I don’t mean that we got away from the topic of the murder, because we didn’t.

Miss Marple, the guest, was naturally thrilled by the subject. As she said apologetically: “We have so little to talk about in the country!” She had made-up her mind that the dead girl must have been just like her Edith.

“Such a nice little maid, and so willing, but sometimes just a little slow to take in things.”

Miss Marple also had a cousin whose niece’s sister-in-law had had a great deal of annoyance and trouble over some anonymous letters, so the letters, also, were very interesting to the charming old lady.

“But tell me, dear,” she said to Mrs. Dane Calthrop, “what do the village people—I mean the townspeople—say? What do they think?”

“Mrs. Cleat still, I suppose,” said Joanna.

“Oh no,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop. “Not now.”

Miss Marple asked who Mrs. Cleat was.

Joanna said she was the village witch.

“That’s right, isn’t it, Mrs. Dane Calthrop?”

The vicar murmured a long Latin quotation about, I think, the evil power of witches, to which we all listened in respectful and uncomprehending silence.

“She’s a very silly woman,” said his wife. “Likes to show off. Goes out to gather herbs and things at the full of the moon and takes care that everybody in the place knows about it.”

“And silly girls go and consult her, I suppose?” said Miss Marple.

I saw the vicar getting ready to unload more Latin on us and I asked hastily: “But why shouldn’t people suspect her of the murder now? They thought the letters were her doing.”

Miss Marple said: “Oh! But the girl was killed with a skewer, so I hear—(very unpleasant!). Well, naturally, that takes all suspicion away from this Mrs. Cleat. Because, you see, she could ill-wish her, so that the girl would waste away and die from natural causes.”

“Strange how the old beliefs linger,” said the vicar. “In early Christian times, local superstitions were wisely incorporated with Christian doctrines and their more unpleasant attributes gradually eliminated.”

“It isn’t superstition we’ve got to deal with here,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop, “but facts.”

“And very unpleasant facts,” I said.

“As you say, Mr. Burton,” said Miss Marple. “Now you—excuse me if I am being too personal—are a stranger here, and have a knowledge of the world and of various aspects of life. It seems to me that you ought to be able to find a solution to this distasteful problem.”

I smiled. “The best solution I have had was a dream. In my dream it all fitted in and panned out beautifully. Unfortunately when I woke up the whole thing was nonsense!”

“How interesting, though. Do tell me how the nonsense went!”