夜雨聆风Do sit down, Miss Marple,” she said. “It’s very kind of you to havebrought this.”
She read the note through.
“The Vicar’s a very understanding man,” she said quietly. “He doesn’t of-fer one fatuous consolation … Tell him that these arrangements will dovery well. Her—her favourite hymn was Lead Kindly Light.”
Her voice broke suddenly.
Miss Marple said gently:
“I am only a stranger, but I am so very very sorry.”
And suddenly, uncontrollably, Letitia Blacklock wept. It was a piteousovermastering grief, with a kind of hopelessness about it. Miss Marple satquite still.
Miss Blacklock sat up at last. Her face was swollen and blotched withtears.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It—it just came over me. What I’ve lost. She—shewas the only link with the past, you see. The only one who — who re-membered. Now that she’s gone I’m quite alone.”
“I know what you mean,” said Miss Marple. “One is alone when the lastone who remembers is gone. I have nephews and nieces and kind friends—but there’s no one who knew me as a young girl—no one who belongs tothe old days. I’ve been alone for quite a long time now.”
Both women sat silent for some moments.
“You understand very well,” said Letitia Blacklock. She rose and wentover to her desk. “I must write a few words to the Vicar.” She held the penrather awkwardly and wrote slowly.
“Arthritic,” she explained. “Sometimes I can hardly write at all.”
She sealed up the envelope and addressed it.
“If you wouldn’t mind taking it, it would be very kind.”
Hearing a man’s voice in the hall she said quickly:
“That’s Inspector Craddock.”
She went to the mirror over the fireplace and applied a small powderpuff to her face.
Craddock came in with a grim, angry face.
