‘Yes — yes, I ought to be able to tell you…But can I? You see — the circumstances — ’

‘You mean that you were all listening to the argument going on behind the door of Mr Serrocold’s study.’

Miss Marple nodded vehemently.

‘Yes, you see we were all really very frightened. Mr Lawson looked — he really did — quite demented. Apart from Mrs Serrocold, who seemed quite unaffected, we all feared that he would do a mischief to Mr Serrocold. He was shouting, you know, and saying the most terrible things — we could hear them quite plainly — and what with that and with most of the lights being out — I didn’t really notice anything else.’

‘You mean that whilst that scene was going on, anybody could have slipped out of the Hall, gone along the corridor, shot Mr Gulbrandsen and slipped back again?’

‘I think it would have been possible…’

‘Could you say definitely that anybody was in the Great Hall the whole time?’

Miss Marple considered.

‘I could say that Mrs Serrocold was — because I was watching her. She was sitting quite close to the study door, and she never moved from her seat. It surprised me, you know, that she was able to remain so calm.’

‘And the others?’

‘Miss Bellever went out — but I think — I am almost sure — that that was after the shot. Mrs Strete? I really don’t know. She was sitting behind me, you see. Gina was over by the far window. I think she remained there the whole time but of course I cannot be sure. Stephen was at the piano. He stopped playing when the quarrel began to get heated — ’

‘We mustn’t be misled by the time you heard the shot,’ said Inspector Curry. ‘That’s a trick that’s been done before now, you know. Fake up a shot so as to fix the time of a crime, and fix it wrong. If Miss Bellever had cooked up something of that kind (far fetched — but you never know) then she’d leave as she did, openly, after the shot was heard. No, we can’t go by the shot. The limits are between when Christian Gulbrandsen left the Hall to the moment when Miss Bellever found him dead, and we can only eliminate those people who were known not to have had opportunity. That gives us Lewis Serrocold and young Edgar Lawson in the study, and Mrs Serrocold in the Hall. It’s very unfortunate, of course, that Gulbrandsen should be shot on the same evening that this schemozzle happened between Serrocold and this young Lawson.’

‘Just unfortunate, you think?’ murmured Miss Marple.

‘Oh? What do you think?’

‘It occurred to me,’ murmured Miss Marple, ‘that it might have been contrived.’

‘So that’s your idea?’

‘Well, everybody seems to think it very odd that Edgar Lawson should quite suddenly have a relapse, so to speak. He’d got this curious complex, or whatever the term is, about his unknown father. Winston Churchill and Viscount Montgomery — all quite likely in his state of mind. Just any famous man he happened to think of. But suppose somebody puts it into his head that it’s Lewis Serrocold who is really his father, that it’s Lewis Serrocold who has been persecuting him — that he ought by rights to be the Crown Prince as it were of Stonygates. In his weak mental state he’ll accept the idea — work himself up into a frenzy, and sooner or later will make the kind of scene he did make. And what a wonderful cover that will be! Everybody will have their attention fixed on the dangerous situation that is developing — especially if somebody has thoughtfully supplied him with a revolver.’