“You can learn so much about a person from observing their washing line,” Miss Marple remarked.

She was enjoying a cup of tea with Griselda Clement one afternoon. The vicar’s wife looked slightly surprised, before nodding and saying, “I suppose it does rather tell you who’s in the family, whether there are small children or elderly people in the household.”

“That’s easy,” Miss Marple replied, “but there’s more to it than that. Now, suppose it was a nice day, what you might call a good drying day. When would you put your washing out?”

“As soon as I could, I suppose. I’d want to make as much use of the day as possible.”

“Exactly. And you might wonder why someone waits until mid-morning to put their washing out. But a quick glance at the garments on the line might tell you that there were young children to be got to school first- like Mrs Garrity with her four boys. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if she had a quiet cup of coffee before she got on with her chores of a morning.”

Griselda laughed. “She’s certainly got her hands full with her lively brood.”

“And then there’s Mrs Weaver. You can always tell the weeks her husband’s on night shift because she waits for him to come home before doing her washing. The next question is when do you bring your washing in?”

“When it’s dry. You can’t be about to say if someone fails to bring their washing in and it gets caught in a shower you can tell something about them. It happens to all of us.”

“And most infuriating it is too. Do you remember the Mother’s Union meeting at the beginning of the summer when we had that dreadful speaker who went on for ages and then continued to dominate the conversation over the tea?”

“Miss Wilkins looked out of the window and said, ‘Oh dear, I think it’s starting to rain.’ And half the members hurried off to rescue their washing.”

“Most unfortunate. Somehow I doubt that speaker will return. She seemed to think that some members were using the rain as an excuse to leave.”

Griselda looked sharply at Miss Marple but was relieved to see from the twinkle in her friend’s eye that she too was of that opinion. “So, apart from sudden showers, what can you learn from when washing is taken in? Oh, how about people who take it in before it’s dry because they’re going out and they expect it will rain later?”

“Again, an entirely sensible course of action. And one which will be confirmed by a quick glance at the sky or listening to the weather forecast. No, in this case I was thinking of someone who had taken their washing in for no discernible reason. And who no longer appeared to have a line between the posts.”

“Why would anyone do that? Unless they needed some strong cord for a reason.”

“And it would be a sudden need, not something which had been planned in advance, for then the cord could have been bought ready for the task,” Miss Marple said.

Griselda thought. “Oh! The trunk I saw the carrier collect from the curate’s house yesterday. That was tied up with cord and it could well have been the washing line.” She sighed. “I suppose I shall have to tell Leonard. He won’t be happy at all. You couldn’t possibly be mistaken, could you?”

“I have no proof,” Miss Marple admitted. “But we know there have been a number of thefts of valuable items recently and the curate and his wife are welcomed into so many houses that they would have access to the items.”

“Yes, but so are Leonard and I,” Griselda protested.

“You and Leonard are not leaving in under a month to move to Australia, was it Brisbane or Perth? I’m sure I’ve heard both.”

Griselda stood up. “I’ll go and fetch Leonard. You can tell him what you’ve just told me, just don’t expect him to understand the significance of the washing line.”