“And then there was that young man on the liner—Mrs. Pusey at the paper shop, her nephew. Brought home stuff he’d stolen and got her to dispose of it. Said it was things that he’d bought abroad. She was quite taken in. And then when the police came round and started asking questions, he tried to bash her on the head, so that she shouldn’t be able to give him away … Not a nice young man—but very good-looking. Had two girls in love with him. He spent a lot of money on one of them.”
“The nastiest one, I suppose,” said Bunch.
“Yes, dear. And there was Mrs. Cray at the wool shop. Devoted to her son, spoilt him, of course. He got in with a very queer lot. Do you remember Joan Croft, Bunch?”
“N-no, I don’t think so.”
“I thought you might have seen her when you were with me on a visit. Used to stalk about smoking a cigar or a pipe. We had a Bank hold-up once, and Joan Croft was in the Bank at the time. She knocked the man down and took his revolver away from him. She was congratulated on her courage by the Bench.”
Bunch listened attentively. She seemed to be learning by heart.
“And—?” she prompted.
“That girl at St. Jean des Collines that summer. Such a quiet girl—not so much quiet as silent. Everybody liked her, but they never got to know her much better … We heard afterwards that her husband was a forger. It made her feel cut off from people. It made her, in the end, a little queer. Brooding does, you know.”
“Any Anglo-Indian Colonels in your reminiscences, darling?”
“Naturally, dear. There was Major Vaughan at The Larches and Colonel Wright at Simla Lodge. Nothing wrong with either of them. But I do remember Mr. Hodgson, the Bank Manager, went on a cruise and married a woman young enough to be his daughter. No idea of where she came from—except what she told him of course.”
“And that wasn’t true?”
“No, dear, it definitely wasn’t.”
“Not bad,” said Bunch, nodding, and ticking people off on her fingers. “We’ve had devoted Dora, and handsome Patrick, and Mrs. Swettenham and Edmund, and Phillipa Haymes, and Colonel Easterbrook and Mrs. Easterbrook—and if you ask me, I should say you’re absolutely right about her. But there wouldn’t be any reason for her murdering Letty Blacklock.”
“Miss Blacklock, of course, might know something about her that she didn’t want known.”
“Oh, darling, that old Tanqueray stuff? Surely that’s dead as the hills.”
“It might not be. You see, Bunch, you are not the kind that minds much about what people think of you.”
“I see what you mean,” said Bunch suddenly. “If you’d been up against it, and then, rather like a shivering stray cat, you’d found a home and cream and a warm stroking hand and you were called Pretty Pussy and somebody thought the world of you … You’d do a lot to keep that … Well, I must say, you’ve presented me with a very complete gallery of people.”
“You didn’t get them all right, you know,” said Miss Marple, mildly.
“Didn’t I? Where did I slip up? Julia? Julia, pretty Julia is peculiar.”
“Three and sixpence,” said the sulky waitress, materialising out of the gloom.
“And,” she added, her bosom heaving beneath the bluebirds, “I’d like to know, Mrs. Harmon, why you call me peculiar. I had an Aunt who joined the Peculiar People, but I’ve always been good Church of England myself, as the late Rev. Hopkinson can tell you.”
“I’m terribly sorry,” said Bunch. “I was just quoting a song. I didn’t mean you at all. I didn’t know your name was Julia.”
“Quite a coincidence,” said the sulky waitress, cheering up. “No offence, I’m sure, but hearing my name, as I thought—well, naturally if you think someone’s talking about you, it’s only human nature to listen. Thank you.”
She departed with her tip.
“Aunt Jane,” said Bunch, “don’t look so upset. What is it?”
“But surely,” murmured Miss Marple. “That couldn’t be so. There’s no reason—”
“Aunt Jane!”
Miss Marple sighed and then smiled brightly.
“It’s nothing, dear,” she said.
“Did you think you knew who did the murder?” asked Bunch. “Who was it?”
“I don’t know at all,” said Miss Marple. “I got an idea for a moment—but it’s gone. I wish I did know. Time’s so short. So terribly short.”
“What do you mean short?”
“That old lady up in Scotland may die any moment.”
Bunch said, staring:
“Then you really do believe in Pip and Emma. You think it was them—and that they’ll try again?”
“Of course they’ll try again,” said Miss Marple, almost absentmindedly. “If they tried once, they’ll try again. If you’ve made up your mind to murder someone, you don’t stop because the first time it didn’t come off. Especially if you’re fairly sure you’re not suspected.”
“But if it’s Pip and Emma,” said Bunch, “there are only two people it could be. It must be Patrick and Julia. They’re brother and sister and they’re the only ones who are the right age.”
“My dear, it isn’t nearly as simple as that. There are all sorts of ramifications and combinations. There’s Pip’s wife if he’s married, or Emma’s husband. There’s their mother—she’s an interested party even if she doesn’t inherit direct. If Letty Blacklock hasn’t seen her for thirty years, she’d probably not recognize her now. One elderly woman is very like another. You remember Mrs. Wotherspoon drew her own and Mrs. Bartlett’s Old Age Pension although Mrs. Bartlett had been dead for years. Anyway, Miss Blacklock’s shortsighted. Haven’t you noticed how she peers at people? And then there’s the father. Apparently he was a real bad lot.”
“Yes, but he’s a foreigner.”
“By birth. But there’s no reason to believe he speaks broken English and gesticulates with his hands. I dare say he could play the part of—of an Anglo-Indian Colonel as well as anybody else.”
“Is that what you think?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t indeed, dear. I just think that there’s a great deal of money at stake, a great deal of money. And I’m afraid I know only too well the really terrible things that people will do to lay their hands on a lot of money.”
“I suppose they will,” said Bunch. “It doesn’t really do them any good, does it? Not in the end?”
“No—but they don’t usually know that.”
“I can understand it.” Bunch smiled suddenly, her sweet rather crooked smile. “One feels it would be different for oneself … Even I feel that.” She considered: “You pretend to yourself that you’d do a lot of good with all that money. Schemes … Homes for Unwanted Children … Tired Mothers … A lovely rest abroad somewhere for elderly women who have worked too hard….”
Her face grew sombre. Her eyes were suddenly dark and tragic.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said to Miss Marple. “You’re thinking that I’d be the worst kind. Because I’d kid myself. If you just wanted the money for selfish reasons you’d at any rate see what you were like. But once you began to pretend about doing good with it, you’d be able to persuade yourself, perhaps, that it wouldn’t very much matter killing someone….”
Then her eyes cleared.
“But I shouldn’t,” she said. “I shouldn’t really kill anyone. Not even if they were old, or ill, or doing a lot of harm in the world. Not even if they were blackmailers or—or absolute beasts.” She fished a fly carefully out of the dregs of the coffee and arranged it on the table to dry. “Because people like living, don’t they? So do flies. Even if you’re old and in pain and can just crawl out in the sun. Julian says those people like living even more than young strong people do. It’s harder, he says, for them to die, the struggle’s greater. I like living myself—not just being happy and enjoying myself and having a good time. I mean living—waking up and feeling, all over me, that I’m there—ticking over.”
She blew on the f
ly gently; it waved its legs, and flew rather drunkenly away.
“Cheer up, darling Aunt Jane,” said Bunch. “I’d never kill anybody.”
Fourteen
EXCURSION INTO THE PAST
After a night in the train, Inspector Craddock alighted at a small station in the Highlands.
It struck him for a moment as strange that the wealthy Mrs. Goedler—an invalid—with a choice of a London house in a fashionable square, an estate in Hampshire, and a villa in the South of France, should have selected this remote Scottish home as her residence. Surely she was cut off here from many friends and distractions. It must be a lonely life—or was she too ill to notice or care about her surroundings?
A car was waiting to meet him. A big old-fashioned Daimler with an elderly chauffeur driving it. It was a sunny morning and the Inspector enjoyed the twenty-mile drive, though he marvelled anew at this preference for isolation. A tentative remark to the chauffeur brought partial enlightenment.
“It’s her own home as a girl. Ay, she’s the last of the family. And she and Mr. Goedler were always happier here than anywhere, though it wasn’t often he could get away from London. But when he did they enjoyed themselves like a couple of bairns.”
When the grey walls of the old keep came in sight, Craddock felt that time was slipping backwards. An elderly butler received him, and after a wash and a shave he was shown into a room with a huge fire burning in the grate, and breakfast was served to him.
After breakfast, a tall, middle-aged woman in nurse’s dress, with a pleasant and competent manner, came in and introduced herself as Sister McClelland.
“I have my patient all ready for you, Mr. Craddock. She is, indeed, looking forward to seeing you.”
“I’ll do my best not to excite her,” Craddock promised.
“I had better warn you of what will happen. You will find Mrs. Goedler apparently quite normal. She will talk and enjoy talking and then—quite suddenly—her powers will fail. Come away at once, then, and send for me. She is, you see, kept almost entirely under the influence of morphia. She drowses most of the time. In preparation for your visit, I have given her a strong stimulant. As soon as the effect of the stimulant wears off, she will relapse into semiconsciousness.”
“I quite understand, Miss McClelland. Would it be in order for you to tell me exactly what the state of Mrs. Goedler’s health is?”
“Well, Mr. Craddock, she is a dying woman. Her life cannot be prolonged for more than a few weeks. To say that she should have been dead years ago would strike you as odd, yet it is the truth. What has kept Mrs. Goedler alive is her intense enjoyment and love of being alive. That sounds, perhaps, an odd thing to say of someone who has lived the life of an invalid for many years and has not left her home here for fifteen years, but it is true. Mrs. Goedler has never been a strong woman—but she has retained to an astonishing degree the will to live.” She added with a smile, “She is a very charming woman, too, as you will find.”
Craddock was shown into a large bedroom where a fire was burning and where an old lady lay in a large canopied bed. Though she was only about seven or eight years older than Letitia Blacklock, her fragility made her seem older than her years.
Her white hair was carefully arranged, a froth of pale blue wool enveloped her neck and shoulders. There were lines of pain on the face, but lines of sweetness, too. And there was, strangely enough, what Craddock could only describe as a roguish twinkle in her faded blue eyes.
“Well, this is interesting,” she said. “It’s not often I receive a visit from the police. I hear Letitia Blacklock wasn’t much hurt by this attempt on her? How is my dear Blackie?”
“She’s very well, Mrs. Goedler. She sent you her love.”
“It’s a long time since I’ve seen her … For many years now, it’s been just a card at Christmas. I asked her to come up here when she came back to England after Charlotte’s death, but she said it would be painful after so long and perhaps she was right … Blackie always had a lot of sense. I had an old school friend to see me about a year ago, and, lor!”—she smiled—“we bored each other to death. After we’d finished all the ‘Do you remembers?’ there wasn’t anything to say. Most embarrassing.”
Craddock was content to let her talk before pressing his questions. He wanted, as it were, to get back into the past, to get the feel of the Goedler-Blacklock ménage.
“I suppose,” said Belle shrewdly, “that you want to ask about the money? Randall left it all to go to Blackie after my death. Really, of course, Randall never dreamed that I’d outlive him. He was a big strong man, never a day’s illness, and I was always a mass of aches and pains and complaints and doctors coming and pulling long faces over me.”
“I don’t think complaints would be the right word, Mrs. Goedler.”
The old lady chuckled.
“I didn’t mean it in the complaining sense. I’ve never been too sorry for myself. But it was always taken for granted that I, being the weakly one, would go first. It didn’t work out that way. No—it didn’t work out that way….”
“Why, exactly, did your husband leave his money the way he did?”
“You mean, why did he leave it to Blackie? Not for the reason you’ve probably been thinking.” The roguish twinkle was very apparent. “What minds you policemen have! Randall was never in the least in love with her and she wasn’t with him. Letitia, you know, has really got a man’s mind. She hasn’t any feminine feelings or weaknesses. I don’t believe she was ever in love with any man. She was never particularly pretty and she didn’t care for clothes. She used a little makeup in deference to prevailing custom, but not to make herself look prettier.” There was pity in the old voice as she went on: “She never knew any of the fun of being a woman.”
Craddock looked at the frail little figure in the big bed with interest. Belle Goedler, he realized, had enjoyed—still enjoyed—being a woman. She twinkled at him.
“I’ve always thought,” she said, “it must be terribly dull to be a man.”
Then she said thoughtfully:
“I think Randall looked on Blackie very much as a kind of younger brother. He relied on her judgment which was always excellent. She kept him out of trouble more than once, you know.”
“She told me that she came to his rescue once with money?”
“That, yes, but I meant more than that. One can speak the truth after all these years. Randall couldn’t really distinguish between what was crooked and what wasn’t. His conscience wasn’t sensitive. The poor dear really didn’t know what was just smart—and what was dishonest. Blackie kept him straight. That’s one thing about Letitia Blacklock, she’s absolutely dead straight. She would never do anything that was dishonest. She’s a very fine character, you know. I’ve always admired her. They had a terrible girlhood, those girls. The father was an old country doctor—terrifically pig-headed and narrow-minded—the complete family tyrant. Letitia broke away, came to London, and trained herself as a chartered accountant. The other sister was an invalid, there was a deformity of kinds and she never saw people or went out. That’s why when the old man died, Letitia gave up everything to go home and look after her sister. Randall was wild with her—but it made no difference. If Letitia thought a thing was her duty she’d do it. And you couldn’t move her.”
“How long was that before your husband died?”
“A couple of years, I think. Randall made his will before she left the firm, and he didn’t alter it. He said to me: ‘We’ve no one of our own.’ (Our little boy died, you know, when he was two years old.) ‘After you and I are gone, Blackie had better have the money. She’ll play the markets and make ’em sit up.’
“You see,” Belle went on, “Randall enjoyed the whole money-making game so much—it wasn’t just the money—it was the adventure, the risks, the excitement of it all. And Blackie liked it too. She had the same adventurous spirit and the same judgment. Poor darling, she’d never had any of the usual fun—being in love, and leading men o
n and teasing them—and having a home and children and all the real fun of life.”
Craddock thought it was odd, the real pity and indulgent contempt felt by this woman, a woman whose life had been hampered by illness, whose only child had died, whose husband had died, leaving her to a lonely widowhood, and who had been a hopeless invalid for years.
She nodded her head at him.
“I know what you’re thinking. But I’ve had all the things that make life worth while—they may have been taken from me—but I have had them. I was pretty and gay as a girl, I married the man I loved, and he never stopped loving me … My child died, but I had him for two precious years … I’ve had a lot of physical pain—but if you have pain, you know how to enjoy the exquisite pleasure of the times when pain stops. And everyone’s been kind to me, always … I’m a lucky woman, really.”
Craddock seized upon an opening in her former remarks.
“You said just now, Mrs. Goedler, that your husband left his fortune to Miss Blacklock because he had no one else to leave it to. But that’s not strictly true, is it? He had a sister.”
“Oh, Sonia. But they quarrelled years ago and made a clean break of it.”
“He disapproved of her marriage?”
“Yes, she married a man called—now what was his name—?”
“Stamfordis.”
“That’s it. Dmitri Stamfordis. Randall always said he was a crook. The two men didn’t like each other from the first. But Sonia was wildly in love with him and quite determined to marry him. And I really never saw why she shouldn’t. Men have such odd ideas about these things. Sonia wasn’t a mere girl—she was twenty-five, and she knew exactly what she was doing. He was a crook, I dare say—I mean really a crook. I believe he had a criminal record—and Randall always suspected the name he was passing under here wasn’t his own. Sonia knew all that. The point was, which of course Randall couldn’t appreciate, that Dmitri was really a wildly attractive person to women. And he was just as much in love with Sonia as she was with him. Randall insisted that he was just marrying her for her money—but that wasn’t true. Sonia was very handsome, you know. And she had plenty of spirit. If the marriage had turned out badly, if Dmitri had been unkind to her or unfaithful to her, she would just have cut her losses and walked out on him. She was a rich woman and could do as she chose with her life.”
The Complete Miss Marple Collection Page 72
