4.50 from Paddington

CHAPTER 2

True to the precepts handed down to her by her mother and grandmother—to wit: that a true lady can neither be shocked nor surprised—Miss Marple merely raised her eyebrows and shook her head, as she said:

‘Most distressing for you, Elspeth, and surely most unusual. I think you had better tell me about it at once.’

That was exactly what Mrs McGillicuddy wanted to do. Allowing her hostess to draw her nearer to the fire, she sat down, pulled off her gloves and plunged into a vivid narrative.

Miss Marple listened with close attention. When Mrs McGillicuddy at last paused for breath, Miss Marple spoke with decision.

‘The best thing, I think, my dear, is for you to go upstairs and take off your hat and have a wash. Then we will have supper—during which we will not discuss this at all. After supper we can go into the matter thoroughly and discuss it from every aspect.’

Mrs McGillicuddy concurred with this suggestion. The two ladies had supper, discussing, as they ate, various aspects of life as lived in the village of St Mary Mead. Miss Marple commented on the general distrust of the new organist, related the recent scandal about the chemist’s wife, and touched on the hostility between the schoolmistress and the village institute. They then discussed Miss Marple’s and Mrs McGillicuddy’s gardens.

‘Paeonies,’ said Miss Marple as she rose from table, ‘are most unaccountable. Either they do—or they don’t do. But if they do establish themselves, they are with you for life, so to speak, and really most beautiful varieties nowadays.’

They settled themselves by the fire again, and Miss Marple brought out two old Waterford glasses from a corner cupboard, and from another cupboard produced a bottle.

‘No coffee to-night for you, Elspeth,’ she said. ‘You are already over-excited (and no wonder!) and probably would not sleep. I prescribe a glass of my cowslip wine, and later, perhaps, a cup of camomile tea.’

Mrs McGillicuddy acquiescing in these arrangements, Miss Marple poured out the wine.

‘Jane,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy, as she took an appreciative sip, ‘you don’t think, do you, that I dreamt it, or imagined it?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Miss Marple with warmth.

Mrs McGillicuddy heaved a sigh of relief.

‘That ticket collector,’ she said, ‘he thought so. Quite polite, but all the same—’

‘I think, Elspeth, that that was quite natural under the circumstances. It sounded—and indeed was—a most unlikely story. And you were a complete stranger to him. No, I have no doubt at all that you saw what you’ve told me you saw. It’s very extraordinary—but not at all impossible. I recollect myself being interested when a train ran parallel to one on which I was travelling, to notice what a vivid and intimate picture one got of what was going on in one or two of the carriages. A little girl, I remember once, playing with a teddy bear, and suddenly she threw it deliberately at a fat man who was asleep in the corner and he bounced up and looked most indignant, and the other passengers looked so amused. I saw them all quite vividly. I could have described afterwards exactly what they looked like and what they had on.’

Mrs McGillicuddy nodded gratefully.

‘That’s just how it was.’

‘The man had his back to you, you say. So you didn’t see his face?’

‘No.’

‘And the woman, you can describe her? Young, old?’

‘Youngish. Between thirty and thirty-five, I should think. I couldn’t say closer than that.’

‘Good-looking?’

‘That again, I couldn’t say. Her face, you see, was all contorted and—’

Miss Marple said quickly:

‘Yes, yes, I quite understand. How was she dressed?’

‘She had on a fur coat of some kind, a palish fur. No hat. Her hair was blonde.’

‘And there was nothing distinctive that you can remember about the man?’

Mrs McGillicuddy took a little time to think carefully before she replied.

‘He was tallish—and dark, I think. He had a heavy coat on so that I couldn’t judge his build very well.’ She added despondently, ‘It’s not really very much to go on.’

‘It’s something,’ said Miss Marple. She paused before saying: ‘You feel quite sure, in your own mind, that the girl was—dead?’

‘She was dead, I’m sure of it. Her tongue came out and—I’d rather not talk about it …’

‘Of course not. Of course not,’ said Miss Marple quickly. ‘We shall know more, I expect, in the morning.’

‘In the morning?’

‘I should imagine it will be in the morning papers. After this man had attacked and killed her, he would have a body on his hands. What would he do? Presumably he would leave the train quickly at the first station—by the way, can you remember if it was a corridor carriage?’

‘No, it was not.’

‘That seems to point to a train that was not going far afield. It would almost certainly stop at Brackhampton. Let us say he leaves the train at Brackhampton, perhaps arranging the body in a corner seat, with her face hidden by the fur collar to delay discovery. Yes—I think that that is what he would do. But of course it will be discovered before very long—and I should imagine that the news of a murdered woman discovered on a train would be almost certain to be in the morning papers—we shall see.’

But it was not in the morning papers.

Miss Marple and Mrs McGillicuddy, after making sure of this, finished their breakfast in silence. Both were reflecting.

After breakfast, they took a turn round the garden. But this, usually an absorbing pastime, was to-day somewhat half-hearted. Miss Marple did indeed call attention to some new and rare species she had acquired for her rock-garden but did so in an almost absent-minded manner. And Mrs McGillicuddy did not, as was customary, counter-attack with a list of her own recent acquisitions.

‘The garden is not looking at all as it should,’ said Miss Marple, but still speaking absent-mindedly. ‘Doctor Haydock has absolutely forbidden me to do any stooping or kneeling—and really, what can you do if you don’t stoop or kneel? There’s old Edwards, of course—but so opinionated. And all this jobbing gets them into bad habits, lots of cups of tea and so much pottering—not any real work.’

‘Oh, I know,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy. ‘Of course, there’s no question of my being forbidden to stoop, but really, especially after meals—and having put on weight’—she looked down at her ample proportions—‘it does bring on heartburn.’

There was a silence and then Mrs McGillicuddy planted her feet sturdily, stood still, and turned on her friend.

‘Well?’ she said.

It was a small insignificant word, but it acquired full significance from Mrs McGillicuddy’s tone, and Miss Marple understood its meaning perfectly.

‘I know,’ she said.

The two ladies looked at each other.

‘I think,’ said Miss Marple, ‘we might walk down to the police station and talk to Sergeant Cornish. He’s intelligent and patient, and I know him very well, and he knows me. I think he’ll listen—and pass the information on to the proper quarter.’

Accordingly, some three-quarters of an hour later, Miss Marple and Mrs McGillicuddy were talking to a fresh-faced grave man between thirty and forty who listened attentively to what they had to say.

Frank Cornish received Miss Marple with cordiality and even deference. He set chairs for the two ladies, and said: ‘Now what can we do for you, Miss Marple?’

Miss Marple said: ‘I would like you, please, to listen to my friend Mrs McGillicuddy’s story.’

And Sergeant Cornish had listened. At the close of the recital he remained silent for a moment or two.

Then he said:

‘That’s a very extraordinary story.’ His eyes, without seeming to do so, had sized Mrs McGillicuddy up whilst she was telling it.

On the whole, he was favourably impressed. A sensible woman, able to tell a story clearly; not, so far as he could judge, an over-imaginative or a hysterical woman. Moreover, Miss Marple, so it seemed, believed in the accuracy of her friend’s story and he knew all about Miss Marple. Everybody in St Mary Mead knew Miss Marple; fluffy and dithery in appearance, but inwardly as sharp and as shrewd as they make them.

He cleared his throat and spoke.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘you may have been mistaken—I’m not saying you were, mind—but you may have been. There’s a lot of horse-play goes on—it mayn’t have been serious or fatal.’

‘I know what I saw,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy grimly.

‘And you won’t budge from it,’ thought Frank Cornish, ‘and I’d say that, likely or unlikely, you may be right.’

Aloud he said: ‘You reported it to the railway officials, and you’ve come and reported it to me. That’s the proper procedure and you may rely on me to have inquiries instituted.’

He stopped. Miss Marple nodded her head gently, satisfied. Mrs McGillicuddy was not quite so satisfied, but she did not say anything. Sergeant Cornish addressed Miss Marple, not so much because he wanted her ideas, as because he wanted to hear what she would say.

‘Granted the facts are as reported,’ he said, ‘what do you think has happened to the body?’

‘There seems to be only two possibilities,’ said Miss Marple without hesitation. ‘The most likely one, of course, is that the body was left in the train, but that seems improbable now, for it would have been found some time last night, by another traveller, or by the railway staff at the train’s ultimate destination.’

Frank Cornish nodded.

‘The only other course open to the murderer would be to push the body out of the train on to the line. It must, I suppose, be still on the track somewhere as yet undiscovered—though that does seem a little unlikely. But there would be, as far as I can see, no other way of dealing with it.’

‘You read about bodies being put in trunks,’ said Mrs McGillicuddy, ‘but no-one travels with trunks nowadays, only suitcases, and you couldn’t get a body into a suitcase.’

‘Yes,’ said Cornish. ‘I agree with you both. The body, if there is a body, ought to have been discovered by now, or will be very soon. I’ll let you know any developments there are—though I dare say you’ll read about them in the papers. There’s the possibility, of course, that the woman, though savagely attacked, was not actually dead. She may have been able to leave the train on her own feet.’

‘Hardly without assistance,’ said Miss Marple. ‘And if so, it will have been noticed. A man, supporting a woman whom he says is ill.’

‘Yes, it will have been noticed,’ said Cornish. ‘Or if a woman was found unconscious or ill in a carriage and was removed to hospital, that, too, will be on record. I think you may rest assured that you’ll hear about it all in a very short time.’

But that day passed and the next day. On that evening Miss Marple received a note from Sergeant Cornish.

In regard to the matter on which you consulted me, full inquiries have been made, with no result. No woman’s body has been found. No hospital has administered treatment to a woman such as you describe, and no case of a woman suffering from shock or taken ill, or leaving a station supported by a man has been observed. You may take it that the fullest inquiries have been made. I suggest that your friend may have witnessed a scene such as she described but that it was much less serious than she supposed.