“Charlotte Blacklock,” corrected Miss Marple. “That’s who she is, you know. Under that choker of pearls she always wears you’ll find the scar of the operation.”

“Operation?”

“Operation for goitre.”

Miss Blacklock, quite calm now, looked at Miss Marple.

“So you know all about it?” she said.

“Yes, I’ve known for some time.”

Charlotte Blacklock sat down by the table and began to cry.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said. “Not made Dora’s voice come. I loved Dora. I really loved Dora.”

Inspector Craddock and the others had crowded in the doorway.

Constable Edwards, who added a knowledge of first aid and artificial respiration to his other accomplishments, was busy with Mitzi. As soon as Mitzi could speak she was lyrical with self-praise.

“I do that good, do I not? I am clever! And I am brave! Oh, I am brave! Very very nearly was I murdered, too. But I was so brave I risk everything.”

With a rush Miss Hinchcliffe thrust aside the others and leapt upon the weeping figure of Charlotte Blacklock by the table.

It took all Sergeant Fletcher’s strength to hold her off.

“Now then—” he said. “Now then—no, no, Miss Hinchcliffe—”

Between clenched teeth Miss Hinchcliffe was muttering:

“Let me get at her. Just let me get at her. It was she who killed Amy Murgatroyd.”

Charlotte Blacklock looked up and sniffed.

“I didn’t want to kill her. I didn’t want to kill anybody—I had to—but it’s Dora I mind about—after Dora was dead, I was all alone—ever since she died—I’ve been alone—oh, Dora—Dora—”

And once again she dropped her head on her hands and wept.

23.

Twenty-three

EVENING AT THE VICARAGE

Miss Marple sat in the tall armchair. Bunch was on the floor in front of the fire with her arms round her knees.

The Reverend Julian Harmon was leaning forward and was for once looking more like a schoolboy than a man foreshadowing his own maturity. And Inspector Craddock was smoking his pipe and drinking a whisky and soda and was clearly very much off duty. An outer circle was composed of Julia, Patrick, Edmund and Phillipa.

“I think it’s your story, Miss Marple,” said Craddock.

“Oh no, my dear boy. I only just helped a little, here and there. You were in charge of the whole thing, and conducted it all, and you know so much that I don’t.”

“Well, tell it together,” said Bunch impatiently. “Bit each. Only let Aunt Jane start because I like the muddly way her mind works. When did you first think that the whole thing was a put-up job by Blacklock?”