A Murder is Announced

Chapter 18
The Letters

I

'Sorry to worry you again, Mrs Haymes.'

'It doesn't matter,' said Phillipa coldly.

'Shall we go into this room here?'

'The study? Yes, if you like, Inspector. It's very cold. There's no fire.'

'It doesn't matter. It's not for long. And we're not so likely to be overheard here.'

'Does that matter?'

'Not to me, Mrs Haymes. It might to you.'

'What do you mean?'

'I think you told me, Mrs Haymes, that your husband was killed fighting in Italy?'

'Well?'

'Wouldn't it have been simpler to have told me the truth - that he was a deserter from his regiment.'

He saw her face grow white, and her hands close and unclose themselves.

She said bitterly:

'Do you have to rake up everything?'

Craddock said dryly:

'We expect people to tell us the truth about themselves.'

She was silent. Then she said:

'Well?'

'What do you mean by "Well?", Mrs Haymes?'

'I mean, what are you going to do about it? Tell everybody? Is that necessary - or fair - or kind?'

'Does nobody know?'

'Nobody here. Harry' - her voice changed - 'my son, he doesn't know. I don't want him to know. I don't want him to know - ever.'

'Then let me tell you that you're taking a very big risk, Mrs Haymes. When the boy is old enough to understand, tell him the truth. If he finds out by himself some day - it won't be good for him. If you go on stuffing him up with tales of his father dying like a hero - '

'I don't do that. I'm not completely dishonest. I just don't talk about it. His father was - killed in the war. After all, that's what it amounts to - for us.'

'But your husband is still alive?'

'Perhaps. How should I know?'

'When did you see him last, Mrs Haymes?'

Phillipa said quickly:

'I haven't seen him for years.'

'Are you quite sure that's true? You didn't, for instance, see him about a fortnight ago?'

'What are you suggesting?'

'It never seemed to me very likely that you met Rudi Scherz in the summerhouse here. But Mitzi's story was very emphatic. I suggest, Mrs Haymes, that the man you came back from work to meet that morning was your husband.'

'I didn't meet anybody in the summerhouse.'

'He was hard up for money, perhaps, and you supplied him with some?'

'I've not seen him, I tell you. I didn't meet anybody in the summerhouse.'

'Deserters are often rather desperate men. They often take part in robberies, you know. Hold-ups. Things of that kind. And they have foreign revolvers very often that they've brought back from abroad.'

'I don't know where my husband is. I haven't seen him for years.'

'Is that your last word, Mrs Haymes?'

'I've nothing else to say.'

II

Craddock came away from his interview with Phillipa Haymes feeling angry and baffled.

'Obstinate as a mule,' he said to himself angrily.

He was fairly sure that Phillipa was lying, but he hadn't succeeded in breaking down her obstinate denials.

He wished he knew a little more about ex-Captain Haymes. His information was meagre. An unsatisfactory Army record, but nothing to suggest that Haymes was likely to turn criminal.

And anyway Haymes didn't fit in with the oiled door.

Someone in the house had done that, or someone with easy access to it.

He stood looking up the staircase, and suddenly he wondered what Julia had been doing up in the attic. An attic, he thought, was an unlikely place for the fastidious Julia to visit.

What had she been doing up there?

He ran lightly up to the first floor. There was no one about. He opened the door out of which Julia had come and went up the narrow stairs to the attic.

There were trunks there, old suitcases, various broken articles of furniture, a chair with a leg off, a broken china lamp, part of an old dinner service.

He turned to the trunks and opened the lid of one.

Clothes. Old-fashioned, quite good-quality women's clothes. Clothes belonging, he supposed, to Miss Blacklock, or to her sister who had died.

He opened another trunk.

Curtains.

He passed to a small attache-case. It had papers in it and letters. Very old letters, yellowed with time.

He looked at the outside of the case which had the initials C.L.B. on it. He deduced correctly that it had belonged to Letitia's sister Charlotte. He unfolded one of the letters. It began

Dearest Charlotte.

Yesterday Belle felt well enough to go for a picnic. R.G. also took a day off. The Asvogel flotation has gone splendidly, R.G. is terribly pleased about it. The Preference shares are at a premium.

He skipped the rest and looked at the signature:

Your loving sister, Letitia.

He picked up another.

Darling Charlotte.

I wish you would sometimes make up your mind to see people. You do exaggerate, you know. It isn't nearly as bad as you think. And people really don't mind things like that. It's not the disfigurement you think it is.

He nodded his head. He remembered Belle Goedler saying that Charlotte Blacklock had a disfigurement or deformity of some kind. Letitia had, in the end, resigned her job, to go and look after her sister. These letters all breathed the anxious spirit of her affection and love for an invalid. She had written her sister, apparently, long accounts of everyday happenings, of any little detail that she thought might interest the sick girl. And Charlotte had kept these letters. Occasionally odd snapshots had been enclosed.

Excitement suddenly flooded Craddock's mind. Here, it might be, he would find a clue. In these letters there would be written down things that Letitia Blacklock herself had long forgotten. Here was a faithful picture of the past and somewhere amongst it, there might be a clue that would help him to identify the unknown. Photographs, too. There might, just possibly, be a photograph of Sonia Goedler here that the person who had taken the other photos out of the album did not know about.

Inspector Craddock packed the letters up again, carefully, closed the case, and started down the stairs.

Letitia Blacklock, standing on the landing below, looked at him in amazement.

'Was that you up in the attic? I heard footsteps. I couldn't imagine who - '

'Miss Blacklock, I have found some letters here, written by you to your sister Charlotte many years ago. Will you allow me to take them away and read them?'

She flushed angrily.

'Must you do a thing like that? Why? What good can they be to you?'

'They might give me a picture of Sonia Goedler, of her character - there may be some allusion - some incident - that will help.'

'They are private letters, Inspector.'

'I know.'

'I suppose you will take them anyway...You have the power to do so, I suppose, or you can easily get it. Take them - take them! But you'll find very little about Sonia. She married and went away only a year or two after I began to work for Randall Goedler.'

Craddock said obstinately:

'There may be something.' He added, 'We've got to try everything. I assure you the danger is very real.'

She said, biting her lips:

'I know. Bunny is dead - from taking an aspirin tablet that was meant for me. It may be Patrick, or Julia, or Phillipa, or Mitzi next - somebody young with their life in front of them. Somebody who drinks a glass of wine that is poured out for me, or eats a chocolate that is sent to me. Oh! take the letters - take them away. And afterwards burn them. They don't mean anything to anyone but me and Charlotte. It's all over - gone - past. Nobody remembers now...'

Her hand went up to the choker of false pearls she was wearing. Caddock thought how incongruous it looked with her tweed coat and skirt.

She said again:

'Take the letters.'

III

It was the following afternoon that the Inspector called at the Vicarage.

It was a dark gusty day.

Miss Marple had her chair pulled close to the fire and was knitting. Bunch was on hands and knees, crawling about the floor, cutting out material to a pattern.

She sat back and pushed a mop of hair out of her eyes, looking up expectantly at Craddock.

'I don't know if it's a breach of confidence,' said the Inspector, addressing himself to Miss Marple, 'but I'd like you to look at this letter.'

He explained the circumstances of his discovery in the attic.

'It's rather a touching collection of letters,' he said. 'Miss Blacklock poured out everything in the hopes of sustaining her sister's interest in life and keeping her health good. There's a very clear picture of an old father in the background - old Dr Blacklock. A real old pig-headed bully, absolutely set in his ways, and convinced that everything he thought and said was right. Probably killed thousands of patients through obstinacy. He wouldn't stand for any new ideas or methods.'

'I don't really know that I blame him there,' said Miss Marple. 'I always feel that the young doctors are only too anxious to experiment. After they've whipped out all our teeth, and administered quantities of very peculiar glands, and removed bits of our insides, they then confess that nothing can be done for us. I really prefer the old-fashioned remedy of big black bottles of medicine. After all, one can always pour those down the sink.'

She took the letter that Craddock handed her.

He said: 'I want you to read it because I think that that generation is more easily understood by you than by me. I don't know really quite how these people's minds worked.'

Miss Marple unfolded the fragile paper.

Dearest Charlotte,

I've not written for two days because we've been having the most terrible domestic complications. Randall's sister Sonia (you remember her? She came to take you out in the car that day? How I wish you would go out more). Sonia has declared her intention of marrying one Dmitri Stamfordis. I have only seen him once. Very attractive - not to be trusted, I should say. R.G. raves against him and says he is a crook and a swindler. Belle, bless her, just smiles and lies on her sofa. Sonia, who though she looks so impassive has really a terrific temper, is simply wild with R.G. I really thought yesterday she was going to murder him!

I've done my best. I've talked to Sonia and I've talked to R.G. and I've got them both into a more reasonable frame of mind and then they come together and it all starts over again! You've no idea how tiring it is. R.G. has been making enquiries - and it does really seem as though this Stamfordis man was thoroughly undesirable.

In the meantime business is being neglected. I carry on at the office and in a way it's rather fun because R.G. gives me a free hand. He said to me yesterday: 'Thank Heaven, there's one sane person in the world. You're never likely to fall in love with a crook, Blackie, are you?' I said I didn't think I was likely to fall in love with anybody. R.G. said: 'Let's start a few new hares in the City.' He's really rather a mischievous devil sometimes and he sails terribly near the wind. 'You're quite determined to keep me on the straight and narrow path aren't you, Blackie?' he said the other day. And I shall too! I can't understand how people can't see when a thing's dishonest - but R.G. really and truly doesn't. He only knows what is actually against the law.

Belle only laughs at all this. She thinks the fuss about Sonia is all nonsense. 'Sonia has her own money,' she said. 'Why shouldn't she marry this man if she wants to?' I said it might turn out to be a terrible mistake and Belle said, 'It's never a mistake to marry a man you want to marry - even if you regret it.' And then she said, 'I suppose Sonia doesn't want to break with Randall because of money. Sonia's very fond of money.'

No more now. How is father? I won't say Give him my love. But you can if you think it's better to do so. Have you seen more people? You really must not be morbid, darling.

Sonia asks to be remembered to you. She has just come in and is closing and unclosing her hands like an angry cat sharpening its claws. I think she and R.G. have had another row. Of course Sonia can be very irritating. She stares you down with that cool stare of hers.

Lots of love, darling, and buck up. This iodine treatment may make a lot of difference. I've been enquiring about it and it really does seem to have good results.

Your loving sister,

Letitia.

Miss Marple folded the letter and handed it back. She looked abstracted.

'Well, what do you think about her?' Craddock urged. 'What picture do you get of her?'

'Of Sonia? It's difficult, you know, to see anyone through another person's mind...Determined to get her own way - that, definitely, I think. And wanting the best of two worlds...'

'Closing and unclosing her hands like an angry cat,' murmured Craddock. 'You know, that reminds me of someone...'

He frowned.

'Making enquiries...' murmured Miss Marple.

'If we could get hold of the result of those inquiries,' said Craddock.

'Does that letter remind you of anything in St Mary Mead?' asked Bunch, rather indistinctly since her mouth was full of pins.

'I really can't say it does, dear...Dr Blacklock is, perhaps, a little like Mr Curtiss the Wesleyan Minister. He wouldn't let his child wear a plate on her teeth. Said it was the Lord's Will if her teeth stuck out. "After all," I said to him, "you do trim your beard and cut your hair. It might be the Lord's Will that your hair should grow out." He said that was quite different. So like a man. But that doesn't help us with our present problem.'

'We've never traced that revolver, you know. It wasn't Rudi Scherz. If I knew who had had a revolver in Chipping Cleghorn - '

'Colonel Easterbrook has one,' said Bunch. 'He keeps it in his collar drawer.'

'How do you know, Mrs Harmon?'

'Mrs Butt told me. She's my daily. Or rather, my twice weekly. Being a military gentleman, she said, he'd naturally have a revolver and very handy it would be if burglars were to come along.'

'When did she tell you this?'

'Ages ago. About six months ago, I should think.'

'Colonel Easterbrook?' murmured Craddock.

'It's like those pointer things at fairs, isn't it?' said Bunch, still speaking through a mouthful of pins.

'Go round and round and stop at something different every time.'

'You're telling me,' said Craddock and groaned.

'Colonel Easterbrook was up at Little Paddocks to leave a book there one day. He could have oiled that door then. He was quite straightforward about being there though. Not like Miss Hinchcliffe.'

Miss Marple coughed gently. 'You must make allowances for the times we live in, Inspector,' she said.

Craddock looked at her, uncomprehendingly.

'After all,' said Miss Marple. 'you are the Police, aren't you? People can't say everything they'd like to say to the Police, can they?'

'I don't see why not,' said Craddock. 'Unless they've got some criminal matter to conceal.'

'She means butter,' said Bunch, crawling actively round a table leg to anchor a floating bit of paper.

'Butter and corn for hens, and sometimes cream - and sometimes, even, a side of bacon.'

'Show him that note from Miss Blacklock,' said Miss Marple. 'It's some time ago now, but it reads like a first-class mystery story.'

'What have I done with it? Is this the one you mean, Aunt Jane?'

Miss Marple took it and looked at it.

'Yes,' she said with satisfaction. 'That's the one.'

She handed it to the Inspector.

'I have made inquiries - Thursday is the day,' Miss Blacklock had written. 'Any time after three. If there is any for me leave it in the usual place.'

Bunch spat out her pins and laughed. Miss Marple was watching the Inspector's face.

The Vicar's wife took upon herself to explain.

'Thursday is the day one of the farms round here makes butter. They let anybody they like have a bit. It's usually Miss Hinchcliffe who collects it. She's very much in with all the farmers - because of her pigs, I think. But it's all a bit hush hush, you know, a kind of local scheme of barter. One person gets butter, and sends along cucumbers, or something like that - and a little something when a pig's killed. And now and then an animal has an accident and has to be destroyed. Oh, you know the sort of thing. Only one can't, very well, say it right out to the Police. Because I suppose quite a lot of this barter is illegal - only nobody really knows because it's all so complicated. But I expect Hinch had slipped into Little Paddocks with a pound of butter or something and had put it in the usual place. That's a flour bin under the dresser, by the way. It doesn't have flour in it.'

Craddock sighed.

'I'm glad I came here to you ladies,' he said.

'There used to be clothing coupons, too,' said Bunch. 'Not usually bought - that wasn't considered honest. No money passes. But people like Mrs Butt or Mrs Finch or Mrs Huggins like a nice woollen dress or a winter coat that hasn't seen too much wear and they pay for it with coupons instead of money.'

'You'd better not tell me any more,' said Craddock.

'It's all against the law.'

'Then there oughtn't to be such silly laws,' said Bunch, filling her mouth up with pins again. 'I don't do it, of course, because Julian doesn't like me to, so I don't. But I know what's going on, of course.'

A kind of despair was coming over the Inspector.

'It all sounds so pleasant and ordinary,' he said. 'Funny and petty and simple. And yet one woman and a man have been killed, and another woman may be killed before I can get anything definite to go on. I've left off worrying about Pip and Emma for the moment. I'm concentrating on Sonia. I wish I knew what she looked like. There was a snapshot or two in with these letters, but none of the snaps could have been of her.'

'How do you know it couldn't have been her? Do you know what she looked like?'

'She was small and dark, Miss Blacklock said.'

'Really,' said Miss Marple, 'that's very interesting.'

'There was one snap that reminded me vaguely of someone. A tall fair girl with her hair all done up on top of her head. I don't know who she could have been. Anyway, it can't have been Sonia. Do you think Mrs Swettenham could have been dark when she was a girl?'

'Not very dark,' said Bunch. 'She's got blue eyes.'

'I hoped there might be a photo of Dmitri Stamfordis - but I suppose that was too much to hope for...Well' - he took up the letter - 'I'm sorry this doesn't suggest anything to you, Miss Marple.'

'Oh! but it does,' said Miss Marple. 'It suggests a good deal. Just read it through again, Inspector - especially where it says that Randall Goedler was making inquiries about Dmitri Stamfordis.'

Craddock stared at her.

The telephone rang.

Bunch got up from the floor and went out into the hall where, in accordance with the best Victorian traditions, the telephone had originally been placed and where it still was.

She re-entered the room to say to Craddock:

'It's for you.'

Slightly surprised, the Inspector went out to the instrument - carefully shutting the door of the living-room behind him.

'Craddock? Rydesdale here.'

'Yes, sir.'

'I've been looking through your report. In the interview you had with Phillipa Haymes I see she states positively that she hasn't seen her husband since his desertion from the Army?'

'That's right, sir - she was most emphatic. But in my opinion she wasn't speaking the truth.'

'I agree with you. Do you remember a case about ten days ago - man run over by a lorry - taken to Milchester General with concussion and a fractured pelvis?'

'The fellow who snatched a child practically from under the wheels of a lorry, and got run down himself?'

'That's the one. No papers of any kind on him and nobody came forward to identify him. Looked as though he might be on the run. He died last night without regaining consciousness. But he's been identified - deserter from the Army - Ronald Haymes, ex-Captain in the South Loamshires.'

'Phillipa Haymes' husband?'

'Yes. He'd got an old Chipping Cleghorn bus ticket on him, by the way - and quite a reasonable amount of money.'

'So he did get money from his wife? I always thought he was the man Mitzi overheard talking to her in the summerhouse. She denied it flatly, of course. But surely, sir, that lorry accident was before - '

Rydesdale took the words out of his mouth.

'Yes, he was taken to Milchester General on the 28th. The hold-up at Little Paddocks was on the 29th. That lets him out of any possible connection with it. But his wife, of course, knew nothing about the accident. She may have been thinking all along that he was concerned in it. She'd hold her tongue - naturally - after all he was her husband.'

'It was a fairly gallant bit of work, wasn't it, sir?' said Craddock slowly.

'Rescuing that child from the lorry? Yes. Plucky. Don't suppose it was cowardice that made Haymes desert. Well, all that's past history. For a man who'd blotted his copybook, it was a good death.'

'I'm glad for her sake,' said the Inspector. 'And for that boy of theirs.'

'Yes, he needn't be too ashamed of his father. And the young woman will be able to marry again now.'

Craddock said slowly:

'I was thinking of that, sir...It opens up - possibilities.'

'You'd better break the news to her as you're on the spot.'

'I will, sir. I'll push along there now. Or perhaps I'd better wait until she's back at Little Paddocks. It may be rather a shock - and there's someone else I rather want to have a word with first.'