The Murder at the Vicarage

‘My dear,’ she said, ‘you are very young. The young have such innocent minds.’

Griselda said indignantly that she hadn’t got at all an innocent mind.

‘Naturally,’ said Miss Marple, unheeding of the protest, ‘you think the best of everyone.’

‘Do you really think she wants to marry that bald-headed dull man?’

‘I understand he is quite well off,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Rather a violent temper, I’m afraid. He had quite a serious quarrel with Colonel Protheroe the other day.’

Everyone leaned forward interestingly.

‘Colonel Protheroe accused him of being an ignoramus.’

‘How like Colonel Protheroe, and how absurd,’ said Mrs Price Ridley.

‘Very like Colonel Protheroe, but I don’t know about it being absurd,’ said Miss Marple. ‘You remember the woman who came down here and said she represented Welfare, and after taking subscriptions she was never heard of again and proved to having nothing whatever to do with Welfare. One is so inclined to be trusting and take people at their own valuation.’

I should never have dreamed of describing Miss Marple as trusting.

‘There’s been some fuss about that young artist, Mr Redding, hasn’t there?’ asked Miss Wetherby.

Miss Marple nodded.

‘Colonel Protheroe turned him out of the house. It appears he was painting Lettice in her bathing dress.’

Suitable sensation!

‘I always thought there was something between them,’ said Mrs Price Ridley. ‘That young fellow is always mouching off up there. Pity the girl hasn’t got a mother. A stepmother is never the same thing.’

‘I dare say Mrs Protheroe does her best,’ said Miss Hartnell.

‘Girls are so sly,’ deplored Mrs Price Ridley.

‘Quite a romance, isn’t it?’ said the softer-hearted Miss Wetherby. ‘He’s a very good-looking young fellow.’

‘But loose,’ said Miss Hartnell. ‘Bound to be. An artist! Paris! Models! The Altogether!’

‘Painting her in her bathing dress,’ said Mrs Price Ridley. ‘Not quite nice.’

‘He’s painting me too,’ said Griselda.

‘But not in your bathing dress, dear,’ said Miss Marple.

‘It might be worse,’ said Griselda solemnly.

‘Naughty girl,’ said Miss Hartnell, taking the joke broad-mindedly. Everybody else looked slightly shocked.

‘Did dear Lettice tell you of the trouble?’ asked Miss Marple of me.

‘Tell me?’

‘Yes. I saw her pass through the garden and go round to the study window.’

Miss Marple always sees everything. Gardening is as good as a smoke screen, and the habit of observing birds through powerful glasses can always be turned to account.

‘She mentioned it, yes,’ I admitted.

‘Mr Hawes looked worried,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I hope he hasn’t been working too hard.’

‘Oh!’ cried Miss Wetherby excitedly. ‘I quite forgot. I knew I had some news for you. I saw Dr Haydock coming out of Mrs Lestrange’s cottage.’

Everyone looked at each other.

‘Perhaps she’s ill,’ suggested Mrs Price Ridley.

‘It must have been very sudden, if so,’ said Miss Hartnell. ‘For I saw her walking round her garden at three o’clock this afternoon, and she seemed in perfect health.’

‘She and Dr Haydock must be old acquaintances,’ said Mrs Price Ridley. ‘He’s been very quiet about it.’

‘It’s curious,’ said Miss Wetherby, ‘that he’s never mentioned it.’

‘As a matter of fact—’ said Griselda in a low, mysterious voice, and stopped. Everyone leaned forward excitedly.

‘I happen to know,’ said Griselda impressively. ‘Her husband was a missionary. Terrible story. He was eaten, you know. Actually eaten. And she was forced to become the chief’s head wife. Dr Haydock was with an expedition and rescued her.’

For a moment excitement was rife, then Miss Marple said reproachfully, but with a smile: ‘Naughty girl!’

She tapped Griselda reprovingly on the arm.

‘Very unwise thing to do, my dear. If you make up these things, people are quite likely to believe them. And sometimes that leads to complications.’

A distinct frost had come over the assembly. Two of the ladies rose to take their departure.

‘I wonder if there is anything between young Lawrence Redding and Lettice Protheroe,’ said Miss Wetherby. ‘It certainly looks like it. What do you think, Miss Marple?’

Miss Marple seemed thoughtful.

‘I shouldn’t have said so myself. Not Lettice. Quite another person I should have said.’

‘But Colonel Protheroe must have thought …’

‘He has always struck me as rather a stupid man,’ said Miss Marple. ‘The kind of man who gets the wrong idea into his head and is obstinate about it. Do you remember Joe Bucknell who used to keep the Blue Boar? Such a to-do about his daughter carrying on with young Bailey. And all the time it was that minx of a wife of his.’

She was looking full at Griselda as she spoke, and I suddenly felt a wild surge of anger.

‘Don’t you think, Miss Marple,’ I said, ‘that we’re all inclined to let our tongues run away with us too much. Charity thinketh no evil, you know. Inestimable harm may be done by foolish wagging of tongues in ill-natured gossip.’

‘Dear Vicar,’ said Miss Marple, ‘You are so unworldly. I’m afraid that observing human nature for as long as I have done, one gets not to expect very much from it. I dare say idle tittle-tattle is very wrong and unkind, but it is so often true, isn’t it?’