The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side by Agatha Christie
“Who told you that?” said Miss Marple, with great interest.
“Old Briggs,” said Mrs. Bantry. “At least, he didn’t tell me. You know he goes down after hours in the evening to see to Dr. Sandford’s garden, and he was clipping something quite close to the study and he heard the doctor ringing up the police station in Much Benham. Briggs told his daughter and his daughter mentioned it to the postwoman and she told me,” said Mrs. Bantry.
Miss Marple smiled. “I see,” she said, “that St. Mary Mead has not changed very much from what it used to be.”
“The grapevine is much the same,” agreed Mrs. Bantry. “Well, now, Jane, tell me what you think.”
“One thinks, of course, of the husband,” said Miss Marple reflectively. “Was he there?”
“Yes, he was there. You don’t think it would be suicide,” said Mrs. Bantry.
“Certainly not suicide,” said Miss Marple decisively. “She wasn’t the type.”
“How did you come across her, Jane?”
“It was the day I went for a walk to the Development, and fell down near her house. She was kindness itself. She was a very kind woman.”
“Did you see the husband? Did he look as though he’d like to poison her?
“You know what I mean,” Mrs. Bantry went on as Miss Marple showed some slight signs of protesting. “Did he remind you of Major Smith or Bertie Jones or someone you’ve known years ago who did poison a wife, or tried to?”
“No,” said Miss Marple, “he didn’t remind me of anyone I know.” She added, “But she did.”
“Who—Mrs. Badcock?”
“Yes,” said Miss Marple, “she reminded me of someone called Alison Wilde.”
“And what was Alison Wilde like?”
“She didn’t know at all,” said Miss Marple slowly, “what the world was like. She didn’t know what people were like. She’d never thought about them. And so, you see, she couldn’t guard against things happening to her.”
“I don’t really think I understand a word of what you’re saying,” said Mrs. Bantry.
“It’s very difficult to explain exactly,” said Miss Marple, apologetically. “It comes really from being self-centred, and I don’t mean selfish by that,” she added. “You can be kind and unselfish and even thoughtful. But if you’re like Alison Wilde, you never really know what you may be doing. And so you never know what may happen to you.”
“Can’t you make that a little clearer?” said Mrs. Bantry.
“Well, I suppose I could give you a sort of figurative example. This isn’t anything that actually happened, it’s just something I’m inventing.”
“Go on,” said Mrs. Bantry.
“Well, supposing you went into a shop, say, and you knew the proprietress had a son who was the spivvy young juvenile delinquent type. He was there listening while you told his mother about some money you had in the house, or some silver or a piece of jewellery. It was something you were excited and pleased about and you wanted to talk about it. And you also perhaps mention an evening that you were going out. You even say that you never lock the house. You’re interested in what you’re saying, what you’re telling her, because it’s so very much in your mind. And then, say, on that particular evening you come home because you’ve forgotten something and there’s this bad lot of a boy in the house, caught in the act, and he turns round and coshes you.”
“That might happen to almost anybody nowadays,” said Mrs. Bantry.
“Not quite,” said Miss Marple, “most people have a sense of protection. They realise when it’s unwise to say or do something because of the person or persons who are taking in what you say, and because of the kind of character that those people have. But as I say, Alison Wilde never thought of anybody else but herself— She was the sort of person who tells you what they’ve done and what they’ve seen and what they’ve felt and what they’ve heard. They never mention what any other people said or did. Life is a kind of one-way track—just their own progress through it. Other people seem to them just like—like wallpaper in a room.” She paused and then said, “I think Heather Badcock was that kind of person.”
Mrs. Bantry said, “You think she was the sort of person who might have butted into something without knowing what she was doing?”
“And without realising that it was a dangerous thing to do,” said Miss Marple. She added, “It’s the only reason I can possibly think of why she should have been killed. If of course,” added Miss Marple, “we are right in assuming that murder has been committed.”
“You don’t think she was blackmailing someone?” Mrs. Bantry suggested.
“Oh, no,” Miss Marple assured her. “She was a kind, good woman. She’d never have done anything of that kind.” She added vexedly, “The whole thing seems to me very unlikely. I suppose it can’t have been—”
“Well?” Mrs. Bantry urged her.
“I just wondered if it might have been the wrong murder,” said Miss Marple thoughtfully.
The door opened and Dr. Haydock breezed in, Miss Knight twittering behind him.
“Ah, at it already, I see,” said Dr. Haydock, looking at the two ladies. “I came in to see how your health was,” he said to Miss Marple, “but I needn’t ask. I see you’ve begun to adopt the treatment that I suggested.”
“Treatment, Doctor?”
Dr. Haydock pointed a finger at the knitting that lay on the table beside her. “Unravelling,” he said. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
Miss Marple twinkled very slightly in a discreet, old-fashioned kind of way.
“You will have your joke, Doctor Haydock,” she said.
“You can’t pull the wool over my eyes, my dear lady. I’ve known you too many years. Sudden death at Gossington Hall and all the tongues of St. Mary Mead are wagging. Isn’t that so? Murder suggested long before anybody even knows the result of the inquest.”
“When is the inquest to be held?” asked Miss Marple.
“The day after tomorrow,” said Dr. Haydock, “and by that time,” he said, “you ladies will have reviewed the whole story, decided on the verdict and decided on a good many other points too, I expect. Well,” he added, “I shan’t waste my time here. It’s no good wasting time on a patient that doesn’t need my ministrations. Your cheeks are pink, your eyes are bright, you’ve begun to enjoy yourself. Nothing like having an interest in life. I’ll be on my way.” He stomped out again.
“I’d rather have him than Sandford any day,” said Mrs. Bantry.
“So would I,” said Miss Marple. “He’s a good friend, too,” she added thoughtfully. “He came, I think, to give me the go-ahead sign.”
“Then it was murder,” said Mrs. Bantry. They looked at each other. “At any rate, the doctors think so.”
Miss Knight brought in cups of coffee. For once in their lives, both ladies were too impatient to welcome this interruption. When Miss Knight had gone Miss Marple started immediately.
“Now then, Dolly, you were there—”
“I practically saw it happen,” said Mrs. Bantry, with modest pride.
“Splendid,” said Miss Marple. “I mean—well, you know what I mean. So you can tell me just exactly what happened from the moment she arrived.”
“I’d been taken into the house,” said Mrs. Bantry. “Snob status.”
“Who took you in?”
“Oh, a willowy-looking young man. I think he’s Marina Gregg’s secretary or something like that. He took me in, up the staircase. They were having a kind of reunion reception committee at the top of the stairs.”
“On the landing?” said Miss Marple, surprised.
“Oh, they’ve altered all that. They’ve knocked the dressing room and bedroom down so that you’ve got a big sort of alcove, practically a room. It’s very attractive looking.”
“I see. And who was there?”
“Marina Gregg, being natural and charming, looking lovely in a sort of willowy grey-green dress. And the husband, of course, and that woman Ella Zielins
Miss Marple nodded.
“Go on.”
“Heather Badcock and her husband arrived just after me. Marina Gregg said nice things to me, then to somebody else, oh yes,—the vicar—and then Heather Badcock and her husband came. She’s the secretary, you know, of the St. John Ambulance. Somebody said something about that and how hard she worked and how valuable she was. And Marina Gregg said some pretty things. Then Mrs. Badcock, who struck me, I must say, Jane, as rather a tiresome sort of woman, began some long rigmarole of how years before she’d met Marina Gregg somewhere. She wasn’t awfully tactful about it since she urged exactly how long ago and the year it was and everything like that. I’m sure that actresses and film stars and people don’t really like being reminded of the exact age they are. Still, she wouldn’t think of that I suppose.”
“No,” said Miss Marple, “she wasn’t the kind of woman who would have thought of that. Well?”
“Well, there was nothing particular in that except for the fact that Marina Gregg didn’t do her usual stuff.”
“You mean she was annoyed?”
“No, no, I don’t mean that. As a matter of fact I’m not at all sure that she heard a word of it. She was staring, you know, over Mrs. Badcock’s shoulder and when Mrs. Badcock had finished her rather silly story of how she got out of a bed of sickness and sneaked out of the house to go and meet Marina and get her autograph, there was a sort of odd silence. Then I saw her face.”
“Whose face? Mrs. Badcock’s?”
“No. Marina Gregg’s. It was as though she hadn’t heard a word the Badcock woman was saying. She was staring over her shoulder right at the wall opposite. Staring with—I can’t explain it to you—”
“But do try, Dolly,” said Miss Marple, “because I think perhaps that this might be important.”
“She had a kind of frozen look,” said Mrs. Bantry, struggling with words, “as though she’d seen something that—oh dear me, how hard it is to describe things. Do you remember the Lady of Shalott? The mirror crack’d from side to side: ‘The doom has come upon me,’ cried the Lady of Shalott. Well, that’s what she looked like. People laugh at Tennyson nowadays, but the Lady of Shalott always thrilled me when I was young and it still does.”
“She had a frozen look,” repeated Miss Marple thoughtfully. “And she was looking over Mrs. Badcock’s shoulder at the wall. What was on the wall?”
“Oh! A picture of some kind, I think,” said Mrs. Bantry. “You know, Italian. I think it was a copy of a Bellini Madonna, but I’m not sure. A picture where the Virgin is holding up a laughing child.”
Miss Marple frowned. “I can’t see that a picture could give her that expression.”
“Especially as she must see it every day,” agreed Mrs. Bantry.
“There were people coming up the stairs still, I suppose?”
“Oh yes, there were.”
“Who were they, do you remember?”
“You mean she might have been looking at one of the people coming up the stairs?”
“Well, it’s possible, isn’t it?” said Miss Marple.
“Yes—of course—now let me see. There was the mayor, all dressed up too with his chains and all, and his wife, and there was a man with long hair and one of those funny beards they wear nowadays. Quite a young man. And there was the girl with the camera. She’d taken her position on the stairs so as to get photos of people coming up and having their hands shaken by Marina, and—let me see, two people I didn’t know. Studio people, I think, and the Grices from Lower Farm. There may have been others, but that’s all I can remember now.”
“Doesn’t sound very promising,” said Miss Marple. “What happened next?”
“I think Jason Rudd nudged her or something because all of a sudden she seemed to pull herself together and she smiled at Mrs. Badcock, and she began to say all the usual things. You know, sweet, unspoilt, natural, charming, the usual bag of tricks.”
“And then?”
“And then Jason Rudd gave them drinks.”
“What kind of drinks?”
“Daiquiris, I think. He said they were his wife’s favourites. He gave one to her and one to the Badcock woman.”
“That’s very interesting,” said Miss Marple. “Very interesting indeed. And what happened after that?”
“I don’t know, because I took a gaggle of women to look at the bathrooms. The next thing I knew was when the secretary woman came rushing along and said someone had been taken ill.”
Seven
The inquest, when it was held, was short and disappointing. Evidence of identification was given by the husband, and the only other evidence was medical. Heather Badcock had died as a result of four grains of hy-ethyl-dexyl-barbo-quinde-lorytate, or, let us be frank, some such name. There was no evidence to show how the drug was administered.
The inquest was adjourned for a fortnight.
After it was concluded, Detective-Inspector Frank Cornish joined Arthur Badcock.
“Could I have a word with you, Mr. Badcock?”
“Of course, of course.”
Arthur Badcock looked more like a chewed-out bit of string than ever. “I can’t understand it,” he muttered. “I simply can’t understand it.”
“I’ve got a car here,” said Cornish. “We’ll drive back to your house, shall we? Nicer and more private there.”
“Thank you, sir. Yes, yes, I’m sure that would be much better.”
They drew up at the neat little blue-painted gate of No. 3 Arlington Close. Arthur Badcock led the way and the inspector followed him. He drew out his latchkey but before he had inserted it into the door, it was opened from inside. The woman who opened it stood back looking slightly embarrassed. Arthur Badcock looked startled.
“Mary,” he said.
“I was just getting you ready some tea, Arthur. I thought you’d need it when you came back from the inquest.”
“That’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” said Arthur Badcock gratefully. “Er—” he hesitated. “This is Inspector Cornish, Mrs. Bain. She’s a neighbour of mine.”
“I see,” said Inspector Cornish.
“I’ll get another cup,” said Mrs. Bain.
She disappeared and rather doubtfully Arthur Badcock showed the inspector into the bright cretonne-covered sitting room to the right of the hall.
“She’s very kind,” said Arthur Badcock. “Very kind always.”
“You’ve known her a long time?”
“Oh, no. Only since we came here.”
“You’ve been here two years, I believe, or is it three?”
“Just about three now,” said Arthur. “Mrs. Bain only got here six months ago,” he explained. “Her son works near here and so, after her husband’s death, she came down to live here and he boards with her.”
Mrs. Bain appeared at this point bringing the tray from the kitchen. She was a dark, rather intense-looking woman of about forty years of age. She had gipsy colouring that went with her dark hair and eyes. There was something a little odd about her eyes. They had a watchful look. She put down the tray on the table and Inspector Cornish said something pleasant and noncommittal. Something in him, some professional instinct, was on the alert. The watchful look in the woman’s eyes, the slight start she had given when Arthur introduced him had not passed unnoticed. He was familiar with that slight uneasiness in the presence of the kind of natural alarm and distrust as of those who might have offended unwittingly against the majesty of the law, but there was a second kind. And it was the second kind that he felt sure was present here. Mrs. Bain, he th
“Seems a nice woman,” said Inspector Cornish.
“Yes, indeed. She’s very kind, a very good neighbour, a very sympathetic woman,” said Arthur Badcock.
“Was she a great friend of your wife?”
“No. No, I wouldn’t say that. They were neighbourly and on pleasant terms. Nothing special about it though.”
“I see. Now, Mr. Badcock, we want as much information as we can from you. The findings of the inquest have been a shock to you, I expect?”
“Oh, they have, Inspector. Of course I realized that you must think something was wrong and I almost thought so myself because Heather has always been such a healthy woman. Practically never a day’s illness. I said to myself, ‘There must be something wrong.’ But it seems so incredible, if you understand what I mean, Inspector. Really quite incredible. What is this stuff—this Bi-ethyl-hex—” He came to a stop.
“There is an easier name for it,” said the inspector. “It’s sold under a trade name, the trade name of Calmo. Ever come across it?”
Arthur Badcock shook his head, perplexed.
“It’s more used in America than here,” said the inspector. “They prescribe it very freely over there, I understand.”
“What’s it for?”
“It induces, or so I understand, a happy and tranquil state of mind,” said Cornish. “It’s prescribed for those under strain; suffering anxiety, depression, melancholy, sleeplessness and a good many other things. The properly prescribed dose is not dangerous, but overdoses are not to be advised. It would seem that your wife took something like six times the ordinary dose.”
Badcock stared. “Heather never took anything like that in her life,” he said. “I’m sure of it. She wasn’t one for taking medicines anyway. She was never depressed or worried. She was one of the most cheerful women you could possibly imagine.”