Dennis was the next person to arrive on the scene, having just returned from a tennis party. The fact that murder had taken place at the Vicarage seemed to afford him acute satisfaction.
‘Fancy being right on the spot in a murder case,’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ve always wanted to be right in the midst of one. Why have the police locked up the study? Wouldn’t one of the other door keys fit it?’
I refused to allow anything of the sort to be attempted. Dennis gave in with a bad grace. After extracting every possible detail from me he went out into the garden to look for footprints, remarking cheerfully that it was lucky it was only old Protheroe, whom everyone disliked.
His cheerful callousness rather grated on me, but I reflected that I was perhaps being hard on the boy. At Dennis’s age a detective story is one of the best things in life, and to find a real detective story, complete with corpse, waiting on one’s own front doorstep, so to speak, is bound to send a healthy-minded boy into the seventh heaven of enjoyment. Death means very little to a boy of sixteen.
Griselda came back in about an hour’s time. She had seen Anne Protheroe, having arrived just after the Inspector had broken the news to her.
On hearing that Mrs Protheroe had last seen her husband in the village about a quarter to six, and that she had no light of any kind to throw upon the matter, he had taken his departure, explaining that he would return on the morrow for a fuller interview.
‘He was quite decent in his way,’ said Griselda grudgingly.
‘How did Mrs Protheroe take it?’ I asked.
‘Well – she was very quiet – but then she always is.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine Anne Protheroe going into hysterics.’
‘Of course it was a great shock. You could see that. She thanked me for coming and said she was very grateful but that there was nothing I could do.’
‘What about Lettice?’
‘She was out playing tennis somewhere. She hadn’t got home yet.’ There was a pause, and then Griselda said:
‘You know, Len, she was really very quiet – very queer indeed.’
‘The shock,’ I suggested.
‘Yes – I suppose so. And yet –’ Griselda furrowed her brows perplexedly. ‘It wasn’t like that, somehow. She didn’t seem so much bowled over as – well – terrified.’
‘Terrified?’
‘Yes – not showing it, you know. At least not meaning to show it. But a queer, watchful look in her eyes. I wonder if she has a sort of idea who did kill him. She asked again and again if anyone were suspected.’
‘Did she?’ I said thoughtfully.
‘Yes. Of course Anne’s got marvellous self-control, but one could see that she was terribly upset. More so than I would have thought, for after all it wasn’t as though she were so devoted to him. I should have said she rather disliked him, if anything.’
‘Death alters one’s feelings sometimes,’ I said.
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
Dennis came in and was full of excitement over a footprint he had found in one of the flower beds. He was sure that the police had overlooked it and that it would turn out to be the turning point of the mystery.
I spent a troubled night. Dennis was up and about and out of the house long before breakfast to ‘study the latest developments’, as he said.
Nevertheless it was not he, but Mary, who brought us the morning’s sensational bit of news.
We had just sat down to breakfast when she burst into the room, her cheeks red and her eyes shining, and addressed us with her customary lack of ceremony.
‘Would you believe it? The baker’s just told me. They’ve arrested young Mr Redding.’
‘Arrested Lawrence,’ cried Griselda incredulously. ‘Impossible. It must be some stupid mistake.’
‘No mistake about it, mum,’ said Mary with a kind of gloating exultation. ‘Mr Redding, he went there himself and gave himself up. Last night, last thing. Went right in, threw down the pistol on the table, and “I did it,” he says. Just like that.’
She looked at us both, nodded her head vigorously, and withdrew satisfied with the effect she had produced. Griselda and I stared at each other.
‘Oh! It isn’t true,’ said Griselda. ‘It can’t be true.’
She noticed my silence, and said: ‘Len, you don’t think it’s true?’
I found it hard to answer her. I sat silent, thoughts whirling through my head.
‘He must be mad,’ said Griselda. ‘Absolutely mad. Or do you think they were looking at the pistol together and it suddenly went off ?’
‘That doesn’t sound at all a likely thing to happen.’
‘But it must have been an accident of some kind. Because there’s not a shadow of a motive. What earthly reason could Lawrence have for killing Colonel Protheroe?’
I could have answered that question very decidedly, but I wished to spare Anne Protheroe as far as possible. There might still be a chance of keeping her name out of it.
‘Remember they had had a quarrel,’ I said.
‘About Lettice and her bathing dress. Yes, but that’s absurd; and even if he and Lettice were engaged secretly – well, that’s not a reason for killing her father.’
‘We don’t know what the true facts of the case may be, Griselda.’
‘You do believe it, Len! Oh! How can you! I tell you, I’m sure Lawrence never touched a hair of his head.’
‘Remember, I met him just outside the gate. He looked like a madman.’
‘Yes, but – oh! It’s impossible.’
‘There’s the clock, too,’ I said. ‘This explains the clock. Lawrence must have put it back to 6.20 with the idea of making an alibi for himself. Look how Inspector Slack fell into the trap.’
‘You’re wrong, Len. Lawrence knew about that clock being fast. “Keeping the Vicar up to time!” he used to say. Lawrence would never have made the mistake of putting it back to 6.22. He’d have put the hands somewhere possible – like a quarter to seven.’
‘He mayn’t have known what time Protheroe got here. Or he may have simply forgotten about the clock being fast.’
Griselda disagreed.
‘No, if you were committing a murder, you’d be awfully careful about things like that.’
‘You don’t know, my dear,’ I said mildly. ‘You’ve never done one.’
Before Griselda could reply, a shadow fell across the breakfast table, and a very gentle voice said:
‘I hope I am not intruding. You must forgive me. But in the sad circumstances – the very sad circumstances…’
It was our neighbour, Miss Marple. Accepting our polite disclaimers, she stepped in through the window, and I drew up a chair for her. She looked faintly flushed and quite excited.
‘Very terrible, is it not? Poor Colonel Protheroe. Not a very pleasant man, perhaps, and not exactly popular, but it’s none the less sad for that. And actually shot in the Vicarage study, I understand?’
I said that that had indeed been the case.
‘But the dear Vicar was not here at the time?’ Miss Marple questioned of Griselda. I explained where I had been.
‘Mr Dennis is not with you this morning?’ said Miss Marple, glancing round.
‘Dennis,’