They Do It With Mirrors Read Online Free

be long.”
    Miss Marple fancied that her new acquaintance was not too pleased about this. It was as if Buckingham Palace had been dismissed as no more important than 3 Laburnum Road.
    He said, “The railways get more impossible every day!”
    Guiding Miss Marple towards the exit, he said: “I’m Edgar Lawson. Mrs. Serrocold asked me to meet you. I help Mr. Serrocold in his work.”
    There was again the faint insinuation that a busy and important man had, very charmingly, put important affairs on one side out of chivalry to his employer’s wife.
    And again the impression was not wholly convincing—it had a theatrical flavour.
    Miss Marple began to wonder about Edgar Lawson.
    They came out of the station and Edgar guided the old lady to where a rather elderly Ford V.8 was standing.
    He was just saying, “Will you come in front with me, or would you prefer the back?” when there was a diversion.
    A new gleaming two-seater Rolls Bentley came purring into the station yard and drew up in front of the Ford. A very beautiful young woman jumped out of it and came across to them. The fact that she wore dirty corduroy slacks and a simple aertex shirt open at the neck seemed somehow to enhance the fact that she was not only beautiful but expensive.
    â€œThere you are, Edgar. I thought I wouldn’t make it in time. I see you’ve got Miss Marple. I came to meet her.” She smiled dazzlingly at Miss Marple showing a row of lovely teeth in a sunburnt southern face. “I’m Gina,” she said. “Carrie Louise’s granddaughter. What was your journey like? Simply foul? What a nice string bag. I love string bags. I’ll take it and the coats and then you can get in better.”
    Edgar’s face flushed. He protested.
    â€œLook here, Gina, I came to meet Miss Marple. It was all arranged….”
    Again the teeth flashed in that wide, lazy smile.
    â€œOh I know, Edgar, but I suddenly thought it would be nice if I came along. I’ll take her with me and you can wait and bring her cases up.”
    She slammed the door on Miss Marple, ran round to the other side, jumped in the driving seat, and they purred swiftly out of the station.
    Looking back, Miss Marple noticed Edgar Lawson’s face.
    â€œI don’t think, my dear,” she said, “that Mr. Lawson is very pleased.”
    Gina laughed.
    â€œEdgar’s a frightful idiot,” she said. “Always so pompous about things. You’d really think he mattered! ”
    Miss Marple asked, “Doesn’t he matter?”
    â€œEdgar?” There was an unconscious note of cruelty in Gina’s scornful laugh. “Oh, he’s bats anyway.”
    â€œBats?”
    â€œThey’re all bats at Stonygates,” said Gina. “I don’t mean Lewis and Grandam and me and the boys—and not Miss Bellever, of course. But the others. Sometimes I feel I’m going a bit bats myself living there. Even Aunt Mildred goes out on walks and mutters to herself all the time—and you don’t expect a Canon’s widow to do that, do you?”
    They swung out of the station approach and accelerated up the smooth-surfaced, empty road. Gina shot a swift, sideways glance at her companion.
    â€œYou were at school with Grandam, weren’t you? It seems so queer.”
    Miss Marple knew perfectly what she meant. To youth it seems very odd to think that age was once young and pigtailed and struggled with decimals and English literature.
    â€œIt must,” said Gina with awe in her voice, and obviously not meaning to be rude, “have been a very long time ago.”
    â€œYes, indeed,” said Miss Marple. “You feel that more with me than you do with your grandmother, I expect?”
    Gina nodded. “It’s cute of you saying that. Grandam, you know, gives one a curiously ageless feeling.”
    â€œIt is a long time since I’ve seen her. I wonder if I shall find her