Twenty
“I ’ve brought you a cup of strong soup, Carrie Louise,” said Miss Marple. “Now please drink it.”
Mrs. Serrocold sat up in the big carved oak four poster bed. She looked very small and childlike. Her cheeks hadlost their rose pink flush, and her eyes had a curiously¹ absent look. She took the soup obediently from Miss Marple. Asshe sipped² it, Miss Marple sat down in a chair beside the bed.
“First, Christian,” said Carrie Louise, “and now Alex—and poor, sharp, silly little Ernie. Did he really—knowanything?”
“I don’t think so,” said Miss Marple. “He was just telling lies—making himself important by hinting that he hadseen or knew something. The tragedy is that somebody believed his lies….”
Carrie Louise shivered. Her eyes went back to their faraway look.
“We meant to do so much for these boys … we did do something. Some of them have done wonderfully well.
Several of them are in really responsible positions. A few slid back—that can’t be helped. Modern civilised conditionsare so complex—too complex for some simple and undeveloped natures. You know Lewis’ great scheme? He alwaysfelt that transportation was a thing that had saved many a potential criminal in the past. They were shipped overseas—and they made new lives in simpler surroundings. He wants to start a modern scheme on that basis. To buy up a greattract of territory—or a group of islands. Finance it for some years, make it a cooperative self-supporting community—with everyone having a stake in it. But cut off so that the early temptation to go back to cities and the bad old ways canbe neutralised. It’s his dream. But it will take a lot of money, of course, and there aren’t many philanthropists withvision now. We want another Eric. Eric would have been enthusiastic.”
Miss Marple picked up a little pair of scissors and looked at them curiously.
“What an odd pair of scissors,” she said. “They’ve got two finger holes on one side and one on the other.”
Carrie Louise’s eyes came back from that frightening far distance.
“Alex gave them to me this morning,” she said. “They’re supposed to make it easier to cut your right-hand nails.
Dear boy, he was so enthusiastic. He made me try them then and there.”
“And I suppose he gathered up the nail clippings and took them tidily away,” said Miss Marple.
“Yes,” said Carrie Louise. “He—” she broke off. “Why did you say that?”

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