I have just observed her approaching the house."
Mrs Bantry rushed to the front door, flung it open and greeted Miss Marple breathlessly.
"I've been trying to get you everywhere. Where have you been?"
She glanced over her shoulder.
Lorrimer had discreetly vanished.
"Everything's too awful!
People are beginning to cold-shoulder Arthur.
He looks years older.
We must do something, Jane. You must do something!"
Miss Marple said, "You needn't worry Dolly," in a rather peculiar voice.
Colonel Bantry appeared from the study door.
"Ah, Miss Marple. Good morning. Glad you've come.
My wife's been ringing you up like a lunatic."
"I thought I'd better bring you the news," said Miss Marple as she followed Mrs Bantry into the study.
"News?"
"Basil Blake has just been arrested for the murder of Ruby Keene."
"Basil Blake?" cried the colonel.
"But he didn't do it," said Miss Marple.
Colonel Bantry took no notice of this statement. It was doubtful if he even heard it.
"Do you mean to say he strangled that girl and then brought her along and put her in my library?"
"He put her in your library," said Miss Marple, "but he didn't kill her." "Nonsense. If he put her in my library, of course he killed her! The two things go together!" "Not necessarily. He found her dead in his own cottage."
"A likely story," said the colonel derisively. "If you find a body why, you ring up the police, naturally, if you're an honest man."
"Ah," said Miss Marple, "but we haven't all got such iron nerves as you have Colonel Bantry. You belong to the old school. This younger generation is different." "Got no stamina," said the colonel, repeating a well-worn opinion of his.
"Some of them," said Miss Marple, "have been through a bad time. I've heard a good deal about Basil. He did ARP work, you know, when he was only eighteen.
He went into a burning house and brought out four children, one after another. He went back for a dog, although they told him it wasn't safe.
The building fell in on him. They got him out, but his chest was badly crushed and he had to lie in plaster for a long time after that.
That's when he got interested in designing."
"Oh!" The colonel coughed and blew his nose.
"I... er... never knew that."
"He doesn't talk about it," said Miss Marple.
"Er... quite right. Proper spirit.
Must be more in the young chap than I thought.
Shows you ought to be careful in jumping to conclusions." Colonel Bantry looked ashamed. "But all the same," his indignation revived, "what did he mean, trying to fasten a murder on me?"
"I don't think he saw it like that," said Miss Marple.
"He thought of it more as a as a joke. You see, he was rather under the influence of alcohol at the time." "Bottled, was he?" said Colonel Bantry, with an Englishman's sympathy for alcoholic excess. "Oh, well, can't judge a fellow by what he does when he's drunk. When I was at Cambridge, I remember I put a certain utensil... well... well, never mind. Deuce of a row there was about it." He chuckled, then checked himself sternly. He looked at Miss Marple with eyes that were shrewd and appraising.
He said, "You don't think he did the murder, eh?"
"I'm sure he didn't."
"And you think you know who did?"
Miss Marple nodded.
Mrs Bantry, like all ecstatic Greek chorus, said,
"Isn't she wonderful?" to an unhearing world.
"Well, who was it?"
Miss Marple said, "I was going to ask you to help me.
I think if we went up to Somerset House we should have a very good idea."
Chapter 41
Sir Henry's face was very grave. He said,
"I don't like it."
"I am aware," said Miss Marple, "that it isn't what you call orthodox.
But it is so important, isn't it, to be quite sure to 'make assurance doubly sure,' as Shakespeare has it? I think, if Mr Jefferson would agree -"
"What about Harper?