Chapter Twenty-Two
I t was growing dark. Miss Marple had taken her knitting over to the window in the library. Looking out of the glasspane she saw Pat Fortescue walking up and down the terrace outside. Miss Marple unlatched the window and calledthrough it.
“Come in, my dear. Do come in. I’m sure it’s much too cold and damp for you to be out there without a coat on.”
Pat obeyed the summons. She came in and shut the window and turned on two of the lamps.
“Yes,” she said, “it’s not a very nice afternoon.” She sat down on the sofa by Miss Marple. “What are youknitting?”
“Oh, just a little matinée coat, dear. For a baby, you know. I always say young mothers can’t have too manymatinée coats for their babies. It’s the second size. I always knit the second size. Babies so soon grow out of the firstsize.”
Pat stretched out long legs towards the fire.
“It’s nice in here today,” she said. “With the fire and the lamps and you knitting things for babies. It all seems cosyand homely¹ and like England ought to be.”
“It’s like England is,” said Miss Marple. “There are not so many Yewtree Lodges², my dear.”
“I think that’s a good thing,” said Pat. “I don’t believe this was ever a happy house. I don’t believe anybody wasever happy in it, in spite of all the money they spent and the things they had.”
“No,” Miss Marple agreed. “I shouldn’t say it had been a happy house.”
“I suppose Adele may have been happy,” said Pat. “I never met her, of course, so I don’t know, but Jennifer ispretty miserable³ and Elaine’s been eating her heart out over a young man whom she probably knows in her heart ofhearts doesn’t care for her. Oh, how I want to get away from here!” She looked at Miss Marple and smiled suddenly.
“D’you know,” she said, “that Lance told me to stick as close to you as I could. He seemed to think I should be safethat way.”
“Your husband’s no fool,” said Miss Marple.
“No. Lance isn’t a fool. At least, he is in someways. But I wish he’d tell me exactly what he’s afraid of. One thingseems clear enough. Somebody in this house is mad, and madness is always frightening because you don’t know howmad people’s minds will work. You don’t know what they’ll do next.”

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