Miss Marple – Miss Marple and Mystery: The Complete Short Stories. Агата Кристи

      If a young lady of twenty-five to thirty years of age, eyes dark blue, very fair hair, black lashes and brows, straight nose, slim figure, height five feet seven inches, good mimic and able to speak French, will call at 7 Endersleigh Street, between 5 and 6 p.m., she will hear of something to her advantage.

      ‘Guileless Gwendolen, or why girls go wrong,’ murmured Jane. ‘I shall certainly have to be careful. But there are too many specifications, really, for that sort of thing. I wonder now … Let us overhaul the catalogue.’

      She proceeded to do so.

      ‘Twenty-five to thirty – I’m twenty-six. Eyes dark blue, that’s right. Hair very fair – black lashes and brows – all OK. Straight nose? Ye-es – straight enough, anyway. It doesn’t hook or turn up. And I’ve got a slim figure – slim even for nowadays. I’m only five feet six inches – but I could wear high heels. I am a good mimic – nothing wonderful, but I can copy people’s voices, and I speak French like an angel or a Frenchwoman. In fact, I’m absolutely the goods. They ought to tumble over themselves with delight when I turn up. Jane Cleveland, go in and win.’

      Resolutely Jane tore out the advertisement and placed it in her handbag. Then she demanded her bill, with a new briskness in her voice.

      At ten minutes to five Jane was reconnoitring in the neighbourhood of Endersleigh Street. Endersleigh Street itself is a small street sandwiched between two larger streets in the neighbourhood of Oxford Circus. It is drab, but respectable.

      No. 7 seemed in no way different from the neighbouring houses. It was composed like they were of offices. But looking up at it, it dawned upon Jane for the first time that she was not the only blue-eyed, fair-haired, straight-nosed, slim-figured girl of between twenty-five and thirty years of age. London was evidently full of such girls, and forty or fifty of them at least were grouped outside No. 7 Endersleigh Street.

      ‘Competition,’ said Jane. ‘I’d better join the queue quickly.’

      She did so, just as three more girls turned the corner of the street. Others followed them. Jane amused herself by taking stock of her immediate neighbours. In each case she managed to find something wrong – fair eyelashes instead of dark, eyes more grey than blue, fair hair that owed its fairness to art and not to Nature, interesting variations in noses, and figures that only an all-embracing charity could have described as slim. Jane’s spirits rose.

      ‘I believe I’ve got as good an all-round chance as anyone,’ she murmured to herself. ‘I wonder what it’s all about? A beauty chorus, I hope.’

      The queue was moving slowly but steadily forward. Presently a second stream of girls began, issuing from inside the house. Some of them tossed their heads, some of them smirked.

      ‘Rejected,’ said Jane, with glee. ‘I hope to goodness they won’t be full up before I get in.’

      And still the queue of girls moved forwards. There were anxious glances in tiny mirrors, and a frenzied powdering of noses. Lipsticks were brandished freely.

      ‘I wish I had a smarter hat,’ said Jane to herself sadly.

      At last it was her turn. Inside the door of the house was a glass door at one side, with the legend, Messrs. Cuthbertsons, inscribed on it. It was through this glass door that the applicants were passing one by one. Jane’s turn came. She drew a deep breath and entered.

      Inside was an outer office, obviously intended for clerks. At the end was another glass door. Jane was directed to pass through this, and did so. She found herself in a smaller room. There was a big desk in it, and behind the desk was a keen-eyed man of middle age with a thick rather foreign-looking moustache. His glance swept over Jane, then he pointed to a door on the left.

      ‘Wait in there, please,’ he said crisply.

      Jane obeyed. The apartment she entered was already occupied. Five girls sat there, all very upright and all glaring at each other. It was clear to Jane that she had been included amongst the likely candidates, and her spirits rose. Nevertheless, she was forced to admit that these five girls were equally eligible with herself as far as the terms of the advertisement went.

      The time passed. Streams of girls were evidently passing through the inner office. Most of them were dismissed through another door giving on the corridor, but every now and then a recruit arrived to swell the select assembly. At half-past six there were fourteen girls assembled there.

      Jane heard a murmur of voices from the inner office, and then the foreign-looking gentleman, whom she had nicknamed in her mind ‘the Colonel’ owing to the military character of his moustache, appeared in the doorway.

      ‘I will see you ladies one at a time, if you please,’ he announced. ‘In the order in which you arrived, please.’

      Jane was, of course, the sixth on the list. Twenty minutes elapsed before she was called in. ‘The Colonel’ was standing with his hands behind his back. He put her through a rapid catechism, tested her knowledge of French, and measured her height.

      ‘It is possible, mademoiselle,’ he said in French, ‘that you may suit. I do not know. But it is possible.’

      ‘What is this post, if I may ask?’ said Jane bluntly.

      He shrugged his shoulders.

      ‘That I cannot tell you as yet. If you are chosen – then you shall know.’

      ‘This seems very mysterious,’ objected Jane. ‘I couldn’t possibly take up anything without knowing all about it. Is it connected with the stage, may I ask?’

      ‘The stage? Indeed, no.’

      ‘Oh!’ said Jane, rather taken aback.

      He was looking at her keenly.

      ‘You have intelligence, yes? And discretion?’

      ‘I’ve quantities of intelligence and discretion,’ said Jane calmly. ‘What about the pay?’

      ‘The pay will amount to two thousand pounds – for a fortnight’s work.’

      ‘Oh!’ said Jane faintly.

      She was too taken aback by the munificence of the sum named to recover all at once.

      The Colonel resumed speaking.

      ‘One other young lady I have already selected. You and she are equally suitable. There may be others I have not yet seen. I will give you instruction as to your further proceedings. You know Harridge’s Hotel?’

      Jane gasped. Who in England did not know Harridge’s Hotel? That famous hostelry situated modestly in a bystreet of Mayfair, where notabilities and royalties arrived and departed as a matter of course. Only this morning Jane had read of the arrival of the Grand Duchess Pauline of Ostrova. She had come over to open a big bazaar in aid of Russian refugees, and was, of course, staying at Harridge’s.

      ‘Yes,’ said Jane, in answer to the Colonel’s question.

      ‘Very good. Go there. Ask for Count Streptitch. Send up your card – you have a card?’

      Jane produced one. The Colonel took it from her and inscribed in the corner a minute P. He handed the card back to her.

      ‘That ensures that the count will see you. He will understand that you come from me. The final decision lies with him – and another. If he considers you suitable, he will explain matters to you, and you can accept or decline his proposal. Is that satisfactory?’

      ‘Perfectly satisfactory,’ said Jane.

      ‘So far,’ she murmured to herself as she emerged into the street, ‘I can’t see the catch. And yet, there must be one. There’s no such thing as money for nothing. It must be crime! There’s nothing else left.’

      Her spirits rose. In moderation Jane did not object to crime. The papers had been full lately of the exploits of various girl bandits. Jane had seriously thought of becoming one if all else failed.

      She