page28 (1/2)
“He says—” again the Chief-Inspector stressed the word—“that he does not know anything”
“Very remarkable”
“Isn’t it? The last thing he reton Air Station”
Miss Marple shook her head perplexedly
“I know it does happen that way in concussion,” she —useful?”
“Heabout the Walls of Jericho”
“Joshua?” hazarded Miss Marple, “or Archaeology—excavations?—or I reo, a play—by Mr Sutro, I think”
“And all this week north of the Thaa Radbourne and Bart Levinne,” said Father
Miss Marple looked at him suspiciously
“He could have gone to that film in the Cromwell Road He could have coh if so, soht—”
“Took the wrong bus,” Miss Marple suggested “So like that—”
“Say he got back here after ht,” Father said—“he could have walked up to his roo hiain three hours later?”
Miss Marple groped for a word
“The only idea that occurs to me is—oh!”
She jumped as a report sounded from the street outside
“Car backfiring,” said Father soothingly
“I’ one has—”
“That so to happen? I don’t think you need worry”
“I have never liked fog”
“I wanted to tell you,” said Chief-Inspector Davy, “that you’ve given s you’ve noticed here—just little things—they’ve added up”
“So there was so with this place?”
“There was and is everything wrong with it”
Miss Marple sighed
“It see back into the past—to the part of the past that one had loved and enjoyed”
She paused
“But of course, it wasn’t really like that I learned (what I suppose I really knew already) that one can never go back, that one should not ever try to go back—that the essence of life is going forward Life is really a One Way Street, isn’t it?”
“Soreed Father
“I re fro in Paris with randrandmother looked round, and she said suddenly, ‘Clara, I do believe I am the only woot home she packed up all her bonnets, and her headed mantles too—and sent them off—”
“To the Jumble Sale?” inquired Father, sympathetically
“Oh no Nobody would have wanted them at a jumble sale She sent them to a theatrical Repertory Company They appreciated them very much But let me see—” Miss Marple recovered her direction “—Where was I?”
“Su up this place”
“Yes It seeht—but it wasn’t It was mixed-up—real people and people eren’t real One couldn’t always tell them apart”
“What do you mean by not real?”
“There were retired military men, but there were also what seemed to be yymen And admirals and sea captains who’ve never been in the Navy My friend, Selina Hazy—it anize people she knew (quite natural, of course) and how often she was ht they were But it happened too often And so—I began to wonder Even Rose, the chaan to think that perhaps she wasn’t real, either”
“If it interests you to know, she’s an ex-actress A good one Gets a better salary here than she ever drew on the stage”
“But—why?”
“Mainly, as part of the décor Perhaps there’s more than that to it”
“I’ave a little shiver “Before anything happens”
Chief-Inspector Davy looked at her curiously
“What do you expect to happen?” he asked