The Mirror Crack'd: from Side to Side (23 page)

“It reminds me so much of that parlourmaid I was telling you about,” she added to Dermot. “I only had the account, you see, of what Gladys Dixon said to Cherry which simply was that she was worried about the ruin of Heather Badcock's dress with the cocktail spilt down it. What seemed so funny, she said, was that she did it on purpose. But the ‘she' that Gladys referred to was not Heather Badcock, it was Marina Gregg. As Gladys said: She did it on purpose! She jogged Heather's arm. Not by accident but because she
meant
to do so. We do know that she must have been standing very close to
Heather because we have heard that she mopped up both Heather's dress and her own before pressing her cocktail on Heather. It was really,” said Miss Marple meditatively, “a very perfect murder; because, you see, it was committed on the spur of the moment without pausing to think or reflect. She wanted Heather Badcock dead and a few minutes later Heather Badcock
was
dead. She didn't realize, perhaps, the seriousness of what she'd done and certainly not the danger of it until afterwards. But she realized it then. She was afraid, horribly afraid. Afraid that someone had seen her dope her own glass, that someone had seen her deliberately jog Heather's elbow, afraid that someone would accuse her of having poisoned Heather. She could see only one way out. To insist that the murder had been aimed at
her,
that
she
was the prospective victim. She tried that idea first on her doctor. She refused to let him tell her husband because I think she knew that her husband would not be deceived. She did fantastic things. She wrote notes to herself and arranged to find them in extraordinary places and at extraordinary moments. She doctored her own coffee at the studios one day. She did things that could really have been seen through fairly easily if one had happened to be thinking that way. They were seen through by one person.”

She looked at Jason Rudd.

“This is only a theory of yours,” said Jason Rudd.

“You can put it that way, if you like,” said Miss Marple, “but you know quite well, don't you, Mr. Rudd, that I'm speaking the truth. You know, because you knew from the first. You knew because you heard that mention of German measles. You knew and you were frantic to protect her. But you didn't realize how much you would have to protect her from. You didn't realize that it was not only a
question of hushing up one death, the death of a woman whom you might say quite fairly had brought her death on herself. But there were other deaths—the death of Giuseppe, a blackmailer, it is true, but a human being. And the death of Ella Zielinsky of whom I expect you were fond. You were frantic to protect Marina and also to prevent her from doing more harm. All you wanted was to get her safely away somewhere. You tried to watch her all the time, to make sure that nothing more should happen.”

She paused, and then coming nearer to Jason Rudd, she laid a gentle hand on his arm.

“I am very sorry for you,” she said, “very sorry. I do realize the agony you've been through. You cared for her so much, didn't you?”

Jason Rudd turned slightly away.

“That,” he said, “is, I believe, common knowledge.”

“She was such a beautiful creature,” said Miss Marple gently. “She had such a wonderful gift. She had a great power of love and hate but no stability. That's what's so sad for anyone, to be born with no stability. She couldn't let the past go and she could never see the future as it really was, only as she imagined it to be. She was a great actress and a beautiful and very unhappy woman. What a wonderful Mary, Queen of Scots she was! I shall never forget her.”

Sergeant Tiddler appeared suddenly on the stairs.

“Sir,” he said, “can I speak to you a moment?”

Craddock turned.

“I'll be back,” he said to Jason Rudd, then he went towards the stairs.

“Remember,” Miss Marple called after him, “poor Arthur Badcock had nothing to do with this. He came to the fête because he wanted to have a glimpse of the girl he had married long ago. I
should say she didn't even recognize him. Did she?” she asked Jason Rudd.

Jason Rudd shook his head.

“I don't think so. She certainly never said anything to me. I don't think,” he added thoughtfully, “she would recognize him.”

“Probably not,” said Miss Marple. “Anyway,” she added, “he's quite innocent of wanting to kill her or anything of that kind. Remember that,” she added to Dermot Craddock as he went down the stairs.

“He's not been in any real danger, I can assure you,” said Craddock, “but of course when we found out that he had actually been Miss Marina Gregg's first husband we naturally had to question him on the point. Don't worry about him, Aunt Jane,” he added in a low murmur, then he hurried down the stairs.

Miss Marple turned to Jason Rudd. He was standing there like a man in a daze, his eyes faraway.

“Would you allow me to see her?” said Miss Marple.

He considered her for a moment or two, then he nodded.

“Yes, you can see her. You seem to—understand her very well.”

He turned and Miss Marple followed him. He preceded her into the big bedroom and drew the curtains slightly aside.

Marina Gregg lay in the great white shell of the bed—her eyes closed, her hands folded.

So, Miss Marple thought, might the Lady of Shalott have lain in the boat that carried her down to Camelot. And there, standing musing, was a man with a rugged, ugly face, who might pass as a Lancelot of a later day.

Miss Marple said gently, “It's very fortunate for her that she—took an overdose. Death was really the only way of escape
left to her. Yes—very fortunate she took that overdose—or—
was given it?
”

His eyes met hers, but he did not speak.

He said brokenly, “She was—so lovely—and she had suffered so much.”

Miss Marple looked back against the still figure.

She quoted softly the last lines of the poem:

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.

She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel
The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
With
The Murder in the Vicarage,
published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Additional series characters include the husband-and-wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.

Many of Christie's novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series.
The Mousetrap,
her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. Among her best-known film adaptations are
Murder on the Orient Express
(1974) and
Death on the Nile
(1978), with Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot, respectively. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.

Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain's highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Her one hundred and twentieth anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2010.

www.AgathaChristie.com

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