At Bertram’s Hotel

It was about ten o’clock when she emerged from her room fully equipped: hat, gloves, umbrella—just in case, though it looked fine—handbag—her smartest shopping bag—

The door next but one on the corridor opened sharply and someone looked out. It was Bess Sedgwick. She withdrew back into the room and closed the door sharply.

Miss Marple wondered as she went down the stairs. She preferred the stairs to the lift first thing in the morning. It limbered her up. Her steps grew slower and slower … she stopped.

As Colonel Luscombe strode along the passage from his room, a door at the top of the stairs opened sharply and Lady Sedgwick spoke to him.

‘There you are at last! I’ve been on the look-out for you—waiting to pounce. Where can we go and talk? That is to say without falling over some old pussy every second.’

‘Well, really, Bess, I’m not quite sure—I think on the mezzanine floor there’s a sort of writing-room.’

‘You’d better come in here. Quick now, before the chambermaid gets peculiar ideas about us.’

Rather unwillingly, Colonel Luscombe stepped across the threshold and had the door shut firmly behind him.

‘I’d no idea you would be staying here, Bess, I hadn’t the faintest idea of it.’

‘I don’t suppose you had.’

‘I mean—I would never have brought Elvira here. I have got Elvira here, you know?’

‘Yes, I saw her with you last night.’

‘But I really didn’t know that you were here. It seemed such an unlikely place for you.’

‘I don’t see why,’ said Bess Sedgwick, coldly. ‘It’s far and away the most comfortable hotel in London. Why shouldn’t I stay here?’

‘You must understand that I hadn’t any idea of … I mean—’

She looked at him and laughed. She was dressed ready to go out in a well cut dark suit and a shirt of bright emerald green. She looked gay and very much alive. Beside her, Colonel Luscombe looked rather old and faded.

‘Darling Derek, don’t look so worried. I’m not accusing you of trying to stage a mother and daughter sentimental meeting. It’s just one of those things that happen; where people meet each other in unsuspected places. But you must get Elvira out of here, Derek. You must get her out of it at once—today.’

‘Oh, she’s going. I mean, I only brought her here just for a couple of nights. Do a show—that sort of thing. She’s going down to the Melfords tomorrow.’

‘Poor girl, that’ll be boring for her.’

Luscombe looked at her with concern. ‘Do you think she will be very bored?’

Bess took pity on him.

‘Probably not after duress in Italy. She might even think it wildly thrilling.’

Luscombe took his courage in both hands.

‘Look here, Bess, I was startled to find you here, but don’t you think it—well, you know, it might be meant in a way. I mean that it might be an opportunity—I don’t think you really know how—well, how the girl might feel.’

‘What are you trying to say, Derek?’

‘Well, you are her mother, you know.’

‘Of course I’m her mother. She’s my daughter. And what good has that fact ever been to either of us, or ever will be?’

‘You can’t be sure. I think—I think she feels it.’

‘What gives you that idea?’ said Bess Sedgwick sharply.

‘Something she said yesterday. She asked where you were, what you were doing.’

Bess Sedgwick walked across the room to the window. She stood there a moment tapping on the pane.

‘You’re so nice, Derek,’ she said. ‘You have such nice ideas. But they don’t work, my poor angel. That’s what you’ve got to say to yourself. They don’t work and they might be dangerous.’

‘Oh come now, Bess. Dangerous?’

‘Yes, yes, yes. Dangerous. I’m dangerous. I’ve always been dangerous.’

‘When I think of some of the things you’ve done,’ said Colonel Luscombe.

‘That’s my own business,’ said Bess Sedgwick. ‘Running into danger has become a kind of habit with me. No, I wouldn’t say habit. More an addiction. Like a drug. Like that nice little dollop of heroin addicts have to have every so often to make life seem bright coloured and worth living. Well, that’s all right. That’s my funeral—or not—as the case may be. I’ve never taken drugs—never needed them—Danger has been my drug. But people who live as I do can be a source of harm to others. Now don’t be an obstinate old fool, Derek. You keep that girl well away from me. I can do her no good. Only harm. If possible, don’t even let her know I was staying in the same hotel. Ring up the Melfords and take her down there today. Make some excuse about a sudden emergency—’

Colonel Luscombe hesitated, pulling his moustache.

‘I think you’re making a mistake, Bess.’ He sighed. ‘She asked where you were. I told her you were abroad.’

‘Well, I shall be in another twelve hours, so that all fits very nicely.’

She came up to him, kissed him on the point of his chin, turned him smartly around as though they were about to play Blind Man’s Buff, opened the door, gave him a gentle little propelling shove out of it. As the door shut behind him, Colonel Luscombe noticed an old lady turning the corner from the stairs. She was muttering to herself as she looked into her handbag. ‘Dear, dear me. I suppose I must have left it in my room. Oh dear.’

She passed Colonel Luscombe without paying much attention to him apparently, but as he went on down the stairs Miss Marple paused by her room door and directed a piercing glance after him. Then she looked towards Bess Sedgwick’s door. ‘So that’s who she was waiting for,’ said Miss Marple to herself. ‘I wonder why.’

Canon Pennyfather, fortified by breakfast, wandered across the lounge, remembered to leave his key at the desk, pushed his way through the swinging doors, and was neatly inserted into a taxi by the Irish commissionaire who existed for this purpose.

‘Where to, sir?’

‘Oh dear,’ said Canon Pennyfather in sudden dismay. ‘Now let me see—where was I going?’

The traffic in Pond Street was held up for some minutes whilst Canon Pennyfather and the commissionaire debated this knotty point.

Finally Canon Pennyfather had a brainwave and the taxi was directed to go to the British Museum.

The commissionaire was left on the pavement with a broad grin on his face, and since no other exits seemed to be taking place, he strolled a little way along the façade of the hotel whistling an old tune in a muted manner.

One of the windows on the ground floor of Bertram’s was flung up—but the commissionaire did not even turn his head until a voice spoke unexpectedly through the open window.

‘So this is where you’ve landed up, Micky. What on earth brought you to this place?’

He swung round, startled—and stared.