There are a lot of ways of expressing the importance of taking time to reflect, of not getting caught up in the passions and fancies of the moment, but it’s put in a wonderfully homely way by Miss Marple.
This quote comes from a story in which characters are telling one another about mysterious events they have witnessed in their lives. Joyce Lemprière, an artist, has just recounted an experience when she was painting in a moody Cornish village. The locals had filled her head with tales about phantom bloodstains appearing on the steps of an inn as a premonition of doom. She then saw a couple return from swimming and hang their swimsuits to dry on the balcony, one of which seemed to be dripping blood right onto the fateful spot.
Miss Marple gently punctures the spooky atmosphere with her astute observation that the swimsuit must, in fact, have gotten very bloody to be dripping like that, a clue that the couple in question had committed a murder that they were concealing with a quick change of clothing.
“Of course it is different for me. I mean, we, being women, appreciate the point about clothes. I don’t think it is a fair problem to put to a man. It must have meant a lot of rapid changing. What a wicked woman! And a still more wicked man.”
Joyce stared at her.
“Aunt Jane,” she said. “Miss Marple, I mean, I believe—I do really believe you know the truth.”
“Well, dear,” said Miss Marple, “it is much easier for me sitting here quietly than it was for you—and being an artist you are so susceptible to atmosphere, aren’t you? Sitting here with one’s knitting, one just sees the facts. Bloodstains dropped on the pavement from the bathing dress hanging above, and being a red bathing dress, of course, the criminals themselves did not realize it was bloodstained. Poor thing, poor young thing!”
– “The Bloodstained Pavement,” by Agatha Christie
It can be easy to let our imaginations run away with us when we are primed to expect the eerie or grotesque. It’s good to be reminded to step back and just look at the facts (with or without knitting).
Christie, Agatha. “The Bloodstained Pavement,” in Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories. William Morrow, 2022, p. 58.
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