Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie
“Most improbable,” said Gwenda.
“Things like that do happen. Remember what you overheard his wife say to him. You put it all down to jealousy, but it may have been true. Perhaps she has had a terrible time with him where women are concerned—he may be a little bit of a sex maniac.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“No, because he’s attractive to women. I think, myself, that there is something a little queer about Erskine. However, let’s go on with my case against him. Helen breaks off her engagement to Fane and comes home and marries your father and settles down here. And then suddenly, Erskine turns up. He comes down ostensibly on a summer holiday with his wife. That’s an odd thing to do, really. He admits he came here to see Helen again. Now let’s take it that Erskine was the man in the drawing room with her that day when Lily overheard her say she was afraid of him. ‘I’m afraid of you—I’ve always been afraid of you—I think you’re mad.’
“And, because she’s afraid, she makes plans to go and live in Norfolk, but she’s very secretive about it. No one is to know. No one is to know, that is, until the Erskines have left Dillmouth. So far that fits. Now we come to the fatal night. What the Hallidays were doing earlier that evening we don’t know—”
Miss Marple coughed.
“As a matter of fact, I saw Edith Pagett again. She remembers that there was early supper that night—seven o’clock—because Major Halliday was going to some meeting—Golf Club, she thinks it was, or some Parish meeting. Mrs. Halliday went out after supper.”
“Right. Helen meets Erskine, by appointment, perhaps, on the beach. He is leaving the following day. Perhaps he refuses to go. He urges Helen to go away with him. She comes back here and he comes with her. Finally, in a fit of frenzy he strangles her. The next bit is as we have already agreed. He’s slightly mad, he wants Kelvin Halliday to believe it is he who has killed her. Later, Erskine buries the body. You remember, he told Gwenda that he didn’t go back to the hotel until very late because he was walking about Dillmouth.”
“One wonders,” said Miss Marple, “what his wife was doing?”
“Probably frenzied with jealousy,” said Gwenda. “And gave him hell when he did get in.”
“That’s my reconstruction,” said Giles. “And it’s possible.”
“But he couldn’t have killed Lily Kimble,” said Gwenda, “because he lives in Northumberland. So thinking about him is just waste of time. Let’s take Walter Fane.”
“Right. Walter Fane is the repressed type. He seems gentle and mild and easily pushed around. But Miss Marple has brought us one valuable bit of testimony. Walter Fane was once in such a rage that he nearly killed his brother. Admittedly he was a child at the time, but it was startling because he had always seemed of such a gentle forgiving nature. Anyway, Walter Fane falls in love with Helen Halliday. Not merely in love, he’s crazy about her. She won’t have him and he goes off to India. Later she writes him that she will come out and marry him. She starts. Then comes the second blow. She arrives and promptly jilts him. She has ‘met someone on the boat.’ She goes home and marries Kelvin Halliday. Possibly Walter Fane thinks that Kelvin Halliday was the original cause of her turning him down. He broods, nurses a crazy jealous hate and comes home. He behaves in a most forgiving, friendly manner, is often at this house, has become apparently a tame cat around the house, the faithful Dobbin. But perhaps Helen realizes that this isn’t true. She gets a glimpse of what is going on below the surface. Perhaps, long ago, she sensed something disturbing in quiet young Walter Fane. She says to him, ‘I think I’ve always been afraid of you.’ She makes plans, secretly, to go right away from Dillmouth and live in Norfolk. Why? Because she’s afraid of Walter Fane.
“Now we come again to the fatal evening. Here, we’re not on very sure ground. We don’t know what Walter Fane was doing that night, and I don’t see any probability of ever finding out. But he fulfils Miss Marple’s requirement of being ‘on the spot’ to the extent of living in a house that is only two or three minutes’ walk away. He may have said he was going to bed early with a headache, or shut himself into his study with work to do—something of that kind. He could have done all the things we’ve decided the murderer did do, and I think that he’s the most likely of the three to have made mistakes in packing a suitcase. He wouldn’t know enough about what women wear to do it properly.”
“It was queer,” said Gwenda. “In his office that day I had an odd sort of feeling that he was like a house with its blinds pulled down … and I even had a fanciful idea that—that there was someone dead in the house.”
She looked at Miss Marple.
“Does that seem very silly to you?” she asked.
“No, my dear. I think that perhaps you were right.”
“And now,” said Gwenda, “we come to Afflick. Afflick’s Tours. Jackie Afflick who was always too smart by half. The first thing against him is that Dr. Kennedy believed he had incipient persecution mania. That is—he was never really normal. He’s told us about himself and Helen—but we’ll agree now that that was all a pack of lies. He didn’t just think she was a cute kid—he was madly, passionately in love with her. But she wasn’t in love with him. She was just amusing herself. She was man mad, as Miss Marple says.”
“No, dear. I didn’t say that. Nothing of the kind.”
“Well, a nymphomaniac if you prefer the term. Anyway, she had an affair with Jackie Afflick and then wanted to drop him. He didn’t want to be dropped. Her brother got her out of her scrape, but Jackie Afflick never forgave or forgot. He lost his job—according to him through being framed by Walter Fane. That shows definite signs of persecution mania.”
“Yes,” agreed Giles. “But on the other hand, if it was true, it’s another point against Fane—quite a valuable point.”
Gwenda went on.
“Helen goes abroad, and he leaves Dillmouth. But he never forgets her, and when she returns to Dillmouth, married, he comes over and visits her. He said first of all, he came once, but later on, he admits that he came more than once. And, oh Giles, don’t you remember? Edith Pagett used a phrase about ‘our mystery man in a flashy car.’ You see, he came often enough to make the servants talk. But Helen took pains not to ask him to a meal—not to let him meet Kelvin. Perhaps she was afraid of him. Perhaps—”
Giles interrupted.
“This might cut both ways. Supposing Helen was in love with him—the first man she ever was in love with, and supposing she went on being in love with him. Perhaps they had an affair together and she didn’t let anyone know about it. But perhaps he wanted her to go away with him, and by that time she was tired of him, and wouldn’t go, and so—and so—he killed her. And all the rest of it. Lily said in her letter to Dr. Kennedy there was a posh car standing outside that night. It was Jackie Afflick’s car. Jackie Afflick was ‘on the spot,’ too.
“It’s an assumption,” said Giles. “But it seems to me a reasonable one. But there are Helen’s letters to be worked into our reconstruction. I’ve been puzzling my brains to think of the ‘circumstances,’ as Miss Marple put it, under which she could have been induced to write those letters. It seems to me that to explain them, we’ve got to admit that she actually had a lover, and that she was expecting to go away with him. We’ll test our three possibles again. Erskine first. Say that he still wasn’t prepared to leave his wife or break up his home, but that Helen had agreed to leave Kelvin Halliday and go somewhere where Erskine could come and be with her from time to time. The first thing would be to disarm Mrs. Erskine’s suspicions, so Helen writes a couple of letters to reach her brother in due course which will look as though she has gone abroad with someone. That fits in very well with her being so mysterious about who the man in question is.”
“But if she was going to leave her husband for him, why did he kill her?” asked Gwenda.
“Perhaps because she suddenly changed her mind. Decided that she did really care for her husband after all. He just saw red and strangled her.
“The same might apply to Walter Fane. I should imagine that scandal might be absolutely disastrous to a country solicitor. Helen might have agreed to go somewhere nearby where Fane could visit her but pretend that she had gone abroad with someone else. Letters all prepared and then, as you suggested, she changed her mind. Walter went mad and killed her.”
“What about Jackie Afflick?”
“It’s more difficult to find a reason for the letters with him. I shouldn’t imagine that scandal would affect him. Perhaps Helen was afraid, not of him, but of my father—and so thought it would be better to pretend she’d gone abroad—or perhaps Afflick’s wife had the money at that time, and he wanted her money to invest in his business. Oh yes, there are lots of possibilities for the letters.”
“Which one do you fancy, Miss Marple?” asked Gwenda. “I don’t really think Walter Fane—but then—”
Mrs. Cocker had just come in to clear away the coffee cups.
“There now, madam,” she said. “I quite forgot. All this about a poor woman being murdered and you and Mr. Reed mixed up in it, not at all the right thing for you, madam, just now. Mr. Fane was here this afternoon, asking for you. He waited quite half an hour. Seemed to think you were expecting him.”
“How strange,” said Gwenda. “What time?”
“It must have been about four o’clock or just after. And then, after that, there was another gentleman, came in a great big yellow car. He was positive you were expecting him. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Waited twenty minutes. I wondered if you’d had some idea of a tea party and forgotten it.”
“No,” said Gwenda. “How odd.”
“Let’s ring up Fane now,” said Giles. “He won’t have gone to bed.”
He suited the action to the word.
“Hullo, is that Fane speaking? Giles Reed here. I hear you came round to see us this afternoon—What?—No—no, I’m sure of it—no, how very odd. Yes, I wonder, too.”
He laid down the receiver.
“Here’s an odd thing. He was rung up in his office this morning. A message left would he come round and see us this afternoon. It was very important.”
Giles and Gwenda stared at each other. Then Gwenda said, “Ring up Afflick.”
Again Giles went to the telephone, found the number and rang through. It took a little longer, but presently he got the connection.
“Mr. Afflick? Giles Reed, I—”
Here he was obviously interrupted by a flow of speech from the other end.
At last he was able to say:
“But we didn’t—no, I assure you—nothing of the kind—Yes—yes, I know you’re a busy man. I wouldn’t have dreamed of—Yes, but look here, who was it rang you—a man?—No, I tell you it wasn’t me. No—no, I see. Well, I agree, it’s quite extraordinary.”
He replaced the receiver and came back to the table.
“Well, there it is,” he said. “Somebody, a man who said he was me, rang up Afflick and asked him to come over here. It was urgent—big sum of money involved.”
They looked at each other.
“It could have been either of them,” said Gwenda. “Don’t you see, Giles? Either of them could have killed Lily and come on here as an alibi.”
“Hardly an alibi, dear,” put in Miss Marple.
“I don’t mean quite an alibi, but an excuse for being away from their office. What I mean is, one of them is speaking the truth and one is lying. One of them rang up the other and asked him to come here—to throw suspicion on him—but we don’t know which. It’s a clear issue now between the two of them. Fane or Afflick. I say—Jackie Afflick.”
“I think Walter Fane,” said Giles.
They both looked at Miss Marple.
She shook her head.
“There’s another possibility,” she said.
“Of course. Erskine.”
Giles fairly ran across to the telephone.
“What are you going to do?” asked Gwenda.
“Put through a trunk call to Northumberland.”
“Oh Giles—you can’t really think—”
“We’ve got to know. If he’s there—he can’t have killed Lily Kimble this afternoon. No private aeroplanes or silly stuff like that.”
They waited in silence until the telephone bell rang.
Giles picked up the receiver.
“You were asking for a personal call to Major Erskine. Go ahead, please. Major Erskine is waiting.”
Clearing his throat nervously, Giles said, “Er—Erskine? Giles Reed here—Reed, yes.”
He cast a sudden agonized glance at Gwenda which said as plainly as possible, “What the hell do I say now?”
Gwenda got up and took the receiver from him.
“Major Erskine? This is Mrs. Reed here. We’ve heard of—of a house. Linscott Brake. Is—is it—do you know anything about it? It’s somewhere near you, I believe.”
Erskine’s voice said: “Linscott Brake? No, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it. What’s the postal town?”
“It’s terribly blurred,” said Gwenda. “You know those awful typescripts agents send out. But it says fifteen miles from Daith so we thought—”
“I’m sorry. I haven’t heard of it. Who lives there?”
“Oh, it’s empty. But never mind, actually we’ve—we’ve practically settled on a house. I’m so sorry to have bothered you. I expect you were busy.”
“No, not at all. At least only busy domestically. My wife’s away. And our cook had to go off to her mother, so I’ve been dealing with domestic routine. I’m afraid I’m not much of a hand at it. Better in the garden.”
“I’d always rather do gardening than housework. I hope your wife isn’t ill?”
“Oh no, she was called away to a sister. She’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Well, good night, and so sorry to have bothered you.”
She put down the receiver.
“Erskine is out of it,” she said triumphantly. “His wife’s away and he’s doing all the chores. So that leaves it between the two others. Doesn’t it, Miss Marple?”
Miss Marple was looking grave.
“I don’t think, my dears,” she said, “that you have given quite enough thought to the matter. Oh dear—I am really very worried. If only I knew exactly what to do….”
Twenty-four
THE MONKEY’S PAWS
I
Gwenda leaned her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hands while her eyes roamed dispassionately over the remains of a hasty lunch. Presently she must deal with them, carry them out to the scullery, wash up, put things away, see what there would be, later, for supper.
But there was no wild hurry. She felt she needed a little time to take things in. Everything had been happening too fast.
The events of the morning, when she reviewed them, seemed to be chaotic and impossible. Everything had happened too quickly and too improbably.
Inspector Last had appeared early—at half past nine. With him had come Detective Inspector Primer from headquarters and the Chief Constable of the County. The latter had not stayed long. It was Inspector Primer who was now in charge of the case of Lily Kimble deceased and all the ramifications arising therefrom.
It was Inspector Primer, a man with a deceptively mild manner and a gentle apologetic voice, who had asked her if it would inconvenience her very much if his men did some digging in the garden.
From the tone of his voice, it might have been a case of giving his men some healthful exercise, rather than of seeking for a dead body which had been buried for eighteen years.
Giles had spoken up then. He had said: “I think, perhaps, we could help you with a suggestion or two.”
And he told the Inspector about the shifting of the steps leading down to the lawn, and took the Inspector out on to the terrace.
The Inspector had looked up at the barred window on th
And Giles said that it would.
Then the Inspector and Giles had come back into the house, and two men with spades had gone out into the garden, and Giles, before the Inspector could get down to questions, had said:
“I think, Inspector, you had better hear something that my wife has so far not mentioned to anyone except myself—and—er—one other person.”
The gentle, rather compelling gaze of Inspector Primer came to rest on Gwenda. It was faintly speculative. He was asking himself, Gwenda thought: “Is this a woman who can be depended upon, or is she the kind who imagines things?”
So strongly did she feel this, that she started in a defensive way: “I may have imagined it. Perhaps I did. But it seems awfully real.”
Inspector Primer said softly and soothingly:
“Well, Mrs. Reed, let’s hear about it.”
And Gwenda had explained. How the house had seemed familiar to her when she first saw it. How she had subsequently learned that she had, in fact, lived there as a child. How she had remembered the nursery wallpaper, and the connecting door, and the feeling she had had that there ought to be steps down to the lawn.
Inspector Primer nodded. He did not say that Gwenda’s childish recollections were not particularly interesting, but Gwenda wondered whether he were thinking it.
Then she nerved herself to the final statement. How she had suddenly remembered, when sitting in a theatre, looking through the banisters at Hillside and seeing a dead woman in the hall.
“With a blue face, strangled, and golden hair—and it was Helen—But it was so stupid, I didn’t know at all who Helen was.”
“We think that—” Giles began, but Inspector Primer, with unexpected authority, held up a restraining hand.