Chapter 7
Miss Marple and ‘The Case of the Caretaker’s Wife’
‘Miss Marple insinuated herself so quickly into my life that I hardly noticed her arrival.’
SOLUTIONS REVEALED
Endless Night • ‘The Sign in the Sky’ • ‘The Case of the Caretaker’s Wife’
The Miss Marple short story ‘The Case of the Caretaker’ was first published in the UK in The Strand in January 1942, followed by ‘Tape Measure Murder’ in February and ‘The Case of the Perfect Maid’ in April. These short stories can be seen as preludes to Miss Marple’s looming investigation of The Body in the Library in May 1942. Between The Thirteen Problems in 1932 and the publication, in quick succession, of these three short stories UK readers had seen the elderly detective in action only in the slight ‘Miss Marple Tells a Story’ in 1935. In the USA the Chicago Sunday Tribune published ‘The Case of the Caretaker’ in July 1942.
Apart from being a very typical Marple murder-in-a-village case – the ‘big house’, the local doctor, gossiping neighbours, the post office – this short story is important in the Christie output as it is the precursor of the last great novel that she was to write over a quarter-century later, Endless Night. The similarities are remarkable – wealthy heiress marries ne’er-do-well charmer, builds a house in the country and is menaced by a peculiar old woman. Her death, following a horse-riding ‘accident’, is shown to have been orchestrated by her husband and his lover. What distinguishes the plot in the novel is the manner of its telling, the characterisation of the main protagonists and the shock ending.
In common with many short stories, there is little Notebook material relating to ‘The Case of the Caretaker’. The first brief note below, reflecting the theme and the final poignant words of the story, appears in Notebook 60 and its accompanying page contains notes for the companion story, ‘The Case of the Perfect Maid’. The surrounding pages of this Notebook contain early notes for what would become The Moving Finger (1943) and Curtain, so a composition date of 1940/41 is confirmed.
Poor little rich girl
Old Mr Murgatroyd turned out – shakes fist etc. – really is paid by husband – accident at home – she is called in. Miss M tells Haydock what to look for
The second, slightly elaborated note below is from Notebook 62. There, the inspiration is one of a list of one-sentence short story ideas, many of which remained undeveloped. The list is followed by the detailed notes for N or M? (1941) and then a page headed ‘Books 1941’, so it is reasonable to assume that the following was also written during 1940.
A. Poison Pen
B. A Cricket story
C. Committee crime
D. Infra Red photograph
E. ‘Facing up’ story
F. District Nurse
G. Charwoman comes to Miss M.
H. Arty spinster friends
I. Poor little rich girl
J. Lady’s maid and parlour maid
K. Stamp story
L. Dangerous drugs stolen
M. Legless man
N. Extra gong at dinner
Idea A became The Moving Finger, K became ‘Strange Jest’, G and J were combined in ‘The Case of the Perfect Maid’, and I became ‘The Case of the Caretaker’. Idea N remains a mystery; both versions of this idea – ‘The Second Gong’ in 1932 and the more elaborate adaptation ‘Dead Man’s Mirror’, in 1937’s Murder in the Mews – had previously appeared by this time, as cases for Hercule Poirot. At a later date, to judge from the different pen and less sprawling handwriting, Christie begins to expand ideas I, G, C and J and then added ideas K, L, M and N. This expansion is an accurate sketch of ‘The Case of the Caretaker/Caretaker’s Wife’:
I.
Esme Harley, rich heiress, married to self serving man (politician? younger son ne’er-do-well?) unused to country life – old woman (or man) curses her when she is out riding – horse swerves. Horse shot with air gun – bolts – Esme is thrown. Clare Wright (doctor’s daughter?) comes up to her – injects digitalin? Heart gives out as she is taken home.
Or
Husband does it – the clock tower gives time. Yes, but he winds it or butler winds it (like ‘Sign in the Sky’)
As can be seen, this draft is very similar to the published version – an heiress, a ne’er-do-well son, a bolting horse and an injection – but there also differences. As frequently happens, the names change, but there is also uncertainty about the sex of the caretaker, and the doctor’s daughter is sketched in as the villain of the piece. The second possibility, the clock tower, contains an explicit reference to the Mr Quin story ‘The Sign in the Sky’; there the murderer alters the time of the clocks in his house in order to give himself an alibi. But altering the domestic clocks is far removed from changing the tower clock and thereby attempting to fool an entire population, which seems a very impractical and unconvincing idea. Wisely, Christie abandoned it.
The ‘doctor’s daughter’ as murderer idea is more complicated. In the published version it is the chemist’s wife, a former lover of the husband, who conspires with him by supplying the poison, although she does not actually administer the injection. In the Notebook at this stage the husband is not the first choice for murderer, but trying to arrange for the innocent-seeming presence of the doctor’s daughter in order for her to administer an injection is perhaps one of the reasons for her replacement with Esme’s husband.
Dr Haydock’s niece – not daughter – Clarice is one of the main characters in the story; and she also, unsuspectingly, provides a subsidiary motive for the murder. But as Dr Haydock appears throughout Miss Marple’s detective career, starting with The Murder at the Vicarage and making his final appearance in Sleeping Murder, it would hardly be fitting for her to alight on his daughter as the killer. Hence the name ‘Clare Wright’ and the question mark in the Notebook.
Both the UK and US versions of the short story are identical. But among Christie’s papers is a second, significantly different version, and this version is published here for the first time.
Why this second version should exist is open to speculation. Most Christie short stories were originally published in magazines and many of her novels appeared, prior to book publication, in newspapers and periodicals. Editors were notorious for their predilection for changing stories and cutting novel serialisations, often for reasons of space. Christie complained about this when asked to change Dumb Witness (see Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks) and a 1944 letter from her agent talks about the ‘serial version’ of Towards Zero that Christie had prepared ‘in accordance with their [Colliers Magazine] instructions’. In Chapter 4 I discuss the different versions of Three Act Tragedy, also accounted for, in all likelihood, by an editor. So the different versions of ‘The Case of the Caretaker/Caretaker’s Wife’ may well be explained away that simply. But if that is the explanation, it means that the edited version was the one also submitted to the US for its subsequent appearance; and as the newly discovered version remains the more straightforward and logical one, it would seem an odd decision.
One of the main differences between the known version (Version A) and the new version (Version B) is the method of narration. In Version A the story is told in the form of a manuscript prepared, for reasons never made clear, by Dr Haydock and given to Miss Marple to read while recovering from flu; Version B tells a similar story directly, without the device of the manuscript, and this certainly makes for a more convincing narration. But the differences are not merely in the manner of telling.
The setting of St Mary Mead is firmly established by the second sentence of Version B, but in Version A we have to wait until four pages from the end for confirmation of this, despite the fact that ‘the village’ is mentioned but unnamed on the second page. Version B features Miss Marple’s neighbours, familiar to readers from their appearances in The Murder at the Vicarage and the soon-to-be-published The Body in the Library – Mrs Price Ridley, Miss Hartnell and Miss Wetherby; Version A has the vaguely analogous Mrs Price, Miss Harmon and Miss Brent. These changes are not only completely inexplicable in themselves but it is very difficult to see how they were explained or justified to Christie and/or her agent. To confuse the issue still further, ‘Harmon’ is the name of the vicar’s wife in another Marple book, A Murder is Announced, as well as the later Marple short story ‘Sanctuary’.
Version B finds Miss Marple playing a much more central role; she talks to Mrs Murgatroyd, and Clarice and the doctor, and generally acts as the observant old lady that she is. While the circumstances of reading the doctor’s manuscript and then propounding her solution is adequate, and similar to the plan of the short stories in The Thirteen Problems, it seems cumbersome and unnecessary in view of the now-published alternative.
The title of Version B also makes more sense than its predecessor. Mrs Murgatroyd’s husband was the caretaker and he has been dead for two years in both versions; so why call the story ‘The Case of the Caretaker’? And Notebook 62, as we have seen, vacillates about this anyway. The title of version B is more logical and accurate.
In this first-ever publication, some minor errors of spelling and punctuation have been corrected.
The Case of the Caretaker’s Wife
‘And where is the bride?’ asked old Miss Hartnell genially.
The village of St Mary Mead was all agog to see the rich and beautiful young wife that Harry Laxton had brought back from abroad. There was a general indulgent feeling that Harry, wicked young scapegrace, had all the luck! Everyone had always felt indulgent towards Harry. Even the owners of windows that had suffered from his indiscriminate use of a catapult had found their just indignation dissipated by young Harry’s abject expressions of regret. He had broken windows, robbed orchards, poached rabbits, and later ran into debt, got entangled with the local tobacconist’s daughter, been disentangled, and sent off to Africa – and the village as represented by various ageing spinsters had murmured indulgently:
‘Ah well. Wild oats! He’ll settle down.’
And now, sure enough, the prodigal had returned – not in affliction, but in triumph. Harry Laxton had ‘made good’ as the saying goes. He had pulled himself together, worked hard, and had finally met and successfully wooed a young Anglo-French girl who was the possessor of a considerable fortune.
Harry might have lived in London, or purchased an estate in some fashionable hunting county – but at least he was a faithful soul. He came back to the part of the world that was home to him. And there, in the most romantic way, he purchased the derelict estate in the Dower House of which he had passed his childhood.
Kingsdean House had been unoccupied for nearly seventy years. No repairs were ever done to it and it had gradually fallen into decay and abandon. It was a vast unprepossessing grandiose mansion, the gardens overgrown with rank vegetation, and as the trees grew up higher around it, it seemed more and more like some gloomy enchanter’s den. An elderly caretaker and his wife lived in the habitable corner of it.
The Dower House was a pleasant unpretentious house and had been let for a long term of years to Major Laxton, Harry’s father. As a boy, Harry had roamed over the Kingsdean estate and knew every inch of the tangled woods, and the old house itself had always fascinated him.
Major Laxton had died some years ago, so it might be thought that Harry would have had no ties to bring him back. But on his marriage, it was to St Mary Mead that he brought his bride. The ruined old Kingsdean House was pulled down. An army of builders and contractors swooped down upon the place and in an almost miraculously short space of time, (so marvellously does wealth tell!) the new house rose white and gleaming amongst the trees.
Next came a posse of gardeners and after them a procession of furniture vans. The house was ready. Servants arrived. Lastly a Rolls Royce deposited Harry and Mrs Harry at the front door.
St Mary Mead rushed to call, and Mrs Price Ridley who owned the large house near the Vicarage and who considered herself to lead society in the place sent out cards of invitation for a party to ‘meet the bride.’
It was a great event in St Mary Mead. Several ladies had new frocks for the occasion. Everyone was excited, curious, anxious to see this fabulous creature. It was all so like a fairy story.
A page of the typescript of ‘The Case of the Caretaker’s Wife’ with Christie’s handwritten amendments. As can be seen, sometimes a typewritten page can be as illegible as a handwritten one!
Miss Hartnell, weather beaten hearty spinster, threw out her question as she squeezed her way through the crowded drawing room door. Miss Wetherby, a thin acidulated spinster, fluttered out information.
‘Oh my dear, quitecharming. Such pretty manners. And quite young. Really, you know, it makes one feel quite enviousto see someone who has everythinglike that. Good looks and money, and breeding – (mostdistinguished, nothing in the least commonabout her) and dear Harry sodevoted.’
‘Ah,’ said Miss Hartnell, ‘It’s early days yet.’
Miss Wetherby’s thin nose quivered appreciatively.
‘Oh my dear, do you really think—?’
‘We all know what Harry is,’ said Miss Hartnell.
‘We know what he was. But I expect now—’
‘Ah,’ said Miss Hartnell. ‘Men are always the same. Once a gay deceiver, always a gay deceiver. Iknow them.’
‘Dear, dear. Poor young things!’ Miss Wetherby looked much happier. ‘Yes, I expect she’ll have trouble with him. Someone ought really to warnher. I wonder if she’s heard anything of the old story?’
The eyes of the two ladies met significantly.
‘It seems so very unfair,’ said Miss Wetherby, ‘that she should know nothing. So awkward. Especially with only the one chemist’s shop in the village.’
For the erstwhile tobacconist’s daughter was now married to Mr Edge, the chemist.
‘It would be so much nicer,’ said Miss Wetherby, ‘if Mrs Laxton were to deal with Boots in Much Benham.’
‘I daresay,’ said Miss Hartnell, ‘that Harry Laxton will suggest that himself.’
Again a significant look passed between them.
‘But I certainly think,’ said Miss Hartnell, ‘that she ought to know.’
ii
‘Beasts!’ said Clarice Vane to old Miss Marple. ‘Absolute beasts some people are!’
Miss Marple looked at her curiously.
Clarice Vane had recently come to live with her Uncle, Dr Haydock. She was a tall dark girl, handsome, warm hearted and impulsive. Her big brown eyes were alight now with indignation.
She said:
‘All these cats– sayingthings – hintingthings!’
Miss Marple asked:
‘About Harry Laxton?’
‘Yes, about his old affair with the tobacconist’s daughter.’
‘Oh that!’ Miss Marple was indulgent. ‘A great many young men have affairs of that kind, I imagine.’
‘Of course they do. And it’s all over. So why harp on and bring it up years after? It’s like ghouls feasting on dead bodies.’
‘I daresay, my dear, it does seem like that to you. You are young, of course, and intolerant, but you see we have very little to talk about down here and so, I’m afraid, we do tend to dwell on the past. But I’m curious to know why it upsets you so much?’
Clarice Vane bit her lip and flushed. She said in a curious muffled voice: ‘They look so happy. The Laxtons, I mean. They’re young, and in love, and it’s all lovely for them – I hate to think of it being spoilt – by whispers and hints and innuendoes and general beastliness!’
Miss Marple looked at her and said: ‘I see.’
Clarice went on:
‘He was talking to me just now – he’s so happy and eager and excited and – yes, thrilled– at having got his heart’s desire and rebuilt Kingsdean. He’s like a child about it all. And she – well, I don’t suppose anything has ever gone wrong in her whole life – she’s always had everything. You’ve seen her, don’t you think—’
Miss Marple interrupted. She said:
‘As a matter of fact I haven’t seen her yet. I’ve only just arrived. So tiresome. I was delayed by the District Nurse. Her feelings, you know, have been hurt by what—’
But Clarice was unable to take an interest in the village drama which Miss Marple was embarking upon with so much zest. With a muttered apology she left.
Miss Marple pressed onwards, full of the same curiosity that had animated everyone in St Mary Mead, to see what the bride was like.
She hardly knew what she expected, but it was not what she saw. For other people Louise Laxton might be an object of envy, a spoilt darling of fortune, but to the shrewd old lady who had seen so much of human nature in her village there came the refrain of a popular song heard many years ago.
‘Poor little rich girl. . .’
A small delicate figure, with flaxen hair curled rather stiffly round her face and big wistful blue eyes, Louise was drooping a little. The long stream of congratulations had tired her. She was hoping it might soon be time to go . . . Perhaps, even now, Harry might say—? She looked at him sideways. So tall and broad shouldered with his eager pleasure in this horrible dull party.
Oh dear, here was another of them! A tall grey haired fussily dressed old lady bleating like all the rest.
‘This is Miss Marple, Louise.’
She didn’t understand the look in the old lady’s eyes. She would have been quite astonished if she had known what it was:
‘Poor little rich girl. . .’
iii
‘Ooph!’ It was a sigh of relief.
Harry turned to look at his wife amusedly. They were driving away from the party. She said:
‘Darling, what a frightful party!’
Harry laughed.
‘Yes, pretty terrible. Never mind, my sweet. It had to be done, you know. All these old pussies knew me when I lived here as a boy. They’d have been terribly disappointed not to have got a good look at you close up.’
Louise made a grimace. She said:
‘Shall we have to see a lot of them?’
‘What? Oh no – they’ll come and make ceremonious calls with cardcases and you’ll return the calls and then you needn’t bother any more. You can have your own friends down or whatever you like.’
Louise said after a minute or two:
‘Isn’t there anyone amusingliving down here?’
‘Oh yes. There’s the country set, you know. Though you may find them a bit dull too. Mostly interested in bulbs and dogs and horses. You’ll ride, of course. You’ll enjoy that. There’s a horse over at Eglinton I’d like you to see. A beautiful animal perfectly trained, no vice in him, but plenty of spirit.’
The car slowed down to take the turn into the gates of Kingsmead. Harry wrenched the wheel and swore as a grotesque figure sprang up in the middle of the road and he only just managed to avoid it. It stood there, shaking a fist and shouting after them.
Louise clutched his arm.
‘Who’s that – that horrible old woman?’
Harry’s brow was black.
‘That’s old Murgatroyd – she and her husband were caretakers in the old house – they were there for thirty years.’
‘Why did she shake her fist at you?’
Harry’s face got red.
‘She – well, she resented the house being pulled down. And she got the sack, of course. Her husband’s been dead two years. They say she got a bit queer after he died.’
‘Is she – she isn’t – starving?’
Louise’s ideas were vague and somewhat melodramatic. Riches prevented you coming into contact with reality.
Harry was outraged.
‘Good Lord, Louise, what an idea! I pensioned her off, of course – and handsomely, too. Found her a new cottage and everything.’
Louise asked bewildered:
‘Then whydoes she mind?’
Harry was frowning, his brows drawn together.
‘Oh how should I know? Craziness! She loved the house.’
‘But it was a ruin, wasn’t it?’
‘Of course it was – crumbling to pieces, roof leaking, more or less unsafe. All the same I suppose it – meantsomething to her. She’d been there a long time. Oh! I don’t know! The old devil’s cracked I think.’
Louise said uneasily:
‘She – I think she cursed us . . . Oh Harry, I wish she hadn’t.’
iv
It seemed to Louise that her new home was tainted and poisoned by the malevolent figure of one old crazy woman. When she went out in the car, when she rode, when she walked out with the dogs there was always the same figure waiting. Crouched down on herself, a battered hat over wisps of iron grey hair, and the slow muttering of imprecations.
Louise came to believe that Harry was right, the old woman wasmad. Nevertheless that did not make things easier. Mrs Murgatroyd never actually came to the house, nor did she use definite threats, nor offer violence.
Her squatting figure remained always just outside the gates. To appeal to the police would have been useless and in any case Harry Laxton was averse to that course of action. It would, he said, arouse local sympathy for the old brute. He took the matter more easily than Louise did.
‘Don’t worry yourself about it, darling. She’ll get tired of this silly cursing business. Probably she’s only trying it on.’
‘She isn’t, Harry. She – she hatesus! I can feelit. She – she’s ill wishing us.’
‘She’s not a witch, darling, although she may look like one! Don’t be morbid about it all.’
Louise was silent. Now that the first excitement of settling in was over, she felt curiously lonely and at a loose end. She had been used to life in London and the Riviera. She had no knowledge of, or taste for, English country life. She was ignorant of gardening, except for the final act of ‘doing the flowers.’ She did not really care for dogs. She was bored by such neighbours as she met. She enjoyed riding best. Sometimes with Harry, sometimes, when he was busy about the estate, by herself, she hacked through the woods and lanes, enjoying the easy paces of the beautiful horse Harry had bought for her.
Yet even Prince Hal, most sensitive of chestnut steeds, was wont to shy and snort as he carried his mistress past that huddled figure of a malevolent old woman . . .
One day Louise took her courage in both hands. She was out walking. She had passed Mrs Murgatroyd, pretending not to notice her, but suddenly she swerved back and went right up to her. She said a little breathlessly,
‘What is it? What’s the matter? What do you want?’
The old woman blinked at her. She had a cunning dark gypsy face, with wisps of iron grey hair, and bleared suspicious eyes. Louise wondered if she drank.
She spoke in a whining and yet threatening voice.
‘What do I want, you ask? What indeed? That which has been took away from me. Who turned me out of Kingsdean House? I’d lived there girl and woman for near on forty years. It was a black deed to turn me out and it’s black bad luck it’ll bring to you and him.’
Louise said:
‘You’ve got a very nice cottage and—’ she broke off.
The old woman’s arms flew up. She screamed!
‘What’s the good of that to me? It’s my own place I want, and my own fire as I sat beside all them years. And as for you and him I’m telling you there will be no happiness for you in your new fine house! It’s the black sorrow will be upon you – sorrow and death and my curse! May your fair face rot . . .’
Louise turned away and broke into a little stumbling run.
She thought:
‘I must get away from here. We must sell the house. We must go away . . .’
At the moment such a solution seemed easy to her. But Harry’s utter incomprehension took her aback. He exclaimed:
‘Leave here? Sell the house? Because of a crazy old woman’s threats? You must be mad!’
‘No, I’m not. But she – she frightens me . . . I know something will happen.’
v
A friendship had sprung up between Clarice Vane and young Mrs Laxton. The two girls were much of an age, though dissimilar both in character and in tastes. In Clarice’s company Louise found reassurance. Clarice was so self reliant, so sure of herself. Louise mentioned the matter of Mrs Murgatroyd and her threats but Clarice seemed to regard the matter as more annoying than frightening.
‘It’s so stupid, that sort of thing,’ she said. ‘But really very annoying for you!’
‘You know, Clarice, I – I feel quite frightened sometimes. My heart gives the most awful jumps.’
‘Nonsense, you mustn’t let a silly thing like that get you down. She’ll soon get tired of it.’
‘You think so?’
‘I expect so. Anyway don’t let her see you’re frightened.’
‘No. No, I won’t.’
She was silent for a minute or two. Clarice said:
‘What’s the matter?’
Louise paused for a moment, then her answer came with a rush.
‘I hate this place! I hate being here! The woods, and this house, and the awful silence at night, and the queer noise owls make. Oh and the peopleand everything!’
‘The people? What people?’
‘The people in the village. Those prying gossiping old maids.’
Clarice said sharply:
‘What have they been saying?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing particular. But they’ve got nasty minds . . . when you’ve talked to them you feel you wouldn’t trust anybody . . . not anybodyat all!’
Clarice said:
‘Forget them. They’ve nothing to do but gossip. And most of the muck they talk they just invent.’
Louise said:
‘I wish we’d never come here . . . but Harry adores it so – Harry.’
Her voice softened. Clarice thought, ‘How she adores him!’
She said abruptly:
‘I must go now.’
‘I’ll send you back in the car. Come again soon.’
Clarice nodded. Louise felt comforted by her new friend’s visit. Harry was pleased to find her more cheerful and from then on urged her to have Clarice often to the house.
Then one day he said:
‘Good news for you, darling.’
‘Oh, what?’
‘I’ve fixed the Murgatroyd! She’s got a son in America, you know. Well, I’ve arranged for her to go out and join him. I’ll pay her passage.’
‘Oh Harry, how wonderful! I believe I might get to like Kingsdean after all.’
‘Getto like it? Why, it’s the most wonderful place in the world!’
‘To youdarling, not to me!’
‘You wait!’ said Harry confidently.
Louise gave a little shiver. She could not rid herself of her superstitious fears so easily.
vi
If the ladies of St Mary Mead had hoped for the pleasure of imparting information about her husband’s past into the ears of the bride, they were disappointed by Harry Laxton’s own prompt action.
Miss Hartnell and Clarice Vane were both in Mr Edge’s shop, the one buying mothballs and the other a packet of indigestion lozenges, when Harry Laxton and his wife came in.
After greeting the two ladies, Harry turned to the counter and was just demanding a toothbrush when he stopped in mid speech and exclaimed heartily:
‘Well, well, just see who’s here! Bella, I do declare!’
Mrs Edge, who had hurried out from the back parlour to attend to the congestion of ladies, beamed back cheerfully at him showing her big white teeth. She had been a dark handsome girl and was still a reasonably handsome woman, though she had put on weight and the lines on her face had coarsened, but her large brown eyes were full of warmth as she replied:
‘Bella it is, Mr Harry, and pleased to see you after all these years.’
Harry turned to his wife.
‘Bella’s an old flame of mine, Louise,’ he said. ‘Head over ears in love with her, wasn’t I, Bella?’
‘That’s what yousay,’ said Mrs Edge.
Louise laughed. She said:
‘My husband’s very happy seeing all his old friends again.’
‘Ah,’ said Mrs Edge, ‘wehaven’t forgotten you, Mr Harry. Seems like a fairy tale to think of you married and building up a new house instead of that ruined old Kingsdean House.’
‘You look very well and blooming,’ Harry said, and Mrs Edge laughed and said there was nothing wrong with her and what about that toothbrush?
Clarice, watching the baffled look on Miss Hartnell’s face, said to herself exultantly:
‘Oh well done, Harry! You’ve spiked their guns!’
Indeed, though Miss Hartnell did her best, with mysterious hints of having seen Harry Laxton and Mrs Edge talking together on the outskirts of the village, to revive a bygone scandal, she met with no success, and had to fall back upon vague hints as to the general depravity of men.
vii
It was Dr Haydock who said abruptly to Miss Marple:
‘What’s all this Clarice tells me about old Mrs Murgatroyd?’
‘Mrs Murgatroyd?’
‘Yes. Hanging about Kingsdean and shaking her fist and cursing the new regime.’
Miss Marple looked astonished.
‘How extraordinary. Of course Murgatroyd and his wife were always a queer couple, but I always thought the woman was devoted to Harry – and he’s found her such a nice new cottage and everything.’
‘Just so,’ said the doctor drily. ‘And by way of gratitude she goes up and makes a nuisance of herself and frightens his wife to death.’
‘Dear dear,’ said Miss Marple. ‘How peculiar. I must have a word with her.’
Mrs Murgatroyd was at home this afternoon and was smoking a pipe. She received Miss Marple without undue deference.
‘I thought,’ said Miss Marple reproachfully, ‘that you were fond of Mr Laxton.’
Mrs Murgatroyd said:
‘And who told you that?’
‘You used to be when he was a boy.’
‘That’s a long time since. He hadn’t pulled down house then.’
‘Do you mean you’d rather be living there in that lonely ruined place than here in this nice cottage?’
‘What I feel’s my own business.’
‘Do you mean that it’s really true that you go up there and frighten young Mrs Laxton with curses?’
A strange film came over the dirty old woman’s eyes. She said, and there was dignity and menace in her voice:
‘I know how to curse, I do. I can do it proper. You’ll see.’
Miss Marple said:
‘What you are doing is cruel and uncivilised and – and I don’t understand it. What harm has Harry Laxton ever done you?’
‘That’s for me to say.’ She leaned forward nodding her head triumphantly. ‘I can hold my tongue, I can. You won’t get anything out of me.’
Miss Marple came away looking puzzled and worried. She met the doctor just outside his own gate.
He said, ‘Well?’
‘Oh dear, I am very much upset. There is – I am convinced there is – something very dangerous going on. Something that I don’t understand.’
‘Get anything out of the old woman?’
‘Nothing at all. She – I can’t understand her.’
Haydock said thoughtfully:
‘She’s not crazy, you know. She’s got someidea at the back of her mind. However, I’m glad to say Laxton is shipping her off to America next week.’
‘She’s consented to go?’
‘Oh yes, jumped at it. I wondered – well, she’s an artful old devil. I wondered if she had been playing for just this to happen? What do youthink?’
Miss Marple said, ‘I don’t know what to think. But I wish – I wish she were gone . . .’
The next morning Louise Laxton was thrown from her horse and killed.
viii
Two men in a baker’s van had witnessed the accident. They saw Louise come out of the big gate, saw the old woman spring up and stand in the way waving her arms and shouting, saw the horse start, swerve and then bolt madly down the road throwing Louise Laxton over his head . . .
One of them stood over the unconscious figure, not knowing what to do next, while the other rushed to the house to get help. Harry Laxton came running out, his face ghastly. They took off a door of the van and carried her on it to the house. But when the doctor arrived she had died without regaining consciousness.
The author of the catastrophe had slunk away. Frightened, perhaps, at what she had done, she slipped into her cottage and packed her belongings and left. She went straight off to Liverpool.
‘And the law can’t touch her,’ said Haydock bitterly.
He was speaking to Miss Marple who had paid him an unexpected visit.
He went on, his tone reflecting the deep anger and discouragement of his mood.
‘You couldn’t make out a case against her. A clever counsel would tear her to pieces. She didn’t even threaten. She never touched the horse. It’s a case of malevolent will power, that’s all. She terrified that poor child, and she scared the horse and he bolted with her. It’s an accident– that’s all. But in my opinion, Louise Laxton was murdered as truly as I stand here talking to you.’
Miss Marple nodded her head.
‘I agree with you.’
‘And that half witted malevolent old crone commits murder and gets away with it! And all for no reason as far as I can see . . .’
Miss Marple was twisting her fingers nervously.
She said:
‘You know, Dr Haydock, I don’t think she did murder her.’
‘Not legally, perhaps.’
‘Not at all.’
Haydock stared.
‘But you just said—’
‘You see, we are talking at cross purposes. I do think Louise was murdered – but not by the person you think.’
Haydock stared. He said:
‘My dear old friend, are you mad, or am I?’
‘Oh I know it may sound quiteridiculous to you, and of course it is entirely an ideaon my part, only, if it isso, it is most important that the truth should come out, because one doesn’t want to see another young life ruined and it might be – in fact, it probably would be. Oh dear, how incoherent I sound, and it is necessary, I know, to be calm and businesslikein order to convince you.’
Haydock looked at her attentively. He said:
‘Tell it your own way.’
‘Oh, thankyou. Well, you see, there are certain facts that seem so at variance with the whole thing. To begin with – Mrs Murgatroyd always hated Kingsdean House – they only stayed there because Murgatroyd drank and couldn’t keep any other job. So you see it seems very unlikely that she’d feel leaving so keenly. Which means, of course, that somebody paidher to act that way she’s done . . . putting on an act, they call it nowadays.’
Haydock drew a deep breath.
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘Poor little rich girl,’ said Miss Marple unexpectedly. ‘Gentlemen, so I have noticed, are nearly always attracted by the same type. Not always in the same class of life, of course, but there’s usually physical resemblance. Bella Edge, for instance, was a tall dark handsome girl with white teeth and a lot of spirit. Rather like your niece Clarice. That’s why when I saw Louise I was quite sure that Harry wasn’t the least bit in love with her. He married for money. And after that he planned to get rid of her.’
Haydock said incredulously:
‘You think he paid that old woman to come and curse in order to scare his wife and finally induce her horse to run away with her. My dear woman, that’s a tall order!’
‘Oh yes, yes, put like that. Did she die of the fall?’
‘She had a fractured arm and concussion, but she actually died of the shock.’
‘You’ve not done an autopsy, have you? And has anyone examined the horse?’
‘What’s the idea?’
Miss Marple said:
‘I’m suggesting, absurd or not, that it wasn’t Mrs Murgatroyd who caused the horse to bolt. That was only the apparentcause – for the onlookers. Harry was always very good with a catapult. A stone may have struck the horse just as it came through the gate. Then it bolted and threw Louise. The fall might have killed her but when Harry came out she was still alive. I think that then, before you got there, he may have injected something to make certain.’
Haydock said: ‘You terrifying woman!36I suppose you’ll tell me what he injected next?’
‘Oh, really I have not the least idea. Probably some very swift heart poison.’
‘Such things aren’t easy to get hold of.’
Miss Marple said sharply:
‘Bella Edge could have got it for him.’
‘Well – er yes – perhaps, but why should shedo such a thing?’
‘Because, poor woman, she’s always been crazy about Harry Laxton. Because I’ve no doubt he’s been playing her up and telling her after Louise was dead he’d take her away from her husband and marry her.’
‘Marry Bella Edge!’
‘He wouldn’t, of course! But afterwards she couldn’t give him away. She’d be too afraid for herself. Actually Harry plans to marry your niece Clarice. She’s no idea. He fell in love with her at that party. That’s why you’ve got to do something if you can. She’s in love with him and you don’t want her married to a murderer.’
‘Not if Ican help it,’ said Haydock grimly.
Satisfied, Miss Marple went out into the clear sunshine of the morning.
She said under her breath:
‘Poor little rich girl . . .’
THE END
Two interesting amendments that appear in the original typescript merit mention. The first time the name Clarice appears, in section ii, it has been inserted in handwriting and the following has been deleted: ‘Griselda Clement, the young and pretty wife of the vicar . . .’ This is the only appearance in the typescript of Griselda and by the top of the next page, and thereafter, ‘Clarice’ has been typed. Possibly as she wrote Christie decided to make Clarice part of the motive, something that she could not have done with happily married mother Griselda, whom her readers knew from The Murder at the Vicarage. The second change was to the scene in the chemist’s shop (section vi), when Bella and Harry’s conversation is witnessed by Clarice and Miss Harmon/Hartnell. Here again, ‘Clarice’ is inserted in handwriting and ‘Miss Marple’ is deleted. And the closing paragraph of this section, here reinstated, is omitted in Version A, to the detriment of the plot; the information given here is an indication of collusion between Harry and Bella.
Version A has the totally incredible account, given by Dr Haydock in the closing scene, in which Harry, the newly widowed murderer, drops a hypodermic syringe out of his trouser pocket. No murderer, regardless of circumstance, would resort to this potentially hazardous, not to mention probably painful, method of concealment. I cannot believe that Agatha Christie ever envisioned such a scene; this must be the invention of a (poor) magazine editor.
Despite her last-minute substitution and insertion in the two instances mentioned above, Clarice plays a more pivotal role in Version B. Although in both versions she provides part of the motive, it is more unequivocal and less covert in Version B than in the earlier version, where her interest in Harry is peripheral.
Overall, this newly discovered version is longer, more convincing and more coherent than its predecessor. The awkward, not to mention unmotivated, manuscript ploy is replaced by a more straightforward narration in which Miss Marple takes centre stage – where she belongs.