'I should think it most unlikely. He was - really, he was not that type of man.'

'So it boils down, doesn't it, to this house and the people in it? Who from inside the house could have killed him?'

Lewis Serrocold said slowly:

'That is difficult for me to say. There are the servants and the members of my household and our guests. They are, from your point of view, all possibilities, I suppose.

I can only tell you that, as far as I know, everyone except the servants was in the Great Hall when Christian left it, and whilst I was there, nobody left it.'

'Nobody at all?'

'I think' - Lewis frowned in an effort of remembrance - 'oh yes. Some of the lights fused - Mr Walter Hudd went to see to it.'

'That's the young American gentleman?'

'Yes - of course I don't know what took place after Edgar and I came in here.'

'And you can't give me anything nearer than that, Mr Serrocold?'

Lewis Serrocold shook his head.

'No, I'm afraid I can't help you. It's - it's all quite inconceivable.'

Inspector Curry sighed. He said: 'Mr Gulbrandsen was shot with a small automatic pistol. Do you know if anyone in the house has such a weapon?'

'I have no idea, I should think it most unlikely.' Inspector Curry sighed again. He said:

'You can tell the party that they can all go to bed. I'll talk to them tomorrow.'

When Serrocold had left the room, Inspector Curry said to Lake: 'Well - what do you think?'

'Knows - or thinks he knows, who did it,' said L, 'Yes. I agree with you. And he doesn't lille it a bit."

Gina greeted Miss Marple with a rush as the latter came down to breakfast the next morning.

'The police are here again,' she said. 'They're in the library this time. Wally is absolutely fascinated by them.

He can't understand their being so quiet and so remote.

I think he's really quite thrilled by the whole thing. I'm not. I hate it. I think it's horrible. Why do you think I'm so upset? Because I'm half Italian?'

'Very possibly. At least perhaps it explains why you don't mind showing what you feel.'

Miss Marple smiled just a little as she said this.

'Jolly's frightfully cross,' said Gina, hanging on Miss Marple's arm and propelling her into the dining-room. 'I think really because the police are in charge and she can't exactly "run" them like she runs everybody else.

'Alex and Stephen,' continued Gina severely, as they came into the dining-room where the two brothers were finishing their breakfast, 'just don't care.'

'Gina dearest,' said Alex, 'you are most unkind. Good morning, Miss Marple. I care intensely. Except for the fact that I hardly knew your Uncle Christian, I'm far and away the best suspect. You do realize that, I hope.' 'Why?'

'Well, I was driving up to the house at about the right time, it seems. And they've been checking up on things, and it seems that I took too much time between the lodge and the house - time enough, the implication is, to leave the car, run round the house, go in through the side door, shoot Christian and rush out and back to the car again.' 'And what were you really doing?'

'I thought little girls were taught quite young not to ask indelicate questions. Like an idiot, I stood for several minutes taking in the fog effect in the headlights and thinking what I'd use to get that effect on a stage. For my new "Limehouse" ballet.'

'But you can tell them that!'

'Naturally. But you know what policemen are like.

They say "thank you" very civilly and write it all down, and you've no idea what they are thinking except that one does feel they have rather sceptical minds.'

'It would amuse me to see you in a spot, Alex,' said Stephen with his thin, rather cruel smile. 'Now,/'m quite all right! I never left the Hall last night.'

Gina cried, 'But they couldn't possibly think it was one of us!'

Her dark eyes were round and dismayed.

'Don't say it must have been a tramp, dear,' said Alex, helping himself lavishly to marmalade. 'It's so hackneyed.'

Miss Believer looked in at the door and said:

'Miss Marple, when you have finished your breakfast, will you go to the library?'

'You again,' said Gina. 'Before any of us.' She seemed a little injured.

'Hi, what was that?' asked Alex.

'Didn't hear anything,' said Stephen.

'It was a pistol shot.'

'They've been firing shots in the room where Uncle Christian was killed,' said Gina. 'I don't know why. And outside too.' The door opened again and Mildred Strete came in.

She was wearing black with some onyx beads.

She murmured good morning without looking at anyone and sat down.

In a hushed voice she said:

'Some tea, please, Gina. Nothing much to eat - just some toast.'

She touched her nose and her eyes delicately with the handkerchief she held in one hand. Then she raised her eyes and looked in an unseeing way at the two brothers.

Stephen and Alex became uncomfortable. Their voices dropped to almost a whisper and presently they got up and left.

Mildred Strete said, whether to the universe or Miss Marple was not quite certain, 'Not even a black tie!'

'I don't suppose,' said Miss Marple apologetically, 'that they knew beforehand that a murder was going to happen.'

Gina made a smothered sound and Mildred Strete looked sharply at her.

'Where's Walter this morning?' she asked.

Gina flushed.

'I don't know. I haven't seen him.'

She sat there uneasily like a guilty child.

Miss Marple got up.

'I'll go to the library now,' she said.

II Lewis Serrocold was standing by the window in the library.

There was no one else in the room.

He turned as Miss Marple came in and came forward to meet her, taking her hand in his.

'I hope,' he said, 'that you are not feeling the worse for the shock. To be at close quarters with what is undoubt-edly murder must be a great strain on anyone who has not come in contact with such a thing before.'

Modesty forbade Miss Marple to reply that she was, by now, quite at home with murder. She merely said that life in St Mary Mead was not quite so sheltered as outside people believed.

'Very nasty things go on in a village, I assure you,' she said. 'One has an opportunity of studying things there that one would never have in a town.'

Lewis Serrocold listened indulgently, but with only half an ear.

He said very simply: 'I want your help.'

'But of course, Mr Serrocold.'

'It is a matter that affects my wife - affects Caroline. I think that you are really attached to her?'

'Yes, indeed. Everyone is.'

'That is what I believed. It seems that I am wrong.

With the permission of Inspector Curry, I am going to tell you something that no one else as yet knows. Or perhaps I should say what only one person knows.'

Briefly, he told her what he had told Inspector Curry the night before.

Miss Marple looked horrified.

'I can't believe it, Mr Serrocold. I really can't believe it.'

'That is what I felt when Christian Gulbrandsen told me.'

'I should have said that dear Carrie Louise had not got an enemy in the world.' 'It seems incredible that she should have. But you see the implication? P6isoning - slow poisoning - is an intimate family matter. It must be one of our closely-knit little household ' 'If it is true. Are you sure that Mr Gulbrandsen was not mistaken?' 'Christian was not mistaken. He is too cautious a man to make such a statement without foundation. Besides, the police took away Caroline's medicine bottle and a separate sample of its contents. There was arsenic in both of them - and arsenic was not prescribed. The actual quantitative tests will take longer - but the actual fact of arsenic being present is established.' 'Then her rheumatism - the difficulty in walking - all that ' 'Yes, leg cramps are typical, I understand. Also, before you came, Caroline has had one or two severe attacks of a gastric nature - I never dreamed until Christian came '.He broke off. Miss Marple said softly: 'So Ruth was right!' 'Ruth?' Lewis Serrocold sounded surprised. Miss Marple flushed.