4.50 from Paddington

A faint flush of achievement came into Miss Marple’s cheeks.

‘Perhaps one ought not to feel so,’ she said, ‘but it is rather gratifying to form a theory and get proof that it is correct!’

She fingered the small tuft of fur. ‘Elspeth said the woman was wearing a light-coloured fur coat. I suppose the compact was in the pocket of the coat and fell out as the body rolled down the slope. It doesn’t seem distinctive in any way, but it may help. You didn’t take all the fur?’

‘No, I left half of it on the thorn bush.’

Miss Marple nodded approval.

‘Quite right. You are very intelligent, my dear. The police will want to check exactly.’

‘You are going to the police—with these things?’

‘Well—not quite yet …’ Miss Marple considered: ‘It would be better, I think, to find the body first. Don’t you?’

‘Yes, but isn’t that rather a tall order? I mean, granting that your estimate is correct. The murderer pushed the body out of the train, then presumably got out himself at Brackhampton and at some time—probably that same night—came along and removed the body. But what happened after that? He may have taken it anywhere.’

‘Not anywhere,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I don’t think you’ve followed the thing to its logical conclusion, my dear Miss Eyelesbarrow.’

‘Do call me Lucy. Why not anywhere?’

‘Because, if so, he might much more easily have killed the girl in some lonely spot and driven the body away from there. You haven’t appreciated—’

Lucy interrupted.

‘Are you saying—do you mean—that this was a premeditated crime?’

‘I didn’t think so at first,’ said Miss Marple. ‘One wouldn’t—naturally. It seemed like a quarrel and a man losing control and strangling the girl and then being faced with the problem which he had to solve within a few minutes. But it really is too much of a coincidence that he should kill the girl in a fit of passion, and then look out of the window and find the train was going round a curve exactly at a spot where he could tip the body out, and where he could be sure of finding his way later and removing it! If he’d just thrown her out there by chance, he’d have done no more about it, and the body would, long before now, have been found.’

She paused. Lucy stared at her.

‘You know,’ said Miss Marple thoughtfully, ‘it’s really quite a clever way to have planned a crime—and I think it was very carefully planned. There’s something so anonymous about a train. If he’d killed her in the place where she lived, or was staying, somebody might have noticed him come or go. Or if he’d driven her out in the country somewhere, someone might have noticed the car and its number and make. But a train is full of strangers coming and going. In a non-corridor carriage, alone with her, it was quite easy—especially if you realize that he knew exactly what he was going to do next. He knew—he must have known—all about Rutherford Hall—its geographical position, I mean, its queer isolation—an island bounded by railway lines.’

‘It is exactly like that,’ said Lucy. ‘It’s an anachronism out of the past. Bustling urban life goes on all around it, but doesn’t touch it. The tradespeople deliver in the mornings and that’s all.’

‘So we assume, as you said, that the murderer comes to Rutherford Hall that night. It is already dark when the body falls and no one is likely to discover it before the next day.’

‘No, indeed.’

‘The murderer would come—how? In a car? Which way?’

Lucy considered.

‘There’s a rough lane, alongside a factory wall. He’d probably come that way, turn in under the railway arch and along the back drive. Then he could climb the fence, go along at the foot of the embankment, find the body, and carry it back to the car.’

‘And then,’ continued Miss Marple, ‘he took it to some place he had already chosen beforehand. This was all thought out, you know. And I don’t think, as I say, that he would take it away from Rutherford Hall, or if so, not very far. The obvious thing, I suppose, would be to bury it somewhere?’ She looked inquiringly at Lucy.

‘I suppose so,’ said Lucy considering. ‘But it wouldn’t be quite as easy as it sounds.’

Miss Marple agreed.

‘He couldn’t bury it in the park. Too hard work and very noticeable. Somewhere where the earth was turned already?’

‘The kitchen garden, perhaps, but that’s very close to the gardener’s cottage. He’s old and deaf—but still it might be risky.’

‘Is there a dog?’

‘No.’

‘Then in a shed, perhaps, or an outhouse?’

‘That would be simpler and quicker … There are a lot of unused old buildings; broken down pigsties, harness rooms, workshops that nobody ever goes near. Or he might perhaps thrust it into a clump of rhododendrons or shrubs somewhere.’

Miss Marple nodded.

‘Yes, I think that’s much more probable.’

There was a knock on the door and the grim Florence came in with a tray.

‘Nice for you to have a visitor,’ she said to Miss Marple, ‘I’ve made you my special scones you used to like.’

‘Florence always made the most delicious tea cakes,’ said Miss Marple.

Florence, gratified, creased her features into a totally unexpected smile and left the room.

‘I think, my dear,’ said Miss Marple, ‘we won’t talk any more about murder during tea. Such an unpleasant subject!’

After tea, Lucy rose.

‘I’ll be getting back,’ she said. ‘As I’ve already told you, there’s no one actually living at Rutherford Hall who could be the man we’re looking for. There’s only an old man and a middle-aged woman, and an old deaf gardener.’

‘I didn’t say he was actually living there,’ said Miss Marple. ‘All I mean is, that he’s someone who knows Rutherford Hall very well. But we can go into that after you’ve found the body.’

‘You seem to assume quite confidently that I shall find it,’ said Lucy. ‘I don’t feel nearly so optimistic.’

‘I’m sure you will succeed, my dear Lucy. You are such an efficient person.’

‘In some ways, but I haven’t had any experience in looking for bodies.’

‘I’m sure all it needs is a little common sense,’ said Miss Marple encouragingly.

Lucy looked at her, then laughed. Miss Marple smiled back at her.

Lucy set to work systematically the next afternoon.

She poked round outhouses, prodded the briars which wreathed the old pigsties, and was peering into the boiler room under the greenhouse when she heard a dry cough and turned to find old Hillman, the gardener, looking at her disapprovingly.

‘You be careful you don’t get a nasty fall, miss,’ he warned her. ‘Them steps isn’t safe, and you was up in the loft just now and the floor there ain’t safe neither.’