Short Story by Agatha Christie (5th Project I)

TAPE-MEASURE MURDER

Miss Politt took hold of the knocker and rapped politely on the cottage door. After a discreet interval she knocked again. The parcel under her left arm shifted a little as she did so, and she readjusted it. Inside the parcel was Mrs Spenlow's new green winter dress, ready for fitting.  From Miss Politt's left hand dangled a bag of black silk, containing a tape measure, a pincushion, and a large, practical pair of scissors. Miss Politt was tall and gaunt, with a sharp nose, pursed lips, and meager iron-grey hair. She hesitated before using the knocker for the third time. Glancing down the street, she saw a figure rapidly approaching.

 Miss Hartnell, jolly, weather-beaten, fifty-five, shouted out in her usual loud bass voice, "Good afternoon, Miss Politt!" The dressmaker answered, "Good afternoon, Miss Hartnell." Her voice was excessively thin and genteel in its accents. She had started life as a lady's maid.  "Excuse me," she went on, "but do you happen to know if by any chance Mrs Spenlow isn't at home?"

 "Not the least idea," said Miss Hartnell.

 "It's rather awkward, you see. I was to fit on Mrs Spenlow's new dress this afternoon. Three-thirty, she said."

Miss Hartnell consulted her wrist watch. "It's a little past the half-hour now."

"Yes. I have knocked three times, but there doesn't seem to be any answer, so I was wondering if perhaps Mrs Spenlow might have gone out and forgotten.  She doesn't forget appointments as a rule, and she wants the dress to wear the day after tomorrow."

 Miss Hartnell entered the gate and walked up the path to join Miss Politt outside the door of Laburnam Cottage.

 "Why doesn't Gladys answer the door?" she demanded. "Oh, no, of course, it's Thursday - Gladys's day out. I expect Mrs Spenlow has fallen asleep. I don't expect you've made enough noise with this thing."

Seizing the knocker, she executed a deafening rat-a-tat-tat and, in addition, thumped upon the panels of the door. She also called out in a stentorian voice: "What ho, within there!" There was no response.

Miss Politt murmured, "Oh, I think Mrs Spenlow must have forgotten and gone out. I'll call around some other time." She began edging away and down the path.

 "Nonsense," said Miss Hartnell firmly. "She can't have gone out. I'd have met her. I'll just take a look through the window and see if I can find any signs of life." She laughed in her usual hearty manner, to indicate that it was a joke, and applied a perfunctory glance to the nearest windowpane - perfunctory because she knew quite well that the front room was seldom used. Mr and Mrs Spenlow preferred the small back sitting-room. Perfunctory as it was, though, it succeeded in its object.  Miss Hartnell, it is true, saw no signs of life. On the contrary, she saw, through the window, Mrs Spenlow lying on the hearthrug - dead.

 "Of course," said Miss Hartnell, telling the story afterward, "I managed to keep my head. That Politt creature wouldn't have had the least idea of what to do. 'Got to keep our heads,' I said to her. 'You stay here and I'll go for Constable Palk.' She said something about not wanting to be left, but I paid no attention at all. One has to be firm with that sort of person. I've always found they enjoy making a fuss. So I was just going off when, at that very moment, Mr Spenlow came round the corner of the house."

 Here Miss Hartnell made a significant pause. It enabled her audience to ask breathlessly, "Tell me, how did he look?" Miss Hartnell would then go on: "Frankly, I suspected something at once! He was far too calm. He didn't seem surprised in the least. And you may say what you like, it isn't natural for a man to hear that his wife is dead and display no emotion whatever."

 Everybody agreed with this statement. The police agreed with it too. So suspicious did they consider Mr Spenlow's detachment that they lost no time in ascertaining how that gentleman was situated as a result of his wife's death. When they discovered that Mrs Spenlow had been the moneyed partner, and that her money went to her husband under a will made soon after their marriage, they were more suspicious than ever.

 Miss Marple, that sweet-faced (and some said vinegar-tongued) elderly spinster who lived in the house next to the rectory, was interviewed very early - within half an hour of the discovery of the crime. She was approached by Police Constable Palk, importantly thumbing a notebook. "If you don't mind, ma'am, I've a few questions to ask you." Miss Marple said, "In connection with the murder of Mrs Spenlow?" Palk was startled. "May I ask, madam, how you got to know of it?"

"The fish," said Miss Marple. The reply was perfectly intelligible to Constable Palk. He assumed correctly that the fishmonger's boy had brought it, together with Miss Marple's evening meal.

 Miss Marple continued gently, "Lying on the floor in the sitting-room, strangled - possibly by a very narrow belt. But whatever it was, it was taken away."

 Palk's face was wrathful. "How that young Fred gets to know everything -"

 Miss Marple cut him short adroitly. She said, "There's a pin in your tunic."

 Constable Palk looked down, startled. He said, "They do say: 'See a pin and pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck.'" "I hope that will come true. Now what is it you want me to tell you?" Constable Palk cleared his throat, looked important, and consulted his notebook.

 "Statement was made to me by Mr Arthur Spenlow, husband of the deceased. Mr Spenlow says that at two-thirty, as far as he can say, he was rung up by Miss Marple and asked if he would come over at a quarter past three, as she was anxious to consult him about something. Now, ma'am, is that true?"

 "Certainly not," said Miss Marple.

 "You did not ring up Mr Spenlow at two-thirty?"

 "Neither at two-thirty nor any other time."

 "Ah," said Constable Palk, and sucked his moustache with a good deal of satisfaction.

 "What else did Mr Spenlow say?"

 "Mr Spenlow's statement was that he came over here as requested, leaving his own house at ten minutes past three; that on arrival here he was informed by the maidservant that Miss Marple was not at home."

 "That part of it is true," said Miss Marple. "He did come here, but I was at a meeting at the Women's Institute."

 "Ah," said Constable Palk again.

 Miss Marple exclaimed, "Do tell me, Constable, do you suspect Mr Spenlow?"

 "It's not for me to say at this stage, but it looks to me as though somebody, naming no names, had been trying to be artful."

 Miss Marple said thoughtfully, "Mr Spenlow?" She liked Mr Spenlow. He was a small, spare man, stiff and conventional in speech, the acme of respectability.  It seemed odd that he should have come to live in the country; he had so clearly lived in towns all his life. To Miss Marple he confided the reason. He said, "I have always intended, ever since I was a small boy, to live in the country someday and have a garden of my own. I have always been very much attached to flowers. My wife, you know, kept a flower shop. That's where I saw her first."  A dry statement, but it opened up a vista of romance. A younger, prettier Mrs Spenlow, seen against a background of flowers. Mr Spenlow, however, really knew nothing about flowers. He had no idea of seeds, of cuttings, of bedding out, of annuals or perennials.  He had only a vision - a vision of a small cottage garden thickly planted with sweet-smelling, brightly coloured blossoms. He had asked, almost pathetically, for instruction and had noted down Miss Marple's replies to questions in a little book. He was a man of quiet method. It was, perhaps, because of this trait that the police were interested in him when his wife was found murdered.

 With patience and perseverance they learned a good deal about the late Mrs Spenlow - and soon all St Mary Mead knew it too. The late Mrs Spenlow had begun life as a between-maid in a large house. She had left that position to marry the second gardener and with him had started a flower shop in London. The shop had prospered. Not so the gardener, who before long had sickened and died. His widow carried on the shop and enlarged it in an ambitious way. She had continued to prosper. Then she had sold the business at a handsome price and embarked upon matrimony for the second time - with Mr Spenlow, a middle-aged jeweller who had inherited a small and struggling business. Not long afterward they had sold the business and come down to St Mary Mead.  Mrs Spenlow was a well-to-do woman. The profits from her florist's establishment she had invested - "under spirit guidance," as she explained to all and sundry.  The spirits had advised her with unexpected acumen.  All her investments had prospered, some in quite a sensational fashion. Instead, however, of this increasing her belief in spiritualism, Mrs Spenlow basely deserted mediums and sittings and made a brief but wholehearted plunge into an obscure religion with Indian affinities which was based on various forms of deep breathing. When, however, she arrived at St Mary Mead, she had relapsed into a period of orthodox Church-of-England beliefs.  She was a good deal at the Vicarage and attended church services with assiduity. She patronised the village shops, took an interest in the local happenings, and played village bridge. A humdrum, everyday life.  And - suddenly - murder.

Colonel Melchett, the chief constable, had summoned Inspector Slack. Slack was a positive type of man. When he made up his mind, he was sure. He was quite sure now.

 "Husband did it, sir," he said.

 "You think so?" "Quite sure of it. You've only got to look at him. Never showed a sign of grief or emotion. He came back to the house knowing she was dead."

 "Wouldn't he at least have tried to act the part of the distracted husband?"

 "Not him, sir. Too pleased with himself. Some gentlemen can't act. Too stiff. As I see it, he was just fed up with his wife. She'd got the money and, I should say, was a trying woman to live with - always taking up some 'ism' or other. He cold-bloodedly decided to do away with her and live comfortably on his own."

 "Yes, that could be the case, I suppose." "Depend upon it, that was it. Made his plans careful. Pretended to get a phone call -"

Melchett interrupted him: "No caller traced?"

 "No, sir. That means either that he lied or that the call was put through from a public telephone booth. The only two public phones in the village are at the station and the post office. Post office it certainly wasn't.  Mrs Blade sees everyone who comes in.  Station it might be. Train arrives at two twenty-seven and there's a bit of bustle then.  But the main thing is he says it was Miss Marple who called him up, and that certainly isn't true. The call didn't come from her house, and she herself was away at the Institute."

 "You're not overlooking the possibility that the husband was deliberately got out of the way - by someone who wanted to murder Mrs Spenlow?"

"You're thinking of young Ted Gerard, aren't you, sir? I've been working on him - what we're up against there is lack of motive. He doesn't stand to gain anything."

 "He's an undesirable character, though. Quite a pretty little spot of embezzlement to his credit."

 "I'm not saying he isn't a wrong 'un. Still, he did go to his boss and own up to that embezzlement. And his employers are wise to it."

 "An Oxford Grouper," said Melchett.

 "Yes, sir. Became a convert and went off to do the straight thing and own up to having pinched money. I'm not saying, mind you, that it mayn't have been astuteness - he may have thought he was suspected and decided to gamble on honest repentance."

 "You have a skeptical mind, Slack," said Colonel Melchett. "By the way, have you talked to Miss Marple at all?" "What's she got to do with it, sir?"

 "Oh, nothing. But she hears things, you know. Why don't you go and have a chat with her? She's a very sharp old lady." Slack changed the subject. "One thing I've been meaning to ask you, sir: That domestic service job where the deceased started her career - Sir Robert Abercrombie's place. That's where the jewel robbery was - emeralds - worth a packet. Never got them. I've been looking it up - must have happened when the Spenlow woman was there, though she'd have been quite a girl at the time. Don't think she was mixed up in it, do you, sir? Spenlow, you know, was one of those little tuppenny-ha'penny jewellers - just the chap for a fence."

 Melchett shook his head. "Don't think there's anything in that. She didn't even know Spenlow at the time. I remember the case. Opinion in police circles was that a son of the house was mixed up in it - Jim Abercrombie - awful young waster. Had a pile of debts, and just after the robbery they were all paid off some rich woman, so they said, but I don't know - old Abercrombie hedged a bit about the case - tried to call the police off."

 "It was just an idea, sir," said Slack.

Miss Marple received Inspector Slack with gratification, especially when she heard that he had been sent by Colonel Melchett.

 "Now, really, that is very kind of Colonel Melchett. I didn't know he remembered me."

 "He remembers you, all right. Told me that what you didn't know of what goes on in St Mary Mead isn't worth knowing."

 "Too kind of him, but really I don't know anything at all. About this murder, I mean."

 "You know what the talk about it is."

 "Of course - but it wouldn't do, would it, to repeat just idle talk?" Slack said, with an attempt at geniality,

 "This isn't an official conversation, you know. It's in confidence, so to speak."

 "You mean you really want to know what people are saying? Whether there's any truth in it or not?"

 "That's the idea."

 "Well, of course, there's been a great deal of talk and speculation.  And there are really two distinct camps, if you understand me.  To begin with, there are the people who think that the husband did it. A husband or a wife is, in a way, the natural person to suspect, don't you think so?"

 "Maybe," said the inspector cautiously.

 "Such close quarters, you know. Then, so often, the money angle. I heard that it was Mrs Spenlow who had the money and therefore Mr Spenlow does benefit by her death.  In this wicked world I'm afraid the most uncharitable assumptions are often justified."

 "He comes into a tidy sum, all right."

 "Just so. It would seem quite plausible, wouldn't it, for him to strangle her, leave the house by the back, come across the fields to my house, ask for me and pretend he'd had a telephone call from me, then go back and find his wife murdered in his absence - hoping, of course, that the crime would be put down to some tramp or burglar."

 The inspector nodded.

 "What with the money angle - and if they'd been on bad terms lately?"

But Miss Marple interrupted him: "Oh, but they hadn't."

 "You know that for a fact?"

 "Everyone would have known if they'd quarrelled! The maid, Gladys - she'd have soon spread it round the village."

The inspector said feebly, "She mightn't have known," and received a pitying smile in reply.

 Miss Marple went on: "And then there's the other school of thought. Ted Gerard. A goodlooking young man. I'm afraid, you know, that good looks are inclined to influence one more than they should. Our last curate but one - quite a magical effect!  All the girls came to church - evening service as well as morning. And many older women became unusually active in parish work - and the slippers and scarves that were made for him!  Quite embarrassing for the poor young man.

 "But let me see, where was I? Oh yes, this young man, Ted Gerard. Of course, there has been talk about him. He's come down to see her so often. Though Mrs Spenlow told me herself that he was a member of what I think they call the Oxford Group.  A religious movement. They are quite sincere and very earnest, I believe, and Mrs Spenlow was impressed by it all."

Miss Marple took a breath and went on: "And I'm sure there was no reason to believe that there was anything more in it than that, but you know what people are. Quite a lot of people are convinced that Mrs Spenlow was infatuated with the young man and that she'd lent him quite a lot of money. And it's perfectly true that he was actually seen at the station that day.  In the train - the two twenty-seven down train. But of course it would be quite easy, wouldn't it, to slip out of the other side of the train and go through the cutting and over the fence and round by the hedge and never come out of the station entrance at all? So that he need not have been seen going to the cottage. And of course people do think that what Mrs Spenlow was wearing was rather peculiar."

 "Peculiar."

 "A kimono. Not a dress." Miss Marple blushed. "That sort of thing, you know, is, perhaps, rather suggestive to some people."

 "You think it was suggestive?"

 "Oh no, I don't think so. I think it was perfectly natural."

 "You think it was natural?"

 "Under the circumstances, yes." Miss Marple's glance was cool and reflective.

Inspector Slack said, "It might give us another motive for the husband. Jealousy."

 "Oh, no, Mr Spenlow would never be jealous. He's not the sort of man who notices things. If his wife had gone away and left a note on the pincushion, it would be the first he'd know of anything of that kind." Inspector Slack was puzzled by the intent way she was looking at him. He had an idea that all her conversation was intended to hint at something he didn't understand.

 She said now, with some emphasis, "Didn't you find any clues, Inspector - on the spot?"

 "People don't leave fingerprints and cigarette ash nowadays, Miss Marple."

 "But this, I think," she suggested, "was an old-fashioned crime -"

 Slack said sharply. "Now what do you mean by that?"

Miss Marple remarked slowly, "I think, you know, that Constable Palk could help you. He was the first person on the - on the 'scene of the crime,' as they say."

 Mr Spenlow was sitting in a deck chair. He looked bewildered. He said, in his thin, precise voice, "I may, of course, be imagining what occurred. My hearing is not as good as it was. But I distinctly think I heard a small boy call after me, 'Yah, who's a Crippen?' It - it conveyed the impression to me that he was of the opinion that I had - had killed my dear wife."

Miss Marple, gently snipping off a dead rose head, said, "That was the impression he meant to convey, no doubt."

 "But what could possibly have put such an idea into a child's head?"

 Miss Marple coughed. "Listening, no doubt, to the opinions of his elders."

 "You - you really mean that other people think that also?"

 "Quite half the people in St Mary Mead."

 "But, my dear lady, what can possibly have given rise to such an idea? I was sincerely attached to my wife. She did not, alas, take to living in the country as much as I had hoped she would do, but perfect agreement on every subject is an impossible ideal. I assure you I feel her loss very keenly."

"Probably. But if you will excuse my saying so, you don't sound as though you do."

Mr Spenlow drew his meager frame up to its full height. "My dear lady, many years ago I read of a certain Chinese philosopher who, when his dearly loved wife was taken from him, continued calmly to beat a gong in the street - a customary Chinese pastime, I presume - exactly as usual. The people in the city were much impressed by his fortitude."

"But," said Miss Marple, "the people of St Mary Mead react rather differently. Chinese philosophy does not appeal to them."

 "But you understand?"

 Miss Marple nodded. "My Uncle Henry," she explained, "was a man of unusual selfcontrol. His motto was 'Never display emotion.' He, too, was very fond of flowers."

 "I was thinking," said Mr Spenlow with something like eagerness, "that I might, perhaps, have a pergola on the west side of the cottage. Pink roses and, perhaps, wisteria. And there is a white starry flower, whose name for the moment escapes me -" In the tone in which she spoke to her grandnephew, aged three, Miss Marple said, "I have a very nice catalogue here, with pictures. Perhaps you would like to look through it - I have to go up to the village."

Leaving Mr Spenlow sitting happily in the garden with his catalogue, Miss Marple went up to her room, hastily rolled up a dress in a piece of brown paper, and, leaving the house, walked briskly up to the post office. Miss Politt, the dressmaker, lived in rooms over the post office. But Miss Marple did not at once go through the door and up the stairs. It was just two-thirty, and, a minute later, the Much Benham bus drew up outside the post-office door. It was one of the events of the day in St Mary Mead. The postmistress hurried out with parcels, parcels connected with the shop side of her business, for the post office also dealt in sweets, cheap books, and children's toys. For some four minutes Miss Marple was alone in the post office. Not till the postmistress returned to her post did Miss Marple go upstairs and explain to Miss Politt that she wanted her own grey crepe altered and made more fashionable if that were possible. Miss Politt promised to see what she could do. The chief constable was rather astonished when Miss Marple's name was brought to him. She came in with many apologies.

 "So sorry - so very sorry to disturb you. You are so busy, I know, but then you have always been so very kind, Colonel Melchett, and I felt I would rather come to you instead of to Inspector Slack. For one thing, you know, I should hate Constable Palk to get into any trouble. Strictly speaking, I suppose he shouldn't have touched anything at all." Colonel Melchett was slightly bewildered. He said, "Palk? That's the St Mary Mead constable, isn't it? What has he been doing?"

"He picked up a pin, you know. And it occurred to me at the time that it was quite probable he had actually picked it up in Mrs Spenlow's house."

 "Quite, quite. But, after all, you know, what's a pin? Matter of fact, he did pick the pin up just by Mrs Spenlow's body. Came and told Slack about it yesterday - you put him up to that, I gather? Oughtn't to have touched anything, of course, but, as I said, what's a pin? It was only a common pin. Sort of thing any woman might use."

 "Oh no, Colonel Melchett, that's where you're wrong. To a man's eye, perhaps, it looked like an ordinary pin, but it wasn't. It was a special pin, a very thin pin, the kind you buy by the box, the kind used mostly by dressmakers."

 Melchett stared at her, a faint light of comprehension breaking in on him. Miss Marple nodded her head several times eagerly. "Yes, of course. It seems to me so obvious. She was in her kimono because she was going to try on her new dress, and she went into the front room, and Miss Politt just said something about measurements and put the tape measure round her neck - and then all she'd have to do was to cross it and pull it easy, so I've heard. And then of course she'd go outside and pull the door to and stand there knocking as though she'd just arrived. But the pin shows she'd already been in the house."

 "And it was Miss Politt who telephoned to Spenlow?"

 "Yes. From the post office at two-thirty - just when the bus comes and the post office would be empty."

Colonel Melchett said, "But, my dear Miss Marple, why? In heaven's name, why? You can't have a murder without a motive."

 "Well, I think, you know, Colonel Melchett, from all I've heard, that the crime dates from a long time back. It reminds me, you know, of my two cousins, Antony and Gordon.

Whatever Antony did always went right for him, and with poor Gordon it was just the other way about: race horses went lame, and stocks went down, and property depreciated. As I see it, the two women were in it together."

 "In what?"

 "The robbery. Long ago. Very valuable emeralds, so I've heard. The lady's maid and the tweeny. Because one thing hasn't been explained - how, when the tweeny married the gardener, did they have enough money to set up a flower shop? "

The answer is, it was her share of the - the swag, I think is the right expression. Everything she did turned out well. Money made money. But the other one, the lady's maid, must have been unlucky. She came down to being just a village dressmaker. Then they met again. Quite all right at first, I expect, until Mr Ted Gerard came on the scene.

 "Mrs Spenlow, you see, was already suffering from conscience and was inclined to be emotionally religious. This young man no doubt urged her to 'face up' and to 'come clean,' and I daresay she was strung up to do so.  But Miss Politt didn't see it that way. All she saw was that she might go to prison for a robbery she had committed years ago. So she made up her mind to put a stop to it all. I'm afraid, you know, that she was always rather a wicked woman. I don't believe she'd have turned a hair if that nice, stupid Mr Spenlow had been hanged." Colonel Melchett said slowly, "We can - er - verify your theory - up to a point. The identity of the Politt woman with the lady's maid at the Abercrombies', but -" Miss Marple reassured him. "It will all be quite easy. She's the kind of woman who will break down at once when she's taxed with the truth. And then, you see, I've got her tape measure. I - er - abstracted it yesterday when I was trying on. When she misses it and thinks the police have got it - well, she's quite an ignorant woman and she'll think it will prove the case against her in some way." She smiled at him encouragingly. "You'll have no trouble, I can assure you." It was the tone in which his favourite aunt had once assured him that he could not fail to pass his entrance examination into Sandhurst. And he had passed.