Pünd remembered their first case together when Fraser had failed to notice that his travelling companion, on the three-fifty train from Paddington, was actually dead.

I held out the packet and suddenly we were friends. That's one of the only good things about being a smoker these days. You're part of a persecuted minority. You bond easily.

I had chosen to play the detective—and if there is one thing that unites all the detectives I've ever read about, it's their inherent loneliness. The suspects know each other. They may well be family or friends. But the detective is always the outsider. He asks the necessary questions but he doesn't actually form a relationship with anyone. He doesn't trust them, and they in turn are afraid of him. It's a relationship based entirely on deception and it's one that, ultimately, goes nowhere. Once the killer has been identified, the detective leaves and is never seen again. In fact, everyone is glad to see the back of him.

I really cannot understand the point of what you're saying. Really,' said Clotilde, looking at her. 'What a very extraordinary person you are. What sort of a woman are you? Why are you talking like this? Who are you?'

Miss Marple pulled down the mass of pink wool that encircled her head, a pink wool scarf of the same kind that she had once worn in the West Indies.

'One of my names,' she said, 'is Nemesis.'

'Nemesis? And what does that mean?'

'I think you know,' said Miss Marple. 'You are a very well educated woman. Nemesis is long delayed sometimes, but it comes in the end.

Why didn't they ask the Evans?

It has just happened that I have found myself in the vicinity of murder rather more often than would seem normal.