They Do It With Mirrors

‘Did she care very much?’ asked Miss Marple.

‘That’s the funny thing. I don’t really believe she did. She was absolutely sweet about it all—but then she would be. She is sweet. Quite anxious to divorce him so that he and that creature could get married. And offering to give those two boys of his by his first marriage a home with her because it would be more settled for them. So there poor Johnnie was—he had to marry the woman and she led him an awful six months and then drove him over a precipice in a car in a fit of rage. They said it was an accident, but I think it was just temper!’

Mrs Van Rydock paused, took up a mirror and gazed at her face searchingly. She picked up her eyebrow tweezers and pulled out a hair.

‘And what does Carrie Louise do next but marry this man Lewis Serrocold. Another crank! Another man with ideals! Oh, I don’t say he isn’t devoted to her—I think he is—but he’s bitten by that same bug of wanting to improve everybody’s lives for them. And really, you know, nobody can do that but yourself.’

‘I wonder,’ said Miss Marple.

‘Only, of course, there’s a fashion in these things, just like there is in clothes. (My dear, have you seen what Christian Dior is trying to make us wear in the way of skirts?) Where was I? Oh yes, Fashion. Well there’s a fashion in philanthropy too. It used to be education in Gulbrandsen’s day. But that’s out of date now. The State has stepped in. Everyone expects education as a matter of right—and doesn’t think much of it when they get it! Juvenile Delinquency—that’s what is the rage nowadays. All these young criminals and potential criminals. Everyone’s mad about them. You should see Lewis Serrocold’s eyes sparkle behind those thick glasses of his. Crazy with enthusiasm! One of those men of enormous will power who like living on a banana and a piece of toast and put all their energies into a Cause. And Carrie Louise eats it up—just as she always did. But I don’t like it, Jane. They’ve had meetings of the Trustees and the whole place has been turned over to this new idea. It’s a training establishment now for these juvenile criminals, complete with psychiatrists and psychologists and all the rest of it. There Lewis and Carrie Louise are, living there, surrounded by these boys—who aren’t perhaps quite normal. And the place stiff with occupational therapists and teachers and enthusiasts, half of them quite mad. Cranks, all the lot of them, and my little Carrie Louise in the middle of it all!’

She paused—and stared helplessly at Miss Marple.

Miss Marple said in a faintly puzzled voice:

‘But you haven’t told me yet, Ruth, what you are really afraid of.’

‘I tell you, I don’t know! And that’s what worries me. I’ve just been down there—for a flying visit. And I felt all along that there was something wrong. In the atmosphere—in the house—I know I’m not mistaken. I’m sensitive to atmosphere, always have been. Did I ever tell you how I urged Julius to sell out of Amalgamated Cereals before the crash came? And wasn’t I right? Yes, something is wrong down there. But I don’t know why or what—if it’s these dreadful young jailbirds—or if it’s nearer home. I can’t say what it is. There’s Lewis just living for his ideas and not noticing anything else, and Carrie Louise, bless her, never seeing or hearing or thinking anything except what’s a lovely sight, or a lovely sound, or a lovely thought. It’s sweet but it isn’t practical. There is such a thing as evil—and I want you, Jane, to go down there right away and find out just exactly what’s the matter.’

‘Me?’ exclaimed Miss Marple. ‘Why me?’

‘Because you’ve got a nose for that sort of thing. You always had. You’ve always been a sweet innocent-looking creature, Jane, and all the time underneath nothing has ever surprised you, you always believe the worst.’

‘The worst is so often true,’ murmured Miss Marple.

‘Why you have such a poor idea of human nature, I can’t think—living in that sweet peaceful village of yours, so old world and pure.’

‘You have never lived in a village, Ruth. The things that go on in a pure peaceful village would probably surprise you.’

‘Oh I dare say. My point is that they don’t surprise you. So you will go down to Stonygates and find out what’s wrong, won’t you?’

‘But, Ruth dear, that would be a most difficult thing to do.’

‘No, it wouldn’t. I’ve thought it all out. If you won’t be absolutely mad at me, I’ve prepared the ground already.’

Mrs Van Rydock paused, eyed Miss Marple rather uneasily, lighted a cigarette, and plunged rather nervously into explanation.

‘You’ll admit, I’m sure, that things have been difficult in this country since the war, for people with small fixed incomes—for people like you, that is to say, Jane.’

‘Oh yes, indeed. But for the kindness, the really great kindness of my nephew Raymond, I don’t know really where I should be.’

‘Never mind your nephew,’ said Mrs Van Rydock. ‘Carrie Louise knows nothing about your nephew—or if she does, she knows him as a writer and has no idea that he’s your nephew. The point, as I put it to Carrie Louise, is that it’s just too bad about dear Jane. Really sometimes hardly enough to eat, and of course, far too proud ever to appeal to old friends. One couldn’t, I said, suggest money—but a nice long rest in lovely surroundings, with an old friend and with plenty of nourishing food, and no cares or worries’—Ruth Van Rydock paused and then added defiantly, ‘Now go on—be mad at me if you want to be.’

Miss Marple opened her china blue eyes in gentle surprise.

‘But why should I be mad at you, Ruth? A very ingenious and plausible approach. I’m sure Carrie Louise responded.’

‘She’s writing to you. You’ll find the letter when you get back. Honestly, Jane, you don’t feel that I’ve taken an unpardonable liberty? You won’t mind—’

She hesitated and Miss Marple put her thoughts deftly into words.

‘Going to Stonygates as an object of charity—more or less under false pretences? Not in the least—if it is necessary. You think it is necessary—and I am inclined to agree with you.’

Mrs Van Rydock stared at her.

‘But why? What have you heard?’

‘I haven’t heard anything. It’s just your conviction. You’re not a fanciful woman, Ruth.’

‘No, but I haven’t anything definite to go upon.’

‘I remember,’ said Miss Marple thoughtfully, ‘one Sunday morning at church—it was the second Sunday in Advent—sitting behind Grace Lamble and feeling more and more worried about her. Quite sure, you know, that something was wrong—badly wrong—and yet being quite unable to say why. A most disturbing feeling and very very definite.’

‘And was there something wrong?’

‘Oh yes. Her father, the old Admiral, had been very peculiar for some time, and the very next day he went for her with the coal hammer, roaring out that she was Antichrist masquerading as his daughter. He nearly killed her. They took him away to the asylum and she eventually recovered after months in hospital—but it was a very near thing.’

‘And you’d actually had a premonition that day in church?’

‘I wouldn’t call it a premonition. It was founded on fact—these things usually are, though one doesn’t always recognise it at the time. She was wearing her Sunday hat the wrong way round. Very significant, really, because Grace Lamble was a most precise woman, not at all vague or absent-minded—and the circumstances under which she would not notice which way her hat was put on to go to church were really extremely limited. Her father, you see, had thrown a marble paperweight at her and it had shattered the looking-glass. She had caught up her hat, put it on, and hurried out of the house. Anxious to keep up appearances and for the servants not to hear anything. She put down these actions, you see, to “dear Papa’s Naval temper,” she didn’t realise that his mind was definitely unhinged. Though she ought to have realised it clearly enough. He was always complaining to her of being spied upon and of enemies—all the usual symptoms, in fact.’

Mrs Van Rydock gazed respectfully at her friend.

‘Maybe, Jane,’ she said, ‘that St Mary Mead of yours isn’t quite the idyllic retreat that I’ve always imagined it.’

‘Human nature, dear, is very much the same everywhere. It is more difficult to observe it closely in a city, that is all.’

‘And you’ll go to Stonygates?’

‘I’ll go to Stonygates. A little unfair, perhaps, on my nephew Raymond. To let it be thought that he does not assist me, I mean. Still, the dear boy is in Mexico for six months. And by that time it should all be over.’

‘What should all be over?’

‘Carrie Louise’s invitation will hardly be for an indefinite stay. Three weeks, perhaps—a month. That should be ample.’

‘For you to find out what is wrong?’

‘For me to find out what is wrong.’

‘My, Jane,’ said Mrs Van Rydock, ‘you’ve got a lot of confidence in yourself, haven’t you?’

Miss Marple looked faintly reproachful.

‘You have confidence in me, Ruth. Or so you say … I can only assure you that I shall endeavour to justify your confidence.’

CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_729b29d7-9deb-58e4-a99d-2c56a04e92b1)

Before catching her train back to St Mary Mead (Wednesday special cheap day return), Miss Marple, in a precise and businesslike fashion, collected certain data.