Captain Dacre had declared it was too cold, so he and some other people in the hotel had gone off to the golf links nearby. Mrs. Dacre, however, had said it was not too cold for her and she went off alone down to the cove. As she didn't return, her husband became alarmed and in company with his friend went down to the beach. They found her clothes lying beside a rock but no trace of the unfortunate lady. Her body was not found until nearly a week later, when it was washed ashore at a point some distance down the coast. There was a bad blow on her head which had occurred before death, and the theory was that she must have dived into the sea and hit her head on a rock. As far as I could make out, her death would have occurred just twenty-four hours after the time I saw the bloodstains.'

Joyce stared at Miss Marple.

'Aunt Jane,' she said. 'Miss Marple, I mean, I believe - I do really believe you know the truth.'

'Well, dear,' said Miss Marple, 'it is much easier for me sitting here quietly than it was for you - and being an artist, you are so susceptible to atmosphere, aren't you? Sitting here with one's knitting, one just sees the facts. Bloodstains dropped on the pavement from the bathing dress hanging above, and being a red bathing dress, of course, the criminals themselves did not realize it was bloodstained. Poor thing, poor young thing!'

'Excuse me, Miss Marple,' said Sir Henry, 'but do you know that I am entirely in the dark still. You and Miss Lumpier seem to know what you are talking about, but we mere men are still in utter darkness.'

'I will tell you the end of the story now,' said Joyce.

'It was a year later. I was at a little east-coast resort, and I was sketching, when suddenly I had that queer feeling one has of something having happened before. There were two people, a man and a woman, on the pavement in front of me, and they were greeting a third person, a woman dressed in a scarlet poinsettia chintz dress. 'Carol, by all that is wonderful! Fancy meeting you after all these years. You don't know my wife? Joan, this is an old friend of mine, Miss Harding.'