‘I’m always getting forgotten,’ said the grizzled doctor sadly. ‘I must have a very inconspicuous personality.’

‘Oh, no!’ said Jane. ‘Do tell us what you think.’

‘I’m rather in the position of agreeing with everyone’s solutions—and yet with none of them. I myself have a far-fetched and probably totally erroneous theory that the wife may have had something to do with it. Sir Herman’s wife, I mean. I’ve no grounds for thinking so—only you would be surprised if you knew the extraordinary—really very extraordinary things that a wronged wife will take it into her head to do.’

‘Oh! Dr Lloyd,’ cried Miss Marple excitedly. ‘How clever of you. And I never thought of poor Mrs Pebmarsh.’

Jane stared at her.

‘Mrs Pebmarsh? Who is Mrs Pebmarsh?’

‘Well—’ Miss Marple hesitated. ‘I don’t know that she really comes in. She’s a laundress. And she stole an opal pin that was pinned into a blouse and put it in another woman’s house.’

Jane looked more fogged than ever.

‘And that makes it all perfectly clear to you, Miss Marple?’ said Sir Henry, with his twinkle.

But to his surprise Miss Marple shook her head.

‘No, I’m afraid it doesn’t. I must confess myself completely at a loss. What I do realize is that women must stick together—one should, in an emergency, stand by one’s own sex. I think that’s the moral of the story Miss Helier has told us.’

‘I must confess that that particular ethical significance of the mystery has escaped me,’ said Sir Henry gravely. ‘Perhaps I shall see the significance of your point more clearly when Miss Helier has revealed the solution.’

‘Eh?’ said Jane looking rather bewildered.

‘I was observing that, in childish language, we “give it up”. You and you alone, Miss Helier, have had the high honour of presenting such an absolutely baffling mystery that even Miss Marple has to confess herself defeated.’

‘You all give it up?’ asked Jane.

‘Yes.’ After a minute’s silence during which he waited for the others to speak, Sir Henry constituted himself spokesman once more. ‘That is to say we stand or fall by the sketchy solutions we have tentatively advanced. One each for the mere men, two for Miss Marple, and a round dozen from Mrs B.’

‘It was not a dozen,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘They were variations on a main theme. And how often am I to tell you that I will not be called Mrs B?’

‘So you all give it up,’ said Jane thoughtfully. ‘That’s very interesting.’

She leaned back in her chair and began to polish her nails rather absent-mindedly.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘Come on, Jane. What is the solution?’

‘The solution?’

‘Yes. What really happened?’

Jane stared at her.

‘I haven’t the least idea.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve always wondered. I thought you were all so clever one of you would be able to tell me.’

Everybody harboured feelings of annoyance. It was all very well for Jane to be so beautiful—but at this moment everyone felt that stupidity could be carried too far. Even the most transcendent loveliness could not excuse it.