"A mystery." Raymond West exhaled a cloud of smoke and repeated in a self-admiring, unhurried tone: "It's a mystery." He looked around with satisfaction.The house was old and the beams of the roof had turned black.The room is furnished with furniture belonging to that era, and the workmanship is exquisite.Raymond West looked approvingly.As a writer, he likes perfection.He always found that comfort in Aunt Jane's room because she furnished it with character.He glanced over and saw that she was sitting upright on the chair left by her grandfather by the fireplace.Miss Marple wore a black brocade gown, tightly cinched at the waist and mechling lace cascading down the skirt.Instead of black mitts, she wore a black lace cap over her coiled snow-white hair.She was knitting a white, soft cashmere fabric, and watched her nephew and his friends lovingly with her God-given blue eyes.There was a hint of joy in his eyes.Her eyes rest first on Raymond, who is suave and shy.Then there was Joyce Raymond-Pierre, a painter with cropped hair and strange hazel-green eyes.Lastly was the well-groomed Sir Henry Clithering.There were two other people in the room: Dr. Pender, the old vicar of the parish; and Mr. Patrick, a lawyer, a small, wizened man with spectacles through which he saw, not through them, but through them. Check it out.Miss Marple only took a moment to observe these guests, and soon, with a smile on her lips, she resumed her work.

Patrick coughed a few times, usually, this is the prelude to his speech. "Raymond, what are you talking about? Mystery, huh? What's the matter?" "Nothing," said Joyce Raymond-Pierre. "Raymond just likes the sound of his voice when he says those words." Raymond West shot her a reproachful look, and she smiled and turned her head back. "He's playing tricks. Surely you agree with me, Miss Marple, don't you?" she asked. Miss Marple gave her a friendly smile without answering. "Life itself is an insoluble mystery," said the pastor softly.

Raymond stood up from his seat and threw away the cigarette butt with an impulsive gesture. "That's not what I'm talking about, I'm not talking about a philosophical question, I'm saying a baffling true thing that no one has found an answer to yet." Miss Marple said: "I have a strange thing to tell you too. Mrs. Carrolls had a strange thing happen yesterday morning. She bought a half pint of spirits at Elliott's." Picked the prawns, then went to two other stores, and when she got home, she found the prawns were gone. She went back to the two stores she had been to, but the prawns were missing, which was weird."

"A doubtful thing," muttered Henry Clithering. Miss Marple continued: "Of course, there may be many explanations." When she said this, her cheeks were slightly flushed with excitement, "For example, someone—" "My dear aunt," Raymond interrupted, feeling amused, "of course I'm not talking about little things that happen in the country. I'm talking about a murder, and the murderer disappeared without a trace. No trace. A case of this kind, if Sir Henry is interested, may tell us a thing or two." "Oh, no, no, I'm sorry," said Sir Henry modestly. "I'm not very good at it either."

Sir Henry Clithering was former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Metropolitan Police. Joyce Raymond-Pierre said: "There are a lot of murders that the police don't solve." "It's a well-known fact, I believe," Patrick said. Raymond West said: "I've always wondered, what kind of intelligence does it take to successfully unravel these mysteries? People think that lack of imagination slows down the progress of police investigations." "That's a layman's point of view," said Sir Henry dryly. "You need a committee to make a decision," Joyce said with a smile, "because psychology and imagination are the province of writers..."

She nodded to Raymond with a mocking tone, and continued seriously: "The art of writing is that it allows you to gain insight into human nature, and a writer can see through motives that others tend to overlook." She said this Sometimes the voice is not high. "I know, dear," replied Miss Marple softly, "your book is wonderful, but do you really think that everyone is as unhappy as the characters in your book?" "My dear aunt," said Raymond in a soft tone, "keep your faith! God forgive me if I have offended it in any way." "I mean," explained Miss Marple, frowning slightly, counting the stitches of the knitting, "that most people, in my opinion, are neither good nor bad, but, you know, some Just paint it."

Patrick coughed dryly again. "Raymond," he said, "don't you think you place too much value on imagination? We laymen know all too well that imagination is a dangerous thing. Look at each event without prejudice and find out Evidence, and processing it, is to me the only logical way to get to the truth. I should say, in my experience, that's the only way to get it right." "Crap!" cried Joyce, throwing his head back in anger. "I bet you lose this time. If you don't like to hear it, we women have a first thing you men ignore. Six senses. I'm not just a woman, I'm an artist, I can see things you can't see. Also, as an artist I've experienced life with different people, in different environments, and I know those A life that Miss Marple doesn't understand."

Miss Marple said: "My dear, I don't know all the misfortunes that happen in the country." "May I interject?" Dr. Pender asked with a smile. "I know it's fashionable to disparage priests these days, but we pastors have an ear to listen, and we understand the other side of human nature. To the outside world, this One side is still an unsealed secret.” "Well!" said Joyce, "I see that we are all spokesmen for our respective professions. Now that we are together, why not form a club, meet once a week, and each take turns telling a mystery of his own experience, Of course, I have to answer the riddle myself. Let me see how many of us there are, one, two, three, four, five, we have a total of six people."

"My dear, you've forgotten me," said Miss Marple, smiling broadly. Joyce was at a loss for words for a moment, but she quickly realized that she said: "That's great, Miss Marple, I thought you weren't interested." "It will be interesting," said Miss Marple, "especially with so many bright gentlemen attending. I'm afraid I'm not as bright as you guys, but living at St Mary Mead all these years has given me an insight into human nature." "I'm sure, your joining will be very valuable." Henry said graciously. "So who to start with?" Joyce said.

Dr. Pender went on: "That's not a problem at all, since we've had the good fortune to be with a man as distinguished as Sir Henry..." He stopped and nodded respectfully in the direction where Sir Henry was.A silence followed, and at last Sir Henry sighed, folded his legs, and began his story. "It's difficult for me to pick just one that people like to hear, but since it's decided, I just have a case that fits the occasion. Maybe you've heard of it, and it's It was published in the newspaper a few years ago, but it was shelved because I couldn’t find the answer to the mystery. Coincidentally, a few days ago, I had the answer.”

"It happened very simply. The three of us had dinner at the same table. There was, among other things, canned lobsters on the table. All three fell ill during the night. A doctor came to give them first aid and they both recovered. , while the third died." "Ah!" Raymond echoed. "As I said, it was a simple matter, the cause of death was food poisoning, many indications point to that, the deceased was subsequently buried, but it didn't end there." Miss Marple nodded. "I think there's got to be a saying," she said, "that's how it goes with everything." "I will now describe the characters of the tragedy. The husband and wife I will tentatively call Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and the other Mrs. Jones' companion, Miss Clark. Mr. Jones was a salesman for a chemical manufacturing company. Fifty Aged, well-dressed, but vulgar; his wife was an ordinary woman, about forty-five; You may say that these people are so plain that people feel uninteresting. "However, trouble arose in a very strange way. On the night before the accident, Mr. Jones was staying in a hotel in Birmingham. It so happened that the hotel was changing letterheads that day, and the waitress was idle, so she managed to read the old Mr. Jones had just written a letter the night before. Therefore, some marks were left on the stationery. A few days later, the news of Mrs. Jones' death from food poisoning was published in the newspaper. The waitress told her companions the words she deciphered from the stationery - 'It all depends on my wife... When she dies, I will pay hundreds...thousands...' "You may remember the recent case of a husband poisoning his wife. It only takes a spark to ignite the imaginations of these waiters: Mr Jones wants to get rid of her wife and inherit hundreds... thousands of pounds. As it happens Well, one of those waitresses happened to have relatives in the same town where the Joneses lived. She wrote and told them all she knew, and they wrote back and told her that Mr. Jones seemed to be in love with the daughter of a local doctor. , she was beautiful and thirty-three years old. Rumors arose. Petitions were made to the Home Secretary, and letters were flooded into the Metropolitan Police, accusing Mr Jones of murdering his wife. We always thought that behind all this gossip there must be Something, anyway, in order to quell these rumours, the authorities are preparing for an exhumation. This is one of those cases where the public's unfounded suspicions have been filed and their suspicions have been astonishingly confirmed. The autopsy proves The late Mrs. Jones died of arsenic poisoning. So the Metropolitan Police and the local police jointly investigated who poisoned it and how." "Aha!" said Joyce, "I love this, it's real material." "The first suspect is of course her husband. He can benefit from the death of his wife. Although it is not as much as the waitress imagined, it is well documented that it is eight thousand pounds. He is not a rich man. Apart from the monthly income, he has no other income, and he is still a man who likes to hang out with women. We have done a detailed investigation on the rumors about him and the doctor's daughter. However, it is very clear that they had Two months before the accident, they broke up suddenly. Since then, they seem to have never met again. And the old doctor is a gentleman who never doubts people. When he heard the dead body Surprised at the autopsy report. He was called to treat three people in the middle of the night when they had food poisoning. As soon as he arrived at Jones' home, he immediately found that Mrs. Jones was in serious condition. He immediately called someone to his clinic to get anesthesia pills to ease her pain. Despite the doctors' efforts, she died. He never suspected that he had done something wrong. He believed that her death was caused by ingestion of some kind of botulism Caused by food. The dinner that day was canned prawns, salad, cake, bread and cheese. Unfortunately, there was no canned prawns left, and they were all eaten up, even the jars were thrown away. So he He went to ask the young female chef, she panicked, kept crying, and was very disturbed. He found that the female chef could not answer the question directly, but only said it over and over again. The shrimp didn't spoil. "That's all we know, assuming Mr Jones wanted to poison his wife, obviously he couldn't do anything at dinner because all three ate the same food. Besides, Jones was the He just got back from Birmingham when it was already on the table, so he couldn't have messed with the food beforehand." "And the company?" Joyce asked. "And the fat woman with the big smile?" Sir Henry nodded. "I haven't forgotten Miss Clark, I assure you. But what is her motive is inexplicable. Mrs. Jones left her no inheritance, and the death of her master will only leave her unemployed." .” "In this case, she should be excluded." Joyce mused. "Now one of my investigators has discovered a crucial fact," continued Sir Henry. "Mr. Jones went down to the kitchen after dinner that day. His wife said she was not feeling well and wanted a bowl of polenta. He Waiting in the kitchen until the polenta was cooked by the cook, Gladys Lynch, and he brought it upstairs to his wife himself. I think this may be the 'eyes' of the case." The lawyer nodded. "Motivation," he said, flicking the cigarette butt out between his fingers, "and chance, as a salesman in a chemical factory, it's not difficult to get some poison." "A ruffian," said the priest. Raymond West stared at Mr. Henry and said, "There must be something wrong here. Why don't you arrest him?" Sir Henry just smiled wryly. "That's the sad part of the case. So far so good, we've run into trouble. Jones hasn't been arrested because Miss Clarke told us at the interrogation that Mrs. Jones didn't drink She drank that bowl of polenta." "Yes, it seems to be her habit to go to Mrs. Jones' room. When she got to the master's room, she was sitting up on the bed with the bowl of polenta next to her." "The lady said: 'Millie, I don't feel well, help me up. I think it may be because of the shrimp tonight. I asked Albert to bring me a bowl of porridge, but now I have a little I don’t want to eat either.’” "'It's a pity,' said Miss Clark, 'that the porridge is well done without lumps. Gladys is indeed a good cook. Few girls these days make such good porridge as she does, and I I'm hungry. Even I'm hungry.'” "'You're doing something stupid again,' said Mrs. Jones." "I must explain," said Sir Henry, "that Clark is on a diet because he is too fat." "'It's not good for you to be on such a diet, Millie, really,' persuaded Mrs. Jones. 'If the Lord makes you fat, you can't change it. Drink that bowl of porridge, it's better for you than anything in the world. .'" "Miss Clark finished the bowl of porridge in one gulp. You see, this completely disproved the speculation that the husband was a murderer. As for the words on the letter, he explained without difficulty that the letter was a reply to his brother." , his younger brother in Australia borrowed money from him. He told his younger brother in the letter that the financial power of their family is in the hands of his wife, and he can only control the financial power after his wife dies. If possible, he will then Those who helped him, he was sorry that he could not help him now, and at the same time comforted him by saying that there are hundreds or thousands of people in this world who are in poverty just like him." "So there's no leads in the case?" asked Dr. Pender. "That ends the thread of the case," whispered Sir Henry. "We cannot arrest Mr. Jones because there is no evidence." There was a silence.It was Joyce who broke the silence and said, "It's over? There's nothing else to do?" "The investigation of last year's case can't go on at this point. Now the answer to this mysterious case is in the hands of the Metropolitan Police. In two or three days, you will know the result from the newspapers." "The final answer," said Joyce thoughtfully, "is that each of us thinks about it for five minutes and then speaks up." Raymond West nodded in agreement, looked at the watch on his wrist, five minutes were up, and he looked towards Dr. Pender. "Will you go first?" he said. The old man shook his head and said, "I admit, I'm completely confused. I always feel that the husband is guilty, but I can't imagine how he did it. I guess, he must have fucked his wife in some way." It's just that it was not discovered. Likewise, I can't imagine how the truth of this case is now revealed after such a long time." "Joyce, what about you?" "The companionship," said Joyce firmly, "is quite likely to be her. How would we know her motives? Maybe it's because she's old and ugly and she's secretly in love with Mr. Jones. Come to think of it, as A companion who had to suppress herself and wrap herself up. One day she would burst out when she couldn't bear it anymore. She killed her master, maybe she put arsenic in the bowl, she said she drank the porridge, Totally made up story, she's lying." "Patrick, what do you think?" The lawyer crossed his fingers professionally: "It's hard to make a judgment. Based on the current evidence, I don't know what to say." "You must say something, Mr. Patrick," said Joyce. "You may not be able to make an impartial judgment, but you must play by the rules of our game!" "As far as the evidence is concerned, there's not much to say," Patrick said. "In my career, I've come across many cases like this where the husband was guilty. For this reason, Miss Clark deliberately covered Mr Jones, perhaps there was some agreement about money between them. He expected that he would be suspected, and she, seeing a prosperous future waiting for her, agreed to make up a drink. The story of the bowl of porridge. He gave her a considerable amount of money in private. If that is the case, this case is very unusual and rare." "I don't agree with you," said Raymond, "in this case you have forgotten one of the most important facts—the doctor's daughter. Let me tell you what I think of this case. The big canned Shrimp is bad, it's the stuff that causes the poisoning. The doctor was called in, and he found Mrs. Jones the worst, because she ate more than the others, and then, he sent to his clinic to get narcotic pills. These Henry Sir has told us earlier that it wasn't the doctor himself who went there himself, so who would give the pills to the person who went to get the medicine? Of course the doctor's daughter. She usually dispenses the medicine for her father, and she loves Mr. Jones , at which point all the sinister and vicious sides of her humanity came out. She knew that the chance of his freedom was in her hands, and there was arsenic in the pills she gave, and that was my conclusion." "Sir Henry, is it time for you to tell us the answer to the riddle?" Joyce said impatiently. "Wait a minute," said Henry, "Miss Marple hasn't spoken yet." Miss Marple shook her head sadly. "Oh! oh," she said, "I dropped another needle, and it's a very interesting story, a sad story, a very sad case. It reminds me of old Mr. Hargraves who lived on the Hill." , his wife never suspected him until after his death, leaving all his money to a woman with whom he had lived for a long time. He had five children with this woman, who used to be their housekeeper Mrs. Hargraves used to say that she was a very nice woman, and she could do a good job of housekeeping. Every day, except Friday, of course. Later, Mr. Hargraves installed her in a nearby town, and he Still serving as a parish councilor, and distributing Holy Communion every Sunday as usual." "My dear Aunt Jane," said Raymond impatiently, "what has Mr. Hargraves' death to do with the case?" "This case reminds me of that from the very beginning," said Miss Marple. "It's so similar, isn't it? I suppose the girl confessed, Sir Henry, that's the answer to the riddle you know, don't you?" ?” "Which girl?" asked Raymond. "My dear aunt, what are you talking about?" "That wretched child, Gladys Lynch, was the girl who looked so nervous when the doctor questioned her. Oh! Poor thing, I should have hanged that wretched Jones. He encouraged the maid to become Murderer. I think they'll hang her too, poor thing!" "I think, Miss Marple, you might be screwing something up," Patrick said. Miss Marple shook her head stubbornly and looked at Sir Henry. "Am I right or wrong? I think it's very clear. Those little candied fruit sprinkles on the cake, the cake... I don't think anyone should ignore that." "Well, what's the matter with the cake?" Raymond called. His aunt turned to him and said, "The cooks always put little preserves on top of the cake. Honey, some pink and white sweet things. As soon as I heard they had cake for dinner, the husband gave some People wrote about little candied fruit, and I naturally connected two things, the arsenic was in these little candied fruits. He gave the poison to the maid, and asked her to sprinkle the poisoned candied fruit on the cake superior." "But that's impossible," said Joyce quickly. "They all ate the cake." "Oh, no," said Miss Marple. "The fat lady was on a diet, remember? If you were on a diet, you never ate sweets like cakes. I figured Mr. Jones must have scraped those preserves." Come down and put it aside on the plate. What a brilliant idea! It's just cruel." All eyes were on Sir Henry. "It's an incomprehensible thing," he said slowly, "but Miss Marple happened to discover the truth. Jones got Lynch pregnant, and she was, as they say, in despair. He wanted to get rid of His wife, he promised her that if his wife died, he would marry her. He gave her the candied fruit mixed with arsenic, and told her how to use it. But when it was done, he left her and found a new love. Yes. Lynch just died last week, and the baby died at birth. Before she died, she confessed the truth." After a long silence, Raymond said: "Okay, aunt, there is a question. I can't think of how you guessed the truth. It's really evil. I never thought that the little kitchen servant would be related to this case." "Oh, no, my dear," said Miss Marple, "it's just that you don't know as much about life as I do, a vulgar lecher like Jones, who, when I hear there's a pretty little girl in his house, freaks out." I believe he will not let her go. It is very unfortunate and distressing, and such things are not a good subject for conversation. I cannot describe the shock to Mrs. Hargraves. The cloud of suspicion lingered in the village for nine days. ah."