The spinster listening to her, nodded gently whilst her mind revived, tentatively, widows she had known in the village of St Mary Mead.

'I was really happiest about Carrie Louise when she was married to Johnnie Restarick. Of course he married her for her money - or if not exactly that, at any rate he wouldn't have married her if she hadn't had any. Johnnie was a selfish, pleasure-loving, lazy hound, but that's so much safer than a crank. All Johnnie wanted was to live soft. He wanted Carrie Louise to go to the best dressmak-ers and have yachts and cars and enjoy herself with him.

That kind of man is so very safe. Give him comfort and luxury and he'll purr like a cat and be absolutely charming to you. I never took that scene designing and theatrical stuff of his very seriously. But Carrie Louise was thrilled by it - saw it all as Art with a capital A and really forced him back into those surroundings, and then that dreadful Yugoslavian woman got hold of him and just swept him off with her. He didn't really want to go.

If Carrie Louise had waited and been sensible, he would have come back to her.'

'Did she care very much?' asked Miss Marple.

'That's the funny thing. I don't really believe she did.

She was absolutely sweet about it all - but then she would be. She is sweet. Quite anxious to divorce him so that he and that creature could get married. And offering to give those two boys of his by his first marriage a home with her because it would be more settled for them. So there poor Johnrie was - he had to marry the woman and she led him da awful six months and then drove him over a precipice in a car in a fit of rage. They said it was an accident, but I think it was just temper!' Mrs Van Rydock paused, took up a mirror and gazed at her face searchingly. She picked up her eyebrow tweezers and pulled out a hair.

'Arid what does Carrie Louise do next but marry this man Lewis Serrocold. Another crank! Another man with ideals! Oh, I don't say he isn't devoted to her - I think he is - lput he's bitten by that same bug of wanting to improve everybody's lives for them. And really, you know, nobody can do that but yourself.' 'I vonder,' said Miss Marple.

'Orfly, of course, there's a fashion in these things, just like tlaere is in clothes. (My dear, have you seen what Christian Dior is trying to make us wear in the way of skirts?) Where was I? Oh yes, Fashion. Well there's a fashion in philanthropy too. It used to be education in Gulbfandsen's day. But that's out of date now. The State has stepped in. Everyone expects education as a matter of right - and doesn't think much of it when they get it!

Juvenile Delinquency - that's what is the rage nowadays.

All these young criminals and potential criminals. Everyone'S mad about them. You should see Lewis Serro-cold's eyes sparkle behind those thick glasses of his.

Crazy with enthusiasm! One of those men of enormous will power who like living on a banana and a piece of toast and pm all their energies into a Cause. And Carrie Louise eats it up - just as she always did. But I don't like it, Jane.

They've had meetings of the Trustees and the whole place has been turned over to this new idea. It's a training establishment now for these juvenile criminals, complete with psychiatrists and psychologists and all the rest of it.

There Lewis and Carrie Louise are, living there, surrounded by these boys - who aren't perhaps quite normal. And the place stiff with occupational therapists and teachers and enthusiasts, half of them quite mad.

Cranks, all the lot of them, and my little Carrie Louise in the middle of it all!' She paused - and stared helplessly at Miss Marple.

Miss Marple said in a faintly puzzled voice: 'But you haven't told me yet, Ruth, what you are really afraid of.' 'I tell you, I don't know! And that's what worries me.

I've just been down there - for a flying visit. And I felt all along that there was something wrong. In the atmosphere - in the house - I know I'm not mistaken. I'm sensitive to atmosphere, always have been. Did I ever tell you how I urged Julius to sell out of Amalgamated Cereals before the crash came? And wasn't I right? Yes, something is wrong down there. But I don't know why or what - if it's these dreadful young jailbirds - or if it's nearer home. I can't say what it is. There's Lewis just living for his ideas and not noticing anything else, and Carrie Louise, bless her, never seeing or hearing or thinking anything except what's a lovely sight, or a lovely sound, or a lovely thought. It's sweet but it isn't practical. There is such a thing as evil - and I want you, Jane, to go down there right away and find out just exactly what's the matter.' The?' exclaimed Miss Marple. 'Why me?' 'Because you've got a nose for that sort of thing. You always had. You've always been a sweet innocent-looking creature, Jane, and all the time underneath nothing has ever surprised you, you always believe the worst.' "The worst is so often true,' murmured Miss Marple.

'Why you have such a poor idea of human nature, I can't think - living in that sweet peaceful village of yours, so old world and pure.'

'You have never lived in a village, Ruth. The things that go on in a pure peaceful village would probably surprise you.'

'Oh I daresay. My point is that they don't surprise you.

So you will go down to Stonygates and find out what's wrong, won't you?'

'But, Ruth dear, that would be a most difficult thing to do.'

'No, it wouldn't. I've thought it all out. If you won't be absolutely mad at me, I've prepared the ground already.'

Mrs Van Rydock paused, eyed Miss Marple rather uneasily, lighted a cigarette, and plunged rather ner-vously into explanation.

'You'll admit, I'm sure, that things have been difficult in this country since the war, for people with small fixed incomes - for people like you, that is to say, Jane.'

'Oh yes, indeed. But for the kindness, the really great kindness of my nephew Raymond, I don't know really where I should be.'

'Never mind your nephew,' said Mrs Van Rydock.

'Carrie Louise knows nothing about your nephew - or if she does, she knows him as a writer and has no idea that he's your nephew. The point, as I put it to Carrie Louise, is that it's just too bad about dear Jane. Really sometimes hardly enough to eat, and of course, far too proud ever to appeal to old friends. One couldn't, I said, suggest money - but a nice long rest in lovely surroundings, with an old friend and with plenty of nourishing food, and no cares or worries' - Ruth Van Rydock paused and then added defiantly, 'Now go on - be mad at me if you want to be.' Miss Marple opened her china blue eyes in gentle surprise.

'But why should I be mad at you, Ruth? A very ingenious and plausible approach. I'm sure Carrie Louise responded.' 'She's writing to you. You'll find the letter when you get back. Honestly, Jane, you don't feel that I've taken an unpardonable liberty? You won't mind ' She hesitated and Miss Marple put her thoughts deftly into words.

'Going to Stonygates as an object of charity - more or less under false pretences? Not in the least - if it is necessary. You think it is necessary - and I am inclined to agree with you.' Mrs Van Rydock stared at her.

'But why? What have you heard?' 'I haven't heard anything. It's just your conviction.

You're not a fanciful woman, Ruth.' 'No, but I haven't anything definite to go upon.' 'I remember,' said Miss Marple thoughtfully, 'one Sunday morning at church - it was the second Sunday in Advent - sitting behind Grace Lamble and feeling more and more worried about her. Quite sure, you know, that something was wrong - badly wrong - and yet being quite unable to say why. A most disturbing feeling and very very definite.' 'And was there something wrong?' 'Oh yes. Her father, the old Admiral, had been very peculiar for some time, and the very next day he went for her with the coal hammer, roaring Out that she was Antichrist masquerading as his daughter. He nearly killed her. They took him away to the asylum and she eventually recovered after months in hospital - but it was a very near thing.'