{"id":2495,"date":"2026-01-03T22:32:52","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T22:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/they-do-it-with-mirrors-christie-agatha\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T22:32:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T22:32:52","slug":"they-do-it-with-mirrors-christie-agatha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/they-do-it-with-mirrors-christie-agatha\/","title":{"rendered":"They Do It With Mirrors – Christie, Agatha"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Book Preview<\/h3>\n
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One<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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M<\/span><\/span>rs. Van Rydock moved a little back from the mirror and sighed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that\u2019ll have to do,\u201d she murmured.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink it\u2019s all right, Jane?\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Marple eyed the Lanvanelli creation appraisingly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to me a very beautiful gown,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gown\u2019s all right,\u201d said Mrs. Van Rydock and sighed.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake it off, Stephanie,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The elderly maid with the grey hair and the small pinched mouth, eased the gown carefully up over Mrs. Van Rydock\u2019s up-stretched arms.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Van Rydock stood in front of the glass in her peach satin slip. She was exquisitely corseted. Her still shapely legs were encased in fine nylon stockings. Her face, beneath a layer of cosmetics and constantly toned up by massage, appeared almost girlish at a slight distance. Her hair was less grey than tending to hydrangea blue and was perfectly set. It was practically impossible when looking at Mrs. Van Rydock, to imagine what she would be like in a natural state. Everything that money could do had been done for her\u2014reinforced by diet, massage, and constant exercises.<\/p>\n

Ruth Van Rydock looked humorously at her friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think most people would guess, Jane, that you and I are practically the same age?\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Marple responded loyally.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot for a moment, I\u2019m sure,\u201d she said reassuringly. \u201cI\u2019m afraid, you know, that I look every minute of my<\/span> age!\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Marple was white-haired, with a soft pink-and-white wrinkled face and innocent china blue eyes. She looked a very sweet old lady. Nobody would have called Mrs. Van Rydock a sweet old lady.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess you do, Jane,\u201d said Mrs. Van Rydock. She grinned suddenly, \u201cAnd so do I. Only not in the same way. \u2018Wonderful how that old hag keeps her figure.\u2019 That\u2019s what they say of me. But they know I\u2019m an old hag all right! And, my God, do I feel like one!\u201d<\/p>\n

She dropped heavily onto the satin, quilted chair.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s all right, Stephanie,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephanie gathered up the dress and went out.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood old Stephanie,\u201d said Ruth Van Rydock. \u201cShe\u2019s been with me for over thirty years now. She\u2019s the only woman who knows what I really look like! Jane, I want to talk to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Marple leant forward a little. Her face took on a receptive expression. She looked, somehow, an incongruous figure in the ornate bedroom of the expensive hotel suite. She was dressed in rather dowdy black, carried a large shopping bag, and looked every inch a lady.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m worried, Jane. About Carrie Louise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCarrie Louise?\u201d Miss Marple repeated the name musingly. The sound of it took her a long way back.<\/p>\n

The pensionnat in Florence. Herself, the pink and white English girl from a Cathedral close. The two Martin girls, Americans, exciting to the English girl because of their quaint ways of speech and their forthright manner and vitality. Ruth, tall, eager, on top of the world, Carrie Louise, small, dainty, wistful.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen did you see her last, Jane?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh! not for many many years. It must be twenty-five at least. Of course, we still send cards at Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such an odd thing, friendship! She, young Jane Marple, and the two Americans. Their ways diverging almost at once, and yet the old affection persisting; occasional letters, remembrances at Christmas. Strange that Ruth whose home\u2014or rather homes\u2014had been in America should be the sister whom she had seen the more often of the two. No, perhaps not strange. Like most Americans of her class, Ruth had been cosmopolitan. Every year or two she had come over to Europe, rushing from London to Paris, on to the Riviera, and back again, and always keen to snatch a few moments wherever she was, with her old friends. There had been many meetings like this one. In Claridge\u2019s, or the Savoy, or the Berkeley, or the Dorchester. A recherch\u00e9<\/span> meal, affectionate reminiscences, and a hurried and affectionate good-bye. Ruth had never had time to visit St. Mary Mead. Miss Marple had not, indeed, ever expected it. Everyone\u2019s life has a tempo.<\/span> Ruth\u2019s was presto whereas Miss Marple\u2019s was content to be adagio.<\/p>\n

So it was American Ruth whom she had seen most of, whereas Carrie Louise who lived in England, she had not now seen for over twenty years. Odd, but quite natural, because when one lives in the same country there is no need to arrange meetings with old friends. One assumes that, sooner or later, one will see them without contrivance. Only, if you move in different spheres, that does not happen. The paths of Jane Marple and Carrie Louise did not cross. It was as simple as that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are you worried about Carrie Louise, Ruth?\u201d asked Miss Marple.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a way that\u2019s what worries me most! I just don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not ill?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s very delicate\u2014always has been. I wouldn\u2019t say she\u2019d been any worse than usual\u2014considering that she\u2019s getting on just as we all are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnhappy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh no.<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n

No, it wouldn\u2019t be that, thought Miss Marple. It would be difficult to imagine Carrie Louise unhappy\u2014and yet there were times in her life when she must have been. Only\u2014the picture did not come clearly. Bewildered\u2014yes\u2014incredulous\u2014yes\u2014but violent grief\u2014no.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Van Rydock\u2019s words came appositely.<\/p>\n

\u201cCarrie Louise,\u201d she said, \u201chas always lived right out of this world. She doesn\u2019t know what it\u2019s like. Maybe it\u2019s that<\/span> that worries me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHer circumstances,\u201d began Miss Marple, then stopped, shaking her head. \u201cNo,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it\u2019s she herself,\u201d said Ruth Van Rydock. \u201cCarrie Louise was always the one of us who had ideals. Of course, it was the fashion when we were young to have ideals\u2014we all had them, it was the proper thing for young girls. You were going to nurse lepers, Jane, and I was going to be a nun. One gets over all that nonsense. Marriage, I suppose one might say, knocks it out of one. Still, take it by and large, I haven\u2019t done badly out of marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Marple thought that Ruth was expressing it mildly. Ruth had been married three times, each time to an extremely wealthy man, and the resultant divorces had increased her bank balance without in the least souring her disposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course,\u201d said Mrs. Van Rydock, \u201cI\u2019ve always been tough. Things don\u2019t get me down. I\u2019ve not expected too much of life and certainly not expected too much of men\u2014and I\u2019ve done very well out of it\u2014and no hard feelings. Tommy and I are still excellent friends, and Julius often asks me my opinion about the market.\u201d Her face darkened. \u201cI believe that\u2019s what worries me about Carrie Louise\u2014she\u2019s always had a tendency, you know, to marry cranks.<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCranks?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople with ideals. Carrie Louise was always a pushover for ideals. There she was, as pretty as they make them, just seventeen and listening with her eyes as big as saucers to old Gulbrandsen holding forth about his plans for the human race. Over fifty, and she married him, a widower with a family of grown-up children\u2014all because of his philanthropic ideas. She used to sit listening to him spellbound. Just like Desdemona and Othello. Only fortunately there was no Iago about to mess things up\u2014and anyway Gulbrandsen wasn\u2019t coloured. He was a Swede or a Norwegian or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Marple nodded thoughtfully. The name of Gulbrandsen had an international significance. A man who with shrewd business acumen and perfect honesty had built up a fortune so colossal that really philanthropy had been the only solution to the disposal of it. The name still held significance. The Gulbrandsen Trust, the Gulbrandsen Research Fellowships, the Gulbrandsen Administrative Almshouses, and best known of all the vast educational College for the sons of working men.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe didn\u2019t marry him for his money, you know,\u201d said Ruth, \u201cI should have if I\u2019d married him at all. But not Carrie Louise. I don\u2019t know what would have happened if he hadn\u2019t died when she was thirty-two. Thirty-two\u2019s a very nice age for a widow. She\u2019s got experience, but she\u2019s still adaptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spinster listening to her, nodded gently whilst her mind reviewed, tentatively, widows she had known in the village of St. Mary Mead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really happiest about Carrie Louise when she was married to Johnnie Restarick. Of course, he<\/span> married her for her money\u2014or if not exactly that, at any rate he wouldn\u2019t have married her if she hadn\u2019t had any. Johnnie was a selfish pleasure-loving lazy hound, but that\u2019s so much safer than a crank. All Johnnie wanted was to live soft. He wanted Carrie Louise to go to the best dressmakers and have yachts and cars and enjoy herself with him. That kind of man is so very safe.<\/span> Give him comfort and luxury and he\u2019ll purr like a cat and be absolutely charming to you. I never took that scene designing and theatrical stuff of his very seriously. But Carrie Louise was thrilled by it\u2014saw it all as Art with a capital A and really forced him back into those surroundings and then that dreadful Yugoslavian woman got hold of him and just swept him off with her. He didn\u2019t really want to go. If Carrie Louise had waited and been sensible, he would have come back to her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid she care very much?\u201d asked Miss Marple.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the funny thing. I don\u2019t really believe she did. She was absolutely sweet about it all\u2014but then she would be. She is<\/span> sweet. Quite anxious to divorce him so that he and that creature could get married. And offering to give those two boys of his by his first marriage a home with her because it would be more settled for them. So there poor Johnnie was\u2014he had<\/span> to marry the woman and she led him an awful six months and then drove him over a precipice in a car in a fit of rage. They said<\/span> it was an accident, but I<\/span> think it was just temper!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Van Rydock paused, took up a mirror and gazed at her face searchingly. She picked up her eyebrow tweezers and pulled out a hair.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what does Carrie Louise do next but marry this man Lewis Serrocold. Another crank! Another man with ideals! Oh I don\u2019t say he isn\u2019t devoted to her\u2014I think he is\u2014but he\u2019s bitten by that same bug of wanting to improve everybody\u2019s lives for them. And really, you know, nobody can do that but yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder,\u201d said Miss Marple.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly, of course, there\u2019s a fashion in these things, just like there is in clothes. (My dear, have you seen what Christian Dior is trying to make us wear in the way of skirts?) Where was I? Oh yes, fashion. Well, there\u2019s a fashion in philanthropy too. It used to be education in Gulbrandsen\u2019s day. But that\u2019s out of date now. The State has stepped in. Everyone expects education as a matter of right\u2014and doesn\u2019t think much of it when they get it! Juvenile delinquency\u2014that\u2019s what is the rage nowadays. All these young criminals and potential criminals. Everyone\u2019s mad about them. You should see Lewis Serrocold\u2019s eyes sparkle behind those thick glasses of his. Crazy with enthusiasm! One of those men of enormous willpower who like living on a banana and a piece of toast and put all their energies into a cause. And Carrie Louise eats it up\u2014just as she always did. But I don\u2019t like it, Jane. They\u2019ve had meetings of the trustees and the whole place has been turned over to this new idea. It\u2019s a training establishment now for these juvenile criminals, complete with psychiatrists and psychologists and all the rest of it. There Lewis and Carrie Louise are, living there, surrounded by these boys\u2014who aren\u2019t perhaps quite normal. And the place stiff with occupational therapists and teachers and enthusiasts, half of them<\/span> quite mad. Cranks, all the lot of them, and my little Carrie Louise in the middle of it all!\u201d<\/p>\n

She paused\u2014and stared helplessly at Miss Marple.<\/p>\n

Miss Marple said in a faintly puzzled voice:<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you haven\u2019t told me yet, Ruth, what you are really afraid of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI tell you, I don\u2019t know!<\/span> And that\u2019s<\/span> what worries me. I\u2019ve just been down there\u2014for a flying visit. And I felt all along that there was something wrong. In the atmosphere\u2014in the house\u2014I know I\u2019m not mistaken. I\u2019m sensitive to atmosphere, always have been. Did I ever tell you how I urged Julius to sell out of Amalgamated Cereals before the crash came? And wasn\u2019t I right? Yes, something is wrong<\/span> down there. But I don\u2019t know why or what\u2014if it\u2019s these dreadful young jailbirds\u2014or if it\u2019s nearer home. I can\u2019t say what it is. There\u2019s Lewis just living for his ideas and not noticing anything else, and Carrie Louise, bless her, never seeing or hearing or thinking anything except what\u2019s a lovely sight, or a lovely sound, or a lovely thought. It\u2019s sweet but it isn\u2019t practical.<\/span> There is<\/span> such a thing as evil\u2014and I want you, Jane, to go down there right away and find out just exactly what\u2019s the matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMe?\u201d<\/span> exclaimed Miss Marple. \u201cWhy me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause you\u2019ve got a nose for that sort of thing. You always had. You\u2019ve always been a sweet innocent looking creature, Jane, and all the time underneath nothing has ever surprised you, you always believe the worst.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe worst is so often true,\u201d murmured Miss Marple.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy you have such a poor idea of human nature, I can\u2019t think\u2014living in that sweet peaceful village of yours, so old world and pure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have never lived in a village, Ruth. The things that go on in a pure peaceful village would probably surprise you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh I daresay. My point is that they don\u2019t surprise you.<\/span> So you will<\/span> go down to Stonygates and find out what\u2019s wrong, won\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, Ruth dear, that would be a most difficult thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it wouldn\u2019t. I\u2019ve thought it all out. If you won\u2019t be absolutely mad at me, I\u2019ve prepared the ground already.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Van Rydock paused, eyed Miss Marple rather uneasily, lighted a cigarette, and plunged rather nervously into explanation.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll admit, I\u2019m sure, that things have been difficult in this country since the war, for people with small fixed incomes\u2014for people like you, that is to say, Jane.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh yes, indeed. But for the kindness, the really great kindness of my nephew Raymond, I don\u2019t know really where I should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNever mind your nephew,\u201d said Mrs. Van Rydock. \u201cCarrie Louise knows nothing about your nephew\u2014or if she does, she knows him as a writer and has no idea that he\u2019s your nephew. The point, as I put it to Carrie Louise, is that it\u2019s just too bad about dear Jane. Really sometimes hardly enough to eat, and of course far too proud ever to appeal to old friends. One couldn\u2019t, I said, suggest money<\/span>\u2014but a nice long rest in lovely surroundings, with an old friend and with plenty of nourishing food, and no cares or worries\u2014\u201d Ruth Van Rydock paused and then added defiantly, \u201cNow go on\u2014be mad at me if you want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Marple opened her china blue eyes in gentle surprise.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut why should I be mad at you, Ruth? A very ingenious and plausible approach. I\u2019m sure Carrie Louise responded.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s writing to you. You\u2019ll find the letter when you get back. Honestly, Jane, you don\u2019t feel that I\u2019ve taken an unpardonable liberty? You won\u2019t mind\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

She hesitated and Miss Marple put her thoughts deftly into words.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing to Stonygates as an object of charity\u2014more or less under false pretences? Not in the least\u2014if it is necessary.<\/span> You think it is necessary\u2014and I am inclined to agree with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Van Rydock stared at her.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut why? What have you heard?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t heard anything. It\u2019s just your conviction. You\u2019re not a fanciful woman, Ruth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, but I haven\u2019t anything definite to go upon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember,\u201d said Miss Marple thoughtfully, \u201cone Sunday morning at church\u2014it was the second Sunday in Advent\u2014sitting behind Grace Lamble and feeling more and more worried about her. Quite sure, you know, that something was wrong\u2014badly wrong\u2014and yet being quite unable to say why. A most disturbing feeling and very, very definite.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd was there something wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh yes. Her father, the old admiral, had been very<\/span> peculiar for some time, and the very next day he went for her with the coal hammer, roaring out that she was Antichrist masquerading as his daughter. He nearly killed her. They took him away to the asylum and she eventually recovered after months in hospital\u2014but it was a very near thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you\u2019d actually had a premonition that day in church?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t call it a premonition. It was founded on fact<\/span>\u2014these things usually are, though one doesn\u2019t always recognise it at the time. She was wearing her Sunday hat the wrong way round. Very significant, really, because Grace Lamble was a most precise woman, not at all vague or absentminded\u2014and the circumstances under which she would not notice which way her hat was put on to go to church were really extremely limited. Her father, you see, had thrown a marble paperweight at her and it had shattered the looking glass. She had caught up her hat, put it on, and hurried out of the house. Anxious to keep up appearances and for the servants not to hear anything. She put down these actions, you see, to \u2018dear Papa\u2019s Naval temper,\u2019 she didn\u2019t realise that his mind was definitely unhinged. Though she ought to have realised it clearly enough. He was always complaining to her of being spied upon and of enemies\u2014all the usual symptoms, in fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Van Rydock gazed respectfully at her friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe, Jane,\u201d she said, \u201cthat St. Mary Mead of yours isn\u2019t quite the idyllic retreat that I\u2019ve always imagined it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHuman nature, dear, is very much the same everywhere. It is more difficult to observe it closely in a city, that is all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you\u2019ll go to Stonygates?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll go to Stonygates. A little unfair, perhaps, on my nephew Raymond. To let it be thought that he does not assist me, I mean. Still the dear boy is in Mexico for six months. And by that time it should all be over.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat should all be over?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCarrie Louise\u2019s invitation will hardly be for an indefinite stay. Three weeks, perhaps\u2014a month. That should be ample.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor you to find out what is wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me to find out what is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy, Jane,\u201d said Mrs. Van Rydock, \u201cyou\u2019ve got a lot of confidence in yourself, haven\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Marple looked faintly reproachful.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou<\/span> have confidence in me, Ruth. Or so you say \u2026 I can only assure you that I shall endeavour to justify your confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Book Preview One Mrs. Van Rydock moved a little back from the mirror and sighed. \u201cWell, that\u2019ll have to do,\u201d she murmured. \u201cThink it\u2019s all right, Jane?\u201d Miss Marple eyed the Lanvanelli creation appraisingly. \u201cIt seems to me a very beautiful gown,\u201d she said. \u201cThe gown\u2019s all right,\u201d said Mrs. Van Rydock and sighed. \u201cTake … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[142],"class_list":["post-2495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agatha-christie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}