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Inspector Slack Found the Murderer A Miss Marple Mystery · Miss Marple Mystery

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: She noticed the gloves first. Diana Hartley stood in the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: doorway of the drawing-room with her hands clasped at her waist,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: her face arranged in the careful architecture of grief, and
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple, who had been sitting in the corner armchair
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: for the past forty minutes doing absolutely nothing that anyone
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: would consider suspicious, looked at the gloves and thought of Mrs. Potter.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: But that came later. The scream had arrived at 11.43
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: by the mantle clock, which Miss Marple had reason to
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: believe was accurate, having checked it against her own watch
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: at half-past eleven, when the carol singing finally, mercifully, concluded.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: It was Gladys who screamed, Gladys being the housemaid, nineteen
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: years old, with large eyes and the kind of nerves
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: that Christmas Eve in a large country house did nothing
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: to improve, and she had gone to the drawing room
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: to collect the Colonel's brandy glass. He'd been particular about
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: his brandy glass, wouldn't leave it for morning. What she
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: found instead of a glass to collect was a Colonel
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: to report. Fernwood Manor in December had a way of
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: holding sound. The walls were thick, and the ceilings high,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: and the snow outside pressed against everything like cotton wool
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: stuffed into a box. So the scream didn't travel far.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: It reached the upper landing, the kitchen passage, and the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: blue sitting-room where Miss Marple had retreated with her knitting,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: after Mrs. Evelyn Hartley had drunk rather too much sherry,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and begun discussing at length. the inadequacies of her husband's
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: first wife, who had been dead for eleven years, and
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: was therefore unable to defend herself. Miss Marple had heard
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: the scream, had set down her knitting with the needle
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: still threaded through the last stitch, and walked unhurriedly toward it.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: She was the third person to reach the drawing-room. The
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: first was Geoffrey Tanner, the solicitor, who had appeared from
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: the direction of the library with his reading glasses still on,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: and a copy of the Times folded under his arm.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: The second was Mrs. Evelyn Hartley herself, which was surprising
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: given the sherry, though people moved quickly when they had
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: reason to. The Colonel lay beneath the Christmas tree. It was,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple thought, an extraordinarily theatrical place to die, or
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to be killed, which was not the same thing. though
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Inspector Slack would spend the better part of an hour
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: confusing the two. The tree was enormous, filling the corner
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: from floor to ceiling, and someone had decorated it with
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: great ambition and moderate taste. Glass baubles in red and gold,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: a string of electric lights that blinked with the irregular
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: rhythm of a nervous heart, and at the very top,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: an angel with a slightly startled expression that Miss Marple
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: found she understood completely. Colonel Reginald Hartley was on his back.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: His burgundy dressing gown had fallen open, his regimental cufflinks— she
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: noticed them because she noticed everything, and because they caught
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the blinking light— were still fastened at his wrists, which was
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the kind of detail that meant something, though she wasn't
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: yet certain what. The silver letter opener was buried in
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: his chest to the handle, and whoever had put it
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: there had done so with both determination and proximity. You
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: couldn't do that from a distance. You had to be close,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: but you had to look at someone while you did it.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Oh God, said Geoffrey Tanner, and sat down rather suddenly
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: on the piano bench. Mrs. Evelyn Hartley said nothing. She
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: stood in the doorway with both hands pressed flat against
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: her collarbone, her eyes very wide, and Miss Marple watched
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: her and thought, frightened, not guilty, frightened, which was different
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: and important. Gladys had retreated to the hallway and was
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: making small sounds against the wallpaper. Miss Marple crossed to
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: the fireplace, which had burned down to orange embers, and
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: stood quietly, and looked at the room. The room was
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: decorated for Christmas with the slightly desperate cheerfulness of a
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: household that had not been happy for some time. Garlands
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: of holly along the mantelpiece. A bowl of oranges studded
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: with cloves on the writing desk. The writing desk, she noted,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: whose top drawer was slightly open, not fully, just an inch,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: the way a drawer looks when someone has closed it
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: in a hurry or in the dark. cards strung along
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: a ribbon near the window, a half-finished glass of brandy
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: on the side table to the Colonel's left, and there,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: between the writing desk and the Christmas tree, a single
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: white candle in a brass holder, burned down to a stub,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: burned from the east end of its holder, not the west,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: which meant whoever had set it there had placed it
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: facing the wrong directions. or had picked it up and
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: set it down again, in the dark, slightly turned around.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple filed this away without expression. The smell in
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: the room was pine resin, wood smoke, brandy fumes, and
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: beneath all of that, faint but present, the unmistakable sweetness
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: of gardenia. Someone's perfume, she thought. Not Mrs Hartley's, it
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: which was a powdery rose she'd been wearing all evening,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: something different. She did not say any of this aloud.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Inspector Slack arrived at twenty past midnight, which given the
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: snow on the Wiltshire roads was either impressive or suspicious,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: depending on your view of country police stations and their
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: relationship with Christmas Eve. He arrived with Sergeant Doris. a
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: young woman of considerable capability, whom Slack consulted rarely and
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: dismissed often, and with the air of a man who
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: has been waiting for exactly this type of situation, and
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: is deeply grateful it has finally presented itself. Right, he
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: said from the doorway, in the voice he reserved for
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: scenes he had already solved. Where's the butler? Miss Marple
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: looked up from her armchair. Mr. Hargreaves, she said pleasantly.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: He went to his sister's in Bournemouth on the 23rd. Mrs.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Hartley mentioned it at dinner. He'll be back on the 27th.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Slack looked at her. He always looked at her in
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: that particular way, as though she were a piece of
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: furniture that had unexpectedly spoken. I wasn't asking you, Miss Marple,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: she supplied. Jane Marple. I'm a guest of Mrs. Hartley's.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: We were at school together, which was some time ago, naturally.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I arrived yesterday afternoon. She paused, knitting needles beginning their
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: quiet work. Mr. Hargreaves is in Bournemouth. Slack made a note,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: or pretended to. The notebook Miss Marple had observed across
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: many years and several unpleasant incidents was largely theatrical. He
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: moved into the room, looked at the body with the
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: expression of a man confirming what he already knew, circled
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: it once, and said, He stabbed. Letter opener. Death sometime between,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I'd say, ten and midnight. We'll get the surgeon to confirm.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: He looked up. Who was in the house? Mrs. Hartley
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: had been persuaded into a chair by this point, and
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Tanner had recovered sufficiently from the piano bench. to be
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: standing near the window, his reading glasses finally removed. He
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: answered first, in the careful way of a man constructing
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: a sentence rather than simply speaking one. Mrs. Hartley, of course.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple. Myself. I arrived this afternoon. The Colonel was
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: kind enough to invite me for the holiday. And Diana.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: He paused just slightly. Miss Diana Hartley. the Colonel's niece,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: she arrived this morning. Where is she? said Slack, and
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the door opened. A Diana Hartley was twenty-nine years old,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: and very nearly beautiful, in the particular way that requires
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: effort to maintain, and shows it under bright light. Her
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: auburn hair was pinned back, and she was wearing a
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: dark green dress that was exactly right for Christmas Eve.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: and exactly wrong for a house in which her uncle
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: had just been found dead. She had, Miss Marple thought,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: dressed for the evening rather than for the emergency. Her face,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: when she saw Inspector Slack, rearranged itself into grief the
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: way a hand shuffles cards, practiced, smooth, and just a
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: fraction too fast. Inspector, she said, oh God, poor Uncle Reggie,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: he never did it know when to stop. Past tense.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple's needles clicked once. He never did know. Not,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: he never knew. the past tense of someone who had
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: already finished grieving, or who had never quite begun. Miss Hartley,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: said Slack, I'll need to ask you some questions. Of course.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Diana pressed her fingers briefly to her eyes. I've just
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: been in from the garden. I needed air. I heard
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Gladys scream and I... She stopped, composed herself visibly, which
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: people in genuine shock rarely did. I came as quickly
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: as I could. She was wearing gloves, dark green to
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: match the dress, fine wool the kind women wore to
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: church in winter. Miss Marple looked at the gloves. The
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: East Garden, at half-past eleven on Christmas Eve in Wiltshire,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: with three inches of fresh snow and a temperature that
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: had not risen above freezing since the twentieth, would have
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: made those gloves cold within thirty seconds of stepping outside.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: The wool would be stiff. the fingers would require a
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: moment to flex properly. Diana Hartley's fingers were moving perfectly
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: well as she pressed her handkerchief to the corner of
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: one eye with the easy dexterity of someone who has
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: been indoors, warm for the past hour at least. Miss
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Marple said nothing. She looked at the candle in its
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: brass holder. She looked at the open drawer of the
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: writing desk. She thought about Gardenia perfume and about Mrs.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Potter's jam jars, and about the way the Colonel's cufflinks
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: caught the blinking light of the Christmas tree above him.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Such a tragedy, she murmured, to no one in particular.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: At Christmas especially. Inspector Slack, who had been writing in
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: his notebook with great energy, did not look up. Diana
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Hartley did, just for a moment. Just a fraction of
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: a second, her eyes moved to Miss Marple's face with
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: an attention that had nothing to do with grief and
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: everything to do with calculation. Miss Marple smiled back vaguely, pleasantly,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: in the manner of a woman thinking about something quite different.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: She was thinking about the gloves. Dr. Haydock arrived at
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: one in the morning, stamping snow from his boots in
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the entrance hall, With the cheerful irritability of a man
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: who has learned, over thirty years of country practice, that
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: death keeps no reasonable hours. Hartley, he said to no
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: one specifically, shrugging off his coat, didn't surprise me, frankly.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Hart was going. Liver worse. If someone hadn't killed him,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: the brandy would have managed it by Easter. Doctor. Inspector
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Slack materialized from the drawing room doorway with his notebook.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Time of death. I've not examined him yet, Slack. Estimate.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Hadock looked at him with the patience of a very
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: old dog regarding a very young one. When I've examined him,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: he said with careful precision, I'll give you a time
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: of death. He went into the drawing room. Slack followed.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple who had positioned herself near the hallway table
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: with her knitting and a cup of tea that Gladys
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: had brought her twenty minutes ago, and which had long
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: gone cold, remained where she was and listened to the
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: sounds of a house at one in the morning. Houses spoke,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: she had always thought. Not in any mystical sense. She
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: was not a fanciful woman, but in the particular language
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: of creaks and silences. and the small noises that people
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: made when they believed no one was paying attention. Fernwood
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Manor was speaking now in the register of shock. A
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: door closing too carefully upstairs, the sound of someone pacing
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: in the room above the kitchen, and the low, urgent
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: murmur of two voices from the direction of the library
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: that stopped the moment they became aware— of how clearly
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: voices carried in a silent house. She looked at her
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: cold tea. The library was where Geoffrey Tanner had been
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: when the scream came. He'd said so himself, reading the Times,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: glasses on, absorbed. And yet the library was at the
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: far end of the East Wing, a considerable distance from
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: the drawing-room, and he had been the first person through
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: the door after Gladys. Fairly quick, Miss Marple thought, for
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: a man who was absorbed. She did not write this down.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: She never wrote things down. Writing things down implied uncertainty,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: and she found that the important things had a way
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: of staying perfectly clear without assistance. Hadock emerged from the
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: drawing room at twenty past one, wiping his hands on
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: a cloth, his expression professionally neutral. Ten to midnight, he
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: said to Slack. Give or take twenty minutes either side.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Single wound, direct to the heart. Whoever did it knew
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: what they were doing, or was very lucky. He paused.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: I'd say lucky. The angle's slightly off. You aim for
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: that spot deliberately, you're more precise. This was close range,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: some force, and a degree of— he chose the word carefully— urgency. Urgency,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Slack repeated, not premeditated in the moment, planned possibly, executed
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: in a rush. Slack wrote this down with the satisfaction
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: of a man building a case. The household, he said,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I need everyone in the sitting room, now. They assembled
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: in the blue sitting room, which was smaller than the
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: drawing room, and smelled of the cold that crept through
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: its east-facing windows. Mrs. Evelyn Hartley sat closest to the
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: fireplace with her hands in her lap, a posture of
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: such rigid composure that it read to Miss Marple as
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: something requiring considerable maintenance. She was a handsome woman of forty-four,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: with dark hair going grey at the temples, and the
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: careful grooming of someone who understood that appearance was a
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: form of armour. Her perfume was rose, powdery and familiar,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: not gardenia. Tanner had taken the upright chair near the door,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: the chair of a man who wished to remain near exits,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple noted, though she allowed that this might simply
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: be a preference. He had replaced his reading glasses in
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: his breast pocket. His hands folded on his knee, were
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: entirely still in the manner of hands being deliberately kept still.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Diana sat on the small sofa near the window, and
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: she had removed the green gloves sometime in the past half-hour.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: They were folded on the cushion beside her very neat,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: and her bare hands were in her lap. She was
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: doing something with her expression that approximated sorrow, and doing
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: it well enough that Inspector Slack who looked at her
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: now with his policeman's inventory gaze, seemed satisfied with what
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: he found. Miss Marple, sitting slightly apart, was not looking
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: at Diana's expression. She was looking at Diana's hands. The knuckles.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: The way the ring finger of the right hand bore
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: a faint indentation, almost invisible, where a ring had recently
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: been removed in a hurry. The kind of mark a
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: tight ring left when pulled off quickly rather than eased.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: She filed this away beside the gloves and said nothing.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: I'll be brief, said Slack, as which in Miss Marple's
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: experience meant he would not be. Colonel Hartley was killed
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: between ten-thirty and twelve midnight. The weapon was a silver
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: letter-opener from his own writing-desk. He paused to let this
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: land with appropriate gravity. I need to know where each
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: of you was between those hours. Mrs. Hartley, you first.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Evelyn Hartley looked up. I was in the sherry sitting
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: room until approximately half past ten. Then I went upstairs. I,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: a small pause, entirely genuine. I had rather too much
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: to drink this evening. I went to bed. Alone? The
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: word landed with a small thud of indelicacy. Mrs. Hartley's
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: chin went up. Yes, alone. Anyone see you go up?
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Gladys brought me water at eleven, you can ask her.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Slack made a note. Mr. Tanner. I was in the
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: library from approximately ten o'clock, Tanner said. His voice was
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: its usual careful construction, but something underneath it was slightly off-key.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: the way a piano sounds when one string is fractionally loose. Reading,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: I had a whiskey at, oh, half-past ten, perhaps. I
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: didn't look at the clock particularly. The laugh arrived before
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: the sentence, as it always did with him. a nervous
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: clearing of the air. I heard the scream and came
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: through immediately. Through the east passage? A beat, fractional, human. Yes,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: it's the most direct route from the library. The east passage,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: where the candle had been, where the smell of gardenia
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: had been strongest, Miss Marple now recalled, not in the
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: drawing room itself, but in the narrow passage connecting it
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: to the east wing. She had noticed it without quite
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: noticing she'd noticed it, which was how the important things
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: usually arrived. Miss Hartley, said Slack. Diana looked up with
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: eyes that were bright with the particular brightness of tears
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: carefully maintained at the threshold rather than released. I was
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: in my room until about eleven. Then I... I couldn't sleep,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: so I went for some air. The East Garden... She
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: touched her bare hand to her collarbone. I was outside
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: when I heard the scream. I came in through the
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: side entrance and, she stopped, pressed her lips together. The
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: performance of someone holding themselves together. I came as quickly
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: as I could. The East Garden, Slack said, in this weather.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: I had my coat and my gloves. She glanced toward
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the folded gloves on the cushion beside her. I needed air.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: I was... Uncle Reggie and I had words earlier this evening.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: I was upset. This was new. Miss Marple's needles paused
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: for less than a second, then resumed. Words about what?
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: said Slack. Family matters. Diana's voice was firm on this. Private.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Nothing that... Nothing that explains this. Slack wrote it down.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: His pen moved with the energy of a man collecting
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: material for a story he had already decided the ending of.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple looked at the green gloves folded on the cushion.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Fine wool, dark green. And there, on the left cuff,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: barely visible against the dark fabric, a small damp mark.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Not from Snow. Snow left a different residue when it melted.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: white-edged and faintly mineral. This was the mark of a
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: hand gripping something, something with moisture on it. A door handle, perhaps,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: that someone had wiped hurriedly in the dark. She looked
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: away before Diana could catch her looking. A slack dismissed
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: them at twenty past two with instructions not to leave
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the manor, unnecessary instructions given that three inches of snow
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: had become six since midnight, and the roads to the
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: village were entirely impassable. Fernwood Manor was sealed. Everyone in
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: it would remain in it until morning at the earliest.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple found Gladys in the kitchen. The girl was
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: sitting at the table with a cup of tea she
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: hadn't touched, her large eyes fixed on the middle distance
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: with the expression of someone replaying something they had seen
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: and wished they hadn't. She was nineteen and frightened. And
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: when Miss Marple came through the kitchen door, she startled
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: so violently that the tea sloshed over the rim of
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: the cup. Oh, Miss Marple, I'm sorry, I didn't... Don't apologize, dear.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple sat down across from her, unhurried. You've had
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: a terrible shock. We all have. She poured herself the
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: last of the tea from the pot, cold, but it
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: didn't matter, and wrapped both hands around the cup. I
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: wanted to ask you something, and I want you to
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: know that you can tell me exactly what you saw
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: without worrying about whether it seems important or not. The
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: things that seem unimportant are very often the most important
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: of all. Gladys looked at her with the particular attention
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: of someone who has been underestimated by authority and is
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: cautiously recalibrating. The Inspector, she began. The Inspector is very thorough,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: said Miss Marple, which was not entirely true but was kind,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: and he'll ask you all the right questions in the morning.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: I'm just an old woman who is curious about small things.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: She smiled. The East Passage, Gladys. You know it. Course,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: is it's how we get to the coal store. Did
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: you go through it at all this evening? Gladys's fingers
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: tightened around her cup, and not a lot, enough. When?
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: said Miss Marple pleasantly. A long pause. The kitchen clock ticked. Outside,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: snow continued its patient work against the windows. About quarter
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: to eleven, said Gladys finally, in a voice gone careful.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: I was fetching coal for the Colonel's room. He'd asked
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: for it at dinner, said his fire had gone down.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: So I went through the east passage with the scuttle.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: She stopped. And, said Miss Marple, and Miss Diana was
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: in it. The words came out in a rush, like
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: something that had been building pressure. She was coming from
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: the drawing room end, fast. She didn't see me at first,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: I'd got the candle from the shelf, and the one
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: we keep there for when the passage light goes. And
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: she nearly walked into me. And she... Gladys stopped again.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Take your time. She grabbed my arm, just for a second,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: like she'd had a fright. And then she sort of... laughed.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Said she was looking for the bathroom, she got turned around.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Gladys's eyes came up to meet Miss Marple's. But Miss Marple,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: she's been coming to Fernwood since she was a child.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: She knows this house better than I do. She'd never
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: get turned around in the East Passage, never. Miss Marple
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: nodded slowly. No, she agreed, I don't suppose she would.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Should I have told the inspector? You should tell him
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: everything in the morning, exactly as you've told me. Miss
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Marple stood, setting down her cup. You've done nothing wrong, Gladys.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: You saw what you saw. She walked to the kitchen door,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: then paused. No, the candle, she said. The one you
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: took from the passage shelf. Did you put it back?
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Gladys frowned. No, I took it with me to the
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: coal store. I've still got it, I think. She looked
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: around and found it on the counter by the sink,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: half burned. That one! Miss Marple looked at it for
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: a moment. Burned from the east end, she said softly. Pardon? Nothing, dear,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: she smiled. Get some sleep if you can, and keep
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: the door locked, just as a precaution. She went back
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: out into the corridor. The house had gone quiet now,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: the particular quiet of very early morning, three or four
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: hours before dawn. Somewhere upstairs a floorboard shifted. The Christmas
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: tree lights in the drawing-room had been switched off by
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Doris, and without them the crack under the drawing-room
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: door showed only the dark inside. Miss Marple stood in
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: the hallway for a moment. Quarter to eleven, she thought.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Gladys in the east passage at quarter to eleven. Diana
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: coming from the drawing-room fast in the dark. Dr. Hayduck's window. 10.30
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: to midnight. She looked at the drawing-room door. Then she
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: thought about Mrs. Potter and her jam jars, and how
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: the whole village had been so busy admiring the quality
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: of Mrs. Potter's weeping that it hadn't once asked the
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: obvious question. Why, Miss Marple had asked, on a Tuesday
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: afternoon in 1949, over a cup of rather good Darjeeling,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: was Mrs. Potter in the pantry at all? The answer
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: to that question had been most illuminating. Slack arrested the
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: butler at nine o'clock on Christmas morning. This was, Miss
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Marple reflected, a considerable achievement given that the butler was
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: in Bournemouth. He announced his intention at breakfast, which was
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: a subdued affair conducted in the morning room, with the
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: particular awkwardness of people who have slept badly and are
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: pretending otherwise. Mrs. Evelyn Hartley had not slept at all.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: It showed in the careful way she held her face,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the slight over-precision of her movements, the way she poured
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: her coffee with both hands on the pot. Tanner had
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: slept too much. The deep defensive sleep of a nervous
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: system that had decided unconsciousness was preferable to the alternative.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: He arrived at the table creased and blinking, his reading
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: glasses already on, though there was nothing to read. Diana
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: had slept perfectly. This was the detail that struck Miss
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Marple when Diana came through the morning-room door at 8.45,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: fresh and composed, in a black dress that was, and
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple was precise about these things, not the dress
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: of a woman who had dressed in grief, but the
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: dress of a woman who had selected grief as a
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: costume the previous evening and was wearing it again this morning.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: The black was too considered, the pearl earrings too appropriate.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: She looked, Miss Marple thought, exactly like someone's idea of
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: a bereaved niece rather than an actual one. She helped
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: herself to toast and said, How dreadful this all is,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: in a voice of warm sorrow. Nobody answered. The toast
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: rack was passed. Inspector Slack entered at nine with his
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: notebook and his conclusion and delivered both simultaneously. Hargreaves, he
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: said to the room generally. The butler. I've spoken to
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: the Bournemouth station. They're bringing him in. He sat down
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: without being invited, which was his habit, and looked at
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: each face in turn with the expression of a man
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: distributing credit to himself. Evidence points clearly. The letter opener
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: is from the Colonel's personal writing set. only the household
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: staff would have had regular access. The drawer was open
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: from inside knowledge, and Hargreaves had motive. I've been told
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: he was recently passed over for a legacy that the
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Colonel promised him verbally, and then apparently thought better of.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: A silence. Passed over for what? said Diana. New will,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: said Slack, drawn up three weeks ago. He glanced at Tanner.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: who had gone very still in the way of a
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: man discovering how much he is about to be required
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: to say. Mr. Tanner. Tanner's laugh arrived before him. Ha! Yes, I... Yes,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: the Colonel did revise his will in November. I handled it.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: He removed his glasses, examined them, replaced them. Well, I'm
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: not certain I'm at liberty to discuss the specific... This
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: is a murder investigation, sir. Quite, yes. Another pause, longer.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: The estate is, was, to be divided. Mrs. Hartley receives
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the manor and the principal assets. There were smaller bequests.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: He stopped there, and the stop was a door closing.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: And Hargreaves, said Slack, a small sum, less than previously discussed, yes.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: And Miss Hartley, said Miss Marple, from her corner, conversationally,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: knitting needles beginning their quiet click. Everyone looked at her.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Tanner looked at her with the expression of a man
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: who has been hoping a particular question would not be asked.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple, said Slack with strained patience, I'll conduct the... Oh,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: of course, she said pleasantly. I do beg your pardon.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: I was only curious. Do go on. Slack went on,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: but the question remained to the room, hanging above the
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: toast rack like smoke. Miss Marple watched Diana pour her tea,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: both hands steady, not a tremor. The hands of a
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: woman who had already known, before Tana said a word,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: exactly what the will contained, and exactly what it meant
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: for her. You could not receive news you were already carrying.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Diana was not receiving it. She was waiting for it
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: to be over. The morning deepened, and the snow continued,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: and Fernwood Manor settled into the strange suspended state of
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: a house in which something terrible has happened, and the
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: terrible thing has not yet finished happening. Mrs. Hartley retreated
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: to her room. Tanner made telephone calls from the library
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: with the door closed, but Sergeant Doris moved through the
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: house with a quiet efficiency that Inspector Slack did not notice,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: and Miss Marple very much did. Diana sat in the
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: blue sitting room with a book she wasn't reading. Miss
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Marple walked the east passage. She did it twice, slowly,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: with the particular attention she brought to small spaces, noting
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the shelf where the spare candles were kept, the door
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: to the coal store on the left, the way the
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: passage turned slightly before reaching the drawing room entrance, creating
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: a brief blind spot. The passage light was a single
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: bulb on a pull cord at the far end. If
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: you were moving in the dark or near dark, you
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: would need the candle from the shelf to see. You
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: would carry it from the drawing room end back toward
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: the cold store end. The candle would burn from the east.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: She stood in the blind corner for a moment, a
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: quarter to eleven. Diana coming fast from the drawing room direction,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: no candle of her own. She hadn't expected to need one, perhaps,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: or had left in too much of a hurry to
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: think of it. Gladys and her candle, a near collision.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Diana's hand on Gladys's arm, reflexive. The damp mark on
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: the green glove cuff. Door handles in old houses were cold.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: They were also, in December, with six inches of snow
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: against the walls, sometimes faintly damp with condensation. The drawing
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: room door handle specifically opened from inside with a slight
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: downward pressure. that left the heel of the palm carrying
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: the moisture. Miss Marple looked at the drawing-room door. She
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: looked at the handle. Then she walked back through the
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: passage quite carefully and went to find Gladys. Gladys was
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: in the linen cupboard counting sheets, as which was the
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: task she had given herself to stop thinking about the
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: previous night, and which was not working. Gladys, said Miss Marple,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: I wonder if you could help me with something. The
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: girl turned. In daylight, she looked younger than nineteen and
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: more frightened, which was saying something. The Colonel's room, said
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple. You brought him water at half-past ten. Mrs.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Hartley mentioned it. Did you go into the room, or
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: just to the door? Into the room, ma'am. He was
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: particular about it being put on the nightstand, wouldn't have
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: it on the dressing table. And was he in bed?
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: In his chair by the window. Reading, he said, but
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: he'd fallen asleep with the book on his lap. I
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: put the water on the nightstand, and I didn't wake him.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: He didn't like being woken. No, I imagine he didn't.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple folded her hands. Ah, and his fire! You
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: said he'd asked for coal at dinner. Did you bring it?
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: That's why I was in the passage at quarter to eleven.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I'd forgot about it until Mrs. Hartley sent me to bed,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: and I remembered on the stairs. I went back down. So,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: when you brought the coal to the Colonel's room, I didn't.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Gladys's voice went small. His door was locked. I knocked
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: and there was no answer. so I thought he'd gone
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: to bed. I left the scuttle outside and went to
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: my room. Miss Marple was quiet for a moment. Locked,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: she said. Yes, ma'am. From inside or outside? Gladys frowned.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It was just locked. I knocked twice.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple thanked her and went away, and stood in
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: the corridor outside the linen cupboard, thinking about a locked door.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: and a man asleep in his chair, and the question
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: of whether you locked a door before you went to
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: sleep in it, or whether someone else locked it after
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: they left, from outside, with a key. The colonel's writing desk,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: the drawer that was open an inch. People kept spare
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: keys in desk drawers. People who knew a house as
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: well as they knew their own face kept spare keys
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: in desk drawers. because they had watched the household routine
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: for years, and they knew where things were kept and
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: where things were hidden and what a man's habits were
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: at half-past ten on Christmas Eve. Diana had been coming
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: to Fernwood since she was a child. She found the
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: gardenia at eleven o'clock, not the perfume, the bottle, which
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: was tucked behind Diana's washstand in the blue bedroom. Half empty,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: its stopper set back at a slight angle, the way
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: stoppers sat when they had been replaced in haste rather
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: than care. She had not gone looking for it deliberately.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: She had gone upstairs to fetch her reading glasses. which
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: she had left on the landing windowsill, and Diana's bedroom
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: door had been open, left open, not ajar. The door
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: swung back fully against the wall, the way a door
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: was left when someone had nothing to hide. The washstand
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: was visible from the doorway. Miss Marple stood in the
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: doorway and looked at the perfume bottle. Gardenia. The same
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: sweet heaviness she had noticed in the east passage, faint
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: beneath coal dust and cold stone. The same note she
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: had caught in the drawing room standing near the Colonel's body,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: beneath pine resin and brandy and wood smoke. You could
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: not smell wood smoke in the east passage, and the
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: drawing-room fire was the other side of two walls and
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: a door. But Gardenia travelled. Gardenia clung. It was a
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: persistent scent, the kind that remained on fabric and hands
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: and in the air of a room long after the
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: person wearing it had left. Diana had been in that
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: passage at quarter to eleven. Diana wore Gardenia. Diana had
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: come from the direction of the drawing-room, moving fast in
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: the dark, without a candle of her own. Miss Marple
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: stood in the doorway for a moment longer. Then she
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: went back downstairs, settled in her corner armchair, and picked
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: up her knitting. Slack returned at noon with the news
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: that Hargreaves would be brought from Bournemouth by two o'clock,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: weather permitting, and that he was confident the matter would
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: be resolved by tea-time. and he delivered this information to
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: the morning room with the satisfaction of a man who
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: has built something and wishes it admired. The drawer, said
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple, without looking up. Slack turned. I beg your pardon.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: The writing-desk drawer, the one that was open an inch.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: She counted a row. Was there a key in it?
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: A pause. There were several items in the drawer, said
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Slack carefully. But no key. Another pause. Shorter and less comfortable.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: We're looking into the contents of the drawer, he said.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Of course, said Miss Marple. I'm sure you are. He left.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple listened to his footsteps go down the corridor
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: and with the brisk energy of a man pretending he
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: hadn't just been asked something he should have thought of himself.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: The hall clock struck twelve. Diana, from the sofa where
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: she had migrated with her unread book, said,' Miss Marple,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: can I get you anything? Tea, perhaps?'' How very kind,'
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: said Miss Marple.' She looked up and found Diana's eyes
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: on her, with that same quality of attention she had
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: noticed the previous night. The dark, watchful attention of a
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: woman doing arithmetic. You must find it all terribly distressing,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Diana said, at Christmas especially. Coming as a guest and
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: finding yourself in the middle of all this. Oh, said
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple vaguely, one manages. I'm quite old, you know.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: One has seen a great deal, she smiled at her knitting.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Your uncle was a particular man, wasn't he? Very particular
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: about his things. He was. Diana's voice was smooth as
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: a table with the cloth pulled tight. His cufflinks, his
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: brandy glass, his fire, his will, said Miss Marple pleasantly.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: The room was very quiet. I'm sorry, said Diana. I
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: only mean that a man who is particular about small
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: things is generally particular about large ones too. Miss Marple
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: turned her knitting. It must have been quite a surprise.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: The revision. Diana looked at her for a long moment.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: The performance was still there. The black dress, the careful eyes,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: the pearl earrings, but something underneath it had shifted. The
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: way ice shifts in February when the temperature moves one degree.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know what you mean, she said. No, said
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple comfortably. I don't suppose you do. She went
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: back to her knitting. The clock ticked. The snow pressed
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: against the windows. And somewhere in the blue sitting room,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: very quietly, Diana Hartley began to understand that the old
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: woman in the corner armchair had not been thinking about
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: something quite different after all. Miss Marple took her tea
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: alone at three o'clock. This was not unusual. She had
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: always preferred the three o'clock cup to any other, not
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: the social tea of four-thirty, with its obligations of conversation
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: and cake, but the quiet earlier cup that belonged to nobody,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: claimed by no occasion. drunk in whatever chair happened to
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: be nearest, while the afternoon light did what afternoon light
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: did in December, which was very little and then nothing.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: At home in St. Mary Mead it would have been
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: her own chair, her own window, the familiar geometry of
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: her garden going grey under winter. Here it was the
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: small sitting-room off the kitchen passage. which Gladys had shown
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: her to with the instinct of someone recognizing that a
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: person needed to be alone, even which smelled of dried
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: herbs and old wood, and the particular cold that came
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: through stone walls, regardless of what the radiators thought they
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: were doing. She sat with her cup and did not knit.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Knitting was for thinking through problems that required patient untangling,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: pulling one thread carefully while watching what moved at the
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: other end. This was different. This was the stage that
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: came after the untangling, when the threads were laid out
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: and what remained was simply the looking. She looked. The
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: facts as Miss Marple understood them were these. Colonel Reginald
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: Hartley had been killed between 10.30 and midnight on Christmas
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: Eve by a single wound to the chest, delivered at
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: close range with his own silver letter opener. The wound's
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: angle suggested urgency rather than expertise, not a practiced hand,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: but a decided one, which was its own kind of expertise,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: and in some ways more dangerous. His bedroom door had
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: been locked at quarter to eleven. when Gladys brought the coal.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: He had been in his chair at half-past ten, asleep
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: with his book, when Gladys brought the water. The drawing-room,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: where his body was found, was on the ground floor.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: His bedroom was on the first floor, east wing. Sometime
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: between half-past ten and quarter to eleven, a window of
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: perhaps fifteen minutes, perhaps less, the Colonel had come downstairs.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: or been persuaded downstairs. The drawing-room writing-desk drawer was open,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: and a key was missing. A key to what, precisely,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: she did not yet know with certainty, though she had
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: a very strong opinion, and her strong opinions had a
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: reliable record. Diana Hartley wore gardenia perfume, and had been
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: in the East Passage at quarter to eleven, or coming
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: from the drawing-room direction, moving fast without a candle. Her
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: gloves had been warm and dry. Her hands had been
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: capable of fine movement within thirty seconds of claiming she'd
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: been in a frozen garden. There was a damp mark
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: on the left cuff of those gloves consistent with a
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: cold door handle gripped in haste. The new will, drawn
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: up three weeks ago, removed Diana from any meaningful inheritance.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: She had known about this, Tanner's hesitation when her name
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: was raised, and Diana's absolute lack of surprise when the
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: will was mentioned, confirmed it. You could not pretend not
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: to know something in front of Miss Marple. The pretense
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: required a stillness that the body couldn't quite achieve, and
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Diana's body, for all its practice performance, was not quite
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: still enough. He Jeffrey Tanner had been in the East Passage,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: or near it, at approximately the same time, arriving at
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: the drawing-room with suspicious speed from the far end of
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: the east wing. He was hiding something about the will,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: which was clear. Whether he was hiding something about the
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: murder was less clear, and Miss Marple was careful about
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: the distinction. People hid things for all sorts of reasons,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: and guilt was only one of them. and not always
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: the most interesting one. Mrs. Evelyn Hartley was frightened and
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: not guilty, which Miss Marple was as certain of as
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: she was certain of anything. Fear and guilt produced different stillnesses. Mrs.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: Hartley's stillness was the stillness of a woman waiting to
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: find out what would happen to her life. Diana's stillness
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: was the stillness of a woman managing what she already
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: knew E. Inspector Slack had arrested the wrong person, which
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: was not unusual, and would release him by morning, which
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: was also not unusual, and would require a considerable amount
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: of quiet assistance to arrive at the right conclusion, which
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: was the most usual thing of all. Miss Marple drank
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: her tea. She thought about Mrs. Potter. The business of Mrs.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Potter and the Jam Jars had occurred in the summer
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: of 1949. which Miss Marple remembered with perfect clarity, despite
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: her occasional strategic vagueness about dates, because it had been
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: the summer of her nephew Raymond's visit, and Raymond had
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: been there when she explained it, and his expression had been, well,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: gratifying was perhaps not the right word, but it was
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: the accurate one. Mrs. Potter kept the village post office
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: with her husband Albert, who was a mild and inoffensive
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: man with a tendency toward chest colds and an absolute
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: inability to notice anything happening directly in front of him. Mrs.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: Potter was neither mild nor inoffensive. She was a woman
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: of considerable energy, carefully directed, and she had been the
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: undisputed authority on village affairs for as long as anyone
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: could remember. which in St. Mary Mead was a very
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: long time indeed. The jam jars had belonged to Mrs. Hartnell.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Fourteen of them, prize-winning strawberry preserve, entered into the church-fit
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: competition with the confidence of a woman who had won
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: seven years running. They had vanished from the competition tent
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: between two and three on a Saturday afternoon, which was
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: when the judging was meant to occur, and the judging
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: had therefore been conducted without them and Mrs. Hartnell had
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: placed third with her backup Victoria Sponge, and the village
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: had discussed nothing else for six weeks. Mrs. Potter had
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: been first on the scene. She had expressed outrage with
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: tremendous fluency. She had organized a search. She had wept,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: actually wept, two tears tracking precisely down each cheek in
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: the manner of tears that have been waiting for their cue.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: and declared it a disgrace and a mystery. Everyone had
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: agreed it was a disgrace and a mystery. Miss Marple
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: had asked on a Tuesday afternoon why Mrs. Potter had
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: been in the tent at all. Not accusingly, conversationally, over-darjeeling,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: in the way one asked about things that had simply
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: occurred to one. Mrs. Potter had been collecting the entry forms,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: she said. The entry forms were kept at the registration
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: table near the entrance, and the jam jars had been
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: at the back of the tent. A long way from
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: the entry forms, Miss Marple had observed pleasantly. The jam
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: jars were found three days later in the Potter's garden shed,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: and the explanation, when it came reluctantly in pieces, was
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: that Mrs. Potter had removed them on behalf of her niece,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: who had entered the same competition, and stood no chance
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: against Mrs. Hartnell's strawberry preserve, and who had asked her
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: aunt's help with the casual assumption of someone who had
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: always received it. The niece it emerged had not quite asked.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: She had simply mentioned the problem, and Mrs. Potter, who
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: loved her niece with the particular blindness of those who
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: love difficult people, had solved it in the way available
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: to her. The tears, the outrage, the search she had organized,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: all of it performance, not cynical performance, it but the
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: performance of a woman who had done something she knew
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: was wrong, and was now so frightened of being found
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: out of that she had constructed a theatre of innocence
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: around herself, and was living inside it. What Miss Marple
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: had recognized, sitting in the church-fed tent watching Mrs. Potter weep,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: was the specific quality of performed distress. It had a
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: different texture from genuine distress. Genuine distress was untidy, incomplete, inconsistent.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: It forgot itself. It went quiet when it should have
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: been loud, and loud when it should have been quiet.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: It did not hit its marks. Performed distress hit its
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: marks exactly. Diana Hartley's grief had hit its marks exactly.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: The black dress selected the previous evening, the pearl earrings,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: the hands pressed to the eyes at regular intervals, and
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: the voice that caught at the right moments and steadied
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: at the right moments. The tears that arrived when Slack
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: was watching and were absent when he wasn't, And beneath
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: all of it, beneath the costume and the performance and
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: the careful architecture, the arithmetic. The dark, watchful arithmetic of
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: a woman calculating whether she had been seen, whether she
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: had been heard, whether the old woman in the corner
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: armchair was as vague as she appeared. She was not.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: The question that remained— The question Miss Marple turned now
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: quietly in the cooling afternoon was the question of the key.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: The Colonel had been in his bedroom at half-past ten,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: asleep in his chair. He had been in the drawing-room,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: dead before midnight. Gladys had found his bedroom door locked
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: at quarter to eleven, and received no answer to her knock.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: And there were three possibilities. The first, the Colonel had woken.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: come downstairs of his own accord, and been killed in
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: the drawing-room by someone who was already there or who
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: followed him. The second, someone had persuaded him downstairs. A note, perhaps,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: or a message delivered earlier in the evening that asked
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: him to come to the drawing-room at a specific time.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: The third, the Colonel had never been in his bedroom
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: at all when Gladys knocked. He had already been dead.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: His bedroom door had been locked by someone else, from
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: outside with a spare key removed from the writing-desk drawer,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: to create, or delay, the appearance that he had retired
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: for the night. The first two required the Colonel to
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: have cooperated in his own death, which people occasionally did.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: usually when they trusted the person who asked them to cooperate,
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: and a third required a key, and a knowledge of
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: where to find it, and enough presence of mind to
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: think of it afterward. Diana had presence of mind to spare.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple thought about the timing. Quarter to eleven. Diana
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: in the east passage, coming from the drawing-room fast. She
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: had just come from the drawing-room. or from the first floor,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: via the drawing-room, having locked the bedroom and come back down.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: The Colonel dead, the key replaced or pocketed. The drawing-room
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: door pulled shut behind her, and the handle, cold, slightly damp,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: gripped in haste. Then Gladys, with her candle, in the
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: blind corner of the passage, the startled grabbed the laugh.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: I got turned around. The lie of someone who had
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: just done an irreversible thing, and needed very badly for
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: the next thirty seconds to be ordinary. Miss Marple set
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: down her empty cup. Outside the sitting-room window, the afternoon
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: had finished its brief business, and the dark was coming
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: in fast across the snow, which glowed faintly blue in
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: the last of the light. Fernwood Manor was very quiet.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: Somewhere upstairs, a door opened and closed. the radiators knocked
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: and settled. She thought, Diana came to Fernwood this morning.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: She has been on the Colonel's allowance for six years.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: She knew about the new will. When she knew, and how,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: was a question for Tanner, who would answer it eventually
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: whether he intended to or not. She came here knowing
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: what the will said and knowing what it meant for her.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: and she spent Christmas Eve performing the role of beloved
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: niece while deciding, or having already decided, what to do
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: about it. The letter opener was from the writing desk.
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: She had known where it was, and she had been
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: alone with him, in his bedroom, perhaps, where he was
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: asleep and trusting, or in the drawing room where she
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: had asked him to come, or where he had come
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: of his own accord and found her there. Close range,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Hadock had said. Some force, urgency, not a planned moment,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: a decided one. There was a difference, and it mattered.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: You could plan to do a thing for months, and still,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: when the moment arrived, do it in a rush of
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: something that was not quite courage. and not quite panic,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: but somewhere between the two, in the place where people
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: did the things they had convinced themselves were necessary. Diana
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: had convinced herself it was necessary. Miss Marple found she
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: could follow the logic, even if she could not, would
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: not excuse it. Six years of dependency, six years of
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: an allowance that had felt like security and turned out
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: to be a leash. A will revised three weeks ago
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: that cut her loose entirely, and a man who would
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: not discuss it, would not be moved, who had decided
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: and closed the drawer. He never did know when to stop,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: Diana had said, at breakfast, in the past tense of
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: someone who had already finished the chapter. Miss Marple sat
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: for another moment in the cooling room. Then she stood,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: straightened her cardigan, picked up her cup to return it
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: to the kitchen, and went to find Inspector Slack. She
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: found him in the hallway, pulling on his coat with
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: the energy of a man about to leave for Bournemouth,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: and she said quite pleasantly, in the voice she used
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: when she was about to be unavoidable, Inspector, I wonder
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: if I might have a word? Slack turned. His expression
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: performed patience.' Ih, Miss Marple,' he said,' I' m just on
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: my way to—'' Yes, I know. Bournemouth.' She folded her hands.'
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: I think before you go, you might want to ask Mr.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: Tanner about the key, the spare key from the writing-desk drawer.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: And then you might want to ask him when Miss
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: Diana Hartley learned about the revision to her uncle's will.'
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: She paused.' And then, only if you have a moment.'
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: You might want to smell Miss Hartley's perfume. It's gardenia,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: rather distinctive. I noticed it last night in the East Passage,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: which is where Gladys saw Miss Hartley at quarter to eleven.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: Another pause, coming from the drawing-room. Slack stared at her.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple smiled, with the apologetic warmth of someone who
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: has just mentioned something that probably isn't important at all.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: I may be quite wrong, she said. I often am. Ah,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: but I did think you'd want to know. The conversation
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: happened over tea. This was Miss Marple's preference. Not because
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: tea made difficult things easier, exactly, but because it gave
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: everyone's hands something to do. And hands without occupation had
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: a way of revealing what faces were trying to conceal.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: She had suggested it to Slack, who had looked at
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: her with the expression he reserved for suggestions he intended
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: to dismiss, and then followed anyway, and he had arranged
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: it with the blunt efficiency of a man who had
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: been pointed in the right direction, and was now pretending
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: he'd always been facing that way. Diana came into the
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: blue sitting-room at four o'clock. She came in the way
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: she did everything, composed, dressed correctly, May her face arranged
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: with that half-beat-too-fast readiness that Miss Marple had been watching
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: since the previous night. The black dress, the pearl earrings.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: She sat down across from Miss Marple and accepted the
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: cup that Gladys brought with a murmur of thanks that
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: was precisely warm enough and no warmer, and she looked
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: at Inspector Slack standing near the window, and then at
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Doris near the door. and then, last and most carefully,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: at Miss Marple. She knew not everything, but enough. The
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: arithmetic had been running since the armchair the previous night,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: and Diana was not unintelligent, and she had arrived at
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: the approximate answer. And what she was doing now was
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: what she had been doing since half-past eleven on Christmas Eve,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: deciding what performance the moment required. Miss Marple poured her
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: own tea. Miss Hartley, said Slack from the window, I
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: want to ask you again about last night, specifically about
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: the East Passage. I've told you about the East Passage,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: Diana said. Her voice was steady. I was outside, in
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: the garden. I came in through the side entrance. The
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: side entrance opens onto the west corridor, said Slack, not
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: the East Passage. A pause, small, controlled. I came round,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: said Diana, through the kitchen. Gladys, said Slack, was in
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: the kitchen from ten o'clock until she went up to bed.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: She didn't see you come through. Another pause, longer. Miss
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Marple drank her tea and looked at the window and
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: said nothing. I may have been mistaken about the route,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: Diana said. It was dark. I was upset. You were
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: in the East Passage, said Slack, at quarter to eleven,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: coming from the drawing-room end. Ah, Gladys saw you. Diana
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: looked at Gladys, who was standing just inside the door,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: very pale, with her hands clasped in front of her apron.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: The look was not threatening— Diana was too careful for that— but
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: it was measuring, the way a person measured a distance
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: they might need to cross. Gladys didn't look away. Miss
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: Marple noticed this and was quietly glad of it. Gladys
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: is mistaken, said Diana. Her tone remained reasonable, the tone
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: of someone correcting a minor factual error. She was frightened.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: It was dark. She may have seen someone else. Who,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: said Slack, I don't know. Mrs. Hartley, perhaps. Or Mr. Tanner. Mr. Tanner.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: said Slack, has confirmed he came through the east passage
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: from the library end. He saw no one. He opened
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: his notebook. He has also confirmed. And here he paused
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: with the gravity of a man who has recently acquired
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: information and is enjoying the weight of it. That you
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: learned about the revision to your uncle's will on the
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: 14th of November, six weeks ago. He informed you himself
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: at your uncle's request. The room was very still. Diana's
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: teacup was on the table beside her, untouched. Her hands
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: were in her lap. The ring finger of her right hand,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple noted, bore the same faint indentation she had
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: noticed at two in the morning. The mark of a
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: ring removed in haste. A ring that was not on
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: her finger now, and had not been since the previous evening.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: Miss Hartley, said Slack, I'd also like to know about
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: the key. Nothing in Diana's face changed. This itself was
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: the change, the effortful nothing, the performance of blankness, of
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: which was not the same thing as actual blankness, and
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: could not be mistaken for it by anyone paying proper attention.'
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: The spare key,' said Slack,' to your uncle's bedroom. It
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: was kept in the writing-desk drawer in the drawing-room.' The
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: drawer that was found open last night. He looked at
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: his notebook, though Miss Marple suspected he didn't need to.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: The key is missing. I don't know anything about a key,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: said Diana. Your uncle's bedroom door was locked at quarter
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: to eleven, from outside. Slack looked up. The Colonel was
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: already dead by then. Someone locked that door to delay
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: the discovery of his absence. Diana looked at him. Then
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: she looked at Miss Marple. Miss Marple was looking at
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: her teacup. Someone who knew the house, said Slack, who
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: knew where the spare key was kept, who had reason
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: to want the Colonel's death, discovered as late as possible.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: This is extraordinary, said Diana, and her voice had found
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: a new register. Not the warm sorrow of the bereaved
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: niece now, but the cool indignation of a woman being
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: falsely accused, which was a different performance, and in some
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: ways a better one.' You' re accusing me of murdering my uncle,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: based on the word of a frightened housemaid, and a—'
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: She stopped.' And a?' said Slack. Diana looked at Miss
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: Marple again. This time Miss Marple looked back. I think,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: said Miss Marple, in the voice she used when she
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: was going to say something that mattered, which was quiet
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: and unhurried, and had a way of filling a room completely,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: that it might be helpful if I told you about Mrs. Potter.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: Diana's eyes did not move from her face. Mrs. Potter,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: said Miss Marple, Ipu setting down her cup with the
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: small precise click of fine china on a saucer, kept
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: the village post office in St. Mary Mead. A capable woman,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: very present, You always knew where you were with Mrs. Potter,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: which is to say, you always knew where she wanted
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: you to think you were, which is a different thing entirely.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: She folded her hands in her lap. She had a
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: niece she loved very much, more than was perhaps wise.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: The niece was entering the church fate jam competition, and Mrs.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: Hartnell's strawberry preserve was quite clearly going to win. and
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: the niece mentioned this to her aunt, in the way
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: that people mention problems to those who have always solved
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: their problems for them. She paused. Diana had not moved. Mrs.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: Potter removed the jam jars, said Miss Marple. She removed them,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: and then she was the first person to raise the alarm.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: She wept. She organized the search. She performed the role
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: of the outraged and bewildered neighbor with, I must say,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: considerable skill. The village was entirely persuaded. A small pause,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: almost entirely. What gave her away, said Diana. Her voice
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: was careful. Careful in the way that the word had
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: been threading through everything since the previous night. The word
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple's mind kept returning to. The word that described
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: the quality of doing something that required constant management. She
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: was in the wrong part of the tent. said Miss
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: Marple simply. The entry forms were at the front. The
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: jam jars were at the back. There was no reason
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: for her to have been near the jam jars at all.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: She looked at Diana steadily.' And you are in the
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: wrong part of the house, dear. Coming from a direction
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: that had no innocent explanation. Ah, not at that hour.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: Not at that speed. Not without a candle, when you
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: knew the passage light wasn't reliable.' The blue sitting room
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: was very quiet. The snow outside had stopped sometime in
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: the afternoon, and the world beyond the windows had the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: silent luminous quality of a landscape under fresh snowfall. Everything
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: ordinary made unfamiliar. Every edge softened. The Christmas tree in
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: the drawing room, two rooms away, was still and dark.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: You came to Fernwood knowing about the will. said Miss Marple,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: not unkindly. Six weeks is a long time to know
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: something like that and say nothing. To come for Christmas
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: and sit at the table and sing the carols and
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: perform the niece. Six weeks of deciding. She paused. Or
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: perhaps you hadn't decided. Perhaps you came here not knowing
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: what you were going to do, and it was something
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: he said or didn't say that decided it for you.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: Something in Diana's face moved. It was very small and
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: very quick, and Miss Marple almost missed it, and if
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: she had been looking anywhere else, she would have. A loosening,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: just for a fraction of a second, in the muscle
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: below the left eye. The involuntary response of a person
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: who has been recognized. Not caught. Recognized. There was a difference.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: and it was the difference that mattered. He laughed, said Diana.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: Her voice had changed entirely. The performance was gone, not collapsed,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: not broken, but set down. The way you set down
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: something heavy when you have been carrying it long enough.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: What was left was younger and less careful, and Miss
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: Marple thought more true. I asked him, Diana said, after
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: dinner when the others had gone up. I asked him
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: if it was final. I'm the will. I asked him
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: if there was any possibility of... She stopped. He laughed,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: not cruelly. That would have been easier, actually. He laughed
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: the way he laughed at things he found faintly absurd.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: As if the question itself was... She picked up her teacup,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: looked at it, set it down again. Six years. I
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: had been on that allowance for six years. I had
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: arranged my entire life around. The sentence didn't finish. He laughed,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: said Miss Marple, and then he said he was tired
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: and he was going up to bed, and I said
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: there was something in the drawing-room I wanted to show him.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: Something I'd found in the desk, a letter I thought
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: he should see, and he came downstairs because he was
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: A brief pause, very brief, because he trusted me. He
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: was my uncle and he trusted me and I... She stopped.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: Inspector Slack had his notebook open and his pen moving,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: but quietly, with none of his usual ceremony. Diana looked
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: at her hands in her lap. I didn't plan it,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: she said. I want you to know that, although I
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: suppose it doesn't matter whether you know it or not.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: The letter opener was on the desk. It had always
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: been on the desk. I've seen it a hundred times.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: A pause. I picked it up and I didn't, I
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: didn't think, I just decided. The way you decide to
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: do something you've been thinking about without knowing you've been
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: thinking about it. The room held this for a moment.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: And then, said Miss Marple quietly, you locked his bedroom door.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: To buy time. Diana's voice was steady again, but differently steady.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: The steadiness of someone who has put down the weight
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: and found, perhaps with some surprise, that the ground is
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: still there. Ah, I thought if they found him later,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: if it seemed he'd gone to bed, It might be.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: She didn't finish. It wasn't a very good plan. No,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: said Miss Marple. They rarely are. The plans that come after.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: Inspector Slack made his arrest at twenty past four. He
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: did it correctly, which was to say officially, with the
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: appropriate words in the appropriate order. And Diana stood, and
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: received them with the composure of someone who had been
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: composing themselves for so long that it had become, perhaps,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: the only mode available. She asked to telephone her solicitor,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: a different one from Tanner, she specified, with a small
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: dry precision that was the last remnant of the performance,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: and Sergeant Doris went with her. and the blue sitting-room
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: was left to Miss Marple and Inspector Slack, and the
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: remains of the tea. She slack-stood at the window, looking
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: out at the snow. The key, he said without turning.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: We'll find it in her room, I expect. In her coat-pocket,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: said Miss Marple, the dark green coat she wore last night.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: She wouldn't have had time to move it, and she
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: couldn't throw it away with six inches of snow on
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: the ground. Slack turned and looked at her with the
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: expression he wore when he had been helped and wished
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: he hadn't needed to be.' The thing about the candle,'
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: he said,' I wouldn't have gotten there.'' The candle was
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: very specific,' Miss Marple agreed.' One needs to have spent
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: a great deal of time in old houses,' with unreliable
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: passage lights to understand what it meant. I have spent
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: rather a lot of time in exactly that sort of house.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: Slack looked at her for another moment. Then he looked
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: at his notebook. Then he said, oh, with the particular
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: gruffness of a man performing the action rather than the sentiment,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: thank you, Miss Marple. Oh, she said, pleasantly surprised, as
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: though she hadn't been waiting for it. Not at all, Inspector.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: He left. His footsteps went down the corridor, brisk and official,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: and the front door opened and closed, and Fernwood Manor exhaled. Mrs.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: Evelyn Hartley came to find Miss Marple at five o'clock,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: when the dark had completed its work, and the snow
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: outside was invisible, except where the hall light caught the
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: edge of it. She came in quietly and sat down
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: in the chair Diana had occupied an hour before and
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: said nothing for a moment. And Miss Marple let the
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: nothing be, because some silences were not problems to be solved.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: Will you stay, said Mrs. Hartley finally, for Christmas? I
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: know it's, I know this isn't, I'll stay, said Miss Marple. Mrs.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: Hartley nodded once. with the brief precision of someone receiving
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: news they had been afraid to hope for. Evelyn, said
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple, the silver, the household silver that's been moved. Mrs.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: Hartley's eyes came up sharply.' I won't mention it,' said
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple.' It isn't my business, and it isn't relevant,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: but I think perhaps it should go back.' A long pause.' Then, yes,'
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: said Mrs. Hartley quietly.' I think it should.' They sat
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: for a moment in the cooling room. Two women of
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: a certain age on Christmas evening, with the silence of
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: a house resettling around them, finding its new shape. He
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: laughed at her, said Mrs. Hartley, not defending Diana, just
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: placing the fact. Yes, said Miss Marple, that was always
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: his way. When someone asked him for something he'd already
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: decided against, he laughed. She looked at her hands. It
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: was very difficult to be laughed at by Reggie. Miss
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: Marple thought about this. Yes, she said, I imagine it was.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: The morning papers, three days later, carried a small notice.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: Inspector Slack of the Wiltshire Constabulary has made an arrest
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: in connection with the Christmas Eve death of Colonel R.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: Hartley of Fernwood Manor. A suspect is in custody. no
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: mention of candles or perfume, or the warm dry hands
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: of a woman who claimed to have walked through frozen gardens,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: no mention of jam jars or village post offices, or
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: the particular quality of performed distress, no mention of a
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: spare bedroom key found, as predicted, in the pocket of
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: a dark green coat. Inspector Slack had solved the case.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: The newspaper said so, Inspector Slack, oh, presumably, agreed. Miss
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: Marple read the notice over her second cup of tea.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: She had been given a first cup by Gladys, who
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: brought it at precisely eight o'clock with the steady reliability
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: of someone who has decided that steadiness is available to her,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: and she folded the paper and set it aside. She
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: picked up her knitting. The pattern was a complicated one,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: a cable stitch her niece had sent her in October
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: with a note saying it was fashionable now, which Miss
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: Marple doubted. But the stitch itself was interesting, each cable
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: requiring the holding of three stitches in a particular order,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: the temporary displacement of one thing to allow the correct
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: movement of another, the final result only visible when you
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: had worked far enough along the row to see the
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: pattern emerge. rather like most things, she thought. Outside the
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: window of Mrs. Yehartley's morning room, St. Mary Mead was
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: going about its Boxing Day business. The butcher's boy on
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: his bicycle, Mrs. Price Ridley's cook at the corner, bag
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: over one arm, clearly in transit to someone's kitchen with information.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: The post office opened for half a day, as it
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: always was on the 26th. the yellow light in the
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: window the same yellow it had been every boxing day
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: she could remember. Everything ordinary, everything continuing. Miss Marple knitted
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: another row. The real danger of a clever murderer, she
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: had remarked to Gladys that morning, while the girl brought
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: toast and lingered in the doorway with the look of
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: someone who had something to say, is that they count
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: on everyone else being just a little bit lazy. Gladys
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: had considered this seriously, with the seriousness of someone who
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: had recently watched it proven. And are they? she'd asked.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: Usually lazy? Miss Marple had looked up from her knitting. Usually,
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: she said, yes. She had not said, but not always.
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: She didn't need to. Gladys, who had looked a frightening
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: woman in the eye, in a dark passage, and had
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: not looked away when it mattered, already new. The needles
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: clicked on, steady as a clock, through the morning, and
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: the pattern, and the quiet, and the snow. Finn.