Miss Marple shook her head.
“Oh no,” she said, “I think it’s quite natural. Life is more worth living, more full of interest when you are likely to lose it. It shouldn’t be, perhaps, but it is. When you’re young and strong and healthy, and life stretches ahead of you, living isn’t really important at all. It’s young people who commit suicide easily, out of despair from love, sometimes from sheer anxiety and worry. But old people know how valuable life is and how interesting.”
“Hah!” said Mr. Rafiel, snorting. “Listen to a couple of old crocks.”
“Well, what I said is true, isn’t it?” demanded Miss Marple.
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Rafiel, “it’s true enough. But don’t you think I’m right when I say that I ought to be cast as the victim?”
“It depends on who has reason to gain by your death,” said Miss Marple.
“Nobody, really,” said Mr. Rafiel. “Apart, as I’ve said, from my competitors in the business world who, as I have also said, can count comfortably on my being out of it before very long. I’m not such a fool as to leave a lot of money divided up among my relations. Precious little they’d get of it after the Government had taken practically the lot. Oh, no, I’ve attended to all that years ago. Settlements, trusts and all the rest of it.”
“Jackson, for instance, wouldn’t profit by your death?”
“He wouldn’t get a penny,” said Mr. Rafiel cheerfully. “I pay him double the salary that he’d get from anyone else. That’s because he has to put up with my bad temper; and he knows quite well that he will be the loser when I die.”
“And Mrs. Walters?”
“The same goes for Esther. She’s a good girl. First-class secretary, intelligent, good-tempered, understands my ways, doesn’t turn a hair if I fly off the handle, couldn’t care less if I insult her. Behaves like a nice nursery governess in charge of an outrageous and obstreperous child. She irritates me a bit sometimes, but who doesn’t? There’s nothing outstanding about her. She’s rather a commonplace young woman in many ways, but I couldn’t have anyone who suited me better. She’s had a lot of trouble in her life. Married a man who wasn’t much good. I’d say she never had much judgment when it came to men. Some women haven’t. They fall for anyone who tells them a hard-luck story. Always convinced that all the man needs is proper female understanding. That, once married to her, he’ll pull up his socks and make a go of life! But of course that type of man never does. Anyway, fortunately her unsatisfactory husband died; drank too much at a party one night and stepped in front of a bus. Esther had a daughter to support and she went back to her secretarial job. She’s been with me five years. I made it quite clear to her from the start that she need have no expectations from me in the event of my death. I paid her from the start a very large salary, and that salary I’ve augmented by as much as a quarter as much again each year. However decent and honest people are, one should never trust anybody—that’s why I told Esther quite clearly that she’d nothing to hope for from my death. Every year I live she’ll get a bigger salary. If she puts most of that aside every year—and that’s what I think she has done—she’ll be quite a well-to-do woman by the time I kick the bucket. I’ve made myself responsible for her daughter’s schooling and I’ve put a sum in trust for the daughter which she’ll get when she comes of age. So Mrs. Esther Walters is very comfortably placed. My death, let me tell you, would mean a serious financial loss to her.” He looked very hard at Miss Marple. “She fully realizes all that. She’s very sensible, Esther is.”
“Do she and Jackson get on?” asked Miss Marple.
Mr. Rafiel shot a quick glance at her.
“Noticed something, have you?” he said. “Yes, I think Jackson’s done a bit of tom-catting around, with an eye in her direction, especially lately. He’s a good-looking chap, of course, but he hasn’t cut any ice in that direction. For one thing, there’s class distinction. She’s just a cut above him. Not very much. If she was really a cut above him it wouldn’t matter, but the lower middle class—they’re very particular. Her mother was a school teacher and her father a bank clerk. No, she won’t make a fool of herself about Jackson. Dare say he’s after her little nest egg, but he won’t get it.”
“Hush—she’s coming now!” said Miss Marple.
They both looked at Esther Walters as she came along the hotel path towards them.
“She’s quite a good-looking girl, you know,” said Mr. Rafiel, “but not an atom of glamour. I don’t know why, she’s quite nicely turned out.”
Miss Marple sighed, a sigh that any woman will give however old at what might be considered wasted opportunities. What was lacking in Esther had been called by so many names during Miss Marple’s span of existence. “Not really attractive to me.” “No SA.” “Lacks Come-hither in her eye.” Fair hair, good complexion, hazel eyes, quite a good figure, pleasant smile, but lacking that something that makes a man’s head turn when he passes a woman in the street.
“She ought to get married again,” said Miss Marple, lowering her voice.
“Of course she ought. She’d make a man a good wife.”
Esther Walters joined them and Mr. Rafiel said, in a slightly artificial voice:
“So there you are at last! What’s been keeping you?”
“Everyone seemed to be sending cables this morning,” said Esther. “What with that, and people trying to check out—”
“Trying to check out, are they? A result of this murder business?”
“I suppose so. Poor Tim Kendal is worried to death.”
“And well he might be. Bad luck for that young couple, I must say.”
“I know. I gather it was rather a big undertaking for them to take on this place. They’ve been worried about making a success of it. They were doing very well, too.”
“They were doing a good job,” agreed Mr. Rafiel. “He’s very capable and a damned hard worker. She’s a very nice girl—attractive too. They’ve both worked like blacks, though that’s an odd term to use out here, for blacks don’t work themselves to death at all, so far as I can see. Was looking at a fellow shinning up a coconut tree to get his breakfast, then he goes to sleep for the rest of the day. Nice life.”
He added, “We’ve been discussing the murder here.”
Esther Walters looked slightly startled. She turned her head towards Miss Marple.
“I’ve been wrong about her,” said Mr. Rafiel, with characteristic frankness. “Never been much of a one for the old pussies. All knitting wool and tittle-tattle. But this one’s got something. Eyes and ears, and she uses them.”
Esther Walters looked apologetically at Miss Marple, but Miss Marple did not appear to take offence.
“That’s really meant to be a compliment, you know,” Esther explained.
“I quite realize that,” said Miss Marple. “I realize, too, that Mr. Rafiel is privileged, or thinks he is.”
“What do you mean—privileged?” asked Mr. Rafiel.
“To be rude if you want to be rude,” said Miss Marple.
“Have I been rude?” said Mr. Rafiel, surprised. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.”
“You haven’t offended me,” said Miss Marple, “I make allowances.”
“Now, don’t be nasty. Esther, get a chair and bring it here. Maybe you can help.”
Esther walked a few steps to the balcony of the bungalow and brought over a light basket chair.
“We’ll go on with our consultation,” said Mr. Rafiel. “We started with old Palgrave, deceased, and his eternal stories.”
“Oh, dear,” sighed Esther. “I’m afraid I used to escape from him whenever I could.”
“Miss Marple was more patient,” said Mr. Rafiel. “Tell me, Esther, did he ever tell you a story about a murderer?”
“Oh yes,” said Esther. “Several times.”
“What was it exactly? Let’s have your recollection.”
“Well—” Esther paused to think. “The trouble is,” she said apologetically, ?
??I didn’t really listen very closely. You see, it was rather like that terrible story about the lion in Rhodesia which used to go on and on. One did get rather in the habit of not listening.”
“Well, tell us what you do remember.”
“I think it arose out of some murder case that had been in the papers. Major Palgrave said that he’d had an experience not every person had had. He’d actually met a murderer face to face.”
“Met?” Mr. Rafiel exclaimed. “Did he actually use the word ‘met?’”
Esther looked confused.
“I think so.” She was doubtful. “Or he may have said, ‘I can point you out a murderer.’”
“Well, which was it? There’s a difference.”
“I can’t really be sure … I think he said he’d show me a picture of someone.”
“That’s better.”
“And then he talked a lot about Lucrezia Borgia.”
“Never mind Lucrezia Borgia. We know all about her.”
“He talked about poisoners and that Lucrezia was very beautiful and had red hair. He said there were probably far more women poisoners going about the world than anyone knew.”
“That I fear is quite likely,” said Miss Marple.
“And he talked about poison being a woman’s weapon.”
“Seems to have been wandering from the point a bit,” said Mr. Rafiel.
“Well, of course, he always did wander from the point in his stories. And then one used to stop listening and just say ‘Yes’ and ‘Really?’ And ‘You don’t say so.’”
“What about this picture he was going to show you?”
“I don’t remember. It may have been something he’d seen in the paper—”