Diana Glass
The Help
As we near the door from which the noises seem to be coming, something odd in the tone of the sounds becomes apparent. And as we move closer still, I hear something else: a scrabbling at the wood.
‘It sounded animal,’ Miss Marple says – wearing a very simple, sensible high-necked dressing gown that somehow makes her appear just as proper as the wool and tweed suits, ‘because it actually was an animal. If I am not much mistaken, this is Sylvia Sinclair’s room, and that is her Irish wolfhound, howling and scratching at the door. ’
‘So she’s …’ Mrs Bantry grimaces, ‘in there, dead?’
‘No,’ says Miss Marple, ‘I think not. Not if my intuition has been correct.’
Members of the hotel staff are summoned. As Sylvia Sinclair’s door is opened the animal leaps into the hallway with a volley of barks, knocking the poor manager flat on his back and terrifying one porter into a dead faint.
Of Sylvia herself, there is no sign. Inside, the room bears the sign of a hasty departure: the plush carpet has dirty marks from what appears to have been a pair of heavy-soled boots, the bulky packaging of several food items has been discarded, clothes have been pulled onto the bed and most of them, it seems, rejected, including the priceless furs, the velvet evening gown.
There is a feeling of absence, of abandonment.
In the bathroom, the sink is thoroughly stained with black dye: a packet of which has been crammed into the bin.
‘So where is she?’ Mrs Bantry asks.
‘Gone,’ says Miss Marple, sounding almost satisfied and as though all of this is absolutely as expected. ‘And I think – unless I have got this all very wrong indeed – we will find that Catherine Narracott has gone, too.’