Fourteen
“S o you see,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop, “I was quite right to call in an expert.”
I stared at her. We were all at the vicarage. The rain was pouring down outside and there was a pleasant log fire,and Mrs. Dane Calthrop had just wandered round, beat up a sofa cushion and put it for some reason of her own on thetop of the grand piano.
“But did you?” I said, surprised. “Who was it? What did he do?”
“It wasn’t a he,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop.
With a sweeping¹ gesture she indicated Miss Marple. Miss Marple had finished the fleecy knitting and was nowengaged with a crochet² hook and a ball of cotton.
“That’s my expert,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop. “Jane Marple. Look at her well. I tell you, that woman knows moreabout the different kinds of human wickedness than anyone I’ve ever known.”
“I don’t think you should put it quite like that, dear,” murmured Miss Marple.
“But you do.”
“One sees a good deal of human nature living in a village all the year round,” said Miss Marple placidly³.
Then, seeming to feel it was expected of her, she laid down her crochet, and delivered a gentle old-maidishdissertation on murder.
“The great thing is in these cases to keep an absolutely open mind. Most crimes, you see, are so absurdly simple.
This one was. Quite sane⁴ and straightforward—and quite understandable—in an unpleasant way, of course.”
“Very unpleasant!”
“The truth was really so very obvious. You saw it, you know, Mr. Burton.”
“Indeed I did not.”
“But you did. You indicated the whole thing to me. You saw perfectly⁵ the relationship of one thing to the other, butyou just hadn’t enough self-confidence to see what those feelings of yours meant. To begin with, that tiresome⁶ phrase‘No smoke without fire.’ It irritated you, but you proceeded quite correctly to label it for what it was—a smoke screen.

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