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One of the what to do, while the other rushed to the house to get help

Harry Laxton cahastly They took off a door of the van and carried her on it to the house She died without regaining consciousness and before the doctor arrived

(End of Doctor Haydock’s manuscript)

VIII

When Doctor Haydock arrived the following day, he was pleased to note that there was a pink flush in Miss Marple’s cheek and decidedly more animation in her manner

‘Well,’ he said, ‘what’s the verdict?’

‘What’s the problem, Doctor Haydock?’ countered Miss Marple

‘Oh, my dear lady, do I have to tell you that?’

‘I suppose,’ said Miss Marple, ‘that it’s the curious conduct of the caretaker Why did she behave in that very odd way? People doturned out of their old homes But it wasn’t her horumble while she was there Yes, it certainly looks very fishy What became of her, by the way?’

‘Did a bunk to Liverpool The accident scared her Thought she’d wait there for her boat’

‘All very convenient for somebody,’ said Miss Marple ‘Yes, I think the “Probleh Bribery, was it not?’

‘That’s your solution?’

‘Well, if it wasn’t natural for her to behave in that way, sheon an act” as people say, and that means that somebody paid her to do what she did’

‘And you knoho that somebody was?’

‘Oh, I think so Money again, I’entlemen always tend to admire the same type’

‘Now I’m out of my depth’

‘No, no, it all hangs together Harry Laxton ade, a dark, vivacious type Your niece Clarice was the same But the poor little as quite a different type—fair-haired and clinging—not his type at all So he must have married her for her money And murdered her for her money, too!’

‘You use the word “murder”?’

‘Well, he sounds the right type Attractive to women and quite unscrupulous I suppose he wanted to keep his wife’sto Mrs Edge But I don’t fancy he was attached to her any h I dare say he made the poor woman think he was, for ends of his own He soon had her well under his thumb, I fancy’

‘How exactly did he murder her, do you think?’

Miss Marple stared ahead of her for some minutes with dreamy blue eyes

‘It was very well timed—with the baker’s van as witness They could see the old woht to that But I should iun, or perhaps a catapult Yes, just as the horse caates The horse bolted, of course, and Mrs Laxton was thrown’

She paused, frowning

‘The fall ht have killed her But he couldn’t be sure of that And he seems the sort ofto chance After all, Mrs Edge could get hi Otherwise, ould Harry bother with her? Yes, I think he had so handy, that could be administered before you arrived After all, if a woman is thrown from her horse and has serious injuries and dies without recovering consciousness, well—a doctor wouldn’t normally be suspicious, would he? He’d put it down to shock or so’

Doctor Haydock nodded

‘Why did you suspect?’ asked Miss Marple