A Pocket Full of Rye mm-7

by Agatha Christie

  "Of course you're quite right," said Miss Marple. "I mean it was never a case of 'the maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes.' She wouldn't be hanging up clothes at that time of the evening and she wouldn't go out to the clothes line without putting a coat on. That was all camouflage, like the clothes peg, to make the thing fit in with the rhyme."

  "Exactly," said Inspector Neele, "crazy. That's where I can't yet see eye to eye with you. I can't – I simply can't swallow the nursery rhyme business."

  "But it fits, Inspector. You must agree it fits."

  "It fits," said Neele heavily, "but all the same the sequence is wrong. I mean the rhyme definitely suggests that the maid was the third murder. But we know that the Queen was the third murder. Adele Fortescue was not killed until between twenty-five-past five and five minutes to six. By then Gladys must already have been dead."

  "And that's all wrong, isn't it?" said Miss Marple. "All wrong for the nursery rhyme – that's very significant, isn't it?"

  Inspector Neele shrugged his shoulders.

  "It's probably splitting hairs. The deaths fulfil the conditions of the rhyme, and I suppose that's all that was needed. But I'm talking now as though I were on your side. I'm going to outline my side of the case now, Miss Marple. I'm washing out the blackbirds and the rye and all the rest of it. I'm going by sober facts and common sense and the reasons for which sane people do murders. First, the death of Rex Fortescue, and who benefits by his death. Well, it benefits quite a lot of people, but most of all it benefits his son, Percival. His son Percival wasn't at Yewtree Lodge that morning. He couldn't have put poison in his father's coffee or in anything that he ate for breakfast. Or that's what we thought at first."

  "Ah," Miss Marple's eyes brightened. "So there was a method, was there? I've been thinking about it, you know, a good deal, and I've had several ideas. But of course no evidence or proof."

  "There's no harm in my letting you know," said Inspector Neele. "Taxine was added to a new jar of marmalade. That jar of marmalade was placed on the breakfast table and the top layer of it was eaten by Mr Fortescue at breakfast. Later that jar of marmalade was thrown out into the bushes and a similar jar with a similar amount taken out of it was placed in the pantry. The jar in the bushes was found and I've just had the result of the analysis. It shows definite evidence of taxine."

  "So that was it," murmured Miss Marple. "So simple and easy to do."

  "Consolidated Investments," Neele went on, "was in a bad way. If the firm had had to pay out a hundred thousand pounds to Adele Fortescue under her husband's will, it would, I think, have crashed. If Mrs Fortescue had survived her husband for a month that money would have had to be paid out to her. She would have had no feeling for the firm or its difficulties. But she didn't survive her husband for a month. She died, and as a result of her death the gainer was the residuary legatee of Rex Fortescue's will. In other words, Percival Fortescue again.

  "Always Percival Fortescue," the Inspector continued bitterly. "And though he could have tampered with the marmalade, he couldn't have poisoned his stepmother or strangled Gladys. According to his secretary he was in his city office at five o'clock that afternoon, and he didn't arrive back here until nearly seven."

  "That makes it very difficult, doesn't it?" said Miss Marple.

  "It makes it impossible," said Inspector Neele gloomily. "In other words, Percival is out." Abandoning restraint and prudence, he spoke with some bitterness, almost unaware of his listener. "Wherever I go, wherever I turn, I always come up against the same person. Percival Fortescue! Yet it can't be Percival Fortescue." Calming himself a little he said, "Oh, there are other possibilities, other people who had a perfectly good motive."

  "Mr Dubois, of course," said Miss Marple sharply. "And that young Mr Wright. I do so agree with you, Inspector. Wherever there is a question of gain, one has to be very suspicious. The great thing to avoid is having in any way a trustful mind."

  In spite of himself, Neele smiled.

  "Always think the worst, eh?" he asked.

  It seemed a curious doctrine to be proceeding from this charming and fragile looking old lady.

  "Oh yes," said Miss Marple fervently. "I always believe the worst. What is so sad is that one is usually justified in doing so."

  "All right," said Neele, "let's think the worst. Dubois could have done it, Gerald Wright could have done it, (that is to say if he'd been acting in collusion with Elaine Fortescue and she tampered with the marmalade), Mrs Percival could have done it, I suppose. She was on the spot. But none of the people I have mentioned tie up with the crazy angle. They don't tie up with blackbirds and pockets full of rye. That's your theory and it may be that you're right. If so, it boils down to one person, doesn't it? Mrs MacKenzie's in a mental home and has been for a good number of years. She hasn't been messing about with marmalade pots or putting cyanide in the drawing-room afternoon tea. Her son Donald was killed at Dunkirk . That leaves the daughter. Ruby MacKenzie. And if your theory is correct, if this whole series of murders arises out of the old Blackbird Mine business, then Ruby MacKenzie must be here in this house, and there's only one person that Ruby MacKenzie could be."

  "I think, you know," said Miss Marple, "that you're being a little too dogmatic.

  Inspector Neele paid no attention.

  "Just one person," he said grimly.

  He got up and went out of the room.

  II

  Mary Dove was in her own sitting-room. It was a small, rather austerely furnished room, but comfortable. That is to say Miss Dove herself had made it comfortable. When Inspector Neele tapped at the door Mary Dove raised her head, which had been bent over a pile of tradesmen's books, and said in her clear voice:

  "Come in."

  The Inspector entered.

  "Do sit down. Inspector." Miss Dove indicated a chair. "Could you wait just one moment? The total of the fishmonger's account does not seem to be correct and I must check it."

  Inspector Neele sat in silence watching her as she totted up the column. How wonderfully calm and self-possessed the girl was, he thought. He was intrigued, as so often before, by the personality that underlay that self-assured manner. He tried to trace in her features any resemblance to those of the woman he had talked to at the Pinewood Sanatorium. The colouring was not unlike, but he could detect no real facial resemblance. Presently Mary Dove raised her head from her accounts and said:

  "Yes, Inspector? What can I do for you?"

  Inspector Neele said quietly:

  "You know. Miss Dove, there are certain very peculiar features about this case."

  "Yes?"

  "To begin with there is the odd circumstance of the rye found in Mr Fortescue's pocket."

  "That was very extraordinary," Mary Dove agreed. "You know I really cannot think of any explanation for that."

  "Then there is the curious circumstance of the blackbirds. Those four blackbirds on Mr Fortescue's desk last summer, and also the incident of the blackbirds being substituted for the veal and ham in the pie. You were here, I think, Miss Dove, at the time of both those occurrences?"

  "Yes, I was. I remember now. It was most upsetting. It seemed such a very purposeless, spiteful thing to do, especially at the time."

  "Perhaps not entirely purposeless. What do you know. Miss Dove, about the Blackbird Mine?"

  "I don't think I've ever heard of the Blackbird Mine?"

  "Your name, you told me, is Mary Dove. Is that your real name, Miss Dove?"

  Mary Dove raised her eyebrows. Inspector Neele was almost sure that a wary expression had come to her blue eyes.

  "What an extraordinary question, Inspector. Are you suggesting that my name is not Mary Dove?"

  "That is exactly what I am suggesting. I'm suggesting," said Neele pleasantly, "that your name is Ruby MacKenzie."

  She stared at him. For a moment her face was entirely blank with neither protest on it nor surprise. There was, Inspector Neele thought, a very definite effect of calculation. Aft
er a minute or two she said in a quiet, colourless voice:

  "What do you expect me to say?"

  "Please answer me. Is your name Ruby MacKenzie?"

  "I have told you my name is Mary Dove."

  "Yes, but have you proof of that, Miss Dove?"

  "What do you want to see? My birth certificate?"

  "That might be helpful or it might not. You might, I mean, be in possession of the birth certificate of a Mary Dove. That Mary Dove might be a friend of yours or might be someone who had died."

  "Yes, there are a lot of possibilities, aren't there?" Amusement had crept back into Mary Dove's voice. "It's really quite a dilemma for you, isn't it, Inspector?"

  "They might possibly be able to recognise you at Pinewood Sanatorium," said Neele.

  "Pinewood Sanatorium!" Mary raised her eyebrows. "What or where is Pinewood Sanatorium?"

  "I think you know very well, Miss Dove."

  "I assure you I am quite in the dark."

  "And you deny categorically that you are Ruby MacKenzie?"

  "I shouldn't really like to deny anything. I think, you know, Inspector, that it's up to you to prove I am this Ruby MacKenzie, whoever she is." There was definite amusement now in her blue eyes, amusement and challenge. Looking him straight in the eyes, Mary Dove said, "Yes, it's up to you, Inspector. Prove that I'm Ruby MacKenzie if you can."

  Chapter 25

  I

  "The old tabby's looking for you, sir," said Sergeant Hay in a conspiratorial whisper, as Inspector Neele descended the stairs. "It appears as how she's got a lot more to say to you."

  "Hell and damnation," said Inspector Neele.

  "Yes, sir," said Sergeant Hay, not a muscle of his face moving.

  He was about to move away when Neele called him back.

  "Go over those notes given us by Miss Dove, Hay, notes as to her former employment and situations. Check up on them – and, yes, there are just one or two other things that I would like to know. Put these inquiries in hand, will you?"

  He jotted down a few lines on a sheet of paper and gave them to Sergeant Hay who said:

  "I'll get on to it at once, sir."

  Hearing a murmur of voices in the library as he passed. Inspector Neele looked in.

  Whether Miss Marple had been looking for him or not, she was now fully engaged talking to Mrs Percival Fortescue while her knitting needles clicked busily. The middle of the sentence which Inspector Neele caught was:

  "… I have really always thought it was a vocation you needed for nursing. It certainly is very noble work."

  Inspector Neele withdrew quietly. Miss Marple had noticed him, he thought, but she had taken no notice of his presence.

  She went on in her gentle soft voice:

  "I had such a charming nurse looking after me when I once broke my wrist. She went on from me to nurse Mrs Sparrow's son, a very nice young naval officer. Quite a romance, really, because they became engaged. So romantic I thought it. They were married and were very happy and had two dear little children." Miss Marple sighed sentimentally. "It was pneumonia, you know. So much depends on nursing in pneumonia, does it not."

  "Oh, yes," said Jennifer Fortescue, "nursing is nearly everything in pneumonia, though of course nowadays M and B works wonders, and it's not the long, protracted battle it used to be."

  "I'm sure you must have been an excellent nurse, my dear," said Miss Marple. "That was the beginning of your romance, was it not? I mean, you came here to nurse Mr Percival Fortescue, did you not?"

  "Yes," said Jennifer. "Yes, yes – that's how it did happen."

  Her voice was not encouraging, but Miss Marple seemed to take no notice.

  "I understand. One should not listen to servants' gossip, of course, but I'm afraid an old lady like myself is always interested to hear about the people in the house. Now what was I saying? Oh, yes. There was another nurse at first, was there not, and she got sent away – something like that. Carelessness, I believe."

  "I don't think it was carelessness," said Jennifer. "I believe her father or something was desperately ill, and so I came to replace her."

  "I see," said Miss Marple. "And you fell in love and that was that. Yes, very nice indeed, very nice."

  "I'm not so sure about that," said Jennifer Fortescue. "I often wish –" her voice trembled – "I often wish I was back in the wards again."

  "Yes, yes, I understand. You were keen on your profession."

  "I wasn't so much at the time, but now when I think of it – life's so monotonous, you know. Day after day with nothing to do, and Val so absorbed in business."

  Miss Marple shook her head.

  "Gentlemen have to work so hard nowadays," she said. "There really doesn't seem any leisure, no matter how much money there is."

  "Yes, it makes it very lonely and dull for a wife sometimes. I often wish I'd never come here," said Jennifer. "Oh, well, I dare say it serves me right. I ought never to have done it."

  "Ought never to have done what, my dear?"

  "I ought never to have married Val. Oh well –" she sighed abruptly. "Don't let's talk of it any more."

  Obligingly Miss Marple began to talk about the new skirts that were being worn in Paris .

  II

  "So kind of you not to interrupt just now," said Miss Marple when, having tapped at the door of the study. Inspector Neele had told her to come in. "There was just one or two little points, you know, that I wanted to verify." She added reproachfully. "We didn't really finish our talk just now."

  "I'm so sorry, Miss Marple." Inspector Neele summoned up a charming smile. "I'm afraid I was rather rude. I summoned you to a consultation and did all the talking myself."

  "Oh, that's quite all right," said Miss Marple immediately, "because, you see, I wasn't really quite ready then to put all my cards on the table. I mean I wouldn't like to make any accusation unless I was absolutely sure about it. Sure, that is, in my own mind. And I am sure, now."

  "You're sure about what, Miss Marple?"

  "Well, certainly about who killed Mr Fortescue. What you told me about the marmalade, I mean, just clinches the matter. Showing how, I mean, as well as who, and well within the mental capacity."

  Inspector Neele blinked a little.

  "I'm so sorry," said Miss Marple, perceiving this reaction on his part, "I'm afraid I find it difficult sometimes to make myself perfectly clear."

  "I'm not quite sure yet. Miss Marple, what we're talking about."

  "Well, perhaps," said Miss Marple, "we'd better begin all over again. I mean if you could spare the time. I would rather like to put my own point of view before you. You see, I've talked a good deal to people, to old Miss Ramsbottom and to Mrs Crump and to her husband. He, of course, is a liar, but that doesn't really matter because if you know liars are liars, it comes to the same thing. But I did want to get the telephone calls clear and the nylon stockings and all that."

  Inspector Neele blinked again and wondered what he had let himself in for and why he had ever thought that Miss Marple might be a desirable and clear-headed colleague. Still, he thought to himself, however muddle-headed she was, she might have picked up some useful bits of information. All Inspector Neele's successes in his profession had come from listening well. He was prepared to listen now.

  "Please tell me all about it. Miss Marple," he said, "but start at the beginning, won't you."

  "Yes, of course," said Miss Marple, "and the beginning is Gladys. I mean I came here because of Gladys. And you very kindly let me look through all her things. And what with that and the nylon stockings and the telephone calls and one thing and another, it did come out perfectly clear. I mean about Mr Fortescue and the taxine."

  "You have a theory?" asked Inspector Neele, "as to who put the taxine into Mr Fortescue's marmalade."

  "It isn't a theory," said Miss Marple. "I know."

  For the third time Inspector Neele blinked.

  "It was Gladys, of course," said Miss Marple.

  Chapter 26
/>   Inspector Neele stared at Miss Marple and slowly shook his head.

  "Are you saying," he said incredulously, "that Gladys Martin deliberately murdered Rex Fortescue? I'm sorry, Miss Marple, but I simply don't believe it."

  "No, of course she didn't mean to murder him," said Miss Marple, "but she did it all the same! You said yourself that she was nervous and upset when you questioned her. And that she looked guilty."

  "Yes, but not guilty of murder."

  "Oh, no, I agree. As I say, she didn't mean to murder anybody, but she put the taxine in the marmalade. She didn't think it was poison, of course."

  "What did she think it was?" Inspector Neele's voice still sounded incredulous.

  "I rather imagine she thought it was a truth drug," said Miss Marple. "It's very interesting, you know, and very instructive – the things these girls cut out of papers and keep. It's always been the same, you know, all through the ages. Recipes for beauty, for attracting the man you love. And witchcraft and charms and marvellous happenings. Nowadays they're mostly lumped together under the heading of Science. Nobody believes in magicians any more, nobody believes that anyone can come along and wave a wand and turn you into a frog. But if you read in the paper that by injecting certain glands scientists can alter your vital tissues and you'll develop froglike characteristics, well, everybody would believe that. And having read in the papers about truth drugs, of course Gladys would believe it absolutely when he told her that that's what it was."

  "When who told her?" asked Inspector Neele.

  "Albert Evans," said Miss Marple. "Not of course that that is really his name. But anyway he met her last summer at a holiday camp, and he flattered her up and made love to her, and I should imagine told her some story of injustice or persecution, or something like that. Anyway, the point was that Rex Fortescue had to be made to confess what he had done and make restitution. I don't know this, of course. Inspector Neele, but I'm pretty sure about it. He got her to take a post here, and it's really very easy nowadays with the shortage of domestic staff, to obtain a post where you want one. Staffs are changing the whole time. Then they arranged a date together. You remember on that last postcard he said, 'Remember our date.' That was to be the great day they were working for. Gladys would put the drug that he gave her into the top of the marmalade, so that Mr Fortescue would eat it at breakfast and she would also put the rye in his pocket. I don't know what story he told her to account for the rye, but as I told you from the beginning, Inspector Neele, Gladys Martin was a very credulous girl. In fact, there's hardly anything she wouldn't believe if a personable young man put it to her the right way."