The Mirror Crack'd: from Side to Side by Agatha Christie

Craddock. “She looked out to Camelot, didn’t she?
    Out flew the web and floated wide;
    The Mirror crack’d from side to side;
    â€˜The curse has come upon me,’ cried
    The Lady of Shalott.”
    â€œExactly. She did,” said Mrs. Bantry.
    â€œI beg your pardon. Who did? Did what?”
    â€œLooked like that,” said Mrs. Bantry.
    â€œWho looked like what?”
    â€œMarina Gregg.”
    â€œAh, Marina Gregg. When was this?”
    â€œDidn’t Jane Marple tell you?”
    â€œShe didn’t tell me anything. She sent me to you.”
    â€œThat’s tiresome of her,” said Mrs. Bantry, “because she can always tell things better than I can. My husband always used to say that I was so abrupt that he didn’t know what I was talking about. Anyway, it may have been only my fancy. But when you see anyone looking like that you can’t help remembering it.”
    â€œPlease tell me,” said Dermot Craddock.
    â€œWell, it was at the party. I call it a party because what can one call things? But it was just a sort of reception up at the top of the stairs where they’ve made a kind of recess. Marina Gregg was there and her husband. They fetched some of us in. They fetched me, I suppose, because I once owned the house, and they fetched Heather Badcock and her husband because she’d done all the running of the fête, and the arrangements. And we happened to go up the stairs at about the same time, so I was standing there, you see, when I noticed it.”
    â€œQuite. When you noticed what?”
    â€œWell, Mrs. Badcock went into a long spiel as people do whenthey meet celebrities. You know, how wonderful it was, and what a thrill and they’d always hoped to see them. And she went into a long story of how she’d once met her years ago and how exciting it had been. And I thought, in my own mind, you know, what a bore it must be for these poor celebrities to have to say all the right things. And then I noticed that Marina Gregg wasn’t saying the right things. She was just staring.”
    â€œStaring—at Mrs. Badcock?”
    â€œNo—no, it looked as though she’d forgotten Mrs. Badcock altogether. I mean, I don’t believe she’d even heard what Mrs. Badcock was saying. She was just staring with what I call this Lady of Shalott look, as though she’d seen something awful. Something frightening, something that she could hardly believe she saw and couldn’t bear to see.”
    â€œThe curse has come upon me?” suggested Dermot Craddock.
    â€œYes, just that. That’s why I call it the Lady of Shalott look.”
    â€œBut what was she looking at, Mrs. Bantry?”
    â€œWell, I wish I knew,” said Mrs. Bantry.
    â€œShe was at the top of the stairs, you say?”
    â€œShe was looking over Mrs. Badcock’s head—no, more over one shoulder, I think.”
    â€œStraight at the middle of the staircase?”
    â€œIt might have been a little to one side.”
    â€œAnd there were people coming up the staircase?”
    â€œOh yes, I should think about five or six people.”
    â€œWas she looking at one of these people in particular?”
    â€œI can’t possibly tell,” said Mrs. Bantry. “You see, I wasn’t facing that way. I was looking at her . My back was to the stairs. I thought perhaps she was looking at one of the pictures.”
    â€œBut she must know the pictures quite well if she’s living in the house.”
    â€œYes, yes, of course. No, I suppose she must have been looking at one of the people. I wonder which.”
    â€œWe have to try and find out,” said Dermot Craddock. “Can you remember at all who the people were?”
    â€œWell, I know the mayor was one of them with his wife. There was someone who I think was a reporter, with red hair, because I was introduced to him later, but I can’t remember his name. I never hear names.