‘Well,’ said Miss Marple, ‘that is the end of the story. Of course, the poor old man was put in an asylum. He wasn’t really responsible for what he had done, and the truth was known, and everyone was sorry for Mabel and could not do enough to make up to her for the unjust suspicions they had had. But if it hadn’t been for Geoffrey realizing what the stuff was he had swallowed and trying to get everybody to get hold of the antidote without delay, it might never have been found out. I believe there are very definite symptoms with atropine—dilated pupils of the eyes, and all that; but, of course, as I have said, Dr Rawlinson was very shortsighted, poor old man. And in the same medical book which I went on reading—and some of it was most interesting—it gave the symptoms of ptomaine poisoning and atropine, and they are not unlike. But I can assure you I have never seen a pile of fresh haddock without thinking of the thumb mark of St Peter.’

There was a very long pause.

‘My dear friend,’ said Mr Petherick. ‘My very dear friend, you really are amazing.’

‘I shall recommend Scotland Yard to come to you for advice,’ said Sir Henry.

‘Well, at all events, Aunt Jane,’ said Raymond, ‘there is one thing that you don’t know.’

‘Oh, yes, I do, dear,’ said Miss Marple. ‘It happened just before dinner, didn’t it? When you took Joyce out to admire the sunset. It is a very favourite place, that. There by the jasmine hedge. That is where the milkman asked Annie if he could put up the banns.’

‘Dash it all, Aunt Jane,’ said Raymond, ‘don’t spoil all the romance. Joyce and I aren’t like the milkman and Annie.’

‘That is where you make a mistake, dear,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Everybody is very much alike, really. But fortunately, perhaps, they don’t realize it.’

Chapter 7

The Blue Geranium

‘When I was down here last year—’ said Sir Henry Clithering, and stopped.

His hostess, Mrs Bantry, looked at him curiously.

The Ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard was staying with old friends of his, Colonel and Mrs Bantry, who lived near St Mary Mead.

Mrs Bantry, pen in hand, had just asked his advice as to who should be invited to make a sixth guest at dinner that evening.

‘Yes?’ said Mrs Bantry encouragingly. ‘When you were here last year?’

‘Tell me,’ said Sir Henry, ‘do you know a Miss Marple?’

Mrs Bantry was surprised. It was the last thing she had expected.

‘Know Miss Marple? Who doesn’t! The typical old maid of fiction. Quite a dear, but hopelessly behind the times. Do you mean you would like me to ask her to dinner?’

‘You are surprised?’

‘A little, I must confess. I should hardly have thought you—but perhaps there’s an explanation?’

‘The explanation is simple enough. When I was down here last year we got into the habit of discussing unsolved mysteries—there were five or six of us—Raymond West, the novelist, started it. We each supplied a story to which we knew the answer, but nobody else did. It was supposed to be an exercise in the deductive faculties—to see who could get nearest the truth.’