Miss Marple's Final Cases Read Free Page A

something for him. The awful thing is I’ve no idea what.’
    Miss Marple considered for a moment or two, and then pounced on the point that had already occurred to Bunch. ‘But why was he there at all?’ she asked.
    ‘You mean,’ said Bunch, ‘if you wanted sanctuary you might pop into a church anywhere. There’s no need to take a bus that only goes four times a day and come out to a lonely spot like ours for it.’
    ‘He must have come there for a purpose,’ Miss Marple thought. ‘He must have come to see someone. Chipping Cleghorn’s not a big place, Bunch. Surely you must have some idea of who it was he came to see?’
    Bunch reviewed the inhabitants of her village in her mind before rather doubtfully shaking her head. ‘In a way,’ she said, ‘it could be anybody.’
    ‘He never mentioned a name?’
    ‘He said Julian, or I thought he said Julian. It might have been Julia, I suppose. As far as I know, there isn’t any Julia living in Chipping Cleghorn.’
    She screwed up her eyes as she thought back to the scene. The man lying there on the chancel steps, the light coming through the window with its jewels of red and blue light.
    ‘Jewels,’ said Miss Marple thoughtfully.
    ‘I’m coming now,’ said Bunch, ‘to the most important thing of all. The reason why I’ve really come here today. You see, the Eccleses made a great fuss abouthaving his coat. We took it off when the doctor was seeing him. It was an old, shabby sort of coat—there was no reason they should have wanted it. They pretended it was sentimental, but that was nonsense.
    ‘Anyway, I went up to find it, and as I was just going up the stairs I remembered how he’d made a kind of picking gesture with his hand, as though he was fumbling with the coat. So when I got hold of the coat I looked at it very carefully and I saw that in one place the lining had been sewn up again with a different thread. So I unpicked it and I found a little piece of paper inside. I took it out and I sewed it up again properly with thread that matched. I was careful and I don’t really think that the Eccleses would know I’ve done it. I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure. And I took the coat down to them and made some excuse for the delay.’
    ‘The piece of paper?’ asked Miss Marple.
    Bunch opened her handbag. ‘I didn’t show it to Julian,’ she said, ‘because he would have said that I ought to have given it to the Eccleses. But I thought I’d rather bring it to you instead.’
    ‘A cloakroom ticket,’ said Miss Marple, looking at it. ‘Paddington Station.’
    ‘He had a return ticket to Paddington in his pocket,’ said Bunch.
    The eyes of the two women met.
    ‘This calls for action,’ said Miss Marple briskly. ‘But it would be advisable, I think, to be careful. Would you have noticed at all, Bunch dear, whether you were followed when you came to London today?’
    ‘Followed!’ exclaimed Bunch. ‘You don’t think—’
    ‘Well, I think it’s possible ,’ said Miss Marple. ‘When anything is possible, I think we ought to take precautions.’ She rose with a brisk movement. ‘You came up here ostensibly, my dear, to go to the sales. I think the right thing to do, therefore, would be for us to go to the sales. But before we set out, we might put one or two little arrangements in hand. I don’t suppose,’ Miss Marple added obscurely, ‘that I shall need the old speckled tweed with the beaver collar just at present.’
    It was about an hour and a half later that the two ladies, rather the worse for wear and battered in appearance, and both clasping parcels of hardly-won household linen, sat down at a small and sequestered hostelry called the Apple Bough to restore their forces with steak and kidney pudding followed by apple tart and custard.
    ‘Really a prewar quality face towel,’ gasped Miss Marple, slightly out of breath. ‘With a J on it, too. So fortunate that Raymond’s wife’s name is Joan. I shall put them aside