THE TUESDAY NIGHT CLUB 14 - Agatha Christie - short stories

well she might be, poor thing. I hope that wicked Jones is hanged, I am sure, making that poor girl a murderess. I suppose they will hang her too, poor thing." "I think, Miss Marple, that you are under a slight misapprehension,'' began Mr. Petherick. But Miss Marple shook her head obstinately and looked across at Sir Henry. "I am right, am I not? It seems so clear to me. The hundreds and thousands--and the trifle--I mean, one cannot miss it." "What about the trifle and the hundreds and thousands?" cried Raymond. His aunt turned to him. "Cooks nearly always put hundreds and thousands on trifle, dear," she said. "Those little pink and white sugar things. Of course when I heard that they had had trifle for supper and that the husband had been writing to someone about hundreds and thousands, I naturally connected the two things together. That is where the arsenic was--in the hundreds and thousands. He left it with the girl and told her to put it on the trifle." "But that is impossible," said Joyce quickly. "They all ate the trifle." "Oh, no," said Miss Marple. "The companion was bant-ing, you remember. You never eat anything like trifle if you are banting; and I expect Jones just scraped the hundreds and thousands off his share and left them at the side of his plate. It was a clever idea, but a very wicked one." The eyes of the others were all fixed upon Sir Henry. "It is a very curious thing," he said slowly, "but Miss Marple happens to have hit upon the truth. Jones had got Gladys Linch into trouble, as the saying goes. She was nearly desperate. He wanted his wife out of the way and promised to marry Gladys when his wife was dead. He doctored the