Marple (2004) s01e04 Episode Script

1 Oh, may I go into the house, Sergeant? Of course.
You're beyond suspicion, Miss Marple.
Oh, nobody is beyond suspicion.
Morning.
Oh, forgive my disturbing you, Miss Blacklock, but the vicar had a dying parishioner and Mrs.
Harmon has had to rush a child to hospital, so they asked me to deliver that to you.
Thank you, Miss Marple.
Do sit down.
- Oh, thank you.
It concerns the funeral arrangements, I believe.
Yes, of course.
And if there are any messages The vicar is a very understanding man.
No fatuous consolation.
Please tell him the arrangements will do very well.
Bunny's favorite hymn was Lead, Kindly Light.
I realize that I am only a stranger, but I am so very, very sorry.
I've just realized what I've lost.
Bunny was the only link with the past.
The only one who remembered.
I know.
One is quite alone when the last one who remembers is gone.
I have kind nephews and nieces and And friends, but no one who remembers the old days.
You're a very understanding woman, Miss Marple, and I I thank you for it.
I must write a few lines to the vicar.
The police.
Thank you, Hannah.
Good morning, Miss Blacklock, Miss Marple.
Miss Marple dropped in with a note from the vicar.
But I'm on my way quite quickly now.
Unless there are any questions you'd like to ask me? Were you at the tea party yesterday afternoon? No, no I was not.
Then there's nothing you can tell me.
She really did come with a note from the vicar.
And I really do recognize a nosey parker when I see one.
I won't waste time offering sympathy, Miss Blacklock.
I hope you'll take that for granted.
I feel very badly about Miss Bunner's death.
We should have prevented it.
I don't see what you could have done.
There were lethal tablets in a bottle at your bedside, and we'd been guarding the house for days.
You could hardly have searched everyone who came to the house.
I suppose not.
At any rate, whoever it is has tried to shoot you, and tried to poison you, so who is it? I haven't the faintest idea, Inspector.
Let me offer some suggestions.
I went to Scotland and talked to Belle Goedler.
The only people who can benefit by your death are Pip and Emma.
I thought Patrick and Julia were likely contenders - but we've checked their backgrounds - You've what? That's my job, Miss Blacklock.
Oh, yes, of course, I'm sorry.
And it's clear that Patrick and Julia Simmons are exactly who they claim to be.
So, I then thought about their mother, Sonia Stamfordis.
Goedler's sister.
Tell me, would you recognize her, if you saw her? Oh.
Yes, I suppose I would.
Although it's 30 years since I saw her.
She must be an elderly woman by now.
How do you remember her? Oh, she was small, dark, a very lively young woman.
She'll be gray and weary by now, like the rest of us.
Well, there is no shortage of elderly ladies in Chipping Cleghorn.
You're suggesting that Sonia is living somewhere in this village under an assumed name? I have to examine the possibility.
I can think of three women who match in terms of age, Mrs.
Swettenham, Miss Murgatroyd and Miss Hinchcliffe.
All three were here yesterday, as they were on the night of the shooting.
The whole idea is ludicrous, Inspector.
Help me to prove it, Miss Blacklock.
Do you have a photograph of Sonia? Only very old photographs.
They're in an album in the attic somewhere, I think.
May I see them? Julia's in the house somewhere.
Ask her to show you.
Thank you.
It's terribly dusty, I'm afraid, and full of junk.
At the moment, I have a brain like that.
We keep meaning to clear it out.
So do I, Miss Simmons.
So do I.
I'm sure the photograph album's in here.
Patrick found it when we first arrived.
We wallowed in nostalgia and laughed at the silly hats.
God, look at all this.
Aunt Letty just won't throw anything away.
Are you familiar with your family history? I suppose so.
Most of it's pretty boring, but if I can be of any assistance.
Were these photographs missing when you looked at the album? No.
Nothing was missing.
Sonia, self and R.
G.
R.
G.
, Randall Goedler.
Sonia and Belle on beach, picnic at Skeyne, Charlotte, self, Sonia, R.
G.
May I? All the pictures of Sonia have gone.
I suppose it's a sort of a clue, isn't it? Mmm.
Definitely a sort of clue.
Do you think your aunt would mind if I looked around for more? I'm sure you don't need a warrant to protect someone from being murdered.
Bearing in mind we've failed twice already.
Shall I leave you? In case you wish to be indiscreet? Thank you.
It's a breach of confidence, Miss Marple, but I'd like you to read these.
Oh, oh, very Oh, thank you, yes.
I love breaches of confidence.
They're such fun.
I sometimes wish I'd married a priest.
Oh, my dear.
Except it's impossible, of course.
- And, er, have you read these? - Yes.
What conclusions did you come to? Miss Blacklock was devoted to her sister.
Wrote to her two or three times a week, and their father was a tyrant, an old-fashioned Victorian doctor who couldn't stand new ideas.
Probably killed hundreds of his patients.
I think I rather prefer old-fashioned doctors to young doctors.
They remove our teeth, administer very peculiar glands, take bits of our inside out and then say they can do nothing for us.
Generally because there's very little of the original us left.
No, I prefer old-fashioned medicine.
Big black bottles, you know, of tonic, because you can always pour them down the sink.
Oh, did you trace the revolver that shot that young man? It belonged to Colonel Easterbrook.
Yes.
Mrs.
Butt told me the colonel has a revolver.
There's some confusion about when it was taken.
Did Miss Blacklock's sister die of consumption? I believe so.
We know she was in a Swiss sanatorium.
Oh, really? I mean, fancy using the colonel's revolver.
Yes, but I don't think Colonel Easterbrook is Sonia Goedler.
All we know about Sonia is that she was small and dark, with something of a temper, according to those letters.
Oh, yes, oh, these are fascinating, even if they are a breach of confidence.
I'll leave those with you till tomorrow, if that's all right? Oh, thank you.
If you would, yes.
I think we're destined for several hours of fascinated silence.
No, my dear, I shall prattle on non-stop.
Oh, by the way, is Miss Blacklock short-sighted? Yes, but too proud to wear spectacles.
When she comes to church she sings the hymns she knows by heart and la-la's her way through the others.
Really? - I'll see you to the door, Inspector.
- Do be careful, Delilah! - Delilah? Yes my husband christened her that.
I'm very much afraid her moral standards are similar.
Oh, Aunt Jane, I'm sure you can't see properly.
Well, I do seem a little cluttered don't I? Let's get you properly organized.
Well, shouldn't there be a switch up here.
It's on the flex.
Oh, Delilah! You silly cat! Oh, oh, my dear, oh, what have I done? Oh, it's all right Aunt Jane.
It's not your fault, it's Delilah's.
Oh.
Probably fused all the lights in here now thanks to her.
What a nuisance! No, it isn't a nuisance.
- It's wonderful! - Oh, look! You can see, where she's been chewing at the flex.
That's why it fused.
With the assistance of a shepherdess What are you talking about? Murder, my dear.
And I won't have a word said against that remarkable cat.
I think you told me, Mrs.
Haymes, your husband was killed, fighting in Italy.
That's right.
It isn't true.
He was a deserter.
I know.
You should have told me.
Do you have to rake up the dirt about everybody? Yes, I do, and it's amazing how many people are able to provide it, too.
I don't want my son to know.
I don't tell him lies about his father.
I just don't talk about him at all.
Silence isn't quite the same as telling lies.
You were seen speaking to a man in the summerhouse the week of the shooting.
Was it your husband? - I didn't talk to anybody.
- Did he come to you for money? I haven't seen my husband for years.
You're sure about that? Silence can be exactly the same as telling lies, Mrs.
Haymes.
Yes.
Is this intended to clarify the problem? Yes.
Three people can benefit from Miss Blacklock's death, Sonia Stamfordis, - or her children, Pip and Emma.
- Mmm-hmm.
These are the people who match in terms of age and sex.
Mrs.
Swettenham, Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Murgatroyd for the older generation.
Patrick Simmons, Julia Simmons, Phillipa Haymes, Edmund Swettenham, Mrs.
Harmon At least you've had the decency to put a query beside the vicar's wife.
Yes, she's strictly on the older side.
Plus the Easterbrooks.
- The Colonel had a pistol.
- Had? It went missing the week of the murder.
Why didn't he report it? - Didn't notice at the time.
- Ah.
His wife swears it disappeared after the murder.
My honest opinion is she's lying to protect her husband.
Needlessly, because I think he's a nincompoop.
Would you like my honest opinion? I need all the help you can give me, sir.
A murder was committed in the presence of a group of people.
By logical deduction you have proved that the likely murderer was a member of that group.
- Well, I think we already knew that.
Come in.
Er, sir, I thought you should see this.
- I knew she was lying.
- Who? 10 days ago a chap got knocked down and killed by a lorry in Milchester, no papers on him, nobody reported him missing, he's just been identified as Ronald Haymes.
Ex-captain in the South Loamshire.
Phillipa Haymes' husband.
It seems like it.
He had some money on him, and a Chipping Cleghorn bus ticket.
Oh, what date was the accident? It was the day before the murder, sir.
I took note of that.
And with respect sir, I think we should take note of how he died.
What do you mean by that? He ran into the road to push a little kiddie out of the way of the lorry, sir.
- I see.
- I mean, a good death.
Uh, as death goes, sir.
Yes, we've taken note, Sergeant.
Phillipa.
I just heard about Well Just say the name.
He can't hurt anybody.
Your husband.
I - Do we have to go through it again? - Yes.
Because whoever bumped off Rudi Scherz did the same to poor old Dora Bunner and I take exception to that.
Well, of course.
It could be any one of us next, and I'd take exception to that as well.
Now then, everybody who was at the shooting party was also at the birthday tea, except for Mrs.
Harmon, so that lets her out.
Well, I should think so, too.
And I think it's a man doing this, because we all know what dirty dogs men are.
Well, anybody could have put the tablets in the aspirin bottle the day of Dora's party.
Anybody? How? We all went to the loo, didn't we? All that tea and sherry they poured down us, you'd have had to be superhuman not to go.
So, back to the first murder.
Now, that little Swiss idiot comes in here, stands here, - waves his torch around.
- And the revolver.
No.
Not the revolver.
Somebody else had the revolver.
Now, I'm the Swiss idiot.
Where were you? - I can't remember.
- Of course, you can remember! I was behind the door.
When it opened, it knocked my toe, and hurt my corn.
When are you going to go to a proper chiropodist? You'll give yourself blood poisoning the way you poke around at your feet.
Now come and stand behind the door.
Mind! Your toe.
Now, I'm leaning against the mantelpiece with my tongue hanging out waiting for a drink.
Whoever does the shooting has to slip out into the hallway through the other door.
There isn't another door.
Not here there isn't, but at Little Paddocks there is.
Now, think.
Who could you see? More important, Amy Murgatroyd, who wasn't there? You're standing behind the torch, you see a series of faces.
I remember Mrs.
Harmon sitting on the arm of the chair and Dora Bunner with her mouth open.
And That's extraordinary.
Damn and blast! Hello, Hinchcliffe.
Make sure you don't forget.
- Hello.
- Hello.
- Hello, Miss Hinchcliffe.
- Speaking.
- Your dog's arrived.
- What? He came on the milk train earlier this morning - Do you realize what time it is, now? - It's about 5:15.
Oh, never mind.
I might have guessed it would be somebody else's fault.
The dog's arrived.
Came on the milk train, damn fools didn't think we'd be up yet.
Can't stand people doing my thinking for me.
Damn fools.
But don't you want to know what it is I've remembered? We'll carry on when I get back.
Don't forget! Don't you realize, she wasn't there! Don't forget.
She wasn't there! ♫ Got no diamonds, got no pearls ♫ Still I think I'm a lucky girl ♫ Got the sun in the morning and the moon at night Oh, do go in, you'll get wet.
I'll only be two minutes.
♫ Sunshine, give me a sunny day ♫ Sunshine, give me the milky way ♫ Oh, with the sun in the morning and the moon at night ♫ I'm all right ♫ Miss Marple! - Oh.
- Hop in, Miss Marple.
You'll get wet.
- Oh, thank you.
- All right? - Can you manage? - Yeah.
I'll do that.
- Come and have a cup of coffee.
- Oh.
We'll ring the vicarage and tell them you're on the town.
Don't mind the dog, will you? Setters, mad as hatters.
100% heart, 1 % brain.
Murgatroyd! We've got a visitor.
Come on, Miss Marple, a nice hot steaming cup of coffee.
Better let the dog out.
If Murgatroyd hasn't got the kettle on, there'll be trouble.
Come on, cutie.
Murgatroyd! That's her name, Cutie.
Have you ever heard anything more feeble and wet? Murgatroyd! She hasn't finished bringing the washing in.
Better go and see what that dog's up to.
Must have taken leave of her senses, such as they are.
Murgatroyd! Come on! Come on! Get I'll kill whoever did this.
When I get my hands on her.
We must call the police.
Why did you say "her"? We'd been playing a silly game, trying to find out who shot that Swiss boy.
My idea.
My fault.
No.
Just tell me what happened.
I was trying to work out by a process of elimination who could have slipped out into the hall that night.
Murgatroyd could see better than anyone what was going on.
I see.
And as I was going to fetch the dog, she got all excited and started shouting out, "She wasn't there.
" - "She wasn't there"? - That's right.
She wasn't there.
So, you see, I must find out who "she" is.
Whoever it is will pay the price.
I hope Hannah's prepared an epic feast.
- I've worked quite hard today.
- You surprise me.
Skipped three lectures.
Most days I only skip two.
Julia! Is something wrong? This letter.
It's from Julia Simmons.
I thought you were Julia Simmons.
Oh, God.
Caught in the act.
Well, not quite in the act.
What are you talking about? Well, the fact of the matter is, Aunt Letty, it seemed like a bit of a lark.
Just a minute, you called me "Aunt.
" Does that mean you really are Patrick Simmons? Oh yes, I really am Patrick.
It's onlyJulia who Who isn't Julia.
And whom exactly are you? I was christened Emma Jocelyn Stamfordis.
I'm Sonia's daughter, Emma.
- Emma? - Yes.
But how did you two come together? At a big party in London, soon after I was demobbed.
And what is the realJulia doing in Perth? She wants to be an actress.
She's been working with a rep company.
We knew mother would have seven fits so we planned this lark.
She'd go up to Scotland and get on with her acting.
And I'd come here, pretend to be Julia, and keep peace in the camp.
Also, we wanted to be together.
Oh, I see.
You two are Madly in love.
I think that's the phrase.
Yes, I'm told that can happen.
And was part of this lark the idea that you might share - in the Goedler inheritance? - Yes.
That's not quite what was in mind, Aunt Letty.
What exactly was in your mind, Miss Stamfordis? My parents split up three years after they were married.
They split us up, too.
- You and Pip? - Yes.
Pip went with my mother.
I went with my father.
He was a villain, of course, a thoroughly bad father, but charming.
Then the war came, and I lost him too.
I worked with the French Resistance, came to England when the world had calmed down a little.
Alone and penniless, but knowing there was money somewhere in the family.
Then I met Patrick, a marvelous stroke of luck.
He said he was coming here and I thought you might take pity on a poor orphan girl once you knew the full story.
Pity? A small allowance, nothing excessive.
Why didn't you just tell the truth? Well, we were working up to it, then suddenly people started firing revolvers and there were aspirin tablets causing instant death.
I thought my best plan was to keep quiet for a while.
We calculated the Inspector would be bound to suspect somebody who'd been telling lies.
Yes, I suppose that is reasonable.
But if you are Emma, where is Pip? I truly have no idea.
We were separated when we were three years old.
I haven't seen Pip or my mother for over 20 years.
Is that the whole truth? The whole truth is, I came here hoping for a small allowance from my family's money.
I didn't come here to commit murder, so that I could inherit the lot.
Yes, I I suppose I have no alternative, but to believe that.
Just a moment, you said you were in the French Resistance? Yes.
- You learned to shoot? - I can shoot.
- In which case - If I had shot at you that night, Letitia Blacklock, I wouldn't have missed.
Inspector Craddock would like to speak to all of you.
- Thank you, Hannah.
- All of us? - Yes.
- But we've only just come in, - we haven't had time to - Miss Amy Murgatroyd was murdered earlier today.
To be precise, she was strangled in her garden, just before noon.
I want a precise account of everybody's movements.
Whoever's doing these things, Inspector, must be mad, quite mad.
It doesn't necessarily follow.
Ah, my pearls! My pearls! I've never seen her so upset.
- Good day, Miss Marple.
- Good day, Sergeant.
- How is Miss Hinchcliffe? - Very shocked, I'm afraid.
She seems to have aged 10 years.
We must do something, Sergeant.
- Missing? - Yes.
- How long has she been missing? - Oh, about two hours.
She went along the road to speak to Sergeant Fletcher.
- That's what, about five minutes away? - Ten at the most.
It doesn't help because I've lost Fletcher as well.
She suddenly became very excited about pearls.
- Pearls? - Yes.
Well, she'd been making this list in her notebook.
Lamp, violets, aspirins, Bern, Letty, old age pension, pearls.
Does Miss Blacklock always wear those pearls? Yes.
We laugh about it sometimes.
I'm very concerned about Miss Marple.
The minute you hear anything, - you must telephone the station.
- Yes, of course.
Inspector Craddock! Fletcher, what the hell are you playing at? - So you see it's been quite a day.
- So I see.
- But only the one murder.
- Oh, Julia! I understood she wasn't Julia.
Well, I still think of her as Julia.
Well.
And then, on top of everything else, that nice Miss Marple has disappeared.
- Perhaps she's on the run.
- On the run? If she murdered Miss Murgatroyd.
Phillipa! Can't you stop talking about murder? Don't you understand, I'm frightened.
God! Don't worry, Aunt Letty, I'll look after you.
Mind you, I could do it better on a full stomach.
I am hungry, Hannah.
I am frightened.
- Are we having supper tonight? - You can make it yourselves.
I do nothing more in this house.
If they kill Miss Murgatroyd, they can kill anyone.
I am going to lock myself in my room until tomorrow and then I leave this house for ever.
Good night, Miss Blacklock.
I'll see to dinner.
Might be less embarrassing all round.
Don't be silly, darling.
Nobody wants to sit at table with an imposter.
Oh, Patrick, if you're acting as protector, you better taste the food.
I don't want to be accused of poisoning the omelets.
- Omelets all right for everybody? - Fine by me.
It's all I can cook anyway, but I'm outstandingly good.
Do you need any help? No.
There's something I want to say to you.
Save it! I've had enough drama for one day.
If you've fallen madly in love with Edmund Swettenham, - that is strictly your business.
- It isn't that.
Look, why don't you make yourself useful.
Go and lay the table in the dining room or something.
Which is a polite way of saying "leave me alone.
" When I shoot, I shoot to kill.
I'm on your side, Emma.
That's all.
- That was excellent.
- Thank you.
Have you eaten anything? I had mine below stairs, thank you kindly, Mrs.
Haymes.
I'll answer it.
Hello.
Every time the phone rings, I assume somebody else had been bumped off.
Let's count our blessings.
At least it was none of us three.
You're being amazingly cheerful all of a sudden, Phillipa, considering we're surrounded by death and deceit.
Thank you, Inspector.
Oh, do you think we might have coffee in the drawing room? We're expecting company.
Not another announcement in the newspaper? Inspector Craddock has invited himself over.
Well, he hasn't been to see us for at least 20 minutes.
And he's bringing the Easterbrooks and the Swettenhams.
- How terribly thrilling.
- Coffee in the drawing room? - Very well, ma'am.
I don't have to explain why we're here.
Today, Miss Amy Murgatroyd was murdered, very brutally.
And there's every reason to believe she was murdered by somebody in this room.
More than that, we believe the murderer was a woman.
Good God! I'm going to ask the ladies present to tell me what they were doing today between the hours of 11:00 and noon.
Starting with the young lady who has been calling herself Julia Simmons.
- Calling herself? - Hush, mother.
Between 11 and 12, I was in Milchester, meeting Patrick for a secret walk along the river bank.
We have no witnesses.
We could easily have driven in a fast car to Miss Murgatroyd's cottage, but we didn't.
I throw myself on the mercy of the court.
Mrs.
Swettenham.
Me? What were you doing at the time in question? Well, either turning the heel of a sock or cleaning out the gutter, depending what time the rain started.
It started to rain at 10 past 11.
Ah, well, that means that I was turning the heel of a sock until ten past.
Then the rain started and pours into our passage by the cloakroom where the gutter's stopped up.
So, I put on my coat and gumboots and I cleaned out the gutter with a broom handle.
Do you have witnesses to the sock-turning or gutter-cleaning? No.
I called to Edmund but he didn't answer so I assumed he was at an important place in his novel.
And were you? No, I was asleep.
Do you need a witness to that? I don't think so.
Mrs.
Easterbrook? Oh.
I was in the study with Archie.
We were listening to the wireless.
Can you confirm that, Colonel? - Er, no.
- No? We were listening to the wireless at 11:00.
Are we not talking about 11:00? We are talking about between 11:00 and 12.
- Precisely.
- And bear in mind that you withheld vital information about a revolver, so may I have some accuracy on this occasion? I was in the study with Archie, listening to the wireless and then I toasted some scones, and in between I went for a little walk.
- Alone? - I was talking to Lampson, a farmer from Croft End, about some chicken netting.
While your wife took a little walk? Why don't you ask the others what they were doing? That Haymes woman.
And Edmund Swettenham.
He writes books about murder and he's a communist! He's always saying that I've made it quite clear that we are looking for a woman, Mrs.
Easterbrook.
Before she died, Miss Murgatroyd made a vital statement about the killing of Rudi Scherz.
As you will all remember, Miss Murgatroyd was standing where I am standing now when the unfortunate young man entered through this door.
But it was dark.
Nobody could see anything.
Miss Murgatroyd was standing here, so she could see where the torch was shining.
Only she could see who wasn't in the room at the time of the shooting.
She saw everything.
I, too, saw everything! That's impossible.
You weren't even in the room.
No.
I am not in the room.
I am just a serving maid and a foreigner.
I am not fine enough to be in the room with the proper English ladies and gentlemen.
You do not even ask me into the room to answer your questions, and I know the answers, because I saw what happened.
Tell us what you saw.
The night of the shooting, I am in the dining room cleaning the silver when I hear the shots.
I look through the keyhole and I see her with the gun in her hand.
I see Miss Blacklock.
Me? You must be mad! But that's quite impossible, if you think about it, Inspector.
Of course it's impossible.
Because it was you, wasn't it? Thank you, my dear.
Perhaps you could return to your kitchen now.
Always the kitchen.
You took the colonel's revolver.
You organized the advertisement in the newspaper with Scherz.
We all know you have a vivid imagination.
The whole idea is monstrous! The lights went out, you slipped through that door into the hallway, shot at Miss Blacklock, then killed Rudi Scherz.
And why would I do such a thing? What possible motive could I have? I hope you have an explanation for all this, Edmund.
If Miss Blacklock dies, two people inherit.
The two we know as Pip and Emma.
Julia Simmons is Emma, that we know.
- And - And you think that I'm Pip? I'm Edmund Swettenham, and I can prove it.
Birth certificate, schools, university, everything.
He isn't Pip.
- I can prove it, too, Inspector.
- You? I'm Pip.
Good God, Phillipa Haymes.
Everybody assumed that Pip was a boy, but we were both girls.
We hadn't seen each other since our parents separated.
I had the same idea as Julia.
I knew there was money in the family.
I found out where Miss Blacklock lived, took a job in the area.
I just wanted a little money to help with my son's education.
Murdering people wasn't part of the plan, and when the killing started Well, then the letter arrived today and truly that was the first moment we both realized Who we were.
We're getting along famously.
Inspector, will you excuse me please? Just two minutes.
I wouldn't try to kill Miss Blacklock, she's been too kind to me and neither would Edmund, because he isn't Pip.
- But he is in love with you, isn't he? - Well - Has he or has he not proposed to you? - Of course, I have! She's wonderful and I'm going to marry her.
Edmund, you never tell me anything! You couldn't possibly have seen me! It is impossible! What the devil are you doing? Truth and lies.
- Liar! - Charlotte! - What are you doing in my kitchen? - Watching you, Miss Blacklock.
- Are you all right, my dear? - Did I do it properly? - You were splendid.
I must ask you to come along with me to answer questions about this incident.
And there will be other charges.
I have to warn you, Letitia Blacklock.
Charlotte Blacklock, Sergeant.
I'm sorry.
Charlotte Blacklock.
I'm sorry.
I want to kill you.
I want to kill you! It's your story, Miss Marple.
Oh, I only just helped a little, here and there.
Like stage managing Hannah's performance tonight? She couldn't have seen Miss Blacklock through the keyhole because the key was in the lock.
Yes, you did your best to ruin the whole thing.
- I was accused of murder, too.
- Really? I'm almost sorry I missed it.
Edmund was part of our stage management and he performed magnificently.
What gave you the idea in the first place that Miss Blacklock was the murderer? Oh, the way the shooting was planned.
It had to take place in total darkness.
Therefore, there could be no fire.
Therefore, the central heating was on.
Everyone commented on it, and no one could arrange that, except the mistress of the house.
The lights went out, Miss Blacklock slipped out into the hall, fired the shots, killed Scherz, then slipped back into the room.
Then she nicked her ear with a pair of nail scissors.
If you snip the lobe of the ear, it releases quite a lot of blood.
And of course, Delilah helped, too.
- Delilah? - Mmm.
The cat.
Yes, if you fray the flex of an electric lamp and then pour water on it, the lights fuse.
You see, I didn't realize that until Delilah demonstrated it to me.
Is that how Aunt How Miss Blacklock fused the lights? Yes, she poured water from the flowers onto the frayed flex of the table lamp.
Poor Dora Bunner noticed that the lamp had been changed.
No longer a shepherd, but a shepherdess.
Or the reverse, I'm afraid I can't quite remember, but Yes, but why start all the killing to begin with? Because she had a guilty secret.
It's a case of once upon a time.
Once upon a time, there were two sisters, Charlotte and Letitia Blacklock, complete with a stupid, cruel and old-fashioned father.
Letitia Blacklock was a very successful professional woman, personal secretary to Randall Goedler.
But Charlotte stayed at home.
She was disfigured.
She had a swelling in her neck.
You know, a thyroid gland known as goiter.
An operation would have been possible, but her father didn't believe in it.
But, er, however, just before the war, her father died, so she was able to go to Bern and have an operation, which was a success.
Except that the operation left a scar around the neck, hence the pearls.
Letitia left her job with Goedler to look after Charlotte in Switzerland.
After the operation, they both worked in the Red Cross during the war.
And then, quite unexpectedly, Letitia died.
Charlotte knew that Letitia had quite a large sum of money to inherit and also that nobody had seen her in England for many years.
So she changed identities.
She chose a very quiet, out-of-the-way village called Chipping Cleghorn and waited there for Belle Goedler to die, then she would be a rich woman.
But of course really, it was her kindness of heart that let her down.
Dora Bunner wrote to her out of the blue.
She'd been an old school friend of both the sisters.
Charlotte was pleased to hear from her and let her into the secret.
And Dora approved whole-heartedly.
It seemed only right to her in her confused and muddle-headed mind that dear Lotty should not be done out of her inheritance because of Letitia's untimely death.
So, Dora came to Little Paddocks, and very soon Charlotte realized that she'd made a terrible error of judgment.
Dora was unreliable.
She sometimes called her Lotty instead of Letty.
And then Rudi Scherz turned up, a much more serious threat.
Did he really know Miss Blacklock? Yes.
We checked.
He'd worked at the clinic in Bern.
I'm sure all he had in mind was a little petty blackmail but he was a threat to Miss Blacklock's whole way of life.
She'd begun to believe in her fantasy, you see, so she shot Rudi Scherz.
And then of course she found that poor Dora was unreliable.
I'm afraid it was that conversation with me in Blue Bird Cafe that Charlotte partially overheard that day that really sealed poor Dora's fate.
She tried to make her last day a happy one by giving her a birthday party.
Really, it was like being kind to a dog that you're going to destroy.
And Miss Murgatroyd? Oh, no, she killed Miss Murgatroyd out of fear.
Poor Aunt Letty.
Nice smile.
Stay where you are.
Just one more.
- Miss Marple.
- Oh, Inspector.
- A handsome couple.
- Yes, indeed.
You're an honored guest, I assume? Oh, well they were quite insistent, and you? Oh, no, no, I was just passing.
As a matter of fact, I read about the wedding - in the Chipping Cleghorn Gazette.
- Of course.
How else would one know what was going on in Chipping Cleghorn?