"Yes.
I know who it is - near enough... That is, it's one of three possibles."
She stood for another moment, looking down at her dead friend, and then turned towards the house.
Her voice was dry and hard.
"We must ring up the police," she said.
"And while we're waiting for them, I'll tell you.
My fault, in a way, that Murgatroyd's lying out there.
I made a game of it...
Murder isn't a game..."
"No," said Miss Marple. "Murder isn't a game."
"You know something about it, don't you?" said Miss Hinchliffe as she lifted the receiver and dialled.
She made a brief report and hung up.
"They'll be here in a few minutes... Yes, I heard that you'd been mixed up in this sort of business before... I think it was Edmund Swettenham told me so... Do you want to hear what we were doing, Murgatroyd and I?"
Succinctly she described the conversation held before her departure for the station.
"She called after me, you know. Just as I was leaving... That's how I know it's a woman and not a man...
If I'd waited - if only I'd listened!
God dammit, the dog could have stopped where she was for another quarter of an hour."
"Don't blame yourself, my dear.
That does no good.
One can't foresee."
"No, one can't... Something tapped against the window, I remember.
Perhaps she was outside there, then - yes, of course, she must have been... coming to the house... and there were Murgatroyd and I shouting at each other. Top of our voices... She heard... She heard it all..."
"You haven't told me yet what your friend said."
"Just one sentence!
'She wasn't there.'" She paused.
"You see?
There were three women we hadn't eliminated. Mrs. Swettenham, Mrs. Easterbrook, Julia Simmons.
And one of those three - wasn't there... She wasn't there in the drawing-room because she had slipped out through the other door and was out in the hall."
"Yes," said Miss Marple, "I see."
"It's one of those three women.
I don't know which.
But I'll find out!"
"Excuse me," said Miss Marple. "But did she - did Miss Murgatroyd, I mean, say it exactly as you said it?"
"How d'you mean - as I said it?"
"Oh, dear, how can I explain?
You said it like this.
She - wasn't - there. An equal emphasis on every word.
You see, there are three ways you could say it.
You could say,
'She wasn't there.'
Very personal.
Or again.
'She wasn't there.'
Confirming some suspicion already held.
Or else you could say (and this is nearer to the way you said it just now),
'She wasn't there...' quite blankly with the emphasis, if there was emphasis on the there."
"I don't know," Miss Hinchliffe shook her head.
"I can't remember... How the hell can I remember?
I think, yes, surely she'd say
'She wasn't there'?