"Talking of murder," he went on. "I once came across a very curious case-not exactly personally."

Miss Marple smiled encouragingly.

"Lots of chaps talking at the club one day, you know, and a chap began telling a story. Medical man he was. One of his cases. Young fellow came and knocked him up in the middle of the night. His wife had hanged herself. They hadn't got a telephone, so after the chap had cut her down and done what he could, he'd got out his car and hared off looking for a doctor. Well, she wasn't dead but pretty far gone. Anyway, she pulled through. Young fellow seemed devoted to her. Cried like a child. He'd noticed that she'd been odd for some time, fits of depression and all that. Well, that was that. Everything seemed all right. But actually, about a month later, the wife took an overdose of sleeping stuff and passed out. Sad case." Major Palgrave paused, and nodded his head several times. Since there was obviously more to come Miss Marple waited. "And that's that, you might say. Nothing there. Neurotic woman, nothing out of the usual. But about a year later, this medical chap was swapping yarns with a fellow medico, and the other chap told him about a woman who'd tried to drown herself, husband got her out, got a doctor, they pulled her round-and then a few weeks later she gassed herself. Well, a bit of a coincidence-eh? Same sort of story. My chap said: 'I had a case rather like that. Name of Jones-(or whatever the name was)-What was your man's name?' 'Can't remember. Robinson I think. Certainly not Jones.' Well, the chaps looked at each other and said it was pretty odd.