‘I’ve brought Arthur Jenkins along,’ said Dr Maverick. ‘He seems to have been the last person to talk to Ernie.’

‘Now, Arthur,’ said Lewis Serrocold, ‘please help us if you can. Where has Ernie gone? Is this just a prank?’

‘I dunno, sir. Straight, I don’t. Didn’t say nothing to me, he didn’t. All full of the play at the theatre he was, that’s all. Said as how he’d had a smashing idea for the scenery, what Mrs Hudd and Mr Stephen thought was first class.’

‘There’s another thing, Arthur. Ernie claims he was prowling about the grounds after lock-up last night. Was that true?’

‘ ’Course it ain’t. Just boasting, that’s all. Perishing liar, Ernie. He never got out at night. Used to boast he could, but he wasn’t that good with locks! He couldn’t do anything with a lock as was a lock. Anyway ’e was in larst night, that I do know.’

‘You’re not saying that just to satisfy us, Arthur?’

‘Cross my heart,’ said Arthur virtuously.

Lewis did not look quite satisfied.

‘Listen,’ said Dr Maverick. ‘What’s that?’

A murmur of voices was approaching. The door was flung open and looking very pale and ill, the spectacled Mr Baumgarten staggered in.

He gasped out: ‘We’ve found him — them. It’s horrible…’

He sank down on a chair and mopped his forehead.

Mildred Strete said sharply:

‘What do you mean — found them?’

Baumgarten was shaking all over.

‘Down at the theatre,’ he said. ‘Their heads crushed in — the big counterweight must have fallen on them. Alexis Restarick and that boy Ernie Gregg. They’re both dead…’

Chapter 20

I

‘I’ve brought you a cup of strong soup, Carrie Louise,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Now please drink it.’

Mrs Serrocold sat up in the big carved oak fourposter bed. She looked very small and childlike. Her cheeks had lost their pink flush, and her eyes had a curiously absent look.

She took the soup obediently from Miss Marple. As she sipped it, Miss Marple sat down in a chair beside the bed.

‘First, Christian,’ said Carrie Louise, ‘and now Alex — and poor, sharp, silly little Ernie. Did he really — know anything?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Miss Marple. ‘He was just telling lies — making himself important by hinting that he had seen or knew something. The tragedy is that somebody believed his lies…’

Carrie Louise shivered. Her eyes went back to their far away look.

‘We meant to do so much for these boys…We did do something. Some of them have done wonderfully well. Several of them are in really responsible positions. A few slid back — that can’t be helped. Modern civilized conditions are so complex — too complex for some simple and undeveloped natures. You know Lewis’s great scheme? He always felt that transportation was a thing that had saved many a potential criminal in the past. They were shipped overseas — and they made new lives in simpler surroundings. He wants to start a modern scheme on that basis. To buy up a great tract of territory — or a group of islands. Finance it for some years, make it a co-operative self-supporting community — with everyone taking a stake in it. But cut off so that the early temptation to go back to cities and the bad old days can be neutralized. It’s his dream. But it will take a lot of money, of course, and there aren’t many philanthropists with vision now. We want another Eric. Eric would have been enthusiastic.’