A Caribbean Mystery - Miss Marple 09

by Agatha Christie

  Miss Marple jumped. She had not noticed his approach. Esther Walters was supporting him and he was coming slowly down from his bungalow to the terrace.

  "I really didn't notice you, Mr. Rafter."

  "Your lips were moving. What's become of all this urgency of yours?"

  "It's still urgent," said Miss Marple, "only I can't just see what must be perfectly plain—"

  "I'm glad it's as simple as that. Well, if you want any help, count on me."

  He turned his head as Jackson approached them along the path.

  "So there you are, Jackson. Where the devil have you been? Never about when I want you."

  "Sorry, Mr. Rafter."

  Dexterously he slipped his shoulder under Mr. Rafter's. "Down to the terrace, sir?"

  "You can take me to the bar," said Mr. Rafter. "All right, Esther, you can go now and change into your evening togs. Meet me on the terrace in half an hour."

  He and Jackson went off together. Mrs. Walters dropped into the chair by Miss Marple. She rubbed her arm gently. "He seems a very lightweight," she observed, "but at the moment my arm feels quite numb. I haven't seen you this afternoon at all. Miss Marple."

  "No, I've been sitting with Molly Kendal," Miss Marple explained. "She seems really very much better."

  "If you ask me there was never very much wrong with her," said Esther Walters.

  Miss Marple raised her eyebrows.

  Esther Walters's tone had been decidedly dry.

  "You mean—you think her suicide attempt . . ."

  "I don't think there was any suicide attempt," said Esther Walters. "I don't believe for a moment she took a real overdose and I think Dr. Graham knows that perfectly well."

  "Now you interest me very much," said Miss Marple. "I wonder why you say that?"

  "Because I'm almost certain that it's the case. Oh, it's a thing that happens very often. It's a way, I suppose, of calling attention to oneself," went on Esther Walters.

  "'You'll be sorry when I'm dead'?" quoted Miss Marple.

  "That sort of thing," agreed Esther Walters, "though I don't think that was the motive in this particular instance. That's the sort of thing you feel like when your husband's playing you up and yet you're still terribly fond of him."

  "You don't think Molly Kendal is fond of her husband?"

  "Well," said Esther Walters, "do you?"

  Miss Marple considered. "I have," she said, "more or less assumed it." She paused a moment before adding, "perhaps wrongly."

  Esther was smiling her rather wry smile.

  "I've heard a little about her, you know. About the whole business."

  "From Miss Prescott?"

  "Oh," said Esther, "from one or two people. There's a man in the case. Someone she was keen on. Her people were dead against him."

  "Yes," said Miss Marple, "I did hear that."

  "And then she married Tim. Perhaps she was fond of him in a way. But the other man didn't give up. I've wondered once or twice if he didn't actually follow her out here."

  "Indeed. But—who?"

  "I've no idea who," said Esther, "and I should imagine that they've been very careful."

  "You think she cares for this other man?"

  Esther shrugged her shoulders. "I dare say he's a bad lot," she said, "but that's very often the kind who knows how to get under a woman's skin and stay there."

  "You never heard what kind of a man—what he did—anything like that?"

  Esther shook her head. "No. People hazard guesses, but you can't go by that type of thing. He may have been a married man. That may have been why her people disliked it, or he may have been a real bad lot. Perhaps he drank. Perhaps he tangled with the law. I don't know. But she cares for him still. That I know positively."

  "You've seen something, heard something?" Miss Marple hazarded.

  "I know what I'm talking about," said Esther. Her voice was harsh and unfriendly.

  "These murders—" began Miss Marple.

  "Can't you forget murders?" said Esther. "You've got Mr. Rafter now all tangled up in them. Can't you just—let them be? You'll never find out any more, I'm sure of that."

  Miss Marple looked at her.

  "You think you know, don't you?" she said.

  "I think I do, yes. I'm fairly sure."

  "Then oughtn't you to tell what you know—do something about it?"

  "Why should I? What good would it do? I couldn't prove anything. What would happen anyway? People get let off nowadays so easily. They call it diminished responsibility and things like that. A few years in prison and you're out again, as right as rain."

  "Supposing, because you don't tell what you know, somebody else gets killed—another victim?"

  Esther shook her head with confidence.

  "That won't happen," she said.

  "You can't be sure of it."

  "I am sure. And in any case I don't see who—" She frowned. "Anyway," she added, almost inconsequently, "perhaps it is—diminished responsibility. Perhaps you can't help it—not if you are really mentally unbalanced. Oh, I don't know. By far the best thing would be if she went off with whoever it is, then we could all forget about things."

  She glanced at her watch, gave an exclamation of dismay and got up. "I must go and change."

  Miss Marple sat looking after her. Pronouns, she thought, were always puzzling and women like Esther Walters were particularly prone to strew them about haphazard.

  Was Esther Walters for some reason convinced that a woman had been responsible for the deaths of Major Palgrave and Victoria? It sounded like it.

  Miss Marple considered.

  "Ah, Miss Marple, sitting here all alone—and not even knitting?"

  It was Dr. Graham for whom she had sought so long and so unsuccessfully.

  And here he was prepared of his own accord to sit down for a few minutes' chat. He wouldn't stay long. Miss Marple thought, because he too was bent on changing for dinner, and he usually dined fairly early. She explained that she had been sitting by Molly Kendal's bedside that afternoon.

  "One can hardly believe she has made such a good recovery so quickly," she said.

  "Oh well," said Dr. Graham, "it's not very surprising. She didn't take a very heavy overdose, you know."

  "Oh, I understood she'd taken quite a half-bottle full of tablets."

  Dr. Graham was smiling indulgently.

  "No," he said, "I don't think she took that amount. I dare say she meant to take them, then probably at the last moment she threw half of them away. People, even when they think they want to commit suicide, often don't really want to do it. They manage not to take a full overdose. It's not always deliberate deceit, it's just the subconscious looking after itself."

  "Or, I suppose it might be deliberate. I mean, wanting it to appear that . . ." Miss Marple paused.

  "It's possible," said Dr. Graham.

  "If she and Tim had had a row, for instance?"

  "They don't have rows, you know. They seem very fond of each other. Still, I suppose it can always happen once. No, I don't think there's very much wrong with her now. She could really get up and go about as usual. Still, it's safer to keep her where she is for a day or two—" He got up, nodded cheerfully and went off towards the hotel. Miss Marple sat where she was a little while longer.

  Various thoughts passed through her mind. The book under Molly's mattress. The way Molly had feigned sleep. Things Joan Prescott and, later Esther Walters, had said . . . And then she went back to the beginning of it all—to Major Palgrave.

  Something struggled in her mind. Something about Major Palgrave . . .

  Something that if she could only remember . . .

  23

  THE LAST DAY

  "AND the evening and the morning were the last day," said Miss Marple to herself. Then, slightly confused, she sat upright again in her chair. She had dozed off, an incredible thing to do because the steel band was playing and anyone who could doze off during the steel band . . . Well, it showed, thought Miss
Marple, that she was getting used to this place! What was it she had been saying? Some quotation that she'd got wrong. Last day? First day. That's what it ought to be. This wasn't the first day. Presumably it wasn't the last day either.

  She sat upright again. The fact was that she was extremely tired. All this anxiety, this feeling of having been shamefully inadequate in some way . . . She remembered unpleasantly once more that queer sly look that Molly had given her from under her half-closed eyelids. What had been going on in that girl's head? How different, thought Miss Marple, everything had seemed at first. Tim Kendal and Molly, such a natural happy young couple. The Hillingdons so pleasant, so well bred, such what is called "nice" people. The gay hearty extrovert, Greg Dyson, and the gay strident Lucky, talking nineteen to the dozen, pleased with herself and the world . . . A quartet of people getting on so well together. Canon Prescott, that genial kindly man. Joan Prescott, an acid streak in her, but a very nice woman, and nice women have to have their gossipy distractions. They have to know what is going on, to know when two and two make four, and when it is possible to stretch them to five! There was no harm in such women. Their tongues wagged but they were kind if you were in misfortune. Mr. Rafter, a personality, a man of character, a man that you would never by any chance forget. But Miss Marple thought she knew something else about Mr. Rafter. The doctors had often given him up, so he had said, but this time, she thought, they had been more certain in their pronouncements. Mr. Rafter knew that his days were numbered.

  Knowing this with certainty, was there any action he might have been likely to take?

  Miss Marple considered the question.

  It might, she thought, be important.

  What was it exactly he had said, his voice a little too loud, a little too sure?

  Miss Marple was very skilful in tones of voice. She had done so much listening in her life. Mr. Rafter had been telling her something that wasn't true.

  Miss Marple looked round her. The night air, the soft fragrance of flowers, the tables with their little lights, the women with their pretty dresses, Evelyn in a dark indigo and white print. Lucky in a white sheath, her golden hair shining.

  Everybody seemed gay and full of life tonight. Even Tim Kendal was smiling.

  He passed her table and said: "Can't thank you enough for all you've done. Molly's practically herself again. The doc says she can get up tomorrow."

  Miss Marple smiled at him and said that that was good hearing. She found it, however, quite an effort to smile. Decidedly, she was tired . . .

  She got up and walked slowly back to her bungalow. She would have liked to go on thinking, puzzling, trying to remember, trying to assemble various facts and words and glances. But she wasn't able to do it. The tired mind rebelled. It said "Sleep! You've got to go to sleep!"

  Miss Marple undressed, got into bed, read a few verses of the Thomas Kempis which she kept by her bed, then she turned out the light. In the darkness she sent up a prayer.

  One couldn't do everything oneself.

  One had to have help. "Nothing will happen tonight," she murmured hopefully.

  II

  Miss Marple woke suddenly and sat up in bed. Her heart was beating. She switched on the light and looked at the little clock by her bedside. Two A.M.. Two A.M. and outside activity of some kind was going on. She got up, put on her dressing gown and slippers, and a woollen scarf round her head and went out to reconnoitre. There were people moving about with torches.

  Among them she saw Canon Prescott and went to him.

  "What's happening?"

  "Oh, Miss Marple? It's Mrs. Kendal. Her husband woke up, found she'd slipped out of bed and gone out. We're looking for her."

  He hurried on. Miss Marple walked more slowly after him. Where had Molly gone? Why? Had she planned this deliberately, planned to slip away as soon as the guard on her was relaxed, and while her husband was deep in sleep? Miss Marple thought it was probable. But why? What was the reason? Was there, as Esther Walters had so strongly hinted, some other man? If so, who could that man be? Or was there some more sinister reason?

  Miss Marple walked on, looking around her, peering under bushes. Then suddenly she heard a faint call: "Here . . . This way . . ."

  The cry had come from some little distance beyond the hotel grounds. It must be, thought Miss Marple near the creek of water that ran down to the sea. She went in that direction as briskly as she could.

  There were not really so many searchers as it had seemed to her at first. Most people must still be asleep in their bungalows.

  She saw a place on the creek bank where there were people standing. Someone pushed past her, almost knocking her down, running in that direction. It was Tim Kendal. A minute or two later she heard his voice cry out: "Molly! My God, Molly!"

  It was a minute or two before Miss Marple was able to join the little group.

  It consisted of one of the Cuban waiters, Evelyn Hillingdon, and two of the native girls. They had parted to let Tim through.

  Miss Marple arrived as he was bending over to look.

  "Molly . . ." He slowly dropped on to his knees. Miss Marple saw the girl's body clearly, lying there in the creek, her face below the level of the water, her golden hair spread over the pale green embroidered shawl that covered her shoulders. With the leaves and rushes of the creek, it seemed almost like a scene from Hamlet with Molly as the dead Ophelia . . .

  As Tim stretched out a hand to touch her, the quiet, common-sense Miss Marple took charge and spoke sharply and authoritatively.

  'Don't move her, Mr. Kendal," she said. "She mustn't be moved."

  Tim turned a dazed face up to her.

  "But— I must—it's Molly. I must . . ."

  Evelyn Hillingdon touched his shoulder.

  "She's dead, Tim. I didn't move her, but I did feel her pulse."

  "Dead?" said Tim unbelievingly.

  "Dead? You mean she's—drowned herself?"

  "I'm afraid so. It looks like it."

  "But why?" A great cry burst from the young man. "Why? She was so happy this evening. Talking about what we'd do tomorrow. Why should this terrible death wish come over her again? Why should she steal away as she did—rush out into the night, come down here and drown herself? What despair did she have—what misery—why couldn't she tell me anything?"

  "I don't know, my dear," said Evelyn gently. "I don't know."

  Miss Marple said, "Somebody had better get Dr. Graham. And someone will have to telephone the police."

  "The police?" Tim uttered a bitter laugh. "What good will they be?"

  "The police have to be notified in a case of suicide," said Miss Marple.

  Tim rose slowly to his feet.

  "I'll get Graham," he said heavily. "Perhaps—even now—he could—do something."

  He stumbled away in the direction of the hotel.

  Evelyn Hillingdon and Miss Marple stood side by side looking down at the dead girl.

  Evelyn shook her head. "It's too late. She's quite cold. She must have been dead at least an hour, perhaps more. What a tragedy it all is. Those two always seemed so happy. I suppose she was always unbalanced."

  "No," said Miss Marple. "I don't think she was unbalanced."

  Evelyn looked at her curiously. "What do you mean?"

  The moon had been behind a cloud, but now it came out into the open. It shone with a luminous silvery brightness on Molly's outspread hair . . .

  Miss Marple gave a sudden ejaculation.

  She bent down, peering, then stretched out her hand and touched the golden head. She spoke to Evelyn Hillingdon, and her voice sounded quite different.

  "I think," she said, "that we had better make sure."

  Evelyn Hillingdon stared at her in astonishment.

  "But you yourself told Tim we mustn't touch anything?"

  "I know. But the moon wasn't out. I hadn't seen—" Her finger pointed. Then, very gently, she touched the blonde hair and parted it so that the roots were exposed . . .

  Eve
lyn gave a sharp ejaculation. "Lucky! And then after a moment she repeated: "Not Molly . . . Lucky."

  Miss Marple nodded. "Their hair was of much the same colour—but hers, of course, was dark at the roots because it was dyed."

  "But she's wearing Molly's shawl!"

  "She admired it. I heard her say she was going to get one like it. Evidently she did."

  "So that's why we were—deceived . . ." Evelyn broke off as she met Miss Marple's eyes watching her.

  "Someone," said Miss Marple, "will have to tell her husband."

  There was a moment's pause, then Evelyn said: "All right. I'll do it."

  She turned and walked away through the palm trees.

  Miss Marple remained for a moment motionless, then she turned her head very slightly, and said: "Yes, Colonel Hillingdon?"

  Edward Hillingdon came from the trees behind her to stand by her side. "You knew I was there?"

  "You cast a shadow," said Miss Marple.

  They stood a moment in silence.

  He said, more as though he were speaking to himself: "So, in the end, she played her luck too far . . ."

  "You are, I think, glad she is dead?"

  "And that shocks you? Well, I will not deny it. I am glad she is dead."

  "Death is often a solution to problems."

  Edward Hillingdon turned his head slowly. Miss Marple met his eyes calmly and steadfastly.

  "If you think—" he took a sharp step towards her.

  There was a sudden menace in his tone.

  Miss Marple said quietly: "Your wife will be back with Mr. Dyson in a moment. Or Mr. Kendal will be here with Dr. Graham."

  Edward Hillingdon relaxed. He turned back to look down at the dead woman. Miss Marple slipped away quietly. Presently her pace quickened. Just before reaching her own bungalow, she paused. It was here that she had sat that day talking to Major Palgrave. It was here that he had fumbled in his wallet looking for the snapshot of a murderer . . .

  She remembered how he had looked up, and how his face had gone purple and red . . . "So ugly," as Señora de Caspearo had said. "He has the Evil Eye."

  The Evil Eye . . . Eye . . . Eye . . .

  24

  NEMESIS

  WHATEVER the alarms and excursions of the night, Mr. Rafter had not heard them.