Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie
“Please let Mrs. Reed tell me in her own words.”
And Gwenda had stumbled on, her face flushed, with Inspector Primer gently helping her out, using a dexterity that Gwenda did not appreciate as the highly technical performance it was.
“Webster?” he said thoughtfully. “Hm, Duchess of Malfi. Monkey’s paws?”
“But that was probably a nightmare,” said Giles.
“Please, Mr. Reed.”
“It may all have been a nightmare,” said Gwenda.
“No, I don’t think it was,” said Inspector Primer. “It would be very hard to explain Lily Kimble’s death, unless we assume that there was a woman murdered in this house.”
That seemed so reasonable and almost comforting, that Gwenda hurried on.
“And it wasn’t my father who murdered her. It wasn’t, really. Even Dr. Penrose says he wasn’t the right type, and that he couldn’t have murdered anybody. And Dr. Kennedy was quite sure he hadn’t done it, but only thought he had. So you see it was someone who wanted it to seem as though my father had done it, and we think we know who—at least it’s one of two people—”
“Gwenda,” said Giles. “We can’t really—”
“I wonder, Mr. Reed,” said the Inspector, “if you would mind going out into the garden and seeing how my men are getting on. Tell them I sent you.”
He closed the french windows after Giles and latched them and came back to Gwenda.
“Now just tell me all your ideas, Mrs. Reed. Never mind if they are rather incoherent.”
And Gwenda had poured out all her and Giles’s speculations and reasonings, and the steps they had taken to find out all they could about the three men who might have figured in Helen Halliday’s life, and the final conclusions they had come to—and how both Walter Fane and J. J. Afflick had been rung up, as though by Giles, and had been summoned to Hillside the preceding afternoon.
“But you do see, don’t you, Inspector—that one of them might be lying?”
And in a gentle, rather tired voice, the Inspector said: “That’s one of the principal difficulties in my kind of work. So many people may be lying. And so many people usually are … Though not always for the reasons that you’d think. And some people don’t even know they’re lying.”
“Do you think I’m like that?” Gwenda asked apprehensively.
And the Inspector had smiled and said: “I think you’re a very truthful witness, Mrs. Reed.”
“And you think I’m right about who murdered her?”
The Inspector sighed and said: “It’s not a question of thinking—not with us. It’s a question of checking up. Where everybody was, what account everybody gives of their movements. We know accurately enough, to within ten minutes or so, when Lily Kimble was killed. Between two twenty and two forty-five. Anyone could have killed her and then come on here yesterday afternoon. I don’t see, myself, any reason for those telephone calls. It doesn’t give either of the people you mention an alibi for the time of the murder.”
“But you will find out, won’t you, what they were doing at the time? Between two twenty and two forty-five. You will ask them.”
Inspector Primer smiled.
“We shall ask all the questions necessary, Mrs. Reed, you may be sure of that. All in good time. There’s no good in rushing things. You’ve got to see your way ahead.”
Gwenda had a sudden vision of patience and quiet unsensational work. Unhurried, remorseless….
She said: “I see … yes. Because you’re professional. And Giles and I are just amateurs. We might make a lucky hit—but we wouldn’t really know how to follow it up.”
“Something of the kind, Mrs. Reed.”
The Inspector smiled again. He got up and unfastened the french windows. Then, just as he was about to step through them, he stopped. Rather, Gwenda thought, like a pointing dog.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Reed. That lady wouldn’t be a Miss Jane Marple, would she?”
Gwenda had come to stand beside him. At the bottom of the garden Miss Marple was still waging a losing war with bindweed.
“Yes, that’s Miss Marple. She’s awfully kind in helping us with the garden.”
“Miss Marple,” said the Inspector. “I see.”
And as Gwenda looked at him enquiringly and said, “She’s rather a dear,” he replied:
“She’s a very celebrated lady, is Miss Marple. Got the Chief Constables of at least three counties in her pocket. She’s not got my Chief yet, but I dare say that will come. So Miss Marple’s got her finger in this pie.”
“She’s made an awful lot of helpful suggestions,” said Gwenda.
“I bet she has,” said the Inspector. “Was it her suggestion where to look for the deceased Mrs. Halliday?”
“She said that Giles and I ought to know quite well where to look,” said Gwenda. “And it did seem stupid of us not to have thought of it before.”
The Inspector gave a soft little laugh, and went down to stand by Miss Marple. He said: “I don’t think we’ve been introduced, Miss Marple. But you were pointed out to me once by Colonel Melrose.”
Miss Marple stood up, flushed and grasping a handful of clinging green.
“Oh yes. Dear Colonel Melrose. He has always been most kind. Ever since—”
“Ever since a churchwarden was shot in the Vicar’s study. Quite a while ago. But you’ve had other successes since then. A little poison pen trouble down near Lymstock.”
“You seem to know quite a lot about me, Inspector—”
“Primer, my name is. And you’ve been busy here, I expect.”
“Well, I try to do what I can in the garden. Sadly neglected. This bindweed, for instance, such nasty stuff. Its roots,” said Miss Marple, looking very earnestly at the Inspector, “go down underground a long way. A very long way—they run along underneath the soil.”
“I think you’re right about that,” said the Inspector. “A long way down. A long way back … this murder, I mean. Eighteen years.”
“And perhaps before that,” said Miss Marple. “Running underground … And terribly harmful, Inspector, squeezing the life out of the pretty growing flowers….”
One of the police constables came along the path. He was perspiring and had a smudge of earth on his forehead.
“We’ve come to—something, sir. Looks as though it’s her all right.”
II
And it was then, Gwenda reflected, that the nightmarish quality of the day had begun. Giles coming in, his face rather pale, saying: “It’s—she’s there all right, Gwenda.”
Then one of the constables had telephoned and the police surgeon, a short, bustling man, had arrived.
And it was then that Mrs. Cocker, the calm and imperturbable Mrs. Cocker, had gone out into the garden—not led, as might have been expected, by ghoulish curiosity, but solely in the quest of culinary herbs for the dish she was preparing for lunch. And Mrs. Cocker, whose reaction to the news of a murder on the preceding day had been shocked censure and an anxiety for the effect upon Gwenda’s health (for Mrs. Cocker had made up her mind that the nursery upstairs was to be tenanted after the due number of months), had walked straight in upon the gruesome discovery, and had been immediately “taken queer” to an alarming extent.
“Too horrible, madam. Bones is a thing I never could abide. Not skeleton bones, as one might say. And here in the garden, just by the mint and all. And my heart’s beating at such a rate—palpitations—I can hardly get my breath. And if I might make so bold, just a thimbleful of brandy….”
Alarmed by Mrs. Cocker’s gasps and her ashy colour, Gwenda had rushed to the sideboard, poured out some brandy and brought it to Mrs. Cocker to sip.
And Mrs. Cocker had said: “That’s just what I needed, madam—” when, quite suddenly, her voice had failed, and she had looked so alarming, that Gwenda had screamed for Giles, and Giles had yelled to the police surgeon.
“And it’s fortunate I was on the spot,” the latter said afterwards. “It was touch and go any
And then Inspector Primer had taken the brandy decanter, and then he and the doctor had gone into a huddle over it, and Inspector Primer had asked Gwenda when she and Giles had last had any brandy out of it.
Gwenda said she thought not for some days. They’d been away—up North, and the last few times they’d had a drink, they’d had gin. “But I nearly had some brandy yesterday,” said Gwenda. “Only it makes me think of Channel steamers, so Giles opened a new bottle of whisky.”
“That was very lucky for you, Mrs. Reed. If you’d drunk brandy yesterday, I doubt if you would be alive today.”
“Giles nearly drank some—but in the end he had whisky with me.”
Gwenda shivered.
Even now, alone in the house, with the police gone and Giles gone with them after a hasty lunch scratched up out of tins (since Mrs. Cocker had been removed to hospital), Gwenda could hardly believe in the morning turmoil of events.
One thing stood out clearly: the presence in the house yesterday of Jackie Afflick and Walter Fane. Either of them could have tampered with the brandy, and what was the purpose of the telephone calls unless it was to afford one or other of them the opportunity to poison the brandy decanter? Gwenda and Giles had been getting too near the truth. Or had a third person come in from outside, through the open dining room window perhaps, whilst she and Giles had been sitting in Dr. Kennedy’s house waiting for Lily Kimble to keep her appointment? A third person who had engineered the telephone calls to steer suspicion on the other two?
But a third person, Gwenda thought, didn’t make sense. For a third person, surely, would have telephoned to only one of the two men. A third person would have wanted one suspect, not two. And anyway, who could the third person be? Erskine had definitely been in Northumberland. No, either Walter Fane had telephoned to Afflick and had pretended to be telephoned to himself. Or else Afflick had telephoned Fane, and had made the same pretence of receiving a summons. One of those two, and the police, who were cleverer and had more resources than she and Giles had, would find out which. And in the meantime both of those men would be watched. They wouldn’t be able to—to try again.
Again Gwenda shivered. It took a little getting used to—the knowledge that someone had tried to kill you. “Dangerous,” Miss Marple had said long ago. But she and Giles had not really taken the idea of danger seriously. Even after Lily Kimble had been killed, it still hadn’t occurred to her that anyone would try and kill her and Giles. Just because she and Giles were getting too near the truth of what had happened eighteen years ago. Working out what must have happened then—and who had made it happen.
Walter Fane and Jackie Afflick….
Which?
Gwenda closed her eyes, seeing them afresh in the light of her new knowledge.
Quiet Walter Fane, sitting in his office—the pale spider in the centre of its web. So quiet, so harmless-looking. A house with its blinds down. Someone dead in the house. Someone dead eighteen years ago—but still there. How sinister the quiet Walter Fane seemed now. Walter Fane who had once flung himself murderously upon his brother. Walter Fane whom Helen had scornfully refused to marry, once here at home, and once again in India. A double rebuff. A double ignominy. Walter Fane, so quiet, so unemotional, who could express himself, perhaps, only in sudden murderous violence—as, possibly, quiet Lizzie Borden had once done….
Gwenda opened her eyes. She had convinced herself, hadn’t she, that Walter Fane was the man?
One might, perhaps, just consider Afflick. With her eyes open, not shut.
His loud check suit, his domineering manner—just the opposite to Walter Fane—nothing repressed or quiet about Afflick. But possibly he had put that manner on because of an inferiority complex. It worked that way, experts said. If you weren’t sure of yourself, you had to boast and assert yourself, and be overbearing. Turned down by Helen because he wasn’t good enough for her. The sore festering, not forgotten. Determination to get on in the world. Persecution. Everyone against him. Discharged from his employment by a faked charge made up by an “enemy.” Surely that did show that Afflick wasn’t normal. And what a feeling of power a man like that would get out of killing. That good-natured, jovial face of his, it was a cruel face really. He was a cruel man—and his thin pale wife knew it and was afraid of him. Lily Kimble had threatened him and Lily Kimble had died. Gwenda and Giles had interfered—then Gwenda and Giles must die, too, and he would involve Walter Fane who had sacked him long ago. That fitted in very nicely.
Gwenda shook herself, came out of her imaginings, and returned to practicality. Giles would be home and want his tea. She must clear away and wash up lunch.
She fetched a tray and took the things out to the kitchen. Everything in the kitchen was exquisitely neat. Mrs. Cocker was really a treasure.
By the side of the sink was a pair of surgical rubber gloves. Mrs. Cocker always wore a pair for washing up. Her niece, who worked in a hospital, got them at a reduced price.
Gwenda fitted them on over her hands and began to wash up the dishes. She might as well keep her hands nice.
She washed the plates and put them in the rack, washed and dried the other things and put everything neatly away.
Then, still lost in thought, she went upstairs. She might as well, she thought, wash out those stockings and a jumper or two. She’d keep the gloves on.
These things were in the forefront of her mind. But somewhere, underneath them, something was nagging at her.
Walter Fane or Jackie Afflick, she had said. One or the other of them. And she had made out quite a good case against either of them. Perhaps that was what really worried her. Because, strictly speaking, it would be much more satisfactory if you could only make out a good case against one of them. One ought to be sure, by now, which. And Gwenda wasn’t sure.
If only there was someone else … But there couldn’t be anyone else. Because Richard Erskine was out of it. Richard Erskine had been in Northumberland when Lily Kimble was killed and when the brandy in the decanter had been tampered with. Yes, Richard Erskine was right out of it.
She was glad of that, because she liked Richard Erskine. Richard Erskine was attractive, very attractive. How sad for him to be married to that megalith of a woman with her suspicious eyes and deep bass voice. Just like a man’s voice….
Like a man’s voice….
The idea flashed through her mind with a queer misgiving.
A man’s voice … Could it have been Mrs. Erskine, not her husband, who had replied to Giles on the telephone last night?
No—no, surely not. No, of course not. She and Giles would have known. And anyway, to begin with, Mrs. Erskine could have had no idea of who was ringing up. No, of course it was Erskine speaking, and his wife, as he said, was away.
His wife was away …
Surely—no, that was impossible … Could it have been Mrs. Erskine? Mrs. Erskine, driven insane by jealousy? Mrs. Erskine to whom Lily Kimble had written? Was it a woman Léonie had seen in the garden that night when she looked out of the window?
There was a sudden bang in the hall below. Somebody had come in through the front door.
Gwenda came out from the bathroom on to the landing and looked over the banisters. She was relieved to see it was Dr. Kennedy. She called down:
“I’m here.”
Her hands were held out in front of her—wet, glistening, a queer pinkish grey—they reminded her of something….
Kennedy looked up, shading his eyes.
“Is that you, Gwennie? I can’t see your face … My eyes are dazzled—”
And then Gwenda screamed….
Looking at those smooth monkey’s paws and hearing that voice in the hall—
“It was you,” she gasped. “You killed her … killed Helen … I—know now. It was you … all along … You….”
He came up the stairs towards her. Slowly. Looking up at her.
“Why couldn’t you leave m
He was close upon her now—his hands out towards her—reaching, she knew, for her throat. That kind, quizzical face—that nice, ordinary, elderly face—the same still, but for the eyes—the eyes were not sane….
Gwenda retreated before him, slowly, the scream frozen in her throat. She had screamed once. She could not scream again. And if she did scream no one would hear.
Because there was no one in the house—not Giles, and not Mrs. Cocker, not even Miss Marple in the garden. Nobody. And the house next door was too far away to hear if she screamed. And anyway, she couldn’t scream … Because she was too frightened to scream. Frightened of those horrible reaching hands….
She could back away to the nursery door and then—and then—those hands would fasten round her throat….
A pitiful little stifled whimper came from between her lips.
And then, suddenly, Dr. Kennedy stopped and reeled back as a jet of soapy water struck him between the eyes. He gasped and blinked and his hands went to his face.
“So fortunate,” said Miss Marple’s voice, rather breathless, for she had run violently up the back stairs, “that I was just syringing the greenfly off your roses.”
Twenty-five
POSTSCRIPT AT TORQUAY
“But, of course, dear Gwenda, I should never have dreamed of going away and leaving you alone in the house,” said Miss Marple. “I knew there was a very dangerous person at large, and I was keeping an unobtrusive watch from the garden.”
“Did you know it was—him—all along?” asked Gwenda.
They were all three, Miss Marple, Gwenda and Giles, sitting on the terrace of the Imperial Hotel at Torquay.
“A change of scene,” Miss Marple had said, and Giles had agreed, would be the best thing for Gwenda. So Inspector Primer had concurred and they had driven to Torquay forthwith.