‘I’m sure it is all a very difficult problem,’ said Miss Marple.

Gina laughed, again showing her magnificent teeth.

‘It doesn’t worry me much. I suppose some people have these sort of urges to make the world a better place. Lewis is quite dippy about it all — he’s going to Aberdeen next week because there’s a case coming up in the police court — a boy with five previous convictions.’

‘The young man who met me at the station? Mr Lawson. He helps Mr Serrocold, he told me. Is he his secretary?’

‘Oh Edgar hasn’t brains enough to be a secretary. He’s a case, really. He used to stay at hotels and pretend he was a V.C. or a fighter pilot and borrow money and then do a flit. I think he’s just a rotter. But Lewis goes through a routine with them all. Makes them feel one of the family and gives them jobs to do and all that to encourage their sense of responsibility. I daresay we shall be murdered by one of them one of these days.’ Gina laughed merrily.

Miss Marple did not laugh.

They turned in through some imposing gates where a Commissionaire was standing on duty in a military manner and drove up a drive flanked with rhododendrons. The drive was badly kept and the grounds seemed neglected.

Interpreting her companion’s glance, Gina said, ‘No gardeners during the war, and since we haven’t bothered. But it does look rather terrible.’

Plan of Stonygates

They came round a curve and Stonygates appeared in its full glory. It was, as Gina had said, a vast edifice of Victorian Gothic — a kind of temple to Plutocracy. Philanthropy had added to it in various wings and outbuildings which, while not positively dissimilar in style, had robbed the structure as a whole of any cohesion or purpose.

‘Hideous, isn’t it?’ said Gina affectionately. ‘There’s Grandam on the terrace. I’ll stop here and you can go and meet her.’

Miss Marple advanced along the terrace towards her old friend.

From a distance, the slim little figure looked curiously girlish in spite of the stick on which she leaned and her slow and obviously rather painful progress. It was as though a young girl was giving an exaggerated imitation of old age.

‘Jane,’ said Mrs Serrocold.

‘Dear Carrie Louise.’

Yes, unmistakably Carrie Louise. Strangely unchanged, strangely youthful still, although, unlike her sister, she used no cosmetics or artificial aids to youth. Her hair was grey, but it had always been of a silvery fairness and the colour had changed very little. Her skin had still a rose leaf pink and white appearance, though now it was a crumpled rose leaf. Her eyes had still their starry innocent glance. She had the slender youthful figure of a girl and her head kept its eager birdlike tilt.

‘I do blame myself,’ said Carrie Louise in her sweet voice, ‘for letting it be so long. Years since I saw you, Jane dear. It’s just lovely that you’ve come at last to pay us a visit here.’