"Hallo?"
"Hallo."
"Is that you, Melchett?"
"Yes, where are you? I've traced that call. The number is -"
"I know the number."
"Oh! good. Is that where you are speaking from?"
"Yes."
"What about that confession?"
"I've got the confession all right."
"You mean you've got the murderer?"
I had then the strongest temptation of my life. I looked at Hawes. I looked at the crumpled letter. I looked at the anonymous scrawl. I looked at the empty cachet box with the name of Cherubim on it. I remembered a certain casual conversation.
I made an immense effort.
"I - don't know," I said. "You'd better come round."
And I gave him the address.
Then I sat down in the chair opposite Hawes to think.
I had two clear minutes in which to do so.
In two minutes time, Melchett would have arrived.
I took up the anonymous letter and read it through again for the third time.
Then I closed my eyes and thought...
CHAPTER XXIX
I don't know how long I sat there - only a few minutes in reality, I suppose. Yet it seemed as though an eternity had passed when I heard the door open and, turning my head, looked up to see Melchett entering the room.
He stared at Hawes asleep in his chair, then turned to me.
"What's this, Clement? What does it all mean?"
Of the two letters in my hand I selected one and passed it to him. He read it aloud in a low voice.
"MY DEAR CLEMENT, - It is a peculiarly unpleasant thing that I have to say. After all, I think I prefer writing it. We can discuss it at a later date. It concerns the recent peculations. I am sorry to say that I have satisfied myself beyond any possible doubt as to the identity of the culprit. Painful as it is for me to have to accuse an ordained priest of the church, my duty is only too painfully clear. An example must be made and -"
He looked at me questioningly. At this point the writing tailed off in an undistinguishable scrawl where death had overtaken the writer's hand.
Melchett drew a deep breath, then looked at Hawes.
"So that's the solution! The one man we never even considered. And remorse drove him to confess!"
"He's been very queer lately," I said.
Suddenly Melchett strode across to the sleeping man with a sharp exclamation. He seized him by the shoulder and shook him, at first gently, then with increasing violence.
"He's not asleep! He's drugged! What's the meaning of this?"
His eye went to the empty cachet box. He picked it up.
"Has he -"
"I think so," I said. "He showed me these the other day. Told me he'd been warned against an overdose. It's his way out, poor chap. Perhaps the best way. It's not for us to judge him."
But Melchett was Chief Constable of the County before anything else. The arguments that appealed to me had no weight with him. He had caught a murderer and he wanted his murderer hanged.
In one second he was at the telephone, jerking the receiver up and down impatiently until he got a reply. He asked for Haydock's number. Then there was a further pause during which he stood, his ear to the telephone and his eyes on the limp figure in the chair.
"Hallo - hallo - hallo - is that Dr. Haydock's? Will the doctor come round at once to High Street? Mr. Hawes'. It's urgent... what's that?... Well, what number is it then?... Oh, sorry."
He rang off, fuming.
"Wrong number, wrong number - always wrong numbers! And a man's life hanging on it. HALLO - you gave me the wrong number.... Yes - don't waste time - give me three nine - nine, not five."
Another period of impatience - shorter this time.
"Hallo - is that you, Haydock? Melchett speaking. Come to 19 High Street at once, will you? Hawes has taken some kind of overdose. At once, man, it's vital."
He rang off, strode impatiently up and down the room.
"Why on earth you didn't get hold of the doctor at once, Clement, I cannot think. Your wits must have all gone wool gathering."
Fortunately it never occurs to Melchett that any one can possibly have any different ideas on conduct to those he holds himself, I said nothing, and he went on:
"Where did you find this letter?"
"Crumpled on the door - where it had fallen from his hand."
"Extraordinary business - that old maid was right about its being the wrong note we found. Wonder how she tumbled to that. But what an ass the fellow was not to destroy this one. Fancy keeping it - the most damaging evidence you can imagine!"
"Human nature is full of inconsistencies."
"If it weren't, I doubt if we should ever catch a murderer! Sooner or later they always do some fool thing. You're looking very under the weather, Clement. I suppose this has been the most awful shock to you?"
"It has. As I say, Hawes has been queer in his manner for some time, but I never dreamed -"
"Who would? Hallo, that sounds like a car." He went across to the window, pushing up the sash and leaning out. "Yes, it's Haydock all right."
A moment later the doctor entered the room.
In a few succinct words Melchett explained the situation.
Haydock is not a man who ever shows his feelings. He merely raised his eyebrows, nodded, and strode across to his patient. He felt his pulse, raised the eyelid and looked intently at the eye.
Then he turned to Melchett.
"Want to save him for the gallows?" he asked. "He's pretty far gone, you know. It will be touch and go, anyway. I doubt if I can bring him round."
"Do everything possible."
"Right."
He busied himself with the case he had brought with him, preparing a hypodermic injection which he injected into Hawes's arm. Then he stood up.
"Best thing is to run him into Much Benham - to the hospital there. Give me a hand to get him down to the car."
We both lent our assistance. As Haydock climbed into the driving seat, he threw a parting remark over his shoulder.
"You won't be able to hang him, you know, Melchett."
"You mean he won't recover?"
"May or may not. I didn't mean that. I mean that even if he does recover - well, the poor devil wasn't responsible for his actions. I shall give evidence to that effect."
"What did he mean by that?" asked Melchett as we went upstairs again.
I explained that Hawes had been a victim of encephalitis lethargica.
"Sleepy sickness, eh? Always some good reason nowadays for every dirty action that's done. Don't you agree?"
"Science is teaching us a lot."
"Science be damned - I beg your pardon, Clement; but all this namby pambyism annoys me. I'm a plain man. Well, I suppose we'd better have a look round here."
But at this moment there was an interruption - and a most amazing one. The door opened and Miss Marple walked into the room.
She was pink and somewhat flustered, and seemed to realise our condition of bewilderment.
"So sorry - so very sorry - to intrude - good-evening, Colonel Melchett. As I say, I am so sorry, but hearing that Mr. Hawes was taken in, I felt I must come round and see if I couldn't do something."
She paused. Colonel Melchett was regarding her in a somewhat disgusted fashion.
"Very kind of you, Miss Marple," he said dryly. "But no need to trouble. How did you know, by the way?"
It was the question I had been yearning to ask!
"The telephone," explained Miss Marple. "So careless with their wrong numbers, aren't they? You spoke to me first, thinking I was Dr. Haydock. My number is three five."
"So that was it!" I exclaimed.
There is always some perfectly good and reasonable explanation for Miss Marple's omniscience.
"And so," she continued. "I just came round to see if I could be of any use."
"Very kind of you," said Melchett again, even more dryly this time. "But nothing to be done. Haydock's t
aken him off to hospital."
"Actually to hospital? Oh, that's a great relief! I am so very glad to hear it. He'll be quite safe there. When you say 'nothing to be done,' you don't mean that there's nothing to be done for him, do you? You don't mean that he won't recover?"
"It's very doubtful," I said.
Miss Marple's eyes had gone to the cachet box.
"I suppose he took an overdose?" she said.
Melchett, I think, was In favour of being reticent. Perhaps I might have been under other circumstances. But my discussion of the case with Miss Marple was too fresh in my mind for me to have the same view, though I must admit that her rapid appearance on the scene and eager curiosity repelled me slightly.
"You had better look at this," I said, and handed her Protheroe's unfinished letter.
She took it and read it without any appearance of surprise.
"You had already deduced something of the kind, had you not?" I asked.
"Yes - yes, indeed. May I ask you, Mr. Clement, what made you come here this evening? That is a point which puzzles me. You and Colonel Melchett - not at all what I should have expected."
I explained the telephone call and that I believed I had recognised Hawes's voice. Miss Marple nodded thoughtfully.
"Very interesting. Very providential - if I may use the term. Yes, it brought you here in the nick of time."
"In the nick of time for what?" I said bitterly.
Miss Marple looked surprised.
"To save Mr. Hawes's life, of course."
"Don't you think," I said, "that it might be better if Hawes didn't recover? Better for him - better for every one. We know the truth now and -"
I stopped - for Miss Marple was nodding her head with such a peculiar vehemence that it made me lose the thread of what I was saying.
"Of course," she said. "Of course! That's what he wants you to think! That you know the truth - and that it's best for every one as it is. Oh, yes, it all fits in - the letter, and the overdose, and poor Mr. Hawes's state of mind and his confession. It all fits in - but it's wrong..."
We stared at her.
"That's why I am so glad Mr. Hawes is safe - in hospital where no one can get at him. If he recovers, he'll tell you the truth."
"The truth?"
"Yes - that he never touched a hair of Colonel Protheroe's head."
"But the telephone call," I said. "The letter - the overdose. It's all so clear."
"That's what he wants you to think. Oh, he's very clever! Keeping the letter and using it this way was very clever indeed."
"Who do you mean," I said, "by 'he'?"
"I mean the murderer," said Miss Marple.
She added very quietly:
"I mean Mr. Lawrence Redding..."
CHAPTER XXX
We stared at her. I really think that for a moment or two we really believed she was out of her mind. The accusation seemed so utterly preposterous.
Colonel Melchett was the first to speak. He spoke kindly and with a kind of pitying tolerance.
"That is absurd, Miss Marple," he said. "Young Redding has been completely cleared."
"Naturally," said Miss Marple. "He saw to that."
"On the contrary," said Colonel Melchett dryly. "He did his best to get himself accused of the murder."
"Yes," said Miss Marple. "He took us all in that way - myself as much as any one else. You will remember, dear Mr. Clement, that I was quite taken aback when I heard Mr. Redding had confessed to the crime. It upset all my ideas and made me think him innocent - when up to then I had felt convinced that he was guilty."
"Then it was Lawrence Redding you suspected?"
"I know that in books it is always the most unlikely person. But I never find that rule applies in real life. There it is so often the obvious that is true. Much as I have always liked Mrs. Protheroe, I could not avoid coming to the conclusion that she was completely under Mr. Redding's thumb and would do anything he told her, and, of course, he is not the kind of young man who would dream of running away with a penniless woman. From his point of view it was necessary that Colonel Protheroe should be removed - and so he removed him. One of those, charming young men who have no moral sense."
Colonel Melchett had been snorting impatiently for some time. Now he broke out.
"Absolute nonsense - the whole thing! Redding's time is fully accounted for up to 6.50 and Haydock says positively Protheroe couldn't have been shot then. I suppose you think you know better than a doctor. Or do you suggest that Haydock is deliberately lying - the Lord knows why?"
"I think Dr. Haydock's evidence was absolutely truthful. He is a very upright man. And, of course, it was Mrs. Protheroe who actually shot Colonel Protheroe - not Mr. Redding."
Again we stared at her. Miss Marple arranged her lace fichu, pushed back the fleecy shawl that draped her shoulders, and began to deliver a gentle old-maidish lecture comprising the most astounding statements in the most natural way in the world.
"I have not thought it right to speak until now. One's own belief - even so strong as to amount to knowledge - is not the same as proof. And unless one has an explanation that will fit all the facts (as I was saying to dear Mr. Clement this evening) one cannot advance it with any real conviction. And my own explanation was not quite complete - it lacked just one thing - but suddenly, just as I was leaving Mr. Clement's study, I noticed the palm in the pot by the window - and - well, there the whole thing was! Clear as daylight!"
"Mad - quite mad," muttered Melchett to me.
But Miss Marple beamed on us serenely and went on in her gentle ladylike voice.
"I was very sorry to believe what I did - very sorry. Because I liked them both. But you know what human nature is. And to begin with, when first he and then she both confessed in the most foolish way - well, I was more relieved than I could say. I had been wrong. And I began to think of other people who had a possible motive for wishing Colonel Protheroe out of the way."
"The seven suspects!" I murmured.
She smiled at me.
"Yes, indeed. There was that man Archer - not likely, but primed with drink (so inflaming) you never know. And, of course, there was your Mary. She's been walking out with Archer a long time, and she's a queer-tempered girl. Motive and opportunity - why, she was alone in the house! Old Mrs. Archer could easily have got the pistol from Mr. Redding's house for either of those two. And then, of course, there was Lettice - wanting freedom and money to do as she liked. I've known many cases where the most beautiful and ethereal girls have shown next to no moral scruple - though, of course, gentlemen never wish to believe it of them."
I winced.
"And then there was the tennis racquet," continued Miss Marple.
"The tennis racquet?"
"Yes, the one Mrs. Price Ridley's Clara saw lying on the grass by the Vicarage gate. That looked as though Mr. Dennis had got back earlier from his tennis party than he said. Boys of sixteen are so very susceptible and so very unbalanced. Whatever the motive - for Lettice's sake or for yours, it was a possibility. And then, of course, there was poor Mr. Hawes and you - not both of you naturally - but alternatively, as the lawyers say."
"Me?" I exclaimed in lively astonishment.
"Well, yes. I do apologise - and indeed I never really thought - but there was the question of these disappearing sums of money. Either you or Mr. Hawes must be guilty, and Mrs. Price Ridley was going about everywhere hinting that you were the person in fault - Principally because you objected so vigorously to any kind of inquiry into the matter. Of course, I myself was always convinced it was Mr. Hawes - he reminded me so much of that unfortunate organist I mentioned; but all the same one couldn't be absolutely sure -"
"Human nature being what it is," I ended grimly.
"Exactly. And then, of course, there was dear Griselda."
"But Mrs. Clement was completely out of it," interrupted Melchett. "She returned by the 6.50 train."
"That's what she said," retorted Miss Marple. "One should ne
ver go by what people say. The 6.50 was half an hour late that night. But at a quarter-past seven I saw her with my own eyes starting for Old Hall. So it followed that she must have come by the earlier train. Indeed she was seen; but perhaps you know that?"
She looked at me inquiringly.
Some magnetism in her glance impelled me to hold out the last anonymous letter, the one I had opened so short a time ago. It set out in detail that Griselda had been seen leaving Lawrence Redding's cottage by the back window at twenty past six on the fatal day.
Agatha Christie - Murder at the Vicarage Page 23
