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
