4.50 from Paddington

‘Oh, that!’ said Miss Marple.

Mrs McGillicuddy turned away, a whistle blew, the train began to move. Miss Marple watched the sturdy thickset body of her friend recede. Elspeth could go to Ceylon with a clear conscience—she had done her duty and was freed from further obligation.

Miss Marple did not lean back as the train gathered speed. Instead she sat upright and devoted herself seriously to thought. Though in speech Miss Marple was woolly and diffuse, in mind she was clear and sharp. She had a problem to solve, the problem of her own future conduct; and, perhaps strangely, it presented itself to her as it had to Mrs McGillicuddy, as a question of duty.

Mrs McGillicuddy had said that they had both done all that they could do. It was true of Mrs McGillicuddy but about herself Miss Marple did not feel so sure.

It was a question, sometimes, of using one’s special gifts … But perhaps that was conceited … After all, what could she do? Her friend’s words came back to her, ‘You’re not so young as you were …’

Dispassionately, like a general planning a campaign, or an accountant assessing a business, Miss Marple weighed up and set down in her mind the facts of and against further enterprise. On the credit side were the following:

1. My long experience of life and human nature.

2. Sir Henry Clithering and his godson (now at Scotland Yard, I believe), who was so very nice in the Little Paddocks case.

3. My nephew Raymond’s second boy, David, who is, I am almost sure, in British Railways.

4. Griselda’s boy Leonard who is so very knowledgeable about maps.

Miss Marple reviewed these assets and approved them. They were all very necessary, to reinforce the weaknesses on the debit side—in particular her own bodily weakness.

‘It is not,’ thought Miss Marple, ‘as though I could go here, there and everywhere, making inquiries and finding out things.’

Yes, that was the chief objection, her own age and weakness. Although, for her age, her health was good, yet she was old. And if Dr Haydock had strictly forbidden her to do practical gardening he would hardly approve of her starting out to track down a murderer. For that, in effect, was what she was planning to do—and it was there that her loophole lay. For if heretofore murder had, so to speak, been forced upon her, in this case it would be that she herself set out deliberately to seek it. And she was not sure that she wanted to do so … She was old—old and tired. She felt at this moment, at the end of a tiring day, a great reluctance to enter upon any project at all. She wanted nothing at all but to march home and sit by the fire with a nice tray of supper, and go to bed, and potter about the next day just snipping off a few things in the garden, tidying up in a very mild way, without stooping, without exerting herself …

‘I’m too old for any more adventures,’ said Miss Marple to herself, watching absently out of the window the curving line of an embankment …

A curve …

Very faintly something stirred in her mind … Just after the ticket collector had clipped their tickets …

It suggested an idea. Only an idea. An entirely different idea …

A little pink flush came into Miss Marple’s face. Suddenly she did not feel tired at all!

‘I’ll write to David to-morrow morning,’ she said to herself.

And at the same time another valuable asset flashed through her mind.

‘Of course. My faithful Florence!’

Miss Marple set about her plan of campaign methodically and making due allowance for the Christmas season which was a definitely retarding factor.

She wrote to her great-nephew, David West, combining Christmas wishes with an urgent request for information.

Fortunately she was invited, as on previous years, to the vicarage for Christmas dinner, and here she was able to tackle young Leonard, home for the Christmas season, about maps.

Maps of all kinds were Leonard’s passion. The reason for the old lady’s inquiry about a large-scale map of a particular area did not rouse his curiosity. He discoursed on maps generally with fluency, and wrote down for her exactly what would suit her purpose best. In fact, he did better. He actually found that he had such a map amongst his collection and he lent it to her, Miss Marple promising to take great care of it and return it in due course.

‘Maps,’ said his mother, Griselda, who still, although she had a grown-up son, looked strangely young and blooming to be inhabiting the shabby old vicarage. ‘What does she want with maps? I mean, what does she want them for?’

‘I don’t know,’ said young Leonard, ‘I don’t think she said exactly.’

‘I wonder now …’ said Griselda. ‘It seems very fishy to me … At her age the old pet ought to give up that sort of thing.’

Leonard asked what sort of thing, and Griselda said elusively:

‘Oh, poking her nose into things. Why maps, I wonder?’

In due course Miss Marple received a letter from her great-nephew David West. It ran affectionately:

‘Dear Aunt Jane,—Now what are you up to? I’ve got the information you wanted. There are only two trains that can possibly apply—the 4.33 and the 5 o’clock. The former is a slow train and stops at Haling Broadway, Barwell Heath, Brackhampton and then stations to Market Basing. The 5 o’clock is the Welsh express for Cardiff, Newport and Swansea. The former might be overtaken somewhere by the 4.50, although it is due in Brackhampton five minutes earlier and the latter passes the 4.50 just before Brackhampton.

In all this do I smell some village scandal of a fruity character? Did you, returning from a shopping spree in town by the 4.50, observe in a passing train the mayor’s wife being embraced by the Sanitary Inspector? But why does it matter which train it was? A week-end at Porthcawl perhaps? Thank you for the pullover. Just what I wanted. How’s the garden? Not very active this time of year, I should imagine.

Yours ever,

David’

Miss Marple smiled a little, then considered the information thus presented to her. Mrs McGillicuddy had said definitely that the carriage had not been a corridor one. Therefore—not the Swansea express. The 4.33 was indicated.

Also some more travelling seemed unavoidable. Miss Marple sighed, but made her plans.

She went up to London as before on the 12.15, but this time returned not by the 4.50, but by the 4.33 as far as Brackhampton. The journey was uneventful, but she registered certain details. The train was not crowded—4.33 was before the evening rush hour. Of the first-class carriages only one had an occupant—a very old gentleman reading the New Statesman. Miss Marple travelled in an empty compartment and at the two stops, Haling Broadway and Barwell Heath, leaned out of the window to observe passengers entering and leaving the train. A small number of third-class passengers got in at Haling Broadway. At Barwell Heath several third-class passengers got out. Nobody entered or left a first-class carriage except the old gentleman carrying his New Statesman.

As the train neared Brackhampton, sweeping around a curve of line, Miss Marple rose to her feet and stood experimentally with her back to the window over which she had drawn down the blind.

Yes, she decided, the impetus of the sudden curving of the line and the slackening of speed did throw one off one’s balance back against the window and the blind might, in consequence, very easily fly up. She peered out into the night. It was lighter than it had been when Mrs McGillicuddy had made the same journey—only just dark, but there was little to see. For observation she must make a daylight journey.

On the next day she went up by the early morning train, purchased four linen pillow-cases (tut-tutting at the price!) so as to combine investigation with the provision of household necessities, and returned by a train leaving Paddington at twelve fifteen. Again she was alone in a first-class carriage. ‘This taxation,’ thought Miss Marple, ‘that’s what it is. No one can afford to travel first class except business men in the rush hours. I suppose because they can charge it to expenses.’

About a quarter of an hour before the train was due at Brackhampton, Miss Marple got out the map with which Leonard had supplied her and began to observe the country-side. She had studied the map very carefully beforehand, and after noting the name of a station they passed through, she was soon able to identify where she was just as the train began to slacken for a curve. It was a very considerable curve indeed. Miss Marple, her nose glued to the window, studied the ground beneath her (the train was running on a fairly high embankment) with close attention. She divided her attention between the country outside and the map until the train finally ran into Brackhampton.

That night she wrote and posted a letter addressed to Miss Florence Hill, 4 Madison Road, Brackhampton … On the following morning, going to the County library, she studied a Brackhampton directory and gazetteer, and a County history.

Nothing so far had contradicted the very faint and sketchy idea that had come to her. What she had imagined was possible. She would go no further than that.

But the next step involved action—a good deal of action—the kind of action for which she, herself, was physically unfit. If her theory were to be definitely proved or disproved, she must at this point have help from some other source. The question was—who? Miss Marple reviewed various names and possibilities, rejecting them all with a vexed shake of the head. The intelligent people on whose intelligence she could rely were all far too busy. Not only had they all got jobs of varying importance, their leisure hours were usually apportioned long beforehand. The unintelligent who had time on their hands were simply, Miss Marple decided, no good.

She pondered in growing vexation and perplexity.

Then suddenly her forehead cleared. She ejaculated aloud a name.

‘Of course!’ said Miss Marple. ‘Lucy Eyelesbarrow!’

CHAPTER 4 (#ua0aa7b7f-2d2b-556b-9e91-3606a936ac35)

The name of Lucy Eyelesbarrow had already made itself felt in certain circles.