“Helen Halliday—I don’t recall … Helen Kennedy….”
“Formerly of Dillmouth,” said Gwenda.
The legs of Afflick’s chair came down sharply.
“Got it,” he said. “Of course.” His round rubicund face beamed with pleasure. “Little Helen Kennedy! Yes, I remember her. But it’s a long time ago. Must be twenty years.”
“Eighteen.”
“Is it really? Time flies, as the saying goes. But I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed, Mrs. Reed. I haven’t seen anything of Helen since that time. Never heard of her, even.”
“Oh dear,” said Gwenda. “That’s very disappointing. We did so hope you could help.”
“What’s the trouble?” His eyes flickered quickly from one face to another. “Quarrel? Left home? Matter of money?”
Gwenda said: “She went away—suddenly—from Dillmouth—eighteen years ago with—with someone.”
Jackie Afflick said amusedly: “And you thought she might have gone away with me? Now why?”
Gwenda spoke boldly: “Because we heard that you—and she—had once—been—well, fond of each other.”
“Me and Helen? Oh, but there was nothing in that. Just a boy and girl affair. Neither of us took it seriously.” He added drily, “We weren’t encouraged to do so.”
“You must think us dreadfully impertinent,” began Gwenda, but he interrupted her.
“What’s the odds? I’m not sensitive. You want to find a certain person and you think I may be able to help. Ask me anything you please—I’ve nought to conceal.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “So you’re Halliday’s daughter?”
“Yes. Did you know my father?”
He shook his head.
“I dropped in to see Helen once when I was over at Dillmouth on business. I’d heard she was married and living there. She was civil enough—” he paused—“but she didn’t ask me to stay to dinner. No, I didn’t meet your father.”
Had there, Gwenda wondered, been a trace of rancour in that “She didn’t ask me to stay to dinner?”
“Did she—if you remember—seem happy?”
Afflick shrugged his shoulders.
“Happy enough. But there, it’s a long time ago. I’d have remembered if she’d looked unhappy.”
He added with what seemed a perfectly natural curiosity: “Do you mean to say you’ve never heard anything of her since Dillmouth eighteen years ago?”
“Nothing.”
“No—letters?”
“There were two letters,” said Giles. “But we have some reason to think that she didn’t write them.”
“You think she didn’t write them?” Afflick seemed faintly amused. “Sounds like a mystery on the flicks.”
“That’s rather what it seems like to us.”
“What about her brother, the doctor chap, doesn’t he know where she is?”
“No.”
“I see. Regular mystery, isn’t it? Why not advertise?”
“We have.”
Afflick said casually: “Looks as though she’s dead. You mightn’t have heard.”
Gwenda shivered.
“Cold, Mrs. Reed?”
“No. I was thinking of Helen dead. I don’t like to think of her dead.”
“You’re right there. I don’t like to think of it myself. Stunning looks she had.”
Gwenda said impulsively: “You knew her. You knew her well. I’ve only got a child’s memory of her. What was she like? What did people feel about her? What did you feel?”
He looked at her for a moment or two.
“I’ll be honest with you, Mrs. Reed. Believe it or not, as you like. I was sorry for the kid.”
“Sorry?” She turned a puzzled stare on him.
“Just that. There she was—just home from school. Longing for a bit of fun like any girl might, and there was that stiff middle-aged brother of hers with his ideas about what a girl could do and couldn’t do. No fun at all, that kid hadn’t. Well, I took her about a bit—showed her a bit of life. I wasn’t really keen on her and she wasn’t really keen on me. She just liked the fun of being a daredevil. Then of course they found out we were meeting and he put a stop to it. Don’t blame him, really. Cut above me, she was. We weren’t engaged or anything of that kind. I meant to marry sometime—but not till I was a good bit older. And I meant to get on and to find a wife who’d help me get on. Helen hadn’t any money, and it wouldn’t have been a suitable match in any way. We were just good friends with a bit of flirtation thrown in.”
“But you must have been angry with the doctor—”
Gwenda paused and Afflick said: “I was riled, I admit. You don’t fancy being told you’re not good enough. But there, it’s no good being thin-skinned.”
“And then,” said Giles, “you lost your job.”
Afflick’s face was not quite so pleasant.
“Fired, I was. Out of Fane and Watchman’s. And I’ve a very good idea who was responsible for that.”
“Oh?” Giles made his tone interrogative, but Afflick shook his head.
“I’m not saying anything. I’ve my own ideas. I was framed—that’s all—and I’ve a very fair idea of who did it. And why!” The colour suffused his cheeks. “Dirty work,” he said. “Spying on a man—laying traps for him—lying about him. Oh, I’ve had my enemies all right. But I’ve never let them get me down. I’ve always given as good as I got. And I don’t forget.”
He stopped. Suddenly his manner changed back again. He was genial once more.
“So I can’t help you, I’m afraid. A little bit of fun between me and Helen—that was all. It didn’t go deep.”
Gwenda stared at him. It was a clear enough story—but was it true? she wondered. Something jarred—it came to the surface of her mind what that something was.
“All the same,” she said, “you looked her up when you came to Dillmouth later.”
He laughed.
“You’ve got me there, Mrs. Reed. Yes, I did. Wanted to show her perhaps that I wasn’t down and out just because a long-faced lawyer had pushed me out of his office. I had a nice business and I was driving a posh car and I’d done very well for myself.”
“You came to see her more than once, didn’t you?”
He hesitated a moment.
“Twice—perhaps three times. Just dropped in.” He nodded with sudden finality. “Sorry I can’t help you.”
Giles got up.
“We must apologize for taking up so much of your time.”
“That’s all right. Quite a change to talk about old times.”
The door opened and a woman looked in and apologized swiftly.
“Oh, I’m so sorry—I didn’t know you had anyone—”
“Come in, my dear, come in. Meet my wife. This is Mr. and Mrs. Reed.”
Mrs. Afflick shook hands. She was a tall, thin, depressed-looking woman, dressed in rather unexpectedly well-cut clothes.
“Been talking over old times, we have,” said Mr. Afflick. “Old times before I met you, Dorothy.”
He turned to them.
“Met my wife on a cruise,” he said. “She doesn’t come from this part of the world. Cousin of Lord Polterham’s, she is.”
He spoke with pride—the thin woman flushed.
“They’re very nice, these cruises,” said Giles.
“Very educational,” said Afflick. “Now, I didn’t have any education to speak of.”
“I always tell my husband we must go on one of those Hellenic cruises,” said Mrs. Afflick.
“No time. I’m a busy man.”
“And we mustn’t keep you,” said Giles. “Good-bye and thank you. You’ll let me know about the quotation for the outing?”
Afflick escorted them to the door. Gwenda glanced back over her shoulder. Mrs. Afflick was standing in the doorway of the study. Her face, fastened on her husband’s back, was curiously and rather unpleasantly apprehensive.
Giles and Gwenda said good-bye again and went towards their car.
“You’re always leaving something,” said Giles.
“Don’t looked martyred. I’ll get it.”
She ran back into the house. Through the open door of the study she heard Afflick say loudly: “What do you want to come butting in for? Never any sense.”
“I’m sorry, Jackie. I didn’t know. Who are those people and why have they upset you so?”
“They haven’t upset me. I—” He stopped as he saw Gwenda standing in the doorway.
“Oh, Mr. Afflick, did I leave a scarf?”
“Scarf? No, Mrs. Reed, it’s not here.”
“Stupid of me. It must be in the car.”
She went out again.
Giles had turned the car. Drawn up by the kerb was a large yellow limousine resplendent with chromium.
“Some car,” said Giles.
“‘A posh car,’” said Gwenda. “Do you remember, Giles? Edith Pagett when she was telling us what Lily said? Lily had put her money on Captain Erskine, not ‘our mystery man in the flashy car.’ Don’t you see, the mystery man in the flashy car was Jackie Afflick?”
“Yes,” said Giles. “And in her letter to the doctor Lily mentioned a ‘posh car.’”
They looked at each other.
“He was there—‘on the spot,’ as Miss Marple would say—on that night. Oh Giles, I can hardly wait until Thursday to hear what Lily Kimble says.”
“Suppose she gets cold feet and doesn’t turn up after all?”
“Oh, she’ll come. Giles, if that flashy car was there that night—”
“Think it was a yellow peril like this?”
“Admiring my bus?” Mr. Afflick’s genial voice made them jump. He was leaning over the neatly clipped hedge behind them. “Little Buttercup, that’s what I call her. I’ve always liked a nice bit of bodywork. Hits you in the eye, doesn’t she?”
“She certainly does,” said Giles.
“Fond of flowers, I am,” said Mr. Afflick. “Daffodils, buttercups, calceolarias—they’re all my fancy. Here’s your scarf, Mrs. Reed. It had slipped down behind the table. Good-bye. Pleased to have met you.”
“Do you think he heard us calling his car a yellow peril?” asked Gwenda as they drove away.
“Oh, I don’t think so. He seemed quite amiable, didn’t he?”
Giles looked slightly uneasy.
“Ye-es—but I don’t think that means much … Giles, that wife of his—she’s frightened of him, I saw her face.”
“What? That jovial pleasant chap?”
“Perhaps he isn’t so jovial and pleasant underneath … Giles, I don’t think I like Mr. Afflick … I wonder how long he’d been there behind us listening to what we were saying … Just what did we say?”
“Nothing much,” said Giles.
But he still looked uneasy.
Twenty-two
LILY KEEPS AN APPOINTMENT
I
“Well, I’m damned,” exclaimed Giles.
He had just torn open a letter that had arrived by the after-lunch post and was staring in complete astonishment at its contents.
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s the report of the handwriting experts.”
Gwenda said eagerly: “And she didn’t write that letter from abroad?”
“That’s just it, Gwenda. She did.”
They stared at each other.
Gwenda said incredulously: “Then those letters weren’t a fake. They were genuine. Helen did go away from the house that night. And she did write from abroad. And she wasn’t strangled at all?”
Giles said slowly: “It seems so. But it really is very upsetting. I don’t understand it. Just as everything seems to be pointing the other way.”
“Perhaps the experts are wrong?”
“I suppose they might be. But they seem quite confident. Gwenda, I really don’t understand a single thing about all this. Have we been making the most colossal idiots of ourselves?”
“All based on my silly behaviour at the theatre? I tell you what, Giles, let’s call round on Miss Marple. We’ll have time before we get to Dr. Kennedy’s at four thirty.”
Miss Marple, however, reacted rather differently from the way they had expected. She said it was very nice indeed.
“But darling Miss Marple,” said Gwenda, “what do you mean by that?”
“I mean, my dear, that somebody hasn’t been as clever as they might have been.”
“But how—in what way?”
“Slipped up,” said Miss Marple, nodding her head with satisfaction.
“But how?”
“Well, dear Mr. Reed, surely you can see how it narrows the field.”
“Accepting the fact that Helen actually wrote the letters—do you mean that she might still have been murdered?”
“I mean that it seemed very important to someone that the letters should actually be in Helen’s handwriting.”
“I see … At least I think I see. There must be certain possible circumstances in which Helen could have been induced to write those particular letters … That would narrow things down. But what circumstances exactly?”
“Oh, come now, Mr. Reed. You’re not really thinking. It’s perfectly simple, really.”
Giles looked annoyed and mutinous.
“It’s not obvious to me, I can assure you.”
“If you’d just reflect a little—”
“Come on, Giles,” said Gwenda. “We’ll be late.”
They left Miss Marple smiling to herself.
“That old woman annoys me sometimes,” said Giles. “I don’t know now what the hell she was driving at.”
They reached Dr. Kennedy’s house in good time.
The doctor himself opened the door to them.
“I’ve let my housekeeper go out for the afternoon,” he explained. “It seemed to be better.”
He led the way into the sitting room where a tea tray with cups and saucers, bread and butter and cakes was ready.
“Cup of tea’s a good move, isn’t it?” he asked rather uncertainly of Gwenda. “Put this Mrs. Kimble at her ease and all that.”
“You’re absolutely right,” said Gwenda.
“Now what about you two? Shall I introduce you straight away? Or will it put her off?”
Gwenda said slowly: “Country people are very suspicious. I believe it would be better if you received her alone.”
“I think so too,” said Giles.
Dr. Kennedy said, “If you were to wait in the room next door, and if this communicating door were slightly ajar, you would be able to hear what went on. Under the circumstances of the case, I think that you would be justified.”
“I suppose it’s eavesdropping, but I really don’t care,” said Gwenda.
Dr. Kennedy smiled faintly and said: “I don’t think any ethical principle is involved. I do not propose, in any case, to give a promise of secrecy—though I am willing to give my advice if I am asked for it.”
He glanced at his watch.
“The train is due at Woodleigh Road at four thirty-five. It should arrive in a few minutes now. Then it will take her about five minutes to walk up the hill.”
He walked restlessly up and down the room. His face was lined and haggard.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “I don’t understand in the least what it all means. If Helen never left that house, if her letters to me were forgeries.” Gwenda moved sharply—but Giles shook his head at her. The doctor went on: “If Kelvin, poor fellow, didn’t kill her, then what on earth did happen?”
“Somebody else killed her,” said Gwenda.
“But my dear child, if somebody else killed her, why on earth should Kelvin insist that he had done so?”
“Because he thought he had. He found her there on the bed and he thought he had done it. That could happen, couldn’t it?”
Dr. Kennedy rubbed his nose irritably.
“How should I know? I’m not a psychiatrist. Shock?
Nervous condition already? Yes, I suppose it’s possible. But who would want to kill Helen?”
“We think one of three people,” said Gwenda.
“Three people? What three people? Nobody could have any possible reason for killing Helen—unless they were completely off their heads. She’d no enemies. Everybody liked her.”
He went to the desk drawer and fumbled through its contents.
He held out a faded snapshot. It showed a tall schoolgirl in a gym tunic, her hair tied back, her face radiant. Kennedy, a younger, happy-looking Kennedy, stood beside her, holding a terrier puppy.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about her lately,” he said indistinctly. “For many years I hadn’t thought about her at all—almost managed to forget … Now I think about her all the time. That’s your doing.”
His words sounded almost accusing.
“I think it’s her doing,” said Gwenda.
He wheeled round on her sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. I can’t explain. But it’s not really us. It’s Helen herself.”
The faint melancholy scream of an engine came to their ears. Dr. Kennedy stepped out of the window and they followed him. A trail of smoke showed itself retreating slowly along the valley.
“There goes the train,” said Kennedy.
“Coming into the station?”
“No, leaving it.” He paused. “She’ll be here any minute now.”
But the minutes passed and Lily Kimble did not come.
II
Lily Kimble got out of the train at Dillmouth Junction and walked across the bridge to the siding where the little local train was waiting. There were few passengers—a half-dozen at most. It was a slack time of day and in any case it was market day at Helchester.
Presently the train started—puffing its way importantly along a winding valley. There were three stops before the terminus at Lonsbury Bay: Newton Langford, Matchings Halt (for Woodleigh Camp) and Woodleigh Bolton.
Lily Kimble looked out of the window with eyes that did not see the lush countryside, but saw instead a Jacobean suite upholstered in jade green….
She was the only person to alight at the tiny station of Matchings Halt. She gave up her ticket and went out through the booking office. A little way along the road a signpost with “To Woodleigh Camp” indicated a footpath leading up a steep hill.
The Complete Miss Marple Collection Page 238