Chapter XI
Miss Marple Comes to Tea
If Letitia Blacklock seemed slightly absentminded when Mrs. Harmon
came to tea and brought a guest who was staying with her, Miss Marple, the
guest in question, was hardly likely to notice the fact since it was the first
time she had met her.
The old lady was very charming in her gentle gossipy fashion. She
revealed herself almost at once to be one of those old ladies who have a
constant preoccupation with burglars.
"They can get in anywhere, my dear," she assured her hostess,
"absolutely anywhere nowadays. So many new American methods. I
myself pin my faith to a very old-fashioned device. A cabin hook and eye.
They can pick locks and draw back bolts but a brass hook and eye defeats them.
Have you ever tried that?"
"I'm afraid we're not very good at bolts and bars," said
Miss Blacklock cheerfully. "There's really nothing much to burgle."
"A chain on the front door," Miss Marple advised.
"Then the maid need only open it a crack and see who is there and they
can't force their way in."
"I expect Mitzi, our Mittel European, would love that."
"The hold-up you had must have been very, very
frightening," said Miss Marple. "Bunch has been telling me all about
it."
"I was scared stiff," said Bunch.
"It was an alarming experience," admitted Miss
Blacklock.
"It really seems like Providence that the man tripped himself
up and shot himself. These burglars are so violent nowadays. How did he
get in?"
"Well, I'm afraid we don't lock our doors much."
"Oh, Letty," exclaimed Miss Bunner. "I forgot to
tell you the Inspector was most peculiar this morning. He insisted on opening
the second door - you know - the one that's never been opened - the one over
there. He hunted for the key and everything and said the door had been oiled.
But I can't see why because - "
Too late she got Miss Blacklock's signal to be quiet, and paused
open-mouthed.
"Oh, Lotty, I'm so - sorry - I mean, oh, I do beg your
pardon, Letty - oh, dear, how stupid I am."
"It doesn't matter," said Miss Blacklock, but she was
annoyed. "Only I don't think Inspector Craddock wants that talked about. I
didn't know you had been there when he was experimenting, Dora. You do
understand, don't you, Mrs. Harmon?"
"Oh, yes," said Bunch. "We won't breathe a word,
will we, Aunt Jane. But I wonder why he - "
She relapsed into thought. Miss Bunner fidgeted and looked
miserable, bursting out at last: "I always say the wrong thing -Oh, dear,
I'm nothing but a trial to you, Letty."
Miss Blacklock said quickly, "You're my great comfort, Dora.
And anyway in a small place like Chipping Cleghorn there aren't really any
secrets."
"Now that is very true," said Miss Marple. "I'm
afraid, you know, that things do get round in the most extraordinary way.
Servants, of course, and yet it can't only be that, because one has so few
servants nowadays. Still, there are the daily women and perhaps they are worse,
because they go to everybody in turn and pass the news round."
"Oh!" said Bunch Harmon suddenly. "I've got it! Of
course, if that door could open too, someone might have gone out of here in the
dark and done the hold-up - only of course they didn't - because it was the man
from the Royal Spa Hotel. Or wasn't it? ... No, I donut" see after all ...
" she frowned.
"Did it all happen in this room then?" asked Miss
Marple, adding apologetically: "I'm afraid you must think me sadly curious,
Miss Blacklock - but it really is so very exciting - just like something one
reads about in the paper - I'm just longing to hear all about it and to picture
it all, if you know what I mean - "
Immediately Miss Marple received a confused and voluble account
from Bunch and Miss Bunner - with occasional emendations and corrections from
Miss Blacklock.
In the middle of it Patrick came in and good-naturedly entered
into the spirit of the recital - going so far as to enact himself the part of
Rudi Scherz.
"And Aunt Letty was there - in the corner by the archway ...
Go and stand there, Aunt Letty."
Miss Blacklock obeyed, and then Miss Marple was shown the actual
bullet holes.
"What a marvellous - what a providential escape," she
gasped.
"I was just going to offer my guests cigarettes - " Miss
Blacklock indicated the big silver box on the table.
"People are so careless when they smoke," said Miss
Bunner disapprovingly. "Nobody really respects good furniture as they used
to do. Look at the horrid burn somebody made on this beautiful table by putting
a cigarette down on it. Disgraceful."
Miss Blacklock sighed.
"Sometimes, I'm afraid, one thinks too much of one's
possessions."
"But it's such a lovely table, Letty."
Miss Bunner loved her friend's possessions with as much fervour as
though they had been her own. Bunch Harmon had always thought it was a very
endearing trait in her. She showed no sign of envy.
"It is a lovely table," said Miss Marple politely.
"And what a very pretty china lamp on it."
Again it was Miss Bunner who accepted the compliment as though she
and not Miss Blacklock was the owner of the lamp.
"Isn't it delightful? Dresden. There is a pair of them. The
other's in the spare room, I think."
"You know where everything in this house is, Dora - or you
think you do," said Miss Blacklock, good-humouredly. "You care far
more about my things than I do."
Miss Bunner flushed.
"I do like nice things," she said. Her voice was
half defiant - half wistful.
"I must confess," said Miss Marple, "that my own
few possessions are very dear to me, too - so many memories, you know.
It's the same with photographs. People nowadays have so few photographs about.
Now I like to keep all the pictures of my nephews and nieces as babies - and
then as children - and so on."
"You've got a horrible one of me, aged three," said
Bunch. "Holding a fox terrier and squinting."
"I expect your aunt has many photographs of you," said
Miss Marple, turning to Patrick.
"Oh, we're only distant cousins," said Patrick.
"I believe Elinor did send me one of you as a baby,
Pat," said Miss Blacklock. "But I'm afraid I didn't keep it. I'd
really forgotten how many children she'd had or what their names were until she
wrote me about you two being over here."
"Another sign of the times," said Miss Marple.
"Nowadays one so often doesn't know one's younger relations at all.
In the old days, with all the big family reunions, that would have been
impossible."
"I last saw Pat and Julia's mother at a wedding thirty years
ago," said Miss Blacklock. "She was a very pretty girl."
"That's why she has such handsome children," said
Patrick with a grin.
"You've got a marvellous old album," said Julia.
"Do you remember, Aunt Letty, we looked through it the other day. The
hats!"
"And how smart we thought ourselves," said Miss
Blacklock with a sigh.
"Never mind, Aunt Letty," said Patrick, "Julia will
come across a snapshot of herself in about thirty years" time - and won't
she think she looks a guy!"
"Did you do that on purpose?" said Bunch, as she
and Miss Marple were walking home. "Talk about photographs, I mean?"
"Well, my dear, it is interesting to know that Miss Blacklock
didn't know either of her two young relatives by sight ... Yes - I think
Inspector Craddock will be interested to hear that."