Mrs Van Rydock moved a little back from the mirror and sighed.

'Well, that'll have to do,' she murmured. 'Think it's all right, Jane?'

Miss Marple eyed the Lanvanelli creation appraisingly.

'It seems to me a very beautiful gown,' she said.

'The gown's all right,' said Mrs Van Rydock and sighed.

'Take if off, Stephanie,' she said.

The elderly maid with the grey hair and the small pinched mouth eased the gown carefully up over Mrs Van Rydock's upstretched arms.

Mrs Van Rydock stood in front of the glass in her peach satin slip. She was exquisitely corseted. Her still shapely legs were encased in fine nylon stockings. Her face, beneath a layer of cosmetics and constantly toned up by massage, appeared almost girlish at a slight distance.

Her hair was less grey than tending to hydrangea blue and was perfectly set. It was practically impossible when looking at Mrs Van Rydock to imagine what she would be like in a natural state. Everything that money could do had been done for her - reinforced by diet, massage, and constant exercises.

Ruth Van Rydock looked humorously at her friend.

'Do you think most people would guess, Jane, that you and I are practically the same age?' Miss Marple responded loyally.

'Not for a moment, I'm sure,' she said reassuringly.

'I'm afraid, you know, that I look every minute of my age!' Miss Marple was white-haired, with a soft pink and white wrinkled face and innocent china blue eyes. She looked a very sweet old lady. Nobody would have called Mrs Van Rydock a sweet old lady.

'I guess you do, Jane,' said Mrs Van Rydock. She grinned suddenly, 'And so do I. Only not in the same way. "Wonderful how that old hag keeps her figure." That's what they say of me. But they know I'm an old hag all right! And, my God, do I feel like one?

She dropped heavily on to the satin quilted chair.

'That's all right, Stephanie,' she said. 'You can go.' Stephanie gathered up the dress and went out.

'Good old Stephanie,' said Ruth Van Rydock. 'She's been with me for over thirty years now. She's the only woman who knows what I really look like I Jane, I want to talk to you.' Miss Marple leant forward a little. Her face took on a receptive expression. She looked, somehow, an incongruous figure in the ornate bedroom of the expensive hotel suite. She was dressed in rather dowdy black, carried a large shopping bag and looked every inch a lady.

'I'm worried, Jane. About Carrie Louise.' 'Carrie Louise?' Miss Marple repeated the name musingly. The sound of it took her a long way back.

The pensionnat in Florence. Herself, the pink and white English girl from a Cathedral Close. The two Martin girls, Americans, exciting to the English girl because of their quaint ways of speech and their forthright manner and vitality. Ruth, tall, eager, on top of the world; Carrie Louise, small, dainty, wistful.

'When did you see her last, Jane?'

'Oh! not for many many years. It must be twenty-five at least. Of course we still send cards at Christmas.'

Such an odd thing, friendship! She, young Jane Marple, and the two Americans. Their ways diverging almost at once, and yet the old affection persisting; occasional letters, remembrances at Christmas. Strange that Ruth whose home - or rather homes - had been in America should be the sister whom she had seen the more often of the two. No, perhaps not strange. Like most Americans of her class, Ruth had been cosmopolitan, every year or two she had come over to Europe, rushing from London to Paris, on to the Riviera, and back again, and always keen to snatch a few moments wherever she was with her old friends. There had been many meetings like this one. In Claridge's, or the Savoy, or the Berkeley, or the Dorchester. A recherchmeal, affectionate remin-iscences, and a hurried and affectionate goodbye. Ruth had never had time to visit St Mary Mead. Miss Marple had not, indeed, ever expected it. Everyone's life has a tempo. Ruth's was presto whereas Miss Marple's was content to be adagio.

So it was American Ruth whom she had seen most of, whereas Carrie Louise who lived in England, she had not now seen for over twenty years. Odd, but quite natural, because when one lives in the same country there is no need to arrange meetings with old friends. One assumes that, sooner or later, one will see them without contri-vance.

Only, if you move in different spheres, that does not happen. The paths of Jane Marple and Carrie Louise did not cross. It was as simple as that.

'Why are you worried about Carrie Louise, Ruth?' asked Miss Marple.

'In a way that's what worries me most! I just don't know.' 'She's not ill?' 'She's very delicate - always has been. I wouldn't say she'd been any worse than usual - considering that she's getting on just as we all are.' 'Unhappy?' 'Oh no.' No, it wouldn't be that, thought Miss Marple. It would be difficult to imagine Carrie Louise unhappy and yet there were times in her life when she must have been. Only - the picture did not come clearly. Bewildered - yes - incredulous - yes - but violent grief - no.

Mrs Van Rydock's words came appositely.

'Carrie Louise,' she said, 'has always lived right out of this world. She doesn't know what it's like. Maybe it's that that worries me.' 'Her circumstances,' began Miss Marple, then stopped, shaking her head. 'No,' she said.

'No, it's she herself,' said Ruth Van Rydock. 'Carrie Louise was always the one of us who had ideals. Of course it was the fashion when we were young to have ideals - we all had them, it was the proper thing for young girls. You were going to nurse lepers, Jane, and I was going to be a nun. One gets over all that nonsense. Marriage, I suppose one might say, knocks it out of one. Still, take it by and large, I haven't done badly out of marriage.' Miss Marple thought that Ruth was expressing it mildly. Ruth had been married three times, each time to an extremely wealthy man, and the resultant divorces had increased her bank balance without in the least souring her disposition.

'Of course,' said Mrs Van Rydock, 'I've always been tough. Things don't get me down. I've not expected too much of life and certainly not expected too much of men - and I've done very well out of it - and no hard feelings.

Tommy and I are still excellent friends, and Julius often asks me my opinion about the market.' Her face darkened.

'I believe that's what worries me about Carrie Louise - she's always had a tendency, you know, to marry cranks.' 'Cranks?' 'People with ideals. Carrie Louise was always a pushover for ideals. There she was, as pretty as they make them, just seventeen and listening with her eyes as big as saucers to old Gulbrandsen holding forth about his plans for the human race. Over fifty, and she married him, a widower with a familyof grown-up children - all because of his philanthropic ideas. She used to sit listening to him spellbound. Just like Desdemona and Othello. Only fortunately there was no Iago about to mess things up and anyway Gulbrandsen wasn't coloured. He was a Swede or a Norwegian or something.' Miss Marple nodded thoughtfully. The name of Gulbrandsen had an international significance. A man who with shrewd business acumen and perfect honesty had built up a fortune so colossal that really philanthropy had been the only solution to the disposal of it. The name still held significance. The Gulbrandsen Trust, the Gulbrandsen Research Fellowships, the Gulbrandsen Administrative Almshouses, and best known of all the vast educational College for the sons of working men.

'She didn't marry him for his money, you know,' said Ruth, 'I should have if I'd married him at all. But not Carrie Louise. I don't know what would have happened if he hadn't died when she was thirty-two. Thirty-two's a very nice age for a widow. She's got experience, but she's still adaptable.'