Caribbean Mystery (Miss Marple 10)

Twenty-one

JACKSON ON COSMETICS

“You’re sure you don’t mind, Miss Marple?” said Evelyn Hillingdon.

“No, indeed, my dear,” said Miss Marple. “I’m only too delighted to be of use in any way. At my age, you know, one feels very useless in the world. Especially when I am in a place like this, just enjoying myself. No duties of any kind. No, I’ll be delighted to sit with Molly. You go along on your expedition. Pelican Point, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Evelyn. “Both Edward and I love it. I never get tired of seeing the birds diving down, catching up the fish. Tim’s with Molly now. But he’s got things to do and he doesn’t seem to like her being left alone.”

“He’s quite right,” said Miss Marple. “I wouldn’t in his place. One never knows, does one? When anyone has attempted anything of that kind—Well, go along, my dear.”

Evelyn went off to join a little group that was waiting for her. Her husband, the Dysons and three or four other people. Miss Marple checked her knitting requirements, saw that she had all she wanted with her, and walked over towards the Kendals’ bungalow.

As she came up on to the loggia she heard Tim’s voice through the half-open french window.

“If you’d only tell me why you did it, Molly. What made you? Was it anything I did? There must be some reason. If you’d only tell me.”

Miss Marple paused. There was a little pause inside before Molly spoke. Her voice was flat and tired.

“I don’t know, Tim, I really don’t know. I suppose—something came over me.”

Miss Marple tapped on the window and walked in.

“Oh, there you are, Miss Marple. It is very good of you.”

“Not at all,” said Miss Marple. “I’m delighted to be of any help. Shall I sit here in this chair? You’re looking much better, Molly. I’m so glad.”

“I’m all right,” said Molly. “Quite all right. Just—oh, just sleepy.”

“I shan’t talk,” said Miss Marple. “You just lie quiet and rest. I’ll get on with my knitting.”

Tim Kendal threw her a grateful glance and went out. Miss Marple established herself in her chair.

Molly was lying on her left side. She had a half-stupefied, exhausted look. She said in a voice that was almost a whisper:

“It’s very kind of you, Miss Marple. I—I think I’ll go to sleep.”

She half turned away on her pillows and closed her eyes. Her breathing grew more regular though it was still far from normal. Long experience of nursing made Miss Marple almost automatically straighten the sheet and tuck it under the mattress on her side of the bed. As she did so her hand encountered something hard and rectangular under the mattress. Rather surprised she took hold of this and pulled it out. It was a book. Miss Marple threw a quick glance at the girl in the bed, but she lay there utterly quiescent. She was evidently asleep. Miss Marple opened the book. It was, she saw, a current work on nervous diseases. It came open naturally at a certain place which gave a description of the onset of persecution mania and various other manifestations of schizophrenia and allied complaints.

It was not a highly technical book, but one that could be easily understood by a layman. Miss Marple’s face grew very grave as she read. After a minute or two she closed the book and stayed thinking. Then she bent forward and with care replaced the book where she had found it, under the mattress.

She shook her head in some perplexity. Noiselessly she rose from her chair. She walked the few steps towards the window, then turned her head sharply over her shoulder. Molly’s eyes were open but even as Miss Marple turned the eyes shut again. For a minute or two Miss Marple was not quite certain whether she might not have imagined that quick, sharp glance. Was Molly then only pretending to be asleep? That might be natural enough. She might feel that Miss Marple would start talking to her if she showed herself awake. Yes, that could be all it was.

Was she reading into that glance of Molly’s a kind of slyness that was somehow innately disagreeable? One doesn’t know, Miss Marple thought to herself, one really doesn’t know.

She decided that she would try to manage a little talk with Dr. Graham as soon as it could be managed. She came back to her chair by the bed. She decided after about five minutes or so that Molly was really asleep. No one could have lain so still, could have breathed so evenly. Miss Marple got up again. She was wearing her plimsolls today. Not perhaps very elegant, but admirably suited to this climate and comfortable and roomy for the feet.

She moved gently round the bedroom, pausing at both of the windows, which gave out in two different directions.

The hotel grounds seemed quiet and deserted. Miss Marple came back and was standing a little uncertainly before regaining her seat, when she thought she heard a faint sound outside. Like the scrape of a shoe on the loggia? She hesitated a moment then she went to the window, pushed it a little farther open, stepped out and turned her head back into the room as she spoke.

“I shall be gone only a very short time, dear,” she said, “just back to my bungalow, to see where I could possibly have put that pattern. I was so sure I had brought it with me. You’ll be quite all right till I come back, won’t you?” Then turning her head back, she nodded to herself. “Asleep, poor child. A good thing.”

She went quietly along the loggia, down the steps and turned sharp right to the path there. Passing along between the screen of some hibiscus bushes an observer might have been curious to see that Miss Marple veered sharply on to the flower bed, passed round to the back of the bungalow and entered it again through the second door there. This led directly into a small room that Tim sometimes used as an unofficial office and from that into the sitting room.

Here there were wide curtains semi-drawn to keep the room cool. Miss Marple slipped behind one of them. Then she waited. From the window here she had a good view of anyone who approached Molly’s bedroom. It was some few minutes, four or five, before she saw anything.

The neat figure of Jackson in his white uniform went up the steps of the loggia. He paused for a minute at the balcony there, and then appeared to be giving a tiny discreet tap on the door of the window that was ajar. There was no response that Miss Marple could hear. Jackson looked around him, a quick furtive glance, then he slipped inside the open doors. Miss Marple moved to the door which led into the adjoining bathroom. Miss Marple’s eyebrows rose in slight surprise. She reflected a minute or two, then walked out into the passageway and into the bathroom by the other door.

Jackson spun round from examining the shelf over the washbasin. He looked taken aback, which was not surprising.

“Oh,” he said, “I—I didn’t….”

“Mr. Jackson,” said Miss Marple, in great surprise.

“I thought you’d be here somewhere,” said Jackson.

“Did you want anything?” inquired Miss Marple.

“Actually,” said Jackson, “I was just looking at Mrs. Kendal’s brand of face cream.”

Miss Marple appreciated the fact that as Jackson was standing with a jar of face cream in his hand he had been adroit in mentioning the fact at once.

“Nice smell,” he said, wrinkling up his nose. “Fairly good stuff, as these preparations go. The cheaper brands don’t suit every skin. Bring it out in a rash as likely as not. The same thing with face powders sometimes.”

“You seem to be very knowledgeable on the subject,” said Miss Marple.

“Worked in the pharmaceutical line for a bit,” said Jackson. “One learns to know a good deal about cosmetics there. Put stuff in a fancy jar, package it expensively, and it’s astonishing what you could rook women for.”

“Is that what you—?” Miss Marple broke off deliberately.

“Well no, I didn’t come in here to talk about cosmetics,” Jackson agreed.

“You’ve not had much time to think up a lie,” thought Miss Marple to herself. “Let’s see what you’ll come out with.”

“Matter of fact,” said Jackson, “Mrs. Walters l

ent her lipstick to Mrs. Kendal the other day. I came in to get it back for her. I tapped on the window and then I saw Mrs. Kendal was fast asleep, so I thought it would be quite all right if I just walked across into the bathroom and looked for it.”

“I see,” said Miss Marple. “And did you find it?”

Jackson shook his head. “Probably in one of her handbags,” he said lightly. “I won’t bother. Mrs. Walters didn’t make a point of it. She only just mentioned it casually.” He went on, surveying the toilet preparations: “Doesn’t have very much, does she? Ah well, doesn’t need it at her age. Good natural skin.”

“You must look at women with quite a different eye from ordinary men,” said Miss Marple, smiling pleasantly.

“Yes. I suppose various jobs do alter one’s angle.”

“You know a good deal about drugs?”