A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie
‘The four suspects,’ said Dr Lloyd softly. ‘Exactly. The four suspects. There is not much more to tell. Life went on peacefully at King’s Gnaton for five months and then the blow fell. Dr Rosen fell down the stairs one morning and was found dead about half an hour later. At the time the accident must have taken place, Gertrud was in her kitchen with the door closed and heard nothing – so she says. Fräulein Greta was in the garden planting some bulbs – again, so she says. The gardener, Dobbs, was in the small potting shed having his elevenses – so he says; and the secretary was out for a walk, and once more there is only his own word for it. No one has an alibi – no one can corroborate anyone else’s story. But one thing is certain. No one from outside could have done it, for a stranger in the little village of King’s Gnaton would be noticed without fail. Both the back and the front doors were locked, each member of the household having their own key. So you see it narrows down to those four. And yet each one seems to be above suspicion. Greta, his own brother’s child. Gertrud, with forty years of faithful service. Dobbs, who has never been out of King’s Gnaton. And Charles Templeton, the secretary –’
‘Yes,’ said Colonel Bantry, ‘what about him? He seems the suspicious person to my mind. What do you know about him?’
‘It is what I knew about him that put him completely out of court – at any rate at the time,’ said Sir Henry gravely. ‘You see, Charles Templeton was one of my own men.’
‘Oh!’ said Colonel Bantry, considerably taken aback. ‘Yes. I wanted to have someone on the spot, and at the same time I didn’t want to cause talk in the village. Rosen really needed a secretary. I put Templeton on the job. He’s a gentleman, he speaks German fluently, and he’s altogether a very able fellow.’
‘But, then, which do you suspect?’ asked Mrs Bantry in a bewildered tone. ‘They all seem so – well, impossible.’
‘Yes, so it appears. But you can look at the thing from another angle. Fräulein Greta was his niece and a very lovely girl, but the War has shown us time and again that brother can turn against sister, or father against son and so on, and the loveliest and gentlest of young girls did some of the most amazing things. The same thing applies to Gertrud, and who knows what other forces might be at work in her case. A quarrel, perhaps, with her master, a growing resentment all the more lasting because of the long faithful years behind her. Elderly women of that class can be amazingly bitter sometimes. And Dobbs? Was he right outside it because he had no connection with the family? Money will do much. In some way Dobbs might have been approached and bought.
‘For one thing seems certain: Some message or some order must have come from outside. Otherwise why five months’ immunity? No, the agents of the society must have been at work. Not yet sure of Rosen’s perfidy, they delayed till the betrayal had been traced to him beyond any possible doubt. And then, all doubts set aside, they must have sent their message to the spy within the gates – the message that said, “Kill”.’
‘How nasty!’ said Jane Helier, and shuddered. ‘But how did the message come? That was the point I tried to elucidate – the one hope of solving my problem. One of those four people must have been approached or communicated with in some way. There would be no delay – I knew that – as soon as the command came, it would be carried out. That was a peculiarity of the Schwartze Hand.
‘I went into the question, went into it in a way that will probably strike you as being ridiculously meticulous. Who had come to the cottage that morning? I eliminated nobody. Here is the list.’
He took an envelope from his pocket and selected a paper from its contents.
‘The butcher, bringing some neck of mutton. Investigated and found correct.
‘The grocer’s assistant, bringing a packet of cornflour, two pounds of sugar, a pound of butter, and a pound of coffee. Also investigated and found correct.
‘The postman, bringing two circulars for Fräulein Rosen, a local letter for Gertrud, three letters for Dr Rosen, one with a foreign stamp and two letters for Mr Templeton, one also with a foreign stamp.’
Sir Henry paused and then took a sheaf of documents from the envelope.
‘It may interest you to see these for yourself. They were handed me by the various people concerned, or collected from the waste-paper basket. I need hardly say they’ve been tested by experts for invisible ink, etc. No excitement of that kind is possible.’
Everyone crowded round to look. The catalogues were respectively from a nurseryman and from a prominent London fur establishment. The two bills addressed to Dr Rosen were a local one for seeds for the garden and one from a London stationery firm. The letter addressed to him ran as follows:
My Dear Rosen – Just back from Dr Helmuth Spath’s. I saw Edgar Jackson the other day. He and Amos Perry have just come back from Tsingtau. In all Honesty I can’t say I envy them the trip. Let me have news of you soon. As I said before: Beware of a certain person. You know who I mean, though you don’t agree. –
Yours, Georgine.
‘Mr Templeton’s mail consisted of this bill, which as you see, is an account rendered from his tailor, and a letter from a friend in Germany,’ went on Sir Henry. ‘The latter, unfortunately, he tore up whilst out on his walk. Finally we have the letter received by Gertrud.’
Dear Mrs Swartz, –We’re hoping as how you be able to come the social on friday evening, the vicar says has he hopes you will – one and all being welcome. The resipy for the ham was very good, and I thanks you for it. Hoping as this finds you well and that we shall see you friday I remain. – Yours faithfully, Emma Greene.
Dr Lloyd smiled a little over this and so did Mrs Bantry.
‘I think the last letter can be put out of court,’ said Dr Lloyd. ‘I thought the same,’ said Sir Henry; ‘but I took the precaution of verifying that there was a Mrs Greene and a Church Social. One can’t be too careful, you know.’
‘That’s what our friend Miss Marple always says,’ said Dr Lloyd, smiling. ‘You’re lost in a daydream, Miss Marple. What are you thinking out?’
Miss Marple gave a start.
‘So stupid of me,’ she said. ‘I was just wondering why the word Honesty in Dr Rosen’s letter was spelt with a capital H.’
Mrs Bantry picked it up. ‘So it is,’ she said. ‘Oh!’
‘Yes, dear,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I thought you’d notice!’
‘There’s a definite warning in that letter,’ said Colonel Bantry. ‘That’s the first thing caught my attention. I notice more than you’d think. Yes, a definite warning – against whom?’
‘There’s rather a curious point about that letter,’ said Sir Henry. ‘According to Templeton, Dr Rosen opened the letter at breakfast and tossed it across to him saying he didn’t know who the fellow was from Adam.’
‘But it wasn’t a fellow,’ said Jane Helier. ‘It was signed “Georgina”.’
‘It’s difficult to say which it is,’ said Dr Lloyd. ‘It might be Georgey; but it certainly looks more like Georgina. Only it strikes me that the writing is a man’s.’
‘You know, that’s interesting,’ said Colonel Bantry. ‘His tossing it across the table like that and pretending he knew nothing about it. Wanted to watch somebody’s face. Whose face – the girl’s? or the man’s?’
‘Or even the cook’s?’ suggested Mrs Bantry. ‘She might have been in the room bringing in the breakfast. But what I don’t see is . . . it’s most peculiar –’
She frowned over the letter. Miss Marple drew closer to her. Miss Marple’s finger went out and touched the sheet of paper. They murmured together.
‘But why did the secretary tear up the other letter?’ asked Jane Helier suddenly. ‘It seems – oh! I don’t know – it seems queer. Why should he have letters from Germany? Although, of course, if he’s above suspicion, as you say –’
‘But Sir Henry didn’t say that,’ said Miss Marple quickly, looking up from her murmured conference with Mrs Bantry. ‘He said four suspects. So that shows that he includes Mr Templeton. I?
‘Yes, Miss Marple. I have learned one thing through bitter experience. Never say to yourself that anyone is above suspicion. I gave you reasons just now why three of these people might after all be guilty, unlikely as it seemed. I did not at that time apply the same process to Charles Templeton. But I came to it at last through pursuing the rule I have just mentioned. And I was forced to recognize this: That every army and every navy and every police force has a certain number of traitors within its ranks, much as we hate to admit the idea. And I examined dispassionately the case against Charles Templeton.
‘I asked myself very much the same questions as Miss Helier has just asked. Why should he, alone of all the house, not be able to produce the letter he had received – a letter, moreover, with a German stamp on it. Why should he have letters from Germany?
‘The last question was an innocent one, and I actually put it to him. His reply came simply enough. His mother’s sister was married to a German. The letter had been from a German girl cousin. So I learned something I did not know before – that Charles Templeton had relations with people in Germany. And that put him definitely on the list of suspects – very much so. He is my own man – a lad I have always liked and trusted; but in common justice and fairness I must admit that he heads that list.
‘But there it is – I do not know! I do not know . . . And in all probability I never shall know. It is not a question of punishing a murderer. It is a question that to me seems a hundred times more important. It is the blighting, perhaps, of an honourable man’s whole career . . . because of suspicion – a suspicion that I dare not disregard.’
Miss Marple coughed and said gently: ‘Then, Sir Henry, if I understand you rightly, it is this young Mr Templeton only who is so much on your mind?’
‘Yes, in a sense. It should, in theory, be the same for all four, but that is not actually the case. Dobbs, for instance – suspicion may attach to him in my mind, but it will not actually affect his career. Nobody in the village has ever had any idea that old Dr Rosen’s death was anything but an accident. Gertrud is slightly more affected. It must make, for instance, a difference in Fräulein Rosen’s attitude toward her. But that, possibly, is not of great importance to her.
‘As for Greta Rosen – well, here we come to the crux of the matter. Greta is a very pretty girl and Charles Templeton is a good-looking young man, and for five months they were thrown together with no outer distractions. The inevitable happened. They fell in love with each other – even if they did not come to the point of admitting the fact in words.
‘And then the catastrophe happens. It is three months ago now and a day or two after I returned, Greta Rosen came to see me. She had sold the cottage and was returning to Germany, having finally settled up her uncle’s affairs. She came to me personally, although she knew I had retired, because it was really about a personal matter she wanted to see me. She beat about the bush a little, but at last it all came out. What did I think? That letter with the German stamp – she had worried about it and worried about it – the one Charles had torn up. Was it all right? Surely it must be all right. Of course she believed his story, but – oh! if she only knew! If she knew – for certain.
‘You see? The same feeling: the wish to trust – but the horrible lurking suspicion, thrust resolutely to the back of the mind, but persisting nevertheless. I spoke to her with absolute frankness, and asked her to do the same. I asked her whether she had been on the point of caring for Charles, and he for her.
‘“I think so,” she said. “Oh, yes, I know it was so. We were so happy. Every day passed so contentedly. We knew – we both knew. There was no hurry – there was all the time in the world. Some day he would tell me he loved me, and I should tell him that I too – Ah! But you can guess! And now it is all changed. A black cloud has come between us – we are constrained, when we meet we do not know what to say. It is, perhaps, the same with him as with me . . . We are each saying to ourselves, ‘If I were sure!’ That is why, Sir Henry, I beg of you to say to me, ‘You may be sure, whoever killed your uncle, it was not Charles Templeton!’ Say it to me! Oh, say it to me! I beg – I beg!”
‘And, damn it all,’ said Sir Henry, bringing down his fist with a bang on the table, ‘I couldn’t say it to her. They’ll drift farther and farther apart, those two – with suspicion like a ghost between them – a ghost that can’t be laid.’
He leant back in his chair, his face looked tired and grey. He shook his head once or twice despondently.
‘And there’s nothing more can be done, unless –’ He sat up straight again and a tiny whimsical smile crossed his face – ‘unless Miss Marple can help us. Can’t you, Miss Marple? I’ve a feeling that letter might be in your line, you know. The one about the Church Social. Doesn’t it remind you of something or someone that makes everything perfectly plain? Can’t you do something to help two helpless young people who want to be happy?’
Behind the whimsicality there was something earnest in his appeal. He had come to think very highly of the mental powers of this frail old-
fashioned maiden lady. He looked across at her with something very like hope in his eyes.
Miss Marple coughed and smoothed her lace. ‘It does remind me a little of Annie Poultny,’ she admitted. ‘Of course the letter is perfectly plain – both to Mrs Bantry and myself. I don’t mean the Church Social letter, but the other one. You living so much in London and not being a gardener, Sir Henry, would not have been likely to notice.’
‘Eh?’ said Sir Henry. ‘Notice what?’
Mrs Bantry reached out a hand and selected a catalogue. She opened it and read aloud with gusto:
‘Dr Helmuth Spath. Pure lilac, a wonderfully fine flower, carried on exceptionally long and stiff stem. Splendid for cutting and garden decoration. A novelty of striking beauty.
‘Edgar Jackson. Beautifully shaped chrysanthemum-like flower of a distinct brick-red colour.
‘Amos Perry. Brilliant red, highly decorative. ‘Tsingtau. Brilliant orange-red, showy garden plant and lasting cut flower.
‘Honesty –’
‘With a capital H, you remember,’ murmured Miss Marple. ‘Honesty. Rose and white shades, enormous perfect shaped flower.’ Mrs Bantry flung down the catalogue, and said with immense explosive force:
‘Dahlias!’
‘And their initial letters spell “death”, explained Miss Marple. ‘But the letter came to Dr Rosen himself,’ objected Sir Henry. ‘That was the clever part of it,’ said Miss Marple. ‘That and the warning in it. What would he do, getting a letter from someone he didn’t know, full of names he didn’t know. Why, of course, toss it over to his secretary.’
‘Then, after all –’
‘Oh, no!’ said Miss Marple. ‘Not the secretary. Why, that’s what makes it so perfectly clear that it wasn’t him. He’d never have let that letter be found if so. And equally he’d never have destroyed a letter to himself with a German stamp on it. Really, his innocence is – if you’ll allow me to use the word – just shining.’
‘Then who –’
‘Well, it seems almost certain – as certain as anything can be in this world. There was another person at the breakfast table, and she would – quite naturally under the circumstances – put out her hand for the letter and read it. And that would be that. You remember that she got a gardening catalogue by the same post –’
‘Greta Rosen,’ said Sir Henry, slowly. ‘Then her visit to me –’
‘Gentlemen never see through these things,’ said Miss Marple. ‘And I’m afraid they often think we old women are – well, cats, to see things the way we do. But there it is. One does know a great deal about one’s own sex, unfortunately. I’ve no doubt there was a barrier between them. The young man felt a sudden inexplicable repulsion. He suspected, purely through instinct, and couldn’t hide the suspicion. And I really think that the girl’s visit to you was just pure spite. She was safe enough really; but she just went out of her way to
‘I’m sure it was nothing that she said –’ began Sir Henry. ‘Gentlemen,’ said Miss Marple calmly, ‘never see through these things.’
‘And that girl –’ he stopped. ‘She commits a cold-blooded murder and gets off scot-free!’
‘Oh! no, Sir Henry,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Not scot-free. Neither you nor I believe that. Remember what you said not long ago. No. Greta Rosen will not escape punishment. To begin with, she must be in with a very queer set of people – blackmailers and terrorists – associates who will do her no good, and will probably bring her to a miserable end. As you say, one mustn’t waste thoughts on the guilty – it’s the innocent who matter. Mr Templeton, who I dare say will marry that German cousin, his tearing up her letter looks – well, it looks suspicious – using the word in quite a different sense from the one we’ve been using all the evening. A little as though he were afraid of the other girl noticing or asking to see it? Yes, I think there must have been some little romance there. And then there’s Dobbs – though, as you say, I dare say it won’t matter much to him. His elevenses are probably all he thinks about. And then there’s that poor old Gertrud – the one who reminded me of Annie Poultny. Poor Annie Poultny. Fifty years’ faithful service and suspected of making away with Miss Lamb’s will, though nothing could be proved. Almost broke the poor creature’s faithful heart; and then after she was dead it came to light in the secret drawer of the tea caddy where old Miss Lamb had put it herself for safety. But too late then for poor Annie.
‘That’s what worries me so about that poor old German woman. When one is old, one becomes embittered very easily. I felt much more sorry for her than for Mr Templeton, who is young and good-looking and evidently a favourite with the ladies. You will write to her, won’t you, Sir Henry, and just tell her that her innocence is established beyond doubt? Her dear old master dead, and she no doubt brooding and feeling herself suspected of . . . Oh! It won’t bear thinking about!’