Sadly, it came to her that nothing was solved. Professor Wanstead’s eyebrows coming off was of no help at all.
Unfortunately now, she was no longer sleepy. She sat up in bed with some determination.
She sighed and slipped on her dressing gown, moved from her bed to an upright chair, took a slightly larger notebook from her suitcase and started work.
“The project I have undertaken,” she wrote, “is connected certainly with crime of some kind. Mr. Rafiel has distinctly stated that in his letter. He said I had a flair for justice and that necessarily included a flair for crime. So crime is involved, and it is presumably not espionage or fraud or robbery, because such things have never come my way and I have no connection with such things, or knowledge of them, or special skills. What Mr. Rafiel knows of me is only what he knew during the period of time when we were both in St. Honoré. We were connected there with a murder. Murders as reported in the press have never claimed my attention. I have never read books on criminology as a subject or really been interested in such a thing. No, it has just happened that I have found myself in the vicinity of murder rather more often than would seem normal. My attention has been directed to murders involving friends or acquaintances. These curious coincidences of connections with special subjects seem to happen to people in life. One of my aunts, I remember, was on five occasions shipwrecked and a friend of mine was what I believe is officially called accident-prone. I know some of her friends refused to ride in a taxi with her. She had been in four taxi accidents and three car accidents and two railway accidents. Things like this seem to happen to certain people for no appreciable reason. I do not like to write it down but it does appear that murders seem to happen, not to me myself, thank goodness, but seem to happen in my vicinity.”
Miss Marple paused, changed her position, put a cushion in her back, and continued:
“I must try to make as logical a survey as I can of this project which I have undertaken. My instructions, or my ‘briefing’ as naval friends of mine put it, are so far quite inadequate. Practically nonexistent. So I must ask myself one clear question. What is all this about? Answer! I do not know. Curious and interesting. An odd way for a man like Mr. Rafiel to go about things, especially when he was a successful business and financial operator. He wants me to guess, to employ my instinct, to observe and to obey such directions as are given to me or are hinted to me.
“So: Point 1. Direction will be given me. Direction from a dead man. Point 2. What is involved in my problem is justice. Either to set right an injustice or to avenge evil by bringing it to justice. This is in accord with the code word Nemesis given to me by Mr. Rafiel.
“After explanations of the principle involved, I received my first factual directive. It was arranged by Mr. Rafiel before his death that I was to go on Tour No. 37 of Famous Houses and Gardens. Why? That is what I have to ask myself. Is it for some geographical or territorial reason? A connection or a clue? Some particular famous house? Or something involving some particular garden or landscape connected? This seems unlikely. The more likely explanation lies in the people or one of the people on this particular coach party. None of them is known to me personally, but one of them at least must be connected with the riddle I have to solve. Somebody among our group is connected or concerned with a murder. Somebody has information or a special link with the victim of a crime, or someone personally is himself or herself a murderer. A murderer as yet unsuspected.”
Miss Marple stopped here suddenly. She nodded her head. She was satisfied now with her analysis so far as it went.
And so to bed.
Miss Marple added to her notebook.
“Here endeth the First Day.”
Six
LOVE
The following morning they visited a small Queen Anne Manor House. The drive there had not been very long or tiring. It was a very charming-looking house and had an interesting history as well as a very beautiful and unusually laid out garden.
Richard Jameson, the architect, was full of admiration for the structural beauty of the house and being the kind of young man who is fond of hearing his own voice, he slowed down in nearly every room that they went through, pointing out every special moulding of fireplace, and giving historical dates and references. Some of the group, appreciative at first, began to get slightly restive, as the somewhat monotonous lecturing went on. Some of them began to edge carefully away and fall behind the party. The local caretaker, who was in charge, was not himself too pleased at having his occupation usurped by one of the sightseers. He made a few efforts to get matters back into his own hands but Mr. Jameson was unyielding. The caretaker made a last try.
“In this room, ladies and gentlemen, the White Parlour, folks call it, is where they found a body. A young man it was, stabbed with a dagger, lying on the hearthrug. Way back in seventeen hundred and something it was. It was said that the Lady Moffat of that day had a lover. He came through a small side door and up a steep staircase to this room through a loose panel there was to the left of the fireplace. Sir Richard Moffat, her husband, you see, was said to be across the seas in the Low Countries. But he come home, and in he came unexpectedly and caught ’em there together.”
He paused proudly. He was pleased at the response from his audience, glad of a respite from the architectural details which they had been having forced down their throats.
“Why, isn’t that just too romantic, Henry?” said Mrs. Butler in her resonant transatlantic tones. “Why, you know, there’s quite an atmosphere in this room. I feel it. I certainly can feel it.”
“Mamie is very sensitive to atmospheres,” said her husband proudly to those around him. “Why, once when we were in an old house down in Louisiana….”
The narrative of Mamie’s special sensitivity got into its swing and Miss Marple and one or two others seized their opportunity to edge gently out of the room and down the exquisitely moulded staircase to the ground floor.
“A friend of mine,” said Miss Marple to Miss Cooke and Miss Barrow who were next to her, “had a most nerve-racking experience only a few years ago. A dead body on their library floor one morning.”
“One of the family?” asked Miss Barrow. “An epileptic fit?”
“Oh no, it was a murder. A strange girl in evening dress. A blonde. But her hair was dyed. She was really a brunette; and—oh …” Miss Marple broke off, her eyes fixed on Miss Cooke’s yellow hair where it escaped from her headscarf.
It had come to her suddenly. She knew why Miss Cooke’s face was familiar and she knew where she had seen her before. But when she had seen her then, Miss Cooke’s hair had been dark—almost black. And now it was bright yellow.
Mrs. Riseley-Porter, coming down the stairs, spoke decisively as she pushed past them and completed the staircase and turned into the hall.
“I really cannot go up and down anymore of those stairs,” she declared, “and standing around in these rooms is very tiring. I believe the gardens here, although not extensive, are quite celebrated in horticultural circles. I suggest we go there without loss of time. It looks as though it might cloud over before long. I think we shall get rain before morning is out.”
The authority with which Mrs. Riseley-Porter could enforce her remarks had its usual result. All those near at hand or within hearing followed her obediently out through french doors in the dining room into the garden. The gardens had indeed all that Mrs. Riseley-Porter had claimed for them. She herself took possession firmly of Colonel Walker and set off briskly. Some of the others followed them, others took paths in the opposite direction.
Miss Marple herself made a determined beeline for a garden seat which appeared to be of comfortable proportions as well as of artistic merit. She sank down on it with relief, and a sigh matching her own was emitted by Miss Elizabeth Temple as she followed Miss Marple and came to sit beside her on the seat.
“Going over houses is always tiring,” said Miss Temple. “The most tiring thing in the world. Especially if you have to lis
ten to an exhaustive lecture in each room.”
“Of course, all that we were told is very interesting,” said Miss Marple, rather doubtfully.
“Oh, do you think so?” said Miss Temple. Her head turned slightly and her eyes met those of Miss Marple. Something passed between the two women, a kind of rapport—of understanding tinged with mirth.
“Don’t you?” asked Miss Marple.
“No,” said Miss Temple.
This time the understanding was definitely established between them. They sat there companionably in silence. Presently Elizabeth Temple began to talk about gardens, and this garden in particular. “It was designed by Holman,” she said, “somewhere about 1800 or 1798. He died young. A pity. He had great genius.”
“It is so sad when anyone dies young,” said Miss Marple.
“I wonder,” said Elizabeth Temple.
She said it in a curious, meditative way.
“But they miss so much,” said Miss Marple. “So many things.”
“Or escape so much,” said Miss Temple.
“Being as old as I am now,” said Miss Marple, “I suppose I can’t help feeling that early death means missing things.”
“And I,” said Elizabeth Temple, “having spent nearly all my life amongst the young, look at life as a period in time complete in itself. What did T. S. Eliot say: The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew tree are of equal duration.”
Miss Marple said, “I see what you mean … A life of whatever length is a complete experience. But don’t you—” she hesitated, “—ever feel that a life could be incomplete because it has been cut unduly short?”
“Yes, that is so.”
Miss Marple said, looking at the flowers near her, “How beautiful peonies are. That long border of them—so proud and yet so beautifully fragile.”
Elizabeth Temple turned her head towards her.
“Did you come on this trip to see the houses or to see gardens?” she asked.
“I suppose really to see the houses,” said Miss Marple. “I shall enjoy the gardens most, though, but the houses—they will be a new experience for me. Their variety and their history, and the beautiful old furniture and the pictures.” She added: “A kind friend gave me this trip as a gift. I am very grateful. I have not seen very many big and famous houses in my life.”
“A kind thought,” said Miss Temple.
“Do you often go on these sightseeing tours?” asked Miss Marple.
“No. This is not for me exactly a sightseeing tour.”
Miss Marple looked at her with interest. She half opened her lips to speak but refrained from putting a question. Miss Temple smiled at her.
“You wonder why I am here, what my motive is, my reason. Well, why don’t you make a guess?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t like to do that,” said Miss Marple.
“Yes, do do so.” Elizabeth Temple was urgent. “It would interest me. Yes, really interest me. Make a guess.”
Miss Marple was silent for quite a few moments. Her eyes looked at Elizabeth Temple steadily, ranging over her thoughtfully in her appraisement. She said,
“This is not from what I know about you or what I have been told about you. I know that you are quite a famous person and that your school is a very famous one. No. I am only making my guess from what you look like. I should—write you down as a pilgrim. You have the look of one who is on a pilgrimage.”
There was a silence and then Elizabeth said,
“That describes it very well. Yes. I am on a pilgrimage.”
Miss Marple said after a moment or two,
“The friend who sent me on this tour and paid all my expenses, is now dead. He was a Mr. Rafiel, a very rich man. Did you by any chance know him?”
“Jason Rafiel? I know him by name, of course. I never knew him personally, or met him. He gave a large endowment once to an educational project in which I was interested. I was very grateful. As you say, he was a very wealthy man. I saw the notice of his death in the papers a few weeks ago. So he was an old friend of yours?”
“No,” said Miss Marple. “I had met him just over a year ago abroad. In the West Indies. I never knew much about him. His life or his family or any personal friends that he had. He was a great financier but otherwise, or so people always said, he was a man who was very reserved about himself. Did you know his family or anyone …?” Miss Marple paused. “I often wondered, but one does not like to ask questions and seem inquisitive.”
Elizabeth was silent for a minute—then she said:
“I knew a girl once … A girl who had been a pupil of mine at Fallowfield, my school. She was no actual relation to Mr. Rafiel, but she was at one time engaged to marry Mr. Rafiel’s son.”
“But she didn’t marry him?” Miss Marple asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Miss Temple said,
“One might hope to say—like to say—because she had too much sense. He was not the type of a young man one would want anyone one was fond of to marry. She was a very lovely girl and a very sweet girl. I don’t know why she didn’t marry him. Nobody has ever told me.” She sighed and then said, “Anyway, she died….”
“Why did she die?” said Miss Marple.
Elizabeth Temple stared at the peonies for some minutes. When she spoke she uttered one word. It echoed like the tone of a deep bell—so much so that it was startling.
“Love!” she said.
Miss Marple queried the word sharply. “Love?”
“One of the most frightening words there is in the world,” said Elizabeth Temple.
Again her voice was bitter and tragic.
“Love….”
Seven
AN INVITATION
I
Miss Marple decided to miss out on the afternoon’s sightseeing. She admitted to being somewhat tired and would perhaps give a miss to an ancient church and its 14th-century glass. She would rest for a while and join them at the tearoom which had been pointed out to her in the main street. Mrs. Sandbourne agreed that she was being very sensible.
Miss Marple, resting on a comfortable bench outside the tearoom, reflected on what she planned to do next and whether it would be wise to do it or not.
When the others joined her at teatime it was easy for her to attach herself unobtrusively to Miss Cooke and Miss Barrow and sit with them at a table for four. The fourth chair was occupied by Mr. Caspar whom Miss Marple considered as not sufficiently conversant with the English language to matter.
Leaning across the table, as she nibbled a slice of Swiss roll, Miss Marple said to Miss Cooke,
“You know, I am quite sure we have met before. I have been wondering and wondering about it—I’m not as good as I was at remembering faces, but I’m sure I have met you somewhere.”
Miss Cooke looked kindly but doubtful. Her eyes went to her friend, Miss Barrow. So did Miss Marple’s. Miss Barrow showed no signs of helping to probe the mystery.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever stayed in my part of the world,” went on Miss Marple, “I live in St. Mary Mead. Quite a small village, you know. At least, not so small nowadays, there is so much building going on everywhere. Not very far from Much Benham and only twelve miles from the coast at Loomouth.”
“Oh,” said Miss Cooke, “let me see. Well, I know Loomouth quite well and perhaps—”
Suddenly Miss Marple made a pleased exclamation.
“Why, of course! I was in my garden one day at St. Mary Mead and you spoke to me as you were passing by on the footpath. You said you were staying down there, I remember, with a friend—”
“Of course,” said Miss Cooke. “How stupid of me. I do remember you now. We spoke of how difficult it was nowadays to get anyone—to do job gardening, I mean—anyone who was any use.”
“Yes. You were not living there, I think? You were staying with someone.”
“Yes, I was staying with … with …” for a moment Miss Cooke hesitated, with the air of one who hardly knows or reme
mbers a name.
“With a Mrs. Sutherland, was it?” suggested Miss Marple.
“No, no, it was … er … Mrs.—”
“Hastings,” said Miss Barrow firmly as she took a piece of chocolate cake.
“Oh yes, in one of the new houses,” said Miss Marple.
“Hastings,” said Mr. Caspar unexpectedly. He beamed. “I have been to Hastings—I have been to Eastbourne, too.” He beamed again. “Very nice—by the sea.”
“Such a coincidence,” said Miss Marple, “meeting again so soon—such a small world, isn’t it?”
“Oh, well, we are all so fond of gardens,” said Miss Cooke vaguely.
“Flowers very pretty,” said Mr. Caspar. “I like very much—” He beamed again.
“So many rare and beautiful shrubs,” said Miss Cooke.
Miss Marple went full speed ahead with a gardening conversation of some technicality—Miss Cooke responded. Miss Barrow put in an occasional remark.
Mr. Caspar relapsed into smiling silence.
Later, as Miss Marple took her usual rest before dinner, she conned over what she had collected. Miss Cooke had admitted being in St. Mary Mead. She had admitted walking past Miss Marple’s house. Had agreed it was quite a coincidence. Coincidence? thought Miss Marple meditatively, turning the word over in her mouth rather as a child might do to a certain lollipop to decide its flavour. Was it a coincidence? Or had she had some reason to come there? Had she been sent there? Sent there—for what reason? Was that a ridiculous thing to imagine?
“Any coincidence,” said Miss Marple to herself, “is always worth noticing. You can throw it away later if it is only a coincidence.”
Miss Cooke and Miss Barrow appeared to be a perfectly normal pair of friends doing the kind of tour which, according to them, they did every year. They had been on an Hellenic cruise last year and a tour of bulbs in Holland the year before, and Northern Ireland the year before that. They seemed perfectly pleasant and ordinary people. But Miss Cooke, she thought, had for a moment looked as though she were about to disclaim her visit to St. Mary Mead. She had looked at her friend, Miss Barrow, rather as though she were seeking instruction as to what to say. Miss Barrow was presumably the senior partner—
The Complete Miss Marple Collection Page 206