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Six
I
beside Miss Marple. “And how are we this morning? I see we’ve got our
curtains pulled back,” she added with a slight note of disapproval2 in her
voice.
“I wake early,” said Miss Marple. “You probably will, when you’re my
age,” she added.
“Mrs. Bantry rang up,” said Miss Knight, “about half an hour ago. She
wanted to talk to you but I said she’d better ring up again after you’d had
your breakfast. I wasn’t going to disturb you at that hour, before you’d
even had a cup of tea or anything to eat.”
“When my friends ring up,” said Miss Marple, “I prefer to be told.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sure,” said Miss Knight, “but it seemed to me very incon-
siderate. When you’ve had your nice tea and your boiled egg and your
toast and butter, we’ll see.”
“Half an hour ago,” said Miss Marple, thoughtfully, “that would have
been—let me see—eight o’clock.”
“Much too early,” reiterated3 Miss Knight.
“I don’t believe Mrs. Bantry would have rung me up then unless it was
for some particular reason,” said Miss Marple thoughtfully. “She doesn’t
usually ring up in the early morning.”
“Oh well, dear, don’t fuss your head about it,” said Miss Knight sooth-
ingly. “I expect she’ll be ringing up again very shortly. Or would you like
me to get her for you?”
“No, thank you,” said Miss Marple. “I prefer to eat my breakfast while
it’s hot.”
“Hope I haven’t forgotten anything,” said Miss Knight, cheerfully.
But nothing had been forgotten. The tea had been properly made with
boiling water, the egg had been boiled exactly three and three-quarter
minutes, the toast was evenly browned, the butter was arranged in a nice
little pat and the small jar of honey stood beside it. In many ways undeni-
ably Miss Knight was a treasure. Miss Marple ate her breakfast and en-
joyed it. Presently the whirr of a vacuum cleaner began below. Cherry had
arrived.
Competing with the whirr of the vacuum cleaner was a fresh tuneful
ing in for the breakfast tray, shook her head.
“I really wish that young woman wouldn’t go singing all over the
house,” she said. “It’s not what I call respectful.”
Miss Marple smiled a little. “It would never enter Cherry’s head that she
would have to be respectful,” she remarked. “Why should she?”
“Naturally,” said Miss Marple. “Times change. That is a thing which has
to be accepted.” She added, “Perhaps you’ll ring up Mrs. Bantry now and
find out what it was she wanted.”
door and Cherry entered. She was looking bright and excited and ex-
“Your hair looks nice,” said Miss Marple.
“Went for a perm yesterday,” said Cherry. “A bit stiff still, but it’s going
to be all right. I came up to see if you’d heard the news.”
“What news?” said Miss Marple.
“About what happened at Gossington Hall yesterday. You know there
was a big do there for the St. John Ambulance?”
Miss Marple nodded. “What happened?” she asked.
“Somebody died in the middle of it. A Mrs. Badcock. Lives round the
corner from us. I don’t suppose you’d know her.”
“Mrs. Badcock?” Miss Marple sounded alert. “But I do know her. I think
—yes, that was the name—she came out and picked me up when I fell
down the other day. She was very kind.”
“Oh, Heather Badcock’s kind all right,” said Cherry. “Overkind, some
people say. They call it interfering9. Well, anyway, she up and died. Just
like that.”
“Died! But what of?”
“Search me,” said Cherry. “She’d been taken into the house because of
her being the secretary of the St. John Ambulance, I suppose. She and the
mayor and a lot of others. As far as I heard, she had a glass of something
and about five minutes later she was took bad and died before you could
snap your fingers.”
“What a shocking occurrence,” said Miss Marple. “Did she suffer from
heart trouble?”
“Sound as a bell, so they say,” Cherry said. “Of course, you never know,
do you? I suppose you can have something wrong with your heart and
nobody knowing about it. Anyway, I can tell you this. They’ve not sent her
home.”
Miss Marple looked puzzled. “What do you mean, not sent her home?”
“The body,” said Cherry, her cheerfulness unimpaired. “The doctor said
he hadn’t attended her for anything and there was nothing to show the
cause of death. Looks funny to me,” she added.
“Now what do you mean by funny?” said Miss Marple.
“Well.” Cherry considered. “Funny. As though there was something be-
“Is her husband terribly upset?”
“Looks as white as a sheet. Never saw a man as badly hit, to look at—
that is to say.”
head slightly on one side like an inquisitive13 bird.
“He did what she told him and gave her her own way,” said Cherry, “but
that doesn’t always mean you’re devoted, does it? It may mean you
haven’t got the courage to stick up for yourself.”
“You didn’t like her?” asked Miss Marple.
“I hardly know her really,” said Cherry. “Knew her, I mean. I don’t—
didn’t—dislike her. But she’s just not my type. Too interfering.”
“No, I don’t,” said Cherry. “I don’t mean that at all. She was a very kind
woman and she was always doing things for people. And she was always
quite sure she knew the best thing to do. What they thought about it
wouldn’t have mattered. I had an aunt like that. Very fond of seed cake
herself and she used to bake seed cakes for people and take them to them,
and she never troubled to find out whether they liked seed cake or not.
There are people can’t bear it, just can’t stand the flavour of caraway.
Well, Heather Badcock was a bit like that.”
“Yes,” said Miss Marple thoughtfully, “yes, she would have been. I knew
someone a little like that. Such people,” she added, “live dangerously—
though they don’t know it themselves.”
Cherry stared at her. “That’s a funny thing to say. I don’t quite get what
you mean.”
Miss Knight bustled in. “Mrs. Bantry seems to have gone out,” she said.
“She didn’t say where she was going.”
“I can guess where she’s going,” said Miss Marple. “She’s coming here. I
shall get up now,” she added.
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