CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Miss Marple went to say goodbye to Miss Ramsbottom. ‘I’m afraid,’ said Miss Marple, ‘that I’ve repaid you badly for your kindness to me.’

‘Hah,’ said Miss Ramsbottom. ‘You found out what you wanted to, I suppose. And I suppose you’ve told that police Inspector all about it? Will he be able to prove a case?’

‘I’m almost sure he will,’ said Miss Marple. ‘It may take a little time.’

‘I don’t blame you for what you’ve done. Wickedness is wickedness and has got to be punished. Handsome, Lance is, but he has always been bad. Yes, I was afraid of it. Ah, well, sometimes it can be difficult not to love a bad boy. The boy always had charm. He lied about the time he left me that day Adele died. But he was my beloved sister Elvira’s boy - I couldn’t possibly say anything against him. You’re a good woman, Jane Marple, and good must always win. I’m sorry for his wife, though.’

‘So am I,’ said Miss Marple.

---

In the hall Pat Fortescue was waiting to say goodbye. ‘I wish you weren’t going,’ she said. ‘I shall miss you.’

‘It’s time for me to go,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I’ve finished what I came here to do. It’s important, you know, that wickedness shouldn’t win.’

Pat looked puzzled. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘No, my dear. But if I might advise you, if anything ever goes wrong in your life - go back to where you were happy as a child. Go back to Ireland, my dear. Horses and dogs. All that.’

Pat nodded. ‘Sometimes I wish I had done just that when Freddy died. But if I had,’ her voice softened, ‘I would not have met Lance. We’re not staying here, you know. We’re going back to East Africa. I’m so pleased.’

‘Be happy, dear child,’ said Miss Marple. ‘One needs a great deal of courage to get through life. I think you have it.’ She patted the girl’s hand and went through the front door to the waiting taxi.

---

Miss Marple reached home late that evening. Kitty - the latest girl she had taken in to train - greeted her with a smiling face. ‘I’m so happy to see you - you’ll find everything very nice in the house. I’ve cleaned and cleaned!’

‘That’s very nice, Kitty - I’m happy to be home.’ There were six spider’s webs on the ceiling, Miss Marple noted. These girls never looked up. She was too kind to say anything.

‘Your letters are on the hall table, Miss. And there’s one that was delivered to the wrong house - it only arrived today.’

Miss Marple recognized the childish handwriting. She tore the envelope open.

Dear Madam,

I hope you’ll forgive me writing this but I really don’t know what to do and I never meant any harm. It was murder, they say, but it wasn’t me that did it, not really. I would never do anything wicked like that and I know he wouldn’t either. Albert, I mean.

We met last summer and we were going to be married, but Albert had been cheated out of his inheritance by Mr Rex Fortescue. And Mr Fortescue just denied everything and everybody believed him, and not Albert, because he was rich and Albert was poor. But Albert has a friend who works in a place where they make these new drugs and they have what they call a truth drug and it makes people speak the truth whether they want to or not.

Albert was going to see Mr Fortescue in his office on Nov. 5th, taking a lawyer with him. The only thing I had to do was to give Mr Fortescue the drug at breakfast that morning and then it would work just when they arrived and he’d admit that everything that Albert said was quite true. Well, Madam, I put the drug in the marmalade - but now Mr Fortescue is dead! I think it must have been too strong, but it wasn’t Albert’s fault because Albert would never do a thing like that. I can’t tell the police because maybe they’d think Albert did it on purpose, which I know he didn’t.

Oh, Madam, I don’t know what to do and I haven’t heard from Albert. If you could only come here and help me, they’d listen to you. You were always so kind to me, and I didn’t mean to do anything wrong and Albert didn’t either. If you could only help us. Yours respectfully,

Gladys Martin.

P. S. - I’m enclosing a photograph of Albert and me. One of the boys took it at the holiday camp and gave it to me. Albert doesn’t know I’ve got it - he hates being photographed. But you can see, Madam, what a nice boy he is.

Miss Marple stared down at the photograph, to the dark, handsome, smiling face of Lance Fortescue. The last words of the sad little letter echoed in her mind, You can see what a nice boy he is.

Tears rose in Miss Marple’s eyes. But following her sadness for poor Gladys, there came anger - anger against a cold-blooded killer.

And then there came a huge feeling of triumph - there was no escape now for Lance Fortescue!