A Caribbean Mystery - Miss Marple 09

by Agatha Christie

"What did she say? Can you remember?"

  "I think I asked her who she'd been talking to. I heard her voice out there."

  "And who did she say she'd been talking to?"

  "Gregory Dyson."

  "Ah. Yes. That is what he said."

  Tim went on, "He'd been making a pass at her I understand. He was a bit given to that kind of thing. It annoyed me and I said 'Blast him' and Molly laughed and said she could do all the blasting that needed to be done. Molly's a very clever girl that way. It's not always an easy position, you know. You can't 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."

  "Had there been any altercation between them?"

  "No, I don't think so. I think, as I say, she just laughed it off as usual."

  "You can't say definitely whether she had a knife in her hand or not?"

  "I can't remember. I'm almost sure she didn't. In fact quite sure she didn't."

  "But you said just now . . ."

  "Look here, what I meant was that if she was in the dining room or in the kitchen it's 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. That's definite."

  "I see," said Weston.

  Tim looked at him uneasily.

  "What on earth is this you're getting at? What did that damn. fool Enrico—Manuel—whichever it was—say?"

  "He said your wife came out into the kitchen, that she looked upset, that she had a knife in her hand."

  "He's just dramatising."

  "Did you have any further conversation with your wife during dinner or after?"

  "No, I don't think I did really. Matter of fact I was rather busy."

  "Was your wife in the dining room during the meal?"

  "I—oh—yes, we always move about among the guests and things like that. See how things are going on."

  "Did you speak to her at all?"

  "No, I don't think I did . . . We're usually fairly busy. We don't always notice what the other one's doing and we certainly haven't got time to talk to each other."

  "Actually you don't remember speaking to her until she came up the steps three hours later, after finding the body?"

  "It was an awful shock for her. It upset her terribly."

  "I know. A very unpleasant experience. How did she come to be walking along the beach path?"

  "After 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."

  "When she came back, I understand you were talking to Mrs. Hillingdon."

  "Yes. Practically everyone else had gone to bed."

  "What was the subject of your conversation with Mrs. Hillingdon?"

  "Nothing particular. Why? What's she been saying?"

  "So far she hasn't said anything. We haven't asked her."

  "We were just talking of this and that. Molly, the hotel running, and one thing and another."

  "And then your wife came up the steps of the terrace and told you what had happened?"

  "Yes."

  "There was blood on her hands?"

  "Of course there was! She'd bent over the girl, tried to lift her, couldn't 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?"

  "Please calm down," said Daventry.

  "It's all a great strain on you I know, Tim, but we have to get the facts clear. I understand your wife hasn't been feeling very well lately?"

  "Nonsense—she's all right. Major Palgrave's death upset her a bit. Naturally. She's a sensitive girl."

  "We shall have to ask her a few questions as soon as she's fit enough," said Weston.

  "Well, you can't now. The doctor gave her a sedative and said she wasn't to be disturbed. I won't have her upset and browbeaten, d'you hear?"

  "We're not going to do any browbeating," said Weston. "We've just got to get the facts clear. We won't disturb her at present, but as soon as the doctor allows us, we'll have to see her." His voice was gentle—inflexible.

  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.

  "Yes," she said, "I was talking to Mr. Kendal on the terrace when his wife came up the steps and told us about the murder."

  "Your husband wasn't there?"

  "No, he had gone to bed."

  "Had you any special reason for your conversation with Mr. Kendal?"

  Evelyn raised her finely pencilled eyebrows. It was a definite rebuke.

  She said coldly: ''What a very odd question. No, there was nothing special about our conversation."

  "Did you discuss the matter of his wife's health?"

  Again Evelyn took her time.

  "I really can't remember," she said at last.

  "Are you sure of that?"

  "Sure that I can't remember? What a curious way of putting it. One talks about so many things at different times."

  "Mrs. Kendal has not been in good health lately, I understand."

  "She looked quite all right—a 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."

  "Flustered." Weston repeated the word. "That was the way you would describe it?"

  "It's an old-fashioned word, perhaps, but just as good as the modern jargon we use for everything. A 'virus infection' for a bilious attack—an 'anxiety neurosis' for the minor bothers of daily life." 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.

  "Thank you, Mrs. Hillingdon," said Weston.

  III

  "We don't 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."

  "Oh yes," said Molly, "I'm really quite all right again." She gave them a small nervous smile. "It was just the shock. It was rather awful, you know."

  "Yes, indeed it must have been. I understand you went for a walk after dinner."

  "Yes. I often do."

  Her eyes shifted, Daventry noticed, and the fingers of her hands twined and untwined about each other.

  "What time would that have been, Mrs. Kendal?" asked Weston.

  "Well, I don't really know—we don't go much by the time."

  "The steel band was still playing?"

  "Yes. At least I think so. I can't really remember."

  "And you walked, which way?"

  "Oh, along the beach path."

  "To the left or the right?"

  "Oh! First one way—and then the other. I—I really didn't notice."

  "Why didn't you notice, Mrs. Kendal?"

  She frowned.

  "I suppose I was—well—thinking of things."

  "Thinking of anything particular?"

  "No. No. Nothing particular. Just things that had to be done—seen to—in the hotel."

  Again that nervous twining and untwining of fingers.

  "And then I noticed something white in a clump of hibiscus bushes and I wondered what it was. I stopped and—and pulled—" She swallowed convulsively. "And it was her—Victoria—all huddled up—and I tried to raise her head up and I got—blood—on my hands." She looked at them and repeated wonderingly as though recalling something impossible: "Blood—on my hands."

  "Yes. Yes. A very dreadful experience. There is no need for you to tell us more about that part of it. How long had you been walking, do you
think, when you found her?"

  "I don't know. I have no idea."

  "An hour? Half an hour? Or more than an hour?"

  "I don't know," Molly repeated.

  Daventry asked in a quiet everyday voice: "Did you take a knife with you on your walk?"

  "A knife?" Molly sounded surprised. "Why should I take a knife?"

  "I 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."

  Molly frowned.

  "But I didn't go out of the kitchen—oh you mean earlier—before dinner. I—I don't think so."

  "You had been rearranging the cutlery on the tables, perhaps."

  "I have to, sometimes. They lay things wrong, not enough knives, or too many. The wrong number of forks and spoons, that sort of thing."

  "And did that happen on this particular evening?"

  "It may have done—something like that—It's really automatic. One doesn't think, or remember—"

  "So you may have gone out of the kitchen that evening carrying a knife in your hand?"

  "I don't think I did—I'm sure I didn't." She added: "Tim was there—he would know. Ask him."

  "Did you like this girl—Victoria—was she good at her work?" asked Weston.

  "Yes—she was a very nice girl."

  "You had had no dispute with her?"

  "Dispute? No."

  "She had never threatened you—in any way?"

  "Threatened me? What do you mean?"

  "It doesn't matter. You have no idea of who could have killed her? No idea at all?"

  "None." She spoke positively.

  "Well, thank you, Mrs. Kendal." He smiled. "It wasn't so terrible, was it?"

  "That's all?"

  "That's all for now."

  Daventry got up, opened the door for her, and watched her go out.

  "Tim would know," he quoted as he returned to his chair. "And Tim says definitely that she didn't have a knife."

  Weston said gravely: "I think that that is what any husband would feel called upon to say."

  "A table knife seems a very poor type of knife to use for murder."

  "But it was a steak knife, Mr. Daventry. Steaks were on the menu that evening. Steak knives are kept sharp."

  "I really can't bring myself to believe that the girl we've just been talking to is a red-handed murderess, Weston."

  "It 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 superfluous—she might not even have noticed she was holding it, and she could have put it down somewhere—or dropped it. It could have been found and used by someone else. I, too, think her an unlikely murderess."

  "All the same," said Daventry thoughtfully, "I'm pretty sure she is not telling all she knows. Her vagueness over time is odd, Where was she? What was she doing out there? Nobody, so far, seems to have noticed her in the dining room that evening."

  "The husband was about as usual, but not the wife . . ."

  "You think she went to meet someone? Victoria Johnson?"

  "Perhaps—or perhaps she saw whoever it was who did go to meet Victoria."

  "You're thinking of Gregory Dyson?"

  "We know he was talking to Victoria earlier. He may have arranged to meet her again later. Everyone moved around freely on the terrace, remember—dancing, drinking—in and out of the bar."

  "No alibi like a steel band," said Daventry wryly.

  16

  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 day. An expedition, perhaps, to Castle Cliff; a visit to Jamestown; a nice drive and lunch at Pelican Point—or just a quiet morning on the beach.

  But the gentle old lady was deliberating quite other matters. She was in a militant mood.

  "Something has got to be done," said Miss Marple to herself.

  Moreover, she was convinced that there was no time to be lost. There 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 enough—not nearly enough. And time was short.

  She realised, bitterly, that here on this Paradise of an island, she had none of her usual allies. She thought regretfully of her friends in England: Sir Henry Clithering, always willing to listen indulgently, his 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 lady's urgency? Dr. Graham? But Dr. Graham was not what she needed—too 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 recognised by her as an answer to a prayer, far from it. At the back of her mind it registered only as a man possibly calling his dog.

  "TO?"

  Miss Marple, lost in perplexity, paid no attention.

  "Hi!" The volume thus increased. Miss Marple looked vaguely round.

  "Hi!" called Mr. Rafter impatiently. He added: "You there—"

  Miss Marple had not at first realised that Mr. Rafter's "Hi You" 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. Rafter's 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. Rafter was sitting outside on his loggia and he beckoned her.

  "You were calling me?" she asked.

  "Of course I was calling you," said Mr. Rafter. "Who did you think I was calling—a cat? Come over here."

  Miss Marple looked round for her handbag, picked it up, and crossed the intervening space.

  "I can't come to you unless someone helps me," explained Mr. Rafter, "so you've got to come to me."

  "Oh yes," said Miss Marple, "I quite understand that."

  Mr. Rafter pointed to an adjacent chair. "Sit down," he said, "I want to talk to you. Something damned odd is going on in this island."

  "Yes, indeed," agreed Miss Marple, taking the chair as indicated. By sheer habit she drew her knitting out of her bag.

  "Don't start knitting again," said Mr. Rafter, "I can't stand it. I hate women knitting. It irritates me."

  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.

  "There's a lot of chit-chat going on," said Mr. Rafter, "and I bet you're in the forefront of it. You and the parson and his sister."

  "It is, perhaps, only natural that there should be chit-chat," said Miss Marple with spirit, "given the circumstances."

  "This 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 man—or he's 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?"

  "No," said Miss Marple, shaking her head.

  "The authorities don't think so, either."

  "They would say more to you," pointed out Miss Marple, "than they would say to me."

  "All the same, I bet you know more about it than I do. You've listened to the tittle-tattle."

  "Certainly I have," said Miss Marple.

  "Nothing much else to do, have you, exce
pt listen to tittle-tattle?"

  "It is often informative and useful."

  "D'you know," said Mr. Rafter, studying her attentively, "I made a mistake about you. I don't often make mistakes about people. There's 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, don't you?"

  "I very much fear so," said Miss Marple.

  "Well, he was," said Mr. Rafter.

  Miss Marple drew a deep breath. "That is definite is it?" she asked.

  "Yes, it's definite enough. I had it from Daventry. I'm 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 C.I.D. were informed, and between them they agreed that things looked fishy, so they dug up old Palgrave and had a look."

  "And they found?" Miss Marple paused interrogatively.

  "They found he'd had a lethal dose of something that only a doctor could pronounce properly. As far as I can remember it sounds vaguely like diflorhexagonalethylcarbenzol. That's not the right name. But that's roughly what it sounds like. The police doctor put it that way so that nobody should know. I suppose, what it really was. The stuff's probably got some quite simple nice easy name like Evipan or Veronal or Easton's 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 overindulgence in alcohol on a gay evening. In fact, it all looked perfectly natural and nobody questioned it for a moment. Just said 'poor old chap' and buried him quick. Now they wonder if he ever had high blood pressure at all. Did he ever say he had to you?"

  "No."

  "Exactly! And yet everyone seems to have taken it as a fact."

  "Apparently he told people he had."

  "It's like seeing ghosts," said Mr. Rafter. "You never meet the chap who's seen the ghost himself. It's 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 but—and now we're coming to the point—I 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."