I can't imagine, you know," said Miss Marple, knitting her brows, "how he disposed of it… You kill a woman in a fit of passion – it must have been unpremeditated, you'd never choose to kill a woman in such circumstances just a few minutes before running into a big station. No, it must have been a quarrel – jealousy – something of that kind. You strangle her – and there you are, as I say, with a dead body on your hands and on the point of running into a station. What could you do except as I said at first, prop the body up in a corner as though asleep, hiding the face, and then yourself leave the train as quickly as possible. I don't see any other possibility – and yet there must have been one…"

Miss Marple lost herself in thought.

Mrs. McGillicuddy spoke to her twice before Miss Marple answered.

"You're getting deaf, Jane."

"Just a little, perhaps. People do not seem to me to enunciate their words as clearly as they used to do. But it wasn't that I didn't hear you. I'm afraid I wasn't paying attention."

"I just asked about the trains to London tomorrow. Would the afternoon be all right? I'm going to Margaret's and she isn't expecting me before teatime."

"I wonder, Elspeth, if you would mind going up by the 12:15? We could have an early lunch."

"Of course and –" Miss Marple went on, drowning her friend's words: "And I wonder, too, if Margaret would mind if you didn't arrive for tea – if you arrived about seven, perhaps?"

Mrs. McGillicuddy looked at her friend curiously.

"What's on your mind, Jane?"

"I suggest, Elspeth, that I should travel up to London with you, and that we should travel down again as far as Brackhampton in the train you travelled by the other day. You would then return to London from Brackhampton and I would come on here as you did. I, of course, would pay the fares," Miss Marple stressed this point firmly.

Mrs. McGillicuddy ignored the financial aspect.