4.50 from Paddington

‘That’s a relief, in a way,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy, ‘because as you know, I’m going out to Ceylon immediately after Christmas—to stay with Roderick, and I certainly do not want to put that visit off—I’ve been looking forward to it so much. Though of course I would put it off if I thought it was my duty,’ she added conscientiously.

‘I’m sure you would, Elspeth, but as I say, I consider you’ve done everything you possibly could do.’

‘It’s up to the police,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy. ‘And if the police choose to be stupid—’

Miss Marple shook her head decisively.

‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘the police aren’t stupid. And that makes it interesting, doesn’t it?’

Mrs McGillicuddy looked at her without comprehension and Miss Marple reaffirmed her judgment of her friend as a woman of excellent principles and no imagination.

‘One wants to know,’ said Miss Marple, ‘what really happened.’

‘She was killed.’

‘Yes, but who killed her, and why, and what happened to her body? Where is it now?’

‘That’s the business of the police to find out.’

‘Exactly—and they haven’t found out. That means, doesn’t it, that the man was clever—very clever. I can’t imagine, you know,’ said Miss Marple, knitting her brows, ‘how he disposed of it … You kill a woman in a fit of passion—it must have been unpremeditated, you’d never choose to kill a woman in such circumstances just a few minutes before running into a big station. No, it must have been a quarrel—jealousy—something of that kind. You strangle her—and there you are, as I say, with a dead body on your hands and on the point of running into a station. What could you do except as I said at first, prop the body up in a corner as though asleep, hiding the face, and then yourself leave the train as quickly as possible. I don’t see any other possibility—and yet there must have been one …’

Miss Marple lost herself in thought.

Mrs McGillicuddy spoke to her twice before Miss Marple answered.

‘You’re getting deaf, Jane.’

‘Just a little, perhaps. People do not seem to me to enunciate their words as clearly as they used to do. But it wasn’t that I did not hear you. I’m afraid I wasn’t paying attention.’

‘I just asked about the trains to London to-morrow. Would the afternoon be all right? I’m going to Margaret’s and she isn’t expecting me before teatime.’

‘I wonder, Elspeth, if you would mind going up by the 12.15? We could have an early lunch.’

‘Of course and—’

Miss Marple went on, drowning her friend’s words:

‘And I wonder, too, if Margaret would mind if you didn’t arrive for tea—if you arrived about seven, perhaps?’

Mrs McGillicuddy looked at her friend curiously.

‘What’s on your mind, Jane?’

‘I suggest, Elspeth, that I should travel up to London with you, and that we should travel down again as far as Brackhampton in the train you travelled by the other day. You would then return to London from Brackhampton and I would come on here as you did. I, of course, would pay the fares,’ Miss Marple stressed this point firmly.

Mrs McGillicuddy ignored the financial aspect.

‘What on earth do you expect, Jane?’ she asked. ‘Another murder?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Miss Marple, shocked. ‘But I confess I should like to see for myself, under your guidance, the—the—really it is most difficult to find the correct term—the terrain of the crime.’

So accordingly on the following day Miss Marple and Mrs McGillicuddy found themselves in two opposite corners of a first-class carriage speeding out of London by the 4.50 from Paddington. Paddington had been even more crowded than on the preceding Friday—as there were now only two days to go before Christmas, but the 4.50 was comparatively peaceful—at any rate, in the rear portion.

On this occasion no train drew level with them, or they with another train. At intervals trains flashed past them towards London. On two occasions trains flashed past them the other way going at high speed. At intervals Mrs McGillicuddy consulted her watch doubtfully.

‘It’s hard to tell just when—we’d passed through a station I know …’ But they were continually passing through stations.

‘We’re due in Brackhampton in five minutes,’ said Miss Marple.

A ticket collector appeared in the doorway. Miss Marple raised her eyes interrogatively. Mrs McGillicuddy shook her head. It was not the same ticket collector. He clipped their tickets, and passed on staggering just a little as the train swung round a long curve. It slackened speed as it did so.

‘I expect we’re coming into Brackhampton,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy.

‘We’re getting into the outskirts, I think,’ said Miss Marple.

There were lights flashing past outside, buildings, an occasional glimpse of streets and trams. Their speed slackened further. They began crossing points.

‘We’ll be there in a minute,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy, ‘and I can’t really see this journey has been any good at all. Has it suggested anything to you, Jane?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Miss Marple in a rather doubtful voice.

‘A sad waste of good money,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy, but with less disapproval than she would have used had she been paying for herself. Miss Marple had been quite adamant on that point.

‘All the same,’ said Miss Marple, ‘one likes to see with one’s own eyes where a thing happened. This train’s just a few minutes late. Was yours on time on Friday?’

‘I think so. I didn’t really notice.’

The train drew slowly into the busy length of Brackhampton station. The loudspeaker announced hoarsely, doors opened and shut, people got in and out, milled up and down the platform. It was a busy crowded scene.

Easy, thought Miss Marple, for a murderer to merge into that crowd, to leave the station in the midst of that pressing mass of people, or even to select another carriage and go on in the train wherever its ultimate destination might be. Easy to be one male passenger amongst many. But not so easy to make a body vanish into thin air. That body must be somewhere.

Mrs McGillicuddy had descended. She spoke now from the platform, through the open window.

‘Now take care of yourself, Jane,’ she said. ‘Don’t catch a chill. It’s a nasty treacherous time of year, and you’re not so young as you were.’

‘I know,’ said Miss Marple.

‘And don’t let’s worry ourselves any more over all this. We’ve done what we could.’

Miss Marple nodded, and said:

‘Don’t stand about in the cold, Elspeth. Or you’ll be the one to catch a chill. Go and get yourself a good hot cup of tea in the Restaurant Room. You’ve got time, twelve minutes before your train back to town.’

‘I think perhaps I will. Good-bye, Jane.’

‘Good-bye, Elspeth. A happy Christmas to you. I hope you find Margaret well. Enjoy yourself in Ceylon, and give my love to dear Roderick—if he remembers me at all, which I doubt.’

‘Of course he remembers you—very well. You helped him in some way when he was at school—something to do with money that was disappearing from a locker—he’s never forgotten it.’