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A Teacup Full of Poison A inspired by Miss Marple · Miss Marple Mystery

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The teacup was beautiful, white bone china, hand-painted with a
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: thin border of blue forget-me-nots, the kind Mrs. Alderton had
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: inherited from her mother, and never once allowed near the
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: kitchen sink. She washed them herself, always, with warm water
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and a soft cloth, the way other women might handle
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: something they loved but didn't entirely trust. It sat on
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  Speaker 1: the table now, the cup, Still and ordinary among the
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: other still and ordinary things. The silver sugar tongs. The
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: small plate of lemon slices nobody ever touched. The teapot
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: with the chipped lid that Mrs. Alderton had meant to
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: replace for three years, and somehow never had. Outside, the
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: garden was doing what English gardens do in October. Dying politely,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: There were five of them at the table that Thursday afternoon. Mrs.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Alderton herself, hostess, widow, 63, hinted with the kind of
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: upright posture that suggested she'd once been told to sit
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: straight and had never quite stopped. She poured the tea
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: with the careful precision of a woman who considered tea
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: a serious matter. Beside her, Dr. Raymond Fitch, who was
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: not her doctor but had been her late husband's, and
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: who had continued visiting out of what everyone agreed was kindness,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: though the precise nature of that kindness had been the
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: subject of considerable discussion at the post office. Across from
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: him sat Mrs. Gerald Bowes, Constance, who had been Mrs.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Alderton's closest friend for thirty years, and her closest enemy
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: for twenty-five of them, a distinction that appeared to make
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: no difference whatsoever to how often they took tea together.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Then there was the nephew, Philip Alderton, 29, a recently
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: returned from something vague in London, that he described as business,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: and others described less generously behind his back. He had
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: his aunt's jawline and his uncle's habit of watching rooms
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: rather than participating in them. And in the corner chair,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: slightly apart from the table as she preferred, sat Miss
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Jane Marple. She had been invited because Mrs. Alderton had
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: once helped Miss Marple's garden boy find employment, and Miss
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Marple had felt it only right to return the visits
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: faithfully ever since. She was knitting something pale blue, and
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: had been for what appeared to be several months. She
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: held her cup with both hands and said very little.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: This was, most people assumed, because she had very little
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: to say. Philip, you're not eating, missus. Alderton said it
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the way women of her generation said such things. Not
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: quite a question, not quite a criticism, but somewhere in
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the narrow, uncomfortable space between them. I'm fine, Aunt Helen,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: You look thin. I'm not thin. You look it. Dr.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Fitch set down his fork. He looks perfectly well to me, Helen.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: You're a doctor, Raymond, not a mirror. Constance Bowes made
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: a small sound that might have been amusement. Philip reached
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: for a sandwich and ate it without expression. Miss Marple's
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: needles clicked twice and were still. The fire crackled. Someone's
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: teacup met its saucer with a gentle tap. Outside, a
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: blackbird started up in the oak tree, and then, reconsidering, stopped.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: It was an ordinary tea. That was the thing. That
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: was what they would all say afterward, in various police
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: stations and parlours, though with various degrees of composure, that
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: there had been nothing unusual. Nothing at all? just the
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: sandwiches and the cake and the October light going grey
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: outside and Mrs. Alderton pouring from the pot with those careful,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: practiced hands. Though Miss Marple, if pressed, would have said
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: something was slightly off about the afternoon, the way a
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: room feels slightly off when a window has been opened
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: and closed again, not cold exactly, just different from how
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: you left it. She noticed, for instance, that Constance Bowes
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: had chosen her chair before being directed to it, had
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: come in, assessed the table, and sat, a small thing.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: People often chose their own chairs. But Constance had sat
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: with her back to the window, which meant she was
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: facing the door, is which meant she could see everyone's face,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: and no one could see hers clearly with the light
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: behind her. Miss Marple thought about Mrs. Watts. who had
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: done the same thing every single Sunday at the church
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: socials for eleven years, and everyone had assumed she was
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: simply particular about drafts. She wasn't. She was watching her husband.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: She filed this away. I heard, said Constance, lifting her cup,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: that the Redfords are finally selling. The house on Vicarage Lane? Mrs.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Alderton looked up. The very one!' Mrs. Price Ridley told me.'
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: She had it from the girl at the estate agent's,'
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  Speaker 1: the young one with the fringe.'' Susan,' said Mrs. Alderton,'
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: is that her name?'' Her mother was a Hartley, from Aylesbury.' Well,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: she told Mrs. Price Ridley' that the Redfords have had
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the valuation done' and they're expecting quite a sum.'' Doctor.''
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: A Fitch poured himself more tea without being asked.' Good
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: for them!' They'll not get it, Philip said without looking up.
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  Speaker 1: Properties stalled, whole county. You'd know about property, would you?
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Constance asked. Her tone was precisely, surgically pleasant. I know enough.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Philip's been dealing in investments, Mrs. Alderton said, in the
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: voice she used to smooth surfaces, very successfully. The small
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: silence that followed was the kind that contains a word
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: nobody says. Miss Marple reached for a slice of seed cake.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: It was Dr. Fitch who poured the second round. Mrs.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Alderton had stepped to the sideboard to find the small
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: silver strainer she was certain she'd put there, and he'd
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: lifted the pot quite naturally, quite helpfully. Shall I, Helen?
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: And she'd said yes, of course, Raymond, thank you, without
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: turning around. He poured for Constance first, then Philip, then himself.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: He held the pot above Miss Marple's cup and raised
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: an eyebrow, and she nodded, and he poured. Then he
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: set the pot down and sat. And Mrs. Alderton returned
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: with the strainer, and the tea went cold by degrees,
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  Speaker 1: and the conversation turned to the church roof, which needed
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: twelve hundred pounds and was not going to get it.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: and then to the new butcher on Market Street, who
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  Speaker 1: was perfectly acceptable, but not quite the same as old Mr. Potts,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: who had retired, and then Philip reached forward and took
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: his aunt's cup. Not his own, hers. Yours has gone cold,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: he said without quite looking at her. Take mine, I
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: haven't touched it. Mrs. Alderton smiled at him, the specific
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: smile she reserved for moments when he surprised her. and
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: took the cup from his hand. You see, she said
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: to Constance, who had been saying something cutting before the interruption,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: he's not entirely hopeless. Philip said nothing. He picked up
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: his aunt's cold cup and held it loosely, not drinking.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple set down her knitting. Constance Bowes was speaking.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Something about the church organist, a reliable subject. when Mrs.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Alderton set her cup down very suddenly. Not loudly, there
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: was no crash, just the abrupt setting down of a
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: cup by a hand that seemed to have lost its
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  Speaker 1: intention mid-gesture.' Helen!' Dr. Fitch was on his feet. She
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: was very pale. Her hand moved to her collar briefly,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: and then stopped, and she looked across the table with
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: an expression of mild, confused surprise, as though something had
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: been said that she hadn't heard properly. I'm... she started.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: She didn't finish. She went sideways, not dramatically, in not
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the way people fall in films, but the way a
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: person falls when their body simply stops cooperating. Gradual, terrible,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: and very quiet. Philip caught her before she reached the floor. Dr.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Fitch was very efficient. He was that sort of man,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: useful in emergencies, admirable in crises, the kind of efficiency
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  Speaker 1: that left no room for panic, because someone had already
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: practically told panic it wasn't needed here. He sent Philip
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  Speaker 1: for the telephone, he sent Constance for a blanket, mostly
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  Speaker 1: to give her something to do, and he stayed with Mrs. Alderton,
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  Speaker 1: who was breathing, thank God, but very faintly. Miss Marple
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: did not move from her chair. She sat quite still,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: her hands folded over her knitting, and she looked at
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  Speaker 1: the table. Five cups, the teapot, The sugar tongs, the
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  Speaker 1: silver strainer Mrs. Alderton had been so glad to find.
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  Speaker 1: She looked at Philip, eggly standing by the door with
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the telephone receiver still in his hand, watching his aunt's face.
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  Speaker 1: She looked at the cup, Mrs. Alderton's original cup, now
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  Speaker 1: sitting where Philip had left it, still full, still cold,
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  Speaker 1: still untouched. and she looked at Constance Bowes, who had
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  Speaker 1: returned with a blanket nobody needed any more, and was
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: standing very still by the window. The light behind her,
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  Speaker 1: her face in shadow, watching Mrs. Alderton died at twenty
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  Speaker 1: past five. Dr. Fitch said it was her heart. It
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: might well have been. She was sixty-three, and there had been,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: he noted, a history. But Miss Marple had seen a
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  Speaker 1: great many things in her seventy-one years, and she had
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: seen women with heart trouble, and she had seen what
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  Speaker 1: poison looked like when it moved through a person, and
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: they were not, in her experience, the same. She said
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  Speaker 1: nothing of this, and she accepted Philip's offer to call
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  Speaker 1: her a car. She put on her coat by the door.
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  Speaker 1: She said the appropriate things in the appropriate order to
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  Speaker 1: the appropriate people. At the door she paused, she almost
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  Speaker 1: always paused at doors, and looked back at the table.
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  Speaker 1: The teacup sat there, beautiful, blue forget-me-nots. The last cup Mrs.
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  Speaker 1: Alderton had ever used, not the one meant for her.
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  Speaker 1: Miss Marple stepped out into the cold October evening and
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  Speaker 1: thought about Philip's hands on the cup and Constance's chosen seat,
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  Speaker 1: and Dr. Fitch with the teapot. so natural, so helpful,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: and she thought about the Purvis's, who had kept the
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Draper's shop on Lacey Street for twenty years, and how
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: the thing about secrets, the real thing, was that they
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  Speaker 1: didn't hide. They sat right across the table from you,
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  Speaker 1: plain as anything, and waited. Inspector Slack arrived at half-past
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  Speaker 1: nine the following morning, which Miss Marple considered slightly too
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: late and slightly too confident. the two qualities in a
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  Speaker 1: policeman she found most reliably inconvenient. He was a tall man,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Inspector Slack, not naturally tall, the kind of tall that
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: comes from deciding, at some point, that height was authority,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: and carrying the decision in the shoulders ever since. He
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: had a good coat and a bad hat, and the
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: expression of a man who had already, before entering the room,
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  Speaker 1: formed a theory. Miss Marple recognized the expression. She'd seen
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  Speaker 1: it on the face of the Reverend Clement once, during
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: the business with the choir master, and it had cost
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: them three wasted weeks and one deeply unnecessary arrest. She
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: was seated in Mrs. Alderton's sitting-room, because Philip had asked
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  Speaker 1: her to stay. I'd feel better, eh, Miss Marple, if
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: someone sensible were about, and she had agreed. because she
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: felt considerably better about it herself. Slack interviewed Philip first.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: They sat in the dining room with the door not
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: quite closed, which Miss Marple, positioned in the adjoining chair
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  Speaker 1: by the hall, found very helpful. You were close to
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: your aunt? She was my father's sister, yes. And you've
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: been staying here how long? Three weeks, a pause. Approximately. Approximately?
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Three weeks and two days, if you need the exact figure.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: I might. Slack's voice had the texture of a man
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: writing something down. And your business in London? You said
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: last night you'd been there on business before coming here?
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: That's correct. What sort of business? Investments. Property adjacent. Property adjacent.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Another pause. Longer. What does that mean? Exactly, Philip's answer
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: was patient and complete, and told Inspector Slack almost nothing specific,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: which Miss Marple thought was rather skillfully done for a
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: young man who'd looked genuinely shaken the night before. She
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: filed that away beside the cup. Constance Bowes arrived at ten, uninvited,
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  Speaker 1: which was the only way Constance Bowes did anything. She
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: came through the front door with the ease of a
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: woman who had used it for thirty years, handed her
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: coat to the kitchen girl without looking at her, and
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: walked directly into the sitting room where Miss Marple was knitting.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: I expected the police, she said. They're in the dining room.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: With Philip? They were. I believe they've finished. Constance sat.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: She was a handsome woman, sixty or thereabouts, took with
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: very good bones, and the kind of composure that either
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: came from breeding or from practice. In Miss Marple's experience,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: those two things produced identical results and entirely different people.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Dreadful business, Constance said. Yes, Helen's heart was never strong. No,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: said Miss Marple. Constance looked at her. You don't agree.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: I didn't say anything. You said no in a particular way.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple looked up from her knitting. Did I? I'm sorry.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about something else entirely. She smiled, the
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: gentle vague smile that people consistently mistook for vacancy. My
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: sister's friend, Mrs. Hooper. She had heart trouble for years.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Such a worry. She used to go quite grey, you know,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: around the mouth, before an episode. Constance was quiet for
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: a moment. Helen didn't go grey, she said. Oh no,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple agreed pleasantly. She didn't, did she? She returned
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: to her knitting. Constance looked at the window. Dr. Fitch
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: arrived at quarter past ten and went directly to Inspector Slack.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: which was proper and expected. He'd signed the death certificate
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: the previous evening. Heart failure, natural causes, consistent with history,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: and he came now, he said, simply to make himself available.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple listened to his voice through the wall. Clear, unhurried, professional.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: The voice of a man who had delivered bad news
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: many times and had learned correctly that steadiness was a kindness.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: she thought about the teapot. About the way he'd lifted
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: it without being asked. Shall I, Helen? There was nothing
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: wrong with that. Men of his type, helpful, practiced, comfortable
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: in that particular house, they lifted teapots. If they refilled cups,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: it was the most natural thing. The trouble with natural
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: things Miss Marple had always found was that they were
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: extremely easy to arrange. Slack interviewed Constance in the sitting room,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: which meant Miss Marple was asked, pleasantly but clearly, to
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: wait in the hall. She did so, and found the
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: hall extremely informative. You and Mrs. Alderton were close friends.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Thirty years. Constance's voice carried perfectly through the sitting room door.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: We met when I moved to St. Mary Mead. My
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: husband had taken the practice at the firm. He's gone now, Gerald,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: three years ago. And Helen was one of the first
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: women to call on me properly. You don't forget that.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: And recently? The friendship was still, we had tea every Thursday.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Draw your own conclusions. A brief silence. Were you aware
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: of any difficulties? Financial? A personal, Helen was a private woman.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: She didn't air difficulties. And the nephew? Philip, the pause
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: was perhaps half a second longer than it needed to be.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple's needles went still. He's a young man finding
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: his way, Constance said. Helen was fond of him, very fond,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: despite the... She was fond of him, Constance repeated. The
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: same words, the same tone, and something in the repetition
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: closed the subject as firmly as a locked door. Slack
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: spoke to Miss Marple last, which she'd expected. Witnesses of
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: her type, elderly, female, positioned in corners, were reliably saved
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: for last, which reliably meant the inspector had already formed
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: his conclusions and was no longer truly listening. She found
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: this useful. Miss Marple, you were a friend of the deceased.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: An acquaintance. A friendly one, I hope. Mrs. Alderton was
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: very kind to my garden boy some years ago. You'd
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: attended these Thursday teas before? Several times, not recently. I'd
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: been unwell in September, and had rather let the visits lapse.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Slack wrote something. And yesterday afternoon, nothing struck you as unusual.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Before the— before Mrs. Alderton took ill— Miss Marple considered the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: ceiling thoughtfully. It was a perfectly ordinary tea, she said,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: though I did think the seed cake was slightly underdone.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: The centre, it sometimes happens when the oven runs cool.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Slack looked at her. The seed cake, he said, Mrs.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Alderton's cook, Edith. She's a good plain cook, but she
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: will rush her baking. I've always thought, Miss Marple smiled apologetically,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: But that's neither here nor there, is it? No, said Slack.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: It isn't. He thanked her. He stood. He was, she
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: could see, who is already thinking about his lunch. Inspector,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: she said as he reached the door. He turned. Did
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: anyone mention the cups? Slack looked at her steadily. The cups.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: The teacups. I only wondered when the doctor is done
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: with his examination. whether they'd thought to look at the cups.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: All five of them, including, she paused, fingers on her knitting,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: including the one Mrs. Alderton didn't use. A silence. There
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: were five people. There would be five cups, she said gently.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: But one cup was exchanged. Philip gave his aunt his cup,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: you see, and took hers instead. So the cup she
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: drank from wasn't originally hers. She tilted her head. I
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: may be quite wrong, probably am, an old woman fussing,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: but the cups were very fine china, and I did
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: notice them particularly. Slack said nothing for a long moment.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Or the cups have been washed, he said at last.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple looked up. Have they? The kitchen girl did
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: them this morning, before nine. Ah, said Miss Marple, just that, ah.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: but she said it in the particular way that made
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Constance Bowes look up sharply from the other end of
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: the room. Even though Constance hadn't, as far as anyone
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: could see, been listening at all. The kitchen girl's name
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: was Dot. She was seventeen, wide-eyed, and had been crying
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: on and off since the previous evening in the way
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: seventeen-year-olds cry. Completely. and then completely stopped, and then completely again.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple found her in the kitchen at half eleven,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: ostensibly to ask for a glass of water, which she
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: didn't want.' It' s all so terrible,' Dot said, with the
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: freshness of someone for whom terrible things were still terrible
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: and not yet ordinary.' If she was just— she just went
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: like a light!'' It' s a shock,' Miss Marple agreed.' Had
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: you worked for Mrs. Alderton long?' Eight months since February.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Dot twisted her apron. She was ever so particular about
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: her things, though. Not unkind, just particular. About the china especially.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: She'd have done my head in if I'd chipped one
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: of those cups. She did love that china. I felt
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: awful washing them this morning. But Mrs. Henshaw from next
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: door came in early, and said someone ought to start
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: putting things right. And it seemed I didn't know the
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: police would— Dot looked suddenly stricken. Was I not supposed to?
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it's fine, Miss Marple said, which was not
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: at all what she thought, but was exactly the right
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: thing to say. Did Mrs. Alderton have any particular routine
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: about the tea-things? Who set them out? Who put them away?
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I'd lay the table, and she'd choose the cups herself
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: from the cabinet. Always did. Very specific about which ones
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: for which people. Had her favourites she used for the
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: good visits? Dot hesitated. She put out the forget-me-not set yesterday.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: That's the best one. Reserved for, well, people she wanted
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: to impress, I suppose. Or people she was. She stopped.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: People she was celebrating, Miss Marple offered. Maybe, yes. Was
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: there something to celebrate yesterday, do you know? Dot was
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: quiet for a moment. I shouldn't say, she said, which
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: meant she would. Mr. Philip came into the kitchen Tuesday evening,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: she said, dropping her voice slightly, though there was nobody
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: else in the room. I was doing the pots. He
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: was on the telephone in the hall, door open, and
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I heard him. I wasn't listening. I wasn't, but he
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: was talking about a will. Said something like, she's going
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: to change it. I've spoken to her and she's agreed.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: And then his voice went lower. But he looked. Dot frowned,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: searching for the word. Relieved, that's it. He looked relieved.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple set down her water glass. Thank you, Dot,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: she said. And don't worry about the cups. You weren't
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: to know. She sat in the garden for a while
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: after that, despite the cold. The oak tree at the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: end of the path had lost most of its leaves
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: and stood against the grey sky with the stripped honest
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: look of things in autumn. Philip was in the house somewhere.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Constance had gone home. Dr. Fitch had left with Inspector Slack,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: talking in the low professional tones of men who'd reached
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: an understanding. Natural causes. A woman with a history. A
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: sad but not surprising end. But Miss Marple thought about
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: the chair Constance had chosen. She thought about Dr. Fitch.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: And the teapot. She thought about Philip's hands and the
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: cup switch. And the word relieved it. And she thought,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: she couldn't help it, she never could, about the Hargrove
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: family who'd lived on Penny Lane before the war. three
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: of them, all apparently devoted, all at the bedside, and
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: the solicitor had been sent for on a Monday, and
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: the funeral had been on a Friday. And everyone had
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: said what a mercy it was, really, how peaceful, how expected.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: And it was only the youngest daughter, who'd been fond
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: of chemistry at school, who had asked the question nobody
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: else thought to ask. Not how did she die? Why now?
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple pulled her coat tighter. Why now was almost
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: always the right question. Mrs. Alderton had been about to
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: change her will. Philip knew. And someone else, someone who
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: stood to lose, must have known too. She looked at
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: the house. Warm light in the kitchen window. Dot moving
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: behind the glass. Washing something ordinary and unknowing, the forget-me-not
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: cups were clean now. Whatever they'd held was gone. But
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple was not, by temperament or by habit, a
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: woman who needed a cup to tell her what she
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: already knew. She stood up, slowly, with the careful movements
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: of a woman whose knees had opinions, and walked back
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: toward the house. There were threads to pull, St. Mary
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Mead had a way of knowing things before it knew them.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Not gossip, exactly. Gossip required a starting point, a first mouth,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: a deliberate passing on. This was something quieter. Something that
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: moved through the village the way cold moves through an
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: old house. Not through doors, not through windows, but through
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: the walls themselves, finding the thin places. By Friday morning, Mrs.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Alderton's death had already settled into the village the way
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: deaths do in small places. People spoke of it in
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: the post office queue with the particular hushed energy of
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: those who are sad and also, if they were honest,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: not entirely sorry to have something to discuss. The church
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: roof could wait. The Redford's house could wait. Helen Alderton
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: was dead. and nobody quite knew what to think, and
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: that in St. Mary Mead was practically an event. Miss
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Marple went to the chemist first, not because she needed anything,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: she had sufficient aspirin, and her prescription wasn't due, but
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: because Mr. Brent, who ran it, had been in St.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Mary Mead for forty years, and had the particular gift
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: of all good chemists, which is to say he knew
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: what people bought and never said so. and in some times,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: when the situation warranted, said so anyway. She bought a
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: small tin of throat lozenges she didn't need and mentioned,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: as she counted out her coins, that it had been
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: a terrible shock about poor Mrs. Alderton. Terrible, Mr. Brent agreed.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: He was a compact man with careful hands and the
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: expression of someone permanently waiting to be surprised and permanently
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: not being. Though not entirely, well, she had the heart,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: didn't she? She did. Miss Marple accepted her change. I
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: don't suppose you wouldn't have seen her recently. She sometimes
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: collected her own prescriptions, I know. Tuesday, he said. Tuesday
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: she came in. Looking very well, actually. Better than she
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: had in months. He paused. She didn't collect a prescription.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: She asked me about something else. He stopped there. The
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: professional boundary. No, Miss Marple respected it, the way she
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: respected all fences. By finding the gate. She asked about medication,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I imagine, she said pleasantly. She was always rather careful
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: about that sort of thing. Interactions and so on. A
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: sensible woman. Brent looked at her for a moment. She
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: asked me, he said carefully, whether Digitalis could be detected,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: after the fact. He folded his hands on the counter.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: She said she was asking for a novel she was reading,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: a detective story. Miss Marple looked at him. And what
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: did you tell her? I told her it depended very
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: much on whether anyone thought to look. He met her eyes.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: A long, quiet moment passed between them, the kind that
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: doesn't need filling. Thank you, Miss Marple said. The throat
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: lozenges are very good, I've always found. She went next
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: to the vicarage, which was not out of her way
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: if she took the long route past the church, which
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: she did. Mrs. Harmon, the vicar's wife, a cheerful, scattered
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: woman who managed to be simultaneously a the best informed
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: and least discreet person in the village, was in the
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: garden wrestling with something that had been a rosebush, and
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: was now ambition. Miss Marple, come in, come in. I'll
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: put the kettle on. Have you heard about poor Helen? Dreadful, dreadful.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Though Raymond Fitch says it was entirely the heart, he's
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: known for years apparently. Did you know she had trouble?
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I didn't know. though Mrs. Price-Ridley says she'd seen it
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: coming since August. But then Mrs. Price-Ridley says she sees
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: everything coming, which... Miss Marple accepted tea and a chair
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: and let Mrs. Harmon run for a while, the way
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: you let a stream run before you step into it.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: And of course the nephew inherits. Everyone says so, though
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: whether he deserves it after the business in London is
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: another matter. What business in London? Miss Marple asked, in
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: the tone of someone asking about the weather. Mrs. Harmon
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: sat down, which meant it was serious. Well, she said,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: I had it from Dorothy Crail. You know Dorothy. Her
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: sister married the Penfield boy. And Dorothy had it from
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: someone in the city. I couldn't tell you who. That
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Philip Alderton had been involved in some investment scheme that
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: had gone rather badly. Not illegal exactly, or not provably,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: but she lowered her voice by approximately no degrees. Three
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: families lost quite significant sums, and Philip had, apparently, seen
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: it coming, and moved his own money out beforehand. Miss
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Marple set down her cup. When was this? Spring, April-May.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Which is, Mrs. Harmon added, with the satisfied air of
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: someone completing a jigsaw, right around when he came back
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: to St. Mary Mead to visit dear Aunt Helen. Her
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: expression managed to be both sympathetic and precisely the opposite.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Who has, by all accounts, rather a considerable estate. Had,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple said quietly. Yes. Mrs. Harmon's brightness dimmed for
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: a moment. Had. Poor woman. She stopped at the church
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: on her way back, not for spiritual reasons particularly, though
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: she wasn't opposed to those. She went because the church
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: was quiet and had good acoustics, and she needed for
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: a while to simply think. She sat in the third
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: pew from the front, which had always seemed to her
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: the correct distance, close enough to be engaged, far enough
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: to see the whole picture. Three people at that table.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: and she laid them out in her mind the way
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: she might lay out a hand of cards. Dr. Raymond Fitch,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: knew Mrs. Alderton well, had known her for years, had
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: the medical knowledge, had been the one to pour the
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: second round of tea. He'd signed the death certificate without hesitation.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: A man of efficiency, a man of access, but, and
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: she kept coming back to this, he'd poured for everyone.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: If the poison was in a specific cup, he'd have
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: needed to know which cup would reach which person. And
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: the cups had been moved. Philip had switched them. Unless,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: of course, the switch had been anticipated. Unless the switch
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: had been the point. Constance Bowes. Thirty years of friendship.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Twenty-five of enmity. Mrs. Harmon's phrasing, not hers, but accurate enough.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: had chosen her seat deliberately, had watched the table, had
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: been the first to say firmly that it was Helen's heart.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Why would Constance want Helen dead? That was the thread
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: she didn't have. Motive was sometimes the last thing you found,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: but you did need to find it. And Philip, Philip
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: who needed money, who had spoken about the will two
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: days before his aunt died— who had switched the cups, casually, naturally, affectionately,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: and handed his aunt something warm and deadly, and said,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: take mine, yours has gone cold. Or had he switched
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: them for the opposite reason? Had he known what was
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: in his own cup, and moved it away from himself?
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: She pressed her fingers together. The trouble was this. Someone
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: had poisoned a cup, And the cup that had killed
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Helen Alderton was not the cup that had originally been hers.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Which meant either the poison had been in Philip's cup,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: and he'd tried to pass it to his aunt deliberately.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Or the poison had been in Helen's cup, and Philip,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: without knowing, had accidentally saved himself. Two entirely different stories.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Same gesture, same cup. The church was very quiet. A
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: pigeon shifted on the roof above her. Distant, peaceful. Outside,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: someone was cycling past on the lane, the wheels ticking
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: in the cold air. Miss Marple thought about what Dot
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: had said. She put out the forget-me-not set, reserved for
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: people she wanted to impress or people she was celebrating.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: A will, a change of will, a decision made, a
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: solicitor to be called, a Thursday tea with the best china.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Helen Alderton hadn't been hosting a normal Thursday. She'd been
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: celebrating something, or marking something, or... And this Miss Marple
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: thought with a small, cold clarity. She'd been saying goodbye.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: She went to see Mrs. Price Ridley, in which she'd
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: been putting off because Mrs. Price Ridley was the sort
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: of woman who required handling, like a very hot dish,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: carefully and with both hands. Miss Marple... Mrs. Price Ridley
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: opened her own door, which meant the maid had the
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: afternoon off. I suppose you've come about, Helen. I'm afraid so.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Come in, then. I've said everything I know to that policeman,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: and I'll say it again to you, because at least
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: you listen properly. This was the most gracious thing Mrs.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Price Ridley had ever said to her. Miss Marple accepted
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: it and sat down. He came to see you, Inspector Slack.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Yesterday evening. Asked me the same four questions in different orders,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: which I found very tedious. She poured sherry without asking,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: which Miss Marple didn't want, but accepted. Wanted to know
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: about the thirsty teas. Who attended? How often? Oh, whether
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: anything had seemed unusual recently. And had it? Mrs. Price
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Ridley set down the decanter with a small decisive click.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Three weeks ago, she said, Helen telephoned me. Evening, around seven.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: She asked me, very carefully, very specifically, whether I knew
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: anything about digitalis poisoning. She held up a hand before
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple could speak. She said it was for a
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: letter she was writing to her niece, who wrote crime stories.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: I did not believe her then, and I do not
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: believe it now. Did you tell the inspector this? I
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: told him. Her mouth tightened. He wrote it down and
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: thanked me, and I could see perfectly well he thought
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: I was a fanciful old woman. Miss Marple thought about Mr.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Brent at the chemist's. asking for a novel she was reading.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: Helen Alderton had asked the same question in two different places,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: eye to two different people, with two different excuses. She
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: wasn't researching. She was confirming. She knew, Miss Marple said.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Not quite to Mrs. Price Ridley. Not quite to herself.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: She suspected something, Mrs. Price Ridley said, which was more precise.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Helen was not a dramatic woman. If she was asking
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: about poison, she had a reason. Did she say anything else?
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: On the telephone? Mrs. Price Ridley was quiet for a moment.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: When she spoke again, her voice had lost its usual briskness.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Underneath it was something that might, in a less fortified woman,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: have been grief. She said, right at the end before
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: she rang off, she said, I think I've been very foolish, Evelyn.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: About people, that's all. I told her not to be silly.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: She said goodnight. The fire popped quietly. Oh, that was
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the last time you spoke to her? Yes. Miss Marple
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: walked home slowly, the long way. past the post office
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: and down the lane by the old mill. The afternoon
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: was going the way October afternoons go, sideways into grey,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: the light thinning without ever quite leaving. She'd been very
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: foolish about people. She turned it over carefully. Helen Alderton
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: had known, or suspected, that someone meant to harm her.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: had looked into it, discreetly, in the way a private
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: woman looks into things, without making a fuss, without going
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: to the police, without confronting anyone directly. She had changed
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: her will, or agreed to change it. She had laid
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: out her best china, and she had sat down to
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: tea with the person she suspected. Why? Not to confront them,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: not to catch them. Helen Alderton was not that sort.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: But possibly, Miss Marple thought of the forget-me-not cups, of
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: the words celebrating, possibly to give them a chance to stop.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: A last tea, a gesture. I know what you're considering.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Here I am. Here we are. Don't. And it hadn't worked. Or,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: the other possibility, sitting quietly at the back of her mind,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Helen had set something of her own in motion that afternoon.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: A test? A trap? a woman who put out her
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: best china for people she wanted to impress, or for
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: people she wanted to watch. Miss Marple stopped at her gate.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: The house was dark, which meant her own kitchen girl
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Clara had not yet come to light the fire. The
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: garden was end-of-season bare. A few late roses, brown at
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: the edges, hanging on. She stood there in the cold
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: for a moment. thinking about cups and hands and chairs
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: chosen before being offered, and she thought about what she
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: still didn't know. She knew how, almost certainly. Digitalis in
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: a cup, detectable if anyone looked, if the cups hadn't
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: been washed, if Slack had been a different kind of man.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: She thought she knew who. The shape of it was there,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: if not every detail. What she didn't know was whether
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Helen Alderton had died frightened or decided. Whether she'd gone
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: to that table as a victim, or as something else entirely. That,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: she suspected, would matter very much before the end. There
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: was a note on her doorstep. Small envelope, her name
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: in handwriting she didn't recognize. Tight, slightly backward slanting letters.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: the kind produced by someone who'd been taught copperplate and
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: then spent years trying to write faster than they'd been trained.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: She opened it in the hallway, coat still on.' Eh,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple, I need to speak with you privately, not
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: at the house. The bench by the old mill tomorrow morning,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: eight o'clock. Please come alone. There is something about Thursday
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: that nobody else knows. Pee. She read it twice. Then
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: she folded it and put it in her coat pocket,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: where it sat against her hand, small and weightless, while
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: she lit the lamp and put the kettle on, and
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: sat down in her own familiar chair. P. Philip, it
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: had to be Philip, or it was meant to look
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: like Philip. She poured her tea, her own tea, in
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: her own kitchen, in her own plain white cups, and
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: thought about a bench by the old mill. and early morning,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: and a young man who might be a murderer, or
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: might be a frightened heir, or might be, which she
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: didn't discount, something else entirely. She thought about the Wentworth
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: case many years ago now, and the nephew who'd written
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: a letter, who'd seemed so very guilty. who had, in
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: the end, been the only innocent person in the house,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: simply because innocence had made him behave the most strangely
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: of all. She sipped her tea. Tomorrow, then. Eight o'clock.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: The old mill. And somewhere in between now and then,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: she was going to work out which version of this
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: story was true, because there were two versions she was
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: quite sure of that now. and only one of them
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: ended with the right person held responsible. The wrong version
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: was tidier. The right version was going to be considerably
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: more uncomfortable. For everyone, but especially, she thought, for Inspector Slack.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: The mill bench was wet. Miss Marple had anticipated this
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: and brought a folded square of oilcloth in her coat pocket,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: in which she spread over the wood and sat on
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: with the practical satisfaction of a woman who has spent
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: seventy-one years being right about small things. Eight o'clock, the
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: village was just beginning its morning sounds. A door somewhere,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: a bicycle, the distant complaint of Mrs. Price Ridley's dog,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: who objected to mornings on principle. The mill itself stood
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: behind her, long disused its wheels still. The river beside
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: it moved quietly. dark and certain, the way rivers move
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: when they have somewhere to be and no interest in
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: being watched. She waited. At four minutes past eight, Philip
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: Alderton came down the lane. He looked younger outside the house,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: or perhaps just more uncertain, which sometimes amounts to the
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: same thing. He had his hands in his coat pockets
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: and his shoulders up against the coal. and that he
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: walked the way people walk when they're rehearsing something, slightly
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: too deliberate, slightly too straight. He stopped when he saw her.'
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: You came. I said I would,' Miss Marple replied, which
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: she hadn't, but it seemed the right response. He sat
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: beside her on the bench, the wet half she noticed
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: without the oilcloth, and stared at the river for a moment.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I didn't kill her, he said. All right. He looked
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: at her. You believe me? I'm listening to you, she said,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: which was not the same thing, and he seemed to
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: understand that. He was quiet for a moment. A moorhen
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: crossed the river in the middle distance, busy and self-important.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: The cold sat on everything. I switched the cups, he said. Ah,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: you saw that. Yes. I switched them because mine had
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: gone cold and I'd barely touched it, and hers was fresh,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: and I thought... He stopped. That's not true. That's what
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: I told myself. In the moment, that's the story my
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: brain made. But the real reason... He rubbed the side
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: of his face. The real reason is that I was
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: worried about her. She'd been odd that week, watchful. And
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: before I came in from the garden that afternoon, before
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: we sat down, I saw he stopped again. What did
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: you see? Miss Marple asked. The river moved. A leaf
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: turned on the surface, made a small journey, disappeared. I
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: saw Dr. Fitch, Philip said, in the sitting room before tea.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: He'd arrived early. He often did. I'd noticed that he
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: was always there before me, before Constance. And I came
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: in through the French doors from the garden, and he
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: didn't hear me. Ah, and he was, he exhaled, he
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: was at the tea table, just standing there, by the cups.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Standing by the cups, Miss Marple said, for maybe ten seconds.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: And then he moved away, and I came properly through
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: the door, and made noise coming in, and he turned
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: and smiled and said, Philip, good to see you, cold
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: enough for you. And it was all completely normal. He
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: looked at his hands. except I kept thinking about it.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: All through tea, I couldn't stop thinking about it. And
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: when Aunt Helen's cup was sitting there cooling, I just...
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: I moved it. Without really deciding to. Like a reflex.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: You thought her cup might have been tampered with. I
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: thought it was possible. I didn't... I didn't actually believe it.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: Not properly. People don't really believe those things, do they?
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Until they have to. He looked at her now, directly.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: And then she drank from mine. And she died, and
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: I've been awake for two days, trying to understand whether
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: I saved her, or whether I gave her the thing
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: that killed her. Miss Marple looked at the river. You
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: didn't kill your aunt, Philip, she said. He let out
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: a breath that seemed to have been in him since Thursday.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: But you didn't save her either, she added gently. The
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: cup you gave her, your cup, the one she drank from,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: that was already poisoned. What you moved away from her
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: was a cup that was perfectly clean. Philip stared at her.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Both cups, no, only yours. Dr. Fitch had ten seconds
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: at that table, as you said, and he used them purposefully.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: He put the poison in your cup, Philip. not your aunt's.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: The river, the moorhen again, returning from wherever it had been.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: He was trying to kill me, Philip said. It wasn't
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: quite a question. Yes, why? Miss Marple folded her hands
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: in her lap. Because your aunt was going to change
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: her will, she said, which you knew. But there was
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: something else in that will, something you perhaps didn't know.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: A bequest, a considerable one, to Dr. Raymond Fitch. Philip
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: was very still. She told you this? She didn't need to.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: I worked backwards. Miss Marple watched the water. Your aunt
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: visited the chemist on Tuesday, asking about digitalis detection. She
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: telephoned Mrs. Price-Ridley the same week, asking the same question.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: She was a private woman. not prone to drama, not
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: prone to research. She was confirming something she already suspected.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: She paused. I believe she had discovered, or been told,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: that Dr. Fitch was in considerable financial difficulty, in the
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: kind that makes a man look at a will the
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: way a thirsty man looks at water. How much, that
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but enough, Enough that when Helen Alderton
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: decided to revise her estate, to move more significantly toward you,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: which I suspect is what she'd agreed to, based on
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: what your kitchen girl overheard, enough that Fitch felt the
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: ground shifting. Philip put his face briefly in his hands,
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: not crying, just containing something. She knew he might try something,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: he said, and she still sat down to tea with him. Yes,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: why would she do that? Miss Marple was quiet for
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: a moment. I've thought about that a great deal, she said,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: since yesterday. I think, and I may be wrong, I
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: often am, I think she wanted to give him the
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: chance not to. One last ordinary Thursday. Look, Raymond, here
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: we are. Here is the table and the china and
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: thirty years of kindness. Don't do this. And he did
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: it anyway. He did it anyway. Philip was silent for
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: a long time. The cold moved around them. Somewhere up
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: the lane, a door opened and shut. There's something else,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: he said at last. Yes, said Miss Marple, there is.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: He looked at her. You know about Constance, he said.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: She had wondered when he would get there. Tell me
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: what you know, she said. Philip leaned forward, elbows on knees,
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: looking at the ground between his feet. Constance Bowes, he
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: said slowly, was my aunt's oldest friend. You know that.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: What most people don't know, what I only found out
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday, the day before she died, is that Constance
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: had borrowed money from Aunt Helen. A significant amount. Over
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: several years, a little at a time, of the way
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: you borrow from a close friend when you're too proud
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: to admit how badly things have gone. And the new
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: will would have formalized the debt. Aunt Helen told me,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: the evening before the tea, she said she'd decided to
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: be honest about it. that the estate would note the
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: outstanding amount, and it would be deducted from whatever Constance
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: might otherwise have received. He paused. She made it sound
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: very simple, very clean. You know how she was. Miss
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Marple did know. Constance would have known about this change.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: Aunt Helen told her, Wednesday morning, the day before. He exhaled.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Constance came to the house, and they spoke privately for
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: an hour. And when Constance left, she was— Philip searched for
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: the word— she was very calm, that particular kind of calm.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: The kind, Miss Marple knew, is that sits on top
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: of something else entirely. So Constance had a reason, Philip said,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: as well as Fitch. And she sat with her back
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: to the window. She could see everyone's hands. Philip— Miss
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: Marple's voice was gentle but clear. Constance Bowes did not
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: poison anyone. He looked at her. She is a great
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: many things, some of them not admirable, Miss Marple continued.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: She is proud, and she has been careless with money
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: and careful with appearances, and she chose that chair on
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: Thursday because she was frightened and wanted to see everything,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: which is what frightened people do. She paused. But she
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: loved your aunt. In the way people love those they've
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: borrowed from. Guiltily, fiercely, and not entirely honestly, but genuinely.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: As she had no more intention of harming Helen than
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: I did. Then why? She was there for the same
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: reason your aunt invited her. Because Helen wanted all of
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: them at the table. Fitch, Constance, you. She wanted to
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: see them all at once, one last time. Miss Marple
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: looked at the mill, and possibly she wanted witnesses. The
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: word settled between them like a stone settling through water. Witnesses,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Philip said. Your aunt was not an unwitting victim, Philip.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: She was a very intelligent woman who suspected she was
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: in danger and chose not to run from it. She
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: laid her best china. She invited the person she suspected.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: and she made sure she was not alone with him.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple's voice was steady. The tragedy is that she
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: suspected the wrong cup. She thought if anything happened it
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: would come through her own cup, through the normal pouring.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: Ishii threw Fitch's access to the pot. She didn't anticipate
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: he would target yours. Philip was very still. He didn't
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: care if she died, he said slowly. He just needed
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: me gone. With you gone, and the will unchanged, or
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: only partially changed, yes, he would have remained a significant beneficiary.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: Your death could have been made to look like many things.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: A young man with failed investments, under considerable stress. She
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: let the shape of it sit. Your aunt's death was
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: an accident. A terrible, unintended accident. She picked up your cup,
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: and Fitch, when he saw it, didn't stop her. The
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: last words fell quietly. Didn't stop her. Philip sat with
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: that for a long moment. He watched her die, he said, yes,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: and then he signed the certificate. Yes, the river moved,
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: the cold moved. Everything moved except the two of them
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: on the wet bench in the early morning. Inspector Slack
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: was not, it turned out. entirely beyond reach. Miss Marple
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: asked Philip to drive her to the station, which he did,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: and she sat in the passenger seat with her hands
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: folded over her bag and said very little, which was
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: becoming a habit she didn't entirely mind. At the station
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: she asked to see Slack privately, which his sergeant found amusing,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: until Slack, who had learned something from their previous conversation,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: even if he'd shown no outward sign of it, said
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: to send her in. She sat across from him and
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: told him what she knew. Not everything, not Philip's fear,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: not Helen's deliberate table, not Constance's borrowed money, none of
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: the human texture of it. Just the facts arranged in
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: their proper order, which was a different order from the
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: one he'd been given. The conversations at the chemist, the
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: telephone call to Mrs. Price Ridley, the question about Digitalis,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: asked twice in two places with two different cover stories.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: The cups, the switch, the timing, Dr. Fitch's finances, which
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: she suggested he look into. without specifying how she'd come
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: to suggest it. Slack listened. He was better at listening,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: she noticed, when he wasn't in someone else's sitting room,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: with a theory already formed. The cups are gone, he
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: said when she'd finished. Washed. We can't. The body isn't,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple said, and digitalis, if you look for it specifically,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: doesn't disappear the way some things do. She held his gaze.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: I believe the correct term is a targeted toxicological examination.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you know the procedure. A silence. I'll need
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: more than a village, he stopped. More than a village
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: lady's intuition, she said pleasantly. Of course you will. You'll
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: need Mrs. Price Ridley's statement, which she's ready to give properly.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: and Mr. Brent at the chemist, who will confirm the same,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: and Philip Alderton, who saw Dr. Fitch at the tea
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: table alone before the others arrived. She folded her hands.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: And you'll need Dr. Fitch's financial records, which I believe
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: you'll find a rather illuminating, Inspector. She tilted her head.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: None of this is intuition. It's observation. There's a difference.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: Slack looked at her for a long moment. You should
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: have been a detective, Miss Marple, he said, not unkindly.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: Good heavens, she said, I'm a villager, we simply notice things.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: She was home by eleven. Clara had lit the fire,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: and the sitting room was warm in the way that
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: only wood fires achieve, unevenly, generously, smelling of something older
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: than central heating. Miss Marple put her coat away and
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: sat in her chair and picked up her knitting. which
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: was still pale blue and still mysterious as to its
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: final form. She thought about Helen Alderton for a while,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: about a woman who had known something was wrong and
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: had handled it the way she handled her china, carefully, personally,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: without asking for help. Who had washed the cups herself, always,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: because she didn't entirely trust others with the things she loved.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: The terrible irony of that the cups she'd been so
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: careful with. She thought about Constance, who would have to
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: live with having been there and not understood in time.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: That was its own kind of sentence, and she didn't
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: envy it. She thought about Philip, us who had switched
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: a cup by instinct and would spend considerable time deciding
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: whether that instinct had been suspicion or affection. or some
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: third thing that didn't have a proper name. And she
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: thought about Raymond Fitch, who had stood by a tea
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: table for ten seconds, alone, and made a choice that
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: could not be unmade. Who had then sat and eaten
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: sandwiches and talked about the church roof. Who had watched
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: a woman pick up the wrong cup and said nothing.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: That was the thing that stayed with her. not the
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: planning of it. Planning was a kind of cowardice she
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: could follow the logic of, even while finding it reprehensible.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: But the moment of watching, the stillness of it, the
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: cup at Helen's lips and Raymond Fitch reaching for another sandwich.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: She'd seen that quality once before, in a man in Downham,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: years ago, and the complete ability to be in two
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: places at once, present at the table, absent from the act.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: She'd never found a word for it that satisfied her.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: Evil was too large and too simple. Cowardice too forgiving.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: It was something in between. The choice not to choose.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: The cruelty of staying still. The needles clicked. Dr. Fitch
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: was arrested on Monday morning. The toxicology confirmed it. Digitalis,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: at a level inconsistent with the therapeutic doses, Mrs. Alderton
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: had occasionally been prescribed for an entirely different and minor complaint,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: at a level that indicated administration, at a level that,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: had the right questions been asked on Thursday evening, would
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: have been found at once. His financial records showed what
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: Miss Marple had expected— a man quietly, methodically in trouble, and
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: the kind that starts small and accelerates the way debt
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: always does, and a significant bequest in Helen Alderton's existing
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: will that had seemed until recently entirely secure. He said
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: nothing useful. His solicitor said rather a lot. The village
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: naturally had opinions. Mrs. Price Ridley said she'd always found
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: something slightly off about him, and had said so, which
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: was not true, but was not entirely false either, which
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: is the usual condition of these things. Mrs. Harmon said
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: it was simply devastating, and made tea for everyone who
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: came to discuss it, which was most of the village
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: over the course of about three days. The woman at
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: the post office said you never knew, did you? And
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: this was the most accurate thing anyone said. Constance Bowes
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: did not comment publicly. She was seen once, it was
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: on the Thursday following, the day that would have been
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: the usual tea, standing at the gate of Laurel House
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: for some time. Then she walked on. Nobody approached her,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: which was either tact or cowardice, depending on who you asked.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: Philip stayed on for a while, sorting the estate. He
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: came to see Miss Marple once, on a Wednesday evening,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: and sat in the chair across from her. and they
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: talked about his aunt for a while. Not about the death,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: but about the person, which felt more important. Did she
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: know she was going to die? He asked at some point.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: I think, Miss Marple said carefully, that she knew she might.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: I think she decided that was less important than doing
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: things properly. That's very like her. Yes. He looked at
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: the fire. I keep thinking about the china. That she
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: put out the best china. Miss Marple nodded. She always did.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: If for people she cared about, she said, even at
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: the end she was being a good hostess. She looked
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: at her knitting. That's not nothing, you know. Some people
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: would have locked the doors and pulled the curtains. She
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: set the table. Philip was quiet. Is that enough? He asked.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: Is it enough to just do things correctly even when...
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Miss Marple said honestly. I've wondered that
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: myself for a great many years, and I haven't arrived
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: anywhere conclusive. She looked up. But I think the alternative,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: locking the doors, pulling the curtains, I don't think that
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: ends well either. For anyone. He seemed to accept this.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: or at least to carry it with him in a
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: way that looked like acceptance. He left at nine, and
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: she heard his car on the lane for a moment,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: and then silence. The forget-me-not cups were not destroyed, or
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: this surprised people who heard about it later, that Philip
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: had kept them, wrapped each one carefully in tissue, put
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: them in the cabinet in the new house where he
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: eventually settled, outside the village nearer London. He kept them
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: because they had been his aunt's best things and she
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: had brought them out for him, among others, on a
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: Thursday in October. He kept them because they were beautiful.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: He never used them, but he didn't hide them either.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: They sat in the cabinet, white and blue, visible from
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: the doorway of the room, small, ordinary, hand-painted with forget-me-nots.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: which is, when you think about it, exactly what the
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: flower means. Miss Marple finished her knitting in November. It
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: turned out to be a cardigan for Clara's youngest, who
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: had needed one. She started something new the following week.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: Something green this time, though she wasn't yet sure what
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: it wanted to be. She sat in her chair by
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: the window, and the village went on outside, busy with itself,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: full of its small, ordinary secrets. And she watched it
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: the way she'd always watched it, not looking for anything
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: in particular, just noticing, which was, in the end, the
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: only thing that had ever been required. End