Miss Marple came out of the Vicarage gate and walked down the little lane that led into the main street.

She walked fairly briskly with the aid of the Rev. Julian Harmon’s stout ashplant stick.

She passed the Red Cow and the butcher’s and stopped for a brief moment to look into the window of Mr Elliot’s antique shop. This was cunningly situated next door to the Bluebird Tearooms and Cafeso that rich motorists, after stopping for a nice cup of tea and somewhat euphemistically named ‘Home Made Cakes’ of a bright saffron colour, could be tempted by Mr Elliot’s judiciously planned shop window.

In this antique bow frame, Mr Elliot catered for all tastes. Two pieces of Waterford glass reposed on an impeccable wine cooler. A walnut bureau, made up of various bits and pieces, proclaimed itself a Genuine Bargain and on a table, in the window itself, were a nice assortment of cheap doorknockers and quaint pixies, a few chipped bits of Dresden, a couple of sad-looking bead necklaces, a mug with ‘A Present from Tunbridge Wells’ on it, and some tit-bits of Victorian silver.

Miss Marple gave the window her rapt attention, and Mr Elliot, an elderly obese spider, peeped out of his web to appraise the possibilities of this new fly.

But just as he decided that the charms of the Present from Tunbridge Wells were about to be too much for the lady who was staying at the Vicarage (for of course Mr Elliot, like everybody else, knew exactly who she was), Miss Marple saw out of the corner of her eye Miss Dora Bunner entering the Bluebird Cafe, and immediately decided that what she needed to counteract the cold wind was a nice cup of morning coffee.

Four or five ladies were already engaged in sweetening their morning shopping by a pause for refreshment. Miss Marple, blinking a little in the gloom of the interior of the Bluebird, and hovering artistically, was greeted by the voice of Dora Bunner at her elbow.

‘Oh, good morning, Miss Marple. Do sit down here. I’m all alone.’

‘Thank you.’

Miss Marple subsided gratefully on to the rather angular little blue-painted armchair which the Bluebird affected.

‘Such a sharp wind,’ she complained. ‘And I can’t walk very fast because of my rheumatic leg.’

‘Oh, I know. I had sciatica one year-and really most of the time I was inagony.’

The two ladies talked rheumatism, sciatica and neuritis for some moments with avidity. A sulky-looking girl in a pink overall with a flight of bluebirds down the front of it took their order for coffee and cakes with a yawn and an air of weary patience.

‘The cakes,’ Miss Bunner said in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘are reallyquite good here.’

‘I was so interested in that very pretty girl I met as we were coming away from Miss Blacklock’s the other day,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I think she said she does gardening. Or is she on the land? Hynes-was that her name?’

‘Oh, yes, Phillipa Haymes. Our “Lodger”, as we call her.’ Miss Bunner laughed at her own humour. ‘Such a nice quiet girl. Alady, if you know what I mean.’

‘I wonder now. I knew a Colonel Haymes-in the Indian cavalry. Her father perhaps?’

‘She’sMrs Haymes. A widow. Her husband was killed in Sicily or Italy. Of course, it might behis father.’

‘I wondered, perhaps, if there might be a little romance on the way?’ Miss Marple suggested roguishly. ‘With that tall young man?’

‘With Patrick, do you mean? Oh, I don’t-’

‘No, I meant a young man with spectacles. I’ve seen him about.’

‘Oh, of course, Edmund Swettenham. Sh! That’s his mother, Mrs Swettenham, over in the corner. I don’t know, I’m sure. You think he admires her? He’s such an odd young man-says the most disturbing things sometimes. He’s supposed to beclever, you know,’ said Miss Bunner with frank disapproval.

‘Cleverness isn’t everything,’ said Miss Marple, shaking her head. ‘Ah, here is our coffee.’

The sulky girl deposited it with a clatter. Miss Marple and Miss Bunner pressed cakes on each other.

‘I was so interested to hear you were at school with Miss Blacklock. Yours is indeed an old friendship.’

‘Yes, indeed.’ Miss Bunner sighed. ‘Very few people would be as loyal to their old friends as dear Miss Blacklock is. Oh, dear, those days seem a long time ago. Such a pretty girl and enjoyed life so much. It all seemed sosad.’

Miss Marple, though with no idea of what had seemed so sad, sighed and shook her head.

‘Life is indeed hard,’ she murmured.

‘And sad affliction bravely borne,’ murmured Miss Bunner, her eyes suffusing with tears. ‘I always think of that verse. True patience; true resignation. Such courage and patienceought to be rewarded, that is what I say. What I feel is thatnothing is too good for dear Miss Blacklock, and whatever good things come to her, she trulydeserves them.’

‘Money,’ said Miss Marple, ‘can do a lot to ease one’s path in life.’

She felt herself safe in this observation since she judged that it must be Miss Blacklock’s prospects of future affluence to which her friend referred.

The remark, however, started Miss Bunner on another train of thought.

‘Money!’ she exclaimed with bitterness. ‘I don’t believe, you know, that until one has really experienced it, one can know what money, or rather the lack of it,means.’

Miss Marple nodded her white head sympathetically.

Miss Bunner went on rapidly, working herself up, and speaking with a flushed face:

‘I’ve heard people say so often “I’d rather have flowers on the table than a meal without them.” But how many meals have those people ever missed? They don’t know what it is-nobody knows who hasn’t been through it-to be reallyhungry. Bread, you know, and a jar of meat paste, and a scrape of margarine. Day after day, and how one longs for a good plate of meat and two vegetables. And theshabbiness. Darning one’s clothes and hoping it won’t show. And applying for jobs and always being told you’re too old. And then perhaps getting a job and after all one isn’t strong enough. One faints. And you’re back again. It’s therent -always therent -that’sgot to be paid-otherwise you’re out in the street. And in these days it leaves so little over. One’s old age pension doesn’t go far-indeed it doesn’t.’

‘I know,’ said Miss Marple gently. She looked with compassion at Miss Bunner’s twitching face.

‘I wrote to Letty. I just happened to see her name in the paper. It was a luncheon in aid of Milchester Hospital. There it was in black and white, Miss Letitia Blacklock. It brought the past back to me. I hadn’t heard of her for years and years. She’d been secretary, you know, to that very rich man, Goedler. She was always a clever girl-the kind that gets on in the world. Not so much looks-ascharacter. I thought-well, I thought-perhaps she’ll remember me-and she’s one of the people Icould ask for a little help. I mean someone you’ve known as a girl-been at school with-well, they doknow about you-they know you’re not just a-begging letter-writer-’

Tears came into Dora Bunner’s eyes.

‘And then Lotty came and took me away-said she needed someone to help her. Of course, I was very surprised-verysurprised-but then newspapers do get things wrong. How kind she was-and howsympathetic. And remembering all the old days so well…I’d do anything for her-I really would. And I tryvery hard, but I’m afraid sometimes I muddle things-my head’s not what it was. I make mistakes. And I forget and say foolish things. She’s very patient. What’s so nice about her is that she always pretends that Iam useful to her. That’s real kindness, isn’t it?’

Miss Marple said gently: ‘Yes, that’s real kindness.’

‘I used to worry, you know, even after I came to Little Paddocks-about what would become of me if-if anything were to happen to Miss Blacklock. After all, there are so many accidents-these motors dashing about-one never knows, does one? But naturally I neversaid anything-but she must have guessed. Suddenly, one day she told me that she’d left me a small annuity in her will-and-what I value far more-all her beautiful furniture. I was quiteovercome…But she said nobody else would value it as I should-and that is quite true-I can’t bear to see some lovely piece of china smashed-or wet glasses put down on a table and leaving a mark. I do really look after her things. Some people-some people especially, are so terribly careless-and sometimes worse than careless!

‘I’m not really as stupid as I look,’ Miss Bunner continued with simplicity. ‘I can see, you know, when Letty’s being imposed upon. Some people-I won’t name names-but they takeadvantage. Dear Miss Blacklock is, perhaps, just a shade tootrusting.’

Miss Marple shook her head.

‘That’sa mistake.’

‘Yes, it is. You and I, Miss Marple, know the world. Dear Miss Blacklock-’ She shook her head.

Miss Marple thought that as the secretary of a big financier Miss Blacklock might be presumed to know the world too. But probably what Dora Bunner meant was that Letty Blacklock had always been comfortably off, and that the comfortably off do not know the deeper abysses of human nature.

‘That Patrick!’ said Miss Bunner with a suddenness and an asperity that made Miss Marple jump. ‘Twice, at least, to my knowledge, he’s got money out of her. Pretending he’s hard up. Run into debt. All that sort of thing. She’s far too generous. All she said to me when I remonstrated with her was: “The boy’s young, Dora. Youth is the time to have your fling.”’

‘Well, that’s true enough,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Such a handsome young man, too.’

‘Handsome is as handsome does,’ said Dora Bunner. ‘Much too fond of poking fun at people. And a lot of going on with girls, I expect. I’m just a figure of fun to him-that’s all. He doesn’t seem to realize that people have their feelings.’

‘Young peopleare rather careless that way,’ said Miss Marple.

Miss Bunner leaned forward suddenly with a mysterious air.

‘You won’t breathe a word, will you, my dear?’ she demanded. ‘But I can’t help feeling that hewas mixed up in this dreadful business. I think he knew that young man-else Julia did. I daren’t hint at such a thing to dear Miss Blacklock-at least I did, and she just snapped my head off. And, of course, it’sawkward -because he’s her nephew-or at any rate hercousin -and if the Swiss young man shot himself Patrick might be held morally responsible, mightn’t he? If he’d put him up to it, I mean. I’m really terribly confused about the whole thing. Everyone making such a fuss about that other door into the drawing-room. That’s another thing that worries me-the detective saying it had been oiled. Because you see, I saw-’