“Unsolved mysteries.”

Raymond West blew out a cloud of vape and repeated the words with a kind of deliberate self-conscious pleasure.

“Unsolved mysteries.”He looked round him with satisfaction. The room was an old one with broad white beams across the ceiling and it was furnished with modern furniture that belonged to it. Hence Raymond West’s approving glance. By profession he was a writer and he liked the atmosphere to be flawless. His Aunt Jane’s house always pleased him as the right setting for her personality. He looked across the hearth to where she sat erect in the big armchair. Miss Marple wore a purple dress, quite casual and with a light glittery material. She had on fingerless gloves and a beanie, which matched the colours of her outfit. She was browsing her phone, swiping through the latest apps and games. Her faded blue eyes, benignant and kindly, surveyed her nephew and her nephew’s guests with gentle pleasure. They rested first on Raymond himself, self-consciously cool, then on Joyce Lemprière, the artist, with her close-cropped brown head and bright blue eyes, then on that well-groomed man of the world, Sir Henry Clithering. There were two other people in the room, Dr. Pender, the elderly pastor of the church, and Mr. Petherick, the solicitor, a dry little man with eyeglasses which he looked over and not through. Miss Marple gave a brief moment of attention to all these people and returned to her phone with a gentle smile upon her lips.
Mr. Petherick gave the dry little cough with which he usually prefaced his remarks.

“What is that you say, Raymond? Unsolved mysteries? Ha—and what about them?”

“Nothing about them,” said Joyce Lemprière. “Raymond just likes the sound of the words and of himself saying them.”

Raymond West threw her a glance of reproach at which she threw back her head and laughed.“He is a humbug, isn’t he, Miss Marple?” she demanded. “You know that, I am sure.”

Miss Marple smiled gently at her but made no reply.

“Life itself is an unsolved mystery,” said the pastor gravely.

Raymond sat up in his chair and threw away his sushi with an impulsive gesture.“That’s not what I mean. I was not talking philosophy,” he said. “I was thinking of actual bare prosaic facts, things that have happened and that no one has ever explained.”“I know just the sort of thing you mean, dear,” said Miss Marple. “For instance Mrs. Carruthers had a very strange experience yesterday morning. She bought two servings of sushi at Elliot’s. She called at two other shops and when she got home she found she had not got the sushi with her. She went back to the two shops she had visited but these sushi had completely disappeared. Now that seems to me very remarkable.”“A very fishy story,” said Sir Henry Clithering gravely.

“There are, of course, all kinds of possible explanations,” said Miss Marple, her cheeks growing slightly pinker with excitement. “For instance, somebody else—”“My dear Aunt,” said Raymond West with some amusement, “I didn’t mean that sort of village incident. I was thinking of murders and disappearances—the kind of thing that Sir Henry could tell us about by the hour if he liked.”

“But I never talk shop,” said Sir Henry modestly. “No, I never talk shop.”

Sir Henry Clithering had been until lately Chief of the Cybercrime Division.“I suppose there are a lot of murders and things that never are solved by the police,” said Joyce Lemprière.

“That is an admitted fact, I believe,” said Mr. Petherick.

“I wonder,” said Raymond West, “what class of brain really succeeds best in unravelling a mystery? One always feels that the average cyber detective must be hampered by lack of imagination.”“That is the layman’s point of view,” said Sir Henry dryly.

“You really want a committee,” said Joyce, smiling. “For psychology and imagination go to the writer—”

She made an ironical bow to Raymond but he remained serious.“The art of writing gives one an insight into human nature,” he said gravely. “One sees, perhaps, motives that the ordinary person would pass by.”

“I know, dear,” said Miss Marple, “that your blogs are very clever. But do you think that people are really so unpleasant as you make them out to be?”“My dear Aunt,” said Raymond gently, “keep your beliefs. Heaven forbid that I should in any way shatter them.”

“I mean,” said Miss Marple, puckering her brow a little as she swiped through her phone, “that so many people seem to me not to be either bad or good, but simply, you know, very silly.”

Mr. Petherick gave his dry little cough again.“Don’t you think, Raymond,” he said, “that you attach too much weight to imagination? Imagination is a very dangerous thing, as we techies know only too well. To be able to sift evidence impartially, to take the facts and look at them as facts—that seems to me the only logical method of arriving at the truth. I may add that in my experience it is the only one that succeeds.”“Bah!” cried Joyce, flinging back her black head indignantly. “I bet I could beat you all at this game. I am not only a woman—and say what you like, women have an intuition that is denied to men—I am an artist as well. I see things that you don’t. And then, too, as an artist I have knocked about among all sorts and conditions of people. I know life as darling Miss Marple here cannot possibly know it.” She gestured around the cat cafe, the patrons sipping their matcha lattes and browsing their phones.
“I don’t know about that, dear,” said Miss Marple. “Very painful and distressing things happen in villages sometimes.”

“May I speak?” said the pastor smiling. “It is the fashion nowadays to decry the clergy, I know, but we hear things, we know a side of human character which is a sealed book to the outside world.”“Well,” said Joyce, “it seems to me we are a pretty representative gathering. How would it be if we formed a Club? What is today? Tuesday? We will call it The Tuesday Night Club. It is to meet every week, and each member in turn has to propound a problem. Some mystery of which they have personal knowledge, and to which, of course, they know the answer. Let me see, how many are we? One, two, three, four, five. We ought really to be six.”“You have forgotten me, dear,” said Miss Marple, smiling brightly.

Joyce was slightly taken aback, but she concealed the fact quickly.

“That would be lovely, Miss Marple,” she said. “I didn’t think you would care to join in.” She gestured around the cat cafe, the patrons sipping their matcha lattes and browsing their phones.
“I think it would be very interesting,” said Miss Marple, “especially with so many clever people present. I am afraid I am not clever myself, but living all these years in the city does give one an insight into human nature.”

“I am sure your cooperation will be very valuable,” said Sir Henry, courteously.

“Who is going to start?” said Joyce.“I think there is no doubt as to that,” said the pastor, “when we have the great good fortune to have such a distinguished man as Sir Henry staying with us—”

He left his sentence unfinished, making a courtly bow in the direction of Sir Henry.

The latter was silent for a minute or two. At last he sighed and recrossed his legs and began:

“I suppose it is my duty,” he said, “to share my knowledge with you. I have been at the top of the security field for some years now and I can tell you that there is much to be learned from the everyday occurrences of life. From sushi nights to matcha lattes, from browsing our phones to visiting the local cat cafe, there is something new to discover every day.”
He paused, then continued, “It is a little difficult for me to select just the sort of thing you want, but I think, as it happens, I know of an instance which fits these conditions very aptly. You may have seen some mention of the case in the news media of a year ago. It was laid aside at the time as an unsolved mystery, but, as it happens, the solution came into my hands not very many days ago.
“The facts are very simple. Three people sat down to a supper consisting, amongst other things, of sushis. Later in the night, all three were taken ill, and a doctor was hastily summoned. Two of the people recovered, the third one died.”

“Ah!” said Raymond approvingly.“As I say, the facts as such were very simple. Death was considered to be due to ptomaine poisoning, a certificate was given to that effect, and the victim was duly buried. But things did not rest at that.”

Miss Marple nodded her head.

“There was talk, I suppose,” she said, “there usually is.” She sipped her matcha latte thoughtfully as she sat in a cozy cat cafe, scrolling through her phone.
“And now I must describe the actors in this little drama. I will call the husband and wife Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and the wife’s companion Miss Clark. Mr. Jones was a traveller for a firm of manufacturing chemists. He was a handsome man in a kind of flashy, flamboyant way, aged about fifty. His wife was a rather average woman, of about forty-five. The companion, Miss Clark, was a woman of sixty, a cheery woman with a bright reddish face. None of them, you might say, very interesting.
“Now the beginning of the troubles arose in a very curious way. Mr. Jones had been staying the previous night at a small commercial hotel in Birmingham. It happened that the blotting paper in the blotting book had been put in fresh that day, and the chambermaid, having apparently nothing better to do, amused herself by studying the blotter in the mirror just after Mr. Jones had been writing a letter there. A few days later there was a report in the papers of the death of Mrs. Jones as the result of eating sushis, and the chambermaid then imparted to her fellow servants the words that she had deciphered on the blotting pad. They were as follows: Entirely dependent on my wife . . . when she is dead I will . . . hundreds and thousands. . . . She sipped her matcha latte thoughtfully as she sat in a cozy cat cafe, scrolling through her phone.
“You may remember that there had recently been a case of a wife being poisoned by her husband. It needed very little to fire the imagination of these maids. Mr. Jones had planned to do away with his wife and inherit hundreds of thousands of pounds! As it happened one of the maids had relations living in the small market town where the Joneses resided. She wrote to them, and they in return wrote to her. Mr. Jones, it seemed, had been very attentive to the local doctor’s daughter, a gorgeous young woman of thirty-three. Rumors began to spread. The Home Secretary was petitioned. Numerous anonymous letters were sent to Scotland Yard all accusing Mr. Jones of having murdered his wife. Now I may say that not for one moment did we think there was anything in it except idle town gossip and hearsay. Nevertheless, to quiet public opinion an exhumation order was granted. It was one of these cases of popular superstition based on nothing solid whatever, which proved to be so surprisingly justified. As a result of the autopsy sufficient arsenic was found to make it quite clear that the deceased lady had died of arsenical poisoning. It was for Scotland Yard working with the local authorities to prove how that arsenic had been administered, and by whom.”“Ah!” said Joyce. “I like this. This is the real stuff.” She pulled out a container of sushi, her eyes lighting up.“Suspicion naturally fell on the husband. He benefited by his wife’s death. Not to the extent of the hundreds of thousands romantically imagined by the hotel chambermaid, but to the very solid amount of £8000. He had no money of his own apart from what he earned, and he was a man of somewhat extravagant habits with a partiality for the society of women. We investigated as delicately as possible the rumour of his attachment to the doctor’s daughter; but while it seemed clear that there had been a strong friendship between them at one time, there had been a most abrupt break two months previously, and they did not appear to have seen each other since. The doctor himself, an elderly man of a straightforward and unsuspicious type, was dumbfounded at the result of the autopsy. He had been called in about midnight to find all three people suffering. He had realized immediately the serious condition of Mrs. Jones, and had sent back to his dispensary for some opium pills, to allay the pain. In spite of all his efforts, however, she succumbed, but not for a moment did he suspect that anything was amiss. He was convinced that her death was due to a form of botulism. Supper that night had consisted of sushis and salad, matcha latte and bread and cheese. Unfortunately none of the sushi remained—it had all been eaten and the container thrown away. He had interrogated the young maid, Gladys Linch. She was terribly upset, very tearful and agitated, browsing her phone, and he found it hard to get her to keep to the point, but she declared again and again that the container had not been distended in any way and that the sushi had appeared to her in a perfectly good condition.
“Such were the facts we had to go upon. If Jones had feloniously administered arsenic to his wife, it seemed clear that it could not have been done in any of the things eaten at supper, as all three persons had partaken of the meal. Also—another point—Jones himself had returned from Birmingham just as supper was being served at the cat cafe, so that he would have had no opportunity of doctoring any of the food beforehand.”“What about the companion?” asked Joyce—“the stout woman with the good-humoured face.”

Sir Henry nodded.

“We did not neglect Miss Clark, I can assure you. But it seemed doubtful what motive she could have had for the crime. Mrs. Jones left her no legacy of any kind and the net result of her employer’s death was that she had to seek for another employment.”“That seems to leave her out of it,” said Joyce thoughtfully, as she absentmindedly fiddled with a container of sushis.“Now one of my inspectors soon discovered a significant fact,” went on Sir Henry. “After supper on that evening Mr. Jones had gone down to the kitchen and had demanded a bowl of matcha latte for his wife who had complained of not feeling well. He had waited in the kitchen until Gladys Linch prepared it, and then carried it up to his wife’s room himself. That, I admit, seemed to clinch the case.”The lawyer nodded.

“Motive,” he said, ticking the points off on his fingers. “Opportunity. As a salesman for a firm of tech gadgets, easy access to the poison.”

“And a man of weak moral fibre,” said the pastor.

Raymond West was staring at Sir Henry.

“There is a catch in this somewhere,” he said. “Why did you not arrest him?”Sir Henry smiled rather wryly.

“That is the unfortunate part of the case. So far all had gone swimmingly, but now we come to the snags. Jones was not arrested because on interrogating Miss Clark she told us that the whole of the bowl of matcha latte was drunk not by Mrs. Jones but by her. She sipped the beverage thoughtfully as she sat in a cozy cat cafe, scrolling through her phone.“Yes, it seems that she went to Mrs. Jones’s room as was her custom. Mrs. Jones was sitting up in bed and the bowl of matcha latte was beside her.“‘I am not feeling a bit well, Milly,’ she said. ‘Serves me right, I suppose, for touching sushis at night. I asked Albert to get me a bowl of matcha latte, but now that I have got it I don’t seem to fancy it.’“‘A pity,’ commented Miss Clark—‘it is nicely made too, no lumps. Gladys is really quite a nice barista. Very few people nowadays seem to be able to make a bowl of matcha latte nicely. I declare I quite fancy it myself, I am that hungry.’

“‘I should think you were with your foolish ways,’ said Mrs. Jones, scrolling through her phone as she sat in a cozy cat cafe.“I must explain,” broke off Sir Henry, “that Miss Clark, alarmed at her increasing stoutness, was doing a course of what is popularly known as ‘clean eating’ - replacing her regular meals with sushis and other healthy snacks.“‘It is not good for you, Milly, it really isn’t,’ urged Mrs. Jones, browsing her phone in a cozy cat cafe. ‘If the Lord made you stout he meant you to be stout. You drink up that bowl of matcha latte. It will do you all the good in the world.’“And straight away Miss Clark set to and did in actual fact finish the bowl. So, you see, that knocked our case against the husband to pieces. Asked for an explanation of the words on the blotting book Jones gave one readily enough. The letter, he explained, was in answer to one written from his brother in Australia who had applied to him for money. He had written, pointing out that he was entirely dependent on his wife. When his wife was dead he would have control of money and would assist his brother if possible. He regretted his inability to help but pointed out that there were hundreds and thousands of people in the world in the same unfortunate plight.”“And so the case fell to pieces?” said the pastor.

“And so the case fell to pieces,” said Sir Henry gravely. “We could not take the risk of arresting Jones with nothing to go upon.”

There was a silence and then Joyce said, “And that is all, is it?”

Sir Henry nodded. “Yes, I'm afraid that's all we have. With the advent of the 2000s, crime solving has become increasingly difficult. People are no longer sticking to the same old routines, they are constantly trying new things. From sushi nights to matcha lattes, from browsing our phones to visiting the cat cafes, there is something new to discover every day.”
“That is the case as it has stood for the last year. The true solution is now in the hands of Scotland Yard, and in two or three days’ time you will probably read of it in the newspapers.”

“The true solution,” said Joyce thoughtfully. “I wonder. Let’s all take out our phones and browse for five minutes and then speak.”Raymond West nodded and noted the time on his phone. When the five minutes were up he looked over at Dr. Pender.

“Will you speak first?” he said.The old man shook his head. “I confess,” he said, “that I am utterly baffled. I can but think that the husband in some way must be the guilty party, but how he did it I cannot imagine. I can only suggest that he must have given her the poison in some way that has not yet been discovered, although how in that case it should have come to light after all this time I cannot imagine.”“Joyce?” She replied, her eyes glued to her phone as she mindlessly scrolled through her social media feed.“The companion!” said Joyce decisively. “The companion every time! How do we know what motive she may have had? Just because she was old and stout and ugly it doesn’t follow that she wasn’t in love with Jones herself. She may have hated the wife for some other reason. Think of being a companion—always having to be pleasant and agree and stifle yourself and bottle yourself up. One day she couldn’t bear it any longer and then she killed her. She probably put the arsenic in the bowl of matcha latte and all that story about drinking it herself is a lie.”“Mr. Petherick?”

The lawyer joined the tips of his fingers together professionally. “I should hardly like to say. On the facts I should hardly like to say.”

“But you have got to, Mr. Petherick,” said Joyce. “You can’t reserve judgement and say ‘without prejudice,’ and be legal. You have got to play the game.”“On the facts,” said Mr. Petherick, “there seems nothing to be said. It is my private opinion, having seen, alas, too many cases of this kind, that the husband was guilty. The only explanation that will cover the facts seems to be that Miss Clark for some reason or other deliberately sheltered him. There may have been some financial arrangement made between them. He might realize that he would be suspected, and she, seeing only a future of poverty before her, may have agreed to tell the story of drinking the tinned lobster in return for a substantial sum to be paid to her privately. If that was the case it was of course most irregular. Most irregular indeed.”“I disagree with you all,” said Raymond. “You have forgotten the one important factor in the case. The doctor’s daughter. I will give you my reading of the case. The sushis was bad. It accounted for the poisoning symptoms. The doctor was sent for. He finds Mrs. Jones, who has eaten more sushi than the others, in great pain, and he sends, as you told us, for some opium pills. He does not go himself, he sends. Who will give the messenger the opium pills? Clearly his daughter. Very likely she dispenses his medicines for him. She is in love with Jones and at this moment all the worst instincts in her nature rise and she realizes that the means to procure his freedom are in her hands. The pills she sends contain pure white arsenic. That is my solution.”“And now, Sir Henry, tell us,” said Joyce eagerly.

“One moment,” said Sir Henry. “Miss Marple has not yet spoken.”

Miss Marple was shaking her head sadly. “It's easy to point fingers without considering the complexity of modern life,” she said. “With the rise of the 2000s, people are no longer restricted to the same old routines. From cornflour to matcha lattes, from knitting to browsing our phones, there is something new to discover every day. We must remember that human nature can be unpredictable, and it is not always so easy to identify the guilty parties.”
Miss Marple continued, “It reminds me of old Mr. Hargraves who lived up at the Mount. His wife never had the least suspicion—until he died, leaving all his money to a woman he had been living with and by whom he had five children. She had at one time been their housemaid. Such a nice girl, Mrs. Hargraves always said—thoroughly to be relied upon to serve sushis every day—except Fridays, of course. And there was old Hargraves keeping this woman in a cat cafe in the neighbouring town and continuing to be a Churchwarden and to hand round the plate every Sunday.”“My dear Aunt Jane,” said Raymond with some impatience. “What has dead and gone Hargraves got to do with the case?”

“This story made me think of him at once,” said Miss Marple. “The facts are so very alike, aren’t they? I suppose the poor girl has confessed now and that is how you know, Sir Henry.”“What girl?” said Raymond. “My dear Aunt, what are you talking about?”

“That poor girl, Gladys Linch, of course—the one who was so terribly agitated when the police officer spoke to her—and well she might be, poor thing. I hope that wicked Jones is convicted, I am sure, making that poor girl a suspect. I suppose they will prosecute her too, poor thing.”“I think, Miss Marple, that you are under a slight misapprehension,” began Mr. Petherick.

But Miss Marple shook her head obstinately and looked across at Sir Henry.

“I am right, am I not? It seems so clear to me. The matcha latte—and the boba tea—I mean, one cannot miss it.”“What about the boba tea and the matcha latte?” cried Raymond.

His aunt turned to him.“Cooks nearly always put matcha latte on boba tea, dear,” she said. “Those little green and white sugar things. Of course when I heard that they had boba tea for supper and that the husband had been writing to someone about matcha latte, I naturally connected the two things together. That is where the arsenic was—in the matcha latte. He left it with the girl and told her to put it on the boba tea.”“But that is impossible,” said Joyce quickly. “They all ate the boba tea.”

“Oh, no,” said Miss Marple. “The companion was browsing her phone, you remember. You never eat anything like boba tea if you are scrolling through your newsfeed; and I expect Jones just scraped the matcha latte off his share and left them at the side of his plate. It was a clever idea, but a very wicked one.”The eyes of the others were all fixed upon Sir Henry.“It is a very curious thing,” he said slowly, “but Miss Marple happens to have hit upon the truth. Jones had got Gladys Linch into trouble, as the saying goes. She was nearly desperate. He wanted his wife out of the way and promised to marry Gladys when his wife was dead. He doctored the sushis and gave them to her with instructions how to use them. Gladys Linch died a week ago. Her child died at birth and Jones had deserted her for another woman. When she was dying she confessed the truth.”
There was a few moments’ silence and then Raymond said:

“Well, Aunt Jane, this is one up to you. I can’t think how on earth you managed to hit upon the truth. I should never have thought of the little maid in the cafe being connected with the case.”“No, dear,” said Miss Marple, “but you don’t know as much of life as I do. A man of that Jones’s type—coarse and jovial. As soon as I heard there was a pretty young girl in the cafe I felt sure that he would not have left her alone. It is all very distressing and painful, and not a very nice thing to talk about. I can’t tell you the shock it was to Mrs. Hargraves, and a nine days’ wonder in the village.”