“Oh, my dear Bunch, I mentioned that to you in the Bluebird though I didn’t really see the application then. How Mrs. Wotherspoon drew Mrs. Bartlett’s Old Age Pension as well as her own—though Mrs. Bartlett had been dead for years—simply because one old woman is so like another old woman—yes, it all made a pattern and I felt so worked up I went out to cool my head a little and think what could be done about proving all this. Then Miss Hinchcliffe picked me up and we found Miss Murgatroyd….”

Miss Marple’s voice dropped. It was no longer excited and pleased. It was quiet and remorseless.

“I knew then something had got to be done. Quickly! But there still wasn’t any proof. I thought out a possible plan and I talked to Sergeant Fletcher.”

“And I have had Fletcher on the carpet for it!” said Craddock. “He’d no business to go agreeing to your plans without reporting first to me.”

“He didn’t like it, but I talked him into it,” said Miss Marple. “We went up to Little Paddocks and I got hold of Mitzi.”

Julia drew a deep breath and said, “I can’t imagine how you ever got her to do it.”

“I worked on her, my dear,” said Miss Marple. “She thinks far too much about herself anyway, and it will be good for her to have done something for others. I flattered her up, of course, and said I was sure if she’d been in her own country she’d have been in the Resistance movement, and she said, ‘Yes, indeed.’ And I said I could see she had got just the temperament for that sort of work. She was brave, didn’t mind taking risks, and could act a part. I told her stories of deeds done by girls in the Resistance movements, some of them true, and some of them, I’m afraid, invented. She got tremendously worked up!”

“Marvellous,” said Patrick.

“And then I got her to agree to do her part. I rehearsed her till she was word perfect. Then I told her to go upstairs to her room and not come down until Inspector Craddock came. The worst of these excitable people is that they’re apt to go off half-cocked and start the whole thing before the time.”

“She did it very well,” said Julia.

“I don’t quite see the point,” said Bunch. “Of course, I wasn’t there—” she added apologetically.