Miss Marple had stalked out before Inspector Slack had recovered.
'Whew!' he muttered. 'I wonder if she's right.'
He soon found out that Miss Marple was right again. Colonel Melchett congratulated Slack on his efficiency, and Miss Marple had Gladys come to tea with Edna and spoke to her seriously on settling down in a good situation when she got one.
The Case of the Caretaker
'Well,' demanded Doctor Haydock of his patient. 'And how goes it today?'
Miss Marple smiled at him wanly from pillows.
'I suppose, really, that I'm better,' she admitted, 'but I feel so terribly depressed. I can't help feeling how much better it would have been if I had died. After all, I'm an old woman. Nobody wants me or cares about me.'
Doctor Haydock interrupted with his usual brusqueness. 'Yes, yes, typical after-reaction of this type of flu. What you need is something to take you out of yourself. A mental tonic.'
Miss Marple sighed and shook her head.
'And what's more,' continued Doctor Haydock, 'I've brought my medicine with me!'
He tossed a long envelope on to the bed.
'Just the thing for you. The kind of puzzle that is right up your street.'
'A puzzle?' Miss Marple looked interested.
'Literary effort of mine,' said the doctor, blushing a little. 'Tried to make a regular story of it. "He said," "she said," "the girl thought," etc. Facts of the story are true.'
'But why a puzzle?' asked Miss Marple.
Doctor Haydock grinned. 'Because the interpretation is up to you. I want to see if you're as clever as you always make out.' With that Parthian shot he departed.
Miss Marple picked up the manuscript and began to read.
'And where is the bride?' asked Miss Harmon genially.
The village 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 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 indignation dissipated by young Harry's abject expression of regret. He had broken windows, robbed orchards, poached rabbits, and later had run 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 he preferred to come back to the pan 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. It had gradually fallen into decay and abandon. An elderly caretaker and his wife lived in the one habitable corner of it. It was a vast, unprepossessing grandiose mansion, the gardens overgrown with rank vegetation and the trees hemming it in like some gloomy enchanter's den.
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 have been thought that Harry would have had no ties to bring him back - nevertheless it was to the home of his boyhood that Harry brought his bride. The ruined old Kingsdean House was pulled down. An army of builders and contractors swooped down upon the place, and in almost a miraculously short space of time - so marvellously does wealth tell - the new house rose white and gleaming among the trees.
Next came a posse of gardeners and after them a procession of furniture vans.
The house was ready. Servants arrived. Lastly, a costly limousine deposited Harry and Mrs Harry at the front door.
The village rushed to call, and Mrs Price, who owned the largest house, 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. Several ladies had new frocks for the occasion. Everyone was excited, curious, anxious to see this fabulous creature. They said it was all so like a fairy story!
Miss Harmon, weather-beaten, hearty spinster, threw out her question as she squeezed her way through the crowded drawing-room door. Little Miss Brent, a thin, acidulated spinster, fluttered out information.
'Oh, my dear, quite charming. Such pretty manners And quite young. Really, you know, it makes one feel quite envious to see someone who has everything like that. Good looks and money and breeding - most distinguished, nothing in the least common about her - and dear Harry so devoted!'
'Ah,' said Miss Hannon, 'it's early days yet!'
Miss Brent's thin nose quivered appreciatively. '0h, my dear, do you really think -'
'We all know what Harry is,' said Miss Harmon.
'We know what he was! But I expect now -'
'Ah,' said Miss Harmon, 'men are always the same. Once a gay deceiver, always a gay deceiver. I know them.'
'Dear, dear. Poor young thing.' Miss Brent looked much happier. 'Yes, I expect she'll have trouble with him. Someone ought really to warn her. I wonder if she's heard anything of the old story?
'It seems so very unfair,' said Miss Brent, '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 Brent, 'if Mrs Laxton were to deal with Boots in Much Benham.'
'I dare say,' said Miss Hannon, 'that Harry Laxton will suggest that himself.'
And again a significant look passed between them.
'But I certainly think,' said Miss Harmon, 'that she ought to know.'
'Beasts!' said Clarice Vane indignantly to her uncle, Doctor Haydock. 'Absolute beasts some people are.'
He looked at her curiously.
She was a tall, dark girl, handsome, warm-hearted and impulsive. Her big brown eyes were alight now with indignation as she said, 'All these cats - saying things - hinting things.'
'About Harry Laxton?'
'Yes, about his affair with the tobacconist's daughter.'
'Oh, that!' The doctor shrugged his shoulders. 'A great many young men have affairs of that kind.'
'Of course they do. And it's all over. So why harp on it? And bring it up years after? It's like ghouls feasting on dead bodies.'
'I dare say, my dear, it does seem like that to you. But you see, they have very little to talk about down here, and so I'm afraid they do tend to dwell upon past scandals. But I'm curious to know why it upsets you so much?'
Clarice Vane bit her lip and flushed. She said, in a curiously muffled voice. 'They - they look so happy. The Laxtons, I mean. They're young and in love, and it's all so lovely for them. I hate to think of it being spoiled by whispers and hints and innuendoes and general beastliness.'