I
The fog had come down over London suddenly thatevening. Chief-Inspector Davy pulled up his coat and turned into Pond Street. Walkingslowly like a man who was thinking of something else, he did not look particularlypurposeful but anyone who knew him well would realise that his mind was wholly alert. Hewas prowling as a cat prowls before the moment comes for it to pounce on its prey.
Pond Street was quiet tonight. There were few carsabout. The fog had been patchy to begin with, had almost cleared, then had deepened again.The noise of the traffic from Park Lane was muted to the level of a suburban side road.Most of the buses had given up. Only from time to time individual cars went on their waywith determined optimism. Chief-Inspector Davy turned up a cul-de-sac, went to the end ofit and came back again. He turned again, aimlessly as it seemed, first one way, then theother, but he was not aimless. Actually his cat prowl was taking him in a circle round oneparticular building. Bertram's Hotel. He was appraising carefully just what lay to theeast of it, to the west of it, to the north of it and to the south of it. He examined thecars that were parked by the pavement, he examined the cars that were in the cul-de-sac.He examined a mews with special care. One car in particular interested him and he stopped.He pursed up his lips and said softly, "So you're here again, you beauty." He checked the numberand nodded to himself. "FAN 2266 tonight, are you?" He bent down and ran his fingers over the number plate delicately, thennodded approval. "Good job they made of it," he said under his breath.
He went on, came out at the other end of the mews,turned right and right again and came out in Pond Street once more, fifty yards from theentrance of Bertram's Hotel. Once again he paused, admiring the handsome lines of yetanother racing car.
"You're a beauty, too,"said Chief-Inspector Davy. "Your numberplate's the same as the last time I saw you. I rather fancyyour number plate always is the same. And that should mean –」 he broke off 「– or should it?" He muttered. He looked up towards what could have been the sky. "Fog's getting thicker," he said to himself.
Outside the door to Bertram's, the Irishcommissionaire was standing swinging his arms backwards and forwards with some violence tokeep himself warm. Chief-Inspector Davy said good evening to him.
"Good evening, sir. Nasty night."
"Yes. I shouldn'tthink anyone would want to go out tonight who hadn't got to."
The swing doors were pushed open and a middle-agedlady came out and paused uncertainly on the step.
"Want a taxi, ma'am?"
"Oh dear. I mean to walk."
"I wouldn't if I wereyou, ma'am. It's very nasty, thisfog. Even in a taxi it won't be too easy."
"Do you think you could find me a taxi?" asked the lady doubtfully.
"I'll do my best. Yougo inside now, and keep warm and I'll come in and tell you ifI've got one." His voice changed,modulated to a persuasive tone. "Unless you have to, ma'am, I wouldn't go out tonight at all."
"Oh dear. Perhaps you'reright. But I'm expected at some friends in Chelsea. I don't know. It might be very difficult getting back here. What do you think?"
Michael Gorman took charge.
"If I were you, ma'am,"he said firmly, "I'd go in and telephone to your friends. It's notnice for a lady like you to be out on a foggy night like this."
"Well – really –yes, well, perhaps you're right."
She went back in again.
"I have to look after them," said Micky Gorman turning in an explanatory manner to Father. "That kind would get her bag snatched, she would. Going out this time of nightin a fog and wandering about Chelsea or West Kensington or wherever she's trying to go."
"I suppose you've hada good deal of experience of dealing with elderly ladies?" saidDavy.
"Ah yes, indeed. This place is a home from home tothem, bless their ageing hearts. How about you, sir. Were you wanting a taxi?"
"Don't suppose youcould get me one if I did," said Father. "There don't seem to be many about in this. And Idon't blame them."
"Ah, now, I might lay my hand on one for you.There's a place round the corner where there's usually a taxi driver got his cab parked, having a warm up and a drop ofsomething to keep the cold out."
"A taxi's no good tome," said Father with a sigh.
He jerked his thumb towards Bertram's Hotel.
"I've got to goinside. I've got a job to do."
"Indeed now? Would it be still the missing Canon?"
"Not exactly. He'sbeen found."
"Found?" The manstared at him. "Found where?"
"Wandering about with concussion after anaccident."
"Ah, that's just whatone might expect of him. Crossed the road without looking, I expect."
"That seems to be the idea," said Father.
He nodded, and pushed through the doors into thehotel. There were not very many people in the lounge this evening. He saw Miss Marplesitting in a chair near the fire and Miss Marple saw him. She made, however, no sign ofrecognition. He went towards the desk. Miss Gorringe, as usual, was behind her books. Shewas, he thought, faintly discomposed to see him. It was a very slight reaction, but henoted the fact.
"You remember me, Miss Gorringe," he said. "I came here the other day."
"Yes, of course I remember you, Chief-Inspector.Is there anything more you want to know. Do you want to see Mr. Humfries?"
"No thank you. I don'tthink that'll be necessary. I'djust like one more look at your register if I may."
"Of course." Shepushed it along to him.
He opened it and looked slowly down the pages. ToMiss Gorringe he gave the appearance of a man looking for one particularly entry. Inactuality this was not the case. Father had an accomplishment which he had learnt early inlife and had developed into a highly skilled art. He could remember names and addresseswith a perfect and photographic memory. That memory would remain with him for twenty-fouror even forty-eight hours. He shook his head as he shut the book and returned it to her.
"Canon Pennyfather hasn't been in, I suppose?" he said in a light voice.
"Canon Pennyfather?"
"You know he's turnedup again?"
"No indeed. Nobody has told me. Where?"
"Some place in the country. Car accident it seems.Wasn't reported to us. Some good Samaritan just picked him upand looked after him."
"Oh! I am pleased. Yes, I really am very pleased.I was worried about him."
"So were his friends," saidFather. "Actually I was looking to see if one of them might bestaying here now. Archdeacon – Archdeacon – I can't remember his name now, but I'd know it is I saw it."
"Tomlinson?" said MissGorringe helpfully. "He is due next week. From Salisbury."
"No, not Tomlinson. Well, it doesn't matter." He turned away.
It was quiet in the lounge tonight. Anascetic-looking middle-aged man was reading through a badly typed thesis, occasionallywriting a comment in the margin in such small crabbed handwriting as to be almostillegible. Every time he did this, he smiled in vinegary satisfaction.
There were one or two married couples of longstanding who had little need to talk to each other. Occasionally two or three people weregathered together in the name of the weather condition, discussing anxiously how they ortheir families were going to get where they wanted to be.
「– I rang up and begged Susan not to come by car…it means the M.I and always so dangerous in fog –」
"They say it's clearerin the Midlands…」
Chief-Inspector Davy noted them as he passed.Without haste, and with no seeming purpose, he arrived at his objective.
Miss Marple was sitting near the fire and observinghis approach.
"So you're still here,Miss Marple. I'm glad."
"I go tomorrow," saidMiss Marple.
That fact had, somehow, been implicit in herattitude. She had sat, not relaxed, but upright, as one sits in an airport lounge, or arailway waiting-room. Her luggage, he was sure, would be packed, only toilet things andnight wear to be added.
"It is the end of my fortnight's holiday," she explained.
"You've enjoyed it, Ihope?"
Miss Marple did not answer at once.
"In a way – yes…」She stopped.
"And in another way, no?"
"It's difficult toexplain what I mean –」
"Aren't you, perhaps,a little too near the fire? Rather hot, here. Wouldn't youlike to move – into that corner perhaps."
Miss Marple looked at the corner indicated, then shelooked at Chief-Inspector Davy.
"I think you are quite right," she said.
He gave her a hand up, carried her handbag and herbook for her and established her in the quiet corner he had indicated.
"All right?"
"Quite all right."
"You know why I suggested it?"
"You thought – verykindly – that it was too hot for me by the fire. Besides,"she added, "our conversation cannot beoverheard here."
"Have you got something you want to tell me, MissMarple?"
"Now why should you think that?"
"You looked as though you had," said Davy.
"I'm sorry I showed itso plainly," said Miss Marple. "Ididn't mean to."
"Well, what about it?"
"I don't know if Iought to do so. I would like you to believe, Inspector, that I am not really fond ofinterfering. I am against interference. Though often well meant, it can cause a great dealof harm."
"It's like that, isit? I see. Yes, it's quite a problem for you."
"Sometimes one sees people doing things that seemto unwise – even dangerous. But has one any right tointerfere? Usually not, I think."
"Is this Canon Pennyfather you're talking about?"
"Canon Pennyfather?" MissMarple sounded very surprised. "Oh no. Oh dear me no, nothingwhatever to do with him. It concerns – a girl."
"A girl, indeed? And you thought I could help?"
"I don't know,"said Miss Marple. "I simply don't know. But I'm worried, very worried."
Father did not press her. He sat there looking largeand comfortable and rather stupid. He let her take her time. She had been willing to doher best to help him, and he was quite prepared to do anything he could to help her. Hewas not, perhaps, particularly interested. On the other hand, one never knew.
"One reads in the papers," said Miss Marple in a low clear voice, "accountsof proceedings in courts; of young people, children or girls 'inneed of care and protection.' It'sjust a sort of legal phrase, I suppose, but it could mean something real."
"This girl you mentioned, you feel she is in needof care and protection?"
"Yes. Yes I do."
"Alone in the world?"
"Oh no," said MissMarple. "Very much not so, if I may put it that way. She is toall outward appearance very heavily protected and very well cared for."
"Sounds interesting," saidFather.
"She was staying in this hotel," said Miss Marple, "with a Mrs. Carpenter, Ithink. I looked in the register to see the name. The girl'sname is Elvira Blake."
Father looked up with a quick air of interest.
"She was a lovely girl. Very young, very much as Isay, sheltered and protected. Her guardian was a Colonel Luscombe, a very nice man. Quitecharming. Elderly of course, and I am afraid terribly innocent."
"The guardian or the girl?"
"I meant the guardian," said Miss Marple. "I don't know about the girl. But I do think she is in danger. I came across herquite by chance in Battersea Park. She was sitting at a refreshment place there with ayoung man."
"Oh, that's it, is it?"said Father. "Undesirable, I suppose.Beatnik – spiv – thug –」
"A very handsome man," saidMiss Marple. "Not so very young. Thirty-odd, the kind of manthat I should say is very attractive to women, but his face is a bad face. Cruel,hawklike, predatory."
"He mayn't be as badas he looks," said Father soothingly.
"If anything he is worse than he looks," said Miss Marple. "I am convinced of it. Hedrives a large racing car."
Father looked up quickly.
"Racing car?"
"Yes. Once or twice I'veseen it standing near this hotel."
"You don't rememberthe number, do you?"
"Yes, indeed I do. FAN 2266. I had a cousin whostuttered," Miss Marple explained. "That's how I remember it."
Father looked puzzled.
"Do you know who he is?" demanded Miss Marple.
"As a matter of fact I do," said Father slowly. "Half French, half Polish.Very well known racing driver, he was world champion three years ago. His name isLadislaus Malinowski. You're quite right in some of your viewsabout him. He has a bad reputation where women are concerned. That is to say, he is not asuitable friend for a young girl. But it's not easy to doanything about that sort of thing. I suppose she is meeting him on the sly, is that it?"
"Almost certainly," saidMiss Marple.
"Did you approach her guardian?"
"I don't know him,"said Miss Marple. "I've only just been introduced to him once by a mutual friend. I don't like the idea of going to him in a tale-bearing way. I wondered if perhapsin some way you could do something about it."
"I can try," saidFather. "By the way, I thought you might like to know thatyour friend, Canon Pennyfather, has turned up all right."
"Indeed!" Miss Marplelooked animated. "Where?"
"A place called Milton St. John."
"How very odd. What was he doing there? Did heknow?"
"Apparently –」 Chief-InspectorDavy stressed the word. 「– He had had an accident.
What kind of an accident?"
"Knocked down by a car – concussed – or else, of course, he might havebeen conked on the head."
"Oh! I see." MissMarple considered the point. "Doesn't he know himself?"
"He says –」 againthe Chief-Inspector stressed the word, "- that he does notknow anything."
"Very remarkable."
"Isn't it? The lastthing he remembers is driving in a taxi to Kensington Air Station."
Miss Marple shook her head perplexedly.
"I know it does happen that way in concussion,"she murmured. "Didn't he say anything – useful?"
"He murmured something about the Walls of Jericho."
"Joshua?" hazardedMiss Marple, "or Archaeology – excavations?– Or I remember, long ago, a play – by Mr. Sutro, I think."
"And all this week north of the Thames, GaumontCinemas – The walls of Jericho, featuring Olga Radbourne andBart Levinne," said Father.
Miss Marple looked at him suspiciously.
"He could have gone to that film in the CromwellRoad. He could have come out about eleven and come back here – thoughif so, someone ought to have seen him – it would be wellbefore midnight –」
"Took the wrong bus," MissMarple suggested. "Something like that –」
"Say he got back here after midnight," Father said, 「– he could have walked up to hisroom without anyone seeing him – But if so, what happened then– and why did he go out again three hours later?"
Miss Marple groped for a word.
"The only idea that occurs to me is – oh!"
She jumped as a report sounded from the streetoutside.
"Car backfiring," saidFather soothingly.
"I'm sorry to be sojumpy – I am nervous tonight – thatfeeling one has –」
"That something'sgoing to happen? I don't think you need worry."
"I have never liked fog."
"I wanted to tell you," said Chief-Inspector Davy, "that you've given me a lot of help. The things you'venoticed here – just little things – they've added up."
"So there was something wrong with this place?"
"There was and is everything wrong with it."
Miss Marple sighed.
"It seemed wonderful at first – unchanged you know – like stepping back into thepast – to the part of the past that one had loved and enjoyed."
She paused.
"But of course, it wasn't really like that. I learned (what I suppose I really knew already) that onecan never go back, that one should not ever try to go back – thatthe essence of life is going forward. Life is really a One Way Street, isn't it?"
"Something of the sort," agreed Father.
"I remember," saidMiss Marple, diverging from her main topic in a characteristic way. "I remember being in Paris with my mother and my grandmother, and we went tohave tea at the Elysee Hotel. And my grandmother looked round, and she said suddenly, 'Clara, I do believe I am the only woman here in a bonnet!' And she was, too! When she got home she packed up all her bonnets, and herbeaded mantles too – and sent them off –」
"To the Jumble Sale?" inquiredFather, sympathetically.
"Oh no. Nobody would have wanted them at a jumblesale. She sent them to a theatrical Repertory Company. They appreciated them very much.But let me see –」 Miss Marple recovered her direction. 「–Where was I?"
"Summing up this place."
"Yes. It seemed all right – but it wasn't. It was mixed up – real people and people who weren't real. Onecouldn't always tell them apart."
"What do you mean by not real?"
"There were retired military men, but there werealso what seemed to be military men but who had never been in the army. And clergymen whoweren't clergymen. And admirals and sea captains who've never been in the navy. My friend, Selina Hazy – it amused me at first how she was always so anxious to recognise people sheknew (quite natural, of course) and how often she was mistaken and they weren't the people she thought they were. But it happened too often. And so –I began to wonder. Even Rose, the chambermaid – so nice – but I began to think that perhaps shewasn't real, either."
"If it interests you to know, she's an ex-actress. A good one. Gets a better salary here than she ever drew onthe stage."
"But – why?"
"Mainly, as part of the decor. Perhapsthere's more than that to it."
"I'm glad to beleaving here," said Miss Marple. She gave a little shiver. "Before anything happens."
Chief-Inspector Davy looked at her curiously.
"What do you expect to happen?" he asked.
"Evil of some kind," saidMiss Marple.
"Evil is rather a big word –「
"You think it is too melodramatic? But I have someexperience – seem to have been – sooften – in contact with murder."
"Murder?" Chief-InspectorDavy shook his head. "I'm notsuspecting murder. Just a nice cosy round up of some remarkably clever criminals –」
"That's not the samething. Murder – the wish to do murder – is something quite different. It – how shall Isay? – It defies God."
He looked at her and shook his head gently andreassuringly.
"There won't be anymurders," he said.
A sharp report, louder than the former one, camefrom outside. It was followed by a scream and another report.
Chief-Inspector Davy was on his feet, moving with aspeed surprising in such a bulky man. In a few seconds he was through the swing doors andout in the street.
II
The screaming – a woman's – was piercing the mist with a note of terror.Chief-Inspector Davy raced down Pond Street in the direction of the screams. He coulddimly visualise a woman's figure backed against a railing. Ina dozen strides he had reached her. She wore a long pale fur coat, and her shining blondehair hung down each side of her face. He thought for a moment that he knew who she was,then he realised that this was only a slip of a girl. Sprawled on the pavement at her feetwas the body of a man in uniform. Chief-Inspector Davy recognised him. It was MichaelGorman.
As Davy came up to the girl, she clutched at him,shivering all over, stammering out broken phrases.
"Someone tried to kill me…. Someone… they shot at me…. If it hadn't been for him –」 she pointed down at the motionless figure at her feet. "He pushed me back and got in front of me – andthen the second shot came… and he fell…. He saved my life. I think he's hurt – badly hurt…」
Chief-Inspector Davy went down on one knee. Historch came out. The tall Irish commissionaire had fallen like a soldier. The left handside of his tunic showed a wet patch that was growing wetter as the blood oozed out intothe cloth. Davy rolled up an eyelid, touched a wrist. He rose to his feet again.
"He's had it allright," he said.
The girl gave a sharp cry. "Do you mean he's dead? Oh no, no! He can't be dead."
"Who was it shot at you?"
"I don't know…I'd left car just round the corner and wasfeeling my way along by the railings – I was going toBertram's Hotel. And then suddenly there was a shot – and abullet went past my cheek and then – he – the porter from Bertram's – came running down thestreet towards me, and shoved me behind him, and then another shot came… I think – I think whoever it was must have beenhiding in that area there."
Chief-Inspector Davy looked where she pointed. Atthis end of Bertram's Hotel there was an old-fashioned area below the level of the street,with a gate and some steps down to it. Since it gave only on some storerooms it was notmuch used. But a man could have hidden there easily enough.
"You didn't see him?"
"Not properly. He rushed past me like a shadow. Itwas all thick fog."
Davy nodded.
The girl began to sob hysterically.
"But who could possibly want to kill me? Whyshould anyone want to kill me? That's the second time. I don't understand… why…」
One arm round the girl, Chief-Inspector Davy fumbledin his pocket with the other hand.
The shrill notes of a police whistle penetrated themist.
III
In the lounge of Bertram's Hotel, Miss Gorringe hadlooked up sharply from the desk.
One or two of the visitors had looked up also. Theolder and deafer did not look up.
Henry, about to lower a glass of old brandy to atable, stopped poised with it still in his hand.
Miss Marple sat forward, clutching the arms of herchair. A retired admiral said derisively:
"Accident! Cars collided in the fog, I expect."
The swing doors from the street were pushed open.Through them came what seemed like an outsize policeman, looking a good deal larger thanlife.
He was supporting a girl in a pale fur coat. Sheseemed hardly able to walk. The policeman looked round for help with some embarrassment.
Miss Gorringe came out from behind the desk,prepared to cope. But at that moment the lift came down. A tall figure emerged, and thegirl shook herself free from the policeman's support, and ranfrantically across the lounge.
"Mother," she cried. "Oh Mother, Mother…」 and threw herself, sobbing,into Bess Sedgwick's arms.
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