“I—I don’t know,” said Griselda. “It’s difficult to know what to think, I can’t see any reason for Lawrence behaving like a perfect idiot.”
“If you had seen his face last night—” I began.
“Tell me,” said Miss Marple.
I described my homecoming while she listened attentively.
When I had finished she said:
“I know that I am very often rather foolish and don’t take in things as I should, but I really do not see your point. It seems to me that if a young man had made up his mind to the great wickedness of taking a fellow creature’s life, he would not appear distraught about it afterwards. It would be a premeditated and cold-blooded action and though the murderer might be a little flurried and possibly might make some small mistake, I do not think it likely he would fall into a state of agitation such as you describe. It is difficult to put oneself in such a position, but I cannot imagine getting into a state like that myself.”
“We don’t know the circumstances,” I argued. “If there was a quarrel, the shot may have been fired in a sudden gust of passion, and Lawrence might afterwards have been appalled at what he had done. Indeed, I prefer to think that this is what did actually occur.”
“I know, dear Mr. Clement, that there are many ways we prefer to look at things. But one must actually take facts as they are, must one not? And it does not seem to me that the facts bear the interpretation you put upon them. Your maid distinctly stated that Mr. Redding was only in the house a couple of minutes, not long enough, surely, for a quarrel such as you describe. And then again, I understand the colonel was shot through the back of the head while he was writing a letter—at least that is what my maid told me.”