4:50 from Paddington

by Agatha Christie

It’s very extraordinary—but not at all impossible. I recollect myself being interested when a train ran parallel to one on which I was travelling, to notice what a vivid and intimate picture one got of what was going on in one or two of the carriages. A little girl, I remember once, playing with a teddy bear, and suddenly she threw it deliberately at a fat man who was asleep in the corner and he bounced up and looked most indignant, and the other passengers looked so amused. I saw them all quite vividly. I could have described afterwards exactly what they looked like and what they had on.’

Everybody in St Mary Mead knew Miss Marple; fluffy and dithery in appearance, but inwardly as sharp and as shrewd as they make them.

‘I suppose you think of everything!’ said Lucy bitterly. ‘Well, dear, one has to really.’

‘Don’t you know?’ said Miss Marple. ‘No, I don’t,’ said Craddock. ‘Do you?’ ‘Oh, yes, I think so,’ said Miss Marple. And she twinkled at him.