Agatha Christie

A Caribbean Mystery

A Miss Marple Mystery

To my old friend John Cruickshank Rose with happy memories of my visit to the West Indies

One

MAJOR PALGRAVE TELLS A STORY

âTake all this business about Kenya,â said Major Palgrave.

âLots of chaps gabbing away who know nothing about the place! Now I spent fourteen years of my life there. Some of the best years of my life, tooââ

Old Miss Marple inclined her head.

It was a gentle gesture of courtesy. Whilst Major Palgrave proceeded with the somewhat uninteresting recollections of a lifetime, Miss Marple peacefully pursued her own thoughts. It was a routine with which she was well acquainted. The locale varied. In the past, it had been predominantly India. Majors, Colonels, Lieutenant-Generalsâand a familiar series of words: Simla. Bearers. Tigers. Chota HazriâTiffin. Khitmagars, and so on. With Major Palgrave the terms were slightly different. Safari. Kikuyu. Elephants. Swahili. But the pattern was essentially the same. An elderly man who needed a listener so that he could, in memory, relive days in which he had been happy. Days when his back had been straight, his eyesight keen, his hearing acute. Some of these talkers had been handsome soldierly old boys, some again had been regrettably unattractive; and Major Palgrave, purple of face, with a glass eye, and the general appearance of a stuffed frog, belonged in the latter category.

Miss Marple had bestowed on all of them the same gentle charity. She had sat attentively, inclining her head from time to time in gentle agreement, thinking her own thoughts and enjoying what there was to enjoy: in this case the deep blue of a Caribbean Sea.

So kind of dear Raymondâshe was thinking gratefully, so really and truly kind â¦ Why he should take so much trouble about his old aunt, she really did not know. Conscience, perhaps; family feeling? Or possibly he was truly fond of herâ¦.

She thought, on the whole, that he was fond of herâhe always had beenâin a slightly exasperated and contemptuous way! Always trying to bring her up to date. Sending her books to read. Modern novels. So difficultâall about such unpleasant people, doing such very odd things and not, apparently, even enjoying them. âSexâ as a word had not been mentioned in Miss Marpleâs young days; but there had been plenty of itânot talked about so muchâbut enjoyed far more than nowadays, or so it seemed to her. Though usually labelled Sin, she couldnât help feeling that that was preferable to what it seemed to be nowadaysâa kind of Duty.

Her glance strayed for a moment to the book on her lap lying open at page twenty-three which was as far as she had got (and indeed as far as she felt like getting!).

ââDo you mean that youâve had no sexual experience at ALL?â demanded the young man incredulously. âAt nineteen? But you must. Itâs vital.â

âThe girl hung her head unhappily, her straight greasy hair fell forward over her face.

ââI know,â she muttered, âI know.â

âHe looked at her, stained old jersey, the bare feet, the dirty toe nails, the smell of rancid fat â¦ He wondered why he found her so maddeningly attractive.â

Miss Marple wondered too! And really! To have sex experience urged on you exactly as though it was an iron tonic! Poor young thingsâ¦.

âMy dear Aunt Jane, why must you bury your head in the sand like a very delightful ostrich? All bound up in this idyllic rural life of yours. REAL LIFEâthatâs what matters.â

Thus Raymondâand his Aunt Janeâhad looked properly abashedâand said âYes,â she was afraid she was rather old-fashioned.

Though really rural life was far from idyllic. People like Raymond were so ignorant. In the course of her duties in a country parish, Jane Marple had acquired quite a comprehensive knowledge of the facts of rural life. She had no urge to talk about them, far less to write about themâbut she knew them. Plenty of sex, natural and unnatural. Rape, incest, perversion of all kinds. (Some kinds, indeed, that even the clever young men from Oxford who wrote books didnât seem to have heard about.)

Miss Marple came back to the Caribbean and took up the thread of what Major Palgrave was sayingâ¦.

âA very unusual experience,â she said encouragingly. âMost interesting.â

âI could tell you a lot more. Some of the things, of course, not fit for a ladyâs earsââ

With the ease of long practice, Miss Marple dropped her eyelids in a fluttery fashion, and Major Palgrave continued his bowdlerized version of tribal customs whilst Miss Marple resumed her thoughts of her affectionate nephew.

Raymond West was a very successful novelist and made a large income, and he conscientiously and kindly did all he could to alleviate the life of his elderly aunt. The preceding winter she had had a bad go of pneumonia, and medical opinion had advised sunshine. In lordly fashion Raymond had suggested a trip to the West Indies. Miss Marple had demurredâat the expense, the distance, the difficulties of travel, and at abandoning her house in St. Mary Mead. Raymond had dealt with everything. A friend who was writing a book wanted a quiet place in the country. âHeâll look after the house all right. Heâs very house proud. Heâs a queer. I meanââ

He had paused, slightly embarrassedâbut surely even dear old Aunt Jane must have heard of queers.

He went on to deal with the next points. Travel was nothing nowadays. She would go by airâanother friend, Diana Horrocks, was going out to Trinidad and would see Aunt Jane was all right as far as there, and at St. HonorÃ© she would stay at the Golden Palm Hotel which was run by the Sandersons. Nicest couple in the world. Theyâd see she was all right. Heâd write to them straight away.

As it happened the Sandersons had returned to England. But their successors, the Kendals, had been very nice and friendly and had assured Raymond that he need have no qualms about his aunt. There was a very good doctor on the island in case of emergency and they themselves would keep an eye on her and see to her comfort.

They had been as good as their word, too. Molly Kendal was an ingenuous blonde of twenty odd, always apparently in good spirits. She had greeted the old lady warmly and did everything to make her comfortable. Tim Kendal, her husband, lean, dark and in his thirties, had also been kindness itself.

So there she was, thought Miss Marple, far from the rigours of the English climate, with a nice bungalow of her own, with friendly smiling West Indian girls to wait on her, Tim Kendal to meet her in the dining room and crack a joke as he advised her about the dayâs menu, and an easy path from her bungalow to the sea front and the bathing beach where she could sit in a comfortable basket chair and watch the bathing. There were even a few elderly guests for company. Old Mr. Rafiel, Dr. Graham, Canon Prescott and his sister, and her present cavalier Major Palgrave.

What more could an elderly lady want?

It is deeply to be regretted, and Miss Marple felt guilty even admitting it to herself, but she was not as satisfied as she ought to be.

Lovely and warm, yesâand so good for her rheumatismâand beautiful scenery, though perhapsâa trifle monotonous? So many palm trees. Everything the same every dayânever anything happening. Not like St. Mary Mead where something was always happening. Her nephew had once compared life in St. Mary Mead to scum on a pond, and she had indignantly pointed out that smeared on a slide under the microscope there would be plenty of life to be observed. Yes, indeed, in St. Mary Mead, there was always something going on. Incident after incident flashed through Miss Marpleâs mind, the mistake in old Mrs. Linnettâs cough mixtureâthat very odd behaviour of young Polegateâthe time when Georgy Woodâs mother had come down to see himâ(but was she his motherâ?) the real cause of the quarrel between Joe Arden and his wife. So many interesting human problemsâgiving rise to endless pleasurable hours of speculation. If only there were something here that she couldâwellâget her teeth into.

With a start she realized that Major Palgrave had abandoned Kenya for the North West Frontier and was relating his experiences as a subaltern. Unfortunately he was asking her with great earnestness: âNow donât you agree?â

Long practice had made Miss Marple quite an adept at dealing with that one.

âI donât really feel that Iâve got sufficient experience to judge. Iâm afraid Iâve led rather a sheltered life.â

âAnd so you should, dear lady, so you should,â cried Major Palgrave gallantly.

âYouâve had such a very varied life,â went on Miss Marple, determined to make amends for her former pleasurable inattention.

âNot bad,â said Major Palgrave, complacently. âNot bad at all.â He looked round him appreciatively. âLovely place, this.â

âYes, indeed,â said Miss Marple and was then unable to stop herself going on: âDoes anything ever happen here, I wonder?â

Major Palgrave stared.

âOh rather. Plenty of scandalsâeh what? Why, I could tell youââ

But it wasnât really scandals Miss Marple wanted. Nothing to get your teeth into in scandals nowadays. Just men and women changing partners, and calling attention to it, instead of trying decently to hush it up and be properly ashamed of themselves.

âThere was even a murder here a couple of years ago. Man called Harry Western. Made a big splash in the papers. Dare say you remember it.â

Miss Marple nodded without enthusiasm. It had not been her kind of murder. It had made a big splash mainly because everyone concerned had been very rich. It had seemed likely enough that Harry Western had shot the Count de Ferrari, his wifeâs lover, and equally likely that his well-arranged alibi had been bought and paid for. Everyone seemed to have been drunk, and there was a fine scattering of dope addicts. Not really interesting people, thought Miss Marpleâalthough no doubt very spectacular and attractive to look at. But definitely not her cup of tea.

âAnd if you ask me, that wasnât the only murder about that time.â He nodded and winked. âI had my suspicionsâoh!âwellââ

Miss Marple dropped her ball of wool, and the Major stooped and picked it up for her.

âTalking of murder,â he went on. âI once came across a very curious caseânot exactly personally.â

Miss Marple smiled encouragingly.

âLot of chaps talking at the club one day, you know, and a chap began telling a story. Medical man he was. One of his cases. Young fellow came and knocked him up in the middle of the night. His wife had hanged herself. They hadnât got a telephone, so after the chap had cut her down and done what he could, heâd got out his car and hared off looking for a doctor. Well, she wasnât dead but pretty far gone. Anyway, she pulled through. Young fellow seemed devoted to her. Cried like a child. Heâd noticed that sheâd been odd for some time, fits of depression and all that. Well, that was that. Everything seemed all right. But actually, about a month later, the wife took an overdose of sleeping stuff and passed out. Sad case.â

Major Palgrave paused, and nodded his head several times. Since there was obviously more to come Miss Marple waited.

âAnd thatâs that, you might say. Nothing there. Neurotic woman, nothing out of the usual. But about a year later, this medical chap was swapping yarns with a fellow medico, and the other chap told him about a woman whoâd tried to drown herself, husband got her out, got a doctor, they pulled her roundâand then a few weeks later she gassed herself.

âWell, a bit of a coincidenceâeh? Same sort of story. My chap saidââI had a case rather like that. Name of Jones (or whatever the name was)âWhat was your manâs name?â âCanât remember. Robinson I think. Certainly not Jones.â

âWell, the chaps looked at each other and said it was pretty odd. And then my chap pulled out a snapshot. He showed it to the second chap. âThatâs the fellow,â he saidââIâd gone along the next day to check up on the particulars, and I noticed a magnificent species of hibiscus just by the front door, a variety Iâd never seen before in this country. My camera was in the car and I took a photo. Just as I snapped the shutter the husband came out of the front door so I got him as well. Donât think he realized it. I asked him about the hibiscus but he couldnât tell me its name.â Second medico looked at the snap. He said: âItâs a bit out of focusâBut I could swearâat any rate Iâm almost sureâitâs the same man.â

âDonât know if they followed it up. But if so they didnât get anywhere. Expect Mr. Jones or Robinson covered his tracks too well. But queer story, isnât it? Wouldnât think things like that could happen.â

âOh, yes, I would,â said Miss Marple placidly. âPractically every day.â

âOh, come, come. Thatâs a bit fantastic.â

âIf a man gets a formula that worksâhe wonât stop. Heâll go on.â

âBrides in the bathâeh?â

âThat kind of thing, yes.â

âDoctor let me have that snap just as a curiosityââ

Major Palgrave began fumbling through an overstuffed wallet murmuring to himself: âLots of things in hereâdonât know why I keep all these thingsâ¦.â

Miss Marple thought she did know. They were part of the Majorâs stock-in-trade. They illustrated his repertoire of stories. The story he had just told, or so she suspected, had not been originally like thatâit had been worked up a good deal in repeated telling.

The Major was still shuffling and mutteringââForgotten all about that business. Good-looking woman she was, youâd never suspectânow whereâAhâthat takes my mind backâwhat tusks! I must show youââ

He stoppedâsorted out a small photographic print and peered down at it.

âLike to see the picture of a murderer?â

He was about to pass it to her when his movement was suddenly arrested. Looking more like a stuffed frog than ever, Major Palgrave appeared to be staring fixedly over her right shoulderâfrom whence came the sound of approaching footsteps and voices.

âWell, Iâm damnedâI meanââ He stuffed everything back into his wallet and crammed it into his pocket.

His face went an even deeper shade of purplish redâHe exclaimed in a loud, artificial voice:

âAs I was sayingâIâd like to have shown you those elephant tusksâBiggest elephant Iâve ever shotâAh, hallo!â His voice took on a somewhat spurious hearty note.

âLook whoâs here! The great quartetteâFlora and FaunaâWhat luck have you had todayâEh?â

The approaching footsteps resolved themselves into four of the hotel guests whom Miss Marple already knew by sight. They consisted of two married couples and though Miss Marple was not as yet acquainted with their surnames, she knew that the big man with the upstanding bush of thick grey hair was addressed as âGreg,â that the golden blonde woman, his wife, was known as Luckyâand that the other married couple, the dark lean man and the handsome but rather weather-beaten woman, were Edward and Evelyn. They were botanists, she understood, and also interested in birds.

âNo luck at all,â said GregââAt least no luck in getting what we were after.â

âDonât know if you know Miss Marple? Colonel and Mrs. Hillingdon and Greg and Lucky Dyson.â

They greeted her pleasantly and Lucky said loudly that sheâd die if she didnât have a drink at once or sooner.

Greg hailed Tim Kendal who was sitting a little way away with his wife poring over account books.

âHi, Tim. Get us some drinks.â He addressed the others. âPlanters Punch?â

They agreed.

âSame for you, Miss Marple?â

Miss Marple said Thank you, but she would prefer fresh lime.

âFresh lime it is,â said Tim Kendal, âand five Planters Punches.â

âJoin us, Tim?â

âWish I could. But Iâve got to fix up these accounts. Canât leave Molly to cope with everything. Steel band tonight, by the way.â

âGood,â cried Lucky. âDamn it,â she winced, âIâm all over thorns. Ouch! Edward deliberately rammed me into a thorn bush!â

âLovely pink flowers,â said Hillingdon.

âAnd lovely long thorns. Sadistic brute, arenât you, Edward?â

âNot like me,â said Greg, grinning. âFull of the milk of human kindness.â

Evelyn Hillingdon sat down by Miss Marple and started talking to her in an easy pleasant way.

Miss Marple put her knitting down on her lap. Slowly and with some difficulty, owing to rheumatism in the neck, she turned her head over her right shoulder to look behind her. At some little distance there was the large bungalow occupied by the rich Mr. Rafiel. But it showed no sign of life.

She replied suitably to Evelynâs remarks (really, how kind people were to her!) but her eyes scanned thoughtfully the faces of the two men.

Edward Hillingdon looked a nice man. Quiet but with a lot of charm â¦ And Gregâbig, boisterous, happy-looking. He and Lucky were Canadian or American, she thought.

She looked at Major Palgrave, still acting a bonhomie a little larger than life.

Interestingâ¦.

Two

MISS MARPLE MAKES COMPARISONS

I

It was very gay that evening at the Golden Palm Hotel.

Seated at her little corner table, Miss Marple looked round her in an interested fashion. The dining room was a large room open on three sides to the soft warm scented air of the West Indies. There were small table lamps, all softly coloured. Most of the women were in evening dress: light cotton prints out of which bronzed shoulders and arms emerged. Miss Marple herself had been urged by her nephewâs wife, Joan, in the sweetest way possible, to accept âa small cheque.â

âBecause, Aunt Jane, it will be rather hot out there, and I donât expect you have any very thin clothes.â

Jane Marple had thanked her and had accepted the cheque. She came of the age when it was natural for the old to support and finance the young, but also for the middle-aged to look after the old. She could not, however, force herself to buy anything very thin! At her age she seldom felt more than pleasantly warm even in the hottest weather, and the temperature of St. HonorÃ© was not really what is referred to as âtropical heat.â This evening she was attired in the best traditions of the provincial gentlewoman of Englandâgrey lace.

Not that she was the only elderly person present. There were representatives of all ages in the room. There were elderly tycoons with young third or fourth wives. There were middle-aged couples from the North of England. There was a gay family from Caracas complete with children. The various countries of South America were well represented, all chattering loudly in Spanish or Portuguese. There was a solid English background of two clergymen, one doctor and one retired judge. There was even a family of Chinese. The dining room service was mainly done by women, tall black girls of proud carriage, dressed in crisp white; but there was an experienced Italian head waiter in charge, and a French wine waiter, and there was the attentive eye of Tim Kendal watching over everything, pausing here and there to have a social word with people at their tables. His wife seconded him ably. She was a good-looking girl. Her hair was a natural golden blonde and she had a wide generous mouth that laughed easily. It was very seldom that Molly Kendal was out of temper. Her staff worked for her enthusiastically, and she adapted her manner carefully to suit her different guests. With the elderly men she laughed and flirted; she congratulated the younger women on their clothes.

âOh, what a smashing dress youâve got on tonight, Mrs. Dyson. Iâm so jealous I could tear it off your back.â But she looked very well in her own dress, or so Miss Marple thought: a white sheath, with a pale green embroidered silk shawl thrown over her shoulders. Lucky was fingering the shawl. âLovely colour! Iâd like one like it.â âYou can get them at the shop here,â Molly told her and passed on. She did not pause by Miss Marpleâs table. Elderly ladies she usually left to her husband. âThe old dears like a man much better,â she used to say.

Tim Kendal came and bent over Miss Marple.

âNothing special you want, is there?â he asked. âBecause youâve only got to tell meâand I could get it specially cooked for you. Hotel food, and semi-tropical at that, isnât quite what youâre used to at home, I expect?â

Miss Marple smiled and said that that was one of the pleasures of coming abroad.

âThatâs all right, then. But if there is anythingââ

âSuch as?â

âWellââ Tim Kendal looked a little doubtfulââBread and butter pudding?â he hazarded.

Miss Marple smiled and said that she thought she could do without bread and butter pudding very nicely for the present.

She picked up her spoon and began to eat her passion fruit sundae with cheerful appreciation.

Then the steel band began to play. The steel bands were one of the main attractions of the islands. Truth to tell, Miss Marple could have done very well without them. She considered that they made a hideous noise, unnecessarily loud. The pleasure that everyone else took in them was undeniable, however, and Miss Marple, in the true spirit of her youth, decided that as they had to be, she must manage somehow to learn to like them. She could hardly request Tim Kendal to conjure up from somewhere the muted strains of the âBlue Danube.â (So gracefulâwaltzing.) Most peculiar, the way people danced nowadays. Flinging themselves about, seeming quite contorted. Oh well, young people must enjoyâHer thoughts were arrested. Because, now she came to think of it, very few of these people were young. Dancing, lights, the music of a band (even a steel band), all that surely was for youth. But where was youth? Studying, she supposed, at universities, or doing a jobâwith a fortnightâs holiday a year. A place like this was too far away and too expensive. This gay and carefree life was all for the thirties and the fortiesâand the old men who were trying to live up (or down) to their young wives. It seemed, somehow, a pity.

Miss Marple sighed for youth. There was Mrs. Kendal, of course. She wasnât more than twenty-two or three, probably, and she seemed to be enjoying herselfâbut even so, it was a job she was doing.

At a table nearby Canon Prescott and his sister were sitting. They motioned to Miss Marple to join them for coffee and she did so. Miss Prescott was a thin severe-looking woman, the Canon was a round, rubicund man, breathing geniality.

Coffee was brought, and chairs were pushed a little way away from the tables. Miss Prescott opened a work bag and took out some frankly hideous table mats that she was hemming. She told Miss Marple all about the dayâs events. They had visited a new Girlsâ School in the morning. After an afternoonâs rest, they had walked through a cane plantation to have tea at a pension where some friends of theirs were staying.

Since the Prescotts had been at the Golden Palm longer than Miss Marple, they were able to enlighten her as to some of her fellow guests.

That very old man, Mr. Rafiel. He came every year. Fantastically rich! Owned an enormous chain of supermarkets in the North of England. The young woman with him was his secretary, Esther Waltersâa widow. (Quite all right, of course. Nothing improper. After all, he was nearly eighty!)

Miss Marple accepted the propriety of the relationship with an understanding nod and the Canon remarked:

âA very nice young woman; her mother, I understand, is a widow and lives in Chichester.â

âMr. Rafiel has a valet with him, too. Or rather a kind of Nurse Attendantâheâs a qualified masseur, I believe. Jackson, his name is. Poor Mr. Rafiel is practically paralysed. So sadâwith all that money, too.â

âA generous and cheerful giver,â said Canon Prescott approvingly.

People were regrouping themselves round about, some going farther from the steel band, others crowding up to it. Major Palgrave had joined the Hillingdon-Dyson quartette.

âNow those peopleââ said Miss Prescott, lowering her voice quite unnecessarily since the steel band easily drowned it.

âYes, I was going to ask you about them.â

âThey were here last year. They spend three months every year in the West Indies, going round the different islands. The tall thin man is Colonel Hillingdon and the dark woman is his wifeâthey are botanists. The other two, Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Dysonâtheyâre American. He writes on butterflies, I believe. And all of them are interested in birds.â

âSo nice for people to have open-air hobbies,â said Canon Prescott genially.

âI donât think theyâd like to hear you call it hobbies, Jeremy,â said his sister. âThey have articles printed in the National Geographic and in the Royal Horticultural Journal. They take themselves very seriously.â

A loud outburst of laughter came from the table they had been observing. It was loud enough to overcome the steel band. Gregory Dyson was leaning back in his chair and thumping the table, his wife was protesting, and Major Palgrave emptied his glass and seemed to be applauding.

They hardly qualified for the moment as people who took themselves seriously.

âMajor Palgrave should not drink so much,â said Miss Prescott acidly. âHe has blood pressure.â

A fresh supply of Planters Punches was brought to the table.

âItâs so nice to get people sorted out,â said Miss Marple. âWhen I met them this afternoon I wasnât sure which was married to which.â

There was a slight pause. Miss Prescott coughed a small dry cough, and saidââWell, as to thatââ

âJoan,â said the Canon in an admonitory voice. âPerhaps it would be wise to say no more.â

âReally, Jeremy, I wasnât going to say anything. Only that last year, for some reason or otherâI really donât know whyâwe got the idea that Mrs. Dyson was Mrs. Hillingdon until someone told us she wasnât.â

âItâs odd how one gets impressions, isnât it?â said Miss Marple innocently. Her eyes met Miss Prescottâs for a moment. A flash of womanly understanding passed between them.

A more sensitive man than Canon Prescott might have felt that he was de trop.

Another signal passed between the women. It said as clearly as if the words had been spoken: âSome other timeâ¦.â

âMr. Dyson calls his wife âLucky.â Is that her real name or a nickname?â asked Miss Marple.

âIt can hardly be her real name, I should think.â

âI happened to ask him,â said the Canon. âHe said he called her Lucky because she was his good-luck piece. If he lost her, he said, heâd lose his luck. Very nicely put, I thought.â

âHeâs very fond of joking,â said Miss Prescott.

The Canon looked at his sister doubtfully.

The steel band outdid itself with a wild burst of cacophony and a troupe of dancers came racing on to the floor.

Miss Marple and the others turned their chairs to watch. Miss Marple enjoyed the dancing better than the music; she liked the shuffling feet and the rhythmic sway of the bodies. It seemed, she thought, very real. It had a kind of power of understatement.

Tonight, for the first time, she began to feel slightly at home in her new environment â¦ Up to now, she had missed what she usually found so easy, points of resemblance in the people she met, to various people known to her personally. She had, possibly, been dazzled by the gay clothes and the exotic colouring; but soon, she felt, she would be able to make some interesting comparisons.

Molly Kendal, for instance, was like that nice girl whose name she couldnât remember, but who was a conductress on the Market Basing bus. Helped you in, and never rang the bus on until she was sure youâd sat down safely. Tim Kendal was just a little like the head waiter at the Royal George in Medchester. Self-confident, and yet, at the same time, worried. (He had had an ulcer, she remembered.) As for Major Palgrave, he was undistinguishable from General Leroy, Captain Flemming, Admiral Wicklow and Commander Richardson. She went on to someone more interesting. Greg for instance? Greg was difficult because he was American. A dash of Sir George Trollope, perhaps, always so full of jokes at the Civil Defence meetingsâor perhaps Mr. Murdoch the butcher. Mr. Murdoch had had rather a bad reputation, but some people said it was just gossip, and that Mr. Murdoch himself liked to encourage the rumours! âLuckyâ now? Well, that was easyâMarleen at the Three Crowns. Evelyn Hillingdon? She couldnât fit Evelyn in precisely. In appearance she fitted many rolesâtall thin weather-beaten Englishwomen were plentiful. Lady Caroline Wolfe, Peter Wolfeâs first wife, who had committed suicide? Or there was Leslie Jamesâthat quiet woman who seldom showed what she felt and who had sold up her house and left without ever telling anyone she was going. Colonel Hillingdon? No immediate clue there. Sheâd have to get to know him a little first. One of those quiet men with good manners. You never knew what they were thinking about. Sometimes they surprised you. Major Harper, she remembered, had quietly cut his throat one day. Nobody had ever known why. Miss Marple thought that she did knowâbut sheâd never been quite sureâ¦.

Her eyes strayed to Mr. Rafielâs table. The principal thing known about Mr. Rafiel was that he was incredibly rich, he came every year to the West Indies, he was semi-paralysed and looked like a wrinkled old bird of prey. His clothes hung loosely on his shrunken form. He might have been seventy or eighty, or even ninety. His eyes were shrewd and he was frequently rude, but people seldom took offence, partly because he was so rich, and partly because of his overwhelming personality which hypnotized you into feeling that somehow, Mr. Rafiel had the right to be rude if he wanted to.

With him sat his secretary, Mrs. Walters. She had corn-coloured hair, and a pleasant face. Mr. Rafiel was frequently very rude to her, but she never seemed to notice itâShe was not so much subservient, as oblivious. She behaved like a well-trained hospital nurse. Possibly, thought Miss Marple, she had been a hospital nurse.

A young man, tall and good-looking, in a white jacket, came to stand by Mr. Rafielâs chair. The old man looked up at him, nodded, then motioned him to a chair. The young man sat down as bidden. âMr. Jackson, I presume,â said Miss Marple to herselfââHis valet-attendant.â

She studied Mr. Jackson with some attention.

II

In the bar, Molly Kendal stretched her back, and slipped off her high-heeled shoes. Tim came in from the terrace to join her. They had the bar to themselves for the moment.

âTired, darling?â he asked.

âJust a bit. I seem to be feeling my feet tonight.â

âNot too much for you, is it? All this? I know itâs hard work.â He looked at her anxiously.

She laughed. âOh, Tim, donât be ridiculous. I love it here. Itâs gorgeous. The kind of dream Iâve always had, come true.â

âYes, it would be all rightâif one was just a guest. But running the showâthatâs work.â

âWell, you canât have anything for nothing, can you?â said Molly Kendal reasonably.

Tim Kendal frowned.

âYou think itâs going all right? A success? Weâre making a go of it?â

âOf course we are.â

âYou donât think people are saying, âItâs not the same as when the Sandersons were here.ââ

âOf course someone will be saying thatâthey always do! But only some old stick-in-the-mud. Iâm sure that weâre far better at the job than they were. Weâre more glamorous. You charm the old pussies and manage to look as though youâd like to make love to the desperate forties and fifties, and I ogle the old gentlemen and make them feel sexy dogsâor play the sweet little daughter the sentimental ones would love to have had. Oh, weâve got it all taped splendidly.â

Timâs frown vanished.

âAs long as you think so. I get scared. Weâve risked everything on making a job of this. I chucked my jobââ

âAnd quite right to do so,â Molly put in quickly. âIt was soul-destroying.â

He laughed and kissed the tip of her nose.

âI tell you weâve got it taped,â she repeated. âWhy do you always worry?â

âMade that way, I suppose. Iâm always thinkingâsuppose something should go wrong.â

âWhat sort of thingââ

âOh, I donât know. Somebody might get drowned.â

âNot they. Itâs one of the safest of all the beaches. And weâve got that hulking Swede always on guard.â

âIâm a fool,â said Tim Kendal. He hesitatedâand then said, âYouâhavenât had any more of those dreams, have you?â

âThat was shellfish,â said Molly, and laughed.

Three

A DEATH IN THE HOTEL

Miss Marple had her breakfast brought to her in bed as usual. Tea, a boiled egg, and a slice of pawpaw.

The fruit on the island, thought Miss Marple, was rather disappointing. It seemed always to be pawpaw. If she could have a nice apple nowâbut apples seemed to be unknown.

Now that she had been here a week, Miss Marple had cured herself of the impulse to ask what the weather was like. The weather was always the sameâfine. No interesting variations.

âThe many-splendoured weather of an English day,â she murmured to herself and wondered if it was a quotation, or whether she had made it up.

There were, of course, hurricanes, or so she understood. But hurricanes were not weather in Miss Marpleâs sense of the word. They were more in the nature of an Act of God. There was rain, short violent rainfall that lasted five minutes and stopped abruptly. Everything and everyone was wringing wet, but in another five minutes they were dry again.

The black West Indian girl smiled and said Good Morning as she placed the tray on Miss Marpleâs knees. Such lovely white teeth and so happy and smiling. Nice natures, all these girls, and a pity they were so averse to getting married. It worried Canon Prescott a good deal. Plenty of christenings, he said, trying to console himself, but no weddings.

Miss Marple ate her breakfast and decided how she would spend her day. It didnât really take much deciding. She would get up at her leisure, moving slowly because it was rather hot and her fingers werenât as nimble as they used to be. Then she would rest for ten minutes or so, and she would take her knitting and walk slowly along towards the hotel and decide where she would settle herself. On the terrace overlooking the sea? Or should she go on to the bathing beach to watch the bathers and the children? Usually it was the latter. In the afternoon, after her rest, she might take a drive. It really didnât matter very much.

Today would be a day like any other day, she said to herself.

Only, of course, it wasnât.

Miss Marple carried out her programme as planned and was slowly making her way along the path towards the hotel when she met Molly Kendal. For once that sunny young woman was not smiling. Her air of distress was so unlike her that Miss Marple said immediately:

âMy dear, is anything wrong?â

Molly nodded. She hesitated and then said: âWell, youâll have to knowâeveryone will have to know. Itâs Major Palgrave. Heâs dead.â

âDead?â

âYes. He died in the night.â

âOh, dear, I am sorry.â

âYes, itâs horrid having a death here. It makes everyone depressed. Of courseâhe was quite old.â

âHe seemed quite well and cheerful yesterday,â said Miss Marple, slightly resenting this calm assumption that everyone of advanced years was liable to die at any minute.

âHe seemed quite healthy,â she added.

âHe had high blood pressure,â said Molly.

âBut surely there are things one takes nowadaysâsome kind of pill. Science is so wonderful.â

âOh yes, but perhaps he forgot to take his pills, or took too many of them. Like insulin, you know.â

Miss Marple did not think that diabetes and high blood pressure were at all the same kind of thing. She asked:

âWhat does the doctor say?â

âOh, Dr. Graham, whoâs practically retired now, and lives in the hotel, took a look at him, and the local people came officially, of course, to give a death certificate, but it all seems quite straightforward. This kind of thing is quite liable to happen when you have high blood pressure, especially if you overdo the alcohol, and Major Palgrave was really very naughty that way. Last night, for instance.â

âYes, I noticed,â said Miss Marple.

âHe probably forgot to take his pills. It is bad luck for the old boyâbut people canât live for ever, can they? But itâs terribly worryingâfor me and Tim, I mean. People might suggest it was something in the food.â

âBut surely the symptoms of food poisoning and of blood pressure are quite different?â

âYes. But people do say things so easily. And if people decided the food was badâand leftâor told their friendsââ

âI really donât think you need worry,â said Miss Marple kindly. âAs you say, an elderly man like Major Palgraveâhe must have been over seventyâis quite liable to die. To most people it will seem quite an ordinary occurrenceâsad, but not out of the way at all.â

âIf only,â said Molly unhappily, âit hadnât been so sudden.â

Yes, it had been very sudden, Miss Marple thought as she walked slowly on. There he had been last night, laughing and talking in the best of spirits with the Hillingdons and the Dysons.

The Hillingdons and the Dysons â¦ Miss Marple walked more slowly still â¦ Finally she stopped abruptly. Instead of going to the bathing beach she settled herself in a shady corner of the terrace. She took out her knitting and the needles clicked rapidly as though they were trying to match the speed of her thoughts. She didnât like itâno, she didnât like it. It came so pat.

She went over the occurrences of yesterday in her mind.

Major Palgrave and his storiesâ¦.

That was all as usual and one didnât need to listen very closely â¦ Perhaps, though, it would have been better if she had.

Kenyaâhe had talked about Kenya and then Indiaâthe North West Frontierâand thenâfor some reason they had got on to murderâAnd even then she hadnât really been listeningâ¦.

Some famous case that had taken place out hereâthat had been in the newspapersâ

It was after thatâwhen he picked up her ball of woolâthat he had begun telling her about a snapshotâA snapshot of a murdererâthat is what he had said.

Miss Marple closed her eyes and tried to remember just exactly how that story had gone.

It had been rather a confused storyâtold to the Major in his clubâor in somebody elseâs clubâtold him by a doctorâwho had heard it from another doctorâand one doctor had taken a snapshot of someone coming through a front doorâsomeone who was a murdererâ

Yes, that was itâthe various details were coming back to her nowâ

And he had offered to show her that snapshotâHe had got out his wallet and begun hunting through its contentsâtalking all the timeâ¦.

And then still talking, he had looked upâhad lookedânot at herâbut at something behind herâbehind her right shoulder to be accurate. And he had stopped talking, his face had gone purpleâand he had started stuffing back everything into his wallet with slightly shaky hands and had begun talking in a loud unnatural voice about elephant tusks!

A moment or two later the Hillingdons and the Dysons had joined themâ¦.

It was then that she had turned her head over her right shoulder to look â¦ But there had been nothing and nobody to see. To her left, some distance away, in the direction of the hotel, there had been Tim Kendal and his wife; and beyond them a family group of Venezuelans. But Major Palgrave had not been looking in that directionâ¦.

Miss Marple meditated until lunch time.

After lunch she did not go for a drive.

Instead she sent a message to say that she was not feeling very well and to ask if Dr. Graham would be kind enough to come and see her.

Four

MISS MARPLE SEEKS MEDICAL ATTENTION

Dr. Graham was a kindly elderly man of about sixty-five. He had practised in the West Indies for many years, but was now semi-retired, and left most of his work to his West Indian partners. He greeted Miss Marple pleasantly and asked her what the trouble was. Fortunately at Miss Marpleâs age, there was always some ailment that could be discussed with slight exaggerations on the patientâs part. Miss Marple hesitated between âher shoulderâ and âher knee,â but finally decided upon the knee. Miss Marpleâs knee, as she would have put it to herself, was always with her.

Dr. Graham was exceedingly kindly but he refrained from putting into words the fact that at her time of life such troubles were only to be expected. He prescribed for her one of the brands of useful little pills that form the basis of a doctorâs prescriptions. Since he knew by experience that many elderly people could be lonely when they first came to St. HonorÃ©, he remained for a while gently chatting.

âA very nice man,â thought Miss Marple to herself, âand I really feel rather ashamed of having to tell him lies. But I donât quite see what else I can do.â

Miss Marple had been brought up to have a proper regard for truth and was indeed by nature a very truthful person. But on certain occasions, when she considered it her duty so to do, she could tell lies with a really astonishing verisimilitude.

She cleared her throat, uttered an apologetic little cough, and said, in an old ladyish and slightly twittering manner:

âThere is something, Dr. Graham, I would like to ask you. I donât really like mentioning itâbut I donât quite see what else I am to doâalthough of course itâs quite unimportant really. But you see, itâs important to me. And I hope you will understand and not think what I am asking is tiresome orâor unpardonable in any way.â

To this opening Dr. Graham replied kindly: âSomething is worrying you? Do let me help.â

âItâs connected with Major Palgrave. So sad about his dying. It was quite a shock when I heard it this morning.â

âYes,â said Dr. Graham, âit was very sudden, Iâm afraid. He seemed in such good spirits yesterday.â He spoke kindly, but conventionally. To him, clearly, Major Palgraveâs death was nothing out of the way. Miss Marple wondered whether she was really making something out of nothing. Was this suspicious habit of mind growing on her? Perhaps she could no longer trust her own judgment. Not that it was judgment really, only suspicion. Anyway she was in for it now! She must go ahead.

âWe were sitting talking together yesterday afternoon,â she said. âHe was telling me about his very varied and interesting life. So many strange parts of the globe.â

âYes indeed,â said Dr. Graham, who had been bored many times by the Majorâs reminiscences.

âAnd then he spoke of his family, boyhood rather, and I told him a little about my own nephews and nieces and he listened very sympathetically. And I showed him a snapshot I had with me of one of my nephews. Such a dear boyâat least not exactly a boy now, but always a boy to me if you understand.â

âQuite so,â said Dr. Graham, wondering how long it would be before the old lady was going to come to the point.

âI had handed it to him and he was examining it when quite suddenly those peopleâthose very nice peopleâwho collect wild flowers and butterflies, Colonel and Mrs. Hillingdon I think the name isââ

âOh yes? The Hillingdons and the Dysons.â

âYes, thatâs right. They came suddenly along laughing and talking. They sat down and ordered drinks and we all talked together. Very pleasant it was. But without thinking, Major Palgrave must have put back my snapshot into his wallet and returned it to his pocket. I wasnât paying very much attention at the time but I remembered afterward and I said to myselfââI mustnât forget to ask the Major to give me back my picture of Denzil.â I did think of it last night while the dancing and the band was going on, but I didnât like to interrupt him just then, because they were having such a merry party together and I thought âI will remember to ask him for it in the morning.â Only this morningââ Miss Marple pausedâout of breath.

âYes, yes,â said Dr. Graham, âI quite understand. And youâwell, naturally you want the snapshot back. Is that it?â

Miss Marple nodded her head in eager agreement.

âYes. Thatâs it. You see, it is the only one I have got and I havenât got the negative. And I would hate to lose that snapshot, because poor Denzil died some five or six years ago and he was my favourite nephew. This is the only picture I have to remind me of him. I wonderedâI hopedâit is rather tiresome of me to askâwhether you could possibly manage to get hold of it for me? I donât really know who else to ask, you see. I donât know whoâll attend to all his belongings and things like that. It is all so difficult. They would think it such a nuisance of me. You see, they donât understand. Nobody could quite understand what this snapshot means to me.â

âOf course, of course,â said Dr. Graham. âI quite understand. A most natural feeling on your part. Actually, I am meeting the local authorities shortlyâthe funeral is tomorrowâand someone will be coming from the Administratorâs office to look over his papers and effects before communicating with the next of kinâall that sort of thingâIf you could describe this snapshot.â

âIt was just the front of a house,â said Miss Marple. âAnd someoneâDenzil, I meanâwas just coming out of the front door. As I say it was taken by one of my other nephews who is very keen on flower showsâand he was photographing a hibiscus, I think, or one of those beautifulâsomething like antipastoâlilies. Denzil just happened to come out of the front door at that time. It wasnât a very good photograph of himâjust a trifle blurredâBut I liked it and have always kept it.â

âWell,â said Dr. Graham, âthat seems clear enough. I think weâll have no difficulty in getting back your picture for you, Miss Marple.â

He rose from his chair. Miss Marple smiled up at him.

âYou are very kind, Dr. Graham, very kind indeed. You do understand, donât you?â

âOf course I do, of course I do,â said Dr. Graham, shaking her warmly by the hand. âNow donât you worry. Exercise that knee every day gently but not too much, and Iâll send you round these tablets. Take one three times a day.â

Five

MISS MARPLE MAKES A DECISION

The funeral service was said over the body of the late Major Palgrave on the following day. Miss Marple attended in company with Miss Prescott. The Canon read the serviceâafter that life went on as usual.

Major Palgraveâs death was already only an incident, a slightly unpleasant incident, but one that was soon forgotten. Life here was sunshine, sea, and social pleasures. A grim visitor had interrupted these activities, casting a momentary shadow, but the shadow was now gone. After all, nobody had known the deceased very well. He had been rather a garrulous elderly man of the club-bore type, always telling you personal reminiscences that you had no particular desire to hear. He had had little to anchor himself to any particular part of the world. His wife had died many years ago. He had had a lonely life and a lonely death. But it had been the kind of loneliness that spends itself in living amongst people, and in passing the time that way not unpleasantly. Major Palgrave might have been a lonely man, he had also been quite a cheerful one. He had enjoyed himself in his own particular way. And now he was dead, buried, and nobody cared very much, and in another weekâs time nobody would even remember him or spare him a passing thought.

The only person who could possibly be said to miss him was Miss Marple. Not indeed out of any personal affection, but he represented a kind of life that she knew. As one grew older, so she reflected to herself, one got more and more into the habit of listening; listening possibly without any great interest, but there had been between her and the Major the gentle give and take of two old people. It had had a cheerful, human quality. She did not actually mourn Major Palgrave but she missed him.

On the afternoon of the funeral, as she was sitting knitting in her favourite spot, Dr. Graham came and joined her. She put her needles down and greeted him. He said at once, rather apologetically:

âI am afraid I have rather disappointing news, Miss Marple.â

âIndeed? About myââ

âYes. We havenât found that precious snapshot of yours. Iâm afraid that will be a disappointment to you.â

âYes. Yes it is. But of course it does not really matter. It was a sentimentality. I do realize that now. It wasnât in Major Palgraveâs wallet?â

âNo. Nor anywhere else among his things. There were a few letters and newspaper clippings and odds and ends, and a few old photographs, but no sign of a snapshot such as you mentioned.â

âOh dear,â said Miss Marple. âWell, it canât be helped â¦ Thank you very much, Dr. Graham, for the trouble youâve taken.â

âOh it was no trouble, indeed. But I know quite well from my own experience how much family trifles mean to one, especially as one is getting older.â

The old lady was really taking it very well, he thought. Major Palgrave, he presumed, had probably come across the snapshot when taking something out of his wallet, and not even realizing how it had come there, had torn it up as something of no importance. But of course it was of great importance to this old lady. Still, she seemed quite cheerful and philosophical about it.

Internally, however, Miss Marple was far from being either cheerful or philosophical. She wanted a little time in which to think things out, but she was also determined to use her present opportunities to the fullest effect.

She engaged Dr. Graham in conversation with an eagerness which she did not attempt to conceal. That kindly man, putting down her flow of talk to the natural loneliness of an old lady, exerted himself to divert her mind from the loss of the snapshot, by conversing easily and pleasantly about life in St. HonorÃ©, and the various interesting places perhaps Miss Marple might like to visit. He hardly knew himself how the conversation drifted back to Major Palgraveâs decease.

âIt seems so sad,â said Miss Marple. âTo think of anyone dying like this away from home. Though I gather, from what he himself told me, that he had no immediate family. It seems he lived by himself in London.â

âHe travelled a fair amount, I believe,â said Dr. Graham. âAt any rate in the winters. He didnât care for our English winters. Canât say I blame him.â

âNo, indeed,â said Miss Marple. âAnd perhaps he had some special reason like a weakness of the lungs or something which made it necessary for him to winter abroad?â

âOh no, I donât think so.â

âHe had high blood pressure, I believe. So sad nowadays. One hears so much of it.â

âHe spoke about it to you, did he?â

âOh no. No, he never mentioned it. It was somebody else who told me.â

âAh, really.â

âI suppose,â went on Miss Marple, âthat death was to be expected under those circumstances.â

âNot necessarily,â said Dr. Graham. âThere are methods of controlling blood pressure nowadays.â

âHis death seemed very suddenâbut I suppose you werenât surprised.â

âWell I wasnât particularly surprised in a man of that age. But I certainly didnât expect it. Frankly, he always seemed to me in very good form, but I hadnât ever attended him professionally. Iâd never taken his blood pressure or anything like that.â

âDoes one knowâI mean, does a doctor knowâwhen a man has high blood pressure just by looking at him?â Miss Marple inquired with a kind of dewy innocence.

âNot just by looking,â said the doctor, smiling. âOne has to do a bit of testing.â

âOh I see. That dreadful thing when you put a rubber band round somebodyâs arm and blow it upâI dislike it so much. But my doctor said that my blood pressure was really very good for my age.â

âWell thatâs good hearing,â said Dr. Graham.

âOf course, the Major was rather fond of Planters Punch,â said Miss Marple thoughtfully.

âYes. Not the best thing with blood pressureâalcohol.â

âOne takes tablets, doesnât one, or so I have heard?â

âYes. There are several on the market. There was a bottle of one of them in his roomâSerenite.â

âHow wonderful science is nowadays,â said Miss Marple. âDoctors can do so much, canât they?â

âWe all have one great competitor,â said Dr. Graham. âNature, you know. And some of the good old-fashioned home remedies come back from time to time.â

âLike putting cobwebs on a cut?â said Miss Marple. âWe always used to do that when I was a child.â

âVery sensible,â said Dr. Graham.

âAnd a linseed poultice on the chest and rubbing in camphorated oil for a bad cough.â

âI see you know it all!â said Dr. Graham laughing. He got up. âHowâs the knee? Not been too troublesome?â

âNo, it seems much, much better.â

âWell, we wonât say whether thatâs Nature or my pills,â said Dr. Graham. âSorry I couldnât have been of more help to you.â

âBut you have been most kindâI am really ashamed of taking up your timeâDid you say that there were no photographs in the Majorâs wallet?â

âOh yesâa very old one of the Major himself as quite a young man on a polo ponyâand one of a dead tigerâHe was standing with his foot on it. Snaps of that sortâmemories of his younger daysâBut I looked very carefully, I assure you, and the one you describe of your nephew was definitely not thereââ

âOh Iâm sure you looked carefullyâI didnât mean thatâI was just interestedâWe all tend to keep such very odd thingsââ

âTreasures from the past,â said the doctor smiling.

He said goodbye and departed.

Miss Marple remained looking thoughtfully at the palm trees and the sea. She did not pick up her knitting again for some minutes. She had a fact now. She had to think about that fact and what it meant. The snapshot that the Major had brought out of his wallet and replaced so hurriedly was not there after he died. It was not the sort of thing the Major would throw away. He had replaced it in his wallet and it ought to have been in his wallet after his death. Money might have been stolen, but no one would want to steal a snapshot. Unless, that is, they had a special reason for so doingâ¦.

Miss Marpleâs face was grave. She had to take a decision. Was she, or was she not, going to allow Major Palgrave to remain quietly in his grave? Might it not be better to do just that? She quoted under her breath. âDuncan is dead. After Lifeâs fitful fever he sleeps well!â Nothing could hurt Major Palgrave now. He had gone where danger could not touch him. Was it just a coincidence that he should have died on that particular night? Or was it just possibly not a coincidence? Doctors accepted the deaths of elderly men so easily. Especially since in his room there had been a bottle of the tablets that people with high blood pressure had to take every day of their lives. But if someone had taken the snapshot from the Majorâs wallet, that same person could have put that bottle of tablets in the Majorâs room. She herself never remembered seeing the Major take tablets; he had never spoken about his blood pressure to her. The only thing he had ever said about his health was the admissionââNot as young as I was.â He had been occasionally a little short of breath, a trifle asthmatic, nothing else. But someone had mentioned that Major Palgrave had high blood pressureâMolly? Miss Prescott? She couldnât remember.

Miss Marple sighed, then admonished herself in words, though she did not speak those words aloud.

âNow, Jane, what are you suggesting or thinking? Are you, perhaps, just making the whole thing up? Have you really got anything to build on?â

She went over, step by step, as nearly as she could, the conversation between herself and the Major on the subject of murder and murderers.

âOh dear,â said Miss Marple. âEven ifâreally, I donât see how I can do anything about itââ

But she knew that she meant to try.

Six

IN THE SMALL HOURS

I

Miss Marple woke early. Like many old people she slept lightly and had periods of wakefulness which she used for the planning of some action or actions to be carried out on the next or following days. Usually, of course, these were of a wholly private or domestic nature, of little interest to anybody but herself. But this morning Miss Marple lay thinking soberly and constructively of murder, and what, if her suspicions were correct, she could do about it. It wasnât going to be easy. She had one weapon and one weapon only, and that was conversation.

Old ladies were given to a good deal of rambling conversation. People were bored by this, but certainly did not suspect them of ulterior motives. It would not be a case of asking direct questions. (Indeed, she would have found it difficult to know what questions to ask!) It would be a question of finding out a little more about certain people. She reviewed these certain people in her mind.

She could find out, possibly, a little more about Major Palgrave, but would that really help her? She doubted if it would. If Major Palgrave had been killed it was not because of secrets in his life or to inherit his money or for revenge upon him. In fact, although he was the victim, it was one of those rare cases where a greater knowledge of the victim does not help you or lead you in any way to his murderer. The point, it seemed to her, and the sole point, was that Major Palgrave talked too much!

She had learnt one rather interesting fact from Dr. Graham. He had had in his wallet various photographs: one of himself in company with a polo pony, one of a dead tiger, also one or two other shots of the same nature. Now why did Major Palgrave carry these about with him? Obviously, thought Miss Marple, with long experience of old admirals, brigadier-generals and mere majors behind her, because he had certain stories which he enjoyed telling to people. Starting off with âCurious thing happened once when I was out tiger shooting in Indiaâ¦.â Or a reminiscence of himself and a polo pony. Therefore this story about a suspected murderer would in due course be illustrated by the production of the snapshot from his wallet.

He had been following that pattern in his conversation with her. The subject of murder having come up, and to focus interest on his story, he had done what he no doubt usually did, produced his snapshot and said something in the nature of âWouldnât think this chap was a murderer, would you?â

The point was that it had been a habit of his. This murderer story was one of his regular repertoire. If any reference to murder came up, then away went the Major, full steam ahead.

In that case, reflected Miss Marple, he might already have told his story to someone else here. Or to more than one personâIf that were so, then she herself might learn from that person what the further details of the story had been, possibly what the person in the snapshot had looked like.

She nodded her head in satisfactionâThat would be a beginning.

And, of course, there were the people she called in her mind the âFour Suspects.â Though really, since Major Palgrave had been talking about a manâthere were only two. Colonel Hillingdon or Mr. Dyson, very unlikely-looking murderers, but then murderers so often were unlikely. Could there have been anyone else? She had seen no one when she turned her head to look. There was the bungalow of course. Mr. Rafielâs bungalow. Could somebody have come out of the bungalow and gone in again before she had had time to turn her head? If so, it could only have been the valet-attendant. What was his name? Oh yes, Jackson. Could it have been Jackson who had come out of the door? That would have been the same pose as the photograph. A man coming out of a door. Recognition might have struck suddenly. Up till then, Major Palgrave would not have looked at Arthur Jackson, valet-attendant, with any interest. His roving and curious eye was essentially a snobbish eyeâArthur Jackson was not a pukka sahibâMajor Palgrave would not have glanced at him twice.

Until, perhaps, he had had the snapshot in his hand, and had looked over Miss Marpleâs right shoulder and had seen a man coming out of a door â¦?

Miss Marple turned over on her pillowâProgramme for tomorrowâor rather for todayâFurther investigation of the Hillingdons, the Dysons and Arthur Jackson, valet-attendant.

II

Dr. Graham also woke early. Usually he turned over and went to sleep again. But today he was uneasy and sleep failed to come. This anxiety that made it so difficult to go to sleep again was a thing he had not suffered from for a long time. What was causing this anxiety? Really, he couldnât make it out. He lay there thinking it over. Something to do withâsomething to do withâyes, Major Palgrave. Major Palgraveâs death? He didnât see, though, what there could be to make him uneasy there. Was it something that that twittery old lady had said? Bad luck for her about her snapshot. Sheâd taken it very well. But now what was it she had said, what chance word of hers had it been, that had given him this funny feeling of uneasiness? After all, there was nothing odd about the Majorâs death. Nothing at all. At least he supposed there was nothing at all.

It was quite clear that in the Majorâs state of healthâa faint check came in his thought process. Did he really know much about Major Palgraveâs state of health? Everybody said that heâd suffered from high blood pressure. But he himself had never had any conversation with the Major about it. But then heâd never had much conversation with Major Palgrave anyway. Palgrave was an old bore and he avoided old bores. Why on earth should he have this idea that perhaps everything mightnât be all right? Was it that old woman? But after all she hadnât said anything. Anyway, it was none of his business. The local authorities were quite satisfied. There had been that bottle of Serenite tablets, and the old boy had apparently talked to people about his blood pressure quite freely.

Dr. Graham turned over in bed and soon went to sleep again.

III

Outside the hotel grounds, in one of a row of shanty cabins beside a creek, the girl Victoria Johnson rolled over and sat up in bed. The St. HonorÃ© girl was a magnificent creature with a torso of black marble such as a sculptor would have enjoyed. She ran her fingers through her dark, tightly curling hair. With her foot she nudged her sleeping companion in the ribs.

âWake up, man.â

The man grunted and turned.

âWhat you want? Itâs not morning.â

âWake up, man. I want to talk to you.â

The man sat up, stretched, showed a wide mouth and beautiful teeth.

âWhatâs worrying you, woman?â

âThat Major man who died. Something I donât like. Something wrong about it.â

âAh, what dâyou want to worry about that? He was old. He died.â

âListen, man. Itâs them pills. Them pills the doctor asked me about.â

âWell, what about them? He took too many maybe.â

âNo. Itâs not that. Listen.â She leant towards him, talking vehemently. He yawned and lay down again.

âThereâs nothing in that. Whatâre you talking about?â

âAll the same, Iâll speak to Mrs. Kendal about it in the morning. I think thereâs something wrong there somewhere.â

âShouldnât bother,â said the man who, without benefit of ceremony, she considered as her present husband. âDonât letâs look for trouble,â he said and rolled over on his side yawning.

Seven

MORNING ON THE BEACH

I

It was mid-morning on the beach below the hotel.

Evelyn Hillingdon came out of the water and dropped on the warm golden sand. She took off her bathing cap and shook her dark head vigorously. The beach was not a very big one. People tended to congregate there in the mornings and about 11:30 there was always something of a social reunion. To Evelynâs left in one of the exotic-looking modern basket chairs lay SeÃ±ora de Caspearo, a handsome woman from Venezuela. Next to her was old Mr. Rafiel who was by now the doyen of the Golden Palm Hotel and held the sway that only an elderly invalid of great wealth could attain. Esther Walters was in attendance on him. She usually had her shorthand notebook and pencil with her in case Mr. Rafiel should suddenly think of urgent business cables which must be got off at once. Mr. Rafiel in beach attire was incredibly desiccated, his bones draped with festoons of dry skin. Though looking like a man on the point of death, he had looked exactly the same for at least the last eight yearsâor so it was said in the islands. Sharp blue eyes peered out of his wrinkled cheeks, and his principal pleasure in life was denying robustly anything that anyone else said.

Miss Marple was also present. As usual she sat and knitted and listened to what went on, and very occasionally joined in the conversation. When she did so, everyone was surprised because they had usually forgotten that she was there! Evelyn Hillingdon looked at her indulgently, and thought that she was a nice old pussy.

SeÃ±ora de Caspearo rubbed some more oil on her long beautiful legs and hummed to herself. She was not a woman who spoke much. She looked discontentedly at the flask of sun oil.

âThis is not so good as Frangipanio,â she said, sadly. âOne cannot get it here. A pity.â Her eyelids drooped again.

âAre you going in for your dip now, Mr. Rafiel?â asked Esther Walters.

âIâll go in when Iâm ready,â said Mr. Rafiel, snappishly.

âItâs half past eleven,â said Mrs. Walters.

âWhat of it?â said Mr. Rafiel. âThink Iâm the kind of man to be tied by the clock? Do this at the hour, do this at twenty minutes past, do that at twenty toâbah!â

Mrs. Walters had been in attendance on Mr. Rafiel long enough to have adopted her own formula for dealing with him. She knew that he liked a good space of time in which to recover from the exertion of bathing and she had therefore reminded him of the time, allowing a good ten minutes for him to rebut her suggestion and then be able to adopt it without seeming to do so.

âI donât like these espadrilles,â said Mr. Rafiel raising a foot and looking at it. âI told that fool Jackson so. The man never pays attention to a word I say.â

âIâll fetch you some others, shall I, Mr. Rafiel?â

âNo, you wonât, youâll sit here and keep quiet. I hate people rushing about like clucking hens.â

Evelyn shifted slightly in the warm sand, stretching out her arms.

Miss Marple, intent on her knittingâor so it seemedâstretched out a foot, then hastily she apologized.

âIâm so sorry, so very sorry, Mrs. Hillingdon. Iâm afraid I kicked you.â

âOh, itâs quite all right,â said Evelyn. âThis beach gets rather crowded.â

âOh, please donât move. Please. Iâll move my chair a little back so that I wonât do it again.â

As Miss Marple resettled herself, she went on talking in a childish and garrulous manner.

âIt still seems so wonderful to be here! Iâve never been to the West Indies before, you know. I thought it was the kind of place I never should come to and here I am. All by the kindness of my dear nephew. I suppose you know this part of the world very well, donât you, Mrs. Hillingdon?â

âI have been in this island once or twice before and of course in most of the others.â

âOh yes. Butterflies isnât it, and wild flowers? You and yourâyour friendsâor are they relations?â

âFriends. Nothing more.â

âAnd I suppose you go about together a great deal because of your interests being the same?â

âYes. Weâve travelled together for some years now.â

âI suppose you must have had some rather exciting adventures sometimes?â

âI donât think so,â said Evelyn. Her voice was unaccentuated, slightly bored. âAdventures always seem to happen to other people.â She yawned.

âNo dangerous encounters with snakes or with wild animals or with natives gone berserk?â

(âWhat a fool I sound,â thought Miss Marple.)

âNothing worse than insect bites,â Evelyn assured her.

âPoor Major Palgrave, you know, was bitten by a snake once,â said Miss Marple, making a purely fictitious statement.

âWas he?â

âDid he never tell you about it?â

âPerhaps. I donât remember.â

âI suppose you knew him quite well, didnât you?â

âMajor Palgrave? No, hardly at all.â

âHe always had so many interesting stories to tell.â

âGhastly old bore,â said Mr. Rafiel. âSilly fool, too. He neednât have died if heâd looked after himself properly.â

âOh come now, Mr. Rafiel,â said Mrs. Walters.

âI know what Iâm talking about. If you look after your health properly youâre all right anywhere. Look at me. The doctors gave me up years ago. All right, I said, Iâve got my own rules of health and I shall keep to them. And here I am.â

He looked round proudly.

It did indeed seem rather a mistake that he should be there.

âPoor Major Palgrave had high blood pressure,â said Mrs. Walters.

âNonsense,â said Mr. Rafiel.

âOh, but he did,â said Evelyn Hillingdon. She spoke with sudden, unexpected authority.

âWho says so?â said Mr. Rafiel. âDid he tell you so?â

âSomebody said so.â

âHe looked very red in the face,â Miss Marple contributed.

âCanât go by that,â said Mr. Rafiel. âAnd anyway he didnât have high blood pressure because he told me so.â

âWhat do you mean, he told you so?â said Mrs. Walters. âI mean, you canât exactly tell people you havenât got a thing.â

âYes you can. I said to him once when he was downing all those Planters Punches, and eating too much, I said, âYou ought to watch your diet and your drink. Youâve got to think of your blood pressure at your age.â And he said heâd nothing to look out for in that line, that his blood pressure was very good for his age.â

âBut he took some stuff for it, I believe,â said Miss Marple, entering the conversation once more. âSome stuff calledâoh, something likeâwas it Serenite?â

âIf you ask me,â said Evelyn Hillingdon, âI donât think he ever liked to admit that there could be anything the matter with him or that he could be ill. I think he was one of those people who are afraid of illness and therefore deny thereâs ever anything wrong with them.â

It was a long speech for her. Miss Marple looked thoughtfully down at the top of her dark head.

âThe trouble is,â said Mr. Rafiel dictatorially, âeverybodyâs too fond of knowing other peopleâs ailments. They think everybody over fifty is going to die of hypertension or coronary thrombosis or one of those thingsâpoppycock! If a man says thereâs nothing much wrong with him I donât suppose there is. A man ought to know about his own health. Whatâs the time? Quarter to twelve? I ought to have had my dip long ago. Why canât you remind me about these things, Esther?â

Mrs. Walters made no protest. She rose to her feet and with some deftness assisted Mr. Rafiel to his. Together they went down the beach, she supporting him carefully. Together they stepped into the sea.

SeÃ±ora de Caspearo opened her eyes and murmured: âHow ugly are old men! Oh how they are ugly! They should all be put to death at forty, or perhaps thirty-five would be better. Yes?â

Edward Hillingdon and Gregory Dyson came crunching down the beach.

âWhatâs the water like, Evelyn?â

âJust the same as always.â

âNever much variation, is there? Whereâs Lucky?â

âI donât know,â said Evelyn.

Again Miss Marple looked down thoughtfully at the dark head.

âWell, now I give my imitation of a whale,â said Gregory. He threw off his gaily patterned Bermuda shirt and tore down the beach, flinging himself, puffing and panting, into the sea, doing a fast crawl. Edward Hillingdon sat down on the beach by his wife. Presently he asked, âComing in again?â

She smiledâput on her capâand they went down the beach together in a much less spectacular manner.

SeÃ±ora de Caspearo opened her eyes again.

âI think at first those two they are on their honeymoon, he is so charming to her, but I hear they have been married eightânine years. It is incredible, is it not?â

âI wonder where Mrs. Dyson is?â said Miss Marple.

âThat Lucky? She is with some man.â

âYouâyou think so?â

âIt is certain,â said SeÃ±ora de Caspearo. âShe is that type. But she is not so young any longerâHer husbandâalready his eyes go elsewhereâHe makes passesâhere, there, all the time. I know.â

âYes,â said Miss Marple. âI expect you would know.â

SeÃ±ora de Caspearo shot a surprised glance at her. It was clearly not what she had expected from that quarter.

Miss Marple, however, was looking at the waves with an air of gentle innocence.

II

âMay I speak to you, maâam, Mrs. Kendal?â

âYes, of course,â said Molly. She was sitting at her desk in the office.

Victoria Johnson, tall and buoyant in her crisp white uniform, came in farther and shut the door behind her with a somewhat mysterious air.

âI like to tell you something, please, Mrs. Kendal.â

âYes, what is it? Is anything wrong?â

âI donât know that. Not for sure. Itâs the old gentleman who died. The Major gentleman. He die in his sleep.â

âYes, yes. What about it?â

âThere was a bottle of pills in his room. Doctor, he asked me about them.â

âYes?â

âThe doctor saidââLet me see what he has here on the bathroom shelf,â and he looked, you see. He see there was tooth powder and indigestion pills and aspirin and cascara pills, and then these pills in a bottle called Serenite.â

âYes,â repeated Molly yet again.

âAnd the doctor looked at them. He seemed quite satisfied, and nodded his head. But I get to thinking afterwards. Those pills werenât there before. Iâve not seen them in his bathroom before. The others, yes. The tooth powder and the aspirin and the aftershave lotion and all the rest. But those pills, those Serenite pills, I never noticed them before.â

âSo you thinkââ Molly looked puzzled.

âI donât know what to think,â said Victoria. âI just think itâs not right, so I think I better tell you about it. Perhaps you tell doctor? Perhaps it means something. Perhaps someone put those pills there so he take them and he died.â

âOh, I donât think thatâs likely at all,â said Molly.

Victoria shook her dark head. âYou never know. People do bad things.â

Molly glanced out of the window. The place looked like an earthly paradise. With its sunshine, its sea, its coral reef, its music, its dancing, it seemed a Garden of Eden. But even in the Garden of Eden, there had been a shadowâthe shadow of the SerpentâBad thingsâhow hateful to hear those words.

âIâll make inquiries, Victoria,â she said sharply. âDonât worry. And above all donât go starting a lot of silly rumours.â

Tim Kendal came in, just as Victoria was, somewhat unwillingly, leaving.

âAnything wrong, Molly?â

She hesitatedâbut Victoria might go to himâShe told him what the girl had said.

âI donât see what all this rigmaroleâwhat were these pills anyway?â

âWell, I donât really know, Tim. Dr. Robertson when he came said theyâwere something to do with blood pressure, I think.â

âWell, that would be all right, wouldnât it? I mean, he had high blood pressure, and he would be taking things for it, wouldnât he? People do. Iâve seen them, lots of times.â

âYes,â Molly hesitated, âbut Victoria seemed to think that he might have taken one of these pills and it would have killed him.â

âOh darling, that is a bit too melodramatic! You mean that somebody might have changed his blood pressure pills for something else, and that they poisoned him?â

âIt does sound absurd,â said Molly apologetically, âwhen you say it like that. But that seemed to be what Victoria thought!â

âSilly girl! We could go and ask Dr. Graham about it, I suppose heâd know. But really itâs such nonsense that itâs not worth bothering him.â

âThatâs what I think.â

âWhat on earth made the girl think anybody would have changed the pills? You mean, put different pills into the same bottle?â

âI didnât quite gather,â said Molly, looking rather helpless. âVictoria seemed to think that was the first time that Serenite bottle had been there.â

âOh but thatâs nonsense,â said Tim Kendal. âHe had to take those pills all the time to keep his blood pressure down.â And he went off cheerfully to consult with Fernando the maÃ®tre dâhÃ´tel.

But Molly could not dismiss the matter so lightly. After the stress of lunch was over she said to her husband:

âTimâIâve been thinkingâIf Victoria is going around talking about this perhaps we ought just to ask someone about it?â

âMy dear girl! Robertson and all the rest of them came and looked at everything and asked all the questions they wanted at the time.â

âYes, but you know how they work themselves up, these girlsââ

âOh, all right! Iâll tell you whatâweâll go and ask Grahamâheâll know.â

Dr. Graham was sitting on his loggia with a book. The young couple came in and Molly plunged into her recital. It was a little incoherent and Tim took over.

âSounds rather idiotic,â he said apologetically, âbut as far as I can make out, this girl has got it into her head that someone put some poison tablets in theâwhatâs the name of the stuffâSeraâsomething bottle.â

âBut why should she get this idea into her head?â asked Dr. Graham. âDid she see anything or hear anything orâI mean, why should she think so?â

âI donât know,â said Tim rather helplessly. âWas it a different bottle? Was that it, Molly?â

âNo,â said Molly. âI think what she said was that there was a bottle there labelledâSevenâSerenââ

âSerenite,â said the doctor. âThatâs quite right. A well-known preparation. Heâd been taking it regularly.â

âVictoria said sheâd never seen it in his room before.â

âNever seen it in his room before?â said Graham sharply. âWhat does she mean by that?â

âWell, thatâs what she said. She said there were all sorts of things on the bathroom shelf. You know, tooth powder, aspirin and aftershave andâohâshe rattled them off gaily. I suppose sheâs always cleaning them and so she knows them all off by heart. But this oneâthe Sereniteâshe hadnât seen it there until the day after he died.â

âThatâs very odd,â said Dr. Graham, rather sharply. âIs she sure?â

The unusual sharpness of his tone made both of the Kendals look up at him. They had not expected Dr. Graham to take up quite this attitude.

âShe sounded sure,â said Molly slowly.

âPerhaps she just wanted to be sensational,â suggested Tim.

âI think perhaps,â said Dr. Graham, âIâd better have a few words with the girl myself.â

Victoria displayed a distinct pleasure at being allowed to tell her story.

âI donât want to get in no trouble,â she said. âI didnât put that bottle there and I donât know who did.â

âBut you think it was put there?â asked Graham.

âWell, you see, Doctor, it must have been put there if it wasnât there before.â

âMajor Palgrave could have kept it in a drawerâor a dispatch-case, something like that.â

Victoria shook her head shrewdly.

âWouldnât do that if he was taking it all the time, would he?â

âNo,â said Graham reluctantly. âNo, it was stuff he would have to take several times a day. You never saw him taking it or anything of that kind?â

âHe didnât have it there before. I just thoughtâword got round as that stuff had something to do with his death, poisoned his blood or something, and I thought maybe he had an enemy put it there so as to kill him.â

âNonsense, my girl,â said the doctor robustly. âSheer nonsense.â Victoria looked shaken.

âYou say as this stuff was medicine, good medicine?â she asked doubtfully.

âGood medicine, and what is more, necessary medicine,â said Dr. Graham. âSo you neednât worry, Victoria. I can assure you there was nothing wrong with that medicine. It was the proper thing for a man to take who had his complaint.â

âSurely youâve taken a load off my mind,â said Victoria. She showed white teeth at him in a cheerful smile.

But the load was not taken off Dr. Grahamâs mind. That uneasiness of his that had been so nebulous was now becoming tangible.

Eight

A TALK WITH ESTHER WALTERS

âThis place isnât what it used to be,â said Mr. Rafiel, irritably, as he observed Miss Marple approaching the spot where he and his secretary were sitting. âCanât move a step without some old hen getting under your feet. What do old ladies want to come to the West Indies for?â

âWhere do you suggest they should go?â asked Esther Walters.

âTo Cheltenham,â said Mr. Rafiel promptly. âOr Bournemouth,â he offered, âor Torquay or Llandrindod Wells. Plenty of choice. They like it thereâtheyâre quite happy.â

âThey canât often afford to come to the West Indies, I suppose,â said Esther. âIt isnât everyone who is as lucky as you are.â

âThatâs right,â said Mr. Rafiel. âRub it in. Here am I, a mass of aches and pains and disjoints. You grudge me any alleviation! And you donât do any workâWhy havenât you typed out those letters yet?â

âI havenât had time.â

âWell, get on with it, canât you? I bring you out here to do a bit of work, not to sit about sunning yourself and showing off your figure.â

Some people would have considered Mr. Rafielâs remarks quite insupportable but Esther Walters had worked for him for some years and she knew well enough that Mr. Rafielâs bark was a great deal worse than his bite. He was a man who suffered almost continual pain, and making disagreeable remarks was one of his ways of letting off steam. No matter what he said she remained quite imperturbable.

âSuch a lovely evening, isnât it?â said Miss Marple, pausing beside them.

âWhy not?â said Mr. Rafiel. âThatâs what weâre here for, isnât it?â

Miss Marple gave a tinkly little laugh.

âYouâre so severeâof course the weather is a very English subject of conversationâone forgetsâOh dearâthis is the wrong coloured wool.â She deposited her knitting bag on the garden table and trotted towards her own bungalow.

âJackson!â yelled Mr. Rafiel.

Jackson appeared.

âTake me back inside,â said Mr. Rafiel. âIâll have my massage now before that chattering hen comes back. Not that massage does me a bit of good,â he added. Having said which, he allowed himself to be deftly helped to his feet and went off with the masseur beside him into his bungalow.

Esther Walters looked after them and then turned her head as Miss Marple came back with a ball of wool to sit down near her.

âI hope Iâm not disturbing you?â said Miss Marple.

âOf course not,â said Esther Walters, âIâve got to go off and do some typing in a minute, but Iâm going to enjoy another ten minutes of the sunset first.â

Miss Marple sat down and in a gentle voice began to talk. As she talked, she summed up Esther Walters. Not at all glamorous, but could be attractive-looking if she tried. Miss Marple wondered why she didnât try. It could be, of course, because Mr. Rafiel would not have liked it, but Miss Marple didnât think Mr. Rafiel would really mind in the least. He was so completely taken up with himself that so long as he was not personally neglected, his secretary might have got herself up like a houri in Paradise without his objecting. Besides, he usually went to bed early and in the evening hours of steel bands and dancing, Esther Walters might easily haveâMiss Marple paused to select a word in her mind, at the same time conversing cheerfully about her visit to JamestownâAh yes, blossomed. Esther Walters might have blossomed in the evening hours.

She led the conversation gently in the direction of Jackson.

On the subject of Jackson Esther Walters was rather vague.

âHeâs very competent,â she said. âA fully trained masseur.â

âI suppose heâs been with Mr. Rafiel a long time?â

âOh noâabout nine months, I thinkââ

âIs he married?â Miss Marple hazarded.

âMarried? I donât think so,â said Esther slightly surprised. âHeâs never mentioned it if soâ

âNo,â she added. âDefinitely not married, I should say.â And she showed amusement.

Miss Marple interpreted that by adding to it in her own mind the following sentenceââAt any rate he doesnât behave as though he were married.â

But then, how many married men there were who behaved as though they werenât married! Miss Marple could think of a dozen examples!

âHeâs quite good-looking,â she said thoughtfully.

âYesâI suppose he is,â said Esther without interest.

Miss Marple considered her thoughtfully. Uninterested in men? The kind of woman, perhaps, who was only interested in one manâA widow, they had said.

She askedââHave you worked for Mr. Rafiel long?â

âFour or five years. After my husband died, I had to take a job again. Iâve got a daughter at school and my husband left me very badly off.â

âMr. Rafiel must be a difficult man to work for?â Miss Marple hazarded.

âNot really, when you get to know him. He flies into rages and is very contradictory. I think the real trouble is he gets tired of people. Heâs had five different valet-attendants in two years. He likes having someone new to bully. But he and I have always got on very well.â

âMr. Jackson seems a very obliging young man?â

âHeâs very tactful and resourceful,â said Esther. âOf course, heâs sometimes a littleââ She broke off.

Miss Marple considered. âRather a difficult position sometimes?â she suggested.

âWell, yes. Neither one thing nor the other. Howeverââ she smiledââI think he manages to have quite a good time.â

Miss Marple considered this also. It didnât help her much. She continued her twittering conversation and soon she was hearing a good deal about that nature-loving quartet, the Dysons and the Hillingdons.

âThe Hillingdons have been here for the last three or four years at least,â said Esther, âbut Gregory Dyson has been here much longer than that. He knows the West Indies very well. He came here, originally, I believe, with his first wife. She was delicate and had to go abroad in the winters, or go somewhere warm, at any rate.â

âAnd she died? Or was it divorce?â

âNo. She died. Out here, I believe. I donât mean this particular island but one of the West Indies islands. There was some sort of trouble, I believe, some kind of scandal or other. He never talks about her. Somebody else told me about it. They didnât, I gather, get on very well together.â

âAnd then he married this wife. âLucky.ââ Miss Marple said the word with faint dissatisfaction as if to say âReally, a most incredible name!â

âI believe she was a relation of his first wife.â

âHave they known the Hillingdons a great many years?â

âOh, I think only since the Hillingdons came out here. Three or four years, not more.â

âThe Hillingdons seem very pleasant,â said Miss Marple. âQuiet, of course.â

âYes. Theyâre both quiet.â

âEveryone says theyâre very devoted to each other,â said Miss Marple. The tone of her voice was quite noncommittal but Esther Walters looked at her sharply.

âBut you donât think they are?â she said.

âYou donât really think so yourself, do you, my dear?â

âWell, Iâve wondered sometimesâ¦.â

âQuiet men, like Colonel Hillingdon,â said Miss Marple, âare often attracted to flamboyant types.â And she added, after a significant pause, âLuckyâsuch a curious name. Do you think Mr. Dyson has any idea ofâof what might be going on?â

âOld scandal-monger,â thought Esther Walters. âReally, these old women!â

She said rather coldly, âIâve no idea.â

Miss Marple shifted to another subject. âItâs very sad about poor Major Palgrave isnât it?â she said.

Esther Walters agreed, though in a somewhat perfunctory fashion.

âThe people Iâm really sorry for are the Kendals,â she said.

âYes, I suppose it is really rather unfortunate when something of that kind happens in a hotel.â

âPeople come here, you see, to enjoy themselves, donât they?â said Esther. âTo forget about illnesses and deaths and income tax and frozen pipes and all the rest of it. They donât likeââ she went on, with a sudden flash of an entirely different mannerââany reminders of mortality.â

Miss Marple laid down her knitting. âNow that is very well put, my dear,â she said, âvery well put indeed. Yes, it is as you say.â

âAnd you see theyâre quite a young couple,â went on Esther Walters. âThey only just took over from the Sandersons six months ago and theyâre terribly worried about whether theyâre going to succeed or not, because they havenât had much experience.â

âAnd you think this might be really disadvantageous to them?â

âWell, no, I donât, frankly,â said Esther Walters. âI donât think people remember anything for more than a day or two, not in this atmosphere of âweâve-all-come-out-here-to-enjoy-ourselves-letâs-get-on-with-it.â I think a death just gives them a jolt for about twenty-four hours or so and then they donât think of it again once the funeral is over. Not unless theyâre reminded of it, that is. Iâve told Molly so, but of course she is a worrier.â

âMrs. Kendal is a worrier? She always seems so carefree.â

âI think a lot of that is put on,â said Esther slowly. âActually, I think sheâs one of those anxious sort of people who canât help worrying all the time that things may go wrong.â

âI should have thought he worried more than she did.â

âNo, I donât think so. I think sheâs the worrier and he worries because she worries if you know what I mean.â

âThat is interesting,â said Miss Marple.

âI think Molly wants desperately to try and appear very gay and to be enjoying herself. She works at it very hard but the effort exhausts her. Then she has these odd fits of depression. Sheâs notâwell, not really well-balanced.â

âPoor child,â said Miss Marple. âThere certainly are people like that, and very often outsiders donât suspect it.â

âNo, they put on such a good show, donât they? However,â Esther added, âI donât think Molly has really anything to worry about in this case. I mean, people are dying of coronary thrombosis or cerebral hÃ¦morrhage or things of that kind all the time nowadays. Far more than they used to, as far as I can see. Itâs only food poisoning or typhoid or something like that, that makes people get het up.â

âMajor Palgrave never mentioned to me that he had high blood pressure,â said Miss Marple. âDid he to you?â

âHe said so to somebodyâI donât know whoâit may have been to Mr. Rafiel. I know Mr. Rafiel says just the oppositeâbut then heâs like that! Certainly Jackson mentioned it to me once. He said the Major ought to be more careful over the alcohol he took.â

âI see,â said Miss Marple, thoughtfully. She went on: âI expect you found him rather a boring old man? He told a lot of stories and I expect repeated himself a good deal.â

âThatâs the worst of it,â said Esther. âYou do hear the same story again and again unless you can manage to be quick enough to fend it off.â

âOf course I didnât mind so much,â said Miss Marple, âbecause Iâm used to that sort of thing. If I get stories told to me rather often, I donât really mind hearing them again because Iâve usually forgotten them.â

âThere is that,â said Esther and laughed cheerfully.

âThere was one story he was very fond of telling,â said Miss Marple, âabout a murder. I expect he told you that, didnât he?â

Esther Walters opened her handbag and started searching through it. She drew out her lipstick saying, âI thought Iâd lost it.â Then she asked, âI beg your pardon, what did you say?â

âI asked if Major Palgrave told you his favourite murder story?â

âI believe he did, now I come to think of it. Something about someone who gassed themselves, wasnât it? Only really it was the wife who gassed him. I mean sheâd given him a sedative of some kind and then stuck his head in the gas oven. Was that it?â

âI donât think that was exactly it,â said Miss Marple. She looked at Esther Walters thoughtfully.

âHe told such a lot of stories,â said Esther Walters, apologetically, âand as I said, one didnât always listen.â

âHe had a snapshot,â said Miss Marple, âthat he used to show people.â

âI believe he did â¦ I canât remember what it was now. Did he show it to you?â

âNo,â said Miss Marple. âHe didnât show it to me. We were interruptedââ

Nine

MISS PRESCOTT AND OTHERS

âThe story I heard,â began Miss Prescott, lowering her voice, and looking carefully around.

Miss Marple drew her chair a little closer. It had been some time before she had been able to get together with Miss Prescott for a heart-to-heart chat. This was owing to the fact that clergymen are very strong family men so that Miss Prescott was nearly always accompanied by her brother, and there was no doubt that Miss Marple and Miss Prescott found it less easy to take their back hair down in a good gossip when the jovial Canon was of their company.

âIt seems,â said Miss Prescott, âthough of course I donât want to talk any scandal and I really know nothing about itââ

âOh, I quite understand,â said Miss Marple.

âIt seems there was some scandal when his first wife was still alive! Apparently this woman, Luckyâsuch a name!âwho I think was a cousin of his first wife, came out here and joined them and I think did some work with him on flowers or butterflies or whatever it was. And people talked a lot because they got on so well togetherâif you know what I mean.â

âPeople do notice things so much, donât they?â said Miss Marple.

âAnd then of course, when his wife died rather suddenlyââ

âShe died here, on this island?â

âNo. No, I think they were in Martinique or Tobago at the time.â

âI see.â

âBut I gathered from some other people who were there at the time, and who came on here and talked about things, that the doctor wasnât very satisfied.â

âIndeed,â said Miss Marple, with interest.

âIt was only gossip,â of course, âbutâwell, Mr. Dyson certainly married again very quickly.â She lowered her voice again. âOnly a month I believe.â

âOnly a month,â said Miss Marple.

The two women looked at each other. âIt seemedâunfeeling,â said Miss Prescott.

âYes,â said Miss Marple. âIt certainly did.â She added delicately, âWas thereâany money?â

âI donât really know. He makes his little jokeâperhaps youâve heard himâabout his wife being his âlucky pieceâââ

âYes, Iâve heard him,â said Miss Marple.

âAnd some people think that means that he was lucky to marry a rich wife. Though, of course,â said Miss Prescott with the air of one being entirely fair, âsheâs very good-looking too, if you care for that type. And I think myself that it was the first wife who had the money.â

âAre the Hillingdons well off?â

âWell, I think theyâre well off. I donât mean fabulously rich, I just mean well off. They have two boys at public school and a very nice place in England, I believe, and they travel most of the winter.â

The Canon appearing at this moment to suggest a brisk walk, Miss Prescott rose to join her brother. Miss Marple remained sitting there.

A few minutes later Gregory Dyson passed her striding along towards the hotel. He waved a cheerful hand as he passed.

âPenny for your thoughts,â he called out.

Miss Marple smiled gently, wondering how he would have reacted if she had replied:

âI was wondering if you were a murderer.â

It really seemed most probable that he was. It all fitted in so nicelyâThis story about the death of the first Mrs. DysonâMajor Palgrave had certainly been talking about a wife killerâwith special reference to the âBrides in the Bath Case.â

Yesâit fittedâthe only objection was that it fitted almost too well. But Miss Marple reproved herself for this thoughtâwho was she to demand Murders Made to Measure?

A voice made her jumpâa somewhat raucous one.

âSeen Greg any place, Missâerââ

Lucky, Miss Marple thought, was not in a good temper.

âHe passed by just nowâgoing towards the hotel.â

âIâll bet!â Lucky uttered an irritated ejaculation and hurried on.

âForty, if sheâs a day, and looks it this morning,â thought Miss Marple.

Pity invaded herâpity for the Luckys of the worldâwho were so vulnerable to Timeâ

At the sound of a noise behind her, she turned her chair roundâ

Mr. Rafiel, supported by Jackson, was making his morning appearance and coming out of his bungalowâ

Jackson settled his employer in his wheelchair and fussed round him. Mr. Rafiel waved his attendant away impatiently and Jackson went off in the direction of the hotel.

Miss Marple lost no timeâMr. Rafiel was never left alone for longâProbably Esther Walters would come and join him. Miss Marple wanted a word alone with Mr. Rafiel and now, she thought, was her chance. She would have to be quick about what she wanted to say. There could be no leading up to things. Mr. Rafiel was not a man who cared for the idle twittering conversation of old ladies. He would probably retreat again into his bungalow, definitely regarding himself the victim of persecution. Miss Marple decided to plump for downrightness.

She made her way to where he was sitting, drew up a chair, sat down, and said:

âI want to ask you something, Mr. Rafiel.â

âAll right, all right,â said Mr. Rafiel, âletâs have it. What do you wantâa subscription, I suppose? Missions in Africa or repairing a church, something of that kind?â

âYes,â said Miss Marple. âI am interested in several objects of that nature, and I shall be delighted if you will give me a subscription for them. But that wasnât actually what I was going to ask you. What I was going to ask you was if Major Palgrave ever told you a story about a murder.â

âOho,â said Mr. Rafiel. âSo he told it to you too, did he? And I suppose you fell for it, hook, line and sinker.â

âI didnât really know what to think,â said Miss Marple. âWhat exactly did he tell you?â

âHe prattled on,â said Mr. Rafiel, âabout a lovely creature, Lucrezia Borgia reincarnated. Beautiful, young, golden-haired, everything.â

âOh,â said Miss Marple slightly taken aback, âand who did she murder?â

âHer husband, of course,â said Mr. Rafiel, âwho do you think?â

âPoison?â

âNo, I think she gave him a sleeping draught and then stuck him in a gas oven. Resourceful female. Then she said it was suicide. She got off quite lightly. Diminished responsibility or something. Thatâs what itâs called nowadays if youâre a good-looking woman, or some miserable young hooligan whose motherâs been too fond of him. Bah!â

âDid the Major show you a snapshot?â

âWhatâa snapshot of the woman? No. Why should he?â

âOhââ said Miss Marple.

She sat there, rather taken aback. Apparently Major Palgrave spent his life telling people not only about tigers he had shot and elephants he had hunted but also about murderers he had met. Perhaps he had a whole repertoire of murder stories. One had to face itâShe was startled by Mr. Rafiel suddenly giving a roar of âJackson!â There was no response.

âShall I find him for you?â said Miss Marple rising.

âYou wonât find him. Tom-catting somewhere, thatâs what he does. No good, that fellow. Bad character. But he suits me all right.â

âIâll go and look for him,â said Miss Marple.

Miss Marple found Jackson sitting on the far side of the hotel terrace having a drink with Tim Kendal.

âMr. Rafiel is asking for you,â she said.

Jackson made an expressive grimace, drained his glass, and rose to his feet.

âHere we go again,â he said. âNo peace for the wickedâTwo telephone calls and a special diet orderâI thought that might give me a quarter of an hourâs alibiâApparently not! Thank you, Miss Marple. Thanks for the drink, Mr. Kendal.â

He strode away.

âI feel sorry for that chap,â said Tim. âI have to stand him a drink now and then, just to cheer him upâCan I offer you something, Miss MarpleâHow about fresh lime? I know youâre fond of that.â

âNot just now, thank youâI suppose looking after someone like Mr. Rafiel must always be rather exacting. Invalids are frequently difficultââ

âI didnât mean only thatâItâs very well paid and you expect to put up with a good deal of crotchetinessâold Rafielâs not really a bad sort. I mean more thatââ he hesitated.

Miss Marple looked inquiring.

âWellâhow shall I put itâitâs difficult for him socially. People are so damned snobbishâthereâs no one here of his class. Heâs better than a servantâand below the average visitorâor they think he is. Rather like the Victorian governess. Even the secretary woman, Mrs. Waltersâfeels sheâs a cut above him. Makes things difficult.â Tim paused, then said with feeling: âItâs really awful the amount of social problems there are in a place like this.â

Dr. Graham passed themâhe had a book in his hand. He went and sat at a table overlooking the sea.

âDr. Graham looks rather worried,â remarked Miss Marple.

âOh! Weâre all worried.â

âYou too? Because of Major Palgraveâs death?â

âIâve left off worrying about that. People seem to have forgotten itâtaken it in their stride. Noâitâs my wifeâMollyâDo you know anything about dreams?â

âDreams?â Miss Marple was surprised.

âYesâbad dreamsânightmares, I suppose. Oh, we all get that sort of thing sometimes. But Mollyâshe seems to have them nearly all the time. They frighten her. Is there anything one can do about them? Take for them? Sheâs got some sleeping pills, but she says they make it worseâshe struggles to wake up and canât.â

âWhat are the dreams about?â

âOh, something or someone chasing herâOr watching her and spying on herâshe canât shake off the feeling even when sheâs awake.â

âSurely a doctorââ

âSheâs got a thing against doctors. Wonât hear of itâOh wellâI dare say it will all pass offâBut we were so happy. It was all such funâAnd now, just latelyâPerhaps old Palgraveâs death upset her. She seems like a different person sinceâ¦.â

He got up.

âMust get on with the daily choresâare you sure you wonât have that fresh lime?â

Miss Marple shook her head.

She sat there, thinking. Her face was grave and anxious.

She glanced over at Dr. Graham.

Presently she came to a decision.

She rose and went across to his table.

âI have got to apologize to you, Dr. Graham,â she said.

âIndeed?â The doctor looked at her in kindly surprise. He pulled forward a chair and she sat down.

âI am afraid I have done the most disgraceful thing,â said Miss Marple. âI told you, Dr. Graham, a deliberate lie.â

She looked at him apprehensively.

Dr. Graham did not look at all shattered, but he did look a little surprised.

âReally?â he said. âAh well, you mustnât let that worry you too much.â

What had the dear old thing been telling lies about, he wondered; her age? Though as far as he could remember she hadnât mentioned her age. âWell, letâs hear about it,â he said, since she clearly wished to confess.

âYou remember my speaking to you about a snapshot of my nephew, one that I showed to Major Palgrave, and that he didnât give back to me?â

âYes, yes, of course I remember. Sorry we couldnât find it for you.â

âThere wasnât any such thing,â said Miss Marple, in a small frightened voice.

âI beg your pardon?â

âThere wasnât any such thing. I made up that story, Iâm afraid.â

âYou made it up?â Dr. Graham looked slightly annoyed. âWhy?â

Miss Marple told him. She told him quite clearly, without twittering. She told him about Major Palgraveâs murder story and how heâd been about to show her this particular snapshot and his sudden confusion and then she went on to her own anxiety and to her final decision to try somehow to obtain a view of it.

âAnd really, I couldnât see any way of doing so without telling you something that was quite untrue,â she said, âI do hope you will forgive me.â

âYou thought that what he had been about to show you was a picture of a murderer?â

âThatâs what he said it was,â said Miss Marple. âAt least he said it was given him by this acquaintance who had told him the story about a man who was a murderer.â

âYes, yes. Andâexcuse meâyou believed him?â

âI donât know if I really believed him or not at the time,â said Miss Marple. âBut then, you see, the next day he died.â

âYes,â said Dr. Graham, struck suddenly by the clarity of that one sentence. The next day he diedâ¦.

âAnd the snapshot had disappeared.â

Dr. Graham looked at her. He didnât know quite what to say.

âExcuse me, Miss Marple,â he said at last, âbut is what youâre telling me nowâis it really true this time?â

âI donât wonder your doubting me,â said Miss Marple. âI should, in your place. Yes, it is true what I am telling you now, but I quite realize that you have only my word for it. Still, even if you donât believe me, I thought I ought to tell you.â

âWhy?â

âI realized that you ought to have the fullest information possibleâin caseââ

âIn case what?â

âIn case you decided to take any steps about it.â

Ten

A DECISION IN JAMESTOWN

Dr. Graham was in Jamestown, in the Administratorâs office, sitting at a table opposite his friend Daventry, a grave young man of thirty-five.

âYou sounded rather mysterious on the phone, Graham,â said Daventry. âAnything special the matter?â

âI donât know,â said Dr. Graham, âbut Iâm worried.â

Daventry looked at the otherâs face, then he nodded as drinks were brought in. He spoke lightly of a fishing expedition he had made lately. Then when the servant had gone away, he sat back in his chair and looked at the other man.

âNow then,â he said, âletâs have it.â

Dr. Graham recounted the facts that had worried him. Daventry gave a slow long whistle.

âI see. You think maybe thereâs something funny about old Palgraveâs death? Youâre no longer sure that it was just natural causes? Who certified the death? Robertson, I suppose. He didnât have any doubts, did he?â

âNo, but I think he may have been influenced in giving the certificate by the fact of the Serenite tablets in the bathroom. He asked me if Palgrave had mentioned that he suffered from hypertension, and I said No, Iâd never had any medical conversation with him myself, but apparently he had talked about it to other people in the hotel. The whole thingâthe bottle of tablets, and what Palgrave had said to peopleâit all fitted inâno earthly reason to suspect anything else. It was a perfectly natural inference to makeâbut I think now it may not have been correct. If it had been my business to give the certificate, Iâd have given it without a second thought. The appearances are quite consistent with his having died from that cause. Iâd never have thought about it since if it hadnât been for the odd disappearance of that snapshotâ¦.â

âBut look here, Graham,â said Daventry, âif you will allow me to say so, arenât you relying a little too much on a rather fanciful story told you by an elderly lady? You know what these elderly ladies are like. They magnify some small detail and work the whole thing up.â

âYes, I know,â said Dr. Graham, unhappily. âI know that. Iâve said to myself that it may be so, that it probably is so. But I canât quite convince myself. She was so very clear and detailed in her statement.â

âThe whole thing seems wildly improbable to me,â said Daventry. âSome old lady tells a story about a snapshot that ought not to be thereâno, Iâm getting mixed myselfâI mean the other way about, donât I?âbut the only thing youâve really got to go on is that a chambermaid says that a bottle of pills which the authorities had relied on for evidence, wasnât in the Majorâs room the day before his death. But there are a hundred explanations for that. He might always have carried those pills about in his pocket.â

âItâs possible, I suppose, yes.â

âOr the chambermaid may have made a mistake and she simply hadnât noticed them beforeââ

âThatâs possible, too.â

âWell, then.â

Graham said slowly:

âThe girl was very positive.â

âWell, the St. HonorÃ© people are very excitable. You know. Emotional. Work themselves up easily. Are you thinking that she knowsâa little more than she has said?â

âI think it might be so,â said Dr. Graham slowly.

âYouâd better try and get it out of her, if so. We donât want to make an unnecessary fussâunless weâve something definite to go on. If he didnât die of blood pressure, what do you think it was?â

âThere are too many things it might be nowadays,â said Dr. Graham.

âYou mean things that donât leave recognizable traces?â

âNot everyone,â said Dr. Graham dryly, âis so considerate as to use arsenic.â

âNow letâs get things quite clearâwhatâs the suggestion? That a bottle of pills was substituted for the real ones? And that Major Palgrave was poisoned in that way?â

âNoâitâs not like that. Thatâs what the girlâVictoria Something thinksâBut sheâs got it all wrongâIf it was decided to get rid of the Majorâquicklyâhe would have been given somethingâmost likely in a drink of some kind. Then to make it appear a natural death, a bottle of the tablets prescribed to relieve blood pressure was put in his room. And the rumour was put about that he suffered from high blood pressure.â

âWho put the rumour about?â

âIâve tried to find outâwith no successâItâs been too cleverly done. A says âI think B told meââB, asked, says âNo, I didnât say so but I do remember C mentioning it one day.â C says âSeveral people talked about itâone of them, I think, was A.â And there we are, back again.â

âSomeone was clever?â

âYes. As soon as the death was discovered, everybody seemed to be talking about the Majorâs high blood pressure and repeating round what other people had said.â

âWouldnât it have been simpler just to poison him and let it go at that?â

âNo. That might have meant an inquiryâpossibly an autopsyâThis way, a doctor would accept the death and give a certificateâas he did.â

âWhat do you want me to do? Go to the CID? Suggest they dig the chap up? Itâd make a lot of stinkââ

âIt could be kept quite quiet.â

âCould it? In St. HonorÃ©? Think again! The grapevine would be on to it before it had happened. All the same,â Daventry sighedââI suppose weâll have to do something. But if you ask me, itâs all a mareâs nest!â

âI devoutly hope it is,â said Dr. Graham.

Eleven

EVENING AT THE GOLDEN PALM

I

Molly rearranged a few of the table decorations in the dining room, removed an extra knife, straightened a fork, reset a glass or two, stood back to look at the effect and then walked out on to the terrace outside. There was no one about just at present and she strolled to the far corner and stood by the balustrade. Soon another evening would begin. Chattering, talking, drinking, all so gay and carefree, the sort of life she had longed for and, up to a few days ago, had enjoyed so much. Now even Tim seemed anxious and worried. Natural, perhaps, that he should worry a little. It was important that this venture of theirs should turn out all right. After all, he had sunk all he had in it.

But that, thought Molly, is not really whatâs worrying him. Itâs me. But I donât see, said Molly to herself, why he should worry about me. Because he did worry about her. That she was quite sure of. The questions he put, the quick nervous glance he shot at her from time to time. âBut why?â thought Molly. âIâve been very careful.â She summed up things in her mind. She didnât understand it really herself. She couldnât remember when it had begun. She wasnât even very sure what it was. Sheâd begun to be frightened of people. She didnât know why. What could they do to her? What should they want to do to her?

She nodded her head, then started violently as a hand touched her arm. She spun round to find Gregory Dyson, slightly taken aback, looking apologetic.

âEver so sorry. Did I startle you, little girl?â

Molly hated being called âlittle girl.â She said quickly and brightly: âI didnât hear you coming, Mr. Dyson, so it made me jump.â

âMr. Dyson? Weâre very formal tonight. Arenât we all one great happy family here? Ed and me and Lucky and Evelyn and you and Tim and Esther Walters and old Rafiel. All the lot of us one happy family.â

âHeâs had plenty to drink already,â thought Molly. She smiled at him pleasantly.

âOh! I come over the heavy hostess sometimes,â she said, lightly. âTim and I think itâs more polite not to be too handy with Christian names.â

âAw! we donât want any of that stuffed-shirt business. Now then, Molly my lovely, have a drink with me.â

âAsk me later,â said Molly. âI have a few things to get on with.â

âNow donât run away.â His arm fastened round her arm. âYouâre a lovely girl, Molly. I hope Tim appreciates his good luck.â

âOh, I see to it that he does,â said Molly cheerfully.

âI could go for you, you know, in a big way.â He leered at herââthough I wouldnât let my wife hear me say so.â

âDid you have a good trip this afternoon?â

âI suppose so. Between you and me I get a bit fed up sometimes. You can get tired of the birds and butterflies. What say you and I go for a little picnic on our own one day?â

âWeâll have to see about that,â said Molly gaily. âIâll be looking forward to it.â

With a light laugh she escaped, and went back into the bar.

âHallo, Molly,â said Tim, âyou seem in a hurry. Whoâs that youâve been with out there?â

He peered out.

âGregory Dyson.â

âWhat does he want?â

âWanted to make a pass at me,â said Molly.

âBlast him,â said Tim.

âDonât worry,â said Molly, âI can do all the blasting necessary.â

Tim started to answer her, caught sight of Fernando and went over to him shouting out some directions. Molly slipped away through the kitchen door and down the steps to the beach.

Gregory Dyson swore under his breath. Then he walked slowly back in the direction of his bungalow. He had nearly got there when a voice spoke to him from the shadow of one of the bushes. He turned his head, startled. In the gathering dusk he thought for a moment that it was a ghostly figure that stood there. Then he laughed. It had looked like a faceless apparition but that was because, though the dress was white, the face was black.

Victoria stepped out of the bushes on to the path.

âMr. Dyson, please?â

âYes. What is it?â

Ashamed of being startled, he spoke with a touch of impatience.

âI brought you this, sir.â She held out her hand. In it was a bottle of tablets. âThis belongs to you, doesnât it? Yes?â

âOh, my bottle of Serenite tablets. Yes, of course. Where did you find it?â

âI found it where it had been put. In the gentlemanâs room.â

âWhat do you meanâin the gentlemanâs room?â

âThe gentleman who is dead,â she added gravely. âI do not think he sleeps very well in his grave.â

âWhy the devil not?â asked Dyson.

Victoria stood looking at him.

âI still donât know what youâre talking about. You mean you found this bottle of tablets in Major Palgraveâs bungalow?â

âThatâs right, yes. After the doctor and the Jamestown people go away, they give me all the things in his bathroom to throw away. The toothpaste and the lotions, and all the other thingsâincluding this.â

âWell, why didnât you throw it away?â

âBecause these are yours. You missed them. You remember, you asked about them?â

âYesâwellâyes, I did. IâI thought Iâd just mislaid them.â

âNo, you did not mislay them. They were taken from your bungalow and put in Major Palgraveâs bungalow.â

âHow do you know?â He spoke roughly.

âI know. I saw.â She smiled at him in a sudden flash of white teeth. âSomeone put them in the dead gentlemanâs room. Now I give them back to you.â

âHereâwait. What do you mean? Whatâwho did you see?â

She hurried away, back into the darkness of the bushes. Greg made as to move after her and then stopped. He stood stroking his chin.

âWhatâs the matter, Greg? Seen a ghost?â asked Mrs. Dyson, as she came along the path from their bungalow.

âThought I had for a minute or two.â

âWho was that you were talking to?â

âThe coloured girl who does our place. Victoria, her name is, isnât it?â

âWhat did she want? Making a pass at you?â

âDonât be stupid, Lucky. That girlâs got some idiotic idea into her head.â

âIdea about what?â

âYou remember I couldnât find my Serenite the other day?â

âYou said you couldnât.â

âWhat do you mean âI said I couldnât?ââ

âOh, for heckâs sake, have you got to take me up on everything?â

âIâm sorry,â said Greg. âEverybody goes about being so damnâ mysterious.â He held out his hand with the bottle in it. âThat girl brought them back to me.â

âHad she pinched them?â

âNo. Sheâfound them somewhere I think.â

âWell, what of it? Whatâs the mystery about?â

âOh, nothing,â said Greg. âShe just riled me, thatâs all.â

âLook here, Greg, what is this stuff all about? Come along and have a drink before dinner.â

II

Molly had gone down to the beach. She pulled out one of the old basket chairs, one of the more rickety ones that were seldom used. She sat in it for a while looking at the sea, then suddenly she dropped her head in her hands and burst into tears. She sat there sobbing unrestrainedly for some time. Then she heard a rustle close by her and glanced up sharply to see Mrs. Hillingdon looking down at her.

âHallo, Evelyn, I didnât hear you. IâIâm sorry.â

âWhatâs the matter, child?â said Evelyn. âSomething gone wrong?â She pulled another chair forward and sat down. âTell me.â

âThereâs nothing wrong,â said Molly. âNothing at all.â

âOf course there is. You wouldnât sit and cry here for nothing. Canât you tell me? Is itâsome trouble between you and Tim?â

âOh no.â

âIâm glad of that. You always look so happy together.â

âNot more than you do,â said Molly. âTim and I always think how wonderful it is that you and Edward should seem so happy together after being married so many years.â

âOh, that,â said Evelyn. Her voice was sharp as she spoke but Molly hardly noticed.

âPeople bicker so,â she said, âand have such rows. Even if theyâre quite fond of each other they still seem to have rows and not to mind a bit whether they have them in public or not.â

âSome people like living that way,â said Evelyn. âIt doesnât really mean anything.â

âWell, I think itâs horrid,â said Molly.

âSo do I, really,â said Evelyn.

âBut to see you and Edwardââ

âOh itâs no good, Molly. I canât let you go on thinking things of that kind. Edward and Iââ she paused. âIf you want to know the truth, weâve hardly said a word to each other in private for the last three years.â

âWhat!â Molly stared at her, appalled. âIâI canât believe it.â

âOh, we both put up quite a good show,â said Evelyn. âWeâre neither of us the kind that like having rows in public. And anyway thereâs nothing really to have a row about.â

âBut what went wrong?â asked Molly.

âJust the usual.â

âWhat do you mean by the usual? Anotherââ

âYes, another woman in the case, and I donât suppose it will be difficult for you to guess who the woman is.â

âDo you mean Mrs. DysonâLucky?â

Evelyn nodded.

âI know they always flirt together a lot,â said Molly, âbut I thought that was justâ¦.â

âJust high spirits?â said Evelyn. âNothing behind it?â

âBut whyââ Molly paused and tried again. âBut didnât youâoh I mean, well I suppose I oughtnât to ask.â

âAsk anything you like,â said Evelyn. âIâm tired of never saying a word, tired of being a well-bred happy wife. Edward just lost his head completely about Lucky. He was stupid enough to come and tell me about it. It made him feel better I suppose. Truthful. Honourable. All that sort of stuff. It didnât occur to him to think that it wouldnât make me feel better.â

âDid he want to leave you?â

Evelyn shook her head. âWeâve got two children, you know,â she said. âChildren whom weâre both very fond of. Theyâre at school in England. We didnât want to break up the home. And then of course, Lucky didnât want a divorce either. Gregâs a very rich man. His first wife left a lot of money. So we agreed to live and let liveâEdward and Lucky in happy immorality, Greg in blissful ignorance, and Edward and I just good friends.â She spoke with scalding bitterness.

âHowâhow can you bear it?â

âOne gets used to anything. But sometimesââ

âYes?â said Molly.

âSometimes Iâd like to kill that woman.â

The passion behind her voice startled Molly.

âDonât letâs talk any more about me,â said Evelyn. âLetâs talk about you. I want to know whatâs the matter.â

Molly was silent for some moments and then she said, âItâs onlyâitâs only that I think thereâs something wrong about me.â

âWrong? What do you mean?â

Molly shook her head unhappily. âIâm frightened,â she said. âIâm terribly frightened.â

âFrightened of what?â

âEverything,â said Molly. âItâsâgrowing on me. Voices in the bushes, footstepsâor things that people say. As though someone were watching me all the time, spying on me. Somebody hates me. Thatâs what I keep feeling. Somebody hates me.â

âMy dear child.â Evelyn was shocked and startled. âHow long has this been going on?â

âI donât know. It cameâit started by degrees. And there have been other things too.â

âWhat sort of things?â

âThere are times,â said Molly slowly, âthat I canât account for, that I canât remember.â

âDo you mean you have blackoutsâthat sort of thing?â

âI suppose so. I mean sometimes itâsâoh, say itâs five oâclockâand I canât remember anything since about half past one or two.â

âOh my dear, but thatâs just that youâve been asleep. Had a doze.â

âNo,â said Molly, âitâs not like that at all. Because you see, at the end of the time itâs not as though Iâd just dozed off. Iâm in a different place. Sometimes Iâm wearing different clothes and sometimes I seem to have been doing thingsâeven saying things to people, talked to someone, and not remembering that Iâve done so.â

Evelyn looked shocked. âBut Molly, my dear, if this is so, then you ought to see a doctor.â

âI wonât see a doctor! I donât want to. I wouldnât go near a doctor.â

Evelyn looked sharply down into her face, then she took the girlâs hand in hers.

âYou may be frightening yourself for nothing, Molly. You know there are all kinds of nervous disorders that arenât really serious at all. A doctor would soon reassure you.â

âHe mightnât. He might say that there was something really wrong with me.â

âWhy should there be anything wrong with you?â

âBecauseââ Molly spoke and then was silent ââno reason, I suppose,â she said.

âCouldnât your familyâhavenât you any family, any mother or sisters or someone who could come out here?â

âI donât get on with my mother. I never have. Iâve got sisters. Theyâre married but I supposeâI suppose they could come if I wanted them. But I donât want them. I donât want anyoneâanyone except Tim.â

âDoes Tim know about this? Have you told him?â

âNot really,â said Molly. âBut heâs anxious about me and he watches me. Itâs as though he were trying toâto help me or to shield me. But if he does that it means I want shielding, doesnât it?â

âI think a lot of it may be imagination but I still think you ought to see a doctor.â

âOld Dr. Graham? He wouldnât be any good.â

âThere are other doctors on the island.â

âItâs all right, really,â said Molly. âI justâmustnât think of it. I expect, as you say, itâs all imagination. Good gracious, itâs getting frightfully late. I ought to be on duty now in the dining room. IâI must go back.â

She looked sharply and almost offensively at Evelyn Hillingdon, and then hurried off. Evelyn stared after her.

Twelve

OLD SINS CAST LONG SHADOWS

I

âI think as I am on to something, man.â

âWhatâs that you say, Victoria?â

âI think Iâm on to something. It may mean money. Big money.â

âNow look, girl, you be careful, youâll not tangle yourself up in something. Maybe Iâd better tackle what it is.â

Victoria laughed, a deep rich chuckle.

âYou wait and see,â she said. âI know how to play this hand. Itâs money, man, itâs big money. Something I see, and something I guess. I think I guess right.â

And again the soft rich chuckle rolled out on the night.

II

âEvelynâ¦.â

âYes?â

Evelyn Hillingdon spoke mechanically, without interest. She did not look at her husband.

âEvelyn, would you mind if we chucked all this and went home to England?â

She had been combing her short dark hair. Now her hands came down from her head sharply. She turned towards him.

âYou meanâbut weâve only just come. Weâve not been out here in the islands for more than three weeks.â

âI know. Butâwould you mind?â

Her eyes searched him incredulously.

âYou really want to go back to England? Back home?â

âYes.â

âLeavingâLucky?â

He winced.

âYouâve known all the time, I suppose, thatâthat it was going on?â

âPretty well. Yes.â

âYouâve never said anything.â

âWhy should I? We had the whole thing out years ago. Neither of us wanted to make a break. So we agreed to go our separate waysâbut keep up the show in public.â Then she added before he could speak, âBut why are you so set on going back to England now?â

âBecause Iâm at breaking point. I canât stick it any longer, Evelyn. I canât.â The quiet Edward Hillingdon was transformed. His hands shook, he swallowed, his calm unemotional face seemed distorted by pain.

âFor Godâs sake, Edward, whatâs the matter?â

âNothingâs the matter except that I want to get out of hereââ

âYou fell wildly in love with Lucky. And now youâve got over it. Is that what youâre telling me?â

âYes. I donât suppose youâll ever feel the same.â

âOh letâs not go into that now! I want to understand whatâs upsetting you so much, Edward.â

âIâm not particularly upset.â

âBut you are. Why?â

âIsnât it obvious?â

âNo, it isnât,â said Evelyn. âLetâs put it in plain concrete terms. Youâve had an affair with a woman. That happens often enough. And now itâs over. Or isnât it over? Perhaps it isnât over on her side. Is that it? Does Greg know about it? Iâve often wondered.â

âI donât know,â said Edward. âHeâs never said anything. He always seems friendly enough.â

âMen can be extraordinarily obtuse,â said Evelyn thoughtfully. âOr elseâPerhaps Greg has got an outside interest of his own!â

âHeâs made passes at you, hasnât he?â said Edward. âAnswer meâI know he hasââ

âOh yes,â said Evelyn, carelessly, âbut he makes passes at everyone. Thatâs just Greg. It doesnât ever really mean much, I imagine. Itâs just part of the Greg he-man act.â

âDo you care for him, Evelyn? Iâd rather know the truth.â

âGreg? Iâm quite fond of himâhe amuses me. Heâs a good friend.â

âAnd thatâs all? I wish I could believe you.â

âI canât really see how it can possibly matter to you,â said Evelyn dryly.

âI suppose I deserve that.â

Evelyn walked to the window, looked out across the veranda and came back again.

âI wish you would tell me whatâs really upsetting you, Edward.â

âIâve told you.â

âI wonder.â

âYou canât understand, I suppose, how extraordinary a temporary madness of this kind can seem to you after youâve got over it.â

âI can try, I suppose. But whatâs worrying me now is that Lucky seems to have got some kind of stranglehold upon you. Sheâs not just a discarded mistress. Sheâs a tigress with claws. You must tell me the truth, Edward. Itâs the only way if you want me to stand by you.â

Edward said in a low voice: âIf I donât get away from her soonâI shall kill her.â

âKill Lucky? Why?â

âBecause of what she made me doâ¦.â

âWhat did she make you do?â

âI helped her to commit a murderââ

The words were outâThere was silenceâEvelyn stared at him.

âDo you know what you are saying?â

âYes. I didnât know I was doing it. There were things she asked me to get for herâat the chemistâs. I didnât knowâI hadnât the least idea what she wanted them forâShe got me to copy out a prescription she hadâ¦.â

âWhen was this?â

âFour years ago. When we were in Martinique. Whenâwhen Gregâs wifeââ

âYou mean Gregâs first wifeâGail? You mean Lucky poisoned her?â

âYesâand I helped her. When I realizedââ

Evelyn interrupted him.

âWhen you realized what had happened, Lucky pointed out to you that you had written out the prescription, that you had got the drugs, that you and she were in it together? Is that right?â

âYes. She said she had done it out of pityâthat Gail was sufferingâthat she had begged Lucky to get something that would end it all.â

âA mercy killing! I see. And you believed that?â

Edward Hillingdon was silent a momentâthen he said:

âNoâI didnât reallyânot deep downâI accepted it because I wanted to believe itâbecause I was infatuated with Lucky.â

âAnd afterwardsâwhen she married Gregâdid you still believe it?â

âIâd made myself believe it by then.â

âAnd Gregâhow much did he know about it all?â

âNothing at all.â

âThat I find hard to believe!â

Edward Hillingdon broke outâ

âEvelyn, Iâve got to get free of it all! That woman taunts me still with what I did. She knows I donât care for her any longer. Care for her?âIâve come to hate herâBut she makes me feel Iâm tied to herâby the thing we did togetherââ

Evelyn walked up and down the roomâthen she stopped and faced him.

âThe entire trouble with you, Edward, is that you are ridiculously sensitiveâand also incredibly suggestible. That devil of a woman has got you just where she wants you by playing on your sense of guiltâAnd Iâll tell you this in plain Bible terms, the guilt that weighs on you is the guilt of adulteryânot murderâyou were guilt-stricken about your affair with Luckyâand then she made a catâs-paw of you for her murder scheme, and managed to make you feel you shared her guilt. You donât.â

âEvelynâ¦.â He stepped towards herâ

She stepped back a minuteâand looked at him searchingly.

âIs this all true, EdwardâIs it? Or are you making it up?â

âEvelyn! Why on earth should I do such a thing?â

âI donât know,â said Evelyn Hillingdon slowlyââItâs just perhapsâbecause I find it hard to trustâanybody. And becauseâOh! I donât knowâIâve got, I suppose, so that I donât know the truth when I hear it.â

âLetâs chuck all thisâGo back home to England.â

âYesâWe willâBut not now.â

âWhy not?â

âWe must carry on as usualâjust for the present. Itâs important. Do you understand, Edward? Donât let Lucky have an inkling of what weâre up toââ

Thirteen

EXIT VICTORIA JOHNSON

The evening was drawing to a close. The steel band was at last relaxing its efforts. Tim stood by the dining room looking over the terrace. He extinguished a few lights on tables that had been vacated.

A voice spoke behind him. âTim, can I speak to you a moment?â

Tim Kendal started.

âHallo, Evelyn, is there anything I can do for you?â

Evelyn looked round.

âCome to this table here, and letâs sit down a minute.â

She led the way to a table at the extreme end of the terrace. There were no other people near them.

âTim, you must forgive me talking to you, but Iâm worried about Molly.â

His face changed at once.

âWhat about Molly?â he said stiffly.

âI donât think sheâs awfully well. She seems upset.â

âThings do seem to upset her rather easily just lately.â

âShe ought to see a doctor, I think.â

âYes, I know, but she doesnât want to. Sheâd hate it.â

âWhy?â

âEh? What dâyou mean?â

âI said why? Why should she hate seeing a doctor?â

âWell,â said Tim rather vaguely, âpeople do sometimes, you know. Itâsâwell, it sort of makes them feel frightened about themselves.â

âYouâre worried about her yourself, arenât you, Tim?â

âYes. Yes, I am rather.â

âIsnât there anyone of her family who could come out here to be with her?â

âNo. Thatâd make things worse, far worse.â

âWhat is the troubleâwith her family, I mean?â

âOh, just one of those things. I suppose sheâs just highly strung andâshe didnât get on with themâparticularly her mother. She never has. Theyâreâtheyâre rather an odd family in some ways and she cut loose from them. Good thing she did, I think.â

Evelyn said hesitantlyââShe seems to have had blackouts, from what she told me, and to be frightened of people. Almost like persecution mania.â

âDonât say that,â said Tim angrily. âPersecution mania! People always say that about people. Just because sheâwellâmaybe sheâs a bit nervy. Coming out here to the West Indies. All the dark faces. You know, people are rather queer, sometimes, about the West Indies and coloured people.â

âSurely not girls like Molly?â

âOh, how does one know the things people are frightened of? There are people who canât be in the room with cats. And other people who faint if a caterpillar drops on them.â

âI hate suggesting itâbut donât you think perhaps she ought to see aâwell, a psychiatrist?â

âNo!â said Tim explosively. âI wonât have people like that monkeying about with her. I donât believe in them. They make people worse. If her mother had left psychiatrists aloneâ¦.â

âSo there was trouble of that kind in her familyâwas there? I mean a history ofââ she chose the word carefullyââinstability.â

âI donât want to talk about itâI took her away from it all and she was all right, quite all right. She has just got into a nervous state â¦ But these things arenât hereditary. Everybody knows that nowadays. Itâs an exploded idea. Mollyâs perfectly sane. Itâs just thatâoh! I believe it was that wretched old Palgrave dying that started it all off.â

âI see,â said Evelyn thoughtfully. âBut there was nothing really to worry anyone in Major Palgraveâs death, was there?â

âNo, of course there wasnât. But itâs a kind of shock when somebody dies suddenly.â

He looked so desperate and defeated that Evelynâs heart smote her. She put her hand on his arm.

âWell, I hope you know what youâre doing, Tim, but if I could help in any wayâI mean if I could go with Molly to New YorkâI could fly with her there or Miami or somewhere where she could get really first-class medical advice.â

âItâs very good of you, Evelyn, but Mollyâs all right. Sheâs getting over it, anyway.â

Evelyn shook her head in doubt. She turned away slowly and looked along the line of the terrace. Most people had gone by now to their bungalows. Evelyn was walking towards her table to see if sheâd left anything behind there, when she heard Tim give an exclamation. She looked up sharply. He was staring towards the steps at the end of the terrace and she followed his gaze. Then she too caught her breath.

Molly was coming up the steps from the beach. She was breathless with deep, sobbing breaths, her body swayed to and fro as she came, in a curious directionless run. Tim cried:

âMolly! Whatâs the matter?â

He ran towards her and Evelyn followed him. Molly was at the top of the steps now and she stood there, both hands behind her back. She said in sobbing breaths:

âI found her â¦ Sheâs there in the bushes â¦ There in the bushes â¦ And look at my handsâlook at my hands.â She held them out and Evelyn caught her breath as she saw the queer dark stains. They looked dark in the subdued lighting but she knew well enough that their real colour was red.

âWhatâs happened, Molly?â cried Tim.

âDown there,â said Molly. She swayed on her feet. âIn the bushesâ¦.â

Tim hesitated, looked at Evelyn, then shoved Molly a little towards Evelyn and ran down the steps. Evelyn put her arm round the girl.

âCome. Sit down, Molly. Here. Youâd better have something to drink.â

Molly collapsed in a chair and leaned forward on the table, her forehead on her crossed arm. Evelyn did not question her any more. She thought it better to leave her time to recover.

âItâll be all right, you know,â said Evelyn gently. âItâll be all right.â

âI donât know,â said Molly. âI donât know what happened. I donât know anything. I canât remember. Iââ she raised her head suddenly. âWhatâs the matter with me? Whatâs the matter with me?â

âItâs all right, child. Itâs all right.â

Tim was coming slowly up the steps. His face was ghastly. Evelyn looked up at him, raising her eyebrows in a query.

âItâs one of our girls,â he said. âWhatâs-her-nameâVictoria. Somebodyâs put a knife in her.â

Fourteen

INQUIRY

I

Molly lay on her bed. Dr. Graham and Dr. Robertson, the West Indian police doctor, stood on one sideâTim on the other. Robertson had his hand on Mollyâs pulseâHe nodded to the man at the foot of the bed, a slender dark man in police uniform, Inspector Weston of the St. HonorÃ© Police Force.

âA bare statementâno more,â the doctor said.

The other nodded.

âNow, Mrs. Kendalâjust tell us how you came to find this girl.â

For a moment or two it was as though the figure on the bed had not heard. Then she spoke in a faint, faraway voice.

âIn the bushesâwhiteâ¦.â

âYou saw something whiteâand you looked to see what it was? Is that it?â

âYesâwhiteâlying thereâI triedâtried to liftâshe itâbloodâblood all over my hands.â

She began to tremble.

Dr. Graham shook his head at them. Robertson whisperedââShe canât stand much more.â

âWhat were you doing on the beach path, Mrs. Kendal?â

âWarmâniceâby the seaââ

âYou knew who the girl was?â

âVictoriaâniceânice girlâlaughsâshe used to laughâoh! and now she wonâtâShe wonât ever laugh again. Iâll never forget itâIâll never forget itââ Her voice rose hysterically.

âMollyâdonât.â It was Tim.

âQuietâQuietââ Dr. Robertson spoke with a soothing authorityââJust relaxârelaxâNow just a small prickââ He withdrew the hypodermic.

âSheâll be in no fit condition to be questioned for at least twenty-four hours,â he saidââIâll let you know when.â

II

The big handsome negro looked from one to the other of the men sitting at the table.

âAh declare to God,â he said. âThatâs all Ah know. Ah donât know nothing but what Ahâve told you.â

The perspiration stood out on his forehead. Daventry sighed. The man presiding at the table, Inspector Weston of the St. HonorÃ© CID, made a gesture of dismissal. Big Jim Ellis shuffled out of the room.

âItâs not all he knows, of course,â Weston said. He had the soft Island voice. âBut itâs all we shall learn from him.â

âYou think heâs in the clear himself?â asked Daventry.

âYes. They seem to have been on good terms together.â

âThey werenât married?â

A faint smile appeared on Lieutenant Westonâs lips. âNo,â he said, âthey werenât married. We donât have so many marriages on the Island. They christen the children, though. Heâs had two children by Victoria.â

âDo you think he was in it, whatever it was, with her?â

âProbably not. I think heâd have been nervous of anything of that kind. And Iâd say, too, that what she did know wasnât very much.â

âBut enough for blackmail?â

âI donât know that Iâd even call it that. I doubt if the girl would even understand that word. Payment for being discreet isnât thought of as blackmail. You see, some of the people who stay here are the rich playboy lot and their morals wonât bear much investigation.â His voice was slightly scathing.

âWe get all kinds, I agree,â said Daventry. âA woman, maybe, doesnât want it known that sheâs sleeping around, so she gives a present to the girl who waits on her. Itâs tacitly understood that the paymentâs for discretion.â

âExactly.â

âBut this,â objected Daventry, âwasnât anything of that kind. It was murder.â

âI should doubt, though, if the girl knew it was serious. She saw something, some puzzling incident, something to do presumably with this bottle of pills. It belonged to Mr. Dyson, I understand. Weâd better see him next.â

Gregory came in with his usual hearty air.

âHere I am,â he said, âwhat can I do to help? Too bad about this girl. She was a nice girl. We both liked her. I suppose it was some sort of quarrel or other with a man, but she seemed quite happy and no signs of being in trouble about anything. I was kidding her only last night.â

âI believe you take a preparation, Mr. Dyson, called Serenite?â

âQuite right. Little pink tablets.â

âYou have them on prescription from a physician?â

âYes. I can show it to you if you like. Suffer a bit from high blood pressure, like so many people do nowadays.â

âVery few people seem to be aware of that fact.â

âWell, I donât go talking about it. Iâwell, Iâve always been well and hearty and I never like people who talk about their ailments all the time.â

âHow many of the pills do you take?â

âTwo, three times a day.â

âDo you have a fairly large stock with you?â

âYes. Iâve got about half a dozen bottles. But theyâre locked up, you know, in a suitcase. I only keep out one, the one thatâs in current use.â

âAnd you missed this bottle a short time ago, so I hear?â

âQuite right.â

âAnd you asked this girl, Victoria Johnson, whether sheâd seen it?â

âYes, I did.â

âAnd what did she say?â

âShe said the last time sheâd seen it was on the shelf in our bathroom. She said sheâd looked around.â

âAnd after that?â

âShe came and returned the bottle to me some time later. She said was this the bottle that was missing?â

âAnd you said?â

âI said âThatâs it, all right, where did you find it?â and she said it was in old Major Palgraveâs room. I said âHow on earth did it get there?ââ

âAnd what did she answer to that?â

âShe said she didnât know, butââ he hesitated.

âYes, Mr. Dyson?â

âWell, she gave me the feeling that she did know a little more than she was saying, but I didnât pay much attention. After all, it wasnât very important. As I say, Iâve got other bottles of the pills with me. I thought perhaps Iâd left it around in the restaurant or somewhere and old Palgrave picked it up for some reason. Perhaps he put it in his pocket meaning to return it to me, then forgot.â

âAnd thatâs all you know about it, Mr. Dyson?â

âThatâs all I know. Sorry to be so unhelpful. Is it important? Why?â

Weston shrugged his shoulders. âAs things are, anything may be important.â

âI donât see where pills come in. I thought youâd want to know about what my movements were when this wretched girl was stabbed. Iâve written them all down as carefully as I can.â

Weston looked at him thoughtfully.

âIndeed? That was very helpful of you, Mr. Dyson.â

âSave everybody trouble, I thought,â said Greg. He shoved a piece of paper across the table.

Weston studied it and Daventry drew his chair a little closer and looked over his shoulder.

âThat seems very clear,â said Weston, after a moment or two. âYou and your wife were together changing for dinner in your bungalow until ten minutes to nine. You then went along to the terrace where you had drinks with SeÃ±ora de Caspearo. At quarter past nine Colonel and Mrs. Hillingdon joined you and you went in to dine. As far as you can remember, you went off to bed at about half past eleven.â

âOf course,â said Greg, âI donât know what time the girl was actually killedâ?â

There was a faint semblance of a question in the words. Lieutenant Weston, however, did not appear to notice it.

âMrs. Kendal found her, I understand? Must have been a very nasty shock for her.â

âYes. Dr. Robertson had to give her a sedative.â

âThis was quite late, wasnât it, when most people had trundled off to bed?â

âYes.â

âHad she been dead long? When Mrs. Kendal found her, I mean?â

âWeâre not quite certain of the exact time yet,â said Weston smoothly.

âPoor little Molly. It must have been a nasty shock for her. Matter of fact, I didnât notice her about last night. Thought she might have had a headache or something and was lying down.â

âWhen was the last time you did see Mrs. Kendal?â

âOh, quite early, before I went to change. She was playing about with some of the table decorations and things. Rearranging the knives.â

âI see.â

âShe was quite cheerful then,â said Greg. âKidding and all that. Sheâs a great girl. Weâre all very fond of her. Timâs a lucky fellow.â

âWell, thank you, Mr. Dyson. You canât remember anything more than youâve told us about what the girl Victoria said when she returned the tablets?â

âNo â¦ It was just as I say. Asked me were these the tablets Iâd been asking for. Said sheâd found them in old Palgraveâs room.â

âSheâd no idea who put them there?â

âDonât think soâcanât remember, really.â

âThank you, Mr. Dyson.â

Gregory went out.

âVery thoughtful of him,â said Weston, gently tapping the paper with his fingernail, âto be so anxious to want us to know for sure exactly where he was last night.â

âA little over-anxious do you think?â asked Daventry.

âThatâs very difficult to tell. There are people, you know, who are naturally nervous about their own safety, about being mixed up with anything. It isnât necessarily because they have any guilty knowledge. On the other hand it might be just that.â

âWhat about opportunity? Nobodyâs really got much of an alibi, what with the band and the dancing and the coming and going. People are getting up, leaving their tables, coming back. Women go to powder their noses. Men take a stroll. Dyson could have slipped away. Anybody could have slipped away. But he does seem rather anxious to prove that he didnât.â He looked thoughtfully down at the paper. âSo Mrs. Kendal was rearranging knives on the table,â he said. âI rather wonder if he dragged that in on purpose.â

âDid it sound like it to you?â

The other considered. âI think itâs possible.â

Outside the room where the two men were sitting, a noise had arisen. A high voice was demanding admittance shrilly.

âIâve got something to tell. Iâve got something to tell. You take me in to where the gentlemen are. You take me in to where the policeman is.â

A uniformed policeman pushed open the door.

âItâs one of the cooks here,â he said, âvery anxious to see you. Says heâs got something you ought to know.â

A frightened dark man in a cookâs cap pushed past him and came into the room. It was one of the minor cooks. A Cuban, not a native of St. HonorÃ©.

âI tell you something. I tell you,â he said. âShe come through my kitchen, she did, and she had a knife with her. A knife, I tell you. She had a knife in her hand. She come through my kitchen and out the door. Out into the garden. I saw her.â

âNow calm down,â said Daventry, âcalm down. Who are you talking about?â

âI tell you who Iâm talking about. Iâm talking about the bossâs wife. Mrs. Kendal. Iâm talking about her. She have a knife in her hand and she go out into the dark. Before dinner that wasâand she didnât come back.â

Fifteen

INQUIRY CONTINUED

I

âCan we have a word with you, Mr. Kendal?â

âOf course.â Tim looked up from his desk. He pushed some papers aside and indicated chairs. His face was drawn and miserable. âHow are you getting on? Got any forwarder? There seems to be a doom in this place. People are wanting to leave, you know, asking about air passages. Just when it seemed everything was being a success. Oh Lord, you donât know what it means, this place, to me and to Molly. We staked everything on it.â

âItâs very hard on you, I know,â said Inspector Weston. âDonât think that we donât sympathize.â

âIf it all could be cleared up quickly,â said Tim. âThis wretched girl VictoriaâOh! I oughtnât to talk about her like that. She was quite a good sort, Victoria was. Butâbut there must be some quite simple reason, someâkind of intrigue, or love affair she had. Perhaps her husbandââ

âJim Ellis wasnât her husband, and they seemed a settled sort of couple.â

âIf it could only be cleared up quickly,â said Tim again. âIâm sorry. You wanted to talk to me about something, ask me something.â

âYes. It was about last night. According to medical evidence Victoria was killed some time between 10:30 pm and midnight. Alibis under the circumstances that prevail here are not very easy to prove. People are moving about, dancing, walking away from the terrace, coming back. Itâs all very difficult.â

âI suppose so. But does that mean that you definitely consider Victoria was killed by one of the guests here?â

âWell, we have to examine that possibility, Mr. Kendal. What I want to ask you particularly about, is a statement made by one of your cooks.â

âOh? Which one? What does he say?â

âHeâs a Cuban, I understand.â

âWeâve got two Cubans and a Puerto Rican.â

âThis man Enrico states that your wife passed through the kitchen on her way from the dining room, and went out into the garden and that she was carrying a knife.â

Tim stared at him.

âMolly, carrying a knife? Well, why shouldnât she? I meanâwhyâyou donât thinkâwhat are you trying to suggest?â

âI am talking of the time before people had come into the dining room. It would be, I suppose, some time about 8:30. You yourself were in the dining room talking to the head waiter, Fernando, I believe.â

âYes.â Tim cast his mind back. âYes, I remember.â

âAnd your wife came in from the terrace?â

âYes, she did,â Tim agreed. âShe always went out to look over the tables. Sometimes the boys set things wrong, forgot some of the cutlery, things like that. Very likely thatâs what it was. She may have been rearranging cutlery or something. She might have had a spare knife or a spoon, something like that in her hand.â

âAnd she came from the terrace into the dining room. Did she speak to you?â

âYes, we had a word or two together.â

âWhat did she say? Can you remember?â

âI think I asked her who sheâd been talking to. I heard her voice out there.â

âAnd who did she say sheâd been talking to?â

âGregory Dyson.â

âAh. Yes. That is what he said.â

Tim went on, âHeâd been making a pass at her, I understand. He was a bit given to that kind of thing. It annoyed me and I said âBlast himâ and Molly laughed and said she could do all the blasting that needed to be done. Mollyâs a very clever girl that way. Itâs not always an easy position, you know. You canât offend guests, and so an attractive girl like Molly has to pass things off with a laugh and a shrug. Gregory Dyson finds it difficult to keep his hands off any good-looking woman.â

âHad there been an altercation between them?â

âNo, I donât think so. I think, as I say, she just laughed it off as usual.â

âYou canât say definitely whether she had a knife in her hand or not?â

âI canât rememberâIâm almost sure she didnâtâin fact quite sure she didnât.â

âBut you said just nowâ¦.â

âLook here, what I meant was that if she was in the dining room or in the kitchen itâs quite likely she might have picked up a knife or had one in her hand. Matter of fact I can remember quite well, she came in from the dining room and she had nothing in her hand. Nothing at all. Thatâs definite.â

âI see,â said Weston.

Tim looked at him uneasily.

âWhat on earth is this youâre getting at? What did that damnâ fool EnricoâManuelâwhoever it wasâsay?â

âHe said your wife came out into the kitchen, that she looked upset, that she had a knife in her hand.â

âHeâs just dramatizing.â

âDid you have any further conversation with your wife during dinner or after?â

âNo, I donât think I did really. Matter of fact I was rather busy.â

âWas your wife there in the dining room during the meal?â

âIâohâyes, we always move about among the guests and things like that. See how things are going on.â

âDid you speak to her at all?â

âNo, I donât think I did â¦ Weâre usually fairly busy. We donât always notice what the other oneâs doing and we certainly havenât got time to talk to each other.â

âActually you donât remember speaking to her until she came up the steps three hours later, after finding the body?â

âIt was an awful shock for her. It upset her terribly.â

âI know. A very unpleasant experience. How did she come to be walking along the beach path?â

âAfter the stress of dinner being served, she often does go for a turn. You know, get away from the guests for a minute or two, get a breather.â

âWhen she came back, I understand you were talking to Mrs. Hillingdon.â

âYes. Practically everyone else had gone to bed.â

âWhat was the subject of your conversation with Mrs. Hillingdon?â

âNothing particular. Why? Whatâs she been saying?â

âSo far she hasnât said anything. We havenât asked her.â

âWe were just talking of this and that. Molly, and hotel running, and one thing and another.â

âAnd thenâyour wife came up the steps of the terrace and told you what had happened?â

âYes.â

âThere was blood on her hands?â

âOf course there was! Sheâd been over the girl, tried to lift her, couldnât understand what had happened, what was the matter with her. Of course there was blood on her hands! Look here, what the hell are you suggesting? You are suggesting something?â

âPlease calm down,â said Daventry. âItâs all a great strain on you I know, Tim, but we have to get the facts clear. I understand your wife hasnât been feeling very well lately?â

âNonsenseâsheâs all right. Major Palgraveâs death upset her a bit. Naturally. Sheâs a sensitive girl.â

âWe shall have to ask her a few questions as soon as sheâs fit enough,â said Weston.

âWell, you canât now. The doctor gave her a sedative and said she wasnât to be disturbed. I wonât have her upset and brow-beaten, dâyou hear?â

âWeâre not going to do any brow-beating,â said Weston. âWeâve just got to get the facts clear. We wonât disturb her at present, but as soon as the doctor allows us, weâll have to see her.â His voice was gentleâinflexible.

Tim looked at him, opened his mouth, but said nothing.

II

Evelyn Hillingdon, calm and composed as usual, sat down in the chair indicated. She considered the few questions asked her, taking her time over it. Her dark, intelligent eyes looked at Weston thoughtfully.

âYes,â she said, âI was talking to Mr. Kendal on the terrace when his wife came up the steps and told us about the murder.â

âYour husband wasnât there?â

âNo, he had gone to bed.â

âHad you any special reason for your conversation with Mr. Kendal?â

Evelyn raised her finely pencilled eyebrowsâIt was a definite rebuke.

She said coldly:

âWhat a very odd question. Noâthere was nothing special about our conversation.â

âDid you discuss the matter of his wifeâs health?â

Again Evelyn took her time.

âI really canât remember,â she said at last.

âAre you sure of that?â

âSure that I canât remember? What a curious way of putting itâone talks about so many things at different times.â

âMrs. Kendal has not been in good health lately, I understand.â

âShe looked quite all rightâa little tired perhaps. Of course running a place like this means a lot of worries, and she is quite inexperienced. Naturally, she gets flustered now and then.â

âFlustered.â Weston repeated the word. âThat was the way you would describe it?â

âItâs an old-fashioned word, perhaps, but just as good as the modern jargon we use for everythingâA âvirus infectionâ for a bilious attackâan âanxiety neurosisâ for the minor bothers of daily lifeââ

Her smile made Weston feel slightly ridiculous. He thought to himself that Evelyn Hillingdon was a clever woman. He looked at Daventry, whose face remained unmoved, and wondered what he thought.

âThank you, Mrs. Hillingdon,â said Weston.

III

âWe donât want to worry you, Mrs. Kendal, but we have to have your account of just how you came to find this girl. Dr. Graham says you are sufficiently recovered to talk about it now.â

âOh yes,â said Molly, âIâm really quite all right again.â She gave them a small nervous smile. âIt was just the shockâIt was rather awful, you know.â

âYes, indeed it must have beenâI understand you went for a walk after dinner.â

âYesâI often do.â

Her eyes shifted, Daventry noticed, and the fingers of her hands twined and untwined about each other.

âWhat time would that have been, Mrs. Kendal?â asked Weston.

âWell, I donât really knowâwe donât go much by the time.â

âThe steel band was still playing?â

âYesâat leastâI think soâI canât really remember.â

âAnd you walkedâwhich way?â

âOh, along the beach path.â

âTo the left or the right?â

âOh! First one wayâand then the otherâIâIâreally didnât notice.â

âWhy didnât you notice, Mrs. Kendal?â

She frowned.

âI suppose I wasâwellâthinking of things.â

âThinking of anything particular?â

âNoâNoâNothing particularâJust things that had to be doneâseen toâin the hotel.â Again that nervous twining and untwining of fingers. âAnd thenâI noticed something whiteâin a clump of hibiscus bushesâand I wondered what it was. I stopped andâand pulledââ She swallowed convulsivelyââAnd it was herâVictoriaâall huddled upâand I tried to raise her head up and I gotâbloodâon my hands.â

She looked at them and repeated wonderingly as though recalling something impossible:

âBloodâon my hands.â

âYesâYesâA very dreadful experience. There is no need for you to tell us more about that part of itâHow long had you been walking, do you think, when you found herââ

âI donât knowâI have no idea.â

âAn hour? Half an hour? Or more than an hourââ

âI donât know,â Molly repeated.

Daventry asked in a quiet everyday voice:

âDid you take a knife with you on yourâwalk?â

âA knife?â Molly sounded surprised. âWhy should I take a knife?â

âI only ask because one of the kitchen staff mentioned that you had a knife in your hand when you went out of the kitchen into the garden.â

Molly frowned.

âBut I didnât go out of the kitchenâoh you mean earlierâbefore dinnerâIâI donât think soââ

âYou had been rearranging the cutlery on the tables, perhaps.â

âI have to, sometimes. They lay things wrongânot enough knivesâor too many. The wrong number of forks and spoonsâthat sort of thing.â

âSo you may have gone out of the kitchen that evening carrying a knife in your hand?â

âI donât think I didâIâm sure I didnâtââ She addedââTim was thereâhe would know. Ask him.â

âDid you like this girlâVictoriaâwas she good at her work?â asked Weston.

âYesâshe was a very nice girl.â

âYou had no dispute with her?â

âDispute? No.â

âShe had never threatened youâin any way?â

âThreatened me? What do you mean?â

âIt doesnât matterâYou have no idea of who could have killed her? No idea at all?â

âNone.â She spoke positively.

âWell, thank you, Mrs. Kendal.â He smiled. âIt wasnât so terrible, was it?â

âThatâs all?â

âThatâs all for now.â

Daventry got up, opened the door for her, and watched her go out.

âTim would know,â he quoted as he returned to his chair. âAnd Tim says definitely that she didnât have a knife.â

Weston said gravely:

âI think that that is what any husband would feel called upon to say.â

âA table knife seems a very poor type of knife to use for murder.â

âBut it was a steak knife, Mr. Daventry. Steaks were on the menu that evening. Steak knives are kept sharp.â

âI really canât bring myself to believe that that girl weâve just been talking to is a red-handed murderess, Weston.â

âIt is not necessary to believe it yet. It could be that Mrs. Kendal went out into the garden before dinner, clasping a knife she had taken off one of the tables because it was superfluousâshe might not even have noticed she was holding it, and she could have put it down somewhereâor dropped itâIt could have been found and used by someone elseâI, too, think her an unlikely murderess.â

âAll the same,â said Daventry thoughtfully, âIâm pretty sure she is not telling all she knows. Her vagueness over time is oddâwhere was sheâwhat was she doing out there? Nobody, so far, seems to have noticed her in the dining room that evening.â

âThe husband was about as usualâbut not the wifeââ

âYou think she went to meet someoneâVictoria Johnson?â

âPerhapsâor perhaps she saw whoever it was who did go to meet Victoria.â

âYouâre thinking of Gregory Dyson?â

âWe know he was talking to Victoria earlierâHe may have arranged to meet her again laterâeveryone moved around freely on the terrace, rememberâdancing, drinkingâin and out of the bar.â

âNo alibi like a steel band,â said Daventry wryly.

Sixteen

MISS MARPLE SEEKS ASSISTANCE

If anybody had been there to observe the gentle-looking elderly lady who stood meditatively on the loggia outside her bungalow, they would have thought she had nothing more on her mind than deliberation on how to arrange her time that dayâAn expedition, perhaps, to Castle Cliffâa visit to Jamestownâa nice drive and lunch at Pelican Pointâor just a quiet morning on the beachâ

But the gentle old lady was deliberating quite other mattersâshe was in militant mood.

âSomething has got to be done,â said Miss Marple to herself.

Moreover, she was convinced that there was no time to be lostâThere was urgency.

But who was there that she could convince of that fact? Given time, she thought she could find out the truth by herself.

She had found out a good deal. But not enoughânot nearly enough. And time was short.

She realized, bitterly, that here on this Paradise of an island, she had none of her usual allies.

She thought regretfully of her friends in EnglandâSir Henry Clitheringâalways willing to listen indulgentlyâhis godson Dermot, who in spite of his increased status at Scotland Yard was still ready to believe that when Miss Marple voiced an opinion there was usually something behind it.

But would that soft-voiced native police officer pay any attention to an old ladyâs urgency? Dr. Graham? But Dr. Graham was not what she neededâtoo gentle and hesitant, certainly not a man of quick decisions and rapid actions.

Miss Marple, feeling rather like a humble deputy of the Almighty, almost cried aloud her need in Biblical phrasing.

Who will go for me?

Whom shall I send?

The sound that reached her ears a moment later was not instantly recognized by her as an answer to prayerâfar from itâAt the back of her mind it registered only as a man possibly calling his dog.

âHi!â

Miss Marple, lost in perplexity, paid no attention.

âHi!â The volume thus increased, Miss Marple looked vaguely round.

âHI!â called Mr. Rafiel impatiently. He addedââYou thereââ

Miss Marple had not at first realized that Mr. Rafielâs âHi Youâ was addressed to her. It was not a method that anyone had ever used before to summon her. It was certainly not a gentlemanly mode of address. Miss Marple did not resent it, because people seldom did resent Mr. Rafielâs somewhat arbitrary method of doing things. He was a law unto himself and people accepted him as such. Miss Marple looked across the intervening space between her bungalow and his. Mr. Rafiel was sitting outside on his loggia and he beckoned her.

âYou were calling me?â she asked.

âOf course I was calling you,â said Mr. Rafiel. âWho did you think I was callingâa cat? Come over here.â

Miss Marple looked round for her handbag, picked it up, and crossed the intervening space.

âI canât come to you unless someone helps me,â explained Mr. Rafiel, âso youâve got to come to me.â

âOh yes,â said Miss Marple, âI quite understand that.â

Mr. Rafiel pointed to an adjacent chair. âSit down,â he said, âI want to talk to you. Something damned odd is going on in this island.â

âYes, indeed,â agreed Miss Marple, taking the chair as indicated. By sheer habit she drew her knitting out of her bag.

âDonât start knitting again,â said Mr. Rafiel, âI canât stand it. I hate women knitting. It irritates me.â

Miss Marple returned her knitting to her bag. She did this with no undue air of meekness, rather with the air of one who makes allowances for a fractious patient.

âThereâs a lot of chit-chat going on,â said Mr. Rafiel, âand I bet youâre in the forefront of it. You and the parson and his sister.â

âIt is, perhaps, only natural that there should be chit-chat,â said Miss Marple with spirit, âgiven the circumstances.â

âThis Island girl gets herself knifed. Found in the bushes. Might be ordinary enough. That chap she was living with might have got jealous of another manâor heâd got himself another girl and she got jealous and they had a row. Sex in the tropics. That sort of stuff. What do you say?â

âNo,â said Miss Marple, shaking her head.

âThe authorities donât think so, either.â

âThey would say more to you,â pointed out Miss Marple, âthan they would say to me.â

âAll the same, I bet you know more about it than I do. Youâve listened to the tittle-tattle.â

âCertainly I have,â said Miss Marple.

âNothing much else to do, have you, except listen to tittle-tattle?â

âIt is often informative and useful.â

âDâyou know,â said Mr. Rafiel, studying her attentively. âI made a mistake about you. I donât often make mistakes about people. Thereâs a lot more to you than I thought there was. All these rumours about Major Palgrave and the stories he told. You think he was bumped off, donât you?â

âI very much fear so,â said Miss Marple.

âWell, he was,â said Mr. Rafiel.

Miss Marple drew a deep breath. âThat is definite, is it?â she asked.

âYes, itâs definite enough. I had it from Daventry. Iâm not breaking a confidence because the facts of the autopsy will have to come out. You told Graham something, he went to Daventry, Daventry went to the Administrator, the CID were informed, and between them they agreed that things looked fishy, so they dug up old Palgrave and had a look.â

âAnd they found?â Miss Marple paused interrogatively.

âThey found heâd had a lethal dose of something that only a doctor could pronounce properly. As far as I remember it sounds vaguely like di-flor, hexagonal-ethylcarbenzol. Thatâs not the right name. But thatâs roughly what it sounds like. The police doctor put it that way so that nobody should know, I suppose, what it really was. The stuffâs probably got some quite simple nice easy name like Evipan or Veronal or Eastonâs Syrup or something of that kind. This is its official name to baffle laymen with. Anyway, a sizeable dose of it, I gather, would produce death, and the signs would be much the same as those of high blood pressure aggravated by over-indulgence in alcohol on a gay evening. In fact, it all looked perfectly natural and nobody questioned it for a moment. Just said âpoor old chapâ and buried him quick. Now they wonder if he ever had high blood pressure at all. Did he ever say he had to you?â

âNo.â

âExactly! And yet everyone seems to have taken it as a fact.â

âApparently he told people he had.â

âItâs like seeing ghosts,â said Mr. Rafiel. âYou never meet the chap whoâs seen the ghost himself. Itâs always the second cousin of his aunt, or a friend, or a friend of a friend. But leave that for a moment. They thought he had blood pressure, because there was a bottle of tablets controlling blood pressure found in his room butâand now weâre coming to the pointâI gather that this girl who was killed went about saying that that bottle was put there by somebody else, and that actually it belonged to that fellow Greg.â

âMr. Dyson has got blood pressure. His wife mentioned it,â said Miss Marple.

âSo it was put in Palgraveâs room to suggest that he suffered from blood pressure and to make his death seem natural.â

âExactly,â said Miss Marple. âAnd the story was put about, very cleverly, that he had frequently mentioned to people that he had high blood pressure. But you know, itâs very easy to put about a story. Very easy. Iâve seen a lot of it in my time.â

âI bet you have,â said Mr. Rafiel.

âIt only needs a murmur here and there,â said Miss Marple. âYou donât say it of your own knowledge, you just say that Mrs. B. told you that Colonel C. told her. Itâs always at second hand or third hand or fourth hand and itâs very difficult to find out who was the original whisperer. Oh yes, it can be done. And the people you say it to go on and repeat it to others as if they know it of their own knowledge.â

âSomebodyâs been clever,â said Mr. Rafiel thoughtfully.

âYes,â said Miss Marple, âI think somebodyâs been quite clever.â

âThis girl saw something, or knew something and tried blackmail, I suppose,â said Mr. Rafiel.

âShe maynât have thought of it as blackmail,â said Miss Marple. âIn these large hotels, there are often things the maids know that some people would rather not have repeated. And so they hand out a larger tip or a little present of money. The girl possibly didnât realize at first the importance of what she knew.â

âStill, she got a knife in her back all right,â said Mr. Rafiel brutally.

âYes. Evidently someone couldnât afford to let her talk.â

âWell? Letâs hear what you think about it all.â

Miss Marple looked at him thoughtfully.

âWhy should you think I know any more than you do, Mr. Rafiel?â

âProbably you donât,â said Mr. Rafiel, âbut Iâm interested to hear your ideas about what you do know.â

âBut why?â

âThereâs not very much to do out here,â said Mr. Rafiel, âexcept make money.â

Miss Marple looked slightly surprised.

âMake money? Out here?â

âYou can send out half a dozen cables in code every day if you like,â said Mr. Rafiel. âThatâs how I amuse myself.â

âTake-over bids?â Miss Marple asked doubtfully, in the tone of one who speaks a foreign language.

âThat kind of thing,â agreed Mr. Rafiel. âPitting your wits against other peopleâs wits. The trouble is it doesnât occupy enough time, so Iâve got interested in this business. Itâs aroused my curiosity. Palgrave spent a good deal of his time talking to you. Nobody else would be bothered with him, I expect. What did he say?â

âHe told me a good many stories,â said Miss Marple.

âI know he did. Damnâ boring, most of them. And you hadnât only got to hear them once. If you got anywhere within range you heard them three or four times over.â

âI know,â said Miss Marple. âIâm afraid that does happen when gentlemen get older.â

Mr. Rafiel looked at her very sharply.

âI donât tell stories,â he said. âGo on. It started with one of Palgraveâs stories, did it?â

âHe said he knew a murderer,â said Miss Marple. âThereâs nothing really special about that,â she added in her gentle voice, âbecause I suppose it happens to nearly everybody.â

âI donât follow you,â said Mr. Rafiel.

âI donât mean specifically,â said Miss Marple, âbut surely, Mr. Rafiel, if you cast over in your mind your recollections of various events in your life, hasnât there nearly always been an occasion when somebody has made some careless reference such as âOh yes I knew the So-and-Soâs quite wellâhe died very suddenly and they always say his wife did him in, but I dare say thatâs just gossip.â Youâve heard people say something like that, havenât you?â

âWell, I suppose soâyes, something of the kind. But notâwell, not seriously.â

âExactly,â said Miss Marple, âbut Major Palgrave was a very serious man. I think he enjoyed telling this story. He said he had a snapshot of the murderer. He was going to show it to me butâactuallyâhe didnât.â

âWhy?â

âBecause he saw something,â said Miss Marple. âSaw someone, I suspect. His face got very red and he shoved back the snapshot into his wallet and began talking on another subject.â

âWho did he see?â

âIâve thought about that a good deal,â said Miss Marple. âI was sitting outside my bungalow, and he was sitting nearly opposite me andâwhatever he saw, he saw over my right shoulder.â

âSomeone coming along the path then from behind you on the right, the path from the creek and the car parkââ

âYes.â

âWas anyone coming along the path?â

âMr. and Mrs. Dyson and Colonel and Mrs. Hillingdon.â

âAnybody else?â

âNot that I can find out. Of course, your bungalow would also be in his line of visionâ¦.â

âAh. Then we includeâshall we sayâEsther Walters and my chap, Jackson. Is that right? Either of them, I suppose, might have come out of the bungalow and gone back inside again without your seeing them.â

âThey might have,â said Miss Marple, âI didnât turn my head at once.â

âThe Dysons, the Hillingdons, Esther, Jackson. One of themâs a murderer. Or, of course, myself,â he added; obviously as an afterthought.

Miss Marple smiled faintly.

âAnd he spoke of the murderer as a man?â

âYes.â

âRight. That cuts out Evelyn Hillingdon, Lucky and Esther Walters. So your murderer, allowing that all this far-fetched nonsense is true, your murderer is Dyson, Hillingdon or my smooth-tongued Jackson.â

âOr yourself,â said Miss Marple.

Mr. Rafiel ignored this last point.

âDonât say things to irritate me,â he said. âIâll tell you the first thing that strikes me, and which you donât seem to have thought of. If itâs one of those three, why the devil didnât old Palgrave recognize him before? Dash it all, theyâve all been sitting round looking at each other for the last two weeks. That doesnât seem to make sense.â

âI think it could,â said Miss Marple.

âWell, tell me how.â

âYou see, in Major Palgraveâs story he hadnât seen this man himself at any time. It was a story told to him by a doctor. The doctor gave him the snapshot as a curiosity. Major Palgrave may have looked at the snapshot fairly closely at the time but after that heâd just stack it away in his wallet and keep it as a souvenir. Occasionally, perhaps, heâd take it out and show it to someone he was telling the story to. And another thing, Mr. Rafiel, we donât know how long ago this happened. He didnât give me any indication of that when he was telling the story. I mean this may have been a story heâs been telling to people for years. Five yearsâten yearsâlonger still perhaps. Some of his tiger stories go back about twenty years.â

âThey would!â said Mr. Rafiel.

âSo I donât suppose for a moment that Major Palgrave would recognize the face in the snapshot if he came across the man casually. What I think happened, what Iâm almost sure must have happened, is that as he told his story he fumbled for the snapshot, took it out, looked down at it studying the face and then looked up to see the same face, or one with a strong resemblance, coming towards him from a distance of about ten or twelve feet away.â

âYes,â said Mr. Rafiel consideringly, âyes, thatâs possible.â

âHe was taken aback,â said Miss Marple, âand he shoved it back in his wallet and began to talk loudly about something else.â

âHe couldnât have been sure,â said Mr. Rafiel, shrewdly.

âNo,â said Miss Marple, âhe couldnât have been sure. But of course afterwards he would have studied the snapshot very carefully and would have looked at the man and tried to make up his mind whether it was just a likeness or whether it could actually be the same person.â

Mr. Rafiel reflected a moment or two, then he shook his head.

âThereâs something wrong here. The motiveâs inadequate. Absolutely inadequate. He was speaking to you loudly, was he?â

âYes,â said Miss Marple, âquite loudly. He always did.â

âTrue enough. Yes, he did shout. So whoever was approaching would hear what he said?â

âI should imagine you could hear it for quite a good radius round.â

Mr. Rafiel shook his head again. He said, âItâs fantastic, too fantastic. Anybody would laugh at such a story. Hereâs an old booby telling a story about another story somebody told him, and showing a snapshot, and all of it centring round a murder which had taken place years ago! Or at any rate, a year or two. How on earth can that worry the man in question? No evidence, just a bit of hearsay, a story at third hand. He could even admit a likeness, he could say: âYes, I do look rather like that fellow, donât I! Ha, ha!â Nobodyâs going to take old Palgraveâs identification seriously. Donât tell me so, because I wonât believe it. No, the chap, if it was the chap, had nothing to fearânothing whatever. Itâs the kind of accusation he can just laugh off. Why on earth should he proceed to murder old Palgrave? Itâs absolutely unnecessary. You must see that.â

âOh I do see that,â said Miss Marple. âI couldnât agree with you more. Thatâs what makes me uneasy. So very uneasy that I really couldnât sleep last night.â

Mr. Rafiel stared at her. âLetâs hear whatâs on your mind,â he said quietly.

âI may be entirely wrong,â said Miss Marple hesitantly.

âProbably you are,â said Mr. Rafiel with his usual lack of courtesy, âbut at any rate letâs hear what youâve thought up in the small hours.â

âThere could be a very powerful motive ifââ

âIf what?â

âIf there was going to beâquite soonâanother murder.â

Mr. Rafiel stared at her. He tried to pull himself up a little in his chair.

âLetâs get this clear,â he said.

âI am so bad at explaining.â Miss Marple spoke rapidly and rather incoherently. A pink flush rose to her cheeks. âSupposing there was a murder planned. If you remember, the story Major Palgrave told me concerned a man whose wife died under suspicious circumstances. Then, after a certain lapse of time, there was another murder under exactly the same circumstances. A man of a different name had a wife who died in much the same way and the doctor who was telling it recognized him as the same man, although heâd changed his name. Well, it does look, doesnât it, as though this murderer might be the kind of murderer who made a habit of the thing?â

âYou mean like Smith, Brides in the Bath, that kind of thing. Yes.â

âAs far as I can make out,â said Miss Marple, âand from what I have heard and read, a man who does a wicked thing like this and gets away with it the first time, is, alas, encouraged. He thinks itâs easy, he thinks heâs clever. And so he repeats it. And in the end, as you say, like Smith and the Brides in the Bath, it becomes a habit. Each time in a different place and each time the man changes his name. But the crimes themselves are all very much alike. So it seems to me, although I may be quite wrongââ

âBut you donât think you are wrong, do you?â Mr. Rafiel put in shrewdly.

Miss Marple went on without answering. ââthat if that were so and if thisâthis person had got things all lined up for a murder out here, for getting rid of another wife, say, and if this is crime three or four, well then, the Majorâs story would matter because the murderer couldnât afford to have any similarity pointed out. If you remember, that was exactly the way Smith got caught. The circumstances of a crime attracted the attention of somebody who compared it with a newspaper clipping of some other case. So you do see, donât you, that if this wicked person has got a crime planned, arranged, and shortly about to take place, he couldnât afford to let Major Palgrave go about telling this story and showing that snapshot.â

She stopped and looked appealingly at Mr. Rafiel.

âSo you see he had to do something very quickly, as quickly as possible.â

Mr. Rafiel spoke. âIn fact, that very same night, eh?â

âYes,â said Miss Marple.

âQuick work,â said Mr. Rafiel, âbut it could be done. Put the tablets in old Palgraveâs room, spread the blood pressure rumour about and add a little of our fourteen-syllable drug to a Planters Punch. Is that it?â

âYesâBut thatâs all overâwe neednât worry about it. Itâs the future. Itâs now. With Major Palgrave out of the way and the snapshot destroyed, this man will go on with his murder as planned.â

Mr. Rafiel whistled.

âYouâve got it all worked out, havenât you?â

Miss Marple nodded. She said in a most unaccustomed voice, firm and almost dictatorial, âAnd weâve got to stop it. Youâve got to stop it, Mr. Rafiel.â

âMe?â said Mr. Rafiel, astonished, âWhy me?â

âBecause youâre rich and important,â said Miss Marple, simply. âPeople will take notice of what you say or suggest. They wouldnât listen to me for a moment. They would say that I was an old lady imagining things.â

âThey might at that,â said Mr. Rafiel. âMore fools if they did. I must say, though, that nobody would think you had any brains in your head to hear your usual line of talk. Actually, youâve got a logical mind. Very few women have.â He shifted himself uncomfortably in his chair. âWhere the hellâs Esther or Jackson?â he said. âI need resettling. No, itâs no good your doing it. Youâre not strong enough. I donât know what they mean, leaving me alone like this.â

âIâll go and find them.â

âNo, you wonât. Youâll stay hereâand thrash this out. Which of them is it? The egregious Greg? The quiet Edward Hillingdon or my fellow Jackson? Itâs got to be one of the three, hasnât it?â

Seventeen

MR. RAFIEL TAKES CHARGE

âI donât know,â said Miss Marple.

âWhat do you mean? What have we been talking about for the last twenty minutes?â

âIt has occurred to me that I may have been wrong.â

Mr. Rafiel stared at her.

âScatty after all!â he said disgustedly. âAnd you sounded so sure of yourself.â

âOh, I am sureâabout the murder. Itâs the murderer Iâm not sure about. You see Iâve found out that Major Palgrave had more than one murder storyâyou told me yourself heâd told you one about a kind of Lucrezia Borgiaââ

âSo he didâat that. But that was quite a different kind of story.â

âI know. And Mrs. Walters said he had one about someone being gassed in a gas ovenââ

âBut the story he told youââ

Miss Marple allowed herself to interruptâa thing that did not often happen to Mr. Rafiel.

She spoke with desperate earnestness and only moderate incoherence.

âDonât you seeâitâs so difficult to be sure. The whole point is thatâso oftenâone doesnât listen. Ask Mrs. Waltersâshe said the same thingâyou listen to begin withâand then your attention flagsâyour mind wandersâand suddenly you find youâve missed a bit. I just wonder if possibly there may have been a gapâa very small oneâbetween the story he was telling meâabout a manâand the moment when he was getting out his wallet and sayingââLike to see a picture of a murderer.ââ

âBut you thought it was a picture of the man he had been talking about?â

âI thought soâyes. It never occurred to me that it mightnât have been. But nowâhow can I be sure?â

Mr. Rafiel looked at her very thoughtfullyâ¦.

âThe trouble with you is,â he said, âthat youâre too conscientious. Great mistakeâMake up your mind and donât shilly shally. You didnât shilly shally to begin with. If you ask me, in all this chit-chat youâve been having with the parsonâs sister and the rest of them, youâve got hold of something thatâs unsettled you.â

âPerhaps youâre right.â

âWell, cut it out for the moment. Letâs go ahead with what you had to begin with. Because, nine times out of ten, oneâs original judgments are rightâor so Iâve found. Weâve got three suspects. Letâs take âem out and have a good look at them. Any preference?â

âI really havenât,â said Miss Marple, âall three of them seem so very unlikely.â

âWeâll take Greg first,â said Mr. Rafiel. âCanât stand the fellow. Doesnât make him a murderer, though. Still, there are one or two points against him. Those blood pressure tablets belonged to him. Nice and handy to make use of.â

âThat would be a little obvious, wouldnât it?â Miss Marple objected.

âI donât know that it would,â said Mr. Rafiel. âAfter all, the main thing was to do something quickly, and heâd got the tablets. Hadnât much time to go looking round for tablets that somebody else might have. Letâs say itâs Greg. All right. If he wanted to put his dear wife Lucky out of the wayâ(Good job, too, Iâd say. In fact Iâm in sympathy with him.) I canât actually see his motive. From all accounts heâs rich. Inherited money from his first wife who had pots of it. He qualifies on that as a possible wife murderer all right. But thatâs over and done with. He got away with it. But Lucky was his first wifeâs poor relation. No money there, so if he wants to put her out of the way it must be in order to marry somebody else. Any gossip going around about that?â

Miss Marple shook her head.

âNot that I have heard. Heâerâhas a very gallant manner with all the ladies.â

âWell, thatâs a nice, old-fashioned way of putting it,â said Mr. Rafiel. âAll right, heâs a stoat. He makes passes. Not enough! We want more than that. Letâs go on to Edward Hillingdon. Now thereâs a dark horse, if ever there was one.â

âHe is not, I think, a happy man,â offered Miss Marple.

Mr. Rafiel looked at her thoughtfully.

âDo you think a murderer ought to be a happy man?â

Miss Marple coughed.

âWell, they usually have been in my experience.â

âI donât suppose your experience has gone very far,â said Mr. Rafiel.

In this assumption, as Miss Marple could have told him, he was wrong. But she forbore to contest his statement. Gentlemen, she knew, did not like to be put right in their facts.

âI rather fancy Hillingdon myself,â said Mr. Rafiel. âIâve an idea that there is something a bit odd going on between him and his wife. You noticed it at all?â

âOh yes,â said Miss Marple, âI have noticed it. Their behaviour is perfect in public, of course, but that one would expect.â

âYou probably know more about those sort of people than I would,â said Mr. Rafiel. âVery well, then, everything is in perfectly good taste but itâs a probability that, in a gentlemanly way, Edward Hillingdon is contemplating doing away with Evelyn Hillingdon. Do you agree?â

âIf so,â said Miss Marple, âthere must be another woman.â

Miss Marple shook her head in a dissatisfied manner.

âI canât help feelingâI really canâtâthat itâs not all quite as simple as that.â

âWell, who shall we consider nextâJackson? We leave me out of it.â

Miss Marple smiled for the first time.

âAnd why do we leave you out of it, Mr. Rafiel?â

âBecause if you want to discuss the possibilities of my being a murderer youâd have to do it with somebody else. Waste of time talking about it to me. And anyway, I ask you, am I cut out for the part? Helpless, hauled out of bed like a dummy, dressed, wheeled about in a chair, shuffled along for a walk. What earthly chance have I of going and murdering anyone?â

âProbably as good a chance as anyone else,â said Miss Marple vigorously.

âAnd how do you make that out?â

âWell, you would agree yourself, I think, that you have brains?â

âOf course Iâve got brains,â declared Mr. Rafiel. âA good deal more than anybody else in this community, Iâd say.â

âAnd having brains,â went on Miss Marple, âwould enable you to overcome the physical difficulties of being a murderer.â

âIt would take some doing!â

âYes,â said Miss Marple, âit would take some doing. But then, I think, Mr. Rafiel, you would enjoy that.â

Mr. Rafiel stared at her for a long time and then he suddenly laughed.

âYouâve got a nerve!â he said. âNot quite the gentle fluffy old lady you look, are you? So you really think Iâm a murderer?â

âNo,â said Miss Marple, âI do not.â

âAnd why?â

âWell, really, I think just because you have got brains. Having brains, you can get most things you want without having recourse to murder. Murder is stupid.â

âAnd anyway who the devil should I want to murder?â

âThat would be a very interesting question,â said Miss Marple. âI have not yet had the pleasure of sufficient conversation with you to evolve a theory as to that.â

Mr. Rafielâs smile broadened.

âConversations with you might be dangerous,â he said.

âConversations are always dangerous, if you have something to hide,â said Miss Marple.

âYou may be right. Letâs get on to Jackson. What do you think of Jackson?â

âIt is difficult for me to say. I have not had the opportunity really of any conversation with him.â

âSo youâve no views on the subject?â

âHe reminds me a little,â said Miss Marple reflectively, âof a young man in the Town Clerkâs office near where I live, Jonas Parry.â

âAnd?â Mr. Rafiel asked and paused.

âHe was not,â said Miss Marple, âvery satisfactory.â

âJacksonâs not wholly satisfactory either. He suits me all right. Heâs first class at his job, and he doesnât mind being sworn at. He knows heâs damnâ well paid and so he puts up with things. I wouldnât employ him in a position of trust, but I donât have to trust him. Maybe his past is blameless, maybe it isnât. His references were all right but I discernâshall I sayâa note of reserve. Fortunately, Iâm not a man who has any guilty secrets, so Iâm not a subject for blackmail.â

âNo secrets?â said Miss Marple, thoughtfully. âSurely, Mr. Rafiel, you have business secrets?â

âNot where Jackson can get at them. No. Jackson is a smooth article, one might say, but I really donât see him as a murderer. Iâd say that wasnât his line at all.â

He paused a minute and then said suddenly, âDo you know, if one stands back and takes a good look at all this fantastic business, Major Palgrave and his ridiculous stories and all the rest of it, the emphasis is entirely wrong. Iâm the person who ought to be murdered.â

Miss Marple looked at him in some surprise.

âProper type casting,â explained Mr. Rafiel. âWhoâs the victim in murder stories? Elderly men with lots of money.â

âAnd lots of people with a good reason for wishing him out of the way, so as to get that money,â said Miss Marple. âIs that true also?â

âWellââ Mr. Rafiel considered. âI can count up to five or six men in London who wouldnât burst into tears if they read my obituary in The Times. But they wouldnât go so far as to do anything to bring about my demise. After all, why should they? Iâm expected to die any day. In fact the bugâblighters are astonished that Iâve lasted so long. The doctors are surprised too.â

âYou have, of course, a great will to live,â said Miss Marple.

âYou think thatâs odd, I suppose,â said Mr. Rafiel.

Miss Marple shook her head.

âOh no,â she said, âI think itâs quite natural. Life is more worth living, more full of interest when you are likely to lose it. It shouldnât be, perhaps, but it is. When youâre young and strong and healthy, and life stretches ahead of you, living isnât really important at all. Itâs young people who commit suicide easily, out of despair from love, sometimes from sheer anxiety and worry. But old people know how valuable life is and how interesting.â

âHah!â said Mr. Rafiel, snorting. âListen to a couple of old crocks.â

âWell, what I said is true, isnât it?â demanded Miss Marple.

âOh, yes,â said Mr. Rafiel, âitâs true enough. But donât you think Iâm right when I say that I ought to be cast as the victim?â

âIt depends on who has reason to gain by your death,â said Miss Marple.

âNobody, really,â said Mr. Rafiel. âApart, as Iâve said, from my competitors in the business world who, as I have also said, can count comfortably on my being out of it before very long. Iâm not such a fool as to leave a lot of money divided up among my relations. Precious little theyâd get of it after the Government had taken practically the lot. Oh, no, Iâve attended to all that years ago. Settlements, trusts and all the rest of it.â

âJackson, for instance, wouldnât profit by your death?â

âHe wouldnât get a penny,â said Mr. Rafiel cheerfully. âI pay him double the salary that heâd get from anyone else. Thatâs because he has to put up with my bad temper; and he knows quite well that he will be the loser when I die.â

âAnd Mrs. Walters?â

âThe same goes for Esther. Sheâs a good girl. First-class secretary, intelligent, good-tempered, understands my ways, doesnât turn a hair if I fly off the handle, couldnât care less if I insult her. Behaves like a nice nursery governess in charge of an outrageous and obstreperous child. She irritates me a bit sometimes, but who doesnât? Thereâs nothing outstanding about her. Sheâs rather a commonplace young woman in many ways, but I couldnât have anyone who suited me better. Sheâs had a lot of trouble in her life. Married a man who wasnât much good. Iâd say she never had much judgment when it came to men. Some women havenât. They fall for anyone who tells them a hard-luck story. Always convinced that all the man needs is proper female understanding. That, once married to her, heâll pull up his socks and make a go of life! But of course that type of man never does. Anyway, fortunately her unsatisfactory husband died; drank too much at a party one night and stepped in front of a bus. Esther had a daughter to support and she went back to her secretarial job. Sheâs been with me five years. I made it quite clear to her from the start that she need have no expectations from me in the event of my death. I paid her from the start a very large salary, and that salary Iâve augmented by as much as a quarter as much again each year. However decent and honest people are, one should never trust anybodyâthatâs why I told Esther quite clearly that sheâd nothing to hope for from my death. Every year I live sheâll get a bigger salary. If she puts most of that aside every yearâand thatâs what I think she has doneâsheâll be quite a well-to-do woman by the time I kick the bucket. Iâve made myself responsible for her daughterâs schooling and Iâve put a sum in trust for the daughter which sheâll get when she comes of age. So Mrs. Esther Walters is very comfortably placed. My death, let me tell you, would mean a serious financial loss to her.â He looked very hard at Miss Marple. âShe fully realizes all that. Sheâs very sensible, Esther is.â

âDo she and Jackson get on?â asked Miss Marple.

Mr. Rafiel shot a quick glance at her.

âNoticed something, have you?â he said. âYes, I think Jacksonâs done a bit of tom-catting around, with an eye in her direction, especially lately. Heâs a good-looking chap, of course, but he hasnât cut any ice in that direction. For one thing, thereâs class distinction. Sheâs just a cut above him. Not very much. If she was really a cut above him it wouldnât matter, but the lower middle classâtheyâre very particular. Her mother was a school teacher and her father a bank clerk. No, she wonât make a fool of herself about Jackson. Dare say heâs after her little nest egg, but he wonât get it.â

âHushâsheâs coming now!â said Miss Marple.

They both looked at Esther Walters as she came along the hotel path towards them.

âSheâs quite a good-looking girl, you know,â said Mr. Rafiel, âbut not an atom of glamour. I donât know why, sheâs quite nicely turned out.â

Miss Marple sighed, a sigh that any woman will give however old at what might be considered wasted opportunities. What was lacking in Esther had been called by so many names during Miss Marpleâs span of existence. âNot really attractive to me.â âNo SA.â âLacks Come-hither in her eye.â Fair hair, good complexion, hazel eyes, quite a good figure, pleasant smile, but lacking that something that makes a manâs head turn when he passes a woman in the street.

âShe ought to get married again,â said Miss Marple, lowering her voice.

âOf course she ought. Sheâd make a man a good wife.â

Esther Walters joined them and Mr. Rafiel said, in a slightly artificial voice:

âSo there you are at last! Whatâs been keeping you?â

âEveryone seemed to be sending cables this morning,â said Esther. âWhat with that, and people trying to check outââ

âTrying to check out, are they? A result of this murder business?â

âI suppose so. Poor Tim Kendal is worried to death.â

âAnd well he might be. Bad luck for that young couple, I must say.â

âI know. I gather it was rather a big undertaking for them to take on this place. Theyâve been worried about making a success of it. They were doing very well, too.â

âThey were doing a good job,â agreed Mr. Rafiel. âHeâs very capable and a damned hard worker. Sheâs a very nice girlâattractive too. Theyâve both worked like blacks, though thatâs an odd term to use out here, for blacks donât work themselves to death at all, so far as I can see. Was looking at a fellow shinning up a coconut tree to get his breakfast, then he goes to sleep for the rest of the day. Nice life.â

He added, âWeâve been discussing the murder here.â

Esther Walters looked slightly startled. She turned her head towards Miss Marple.

âIâve been wrong about her,â said Mr. Rafiel, with characteristic frankness. âNever been much of a one for the old pussies. All knitting wool and tittle-tattle. But this oneâs got something. Eyes and ears, and she uses them.â

Esther Walters looked apologetically at Miss Marple, but Miss Marple did not appear to take offence.

âThatâs really meant to be a compliment, you know,â Esther explained.

âI quite realize that,â said Miss Marple. âI realize, too, that Mr. Rafiel is privileged, or thinks he is.â

âWhat do you meanâprivileged?â asked Mr. Rafiel.

âTo be rude if you want to be rude,â said Miss Marple.

âHave I been rude?â said Mr. Rafiel, surprised. âIâm sorry if Iâve offended you.â

âYou havenât offended me,â said Miss Marple, âI make allowances.â

âNow, donât be nasty. Esther, get a chair and bring it here. Maybe you can help.â

Esther walked a few steps to the balcony of the bungalow and brought over a light basket chair.

âWeâll go on with our consultation,â said Mr. Rafiel. âWe started with old Palgrave, deceased, and his eternal stories.â

âOh, dear,â sighed Esther. âIâm afraid I used to escape from him whenever I could.â

âMiss Marple was more patient,â said Mr. Rafiel. âTell me, Esther, did he ever tell you a story about a murderer?â

âOh yes,â said Esther. âSeveral times.â

âWhat was it exactly? Letâs have your recollection.â

âWellââ Esther paused to think. âThe trouble is,â she said apologetically, âI didnât really listen very closely. You see, it was rather like that terrible story about the lion in Rhodesia which used to go on and on. One did get rather in the habit of not listening.â

âWell, tell us what you do remember.â

âI think it arose out of some murder case that had been in the papers. Major Palgrave said that heâd had an experience not every person had had. Heâd actually met a murderer face to face.â

âMet?â Mr. Rafiel exclaimed. âDid he actually use the word âmet?ââ

Esther looked confused.

âI think so.â She was doubtful. âOr he may have said, âI can point you out a murderer.ââ

âWell, which was it? Thereâs a difference.â

âI canât really be sure â¦ I think he said heâd show me a picture of someone.â

âThatâs better.â

âAnd then he talked a lot about Lucrezia Borgia.â

âNever mind Lucrezia Borgia. We know all about her.â

âHe talked about poisoners and that Lucrezia was very beautiful and had red hair. He said there were probably far more women poisoners going about the world than anyone knew.â

âThat I fear is quite likely,â said Miss Marple.

âAnd he talked about poison being a womanâs weapon.â

âSeems to have been wandering from the point a bit,â said Mr. Rafiel.

âWell, of course, he always did wander from the point in his stories. And then one used to stop listening and just say âYesâ and âReally?â And âYou donât say so.ââ

âWhat about this picture he was going to show you?â

âI donât remember. It may have been something heâd seen in the paperââ

âHe didnât actually show you a snapshot?â

âA snapshot? No.â She shook her head. âIâm quite sure of that. He did say that she was a good-looking woman, and youâd never think she was a murderer to look at her.â

âShe?â

âThere you are,â exclaimed Miss Marple. âIt makes it all so confusing.â

âHe was talking about a woman?â Mr. Rafiel asked.

âOh, yes.â

âThe snapshot was a snapshot of a woman?â

âYes.â

âIt canât have been!â

âBut it was,â Esther persisted. âHe said âSheâs here in this island. Iâll point her out to you, and then Iâll tell you the whole story.ââ

Mr. Rafiel swore. In saying what he thought of the late Major Palgrave he did not mince his words.

âThe probabilities are,â he finished, âthat not a word of anything he said was true!â

âOne does begin to wonder,â Miss Marple murmured.

âSo there we are,â said Mr. Rafiel. âThe old booby started telling you hunting tales. Pig sticking, tiger shooting, elephant hunting, narrow escapes from lions. One or two of them might have been fact. Several of them were fiction, and others had happened to somebody else! Then he gets on to the subject of murder and he tells one murder story to cap another murder story. And whatâs more he tells them all as if theyâd happened to him. Ten to one most of them were a hash-up of what heâd read in the paper, or seen on TV.â

He turned accusingly on Esther. âYou admit that you werenât listening closely. Perhaps you misunderstood what he was saying.â

âIâm certain he was talking about a woman,â said Esther obstinately, âbecause of course I wondered who it was.â

âWho do you think it was?â asked Miss Marple.

Esther flushed and looked slightly embarrassed.

âOh, I didnât reallyâI mean, I wouldnât like toââ

Miss Marple did not insist. The presence of Mr. Rafiel, she thought, was inimical to her finding out exactly what suppositions Esther Walters had made. That could only be cosily brought out in a tÃªte-Ã -tÃªte between two women. And there was, of course, the possibility that Esther Walters was lying. Naturally, Miss Marple did not suggest this aloud. She registered it as a possibility but she was not inclined to believe in it. For one thing she did not think that Esther Walters was a liar (though one never knew) and for another, she could see no point in such a lie.

âBut you say,â Mr. Rafiel was now turning upon Miss Marple, âyou say that he told you this yarn about a murderer and that he then said he had a picture of him which he was going to show you.â

âI thought so, yes.â

âYou thought so? You were sure enough to begin with!â

Miss Marple retorted with spirit.

âIt is never easy to repeat a conversation and be entirely accurate in what the other party to it has said. One is always inclined to jump at what you think they meant. Then, afterwards, you put actual words into their mouths. Major Palgrave told me this story, yes. He told me that the man who told it to him, this doctor, had shown him a snapshot of the murderer; but if I am to be quite honest I must admit that what he actually said to me was âWould you like to see a snapshot of a murderer?â and naturally I assumed that it was the same snapshot he had been talking about. That it was the snapshot of that particular murderer. But I have to admit that it is possibleâonly remotely possible, but still possibleâthat by an association of ideas in his mind he leaped from the snapshot he had been shown in the past, to a snapshot he had taken recently of someone here who he was convinced was a murderer.â

âWomen!â snorted Mr. Rafiel in exasperation. âYouâre all the same, the whole blinking lot of you! Canât be accurate. Youâre never exactly sure of what a thing was. And now,â he added irritably, âwhere does that leave us?â He snorted. âEvelyn Hillingdon, or Gregâs wife, Lucky? The whole thing is a mess.â

There was a slight apologetic cough. Arthur Jackson was standing at Mr. Rafielâs elbow. He had come so noiselessly that nobody had noticed him.

âTime for your massage, sir,â he said.

Mr. Rafiel displayed immediate temper.

âWhat do you mean by sneaking up on me in that way and making me jump? I never heard you.â

âVery sorry, sir.â

âI donât think Iâll have any massage today. It never does me a damnâ bit of good.â

âOh, come sir, you mustnât say that.â Jackson was full of professional cheerfulness. âYouâd soon notice if you left it off.â

He wheeled the chair deftly round.

Miss Marple rose to her feet, smiled at Esther and went down to the beach.

Eighteen

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY

I

The beach was rather empty this morning. Greg was splashing in the water in his usual noisy style, Lucky was lying on her face on the beach with a sun-tanned back well oiled and her blonde hair splayed over her shoulders. The Hillingdons were not there. SeÃ±ora de Caspearo, with an assorted bag of gentlemen in attendance, was lying face upwards and talking deep-throated, happy Spanish. Some French and Italian children were playing at the waterâs edge and laughing. Canon and Miss Prescott were sitting in beach chairs observing the scene. The Canon had his hat tilted forward over his eyes and seemed half asleep. There was a convenient chair next to Miss Prescott and Miss Marple made for it and sat down.

âOh dear,â she said with a deep sigh.

âI know,â said Miss Prescott.

It was their joint tribute to violent death.

âThat poor girl,â said Miss Marple.

âVery sad,â said the Canon. âMost deplorable.â

âFor a moment or two,â said Miss Prescott, âwe really thought of leaving, Jeremy and I. But then we decided against it. It would not really be fair, I felt, on the Kendals. After all, itâs not their faultâIt might have happened anywhere.â

âIn the midst of life we are in death,â said the Canon solemnly.

âItâs very important, you know,â said Miss Prescott, âthat they should make a go of this place. They have sunk all their capital in it.â

âA very sweet girl,â said Miss Marple, âbut not looking at all well lately.â

âVery nervy,â agreed Miss Prescott. âOf course her familyââ she shook her head.

âI really think, Joan,â said the Canon in mild reproof, âthat there are some thingsââ

âEverybody knows about it,â said Miss Prescott. âHer family live in our part of the world. A great-auntâmost peculiarâand one of her uncles took off all his clothes in one of the tube stations. Green Park, I believe it was.â

âJoan, that is a thing that should not be repeated.â

âVery sad,â said Miss Marple, shaking her head, âthough I believe not an uncommon form of madness. I know when we were working for the Armenian relief, a most respectable elderly clergyman was afflicted the same way. They telephoned his wife and she came along at once and took him home in a cab, wrapped in a blanket.â

âOf course, Mollyâs immediate familyâs all right,â said Miss Prescott. âShe never got on very well with her mother, but then so few girls seem to get on with their mothers nowadays.â

âSuch a pity,â said Miss Marple, shaking her head, âbecause really a young girl needs her motherâs knowledge of the world and experience.â

âExactly,â said Miss Prescott with emphasis. âMolly, you know, took up with some manâquite unsuitable, I understand.â

âIt so often happens,â said Miss Marple.

âHer family disapproved, naturally. She didnât tell them about it. They heard about it from a complete outsider. Of course her mother said she must bring him along so that they met him properly. This, I understand, the girl refused to do. She said it was humiliating to him. Most insulting to be made to come and meet her family and be looked over. Just as though you were a horse, she said.â

Miss Marple sighed. âOne does need so much tact when dealing with the young,â she murmured.

âAnyway, there it was! They forbade her to see him.â

âBut you canât do that nowadays,â said Miss Marple. âGirls have jobs and they meet people whether anyone forbids them or not.â

âBut then, very fortunately,â went on Miss Prescott, âshe met Tim Kendal, and the other man sort of faded out of the picture. I canât tell you how relieved the family was.â

âI hope they didnât show it too plainly,â said Miss Marple. âThat so often puts girls off from forming suitable attachments.â

âYes, indeed.â

âOne remembers oneselfââ murmured Miss Marple, her mind going back to the past. A young man she had met at a croquet party. He had seemed so niceârather gay, almost Bohemian in his views. And then he had been unexpectedly warmly welcomed by her father. He had been suitable, eligible; he had been asked freely to the house more than once, and Miss Marple had found that, after all, he was dull. Very dull.

The Canon seemed safely comatose and Miss Marple advanced tentatively to the subject she was anxious to pursue.

âOf course you know so much about this place,â she murmured. âYou have been here several years running, have you not?â

âWell, last year and two years before that. We like St. HonorÃ© very much. Always such nice people here. Not the flashy, ultra-rich set.â

âSo I suppose you know the Hillingdons and the Dysons well?â

âYes, fairly well.â

Miss Marple coughed and lowered her voice slightly.

âMajor Palgrave told me such an interesting story,â she said.

âHe had a great repertoire of stories, hadnât he? Of course he had travelled very widely. Africa, India, even China I believe.â

âYes indeed,â said Miss Marple. âBut I didnât mean one of those stories. This was a story concerned withâwell, with one of the people I have just mentioned.â

âOh!â said Miss Prescott. Her voice held meaning.

âYes. Now I wonderââ Miss Marple allowed her eyes to travel gently round the beach to where Lucky lay sunning her back. âVery beautifully tanned, isnât she,â remarked Miss Marple. âAnd her hair. Most attractive. Practically the same colour as Molly Kendalâs, isnât it?â

âThe only difference,â said Miss Prescott, âis that Mollyâs is natural and Luckyâs comes out of a bottle!â

âReally, Joan,â the Canon protested, unexpectedly awake again. âDonât you think that is rather an uncharitable thing to say?â

âItâs not uncharitable,â said Miss Prescott, acidly. âMerely a fact.â

âIt looks very nice to me,â said the Canon.

âOf course. Thatâs why she does it. But I assure you, my dear Jeremy, it wouldnât deceive any woman for a moment. Would it?â She appealed to Miss Marple.

âWell, Iâm afraidââ said Miss Marple, âof course I havenât the experience that you haveâbut Iâm afraidâyes I should say definitely not natural. The appearance at the roots every fifth or sixth dayââ She looked at Miss Prescott and they both nodded with quiet female assurance.

The Canon appeared to be dropping off again.

âMajor Palgrave told me a really extraordinary story,â murmured Miss Marple, âaboutâwell I couldnât quite make out. I am a little deaf sometimes. He appeared to be saying or hintingââ she paused.

âI know what you mean. There was a great deal of talk at the timeââ

âYou mean at the time thatââ

âWhen the first Mrs. Dyson died. Her death was quite unexpected. In fact, everybody thought she was a malade imaginaireâa hypochondriac. So when she had the attack and died so unexpectedly, well, of course, people did talk.â

âThere wasnâtâanyâtrouble at the time?â

âThe doctor was puzzled. He was quite a young man and he hadnât had much experience. He was what I call one of those antibiotics-for-all men. You know, the kind that doesnât bother to look at the patient much, or worry whatâs the matter with him. They just give them some kind of pill out of a bottle and if they donât get better, then they try a different pill. Yes, I believe he was puzzled, but it seemed she had had gastric trouble before. At least her husband said so, and there seemed no reason for believing anything was wrong.â

âBut you yourself thinkââ

âWell, I always try to keep an open mind, but one does wonder, you know. And what with various things people saidââ

âJoan!â The Canon sat up. He looked belligerent. âI donât likeâI really donât like to hear this kind of ill-natured gossip being repeated. Weâve always set our faces against that kind of thing. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evilâand what is more, think no evil! That should be the motto of every Christian man and woman.â

The two women sat in silence. They were rebuked, and in deference to their training they deferred to the criticism of a man. But inwardly they were frustrated, irritated and quite unrepentant. Miss Prescott threw a frank glance of irritation towards her brother. Miss Marple took out her knitting and looked at it. Fortunately for them Chance was on their side.

âMon pÃ¨re,â said a small shrill voice. It was one of the French children who had been playing at the waterâs edge. She had come up unnoticed, and was standing by Canon Prescottâs chair.

âMon pÃ¨re,â she fluted.

âEh? Yes, my dear? Oui, quâest-ce quâil y a, ma petite?â

The child explained. There had been a dispute about who should have the water-wings next and also other matters of seaside etiquette. Canon Prescott was extremely fond of children, especially small girls. He was always delighted to be summoned to act as arbiter in their disputes. He rose willingly now and accompanied the child to the waterâs edge. Miss Marple and Miss Prescott breathed deep sighs and turned avidly towards each other.

II

âJeremy, of course rightly, is very against ill-natured gossip,â said Miss Prescott, âbut one cannot really ignore what people are saying. And there was, as I say, a great deal of talk at the time.â

âYes?â Miss Marpleâs tone urged her forward.

âThis young woman, you see, Miss Greatorex I think her name was then, I canât remember now, was a kind of cousin and she looked after Mrs. Dyson. Gave her all her medicines and things like that.â There was a short, meaningless pause. âAnd of course there had, I understandââMiss Prescottâs voice was loweredââbeen goings-on between Mr. Dyson and Miss Greatorex. A lot of people had noticed them. I mean things like that are quickly observed in a place like this. Then there was some curious story about some stuff that Edward Hillingdon got for her at a chemist.â

âOh, Edward Hillingdon came into it?â

âOh yes, he was very much attracted. People noticed it. And LuckyâMiss Greatorexâplayed them off against each other. Gregory Dyson and Edward Hillingdon. One has to face it, she has always been an attractive woman.â

âThough not as young as she was,â Miss Marple replied.

âExactly. But she was always very well turned out and made up. Of course not so flamboyant when she was just the poor relation. She always seemed very devoted to the invalid. But, well, you see how it was.â

âWhat was this story about the chemistâhow did that get known?â

âWell, it wasnât in Jamestown, I think it was when they were in Martinique. The French, I believe, are more lax than we are in the matter of drugsâThis chemist talked to someone, and the story got aroundâWell, you know how these things happen.â

Miss Marple did. None better.

âHe said something about Colonel Hillingdon asking for something and not seeming to know what it was he was asking for. Consulting a piece of paper, you know, on which it was written down. Anyway, as I say, there was talk.â

âBut I donât see quite why Colonel Hillingdonââ Miss Marple frowned in perplexity.

âI suppose he was just being used as a catâs-paw. Anyway, Gregory Dyson married again in an almost indecently short time. Barely a month later, I understand.â

They looked at each other.

âBut there was no real suspicion?â Miss Marple asked.

âOh no, it was justâwell, talk. Of course there may have been absolutely nothing in it.â

âMajor Palgrave thought there was.â

âDid he say so to you?â

âI wasnât really listening very closely,â confessed Miss Marple. âI just wondered ifâerâwell, if heâd said the same thing to you?â

âHe did point her out to me one day,â said Miss Prescott.

âReally? He actually pointed her out?â

âYes. As a matter of fact, I thought at first it was Mrs. Hillingdon he was pointing out. He wheezed and chuckled a bit and said, âLook at that woman over there. In my opinion thatâs a woman whoâs done murder and got away with it.â I was very shocked, of course. I said, âSurely youâre joking, Major Palgrave,â and he said, âYes, yes, dear lady, letâs call it joking.â The Dysons and the Hillingdons were sitting at a table quite near to us, and I was afraid theyâd overhear. He chuckled and said âWouldnât care to go to a drinks party and have a certain person mix me a cocktail. Too much like supper with the Borgias.ââ

âHow very interesting,â said Miss Marple. âDid he mentionâaâa photograph?â

âI donât remember â¦ Was it some newspaper cutting?â

Miss Marple, about to speak, shut her lips. The sun was momentarily obscured by a shadow. Evelyn Hillingdon paused beside them.

âGood morning,â she said.

âI was wondering where you were,â said Miss Prescott, looking up brightly.

âIâve been to Jamestown, shopping.â

âOh, I see.â

Miss Prescott looked round vaguely and Evelyn Hillingdon said:

âOh, I didnât take Edward with me. Men hate shopping.â

âDid you find anything of interest?â

âIt wasnât that sort of shopping. I just had to go to the chemist.â

With a smile and a slight nod she went on down the beach.

âSuch nice people, the Hillingdons,â said Miss Prescott, âthough sheâs not really very easy to know, is she? I mean, sheâs always very pleasant and all that, but one never seems to get to know her any better.â

Miss Marple agreed thoughtfully.

âOne never knows what she is thinking,â said Miss Prescott.

âPerhaps that is just as well,â said Miss Marple.

âI beg your pardon?â

âOh nothing really, only that Iâve always had the feeling that perhaps her thoughts might be rather disconcerting.â

âOh,â said Miss Prescott, looking puzzled. âI see what you mean.â She went on with a slight change of subject. âI believe they have a very charming place in Hampshire, and a boyâor is it two boysâwho have just goneâor one of themâto Winchester.â

âDo you know Hampshire well?â

âNo. Hardly at all. I believe their house is somewhere near Alton.â

âI see.â Miss Marple paused and then said, âAnd where do the Dysons live?â

âCalifornia,â said Miss Prescott. âWhen they are at home, that is. They are great travellers.â

âOne really knows so little about the people one meets when one is travelling,â said Miss Marple. âI meanâhow shall I put itâone only knows, doesnât one, what they choose to tell you about themselves. For instance, you donât really know that the Dysons live in California.â

Miss Prescott looked startled.

âIâm sure Mr. Dyson mentioned it.â

âYes. Yes, exactly. Thatâs what I mean. And the same thing perhaps with the Hillingdons. I mean when you say that they live in Hampshire, youâre really repeating what they told you, arenât you?â

Miss Prescott looked slightly alarmed. âDo you mean that they donât live in Hampshire?â she asked.

âNo, no, not for one moment,â said Miss Marple, quickly apologetic. âI was only using them as an instance as to what one knows or doesnât know about people.â She added, âI have told you that I live at St. Mary Mead, which is a place, no doubt, of which you have never heard. But you donât, if I may say so, know it of your own knowledge, do you?â

Miss Prescott forbore from saying that she really couldnât care less where Miss Marple lived. It was somewhere in the country and in the South of England and that is all she knew. âOh, I do see what you mean,â she agreed hastily, âand I know that one canât possibly be too careful when one is abroad.â

âI didnât exactly mean that,â said Miss Marple.

There were some odd thoughts going through Miss Marpleâs mind. Did she really know, she was asking herself, that Canon Prescott and Miss Prescott were really Canon Prescott and Miss Prescott? They said so. There was no evidence to contradict them. It would really be easy, would it not, to put on a dog-collar, to wear the appropriate clothes, to make the appropriate conversation. If there was a motiveâ¦.

Miss Marple was fairly knowledgeable about the clergy in her part of the world, but the Prescotts came from the north. Durham, wasnât it? She had no doubt they were the Prescotts, but still, it came back to the same thingâone believed what people said to one.

Perhaps one ought to be on oneâs guard against that. Perhaps â¦ She shook her head thoughtfully.

Nineteen

USES OF A SHOE

Canon Prescott came back from the waterâs edge slightly short of breath (playing with children is always exhausting).

Presently he and his sister went back to the hotel, finding the beach a little too hot.

âBut,â said SeÃ±ora de Caspearo scornfully as they walked awayââhow can a beach be too hot? It is nonsense thatâAnd look what she wearsâher arms and her neck are all covered up. Perhaps it is as well, that. Her skin it is hideous, like a plucked chicken!â

Miss Marple drew a deep breath. Now or never was the time for conversation with SeÃ±ora de Caspearo. Unfortunately she did not know what to say. There seemed to be no common ground on which they could meet.

âYou have children, SeÃ±ora?â she inquired.

âI have three angels,â said SeÃ±ora de Caspearo, kissing her fingertips.

Miss Marple was rather uncertain as to whether this meant that SeÃ±ora de Caspearoâs offspring were in Heaven or whether it merely referred to their characters.

One of the gentlemen in attendance made a remark in Spanish and SeÃ±ora de Caspearo flung back her head appreciatively and laughed loudly and melodiously.

âYou understand what he said?â she inquired of Miss Marple.

âIâm afraid not,â said Miss Marple apologetically.

âIt is just as well. He is a wicked man.â

A rapid and spirited interchange of Spanish badinage followed.

âIt is infamousâinfamous,â said SeÃ±ora de Caspearo, reverting to English with sudden gravity, âthat the police do not let us go from this island. I storm, I scream, I stamp my footâbut all they say is NoâNo. You know how it will endâwe shall all be killed.â

Her bodyguard attempted to reassure her.

âBut yesâI tell you it is unlucky here. I knew it from the firstâThat old Major, the ugly oneâhe had the Evil Eyeâyou remember? His eyes they crossedâIt is bad, that! I make the Sign of the Horns every time when he looks my way.â She made it in illustration. âThough since he is cross-eyed I am not always sure when he does look my wayââ

âHe had a glass eye,â said Miss Marple in an explanatory voice. âAn accident, I understand, when he was quite young. It was not his fault.â

âI tell you he brought bad luckâI say it is the Evil Eye he had.â

Her hand shot out again in the well-known Latin gestureâthe first finger and the little finger sticking out, the two middle ones doubled in. âAnyway,â she said cheerfully, âhe is deadâI do not have to look at him any more. I do not like to look at things that are ugly.â

It was, Miss Marple thought, a somewhat cruel epitaph on Major Palgrave.

Farther down the beach Gregory Dyson had come out of the sea. Lucky had turned herself over on the sand. Evelyn Hillingdon was looking at Lucky, and her expression, for some reason, made Miss Marple shiver.

âSurely I canât be coldâin this hot sun,â she thought.

What was the old phraseââA goose walking over your graveââ

She got up and went slowly back to her bungalow.

On the way she passed Mr. Rafiel and Esther Walters coming down the beach. Mr. Rafiel winked at her. Miss Marple did not wink back. She looked disapproving.

She went into her bungalow and lay down on her bed. She felt old and tired and worried.

She was quite certain that there was no time to be lostâno timeâtoâbe lost â¦ It was getting late â¦ The sun was going to setâthe sunâone must always look at the sun through smoked glassâWhere was that piece of smoked glass that someone had given her?â¦

No, she wouldnât need it after all. A shadow had come over the sun blotting it out. A shadow. Evelyn Hillingdonâs shadowâNo, not Evelyn HillingdonâThe Shadow (what were the words?) the Shadow of the Valley of Death. That was it. She mustâwhat was it? Make the Sign of the Hornsâto avert the Evil EyeâMajor Palgraveâs Evil Eye.

Her eyelids flickered openâshe had been asleep. But there was a shadowâsomeone peering in at her window.

The shadow moved awayâand Miss Marple saw who it wasâIt was Jackson.

âImpertinenceâpeering in like that,â she thoughtâand added parenthetically, âJust like Jonas Parry.â

The comparison reflected no credit on Jackson.

Then she wondered why Jackson had been peering into her bedroom. To see if she was there? Or to note that she was there, but was asleep.

She got up, went into the bathroom and peered cautiously through the window.

Arthur Jackson was standing by the door of the bungalow next door. Mr. Rafielâs bungalow. She saw him give a rapid glance round and then slip quickly inside. Interesting, thought Miss Marple. Why did he have to look round in that furtive manner? Nothing in the world could have been more natural than his going into Mr. Rafielâs bungalow since he himself had a room at the back of it. He was always going in and out of it on some errand or other. So why that quick, guilty glance round? âOnly one reason,â said Miss Marple answering her own question, âhe wanted to be sure that nobody was observing him enter at this particular moment because of something he was going to do in there.â

Everybody, of course, was on the beach at this moment except those who had gone for expeditions. In about twenty minutes or so, Jackson himself would arrive on the beach in the course of his duties to aid Mr. Rafiel to take his sea dip. If he wanted to do anything in the bungalow unobserved, now was a very good time. He had satisfied himself that Miss Marple was asleep on her bed, he had satisfied himself that there was nobody near at hand to observe his movements. Well, she must do her best to do exactly that.

Sitting down on her bed, Miss Marple removed her neat sandal shoes and replaced them with a pair of plimsolls. Then she shook her head, removed the plimsolls, burrowed in her suitcase and took out a pair of shoes the heel of one of which she had recently caught on a hook by the door. It was now in a slightly precarious state and Miss Marple adroitly rendered it even more precarious by attention with a nail file. Then she emerged with due precaution from her door walking in stockinged feet. With all the care of a Big Game Hunter approaching up-wind of a herd of antelope, Miss Marple gently circumnavigated Mr. Rafielâs bungalow. Cautiously she manoeuvred her way around the corner of the house. She put on one of the shoes she was carrying, gave a final wrench to the heel of the other, sank gently to her knees and lay prone under the window. If Jackson heard anything, if he came to the window to look out, an old lady would have had a fall owing to the heel coming off her shoe. But evidently Jackson had heard nothing.

Very, very gently Miss Marple raised her head. The windows of the bungalow were low. Shielding herself slightly with a festoon of creeper she peered insideâ¦.

Jackson was on his knees before a suitcase. The lid of the suitcase was up and Miss Marple could see that it was a specially fitted affair containing compartments filled with various kinds of papers. Jackson was looking through the papers, occasionally drawing documents out of long envelopes. Miss Marple did not remain at her observation post for long. All she wanted was to know what Jackson was doing. She knew now. Jackson was snooping. Whether he was looking for something in particular, or whether he was just indulging his natural instincts, she had no means of judging. But it confirmed her in her belief that Arthur Jackson and Jonas Parry had strong affinities in other things than facial resemblance.

Her problem was now to withdraw. Very carefully she dropped down again and crept along the flowerbed until she was clear of the window. She returned to her bungalow and carefully put away the shoe and the heel that she had detached from it. She looked at them with affection. A good device which she could use on another day if necessary. She resumed her own sandal shoes, and went thoughtfully down to the beach again.

Choosing a moment when Esther Walters was in the water, Miss Marple moved into the chair Esther had vacated.

Greg and Lucky were laughing and talking with SeÃ±ora de Caspearo and making a good deal of noise.

Miss Marple spoke very quietly, almost under her breath, without looking at Mr. Rafiel.

âDo you know that Jackson snoops?â

âDoesnât surprise me,â said Mr. Rafiel. âCaught him at it, did you?â

âI managed to observe him through a window. He had one of your suitcases open and was looking through your papers.â

âMust have managed to get hold of a key to it. Resourceful fellow. Heâll be disappointed though. Nothing he gets hold of in that way will do him a mite of good.â

âHeâs coming down now,â said Miss Marple, glancing up towards the hotel.

âTime for that idiotic sea dip of mine.â

He spoke againâvery quietly.

âAs for youâdonât be too enterprising. We donât want to be attending your funeral next. Remember your age, and be careful. Thereâs somebody about who isnât too scrupulous, remember.â

Twenty

NIGHT ALARM

I

Evening cameâThe lights came up on the terraceâPeople dined and talked and laughed, albeit less loudly and merrily than they had a day or two agoâThe steel band played.

But the dancing ended early. People yawnedâwent off to bedâThe lights went outâThere was darkness and stillnessâThe Golden Palm Tree sleptâ¦.

âEvelyn. Evelyn!â The whisper came sharp and urgent.

Evelyn Hillingdon stirred and turned on her pillow.

âEvelyn. Please wake up.â

Evelyn Hillingdon sat up abruptly. Tim Kendal was standing in the doorway. She stared at him in surprise.

âEvelyn, please, could you come? ItâsâMolly. Sheâs ill. I donât know whatâs the matter with her. I think she must have taken something.â

Evelyn was quick, decisive.

âAll right, Tim. Iâll come. You go back to her. Iâll be with you in a moment.â

Tim Kendal disappeared. Evelyn slipped out of bed, threw on a dressing gown and looked across at the other bed. Her husband, it seemed, had not been awakened. He lay there, his head turned away, breathing quietly. Evelyn hesitated for a moment, then decided not to disturb him. She went out of the door and walked rapidly to the main building and beyond it to the Kendalsâ bungalow. She caught up with Tim in the doorway.

Molly lay in bed. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was clearly not natural. Evelyn bent over her, rolled up an eyelid, felt her pulse and then looked at the bedside table. There was a glass there which had been used. Beside it was an empty phial of tablets. She picked it up.

âThey were her sleeping pills,â said Tim, âbut that bottle was half full yesterday or the day before. I think she must have taken the lot.â

âGo and get Dr. Graham,â said Evelyn, âand on the way knock them up and tell them to make strong coffee. Strong as possible. Hurry.â

Tim dashed off. Just outside the doorway he collided with Edward Hillingdon.

âOh, sorry, Edward.â

âWhatâs happening here?â demanded Hillingdon. âWhatâs going on?â

âItâs Molly. Evelynâs with her. I must get hold of the doctor. I suppose I ought to have gone to him first but IâI wasnât sure and I thought Evelyn would know. Molly would have hated it if Iâd fetched a doctor when it wasnât necessary.â

He went off, running. Edward Hillingdon looked after him for a moment and then he walked into the bedroom.

âWhatâs happening?â he said. âIs it serious?â

âOh, there you are, Edward. I wondered if youâd woken up. This silly child has been taking things.â

âIs it bad?â

âOne canât tell without knowing how much sheâs taken. I shouldnât think it was too bad if we get going in time. Iâve sent for coffee. If we can get some of that down herââ

âBut why should she do such a thing? You donât thinkââ He stopped.

âWhat donât I think?â said Evelyn.

âYou donât think itâs because of the inquiryâthe policeâall that?â

âItâs possible, of course. That sort of thing could be very alarming to a nervous type.â

âMolly never used to seem a nervous type.â

âOne canât really tell,â said Evelyn. âItâs the most unlikely people sometimes who lose their nerve.â

âYes, I rememberâ¦.â Again he stopped.

âThe truth is,â said Evelyn, âthat one doesnât really know anything about anybody.â She added, âNot even the people who are nearest to youâ¦.â

âIsnât that going a little too far, Evelynâexaggerating too much?â

âI donât think it is. When you think of people, it is in the image you have made of them for yourself.â

âI know you,â said Edward Hillingdon quietly.

âYou think you do.â

âNo. Iâm sure.â He added, âAnd youâre sure of me.â

Evelyn looked at him then turned back to the bed. She took Molly by the shoulders and shook her.

âWe ought to be doing something, but I suppose itâs better to wait until Dr. Graham comesâOh, I think I hear them.â

II

âSheâll do now.â Dr. Graham stepped back, wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and breathed a sigh of relief.

âYou think sheâll be all right, sir?â Tim demanded anxiously.

âYes, yes. We got to her in good time. Anyway, she probably didnât take enough to kill her. A couple of days and sheâll be as right as rain but sheâll have a rather nasty day or two first.â He picked up the empty bottle. âWho gave her these things anyway?â

âA doctor in New York. She wasnât sleeping well.â

âWell, well. I know all we medicos hand these things out freely nowadays. Nobody tells young women who canât sleep to count sheep, or get up and eat a biscuit, or write a couple of letters and then go back to bed. Instant remedies, thatâs what people demand nowadays. Sometimes I think itâs a pity we give them to them. Youâve got to learn to put up with things in life. All very well to stuff a comforter into a babyâs mouth to stop it crying. Canât go on doing that all a personâs life.â He gave a small chuckle. âI bet you, if you asked Miss Marple what she does if she canât sleep, sheâd tell you she counted sheep going under a gate.â He turned back to the bed where Molly was stirring. Her eyes were open now. She looked at them without interest or recognition. Dr. Graham took her hand.

âWell, well, my dear, and what have you been doing to yourself?â

She blinked but did not reply.

âWhy did you do it, Molly, why? Tell me why?â Tim took her other hand.

Still her eyes did not move. If they rested on anyone it was on Evelyn Hillingdon. There might have been even a faint question in them but it was hard to tell. Evelyn spoke as though there had been the question.

âTim came and fetched me,â she said.

Her eyes went to Tim, then shifted to Dr. Graham.

âYouâre going to be all right now,â said Dr. Graham, âbut donât do it again.â

âShe didnât mean to do it,â said Tim quietly. âIâm sure she didnât mean to do it. She just wanted a good nightâs rest. Perhaps the pills didnât work at first and so she took more of them. Is that it, Molly?â

Her head moved very faintly in a negative motion.

âYou meanâyou took them on purpose?â said Tim.

Molly spoke then. âYes,â she said.

âBut why, Molly, why?â

The eyelids faltered. âAfraid.â The word was just heard.

âAfraid? Of what?â

But her eyelids closed down.

âBetter let her be,â said Dr. Graham. Tim spoke impetuously.

âAfraid of what? The police? Because theyâve been hounding you, asking you questions? I donât wonder. Anyone might feel frightened. But itâs just their way, thatâs all. Nobody thinks for one momentââ he broke off.

Dr. Graham made him a decisive gesture.

âI want to go to sleep,â said Molly.

âThe best thing for you,â said Dr. Graham.

He moved to the door and the others followed him.

âSheâll sleep all right,â said Graham.

âIs there anything I ought to do?â asked Tim. He had the usual, slightly apprehensive attitude of a man in illness.

âIâll stay if you like,â said Evelyn kindly.

âOh no. No, thatâs quite all right,â said Tim.

Evelyn went back towards the bed. âShall I stay with you, Molly?â

Mollyâs eyes opened again. She said, âNo,â and then after a pause, âjust Tim.â

Tim came back and sat down by the bed.

âIâm here, Molly,â he said and took her hand. âJust go to sleep. I wonât leave you.â

She sighed faintly and her eyes closed.

The doctor paused outside the bungalow and the Hillingdons stood with him.

âYouâre sure thereâs nothing more I can do?â asked Evelyn.

âI donât think so, thank you, Mrs. Hillingdon. Sheâll be better with her husband now. But possibly tomorrowâafter all, heâs got this hotel to runâI think someone should be with her.â

âDâyou think she mightâtry again?â asked Hillingdon.

Graham rubbed his forehead irritably.

âOne never knows in these cases. Actually, itâs most unlikely. As youâve seen for yourselves, the restorative treatment is extremely unpleasant. But of course one can never be absolutely certain. She may have more of this stuff hidden away somewhere.â

âI should never have thought of suicide in connection with a girl like Molly,â said Hillingdon.

Graham said dryly, âItâs not the people who are always talking of killing themselves, threatening to do so, who do it. They dramatize themselves that way and let off steam.â

âMolly always seemed such a happy girl. I think perhapsââEvelyn hesitatedââI ought to tell you, Dr. Graham.â She told him then about her interview with Molly on the beach the night that Victoria had been killed. Grahamâs face was very grave when she had finished.

âIâm glad youâve told me, Mrs. Hillingdon. There are very definite indications there of some kind of deep-rooted trouble. Yes. Iâll have a word with her husband in the morning.â

III

âI want to talk to you seriously, Kendal, about your wife.â

They were sitting in Timâs office. Evelyn Hillingdon had taken his place by Mollyâs bedside and Lucky had promised to come and, as she expressed it, âspell herâ later. Miss Marple had also offered her services. Poor Tim was torn between his hotel commitments and his wifeâs condition.

âI canât understand it,â said Tim, âI canât understand Molly any longer. Sheâs changed. Changed out of all seeming.â

âI understand sheâs been having bad dreams?â

âYes. Yes, she complained about them a good deal.â

âFor how long?â

âOh, I donât know. Aboutâoh, I suppose a monthâperhaps longer. Sheâweâthought they were justâwell, nightmares, you know.â

âYes, yes, I quite understand. But whatâs a much more serious sign is the fact that she seems to have felt afraid of someone. Did she complain about that to you?â

âWell, yes. She said once or twice thatâoh, people were following her.â

âAh! Spying on her?â

âYes, she did use that term once. She said they were her enemies and theyâd followed her here.â

âDid she have enemies, Mr. Kendal?ââ

âNo. Of course she didnât.â

âNo incident in England, anything you know about before you were married?â

âOh no, nothing of that kind. She didnât get on with her family very well, that was all. Her mother was rather an eccentric woman, difficult to live with perhaps, butâ¦.â

âAny signs of mental instability in her family?â

Tim opened his mouth impulsively, then shut it again. He pushed a fountain pen about on the desk in front of him.

The doctor said:

âI must stress the fact that it would be better to tell me, Tim, if that is the case.â

âWell, yes, I believe so. Nothing serious, but I believe there was an aunt or something who was a bit batty. But thatâs nothing. I meanâwell you get that in almost any family.â

âOh yes, yes, thatâs quite true. Iâm not trying to alarm you about that, but it just might show a tendency toâwell, to break down or imagine things if any stress arose.â

âI donât really know very much,â said Tim. âAfter all, people donât pour out all their family histories to you, do they?â

âNo, no. Quite so. She had no former friendâshe was not engaged to anyone, anyone who might have threatened her or made jealous threats? That sort of thing?â

âI donât know. I donât think so. Molly was engaged to some other man before I came along. Her parents were very against it, I understand, and I think she really stuck to the chap more out of opposition and defiance than anything else.â He gave a sudden half-grin. âYou know what it is when youâre young. If people cut up a fuss it makes you much keener on whoever it is.â

Dr. Graham smiled too. âAh yes, one often sees that. One should never take exception to oneâs childrenâs objectionable friends. Usually they grow out of them naturally. This man, whoever he was, didnât make threats of any kind against Molly?â

âNo, Iâm sure he didnât. She would have told me. She said herself she just had a silly adolescent craze on him, mainly because he had such a bad reputation.â

âYes, yes. Well, that doesnât sound serious. Now thereâs another thing. Apparently your wife has had what she describes as blackouts. Brief passages of time during which she canât account for her actions. Did you know about that, Tim?â

âNo,â said Tim slowly. âNo. I didnât. She never told me. I did notice, you know, now you mention it, that she seemed rather vague sometimes and â¦â He paused, thinking. âYes, that explains it. I couldnât understand how she seemed to have forgotten the simplest things, or sometimes not to seem to know what time of day it was. I just thought she was absent-minded, I suppose.â

âWhat it amounts to, Tim, is just this. I advise you most strongly to take your wife to see a good specialist.â

Tim flushed angrily.

âYou mean a mental specialist, I suppose?â

âNow, now, donât be upset by labels. A neurologist, a psychologist, someone who specializes in what the layman calls nervous breakdowns. Thereâs a good man in Kingston. Or thereâs New York of course. There is something that is causing these nervous terrors of your wifeâs. Something perhaps for which she hardly knows the reason herself. Get advice about her, Tim. Get advice as soon as possible.â

He clapped his hand on the young manâs shoulder and got up.

âThereâs no immediate worry. Your wife has good friends and weâll all be keeping an eye on her.â

âShe wonâtâyou donât think sheâll try it again?â

âI think it most unlikely,â said Dr. Graham.

âYou canât be sure,â said Tim.

âOne can never be sure,â said Dr. Graham, âthatâs one of the first things you learn in my profession.â Again he laid a hand on Timâs shoulder. âDonât worry too much.â

âThatâs easy to say,â said Tim as the doctor went out of the door. âDonât worry, indeed! What does he think Iâm made of?â

Twenty-one

JACKSON ON COSMETICS

âYouâre sure you donât mind, Miss Marple?â said Evelyn Hillingdon.

âNo, indeed, my dear,â said Miss Marple. âIâm only too delighted to be of use in any way. At my age, you know, one feels very useless in the world. Especially when I am in a place like this, just enjoying myself. No duties of any kind. No, Iâll be delighted to sit with Molly. You go along on your expedition. Pelican Point, wasnât it?â

âYes,â said Evelyn. âBoth Edward and I love it. I never get tired of seeing the birds diving down, catching up the fish. Timâs with Molly now. But heâs got things to do and he doesnât seem to like her being left alone.â

âHeâs quite right,â said Miss Marple. âI wouldnât in his place. One never knows, does one? When anyone has attempted anything of that kindâWell, go along, my dear.â

Evelyn went off to join a little group that was waiting for her. Her husband, the Dysons and three or four other people. Miss Marple checked her knitting requirements, saw that she had all she wanted with her, and walked over towards the Kendalsâ bungalow.

As she came up on to the loggia she heard Timâs voice through the half-open french window.

âIf youâd only tell me why you did it, Molly. What made you? Was it anything I did? There must be some reason. If youâd only tell me.â

Miss Marple paused. There was a little pause inside before Molly spoke. Her voice was flat and tired.

âI donât know, Tim, I really donât know. I supposeâsomething came over me.â

Miss Marple tapped on the window and walked in.

âOh, there you are, Miss Marple. It is very good of you.â

âNot at all,â said Miss Marple. âIâm delighted to be of any help. Shall I sit here in this chair? Youâre looking much better, Molly. Iâm so glad.â

âIâm all right,â said Molly. âQuite all right. Justâoh, just sleepy.â

âI shanât talk,â said Miss Marple. âYou just lie quiet and rest. Iâll get on with my knitting.â

Tim Kendal threw her a grateful glance and went out. Miss Marple established herself in her chair.

Molly was lying on her left side. She had a half-stupefied, exhausted look. She said in a voice that was almost a whisper:

âItâs very kind of you, Miss Marple. IâI think Iâll go to sleep.â

She half turned away on her pillows and closed her eyes. Her breathing grew more regular though it was still far from normal. Long experience of nursing made Miss Marple almost automatically straighten the sheet and tuck it under the mattress on her side of the bed. As she did so her hand encountered something hard and rectangular under the mattress. Rather surprised she took hold of this and pulled it out. It was a book. Miss Marple threw a quick glance at the girl in the bed, but she lay there utterly quiescent. She was evidently asleep. Miss Marple opened the book. It was, she saw, a current work on nervous diseases. It came open naturally at a certain place which gave a description of the onset of persecution mania and various other manifestations of schizophrenia and allied complaints.

It was not a highly technical book, but one that could be easily understood by a layman. Miss Marpleâs face grew very grave as she read. After a minute or two she closed the book and stayed thinking. Then she bent forward and with care replaced the book where she had found it, under the mattress.

She shook her head in some perplexity. Noiselessly she rose from her chair. She walked the few steps towards the window, then turned her head sharply over her shoulder. Mollyâs eyes were open but even as Miss Marple turned the eyes shut again. For a minute or two Miss Marple was not quite certain whether she might not have imagined that quick, sharp glance. Was Molly then only pretending to be asleep? That might be natural enough. She might feel that Miss Marple would start talking to her if she showed herself awake. Yes, that could be all it was.

Was she reading into that glance of Mollyâs a kind of slyness that was somehow innately disagreeable? One doesnât know, Miss Marple thought to herself, one really doesnât know.

She decided that she would try to manage a little talk with Dr. Graham as soon as it could be managed. She came back to her chair by the bed. She decided after about five minutes or so that Molly was really asleep. No one could have lain so still, could have breathed so evenly. Miss Marple got up again. She was wearing her plimsolls today. Not perhaps very elegant, but admirably suited to this climate and comfortable and roomy for the feet.

She moved gently round the bedroom, pausing at both of the windows, which gave out in two different directions.

The hotel grounds seemed quiet and deserted. Miss Marple came back and was standing a little uncertainly before regaining her seat, when she thought she heard a faint sound outside. Like the scrape of a shoe on the loggia? She hesitated a moment then she went to the window, pushed it a little farther open, stepped out and turned her head back into the room as she spoke.

âI shall be gone only a very short time, dear,â she said, âjust back to my bungalow, to see where I could possibly have put that pattern. I was so sure I had brought it with me. Youâll be quite all right till I come back, wonât you?â Then turning her head back, she nodded to herself. âAsleep, poor child. A good thing.â

She went quietly along the loggia, down the steps and turned sharp right to the path there. Passing along between the screen of some hibiscus bushes an observer might have been curious to see that Miss Marple veered sharply on to the flower bed, passed round to the back of the bungalow and entered it again through the second door there. This led directly into a small room that Tim sometimes used as an unofficial office and from that into the sitting room.

Here there were wide curtains semi-drawn to keep the room cool. Miss Marple slipped behind one of them. Then she waited. From the window here she had a good view of anyone who approached Mollyâs bedroom. It was some few minutes, four or five, before she saw anything.

The neat figure of Jackson in his white uniform went up the steps of the loggia. He paused for a minute at the balcony there, and then appeared to be giving a tiny discreet tap on the door of the window that was ajar. There was no response that Miss Marple could hear. Jackson looked around him, a quick furtive glance, then he slipped inside the open doors. Miss Marple moved to the door which led into the adjoining bathroom. Miss Marpleâs eyebrows rose in slight surprise. She reflected a minute or two, then walked out into the passageway and into the bathroom by the other door.

Jackson spun round from examining the shelf over the washbasin. He looked taken aback, which was not surprising.

âOh,â he said, âIâI didnâtâ¦.â

âMr. Jackson,â said Miss Marple, in great surprise.

âI thought youâd be here somewhere,â said Jackson.

âDid you want anything?â inquired Miss Marple.

âActually,â said Jackson, âI was just looking at Mrs. Kendalâs brand of face cream.â

Miss Marple appreciated the fact that as Jackson was standing with a jar of face cream in his hand he had been adroit in mentioning the fact at once.

âNice smell,â he said, wrinkling up his nose. âFairly good stuff, as these preparations go. The cheaper brands donât suit every skin. Bring it out in a rash as likely as not. The same thing with face powders sometimes.â

âYou seem to be very knowledgeable on the subject,â said Miss Marple.

âWorked in the pharmaceutical line for a bit,â said Jackson. âOne learns to know a good deal about cosmetics there. Put stuff in a fancy jar, package it expensively, and itâs astonishing what you could rook women for.â

âIs that what youâ?â Miss Marple broke off deliberately.

âWell no, I didnât come in here to talk about cosmetics,â Jackson agreed.

âYouâve not had much time to think up a lie,â thought Miss Marple to herself. âLetâs see what youâll come out with.â

âMatter of fact,â said Jackson, âMrs. Walters lent her lipstick to Mrs. Kendal the other day. I came in to get it back for her. I tapped on the window and then I saw Mrs. Kendal was fast asleep, so I thought it would be quite all right if I just walked across into the bathroom and looked for it.â

âI see,â said Miss Marple. âAnd did you find it?â

Jackson shook his head. âProbably in one of her handbags,â he said lightly. âI wonât bother. Mrs. Walters didnât make a point of it. She only just mentioned it casually.â He went on, surveying the toilet preparations: âDoesnât have very much, does she? Ah well, doesnât need it at her age. Good natural skin.â

âYou must look at women with quite a different eye from ordinary men,â said Miss Marple, smiling pleasantly.

âYes. I suppose various jobs do alter oneâs angle.â

âYou know a good deal about drugs?â

âOh yes. Good working acquaintance with them. If you ask me, there are too many of them about nowadays. Too many tranquillizers and pep pills and miracle drugs and all the rest of it. All right if theyâre given on prescription, but there are too many of them you can get without prescription. Some of them can be dangerous.â

âI suppose so,â said Miss Marple. âYes, I suppose so.â

âThey have a great effect, you know, on behaviour. A lot of this teenage hysteria you get from time to time. Itâs not natural causes. The kidsâve been taking things. Oh, thereâs nothing new about it. Itâs been known for ages. Out in the Eastânot that Iâve ever been thereâall sorts of funny things used to happen. Youâd be surprised at some of the things women gave their husbands. In India, for example, in the bad old days, a young wife who married an old husband. Didnât want to get rid of him, I suppose, because sheâd have been burnt on the funeral pyre, or if she wasnât burnt sheâd have been treated as an outcast by the family. No catch to have been a widow in India in those days. But she could keep an elderly husband under drugs, make him semi-imbecile, give him hallucinations, drive him more or less off his head.â He shook his head. âYes, lot of dirty work.â

He went on: âAnd witches, you know. Thereâs a lot of interesting things known now about witches. Why did they always confess, why did they admit so readily that they were witches, that they had flown on broomsticks to the Witchesâ Sabbath?â

âTorture,â said Miss Marple.

âNot always,â said Jackson. âOh yes, torture accounted for a lot of it, but they came out with some of those confessions almost before torture was mentioned. They didnât so much confess as boast about it. Well, they rubbed themselves with ointment, you know. Anointing they used to call it. Some of the preparations, belladonna, atropine, all that sort of thing; if you rub them on the skin they give you hallucinations of levitation, of flying through the air. They thought it all was genuine, poor devils. And look at the Assassinsâmedieval people, out in Syria, the Lebanon, somewhere like that. They fed them Indian hemp, gave them hallucinations of Paradise and houris, and endless time. They were told that that was what would happen to them after death, but to attain it they had to go and do a ritual killing. Oh, Iâm not putting it in fancy language, but thatâs what it came to.â

âWhat it came to,â said Miss Marple, âis in essence the fact that people are highly credulous.â

âWell yes, I suppose you could put it like that.â

âThey believe what they are told,â said Miss Marple. âYes indeed, weâre all inclined to do that,â she added. Then she said sharply, âWho told you these stories about India, about the doping of husbands with datura,â and she added sharply, before he could answer, âWas it Major Palgrave?â

Jackson looked slightly surprised. âWellâyes, as a matter of fact, it was. He told me a lot of stories like that. Of course most of it must have been before his time, but he seemed to know all about it.â

âMajor Palgrave was under the impression that he knew a lot about everything,â said Miss Marple. âHe was often inaccurate in what he told people.â She shook her head thoughtfully. âMajor Palgrave,â she said, âhas a lot to answer for.â

There was a slight sound from the adjoining bedroom. Miss Marple turned her head sharply. She went quickly out of the bathroom into the bedroom. Lucky Dyson was standing just inside the window.

âIâoh! I didnât think you were here, Miss Marple.â

âI just stepped into the bathroom for a moment,â said Miss Marple, with dignity and a faint air of Victorian reserve.

In the bathroom, Jackson grinned broadly. Victorian modesty always amused him.

âI just wondered if youâd like me to sit with Molly for a bit,â said Lucky. She looked over towards the bed. âSheâs asleep, isnât she?â

âI think so,â said Miss Marple. âBut itâs really quite all right. You go and amuse yourself, my dear. I thought youâd gone on that expedition?â

âI was going,â said Lucky, âbut I had such a filthy headache that at the last moment I cried off. So I thought I might as well make myself useful.â

âThat was very nice of you,â said Miss Marple. She reseated herself by the bed and resumed her knitting, âbut Iâm quite happy here.â

Lucky hesitated for a moment or two and then turned away and went out. Miss Marple waited a moment then tiptoed back into the bathroom, but Jackson had departed, no doubt through the other door. Miss Marple picked up the jar of face cream he had been holding, and slipped it into her pocket.

Twenty-two

A MAN IN HER LIFE?

Getting a little chat in a natural manner with Dr. Graham was not so easy as Miss Marple had hoped. She was particularly anxious not to approach him directly since she did not want to lend undue importance to the questions that she was going to ask him.

Tim was back, looking after Molly, and Miss Marple had arranged that she should relieve him there during the time that dinner was served and he was needed in the dining room. He had assured her that Mrs. Dyson was quite willing to take that on, or even Mrs. Hillingdon, but Miss Marple said firmly that they were both young women who liked enjoying themselves and that she herself preferred a light meal early and so that would suit everybody. Tim once again thanked her warmly. Hovering rather uncertainly round the hotel and on the pathway which connected with various bungalows, among them Dr. Grahamâs, Miss Marple tried to plan what she was going to do next.

She had a lot of confused and contradictory ideas in her head and if there was one thing that Miss Marple did not like, it was to have confused and contradictory ideas. This whole business had started out clearly enough. Major Palgrave with his regrettable capacity for telling stories, his indiscretion that had obviously been overheard and the corollary, his death within twenty-four hours. Nothing difficult about that, thought Miss Marple.

But afterwards, she was forced to admit, there was nothing but difficulty. Everything pointed in too many different directions at once. Once admit that you didnât believe a word that anybody had said to you, that nobody could be trusted, and that many of the persons with whom she had conversed here had regrettable resemblances to certain persons at St. Mary Mead, and where did that lead you?

Her mind was increasingly focused on the victim. Someone was going to be killed and she had the increasing feeling that she ought to know quite well who that someone was. There had been something. Something she had heard? Noticed? Seen?

Something someone had told her that had a bearing on the case. Joan Prescott? Joan Prescott had said a lot of things about a lot of people. Scandal? Gossip? What exactly had Joan Prescott said?

Gregory Dyson, LuckyâMiss Marpleâs mind hovered over Lucky. Lucky, she was convinced with a certainty born of her natural suspicions, had been actively concerned in the death of Gregory Dysonâs first wife. Everything pointed to it. Could it be that the predestined victim over whom she was worrying was Gregory Dyson? That Lucky intended to try her luck again with another husband, and for that reason wanted not only freedom but the handsome inheritance that she would get as Gregory Dysonâs widow?

âBut really,â said Miss Marple to herself, âthis is all pure conjecture. Iâm being stupid. I know Iâm being stupid. The truth must be quite plain, if one could just clear away the litter. Too much litter, thatâs whatâs the matter.â

âTalking to yourself?â said Mr. Rafiel.

Miss Marple jumped. She had not noticed his approach. Esther Walters was supporting him and he was coming slowly down from his bungalow to the terrace.

âI really didnât notice you, Mr. Rafiel.â

âYour lips were moving. Whatâs become of all this urgency of yours?â

âItâs still urgent,â said Miss Marple, âonly I canât just see what must be perfectly plainââ

âIâm glad itâs as simple as thatâWell, if you want any help, count on me.â

He turned his head as Jackson approached them along the path.

âSo there you are, Jackson. Where the devil have you been? Never about when I want you.â

âSorry, Mr. Rafiel.â

Dexterously he slipped his shoulder under Mr. Rafielâs. âDown to the terrace, sir?â

âYou can take me to the bar,â said Mr. Rafiel. âAll right, Esther, you can go now and change into your evening togs. Meet me on the terrace in half an hour.â

He and Jackson went off together. Mrs. Walters dropped into the chair by Miss Marple. She rubbed her arm gently.

âHe seems a very light weight,â she observed, âbut at the moment my arm feels quite numb. I havenât seen you this afternoon at all, Miss Marple.â

âNo, Iâve been sitting with Molly Kendal,â Miss Marple explained. âShe seems really very much better.â

âIf you ask me there was never very much wrong with her,â said Esther Walters.

Miss Marple raised her eyebrows. Esther Waltersâs tone had been decidedly dry.

âYou meanâyou think her suicide attemptâ¦.â

âI donât think there was any suicide attempt,â said Esther Walters. âI donât believe for a moment she took a real overdose and I think Dr. Graham knows that perfectly well.â

âNow you interest me very much,â said Miss Marple. âI wonder why you say that?â

âBecause Iâm almost certain that itâs the case. Oh, itâs a thing that happens very often. Itâs a way, I suppose, of calling attention to oneself,â went on Esther Walters.

ââYouâll be sorry when Iâm dead?ââ quoted Miss Marple.

âThat sort of thing,â agreed Esther Walters, âthough I donât think that was the motive in this particular instance. Thatâs the sort of thing you feel like when your husbandâs playing you up and youâre terribly fond of him.â

âYou donât think Molly Kendal is fond of her husband?â

âWell,â said Esther Walters, âdo you?â

Miss Marple considered. âI have,â she said, âmore or less assumed it.â She paused a moment before adding, âPerhaps wrongly.â

Esther was smiling her rather wry smile.

âIâve heard a little about her, you know. About the whole business.â

âFrom Miss Prescott?â

âOh,â said Esther, âfrom one or two people. Thereâs a man in the case. Someone she was keen on. Her people were dead against him.â

âYes,â said Miss Marple, âI did hear that.â

âAnd then she married Tim. Perhaps she was fond of him in a way. But the other man didnât give up. Iâve wondered once or twice if he didnât actually follow her out here.â

âIndeed. Butâwho?â

âIâve no idea who,â said Esther, âand I should imagine that theyâve been very careful.â

âYou think she cares for this other man?â

Esther shrugged her shoulders. âI dare say heâs a bad lot,â she said, âbut thatâs very often the kind who knows how to get under a womanâs skin and stay there.â

âYou never heard what kind of a manâwhat he didâanything like that?â

Esther shook her head. âNo. People hazard guesses, but you canât go by that type of thing. He may have been a married man. That may have been why her people disliked it, or he may have been a real bad lot. Perhaps he drank. Perhaps he tangled with the lawâI donât know. But she cares for him still. That I know positively.â

âYouâve seen something, heard something?â Miss Marple hazarded.

âI know what Iâm talking about,â said Esther. Her voice was harsh and unfriendly.

âThese murdersââ began Miss Marple.

âCanât you forget murders?â said Esther. âYouâve got Mr. Rafiel now all tangled up in them. Canât you justâlet them be? Youâll never find out any more, Iâm sure of that.â

Miss Marple looked at her.

âYou think you know, donât you?â she said.

âI think I do, yes. Iâm fairly sure.â

âThen oughtnât you to tell what you knowâdo something about it?â

âWhy should I? What good would it do? I couldnât prove anything. What would happen anyway? People get let off nowadays so easily. They call it diminished responsibility and things like that. A few years in prison and youâre out again, as right as rain.â

âSupposing, because you donât tell what you know, somebody else gets killedâanother victim?â

Esther shook her head with confidence. âThat wonât happen,â she said.

âYou canât be sure of it.â

âI am sure. And in any case I donât see whoââ She frowned. âAnyway,â she added, almost inconsequently, âperhaps it isâdiminished responsibility. Perhaps you canât help itânot if you are really mentally unbalanced. Oh, I donât know. By far the best thing would be if she went off with whoever it is, then we could all forget about things.â

She glanced at her watch, gave an exclamation of dismay and got up.

âI must go and change.â

Miss Marple sat looking after her. Pronouns, she thought, were always puzzling and women like Esther Walters were particularly prone to strew them about haphazard. Was Esther Walters for some reason convinced that a woman had been responsible for the deaths of Major Palgrave and Victoria? It sounded like it. Miss Marple considered.

âAh, Miss Marple, sitting here all aloneâand not even knitting?â

It was Dr. Graham for whom she had sought so long and so unsuccessfully. And here he was prepared of his own accord to sit down for a few minutesâ chat. He wouldnât stay long, Miss Marple thought, because he too was bent on changing for dinner, and he usually dined fairly early. She explained that she had been sitting by Molly Kendalâs bedside that afternoon.

âOne can hardly believe she has made such a good recovery so quickly,â she said.

âOh well,â said Dr. Graham, âitâs not very surprising. She didnât take a very heavy overdose, you know.â

âOh, I understood sheâd taken quite a half-bottle full of tablets.â

Dr. Graham was smiling indulgently.

âNo,â he said, âI donât think she took that amount. I dare say she meant to take them, then probably at the last moment she threw half of them away. People, even when they think they want to commit suicide, often donât really want to do it. They manage not to take a full overdose. Itâs not always deliberate deceit, itâs just the subconscious looking after itself.â

âOr, I suppose it might be deliberate. I mean, wanting it to appear thatâ¦.â Miss Marple paused.

âItâs possible,â said Dr. Graham.

âIf she and Tim had had a row, for instance?â

âThey donât have rows, you know. They seem very fond of each other. Still, I suppose it can always happen once. No, I donât think thereâs very much wrong with her now. She could really get up and go about as usual. Still, itâs safer to keep her where she is for a day or twoââ

He got up, nodded cheerfully and went off towards the hotel. Miss Marple sat where she was a little while longer.

Various thoughts passed through her mindâThe book under Mollyâs mattressâThe way Molly had feigned sleepâ

Things Joan Prescott and, later, Esther Walters, had saidâ¦.

And then she went back to the beginning of it allâto Major Palgraveâ

Something struggled in her mind. Something about Major Palgraveâ

Something that if she could only rememberâ

Twenty-three

THE LAST DAY

I

âAnd the evening and the morning were the last day,â said Miss Marple to herself.

Then, slightly confused, she sat upright again in her chair. She had dozed off, an incredible thing to do because the steel band was playing and anyone who could doze off during the steel bandâWell, it showed, thought Miss Marple, that she was getting used to this place! What was it she had been saying? Some quotation that sheâd got wrong. Last day? First day. Thatâs what it ought to be. This wasnât the first day. Presumably it wasnât the last day either.

She sat upright again. The fact was that she was extremely tired. All this anxiety, this feeling of having been shamefully inadequate in some way â¦ She remembered unpleasantly once more that queer sly look that Molly had given her from under her half-closed eyelids. What had been going on in that girlâs head? How different, thought Miss Marple, everything had seemed at first. Tim Kendal and Molly, such a natural happy young couple. The Hillingdons so pleasant, so well-bred, such what is called âniceâ people. The gay hearty extrovert, Greg Dyson, and the gay strident Lucky, talking nineteen to the dozen, pleased with herself and the world â¦ A quartet of people getting on so well together. Canon Prescott, that genial kindly man. Joan Prescott, an acid streak in her, but a very nice woman, and nice women had to have their gossipy distractions. They have to know what is going on, to know when two and two make four, and when it is possible to stretch them to five! There was no harm in such women. Their tongues wagged but they were kind if you were in misfortune. Mr. Rafiel, a personality, a man of character, a man that you would never by any chance forget. But Miss Marple thought she knew something else about Mr. Rafiel.

The doctors had often given him up, so he had said, but this time, she thought, they had been more certain in their pronouncements. Mr. Rafiel knew that his days were numbered.

Knowing this with certainty, was there any action he might have been likely to take?

Miss Marple considered the question.

It might, she thought, be important.

What was it exactly he had said, his voice a little too loud, a little too sure? Miss Marple was very skilful in tones of voice. She had done so much listening in her life.

Mr. Rafiel had been telling her something that wasnât true.

Miss Marple looked round her. The night air, the soft fragrance of flowers, the tables with their little lights, the women with their pretty dresses, Evelyn in a dark indigo and white print, Lucky in a white sheath, her golden hair shining. Everybody seemed gay and full of life tonight. Even Tim Kendal was smiling. He passed her table and said:

âCanât thank you enough for all youâve done. Mollyâs practically herself again. The doc says she can get up tomorrow.â

Miss Marple smiled at him and said that that was good hearing. She found it, however, quite an effort to smile. Decidedly, she was tiredâ¦.

She got up and walked slowly back to her bungalow. She would have liked to go on thinking, puzzling, trying to remember, trying to assemble various facts and words and glances. But she wasnât able to do it. The tired mind rebelled. It said âSleep! Youâve got to go to sleep!â

Miss Marple undressed, got into bed, read a few verses of the Thomas Ã  Kempis which she kept by her bed, then she turned out the light. In the darkness she sent up a prayer. One couldnât do everything oneself. One had to have help. âNothing will happen tonight,â she murmured hopefully.

II

Miss Marple woke suddenly and sat up in bed. Her heart was beating. She switched on the light and looked at the little clock by her bedside. Two am. Two am and outside activity of some kind was going on. She got up, put on her dressing gown and slippers, and a woollen scarf round her head and went out to reconnoitre. There were people moving about with torches. Among them she saw Canon Prescott and went to him.

âWhatâs happening?â

âOh, Miss Marple? Itâs Mrs. Kendal. Her husband woke up, found sheâd slipped out of bed and gone out. Weâre looking for her.â

He hurried on. Miss Marple walked more slowly after him. Where had Molly gone? Why? Had she planned this deliberately, planned to slip away as soon as the guard on her was relaxed, and while her husband was deep in sleep? Miss Marple thought it was probable. But why? What was the reason? Was there, as Esther Walters had so strongly hinted, some other man? If so, who could that man be? Or was there some more sinister reason?

Miss Marple walked on, looking around her, peering under bushes. Then suddenly she heard a faint call:

âHere â¦ This wayâ¦.â

The cry had come from some little distance beyond the hotel grounds. It must be, thought Miss Marple, near the creek of water that ran down to the sea. She went in that direction as briskly as she could.

There were not really so many searchers as it had seemed to her at first. Most people must still be asleep in their bungalows. She saw a place on the creek bank where there were people standing. Someone pushed past her, almost knocking her down, running in that direction. It was Tim Kendal. A minute or two later she heard his voice cry out:

âMolly! My God, Molly!â

It was a minute or two before Miss Marple was able to join the little group. It consisted of one of the Cuban waiters, Evelyn Hillingdon, and two of the native girls. They had parted to let Tim through. Miss Marple arrived as he was bending over to look.

âMolly â¦â He slowly dropped on to his knees. Miss Marple saw the girlâs body clearly, lying there in the creek, her face below the level of the water, her golden hair spread over the pale green embroidered shawl that covered her shoulders. With the leaves and rushes of the creek, it seemed almost like a scene from Hamlet with Molly as the dead Opheliaâ¦.

As Tim stretched out a hand to touch her, the quiet, commonsense Miss Marple took charge and spoke sharply and authoritatively.

âDonât move her, Mr. Kendal,â she said. âShe mustnât be moved.â

Tim turned a dazed face up to her.

âButâI mustâitâs Molly. I mustâ¦.â

Evelyn Hillingdon touched his shoulder.

âSheâs dead, Tim. I didnât move her, but I did feel her pulse.â

âDead?â said Tim unbelievingly. âDead? You mean sheâsâdrowned herself?â

âIâm afraid so. It looks like it.â

âBut why?â A great cry burst from the young man. âWhy? She was so happy this morning. Talking about what weâd do tomorrow. Why should this terrible death wish come over her again? Why should she steal away as she didârush out into the night, come down here and drown herself? What despair did she haveâwhat miseryâwhy couldnât she tell me anything?â

âI donât know, my dear,â said Evelyn gently. âI donât know.â

Miss Marple said:

âSomebody had better get Dr. Graham. And someone will have to telephone the police.â

âThe police?â Tim uttered a bitter laugh. âWhat good will they be?â

âThe police have to be notified in a case of suicide,â said Miss Marple.

Tim rose slowly to his feet.

âIâll get Graham,â he said heavily. âPerhapsâeven nowâhe couldâdo something.â

He stumbled away in the direction of the hotel.

Evelyn Hillingdon and Miss Marple stood side by side looking down at the dead girl.

Evelyn shook her head. âItâs too late. Sheâs quite cold. She must have been dead at least an hourâperhaps more. What a tragedy it all is. Those two always seemed so happy. I suppose she was always unbalanced.â

âNo,â said Miss Marple. âI donât think she was unbalanced.â

Evelyn looked at her curiously. âWhat do you mean?â

The moon had been behind a cloud, but now it came out into the open. It shone with a luminous silvery brightness on Mollyâs outspread hairâ¦.

Miss Marple gave a sudden ejaculation. She bent down, peering, then stretched out her hand and touched the golden head. She spoke to Evelyn Hillingdon, and her voice sounded quite different.

âI think,â she said, âthat we had better make sure.â

Evelyn Hillingdon stared at her in astonishment.

âBut you yourself told Tim we mustnât touch anything?â

âI know. But the moon wasnât out. I hadnât seenââ

Her finger pointed. Then, very gently, she touched the blonde hair and parted it so that the roots were exposedâ¦.

Evelyn gave a sharp ejaculation.

âLucky!â

And then after a moment she repeated:

âNot Molly â¦ Lucky.â

Miss Marple nodded. âTheir hair was of much the same colourâbut hers, of course, was dark at the roots because it was dyed.â

âBut sheâs wearing Mollyâs shawl?â

âShe admired it. I heard her say she was going to get one like it. Evidently she did.â

âSo thatâs why we wereâdeceivedâ¦.â

Evelyn broke off as she met Miss Marpleâs eyes watching her.

âSomeone,â said Miss Marple, âwill have to tell her husband.â

There was a momentâs pause, then Evelyn said:

âAll right. Iâll do it.â

She turned and walked away through the palm trees.

Miss Marple remained for a moment motionless, then she turned her head very slightly, and said:

âYes, Colonel Hillingdon?â

Edward Hillingdon came from the trees behind her to stand by her side.

âYou knew I was there?â

âYou cast a shadow,â said Miss Marple.

They stood a moment in silence.

He said, more as though he were speaking to himself:

âSo, in the end, she played her luck too farâ¦.â

âYou are, I think, glad that she is dead?â

âAnd that shocks you? Well, I will not deny it. I am glad she is dead.â

âDeath is often a solution to problems.â

Edward Hillingdon turned his head slowly. Miss Marple met his eyes calmly and steadfastly.

âIf you thinkââ he took a sharp step towards her.

There was a sudden menace in his tone.

Miss Marple said quietly:

âYour wife will be back with Mr. Dyson in a moment. Or Mr. Kendal will be here with Dr. Graham.â

Edward Hillingdon relaxed. He turned back to look down at the dead woman.

Miss Marple slipped away quietly. Presently her pace quickened.

Just before reaching her own bungalow, she paused. It was here that she had sat that day talking to Major Palgrave. It was here that he had fumbled in his wallet looking for the snapshot of a murdererâ¦.

She remembered how he had looked up, and how his face had gone purple and redâ¦. âSo ugly,â as SeÃ±ora de Caspearo had said. âHe has the Evil Eye.â

The Evil Eye â¦ Eye â¦Eyeâ¦.

Twenty-four

NEMESIS

I

Whatever the alarms and excursions of the night, Mr. Rafiel had not heard them.

He was fast asleep in bed, a faint thin snore coming from his nostrils, when he was taken by the shoulders and shaken violently.

âEhâwhatâwhat the devilâs this?â

âItâs me,â said Miss Marple, for once ungrammatical, âthough I should put it a little more strongly than that. The Greeks, I believe, had a word for it. Nemesis, if I am not wrong.â

Mr. Rafiel raised himself on his pillows as far as he could. He stared at her. Miss Marple, standing there in the moonlight, her head encased in a fluffy scarf of pale pink wool, looked as unlike a figure of Nemesis as it was possible to imagine.

âSo youâre Nemesis, are you?â said Mr. Rafiel after a momentary pause.

âI hope to beâwith your help.â

âDo you mind telling me quite plainly what youâre talking about like this in the middle of the night.â

âI think we may have to act quickly. Very quickly. I have been foolish. Extremely foolish. I ought to have known from the very beginning what all this was about. It was so simple.â

âWhat was simple, and what are you talking about?â

âYou slept through a good deal,â said Miss Marple. âA body was found. We thought at first it was the body of Molly Kendal. It wasnât, it was Lucky Dyson. Drowned in the creek.â

âLucky, eh?â said Mr. Rafiel. âAnd drowned? In the creek. Did she drown herself or did somebody drown her?â

âSomebody drowned her,â said Miss Marple.

âI see. At least I think I see. Thatâs what you mean by saying itâs so simple, is it? Greg Dyson was always the first possibility, and heâs the right one. Is that it? Is that what youâre thinking? And what youâre afraid of is that he may get away with it.â

Miss Marple took a deep breath.

âMr. Rafiel, will you trust me? We have got to stop a murder being committed.â

âI thought you said it had been committed.â

âThat murder was committed in error. Another murder may be committed any moment now. Thereâs no time to lose. We must prevent it happening. We must go at once.â

âItâs all very well to talk like that,â said Mr. Rafiel. âWe, you say? What do you think I can do about it? I canât even walk without help. How can you and I set about preventing a murder? Youâre about a hundred and Iâm a broken-up old crock.â

âI was thinking of Jackson,â said Miss Marple. âJackson will do what you tell him, wonât he?â

âHe will indeed,â said Mr. Rafiel, âespecially if I add that Iâll make it worth his while. Is that what you want?â

âYes. Tell him to come with me and tell him to obey any orders I give him.â

Mr. Rafiel looked at her for about six seconds. Then he said:

âDone. I expect Iâm taking the biggest risk of my life. Well, it wonât be the first one.â He raised his voice. âJackson.â At the same time he picked up the electric bell that lay beside his hand and pressed the button.

Hardly thirty seconds passed before Jackson appeared through the connecting door to the adjoining room.

âYou called and rang, sir? Anything wrong?â He broke off, staring at Miss Marple.

âNow, Jackson, do as I tell you. You will go with this lady, Miss Marple. Youâll go where she takes you and youâll do exactly as she says. Youâll obey every order she gives you. Is that understood?â

âIââ

âIs that understood?â

âYes, sir.â

âAnd for doing that,â said Mr. Rafiel, âyou wonât be the loser. Iâll make it worth your while.â

âThank you, sir.â

âCome along, Mr. Jackson,â said Miss Marple. She spoke over her shoulder to Mr. Rafiel. âWeâll tell Mrs. Walters to come to you on your way. Get her to get you out of bed and bring you along.â

âBring me along where?â

âTo the Kendalsâ bungalow,â said Miss Marple. âI think Molly will be coming back there.â

II

Molly came up the path from the sea. Her eyes stared fixedly ahead of her. Occasionally, under her breath, she gave a little whimperâ¦.

She went up the steps of the loggia, paused a moment, then pushed open the window and walked into the bedroom. The lights were on, but the room itself was empty. Molly went across to the bed and sat down. She sat for some minutes, now and again passing her hand over her forehead and frowning. Then, after a quick surreptitious glance round, she slipped her hand under the mattress and brought out the book that was hidden there. She bent over it, turning the pages to find what she wanted.

Then she raised her head as a sound of running footsteps came from outside. With a quick guilty movement she pushed the book behind her back.

Tim Kendal, panting and out of breath, came in, and uttered a great sigh of relief at the sight of her.

âThank God. Where have you been, Molly? Iâve been searching everywhere for you.â

âI went to the creek.â

âYou wentââ he stopped.

âYes. I went to the creek. But I couldnât wait there. I couldnât. There was someone in the waterâand she was dead.â

âYou meanâDo you know I thought it was you. Iâve only just found out it was Lucky.â

âI didnât kill her. Really, Tim, I didnât kill her. Iâm sure I didnât. I meanâIâd remember if I did, wouldnât I?â

Tim sank slowly down on the end of the bed.

âYou didnâtâAre you sure thatâ? No. No, of course you didnât!â He fairly shouted the words. âDonât start thinking like that, Molly. Lucky drowned herself. Of course she drowned herself. Hillingdon was through with her. She went and lay down with her face in the waterââ

âLucky wouldnât do that. Sheâd never do that. But I didnât kill her. I swear I didnât.â

âDarling, of course you didnât!â He put his arms round her but she pulled herself away.

âI hate this place. It ought to be all sunlight. It seemed to be all sunlight. But it isnât. Instead thereâs a shadowâa big black shadow â¦ And Iâm in itâand I canât get outââ

Her voice had risen to a shout.

âHush, Molly. For Godâs sake, hush!â He went into the bathroom, came back with a glass.

âLook. Drink this. Itâll steady you.â

âIâI canât drink anything. My teeth are chattering so.â

âYes you can, darling. Sit down. Here, on the bed.â He put his arm round her. He approached the glass to her lips. âThere you are now. Drink it.â

A voice spoke from the window.

âJackson,â said Miss Marple clearly. âGo over. Take that glass from him and hold it tightly. Be careful. Heâs strong and he may be pretty desperate.â

There were certain points about Jackson. He was a man with a great love for money, and money had been promised him by his employer, that employer being a man of stature and authority. He was also a man of extreme muscular development heightened by his training. His not to reason why, his but to do.

Swift as a flash he had crossed the room. His hand went over the glass that Tim was holding to Mollyâs lips, his other arm had fastened round Tim. A quick flick of the wrist and he had the glass. Tim turned on him wildly, but Jackson held him firmly.

âWhat the devilâlet go of me. Let go of me. Have you gone mad? What are you doing?â

Tim struggled violently.

âHold him, Jackson,â said Miss Marple.

âWhatâs going on? Whatâs the matter here?â

Supported by Esther Walters, Mr. Rafiel came through the window.

âYou ask whatâs the matter?â shouted Tim. âYour manâs gone mad, stark, staring mad, thatâs whatâs the matter. Tell him to let go of me.â

âNo,â said Miss Marple.

Mr. Rafiel turned to her.

âSpeak up, Nemesis,â he said. âWeâve got to have chapter and verse of some kind.â

âIâve been stupid and a fool,â said Miss Marple, âbut Iâm not being a fool now. When the contents of that glass that he was trying to make his wife drink have been analysed, Iâll wagerâyes, Iâll wager my immortal soul that youâll find itâs got a lethal dose of narcotic in it. Itâs the same pattern, you see, the same pattern as in Major Palgraveâs story. A wife in a depressed state, and she tries to do away with herself, husband saves her in time. Then the second time she succeeds. Yes, itâs the right pattern. Major Palgrave told me the story and he took out a snapshot and then he looked up and sawââ

âOver your right shoulderââ continued Mr. Rafiel.

âNo,â said Miss Marple, shaking her head. âHe didnât see anything over my right shoulder.â

âWhat are you talking about? You told meâ¦.â

âI told you wrong. I was completely wrong. I was stupid beyond belief. Major Palgrave appeared to me to be looking over my right shoulder, glaring, in fact, at somethingâBut he couldnât have seen anything, because he was looking through his left eye and his left eye was his glass eye.â

âI rememberâhe had a glass eye,â said Mr. Rafiel. âIâd forgottenâor I took it for granted. You mean he couldnât see anything?â

âOf course he could see,â said Miss Marple. âHe could see all right, but he could only see with one eye. The eye he could see with was his right eye. And so, you see, he must have been looking at something or someone not to the right of me but to the left of me.â

âWas there anyone on the left of you?â

âYes,â said Miss Marple. âTim Kendal and his wife were sitting not far off. Sitting at a table just by a big hibiscus bush. They were doing accounts there. So you see the Major looked up. His glass left eye was glaring over my shoulder, but what he saw with his other eye was a man sitting by a hibiscus bush and the face was the same, only rather older, as the face in the snapshot. Also by a hibiscus bush. Tim Kendal had heard the story the Major had been telling and he saw that the Major had recognized him. So, of course, he had to kill him. Later, he had to kill the girl, Victoria, because sheâd seen him putting a bottle of tablets in the Majorâs room. She didnât think anything of it at first because of course it was quite natural on various occasions for Tim Kendal to go into the guestsâ bungalows. He might have just been returning something to it that had been left on a restaurant table. But she thought about it and then she asked him questions and so he had to get rid of her. But this is the real murder, the murder heâs been planning all along. Heâs a wife-killer, you see.â

âWhat damned nonsense, whatââ Tim Kendal shouted.

There was a sudden cry, a wild angry cry. Esther Walters detached herself from Mr. Rafiel, almost flinging him down, and rushed across the room. She pulled vainly at Jackson.

âLet go of himâlet go of him. Itâs not true. Not a word of itâs true. TimâTim darling, itâs not true. You could never kill anyone, I know you couldnât. I know you wouldnât. Itâs that horrible girl you married. Sheâs been telling lies about you. Theyâre not true. None of them are true. I believe in you. I love you and trust in you. Iâll never believe a word anyone says. Iâllââ

Then Tim Kendal lost control of himself.

âFor Godâs sake, you damned bitch,â he said, âshut up, canât you? Dâyou want to get me hanged? Shut up, I tell you. Shut that big, ugly mouth of yours.â

âPoor silly creature,â said Mr. Rafiel softly. âSo thatâs whatâs been going on, is it?â

Twenty-five

MISS MARPLE USES HER IMAGINATION

âSo thatâs what had been going on?â said Mr. Rafiel.

He and Miss Marple were sitting together in a confidential manner.

âSheâd been having an affair with Tim Kendal, had she?â

âHardly an affair, I imagine,â said Miss Marple, primly. âIt was, I think, a romantic attachment with the prospect of marriage in the future.â

âWhatâafter his wife was dead?â

âI donât think poor Esther Walters knew that Molly was going to die,â said Miss Marple. âI just think she believed the story Tim Kendal told her about Molly having been in love with another man, and the man having followed her here, and I think she counted on Timâs getting a divorce. I think it was all quite proper and respectable. But she was very much in love with him.â

âWell, thatâs easily understood. He was an attractive chap. But what made him go for herâdâyou know that too?â

âYou know, donât you?â said Miss Marple.

âI dare say Iâve got a pretty fair idea, but I donât know how you should know about it. As far as that goes, I donât see how Tim Kendal could know about it.â

âWell, I really think I could explain all that with a little imagination, though it would be simpler if you told me.â

âIâm not going to tell you,â said Mr. Rafiel. âYou tell me, since youâre being so clever.â

âWell, it seems to me possible,â said Miss Marple, âthat as I have already hinted to you, your man Jackson was in the habit of taking a good snoop through your various papers from time to time.â

âPerfectly possible,â said Mr. Rafiel, âbut I shouldnât have said there was anything there that could do him much good. I took care of that.â

âI imagine,â said Miss Marple, âhe read your will.â

âOh I see. Yes, yes, I did have a copy of my will along.â

âYou told me,â said Miss Marple, âyou told meâ(as Humpty Dumpty saidâvery loud and clear) that you had not left anything to Esther Walters in your will. You had impressed that fact upon her, and also upon Jackson. It was true in Jacksonâs case, I should imagine. You have not left him anything, but you had left Esther Walters money, though you werenât going to let her have any inkling of the fact. Isnât that right?â

âYes, itâs quite right, but I donât know how you knew.â

âWell, itâs the way you insisted on the point,â said Miss Marple. âI have a certain experience of the way people tell lies.â

âI give in,â said Mr. Rafiel. âAll right. I left Esther Â£50,000. It would come as a nice surprise to her when I died. I suppose that, knowing this, Tim Kendal decided to exterminate his present wife with a nice dose of something or other and marry Â£50,000 and Esther Walters. Possibly to dispose of her also in good time. But how did he know she was going to have Â£50,000?â

âJackson told him, of course,â said Miss Marple. âThey were very friendly, those two. Tim Kendal was nice to Jackson and, quite, I should imagine, without ulterior motive. But amongst the bits of gossip that Jackson let slip I think Jackson told him that unbeknownst to herself, Esther Walters was going to inherit a fat lot of money, and he may have said that he himself hoped to induce Esther Walters to marry him though he hadnât had much success so far in taking her fancy. Yes, I think thatâs how it happened.â

âThe things you imagine always seem perfectly plausible,â said Mr. Rafiel.

âBut I was stupid,â said Miss Marple, âvery stupid. Everything fitted in really, you see. Tim Kendal was a very clever man as well as being a very wicked one. He was particularly good at putting about rumours. Half the things Iâve been told here came from him originally, I imagine. There were stories going around about Molly wanting to marry an undesirable young man, but I rather fancy that the undesirable young man was actually Tim Kendal himself, though that wasnât the name he was using then. Her people had heard something, perhaps that his background was fishy. So he put on a high indignation act, refused to be taken by Molly to be âshown offâ to her people and then he brewed up a little scheme with her which they both thought great fun. She pretended to sulk and pine for him. Then a Mr. Tim Kendal turned up, primed with the names of various old friends of Mollyâs people, and they welcomed him with open arms as being the sort of young man who would put the former delinquent one out of Mollyâs head. I am afraid Molly and he must have laughed over it a good deal. Anyway, he married her, and with her money he bought out the people who ran this place and they came out here. I should imagine that he ran through her money at a pretty fair rate. Then he came across Esther Walters and he saw a nice prospect of more money.â

âWhy didnât he bump me off?â said Mr. Rafiel.

Miss Marple coughed.

âI expect he wanted to be fairly sure of Mrs. Walters first. BesidesâI mean â¦â She stopped, a little confused.

âBesides, he realized he wouldnât have to wait long,â said Mr. Rafiel, âand it would clearly be better for me to die a natural death. Being so rich. Deaths of millionaires are scrutinized rather carefully, arenât they, unlike mere wives?â

âYes, youâre quite right. Such a lot of lies as he told,â said Miss Marple. âLook at the lies he got Molly herself to believeâputting that book on mental disorders in her way. Giving her drugs which would give her dreams and hallucinations. You know, your Jackson was rather clever over that. I think he recognized certain of Mollyâs symptoms as being the result of drugs. And he came into the bungalow that day to potter about a bit in the bathroom. That face cream he examined. He might have got some idea from the old tales of witches rubbing themselves with ointments that had belladonna in them. Belladonna in face cream could have produced just that result. Molly would have blackouts. Times she couldnât account for, dreams of flying through the air. No wonder she got frightened about herself. She had all the signs of mental illness, Jackson was on the right track. Maybe he got the idea from Major Palgraveâs stories about the use of datura by Indian women on their husbands.â

âMajor Palgrave!â said Mr. Rafiel. âReally, that man!â

âHe brought about his own murder,â said Miss Marple, âand that poor girl Victoriaâs murder, and he nearly brought about Mollyâs murder. But he recognized a murderer all right.â

âWhat made you suddenly remember about his glass eye?â asked Mr. Rafiel curiously.

âSomething that SeÃ±ora de Caspearo said. She talked some nonsense about his being ugly, and having the Evil Eye; and I said it was only a glass eye, and he couldnât help that, poor man, and she said his eyes looked different ways, they were cross-eyesâwhich, of course, they were. And she said it brought bad luck. I knewâI knew that I had heard something that day that was important. Last night, just after Luckyâs death, it came to me what it was! And then I realized there was no time to wasteâ¦.â

âHow did Tim Kendal come to kill the wrong woman?â

âSheer chance. I think his plan was this: Having convinced everybodyâand that included Molly herselfâthat she was mentally unbalanced, and after giving her a sizeable dose of the drug he was using, he told her that between them they were going to clear up all these murder puzzles. But she had got to help him. After everyone was asleep, they would go separately and meet at an agreed spot by the creek.

âHe said he had a very good idea who the murderer was, and they would trap him. Molly went off obedientlyâbut she was confused and stupefied with the drug she had been given, and it slowed her up. Tim arrived there first and saw what he thought was Molly. Golden hair and pale green shawl. He came up behind her, put his hand over her mouth, and forced her down into the water and held her there.â

âNice fellow! But wouldnât it have been easier just to give her an overdose of narcotic?â

âMuch easier, of course. But that might have given rise to suspicion. All narcotics and sedatives have been very carefully removed from Mollyâs reach, remember. And if she had got hold of a fresh supply, who more likely to have supplied it than her husband? But if, in a fit of despair, she went out and drowned herself whilst her innocent husband slept, the whole thing would be a romantic tragedy, and no one would be likely to suggest that she had been drowned deliberately. Besides,â added Miss Marple, âmurderers always find it difficult to keep things simple. They canât keep themselves from elaborating.â

âYou seem convinced you know all there is to be known about murderers! So you believe Tim didnât know he had killed the wrong woman?â

Miss Marple shook her head.

âHe didnât even look at her face, just hurried off as quickly as he could, let an hour elapse, then started to organize a search for her, playing the part of a distracted husband.â

âBut what the devil was Lucky doing hanging about the creek in the middle of the night?â

Miss Marple gave an embarrassed little cough.

âIt is possible, I think, that she wasâerâwaiting to meet someone.â

âEdward Hillingdon?â

âOh no,â said Miss Marple. âThatâs all over, I wondered whetherâjust possiblyâshe might have been waiting for Jackson.â

âWaiting for Jackson?â

âIâve noticed herâlook at him once or twice,â murmured Miss Marple, averting her eyes.

Mr. Rafiel whistled.

âMy Tom Cat Jackson! I wouldnât put it past him! Tim must have had a shock later when he found heâd killed the wrong woman.â

âYes, indeed. He must have felt quite desperate. Here was Molly alive and wandering about. And the story heâd circulated so carefully about her mental condition wouldnât stand up for a moment once she got into the hands of competent mental specialists. And once she told her damning story of his having asked her to meet him at the creek, where would Tim Kendal be? Heâd only one hopeâto finish off Molly as quickly as possible. Then there was a very good chance that everyone would believe that Molly, in a fit of mania, had drowned Lucky, and had then, horrified by what she had done, taken her own life.â

âAnd it was then,â said Mr. Rafiel, âthat you decided to play Nemesis, eh?â

He leaned back suddenly and roared with laughter. âItâs a damned good joke,â he said. âIf you knew what you looked like that night with that fluffy pink wool all round your head, standing there and saying you were Nemesis! Iâll never forget it!â

Epilogue

The time had come and Miss Marple was waiting at the airport for her plane. Quite a lot of people had come to see her off. The Hillingdons had left already. Gregory Dyson had flown to one of the other islands and the rumour had come that he was devoting himself to an Argentinian widow. SeÃ±ora de Caspearo had returned to South America.

Molly had come to see Miss Marple off. She was pale and thin but she had weathered the shock of her discovery bravely and with the help of one of Mr. Rafielâs nominees whom he had wired for to England, she was carrying on with the running of the hotel.

âDo you good to be busy,â Mr. Rafiel observed. âKeep you from thinking. Got a good thing here.â

âYou donât think the murdersââ

âPeople love murders when theyâre all cleared up,â Mr. Rafiel had assured her. âYou carry on, girl, and keep your heart up. Donât distrust all men because youâve met one bad lot.â

âYou sound like Miss Marple,â Molly had said, âsheâs always telling me Mr. Right will come along one day.â

Mr. Rafiel grinned at this sentiment. So Molly was there and the two Prescotts and Mr. Rafiel, of course, and Estherâan Esther who looked older and sadder and to whom Mr. Rafiel was quite often unexpectedly kind. Jackson also was very much to the fore, pretending to be looking after Miss Marpleâs baggage. He was all smiles these days and let it be known that he had come into money.

There was a hum in the sky. The plane was arriving. Things were somewhat informal here. There was no âtaking your place by Channel 8â or Channel 9. You just walked out from the little flower-covered pavilion on to the tarmac.

âGoodbye, darling Miss Marple.â Molly kissed her.

âGoodbye. Do try and come and visit us.â Miss Prescott shook her warmly by the hand.

âIt has been a great pleasure to know you,â said the Canon. âI second my sisterâs invitation most warmly.â

âAll the best, Madam,â said Jackson, âand remember any time you want any massage free, just you send me a line and weâll make an appointment.â

Only Esther Walters turned slightly away when the time came for goodbyes. Miss Marple did not force one upon her. Mr. Rafiel came last. He took her hand.

âAve Caesar, nos morituri te salutamus,â he said.

âIâm afraid,â said Miss Marple, âI donât know very much Latin.â

âBut you understand that?â

âYes.â She said no more. She knew quite well what he was telling her.

âIt has been a great pleasure to know you,â she said.

Then she walked across the tarmac and got into the plane.

The Agatha Christie Collection

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Death in the Clouds

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Cards on the Table

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Appointment with Death

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One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Evil Under the Sun

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A Murder Is Announced

They Do It with Mirrors

A Pocket Full of Rye

4:50 From Paddington

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A Caribbean Mystery

At Bertramâ€™s Hotel

Nemesis

Sleeping Murder

Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories

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Murder Is Easy

The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories

And Then There Were None

Towards Zero

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Destination Unknown

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About the Author

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.

She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. With The Murder in the Vicarage, published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Additional series characters include the husband-and-wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.

Many of Christieâ€™s novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series. The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. Among her best-known film adaptations are Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978), with Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot, respectively. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.

Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britainâ€™s highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Her one hundred and twentieth anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2010.

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THE AGATHA CHRISTIE COLLECTION

The Man in the Brown Suit

The Secret of Chimneys

The Seven Dials Mystery

The Mysterious Mr. Quin

The Sittaford Mystery

Parker Pyne Investigates

Why Didnâ€™t They Ask Evans?

Murder Is Easy

The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories

And Then There Were None

Towards Zero

Death Comes as the End

Sparkling Cyanide

The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories

Crooked House

Three Blind Mice and Other Stories

They Came to Baghdad

Destination Unknown

Ordeal by Innocence

Double Sin and Other Stories

The Pale Horse

Star over Bethlehem: Poems and Holiday Stories

Endless Night

Passenger to Frankfurt

The Golden Ball and Other Stories

The Mousetrap and Other Plays

The Harlequin Tea Set

The Hercule Poirot Mysteries

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Murder on the Links

Poirot Investigates

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The Big Four

The Mystery of the Blue Train

Peril at End House

Lord Edgware Dies

Murder on the Orient Express

Three Act Tragedy

Death in the Clouds

The A.B.C. Murders

Murder in Mesopotamia

Cards on the Table

Murder in the Mews and Other Stories

Dumb Witness

Death on the Nile

Appointment with Death

Hercule Poirotâ€™s Christmas

Sad Cypress

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Evil Under the Sun

Five Little Pigs

The Hollow

The Labors of Hercules

Taken at the Flood

The Underdog and Other Stories

Mrs. McGintyâ€™s Dead

After the Funeral

Hickory Dickory Dock

Dead Manâ€™s Folly

Cat Among the Pigeons

The Clocks

Third Girl

Halloweâ€™en Party

Elephants Can Remember

Curtain: Poirotâ€™s Last Case

The Miss Marple Mysteries

The Murder at the Vicarage

The Body in the Library

The Moving Finger

A Murder Is Announced

They Do It with Mirrors

A Pocket Full of Rye

4:50 from Paddington

The Mirror Crackâ€™d from Side to Side

A Caribbean Mystery

At Bertramâ€™s Hotel

Nemesis

Sleeping Murder

Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories

The Tommy and Tuppence Mysteries

The Secret Adversary

Partners in Crime

N or M?

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

Postern of Fate

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the authorâ€™s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

AGATHA CHRISTIEÂ® MARPLEÂ® MISS MARPLEÂ® A CARIBBEAN MYSTERYâ„¢. Copyright Â© 2011 Agatha Christie Limited (a Chorion company). All rights reserved. A Caribbean Mystery was first published in 1964.

A CARIBBEAN MYSTERY Â© 1965. Published by permission of G.P. Putnamâ€™s Sons, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-0-06-207368-6

EPub Edition Â© MAY 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-174005-3

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