“Not only that. You’ve got to make people look at the wrong thing and in the wrong place—Misdirection, they call it, I believe.”

“Well,” I remarked. “So far everybody seems to have looked in the wrong place for our lunatic at large.”

“I should be inclined, myself,” said Miss Marple, “to look for somebody very sane.”

“Yes,” I said thoughtfully. “That’s what Nash said. I remember he stressed respectability too.”

“Yes,” agreed Miss Marple. “That’s very important.”

Well, we all seemed agreed.

I addressed Mrs. Calthrop. “Nash thinks,” I said, “that there will be more anonymous letters. What do you think?”

She said slowly: “There may be, I suppose.”

“If the police think that, there will have to be, no doubt,” said Miss Marple.

I went on doggedly to Mrs. Dane Calthrop.

“Are you still sorry for the writer?”

She flushed. “Why not?”

“I don’t think I agree with you, dear,” said Miss Marple. “Not in this case.”

I said hotly: “They’ve driven one woman to suicide, and caused untold misery and heartburnings!”

“Have you had one, Miss Burton?” asked Miss Marple of Joanna.

Joanna gurgled, “Oh yes! It said the most frightful things.”

“I’m afraid,” said Miss Marple, “that the people who are young and pretty are apt to be singled out by the writer.”

“That’s why I certainly think it’s odd that Elsie Holland hasn’t had any,” I said.

“Let me see,” said Miss Marple. “Is that the Symmingtons’ nursery governess—the one you dreamt about, Mr. Burton?”

“Yes.”

“She’s probably had one and won’t say so,” said Joanna.

“No,” I said, “I believe her. So does Nash.”

“Dear me,” said Miss Marple. “Now that’s very interesting. That’s the most interesting thing I’ve heard yet.”

II

As we were going home Joanna told me that I ought not to have repeated what Nash said about letters coming.

“Why not?”

“Because Mrs. Dane Calthrop might be It.”

“You don’t really believe that!”

“I’m not sure. She’s a queer woman.”

We began our discussion of probables all over again.

It was two nights later that I was coming back in the car from Exhampton. I had had dinner there and then started back and it was already dark before I got into Lymstock.

Something was wrong with the car lights, and after slowing up and switching on and off, I finally got out to see what I could do. I was some time fiddling, but I managed to fix them up finally.