marple’s patent incapacity and general state of senility and dither.
“Did you bring it yourself?”
“No, I didn’t—I’m staying at The Old Manor House—and one of them, Mrs. Glynne, I think—said she or her sister would post it. Very kind of her—”
“Let me see now. It would have been on Tuesday, would it? It wasn’t Mrs. Glynne who brought it in, it was the youngest one, Miss Anthea.”
“Yes, yes, I think that was the day—”
“I remember it quite well. In a good sized dress box—and moderately heavy, I think. But not what you said, Dockyard Association—I can’t recall anything like that. It was the Reverend Matthews—The East Ham Women and Children’s Woollen Clothing Appeal.”
“Oh yes.” Miss Marple clasped her hands in an ecstasy of relief. “How clever of you—I see now how I came to do it. At Christmas I did send things to the East Ham Society in answer to a special appeal for knitted things, so I must have copied down the wrong address. Can you just repeat it?” She entered it carefully in a small notebook.
“I’m afraid the parcel’s gone off, though—”
“Oh yes, but I can write, explaining the mistake and ask them to forward the parcel to the Dockyard Association instead. Thank you so much.”
Miss Marple trotted out.
Mrs. Vinegar produced stamps for her next customer, remarking in an aside to a colleague—“Scatty as they make them, poor old creature. Expect she’s always doing that sort of thing.”
Miss Marple went out of the post office and ran into Emlyn Price and Joanna Crawford.
Joanna, she noticed, was very pale and looked upset.
“I’ve got to give evidence,” she said. “I don’t know—what will they ask me? I’m so afraid. I—I don’t like it. I told the police sergeant, I told him what I thought we saw.”
“Don’t you worry, Joanna,” said Emlyn Price. “This is just a coroner’s inquest, you know. He’s a nice man, a doctor, I believe. He’ll just ask you a few questions and you’ll say what you saw.”
“You saw it too,” said Joanna.
“Yes, I did,” said Emlyn. “At least I saw there was someone up there. Near the boulders and things. Now come on, Joanna.”
“They came and searched our rooms in the hotel,” said Joanna. “They asked our permission but they had a search warrant. They looked in our rooms and among the things in our luggage.”
“I think they wanted to find that check pullover you described. Anyway, there’s nothing for you to worry about. If you’d had a black and scarlet pullover yourself you wouldn’t have talked about it, would you. It was black and scarlet, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” said Emlyn Price. “I don’t really know the colours of things very well. I think it was a sort of bright colour. That’s all I know.”
“They didn’t find one,” said Joanna. “After all, none of us have very many things with us. You don’t when you go on a coach travel. There wasn’t anything like that among anybody’s things. I’ve never seen anyone—of our lot, I mean, wearing anything like that. Not so far. Have you?”
“No, I haven’t, but I suppose—I don’t know that I should know if I had seen it,” said Emlyn Price. “I don’t always know red from green.”
“No, you’re a bit colour-blind, aren’t you,” said Joanna. “I noticed that the other day.”
“What do you mean, you noticed it.”
“My red scarf. I asked if you’d seen it. You said you’d seen a green one somewhere and you brought me the red one. I’d left it in the dining room. But you didn’t really know it was red.”
“Well, don’t go about saying I’m colour-blind. I don’t like it. Puts people off in some way.”
“Men are more often colour-blind than women,” said Joanna. “It’s one of those sex-link things,” she added, with an air of erudition. “You know, it passes through the female and comes out in the male.”
“You make it sound as though it was measles,” said Emlyn Price. “Well, here we are.”
“You don’t seem to mind,” said Joanna, as they walked up the steps.
“Well, I don’t really. I’ve never been to an inquest. Things are rather interesting when you do them for the first time.”
II
Dr. Stokes was a middle-aged man with greying hair and spectacles. Police evidence was given first, then the medical evidence with technical details of the concussion injuries which had caused death. Mrs. Sandbourne gave particulars of the coach tour, the expedition as arranged for that particular afternoon, and particulars of how the fatality had occurred. Miss Temple, she said, although not young, was a very brisk walker. The party were going along a well-known footpath which led around the curve of a hill which slowly mounted to the old Moorland Church originally built in Elizabethan times, though repaired and added to later. On an adjoining crest was what was called the Bonaventure Memorial. It was a fairly steep ascent and people usually climbed it at different paces from each other. The younger ones very often ran or walked ahead and reached their destination much earlier than the others. The elderly ones took it slowly. She herself usually kept at the rear of the party so that she could, if necessary, suggest to people who were tired that they could, if they liked, go back. Miss Temple, she said, had been talking to a Mr. and Mrs. Butler. Miss Temple, though she was over sixty, had been slightly impatient at their slow pace and had outdistanced them, had turned a corner and gone on ahead rather rapidly, which she had done often before. She was inclined to get impatient if waiting for people to catch up for too long, and preferred to make her own pace. They had heard a cry ahead, and she and the others had run on, turned a curve of the pathway and had found Miss Temple lying on the ground. A large boulder detached from the hillside above where there were several others of the same kind, must, they had thought, have rolled down the hillside and struck Miss Temple as she was going along the path below. A most unfortunate and tragic accident.
“You had no idea there was anything but an accident?”
“No, indeed. I can hardly see how it could have been anything but an ac
cident.”
“You saw no one above you on the hillside?”
“No. This is the main path round the hill but of course people do wander about over the top. I did not see anyone that particular afternoon.”
Then Joanna Crawford was called. After particulars of her name and age Dr. Stokes asked,
“You were not walking with the remainder of the party?”
“No, we had left the path. We’d gone round the hill a little higher up the slope.”
“You were walking with a companion?”
“Yes. With Mr. Emlyn Price.”
“There was no one else actually walking with you?”
“No. We were talking and we were looking at one or two of the flowers. They seemed of rather an uncommon kind. Emlyn’s interested in botany.”
“Were you out of sight of the rest of the party?”
“Not all the time. They were walking along the main path—some way below us, that is.”
“Did you see Miss Temple?”
“I think so. She was walking ahead of the others, and I think I saw her turn a corner of the path ahead of them after which we didn’t see her because the contour of the hill hid her.”
“Did you see someone walking above you on the hillside?”
“Yes. Up amongst a good many boulders. There’s a sort of great patch of boulders on the side of the hill.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Stokes, “I know exactly the place you mean. Large granite boulders. People call them the Wethers, or the Grey Wethers sometimes.”
“I suppose they might look like sheep from a distance but we weren’t so very far away from them.”
“And you saw someone up there?”
“Yes. Someone was more or less in the middle of the boulders, leaning over them.”
“Pushing them, do you think?”
“Yes. I thought so, and wondered why. He seemed to be pushing at one on the outside of the group near the edge. They were so big and so heavy I would have thought it was impossible to push them. But the one he or she was pushing seemed to be balanced like a rocking stone.”
“You said first he, now you say he or she, Miss Crawford. Which do you think it was?”
“Well, I thought—I suppose—I suppose I thought it was a man, but I wasn’t actually thinking at the time. It was—he or she was—wearing trousers and a pullover, a sort of man’s pullover with a polo-neck.”
“What colour was the pullover?”
“Rather a bright red and black in checks. And there was longish hair at the back of a kind of beret, rather like a woman’s hair, but then it might just as well have been a man’s.”
“It certainly might,” said Dr. Stokes, rather drily. “Identifying a male or female figure by their hair is certainly not easy these days.” He went on, “What happened next?”
“Well, the stone began to roll over. It sort of toppled over the edge and then it began to gain speed. I said to Emlyn, “Oh it’s going to go right over down the hill.” Then we heard a sort of crash as it fell. And I think I heard a cry from below but I might have imagined it.”
“And then?”
“Oh, we ran on up a bit and round the corner of the hill to see what happened to the stone.”
“And what did you see?”
“We saw the boulder below on the path with a body underneath it—and people coming running round the corner.”
“Was it Miss Temple who uttered the cry?”
“I think it must have been. It might have been one of the others who was catching up and turned the corner. Oh! it was—it was horrible.”
“Yes, I’m sure it was. What had happened to the figure you’d seen above? The man or woman in the red and black pullover? Was that figure still there among the stones?”
“I don’t know. I never looked up there. I was—I was busy looking at the accident, and running down the hill to see if one could do anything. I did just look up, I think, but there wasn’t anyone in sight. Only the stones. There were a lot of contours and you could lose anyone quite easily from view.”
“Could it have been one of your party?”
“Oh, no. I’m sure it wasn’t one of us. I would have known because, I mean, one would have known by their clothes. I’m sure nobody was wearing a scarlet and black pullover.”
“Thank you, Miss Crawford.”
Emlyn Price was called next. His story was practically a replica of Joanna’s.
There was a little more evidence which did not amount to much.
The Coroner brought in that there was not sufficient evidence to show how Elizabeth Temple had come to her death, and adjourned the inquest for a fortnight.
Seventeen
MISS MARPLE MAKES A VISIT
I
As they walked back from the inquest to the Golden Boar hardly anyone spoke. Professor Wanstead walked beside Miss Marple, and since she was not a very fast walker, they fell slightly behind the others.
“What will happen next?” Miss Marple asked at last.
“Do you mean legally or to us?”
“I suppose both,” said Miss Marple, “because one will surely affect the other.”
“It will be presumably a case of the police making further enquiries, arising out of the evidence given by those two young people.”
“Yes.”
“Further enquiry will be necessary. The inquest was bound to be adjourned. One can hardly expect the Coroner to give a verdict of accidental death.”
“No, I understand that.” She said, “What did you think of their evidence?”
Professor Wanstead directed a sharp glance from under his beetling eyebrows.
“Have you any ideas on the subject, Miss Marple?” His voice was suggestive. “Of course,” said Professor Wanstead, “we knew beforehand what they were going to say.”
“Yes.”
“What you mean is that you are asking what I thought about them themselves, their feelings about it.”
“It was interesting,” said Miss Marple. “Very interesting. The red and black check pullover. Rather important, I think, don’t you? Rather striking?”
“Yes, exactly that.”
He shot again that look at her under his eyebrows. “What does it suggest to you exactly?”
“I think,” said Miss Marple, “I think the description of that might give us a valuable clue.”
They came to the Golden Boar. It was only about half past twelve and Mrs. Sandbourne suggested a little refreshment before going in to luncheon. As sherry and tomato juice and other liquors were being consumed, Mrs. Sandbourne proceeded to make certain announcements.
“I have taken advice,” she said, “both from the Coroner and Inspector Douglas. Since the medical evidence has been taken fully, there will be at the church a funeral memorial service tomorrow at eleven o’clock. I’m going to make arrangements with Mr. Courtney, the local vicar, about it. On the following day it will be best, I think, to resume our tour. The programme will be slightly altered, since we have lost three days, but I think it can be reorganized on rather simpler lines. I have heard from one or two members of our party that they would prefer to return to London, presumably by rail. I can quite understand the feelings lying behind this, and would not like to try and influence you in any way. This death has been a very sad occurrence. I still cannot help but believe that Miss Temple’s death was the result of an accident. Such a thing has happened before on that particular pathway, though there do not appear in this case to have been any geological or atmospherical conditions causing it. I think a good deal more investigation will have to be made. Of course, some hiker on a walking tour—that kind of thing—may have been pushing about boulders quite innocently, not realizing that there was a danger for someone walking below in what he or she was doing. If so, if that person comes forward, the whole thing may be cleared up quite quickly, but I agree one cannot take that for granted at present. It seems unlikely that the late Miss Temple could have had an enemy, or anyone who wished her harm of any kind. W
hat I should suggest is, that we do not discuss the accident any further. Investigations will be made by the local authorities whose business it is. I think we will probably all like to attend the memorial service in the church tomorrow. And after that, on continuing the tour, I hope that it may distract our minds from the shock we have had. There are still some very interesting and famous houses to see and some very beautiful scenery also.”
Luncheon being announced shortly after that, the subject was not discussed any further. That is to say, not openly. After lunch, as they took coffee in the lounge, people were prone to get together in little groups, discussing their further arrangements.
“Are you continuing on the tour?” asked Professor Wanstead of Miss Marple.
“No,” said Miss Marple. She spoke thoughtfully. “No. I think—I think that what has happened inclines me to remain here a little longer.”
“At the Golden Boar or at The Old Manor House?”
“That rather depends as to whether I receive any further invitation to go back to The Old Manor House. I would not like to suggest it myself because my original invitation was for the two nights that the tour was to have stayed here originally. I think possibly it would be better for me to remain at the Golden Boar.”
“You don’t feel like returning to St. Mary Mead?”
“Not yet,” said Miss Marple. “There are one or two things I could do here, I think. One thing I have done already.” She met his enquiring gaze. “If you are going on,” she said, “with the rest of the party, I will tell you what I have put in hand, and suggest a small sideline of enquiry that might be helpful. The other reason that I wish to stay here I will tell you later. There are certain enquiries—local enquiries—that I want to make. They may not lead anywhere so I think it as well not to mention them now. And you?”
“I should like to return to London. I have work there waiting to be done. Unless, that is, I can be helpful to you here?”
“No,” said Miss Marple, “I do not think so at present. I expect you have various enquiries of your own that you wish to put in hand.”
“I came on the tour to meet you, Miss Marple.”