Nemesis (Miss Marple 12)

“A kind thought,” said Miss Temple.

“Do you often go on these sightseeing tours?” asked Miss Marple.

“No. This is not for me exactly a sightseeing tour.”

Miss Marple looked at her with interest. She half opened her lips to speak but refrained from putting a question. Miss Temple smiled at her.

“You wonder why I am here, what my motive is, my reason. Well, why don’t you make a guess?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t like to do that,” said Miss Marple.

“Yes, do do so.” Elizabeth Temple was urgent. “It would interest me. Yes, really interest me. Make a guess.”

Miss Marple was silent for quite a few moments. Her eyes looked at Elizabeth Temple steadily, ranging over her thoughtfully in her appraisement. She said,

“This is not from what I know about you or what I have been told about you. I know that you are quite a famous person and that your school is a very famous one. No. I am only making my guess from what you look like. I should—write you down as a pilgrim. You have the look of one who is on a pilgrimage.”

There was a silence and then Elizabeth said,

“That describes it very well. Yes. I am on a pilgrimage.”

Miss Marple said after a moment or two,

“The friend who sent me on this tour and paid all my expenses, is now dead. He was a Mr. Rafiel, a very rich man. Did you by any chance know him?”

“Jason Rafiel? I know him by name, of course. I never knew him personally, or met him. He gave a large endowment once to an educational project in which I was interested. I was very grateful. As you say, he was a very wealthy man. I saw the notice of his death in the papers a few weeks ago. So he was an old friend of yours?”

“No,” said Miss Marple. “I had met him just over a year ago abroad. In the West Indies. I never knew much about him. His life or his family or any personal friends that he had. He was a great financier but otherwise, or so people always said, he was a man who was very reserved about himself. Did you know his family or anyone …?” Miss Marple paused. “I often wondered, but one does not like to ask questions and seem inquisitive.”

Elizabeth was silent for a minute—then she said:

“I knew a girl once … A girl who had been a pupil of mine at Fallowfield, my school. She was no actual relation to Mr. Rafiel, but she was at one time engaged to marry Mr. Rafiel’s son.”

“But she didn’t marry him?” Miss Marple asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Miss Temple said,

“One might hope to say—like to say—because she had too much sense. He was not the type of a young man one would want anyone one was fond of to marry. She was a very lovely girl and a very sweet girl. I don’t know why she didn’t marry him. Nobody has ever told me.” She sighed and then said, “Anyway, she died….”

“Why did she die?” said Miss Marple.

Elizabeth Temple stared at the peonies for some minutes. When she spoke she uttered one word. It echoed like the tone of a deep bell—so much so that it was startling.

“Love!” she said.

Miss Marple queried the word sharply. “Love?”

“One of the most frightening words there is in the world,” said Elizabeth Temple.

Again her voice was bitter and tragic.

“Love….”

Seven

AN INVITATION

I

Miss Marple decided to miss out on the afternoon’s sightseeing. She admitted to being somewhat tired and would perhaps give a miss to an ancient church and its 14th-century glass. She would rest for a while and join them at the tearoom which had been pointed out to her in the main street. Mrs. Sandbourne agreed that she was being very sensible.

Miss Marple, resting on a comfortable bench outside the tearoom, reflected on what she planned to do next and whether it would be wise to do it or not.

When the others joined her at teatime it was easy for her to attach herself unobtrusively to Miss Cooke and Miss Barrow and sit with them at a table for four. The fourth chair was occupied by Mr. Caspar whom Miss Marple considered as not sufficiently conversant with the English language to matter.

Leaning across the table, as she nibbled a slice of Swiss roll, Miss Marple said to Miss Cooke,

“You know, I am quite sure we have met before. I have been wondering and wondering about it—I’m not as good as I was at remembering faces, but I’m sure I have met you somewhere.”

Miss Cooke looked kindly but doubtful. Her eyes went to her friend, Miss Barrow. So did Miss Marple’s. Miss Barrow showed no signs of helping to probe the mystery.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever stayed in my part of the world,” went on Miss Marple, “I live in St. Mary Mead. Quite a small village, you know. At least, not so small nowadays, there is so much building going on everywhere. Not very far from Much Benham and only twelve miles from the coast at Loomouth.”

“Oh,” said Miss Cooke, “let me see. Well, I know Loomouth quite well and perhaps—”

Suddenly Miss Marple made a pleased exclamation.

“Why, of course! I was in my garden one day at St. Mary Mead and you spoke to me as you were passing by on the footpath. You said you were staying down there, I remember, with a friend—”

“Of course,” said Miss Cooke. “How stupid of me. I do remember you now. We spoke of how difficult it was nowadays to get anyone—to do job gardening, I mean—anyone who was any use.”

“Yes. You were not living there, I think? You were staying with someone.”

“Yes, I was staying with … with …” for a moment Miss Cooke hesitated, with the air of one who hardly knows or remembers a name.

“With a Mrs. Sutherland, was it?” suggested Miss Marple.

“No, no, it was … er … Mrs.—”

“Hastings,” said Miss Barrow firmly as she took a piece of chocolate cake.

“Oh yes, in one of the new houses,” said Miss Marple.

“Hastings,” said Mr. Caspar unexpectedly. He beamed. “I have been to Hastings—I have been to Eastbourne, too.” He beamed again. “Very nice—by the sea.”