Free Complete Short Stories of Miss Marple by Agatha Christie Page B

medical book which I went on reading – and some of it was most interesting – it gave the symptoms of ptomaine poisoning and atropine, and they are not unlike. But I can assure you I have never seen a pile of fresh haddock without thinking of the thumb mark of St Peter.'
    There was a very long pause.
    'My dear friend,' said Mr Petherick. 'My very dear friend, you really are amazing.'
    'I shall recommend Scotland Yard to come to you for advice,' said Sir Henry.
    'Well, at all events, Aunt Jane,' said Raymond, 'there is one thing that you don't know.'
    'Oh, yes, I do, dear,' said Miss Marple. 'It happened just before dinner, didn't it? When you took Joyce out to admire the sunset. It is a very favourite place, that There by the jasmine hedge. That is where the milkman asked Annie if he could put up the banns.'
    'Dash it all. Aunt Jane,' said Raymond, 'don't spoil all the romance. Joyce and I aren't like the milkman and Annie.'
    'That is where you make a mistake, dear,' said Miss Marple. 'Everybody is very much alike, really. But fortunately, perhaps, they don't realize it.'
    The Blue Geranium

    'When I was down here last year –' said Sir Henry Clithering, and stopped.
    His hostess, Mrs Bantry, looked at him curiously.
    The ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard was staying with old friends of his, Colonel and Mrs Bantry, who lived near St Mary Mead.
    Mrs Bantry, pen in hand, had just asked his advice as to who should be invited to make a sixth guest at dinner that evening.
    'Yes?' said Mrs Bantry encouragingly. 'When you were here last year?'
    'Tell me,' said Sir Henry, 'do you know a Miss Marple?'
    Mrs Bantry was surprised. It was the last thing she had expected.
    'Know Miss Marple? Who doesn't! The typical old maid of fiction. Quite a dear, but hopelessly behind the times. Do you mean you would like me to ask her to dinner?'
    'You are surprised?'
    'A little, I must confess. I should hardly have thought you – but perhaps there's an explanation?'
    'The explanation is simple enough. When I was down here last year we got into the habit of discussing unsolved mysteries – there were five or six of us – Raymond West, the novelist, started it. We each supplied a story to which we knew the answer, but nobody else did. It was supposed to be an exercise in the deductive faculties – to see who could get nearest the truth.'
    'Well?'
    'Like in the old story – we hardly realized that Miss Marple was playing; but we were very polite about it – didn't want to hurt the old dear's feelings. And now comes the cream of the jest. The old lady outdid us every time!'
    'What?'
    'I assure you – straight to the truth like a homing pigeon.'
    'But how extraordinary! Why, dear old Miss Marple has hardly ever been out of St Mary Mead.'
    'Ah! But according to her, that has given her unlimited opportunities of observing human nature – under the microscope as it were.'
    'I suppose there's something in that,' conceded Mrs Bantry. 'One would at least know the petty side of people. But I don't think we have any really exciting criminals in our midst. I think we must try her with Arthur's ghost story after dinner. I'd be thankful if she'd find a solution to that.'
    'I didn't know that Arthur believed in ghosts?'
    'Oh! he doesn't. That's what worries him so. And it happened to a friend of his, George Pritchard – a most prosaic person. It's really rather tragic for poor George. Either this extraordinary story is true – or else –'
    'Or else what?'
    Mrs Bantry did not answer. After a minute or two she said irrelevantly:
    'You know, I like George – everyone does. One can't believe that he – but people do do such extraordinary things.'
    Sir Henry nodded. He knew, better than Mrs Bantry, the extraordinary things that people did.
    So it came about that that evening Mm Bantry looked round her dinner table (shivering a little as she did so, because the dining-room, like most English dining-rooms, was extremely cold) and fixed her gaze on the very