4.50 From Paddington (4 page)

One of her rules was never to accept an engagement for any long length of time.

A fortnight was her usual period - a month at most under exceptional circumstances.

For that fortnight you had to pay the earth! But, during that fortnight, your life was heaven. You could relax completely, go abroad, stay at home, do as you pleased, secure that all was going well on the home front in Lucy Eyelesbarrow's capable hands.

Naturally the demand for her services was enormous. She could have booked herself up if she chose for about three years ahead. She had been offered enormous sums to go as a permanency. But Lucy had no intention of being a permanency, nor would she book herself for more than six months ahead. And within that period, unknown to her clamouring clients, she always kept certain free periods which enabled her either to take a short luxurious holiday (since she spent nothing otherwise and was handsomely paid and kept) or to accept any position at short notice that happened to take her fancy, either by reason of its character, or because she 'liked the people.' Since she was now at liberty to pick and choose amongst the vociferous claimants for her services, she went very largely by personal liking. Mere riches would not buy you the services of Lucy Eyelesbarrow. She could pick and choose and she did pick and choose. She enjoyed her life very much and found in it a continual source of entertainment.

Lucy Eyelesbarrow read and re-read the letter from Miss Marple. She had made Miss Marple's acquaintance two years ago when her services had been retained by Raymond West, the novelist, to go and look after his old aunt who was recovering from pneumonia. Lucy had accepted the job and had gone down to St. Mary Mead.

She had liked Miss Marple very much. As for Miss Marple, once she had caught a glimpse out of her bedroom window of Lucy Eyelesbarrow really trenching for sweet peas in the proper way, she had leaned back on her pillows with a sigh of relief, eaten the tempting little meals that Lucy Eyelesbarrow brought to her, and listened, agreeably surprised, to the tales told by her elderly irascible maidservant of how “I taught that Miss Eyelesbarrow a crochet pattern what she'd never heard of! Proper grateful, she was.” And had surprised her doctor by the rapidity of her convalescence.

Miss Marple wrote asking if Miss Eyelesbarrow could undertake a certain task for her - rather an unusual one. Perhaps Miss Eyelesbarrow could arrange a meeting at which they could discuss the matter.

Lucy Eyelesbarrow frowned for a moment or two as she considered. She was in reality fully booked up. But the word unusual and her recollection of Miss Marple's personality, carried the day and she rang up Miss Marple straight away explaining that she could not come down to St. Mary Mead as she was at the moment working, but that she was free from 2 to 4 on the following afternoon and could meet Miss Marple anywhere in London. She suggested her own club, a rather nondescript establishment which had the advantage of having several small dark writing-rooms which were usually empty.

Miss Marple accepted the suggestion and on the following day the meeting took place.

Greetings were exchanged; Lucy Eyelesbarrow led her guest to the gloomiest of the writing-rooms, and said: “I'm afraid I'm rather booked up just at present, but perhaps you'll tell me what it is you want me to undertake?”

“It's very simple, really,” said Miss Marple. “Unusual, but simple. I want you to find a body.”

For a moment the suspicion crossed Lucy's mind that Miss Marple was mentally unhinged, but she rejected the idea.

Miss Marple was eminently sane. She meant exactly what she had said.

“What kind of a body?” asked Lucy Eyelesbarrow with admirable composure.

“A woman's body,” said Miss Marple. “The body of a woman who was murdered - strangled actually - in a train.”

Lucy's eyebrows rose slightly.

“Well, that's certainly unusual. Tell me about it.”

Miss Marple told her. Lucy Eyelesbarrow listened attentively, without interrupting.

At the end she said:

“It all depends on what your friend saw - or thought she saw?”

She left the sentence unfinished with a question in it.

“Elspeth McGillicuddy doesn't imagine things,” said Miss Marple. “That's why I'm relying on what she said. If it had been Dorothy Cartwright, now - it would have been quite a different matter. Dorothy always has a good story, and quite often believes it herself, and there is usually a kind of basis of truth but certainly no more. But Elspeth is the kind of woman who finds it very hard to make herself believe that anything at all extraordinary or out of the way could happen. She's most unsuggestible, rather like granite.”

“I see,” said Lucy thoughtfully. “Well, let's accept it all. Where do I come in?”

“I was very much impressed by you,” said Miss Marple, “and you see, I haven't got the physical strength nowadays to get about and do things.”

“You want me to make inquiries? That sort of thing? But won't the police have done all that? Or do you think they have been just slack?”

“Oh, no,” said Miss Marple. “They haven't been slack. It's just that I've got a theory about the woman's body. It's got to be somewhere. If it wasn't found in the train, then it must have been pushed or thrown out of the train - but it hasn't been discovered anywhere on the line. So I travelled down the same way to see if there was anywhere where the body could have been thrown off the train and yet wouldn't have been found on the line - and there was. The railway line makes a big curve before getting into Brackhampton, on the edge of a high embankment. If a body were thrown out there, when the train was leaning at an angle, I think it would pitch right down the embankment.”

“But surely it would still be found - even there?”

“Oh, yes. It would have to be taken away... But we'll come to that presently. Here's the place - on this map.”

Lucy bent to study where Miss Marple's finger pointed.

“It is right in the outskirts of Brackhampton now,” said Miss Marple, “but originally it was a country house with extensive park and grounds and it's still there, untouched - ringed round now with building estates and small suburban houses. It's called Rutherford Hall. It was built by a man called Crackenthorpe, a very rich manufacturer in 1884. The original Crackenthorpe's son, an elderly man, is living there still with, I understand, a daughter. The railway encircles quite half of the property.”

“And you want me to do - what?”

Miss Marple replied promptly.

“I want you to get a post there. Everyone is crying out for efficient domestic help - I should not imagine it would be difficult.”

“No, I don't suppose it would be difficult.”

“I understand that Mr. Crackenthorpe is said locally to be somewhat of a miser. If you accept a low salary, I will make it up to the proper figure which should, I think, be rather more that the current rate.”

“Because of the difficulty?”

“Not the difficulty so much as the danger. It might, you know, be dangerous. It's only right to warn you of that.”

“I don't know,” said Lucy pensively, “that the idea of danger would deter me.”

“I didn't think it would,” said Miss Marple. “You're not that kind of person.”

“I dare say you thought it might even attract me? I've encountered very little danger in my life. But do you really believe it might be dangerous?”

“Somebody,” Miss Marple pointed out, “has committed a very successful crime. There has been no hue-and-cry, no real suspicion. Two elderly ladies have told a rather improbable story, the police have investigated it and found nothing in it. So everything is nice and quiet. I don't think that this somebody, whoever he may be, will care about the matter being raked up - especially if you are successful.”

“What do I look for exactly?”

“Any signs along the embankment, a scrap of clothing, broken bushes - that kind of thing.”

Lucy nodded.

“And then?”

“I shall be quite close at hand,” said Miss Marple. “An old maidservant of mine, my faithful Florence, lives in Brackhampton. She has looked after her old parents for years. They are now both dead, and she takes in lodgers - all most respectable people. She has arranged for me to have rooms with her. She will look after me most devotedly, and I feel I should like to be close at hand. I would suggest that you mention you have an elderly aunt living in the neighbourhood, and that you want a post within easy distance of her, and also that you stipulate for a reasonable amount of spare time so that you can go and see her often.”

Again Lucy nodded.

“I was going to Taormina the day after tomorrow,” she said, “The holiday can wait. But I can only promise three weeks. After that, I am booked up.”

“Three weeks should be ample,” said Miss Marple. “If we can't find out anything in three weeks, we might as well give up the whole thing as a mare's nest.”

Miss Marple departed, and Lucy, after a moment's reflection, rang up a Registry Office in Brackhampton, the manageress of which she knew very well. She explained her desire for a post in the neighbourhood so as to be near her “aunt”. After turning down, with a little difficulty and a good deal of ingenuity, several more desirable places, Rutherford Hall was mentioned.

“That sounds exactly what I want,” said Lucy firmly.

The Registry Office rang up Miss Crackenthorpe, Miss Crackenthorpe rang up Lucy.

Two days later Lucy left London en route for Rutherford Hall.

Driving her own small car, Lucy Eyelesbarrow drove through an imposing pair of vast iron gates. Just inside them was what had originally been a small lodge which now seemed completely derelict, whether through war damage, or merely through neglect, it was difficult to be sure. A long winding drive led through large gloomy clumps of rhododendrons up to the house.

Lucy caught her breath in a slight gasp when she saw the house which was a kind of miniature Windsor Castle. The stone steps in front of the door could have done with attention and the gravel sweep was green with neglected weeds.

She pulled an old-fashioned wrought-iron bell, and its clamour sounded echoing away inside. A slatternly woman, wiping her hands on her apron, opened the door and looked at her suspiciously.

“Expected, aren't you?” she said. “Miss Something-barrow, she told me.”

“Quite right,” said Lucy.

The house was desperately cold inside.

Her guide led her along a dark hall and opened a door on the right. Rather to Lucy's surprise, it was quite a pleasant sitting-room, with books and chintz-covered chairs.

“I'll tell her,” said the woman, and went away shutting the door after having given Lucy a look of profound disfavour.

After a few minutes the door opened again. From the first moment Lucy decided that she liked Emma Crackenthorpe.

She was a middle-aged woman with no very outstanding characteristics, neither good-looking nor plain, sensibly dressed in tweeds and pullover, with dark hair swept back from her forehead, steady hazel eyes and a very pleasant voice.

She said: “Miss Eyelesbarrow?” and held out her hand.

Then she looked doubtful.

“I wonder,” she said, “if this post is really what you're looking for? I don't want a housekeeper, you know, to supervise things. I want someone to do the work.”

Lucy said that that was what most people needed.

Emma Crackenthorpe said apologetically: “So many people, you know, seem to think that just a little light dusting will answer the case - but I can do all the light dusting myself.”

“I quite understand,” said Lucy. “You want cooking and washing up, and housework and stoking the boiler. That's all right. That's what I do. I'm not at all afraid of work.”

“It's a big house, I'm afraid, and inconvenient. Of course we only live in a portion of it - my father and myself, that is. He is rather an invalid. We live quite quietly, and there is an Aga stove. I have several brothers, but they are not here very often. Two women come in, a Mrs. Kidder in the morning, and Mrs. Hart three days a week to do brasses and things like that. You have your own car?”

“Yes. It can stand out in the open if there's nowhere to put it. It's used to it.”

“Oh, there are any amount of old stables. There's no trouble about that.”

She frowned a moment, then said, “Eyelesbarrow - rather an unusual name. Some friends of mine were telling me about a Lucy Eyelesbarrow - the Kennedys?”

“Yes. I was with them in North Devon when Mrs. Kennedy was having a baby.”

Emma Crackenthorpe smiled.

“I know they said they'd never had such a wonderful time as when you were there seeing to everything. But I had the idea that you were terribly expensive. The sum I mentioned -”

“That's quite all right,” said Lucy. “I want particularly, you see, to be near Brackhampton. I have an elderly aunt in a critical state of health and I want to be within easy distance of her. That's why the salary is a secondary consideration. I can't afford to do nothing. If I could be sure, of having some time off most days?”

“Oh, of course. Every afternoon, till six, if you like?”

“That seems perfect.”

Miss Crackenthorpe hesitated a moment before saying: “My father is elderly and a little - difficult sometimes. He is very keen on economy, and he says things sometimes that upset people. I wouldn't like -”

Lucy broke in quickly:

“I'm quite used to elderly people, of all kinds,” she said. “I always manage to get on well with them.”

Emma Crackenthorpe looked relieved.

“Trouble with father!” diagnosed Lucy. “I bet he's an old tartar.”

She was apportioned a large gloomy bedroom which a small electric heater did its inadequate best to warm, and was shown round the house, a vast uncomfortable mansion. As they passed a door in the hall a voice roared out:

“That you, Emma? Got the new girl there? Bring her in. I want to look at her.”

Emma flushed, glanced at Lucy apologetically.

The two women entered the room. It was richly upholstered in dark velvet, the narrow windows let in very little light, and it was full of heavy mahogany Victorian furniture.

Old Mr. Crackenthorpe was stretched out in an invalid chair, a silver-headed stick by his side.