“And now you have met me and know what I know, or practically all that I know, you have other enquiries to put in hand. I understand that. But before you leave here, I think there are one or two things—well, that might be helpful, might give a result.”
“I see. You have ideas.”
“I am remembering what you said.”
“You have perhaps pinned down the smell of evil?”
“It is difficult,” said Miss Marple, “to know exactly what something wrong in the atmosphere really means.”
“But you do feel that there is something wrong in the atmosphere?”
“Oh yes. Very clearly.”
“And especially since Miss Temple’s death which, of course, was not an accident, no matter what Mrs. Sandbourne hopes.”
“No,” said Miss Marple, “it was not an accident. What I don’t think I have told you is that Miss Temple said to me once that she was on a pilgrimage.”
“Interesting,” said the Professor. “Yes, interesting. She didn’t tell you what the pilgrimage was, to where or to whom?”
“No,” said Miss Marple, “if she’d lived just a little longer and not been so weak, she might have told me. But unfortunately, death came a little too soon.”
“So that you have not any further ideas on that subject.”
“No. Only a feeling of assurance that her pilgrimage was put an end to by malign design. Someone wanted to stop her going wherever she was going, or stop her going to whomever she was going to. One can only hope that chance or Providence may throw light on that.”
“That’s why you’re staying here?”
“Not only that,” said Miss Marple. “I want to find out something more about a girl called Nora Broad.”
“Nora Broad.” He looked faintly puzzled.
“The other girl who disappeared about the same time as Verity Hunt did. You remember you mentioned her to me. A girl who had boyfriends and was, I understand, very ready to have boyfriends. A foolish girl, but attractive apparently to the male sex. I think,” said Miss Marple, “that to learn a little more about her might help me in my enquiries.”
“Have it your own way, Detective-Inspector Marple,” said Professor Wanstead.
II
The service took place on the following morning. All the members of the tour were there. Miss Marple looked round the church. Several of the locals were there also. Mrs. Glynne was there and her sister Clotilde. The youngest one, Anthea, did not attend. There were one or two people from the village also, she thought. Probably not acquainted with Miss Temple but there out of a rather morbid curiosity in regard to what was now spoken of by the term “foul play.” There was, too, an elderly clergyman; in gaiters, well over seventy, Miss Marple thought, a broad-shouldered old man with a noble mane of white hair. He was slightly crippled and found it difficult both to kneel and to stand. It was a fine face, Miss Marple thought, and she wondered who he was. Some old friend of Elizabeth Temple, she presumed, who might perhaps have come from quite a long distance to attend the service?
As they came out of the church Miss Marple exchanged a few words with her fellow travellers. She knew now pretty well who was doing what. The Butlers were returning to London.
“I told Henry I just couldn’t go on with it,” said Mrs. Butler. “You know—I feel all the time that any minute just as we might be walking round a corner, someone, you know, might shoot us or throw a stone at us. Someone who has got a down on the Famous Houses of England.”
“Now then, Mamie, now then,” said Mr. Butler, “don’t you let your imagination go as far as that!”
“Well, you just don’t know nowadays. What with hijackers about and kidnapping and all the rest of it, I don’t feel really protected anywhere.”
Old Miss Lumley and Miss Bentham were continuing with the tour, their anxieties allayed.
“We’ve paid very highly for this tour and it seems a pity to miss anything just because this very sad accident has happened. We rang up a very good neighbour of ours last night, and they are going to see to the cats, so we don’t need to worry.”
It was going to remain an accident for Miss Lumley and Miss Bentham. They had decided it was more comfortable that way.
Mrs. Riseley-Porter was also continuing on the tour. Colonel and Mrs. Walker were resolved that nothing would make them miss seeing a particularly rare collection of fuchsias in the garden due to be visited the day after tomorrow. The architect, Jameson, was also guided by his wish to see various buildings of special interest for him. Mr. Caspar, however, was departing by rail, he said. Miss Cooke and Miss Barrow seemed undecided.
“Pretty good walks round here,” said Miss Cooke. “I think we’ll stay at the Golden Boar for a little. That’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it, Miss Marple?”
“I really think so,” said Miss Marple. “I don’t feel quite equal to going on travelling and all that. I think a day or two’s rest would be helpful to me after what’s happened.”
As the little crowd dispersed, Miss Marple took an unostentatious route of her own. From her handbag she took out a leaf torn from her notebook on which she had entered two addresses. The first, a Mrs. Blackett, lived in a neat little house and garden just by the end of the road where it sloped down towards the valley. A small neat woman opened the door.
“Mrs. Blackett?”
“Yes, yes, ma’am, that’s my name.”
“I wonder if I might just come in and speak to you for a minute or two. I have just been to the service and I am feeling a little giddy. If I could just sit down for a minute or two?”
“Dear me, now, dear me. Oh, I’m sorry for that. Come right in, ma’am, come right in. That’s right. You sit down here. Now I’ll get you a glass of water—or maybe you’d like a pot of tea?”
“No, thank you,” said Miss Marple, “a glass of water would put me right.”
Mrs. Blackett returned with a glass of water and a pleasurable prospect of talking about ailments and giddiness and other things.
“You know, I’ve got a nephew like that. He oughtn’t to be at his age, he’s not much over fifty but now and then he’ll come over giddy all of a sudden and unless he sits down at once—why you don’t know, sometimes he’ll pass out right on the floor. Terrible, it is. Terrible. And doctors, they don’t seem able to do anything about it. Here’s your glass of water.”
“Ah,” said Miss Marple, sipping, “I feel much better.”
“Been to the service, have you, for the poor lady as got done in, as some say, or accident as others. I’d say it’s accident every time. But these inquests and coroners, they always want to make things look criminal, they do.”
“Oh yes,” said Miss Marple. “I’ve been so sorry to hear of a lot of things like that in the past. I was hearing a great deal about a girl called Nora. Nora Broad, I think.”
“Ah, Nora, yes. Well, she was my cousin’s daughter. Yes. A long while ago, that was. Went off and never come back. These girls, there’s no holding them. I said often, I did, to Nancy Broad—that’s my cousin—I said to her, ‘You’re out working all day’ and I said ‘What’s Nora doing? You know she’s the kind that likes the boys. Well,’ I said, ‘there’ll be trouble. You see if there isn’t.’ And sure enough, I was quite right.”
“You mean—?”
“Ah, the usual trouble. Yes, in the family way. Mind you, I don’t think as my cousin Nancy knew about it yet. But of course, I’m sixty-five and I know what’s what and I know the way a girl looks and I think I know who it was, but I’m not sure. I might have been wrong because he went on living in the place and he was real cut up when Nora was missing.”
“She went off, did she?”
“Well, she accepted a lift from someone—a stranger. That’s the last time she was seen. I forget the make of the car now. Some funny name it had. An Audit or something like that. Anyway, she’d been seen once or twice in that car. And off she went in it. And it was said it was that same car that the poor girl what got herself murde
red used to go riding in. But I don’t think as that happened to Nora. If Nora’d been murdered, the body would have come to light by now. Don’t you think so?”
“It certainly seems likely,” said Miss Marple. “Was she a girl who did well at school and all that?”
“Ah no, she wasn’t. She was idle and she wasn’t too clever at her books either. No. She was all for the boys from the time she was twelve-years-old onwards. I think in the end she must have gone off with someone or other for good. But she never let anyone know. She never sent as much as a postcard. Went off, I think, with someone as promised her things. You know. Another girl I knew—but that was when I was young—went off with one of them Africans. He told her as his father was a Shake. Funny sort of word, but a shake I think it was. Anyway it was somewhere in Africa or in Algiers. Yes, in Algiers it was. Somewhere there. And she was going to have all sorts of wonderful things. He had six camels, the boy’s father, she said and a whole troop of horses and she was going to live in a wonderful house, she was, with carpets hanging up all over the walls, which seems a funny place to put carpets. And off she went. She come back again three years later. Yes. Terrible time, she’d had. Terrible. They lived in a nasty little house made of earth. Yes, it was. And nothing much to eat except what they call cos-cos which I always thought was lettuce, but it seems it isn’t. Something more like semolina pudding. Oh terrible it was. And in the end he said she was no good to him and he’d divorce her. He said he’d only got to say ‘I divorce you’ three times, and he did and walked out and somehow or other, some kind of Society out there took charge of her and paid her fare home to England. And there she was. Ah, but that was about thirty to forty years ago, that was. Now Nora, that was only about seven or eight years ago. But I expect she’ll be back one of these days, having learnt her lesson and finding out that all these fine promises didn’t come to much.”
“Had she anyone to go to here except her—her mother—your cousin, I mean? Anyone who—”
“Well, there’s many as was kind to her. There was the people at The Old Manor House, you know. Mrs. Glynne wasn’t there then, but Miss Clotilde, she was always one to be good to the girls from school. Yes, many a nice present she’s given Nora. She gave her a very nice scarf and a pretty dress once. Very nice, it was. A summer frock, a sort of foulard silk. Ah, she was very kind, Miss Clotilde was. Tried to make Nora take more interest in her schooling. Lots of things like that. Advised her against the way she was going on because, you see—well, I wouldn’t like to say it, not when she’s my cousin’s child though, mark you, my cousin is only one who married my boy cousin, that is to say—but I mean it was something terrible the way she went on with all the boys. Anyone could pick her up. Real sad it is. I’d say she’ll go on the streets in the end. I don’t believe she has any future but that. I don’t like to say these things, but there it is. Anyway, perhaps it’s better than getting herself murdered like Miss Hunt did, what lived at The Old Manor House. Cruel, that was. They thought she’d gone off with someone and the police, they was busy. Always asking questions and having the young men who’d been with the girl up to help them with their enquiries and all that. Geoffrey Grant there was, Billy Thompson, and the Landfords’ Harry. All unemployed—with plenty of jobs going if they’d wanted to take them. Things usedn’t to be like that when I was young. Girls behaved proper. And the boys knew they’d got to work if they wanted to get anywhere.”
Miss Marple talked a little more, said that she was now quite restored, thanked Mrs. Blackett, and went out.
Her next visit was to a girl who was planting out lettuces.
“Nora Broad? Oh, she hasn’t been in the village for years. Went off with someone, she did. She was a great one for boys. I always wondered where she’d end up. Did you want to see her for any particular reason?”
“I had a letter from a friend abroad,” said Miss Marple, untruthfully. “A very nice family and they were thinking of engaging a Miss Nora Broad. She’d been in some trouble, I think. Married someone who was rather a bad lot and had left her and gone off with another woman, and she wanted to get a job looking after children. My friend knew nothing about her, but I gathered she came from this village. So I wondered if there was anyone here who could—well, tell me something about her. You went to school with her, I understand?”
“Oh yes, we were in the same class, we were. Mind you, I didn’t approve of all Nora’s goings-on. She was boy mad, she was. Well, I had a nice boyfriend myself that I was going steady with at the time, and I told her she’d do herself no good going off with every Tom, Dick and Harry that offered her a lift in a car or took her along to a pub where she told lies about her age, as likely as not. She was a good mature girl as looked a lot older than she was.”
“Dark or fair?”
“Oh, she had dark hair. Pretty hair it was. Always loose like, you know, as girls do.”
“Were the police worried about her when she disappeared?”
“Yes. You see, she didn’t leave no word behind. She just went out one night and didn’t come back. She was seen getting into a car and nobody saw the car again and nobody saw her. Just at that time there’d been a good many murders, you know. Not specially round here, but all over the country. The police, they were rounding up a lot of young men and boys. Thought as Nora might be a body at the time we did. But not she. She was all right. I’d say as likely as not she’s making a bit of money still in London or one of these big towns doing a striptease, something of that kind. That’s the kind she was.”
“I don’t think,” said Miss Marple, “that if it’s the same person, that she’d be very suitable for my friend.”
“She’d have to change a bit if she was to be suitable,” said the girl.
Eighteen
ARCHDEACON BRABAZON
When Miss Marple, slightly out of breath and rather tired, got back to the Golden Boar, the receptionist came out from her pen and across to greet her.
“Oh, Miss Marple, there is someone here who wants to speak to you. Archdeacon Brabazon.”
“Archdeacon Brabazon?” Miss Marple looked puzzled.
“Yes. He’s been trying to find you. He had heard you were with this tour and he wanted to talk to you before you might have left or gone to London. I told him that some of them were going back to London by the later train this afternoon, but he is very, very anxious to speak to you before you go. I have put him in the television lounge. It is quieter there. The other is very noisy just at this moment.”
Slightly surprised, Miss Marple went to the room indicated. Archdeacon Brabazon turned out to be the elderly cleric whom she had noticed at the memorial service. He rose and came towards her.
“Miss Marple. Miss Jane Marple?”
“Yes, that is my name. You wanted—”
“I am Archdeacon Brabazon. I came here this morning to attend the service for a very old friend of mine, Miss Elizabeth Temple.”
“Oh yes?” said Miss Marple. “Do sit down.”
“Thank you, I will, I am not quite as strong as I was.” He lowered himself carefully into a chair.
“And you—”
Miss Marple sat down beside him.
“Yes,” she said, “you wanted to see me?”
“Well, I must explain how that comes about. I’m quite aware that I am a complete stranger to you. As a matter of fact I made a short visit to the hospital at Carristown, talking to the matron before going on to the church here. It was she who told me that before she died Elizabeth had asked to see a fellow member of the tour. Miss Jane Marple. And that Miss Jane Marple had visited her and sat with her just a very, very short time before Elizabeth died.”
He looked at her anxiously.
“Yes,” said Miss Marple, “that is so. It surprised me to be sent for.”
“You are an old friend of hers?”
“No,” said Miss Marple. “I only met her on this tour. That’s why I was surprised. We had expressed ideas to each other, occasionally sat next to each othe
r in the coach, and had struck up quite an acquaintanceship. But I was surprised that she should have expressed a wish to see me when she was so ill.”
“Yes. Yes, I can quite imagine that. She was, as I have said, a very old friend of mine. In fact, she was coming to see me, to visit me. I live in Fillminster, which is where your coach tour will be stopping the day after tomorrow. And by arrangement she was coming to visit me there, she wanted to talk to me about various matters about which she thought I could help her.”
“I see,” said Miss Marple. “May I ask you a question? I hope it is not too intimate a question.”
“Of course, Miss Marple. Ask me anything you like.”
“One of the things Miss Temple said to me was that her presence on the tour was not merely because she wished to visit historic homes and gardens. She described it by a rather unusual word to use, as a pilgrimage.”
“Did she,” said Archdeacon Brabazon. “Did she indeed now? Yes, that’s interesting. Interesting and perhaps significant.”
“So what I am asking you is, do you think that the pilgrimage she spoke of was her visit to you?”
“I think it must have been,” said the Archdeacon. “Yes, I think so.”
“We had been talking,” said Miss Marple, “about a young girl. A girl called Verity.”
“Ah yes. Verity Hunt.”
“I did not know her surname. Miss Temple, I think, mentioned her only as Verity.”
“Verity Hunt is dead,” said the Archdeacon. “She died quite a number of years ago. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” said Miss Marple. “I knew it. Miss Temple and I were talking about her. Miss Temple told me something that I did not know. She said she had been engaged to be married to the son of a Mr. Rafiel. Mr. Rafiel is, or again I must say was, a friend of mine. Mr. Rafiel has paid the expenses of this tour out of his kindness. I think, though, that possibly he wanted—indeed, intended—me to meet Miss Temple on this tour. I think he thought she could give me certain information.”
“Certain information about Verity?”