‘Your fire’s nearly out,’ said Mrs Bantry, giving it a vicious and ineffectual poke. ‘They can’t have made it up properly. How stupid housemaids are. Still, I suppose we are rather late tonight. Why, it’s actually past one o’clock!’

‘Do you think there are many people like her?’ asked Jane Helier.

She was sitting on the side of the bed apparently wrapped in thought.

‘Like the housemaid?’

‘No. Like that funny old woman—what’s her name—Marple?’

‘Oh! I don’t know. I suppose she’s a fairly common type in a small village.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Jane. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

She sighed deeply.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I’m worried.’

‘What about?’

‘Dolly,’ Jane Helier was portentously solemn. ‘Do you know what that queer old lady whispered to me before she went out of the door tonight?’

‘No. What?’

‘She said: “I shouldn’t do it if I were you, my dear. Never put yourself too much in another woman’s power, even if you do think she’s your friend at the moment.” You know, Dolly, that’s awfully true.’

‘The maxim? Yes, perhaps it is. But I don’t see the application.’

‘I suppose you can’t ever really trust a woman. And I should be in her power. I never thought of that.’

‘What woman are you talking about?’

‘Netta Greene, my understudy.’

‘What on earth does Miss Marple know about your understudy?’

‘I suppose she guessed—but I can’t see how.’

‘Jane, will you kindly tell me at once what you are talking about?’

‘The story. The one I told. Oh, Dolly, that woman, you know—the one that took Claud from me?’

Mrs Bantry nodded, casting her mind back rapidly to the first of Jane’s unfortunate marriages—to Claud Averbury, the actor.

‘He married her; and I could have told him how it would be. Claud doesn’t know, but she’s carrying on with Sir Joseph Salmon—week-ends with him at the bungalow I told you about. I wanted her shown up—I would like everyone to know the sort of woman she was. And you see, with a burglary, everything would be bound to come out.’

‘Jane!’ gasped Mrs Bantry. ‘Did you engineer this story you’ve been telling us?’

Jane nodded.

‘That’s why I chose Smith. I wear parlourmaid’s kit in it, you know. So I should have it handy. And when they sent for me to the police station it’s the easiest thing in the world to say I was rehearsing my part with my understudy at the hotel. Really, of course, we would be at the bungalow. I just have to open the door and bring in the cocktails, and Netta to pretend to be me. He’d never see her again, of course, so there would be no fear of his recognizing her. And I can make myself look quite different as a parlourmaid; and besides, one doesn’t look at parlourmaids as though they were people. We planned to drag him out into the road afterwards, bag the jewel case, telephone the police and get back to the hotel. I shouldn’t like the poor young man to suffer, but Sir Henry didn’t seem to think he would, did he? And she’d be in the papers and everything—and Claud would see what she was really like.’