Twenty

MISS MARPLE IS MISSING

I
The postman, rather to his disgust, had lately been given orders to makean afternoon delivery of letters in Chipping Cleghorn as well as a morningone.

On this particular afternoon he left three letters at Little Paddocks at ex-actly ten minutes to five.

One was addressed to Phillipa Haymes in a schoolboy’s hand; the othertwo were for Miss Blacklock. She opened them as she and Phillipa satdown at the tea table. The torrential rain had enabled Phillipa to leaveDayas Hall early today, since once she had shut up the greenhouses therewas nothing more to do.

Miss Blacklock tore open her first letter which was a bill for repairing akitchen boiler. She snorted angrily.

“Dymond’s prices are preposterous—quite preposterous. Still, I supposeall the other people are just as bad.”

She opened the second letter which was in a handwriting quite un-known to her.

Dear Cousin Letty (it said),

I hope it will be all right for me to come to you on Tuesday?

I wrote to Patrick two days ago but he hasn’t answered. SoI presume it’s all right. Mother is coming to England nextmonth and hopes to see you then.

My train arrives at Chipping Cleghorn at 6:15 if that’sconvenient?

Yours affectionately,

Julia Simmons.

Miss Blacklock read the letter once with astonishment pure and simple,and then again with a certain grimness. She looked up at Phillipa who wassmiling over her son’s letter.

“Are Julia and Patrick back, do you know?”

Phillipa looked up.

“Yes, they came in just after I did. They went upstairs to change. Theywere wet.”

“Perhaps you’d not mind going and calling them.”

“Of course I will.”

“Wait a moment—I’d like you to read this.”

She handed Phillipa the letter she had received.

Phillipa read it and frowned. “I don’t understand….”

“Nor do I, quite … I think it’s about time I did. Call Patrick and Julia, Phil-lipa.”

Phillipa called from the bottom of the stairs:

“Patrick! Julia! Miss Blacklock wants you.”

Patrick came running down the stairs and entered the room.

“Don’t go, Phillipa,” said Miss Blacklock.

“Hallo, Aunt Letty,” said Patrick cheerfully. “Want me?”

“Yes, I do. Perhaps you’ll give me an explanation of this?”

Patrick’s face showed an almost comical dismay as he read.

“I meant to telegraph her! What an ass I am!”

“This letter, I presume, is from your sister Julia?”

“Yes—yes, it is.”

Miss Blacklock said grimly:

“Then who, may I ask, is the young woman whom you brought here as JuliaSimmons, and whom I was given to understand was your sister and mycousin?”

“Well—you see—Aunt Letty—the fact of the matter is—I can explain itall—I know I oughtn’t to have done it—but it really seemed more of a larkthan anything else. If you’ll just let me explain—”

“I am waiting for you to explain. Who is this young woman?”

“Well, I met her at a cocktail party soon after I got demobbed. We gottalking and I said I was coming here and then—well, we thought it mightbe rather a good wheeze if I brought her along … You see, Julia, the real Ju-lia, was mad to go on the stage and Mother had seven fits at the idea—however, Julia got a chance to join a jolly good repertory company up inPerth or somewhere and she thought she’d give it a try—but she thoughtshe’d keep Mum calm by letting Mum think that she was here with mestudying to be a dispenser like a good little girl.”

“I still want to know who this other young woman is.”

Patrick turned with relief as Julia, cool and aloof, came into the room.

“The balloon’s gone up,” he said.

Julia raised her eyebrows. Then, still cool, she came forward and satdown.

“O.K.,” she said. “That’s that. I suppose you’re very angry?” She studiedMiss Blacklock’s face with almost dispassionate interest. “I should be if Iwere you.”

“Who are you?”

Julia sighed.

“I think the moment’s come when I make a clean breast of things. Herewe go. I’m one half of the Pip and Emma combination. To be exact, mychristened name is Emma Jocelyn Stamfordis—only Father soon droppedthe Stamfordis. I think he called himself De Courcy next.

“My father and mother, let me tell you, split up about three years afterPip and I were born. Each of them went their own way. And they split usup. I was Father’s part of the loot. He was a bad parent on the whole,though quite a charming one. I had various desert spells of being educatedin convents—when Father hadn’t any money, or was preparing to engagein some particularly nefarious deal. He used to pay the first term withevery sign of affluence and then depart and leave me on the nuns’ handsfor a year or two. In the intervals, he and I had some very good times to-gether, moving in cosmopolitan society. However, the war separated uscompletely. I’ve no idea of what’s happened to him. I had a few adven-tures myself. I was with the French Resistance for a time. Quite exciting.

To cut a long story short, I landed up in London and began to think aboutmy future. I knew that Mother’s brother with whom she’d had a frightfulrow had died a very rich man. I looked up his will to see if there was any-thing for me. There wasn’t—not directly, that is to say. I made a few in-quiries about his widow—it seemed she was quite ga-ga and kept underdrugs and was dying by inches. Frankly, it looked as though you were mybest bet. You were going to come into a hell of a lot of money and from allI could find out, you didn’t seem to have anyone much to spend it on. I’llbe quite frank. It occurred to me that if I could get to know you in afriendly kind of way, and if you took a fancy to me—well, after all, condi-tions have changed a bit, haven’t they, since Uncle Randall died? I meanany money we ever had has been swept away in the cataclysm of Europe.

I thought you might pity a poor orphan girl, all alone in the world, andmake her, perhaps, a small allowance.”

“Oh, you did, did you?” said Miss Blacklock grimly.

“Yes. Of course, I hadn’t seen you then … I visualized a kind of sob stuffapproach … Then, by a marvellous stroke of luck, I met Patrick here—andhe turned out to be your nephew or your cousin, or something. Well, thatstruck me as a marvellous chance. I went bullheaded for Patrick and hefell for me in a most gratifying way. The real Julia was all wet about thisacting stuff and I soon persuaded her it was her duty to Art to go and fixherself up in some uncomfortable lodgings in Perth and train to be thenew Sarah Bernhardt.

“You mustn’t blame Patrick too much. He felt awfully sorry for me, allalone in the world—and he soon thought it would be a really marvellousidea for me to come here as his sister and do my stuff.”

“And he also approved of your continuing to tell a tissue of lies to the po-lice?”

“Have a heart, Letty. Don’t you see that when that ridiculous hold-upbusiness happened—or rather after it happened—I began to feel I was in abit of a spot. Let’s face it, I’ve got a perfectly good motive for putting youout of the way. You’ve only got my word for it now that I wasn’t the onewho tried to do it. You can’t expect me deliberately to go and incriminatemyself. Even Patrick got nasty ideas about me from time to time, and ifeven he could think things like that, what on earth would the police think?

That Detective-Inspector struck me as a man of singularly sceptical mind.

No, I figured out the only thing for me to do was to sit tight as Julia andjust fade away when term came to an end.

“How was I to know that fool Julia, the real Julia, would go and have arow with the producer, and fling the whole thing up in a fit of tempera-ment? She writes to Patrick and asks if she can come here, and instead ofwiring her ‘Keep away’ he goes and forgets to do anything at all!” She castan angry glance at Patrick. “Of all the utter idiots!”

She sighed.

“You don’t know the straits I’ve been put to in Milchester! Of course, Ihaven’t been to the hospital at all. But I had to go somewhere. Hours andhours I’ve spent in the pictures seeing the most frightful films over andover again.”

“Pip and Emma,” murmured Miss Blacklock. “I never believed, some-how, in spite of what the Inspector said, that they were real—”

She looked searchingly at Julia.

“You’re Emma,” she said. “Where’s Pip?”

Julia’s eyes, limpid and innocent, met hers.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t the least idea.”

“I think you’re lying, Julia. When did you see him last?”

Was there a momentary hesitation before Julia spoke?

She said clearly and deliberately:

“I haven’t seen him since we were both three years old — when mymother took him away. I haven’t seen either him or my mother. I don’tknow where they are.”

“And that’s all you have to say?”

Julia sighed.

“I could say I was sorry. But it wouldn’t really be true; because actuallyI’d do the same thing again—though not if I’d known about this murderbusiness, of course.”

“Julia,” said Miss Blacklock, “I call you that because I’m used to it. Youwere with the French Resistance, you say?”

“Yes. For eighteen months.”

“Then I suppose you learned to shoot?”

Again those cool blue eyes met hers.

“I can shoot all right. I’m a first-class shot. I didn’t shoot at you, LetitiaBlacklock, though you’ve only got my word for that. But I can tell you this,that if I had shot at you, I wouldn’t have been likely to miss.”