夜雨聆风the shepherd. The lamps had beenchanged over during the night. And Dora Bunner had had reason to be-lieve (or had believed without reason) that it was Patrick who hadchanged them.
Why? Because, if the original lamp were examined, it would show justhow Patrick had managed to “make the lights go out.” How had he man-aged? Miss Marple looked earnestly at the lamp in front of her. The flexran along the table over the edge and was plugged into the wall. Therewas a small pear-shaped switch halfway along the flex. None of it sugges-ted anything to Miss Marple because she knew very little about electricity.
Where was the shepherdess lamp? she wondered. In the “spare room’
or thrown away, or—where was it Dora Bunner had come upon PatrickSimmons with a feather and an oily cup? In the shrubbery? Miss Marplemade up her mind to put all these points to Inspector Craddock.
At the very beginning Miss Blacklock had leaped to the conclusion thather nephew Patrick had been behind the insertion of that advertisement.
That kind of instinctive belief was often justified, or so Miss Marple be-lieved. Because, if you knew people fairly well, you knew the kind ofthings they thought of….
Patrick Simmons….
A handsome young man. An engaging young man. A young man whomwomen liked, both young women and old women. The kind of man, per-haps, that Randall Goedler’s sister had married. Could Patrick Simmons be“Pip’? But he’d been in the Navy during the war. The police could sooncheck up on that.
Only—sometimes—the most amazing impersonations did happen.
You could get away with a great deal if you had enough audacity….
The door opened and Miss Blacklock came in. She looked, Miss Marplethought, many years older. All the life and energy had gone out of her.
“I’m very sorry, disturbing you like this,” said Miss Marple. “But theVicar had a dying parishioner and Bunch had to rush a sick child to hos-pital. The Vicar wrote you a note.”
