Sanctuary: A Miss Marple Short Story

‘Could he have gone far after that happened?’ Bunch asked.

‘Oh, yes, it’s quite possible. A mortally wounded man has been known to pick himself up and walk along a street as though nothing had happened, and then suddenly collapse five or ten minutes later. So he needn’t have been shot in the church. Oh no. He may have been shot some distance away. Of course, he may have shot himself and then dropped the revolver and staggered blindly towards the church. I don’t quite know why he made for the church and not for the vicarage.’

‘Oh, I know that,’ said Bunch. ‘He said it: “Sanctuary.”’

The doctor stared at her. ‘Sanctuary?’

‘Here’s Julian,’ said Bunch, turning her head as she heard her husband’s steps in the hall. ‘Julian! Come here.’

The Reverend Julian Harmon entered the room. His vague, scholarly manner always made him appear much older than he really was. ‘Dear me!’ said Julian Harmon, staring in a mild, puzzled manner at the surgical appliances and the prone figure on the sofa.

Bunch explained with her usual economy of words. ‘He was in the church, dying. He’d been shot. Do you know him, Julian? I thought he said your name.’

The vicar came up to the sofa and looked down at the dying man. ‘Poor fellow,’ he said, and shook his head. ‘No, I don’t know him. I’m almost sure I’ve never seen him before.’

At that moment the dying man’s eyes opened once more. They went from the doctor to Julian Harmon and from him to his wife. The eyes stayed there, staring into Bunch’s face. Griffiths stepped forward.

‘If you could tell us,’ he said urgently.

But with eyes fixed on Bunch, the man said in a weak voice, ‘Please – please –’ And then, with a slight tremor, he died …

Sergeant Hayes licked his pencil and turned the page of his notebook. ‘So that’s all you can tell me, Mrs Harmon?’

‘That’s all,’ said Bunch. ‘These are the things out of his coat pockets.’ On a table at Sergeant Hayes’s elbow was a wallet, a rather battered old watch with the initials W.S. and the return half of a ticket to London. Nothing more.

‘You’ve found out who he is?’ asked Bunch. ‘A Mr and Mrs Eccles phoned up the station. He’s her brother, it seems. Name of Sandbourne. Been in a low state of health and nerves for some time. He’s been getting worse lately. The day before yesterday he walked out and didn’t come back. He took a revolver with him.’