“Miss Marple wants to see you,” said Griselda, putting her head in. “She sent over a very incoherent note—all spidery and underlined. I couldn’t read most of it. Apparently she can’t leave home herself. Hurry up and go across and see her and find out what it is. I’ve got my old women coming in two minutes or I’d come myself. I do hate old women—they tell you about their bad legs and sometimes insist on showing them to you. What luck that the inquest is this afternoon! You won’t have to go and watch the Boys’ Club Cricket Match.”
I hurried off, considerably exercised in my mind as to the reason for this summons.
I found Miss Marple in what, I believe, is described as a fluster. She was very pink and slightly incoherent.
“My nephew,” she explained. “My nephew, Raymond West, the author. He is coming down today. Such a to-do. I have to see to everything myself. You cannot trust a maid to air a bed properly, and we must, of course, have a meat meal tonight. Gentlemen require such a lot of meat, do they not? And drink. There certainly should be some drink in the house—and a siphon.”
“If I can do anything—” I began.
“Oh! How very kind. But I did not mean that. There is plenty of time really. He brings his own pipe and tobacco, I am glad to say. Glad because it saves me from knowing which kind of cigarettes are right to buy. But rather sorry, too, because it takes so long for the smell to get out of the curtains. Of course, I open the window and shake them well very early every morning. Raymond gets up very late—I think writers often do. He writes very clever books, I believe, though people are not really nearly so unpleasant as he makes out. Clever young men know so little of life, don’t you think?”