Twenty-one
I nspector Curry¹ said rather impatiently:
“Yes, Miss Marple?”
“Could we, do you think, go into the Great Hall?”
Inspector² Curry looked faintly surprised.
“Is that your idea of privacy? Surely in here—”
He looked round the study.
“It’s not privacy I’m thinking of so much. It’s something I want to show you. Something Alex Restarick made mesee.”
Inspector Curry, stifling³ a sigh, got up and followed Miss Marple.
“Somebody has been talking to you?” he suggested hopefully.
“No,” said Miss Marple. “It’s not a question of what people have said. It’s really a question of conjuring⁴ tricks.
They do it with mirrors, you know—that sort of thing—if you understand me.”
Inspector Curry did not understand. He stared and wondered if Miss Marple was quite right in the head.
Miss Marple took up her stand and beckoned⁵ the Inspector to stand beside her.
“I want you to think of this place as a stage set, Inspector. As it was on the night Christian⁶ Gulbrandsen was killed.
You’re here in the audience looking at the people on the stage. Mrs. Serrocold and myself and Mrs. Strete and Ginaand Stephen—and just like on the stage, there are entrances and exits and the characters go out to different places.
Only you don’t think when you’re in the audience where they are really going to. They go out ‘to the front door’ or ‘tothe kitchen’ and when the door opens you see a little bit of painted backcloth. But really of course they go out to thewings—or the back of the stage with carpenters and electricians, and other characters waiting to come on—they go out—to a different world.”
“I don’t quite see, Miss Marple—”
“Oh, I know—I daresay it sounds very silly—but if you think of this as a play and the scene is ‘the Great Hall atStonygates’—what exactly is behind the scene?—I mean—what is backstage? The terrace—isn’t it?—the terrace anda lot of windows opening onto it.

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