The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side. Agatha Christie
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Marple thanked her and said she would like a small glass of dry sherry. Miss Knight looked disapproving.
‘I don’t know what the doctor would say to that, I’m sure,’ she said, when she returned with the glass.
‘We will make a point of asking him tomorrow morning,’ said Miss Marple.
On the following morning Miss Knight met Dr Haydock in the hall, and did some agitated whispering.
The elderly doctor came into the room rubbing his hands, for it was a chilly morning.
‘Here’s our doctor to see us,’ said Miss Knight gaily. ‘Can I take your gloves, Doctor?’
‘They’ll be all right here,’ said Haydock, casting them carelessly on a table. ‘Quite a nippy morning.’
‘A little glass of sherry perhaps?’ suggested Miss Marple.
‘I heard you were taking to drink. Well, you should never drink alone.’
The decanter and the glasses were already on a small table by Miss Marple. Miss Knight left the room.
Dr Haydock was a very old friend. He had semi-retired, but came to attend certain of his old patients.
‘I hear you’ve been falling about,’ he said as he finished his glass. ‘It won’t do, you know, not at your age. I’m warning you. And I hear you didn’t want to send for Sandford.’
Sandford was Haydock’s partner.
‘That Miss Knight of yours sent for him anyway—and she was quite right.’
‘I was only bruised and shaken a little. Dr Sandford said so. I could have waited quite well until you were back.’
‘Now look here, my dear. I can’t go on for ever. And Sandford, let me tell you, has better qualifications than I have. He’s a first class man.’
‘The young doctors are all the same,’ said Miss Marple. ‘They take your blood pressure, and whatever’s the matter with you, you get some kind of mass produced variety of new pills. Pink ones, yellow ones, brown ones. Medicine nowadays is just like a supermarket—all packaged up.’
‘Serve you right if I prescribed leeches, and black draught, and rubbed your chest with camphorated oil.’
‘I do that myself when I’ve got a cough,’ said Miss Marple with spirit, ‘and very comforting it is.’
‘We don’t like getting old, that’s what it is,’ said Haydock gently. ‘I hate it.’
‘You’re quite a young man compared to me,’ said Miss Marple. ‘And I don’t really mind getting old—not that in itself. It’s the lesser indignities.’
‘I think I know what you mean.’
‘Never being alone! The difficulty of getting out for a few minutes by oneself. And even my knitting—such a comfort that has always been, and I really am a good knitter. Now I drop stitches all the time—and quite often I don’t even know I’ve dropped them.’
Haydock looked at her thoughtfully.
Then his eyes twinkled.
‘There’s always the opposite.’
‘Now what do you mean by that?’
‘If you can’t knit, what about unravelling for a change? Penelope did.’
‘I’m hardly in her position.’
‘But unravelling’s rather in your line, isn’t it?’
He rose to his feet.
‘I must be getting along. What I’d prescribe for you is a nice juicy murder.’
‘That’s an outrageous thing to say!’
‘Isn’t it? However, you can always make do with the depth the parsley sank into the butter on a summer’s day. I always wondered about that. Good old Holmes. A period piece, nowadays, I suppose. But he’ll never be forgotten.’
Miss Knight bustled in after the doctor had gone.
‘There,’ he said, ‘we look much more cheerful. Did the doctor recommend a tonic?’
‘He recommended me to take an interest in murder.’
‘A nice detective story?’
‘No,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Real life.’
‘Goodness,’ exclaimed Miss Knight. ‘But there’s not likely to be a murder in this quiet spot.’
‘Murders,’ said Miss Marple, ‘can happen anywhere. And do.’
‘At the Development, perhaps?’ mused Miss Knight. ‘A lot of those Teddy-looking boys carry knives.’
But the murder, when it came, was not at the Development.
Mrs Bantry stepped back a foot or two, surveyed herself in the glass, made a slight adjustment to her hat (she was not used to wearing hats), drew on a pair of good quality leather gloves and left the lodge, closing the door carefully behind her. She had the most pleasurable anticipations of what lay in front of her. Some three weeks had passed since her talk with Miss Marple. Marina Gregg and her husband had arrived at Gossington Hall and were now more or less installed there.
There was to be a meeting there this afternoon of the main persons involved in the arrangements for the fête in aid of the St John Ambulance. Mrs Bantry was not among those on the committee, but she had received a note from Marina Gregg asking her to come and have tea beforehand. It had recalled their meeting in California and had been signed, ‘Cordially, Marina Gregg.’ It had been handwritten, not typewritten. There is no denying that Mrs Bantry was both pleased and flattered. After all, a celebrated film star is a celebrated film star and elderly ladies, though they may be of local importance, are aware of their complete unimportance in the world of celebrities. So Mrs Bantry had the pleased feeling of a child for whom a special treat had been arranged.
As she walked up the drive Mrs Bantry’s keen eyes went from side to side registering her impressions. The place had been smartened up since the days when it had passed from hand to hand. ‘No expense spared,’ said Mrs Bantry to herself, nodding in satisfaction. The drive afforded no view of the flower garden and for that Mrs Bantry was just as pleased. The flower garden and its special herbaceous border had been her own particular delight in the far-off days when she had lived at Gossington Hall. She permitted regretful and nostalgic memories of her irises. The best iris garden of any in the country, she told herself with a fierce pride.
Faced by a new front door in a blaze of new paint she pressed the bell. The door was opened with gratifying promptness by what was undeniably an Italian butler. She was ushered by him straight to the room which had been Colonel Bantry’s library. This, as she had already heard, had been thrown into one with the study. The result was impressive. The walls were panelled, the floor was parquet. At one end was a grand piano and halfway along the wall was a superb record player. At the other end of the room was a small island, as it were, which comprised Persian rugs, a tea-table and some chairs. By the tea-table sat Marina Gregg, and leaning against the mantelpiece was what Mrs Bantry at first thought to be the ugliest man she had ever seen.
Just a few moments previously when Mrs Bantry’s hand had been advanced to press the bell, Marina Gregg had been saying in a soft, enthusiastic voice, to her husband:
‘This place is right for me, Jinks, just right. It’s what I’ve always wanted. Quiet. English quiet and the English countryside. I can see myself living here, living here all my life if need be. And we’ll adopt the English way of life. We’ll have afternoon tea every afternoon with China tea and my lovely Georgian tea service. And we’ll look out of the window on those lawns and that English herbaceous border.