‘Murder — ’ began Miss Marple.

Carrie Louise said quickly:

‘Oh I know. It’s a terrible thing. I’ve never been mixed up in it before. You have, haven’t you, Jane?’

‘Well — yes — actually I have,’ Miss Marple admitted.

‘So Ruth told me.’

‘Did she tell you that last time she was down here?’ asked Miss Marple curiously.

‘No, I don’t think it was then. I can’t really remember.’

Carrie Louise spoke vaguely, almost absent-mindedly.

‘What are you thinking about, Carrie Louise?’

Mrs Serrocold smiled and seemed to come back from a long way away.

‘I was thinking of Gina,’ she said. ‘And of what you said about Stephen Restarick. Gina’s a dear girl, you know, and she does really love Wally. I’m sure she does.’

Miss Marple said nothing.

‘Girls like Gina like to kick up their heels a bit.’ Mrs Serrocold spoke in an almost pleading voice. ‘They’re young and they like to feel their power. It’s natural, really. I know Wally Hudd isn’t the sort of man we imagined Gina marrying. Normally she’d never have met him. But she did meet him, and fell in love with him — and presumably she knows her own business best.’

‘Probably she does,’ said Miss Marple.

‘But it’s so very important that Gina should be happy.’

Miss Marple looked curiously at her friend.

‘It’s important, I suppose, that everyone should be happy.’

‘Oh yes. But Gina’s a very special case. When we took her mother — when we took Pippa — we felt that it was an experiment that had simply got to succeed. You see, Pippa’s mother — ’

Carrie Louise paused.

Miss Marple said:

‘Who was Pippa’s mother?’

Carrie Louise said: ‘Eric and I agreed that we should never tell anybody that. She never knew herself.’

‘I’d like to know,’ said Miss Marple.

Mrs Serrocold looked at her doubtfully.

‘It isn’t just curiosity,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I really — well — need to know. I can hold my tongue, you know.’

‘You could always keep a secret, Jane,’ said Carrie Louise with a reminiscent smile. ‘Dr Galbraith — he’s the Bishop of Cromer now — he knows. But no one else. Pippa’s mother was Katherine Elsworth.’

‘Elsworth? Wasn’t that the woman who administered arsenic to her husband? Rather a celebrated case.’

‘Yes.’

‘She was hanged?’

‘Yes. But you know it’s not at all sure that she did it. The husband was an arsenic eater — they didn’t understand so much about those things then.’

‘She soaked flypapers.’

‘The maid’s evidence, we always thought, was definitely malicious.’

‘And Pippa was her daughter?’

‘Yes. Eric and I determined to give the child a fresh start in life — with love and care and all the things a child needs. We succeeded. Pippa was — herself. The sweetest, happiest creature imaginable.’

Miss Marple was silent a long time.

Carrie Louise turned away from the dressing table.

‘I’m ready now. Perhaps you’ll ask the Inspector or whatever he is to come up to my sitting-room. He won’t mind, I’m sure.’