‘I beg your pardon,’ and then added in a surprised voice: ‘Oh, it’s you.’

It seemed to Miss Marple an odd remark for someone with whom she had been conversing for some considerable time.

‘I was thinking of something else,’ said Alex Restarick. ‘That boy Ernie — ’ He made vague motions with both hands.

Then, with a sudden change of manner, he crossed the Hall and went through the library door, shutting it behind him.

The murmur of voices came from behind the closed door, but Miss Marple hardly noticed them. She was uninterested in the versatile Ernie and what he had seen or pretended to see. She had a shrewd suspicion that Ernie had seen nothing at all. She did not believe for a moment that on a cold raw foggy night like last night, Ernie would have troubled to use his lockpicking activities and wander about in the Park. In all probability he never had got out at night. Boasting, that was all it had been.

‘Like Johnnie Backhouse,’ thought Miss Marple, who always had a good storehouse of parallels to draw upon selected from inhabitants of St Mary Mead.

‘I seen you last night,’ had been Johnnie Backhouse’s unpleasant taunt to all he thought it might affect.

It had been a surprisingly successful remark. So many people, Miss Marple reflected, have been in places where they are anxious not to be seen!

She dismissed Johnnie from her mind and concentrated on a vague something which Alex’s account of Inspector Curry’s remarks had stirred to life. Those remarks had given Alex an idea. She was not sure that they had not given her an idea, too. The same idea? Or a different one?

She stood where Alex Restarick had stood. She thought to herself, ‘This is not a real Hall. This is only cardboard and canvas and wood. This is a stage scene…’ Scrappy phrases flashed across her mind. ‘Illusion — ’ ‘In the eyes of the audience.’ ‘They do it with mirrors…’ Bowls of goldfish…yards of coloured ribbon…vanishing ladies…all the panoply and misdirection of the conjurer’s art…

Something stirred in her consciousness — a picture — something that Alex had said…something that he had described to her…Constable Dodgett puffing and panting…Panting…Something shifted in her mind — came into sudden focus…

‘Why of course!’ said Miss Marple. ‘That must be it…’

Chapter 18

I

‘Oh, Wally, how you startled me!’

Gina, emerging from the shadows by the theatre, jumped back a little, as the figure of Wally Hudd materialized out of the gloom. It was not yet quite dark, but had that eerie half light when objects lose their reality and take on the fantastic shapes of nightmare.

‘What are you doing down here? You never come near the theatre as a rule.’

‘Maybe I was looking for you, Gina. It’s usually the best place to find you, isn’t it?’

Wally’s soft, faintly drawling voice held no special insinuation, and yet Gina flinched a little.

‘It’s a job and I’m keen on it. I like the atmosphere of paint and canvas, and back stage generally.’