Sleeping Murder (Miss Marple 13)

“Yes, thank you—no, not cakes, just a scone and butter.”

Giles gave the order, and Gwenda pushed the little black book across to Miss Marple.

“First you must read that,” she said, “and then we can talk. It’s what my father—what he wrote himself when he was at the nursing home. Oh, but first of all, just tell Miss Marple exactly what Dr. Penrose said, Giles.”

Giles did so. Then Miss Marple opened the little black book and the waitress brought three cups of weak coffee, and a scone and butter, and a plate of cakes. Giles and Gwenda did not talk. They watched Miss Marple as she read.

Finally she closed the book and laid it down. Her expression was difficult to read. There was, Gwenda thought, anger in it. Her lips were pressed tightly together, and her eyes shone very brightly, unusually so, considering her age.

“Yes, indeed,” she said. “Yes, indeed!”

Gwenda said: “You advised us once—do you remember?—not to go on. I can see why you did. But we did go on—and this is where we’ve got to. Only now, it seems as though we’d got to another place where one could—if one liked—stop … Do you think we ought to stop? Or not?”

Miss Marple shook her head slowly. She seemed worried, perplexed.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t know. It might be better to do so, much better to do so. Because after this lapse of time there is nothing that you can do—nothing, I mean, of a constructive nature.”

“You mean that after this lapse of time, there is nothing we can find out?” asked Giles.

“Oh no,” said Miss Marple. “I didn’t mean that at all. Nineteen years is not such a long time. There are people who would remember things, who could answer questions—quite a lot of people. Servants for instance. There must have been at least two servants in the house at the time, and a nurse, and probably a gardener. It will only take time and a little trouble to find and talk to these people. As a matter of fact, I’ve found one of them already. The cook. No, it wasn’t that. It was more the question of what practical good you can accomplish, and I’d be inclined to say to that—None. And yet….”

She stopped: “There is a yet … I’m a little slow in thinking things out, but I have a feeling that there is something—something, perhaps, not very tangible—that would be worth taking risks for—even that one should take risks for—but I find it difficult to say just what that is….”

Giles began “It seems to me—” and stopped.

Miss Marple turned to him gratefully.

“Gentlemen,” she said, “always seem to be able to tabulate things so clearly. I’m sure you have thought things out.”

“I’ve been thinking things out,” said Giles. “And it seems to me that there are just two conclusions one can come to. One is the same as I suggested before. Helen Halliday wasn’t dead when Gwennie saw her lying in the hall. She came to, and went away with her lover, whoever he was. That would still fit the facts as we know them. It would square with Kelvin Halliday’s rooted belief that he had killed his wife, and it would square with the missing suitcase and clothes and with the note that Dr. Kennedy found. But it leaves certain points unaccounted for. It doesn’t explain why Kelvin was convinced he strangled his wife in the bedroom. And it doesn’t cover the one, to my mind, really staggering question—where is Helen Halliday now? Because it seems to me against all reason that Helen should never have been heard of or from again. Grant that the two letters she wrote are genuine, what happened after that? Why did she never write again? She was on affectionate terms with her brother, he’s obviously deeply attached to her and always has been. He might disapprove of her conduct, but that doesn’t mean that he expected never to hear from her again. And if you ask me, that point has obviously been worrying Kennedy himself. Let’s say he accepted at the time absolutely the story he’s told us. His sister’s going off and Kelvin’s breakdown. But he didn’t expect never to hear from his sister again. I think, as the years went on, and he didn’t hear, and Kelvin Halliday persisted in his delusion and finally committed suicide, that a terrible doubt began to creep up in his mind. Supposing that Kelvin’s story was true? That he actually had killed Helen? There’s no word from her—and surely if she had died somewhere abroad, word would have come to him? I think that explains his eagerness when he saw our advertisement. He hoped that it might lead to some account of where she was or what she had been doing. I’m sure it’s absolutely unnatural for someone to disappear as—as completely as Helen seems to have done. That, in itself, is highly suspicious.”

“I agree with you,” said Miss Marple. “But the alternative, Mr. Reed?”

Giles said slowly, “I’ve been thinking out the alternative. It’s pretty fantastic, you know, and even rather frightening. Because it involves—how can I put it—a kind of malevolence….”

“Yes,” said Gwenda. “Malevolence is just right. Even, I think, something that isn’t quite sane …” She shivered.

“That is indicated, I think,” said Miss Marple. “You know, there’s a great deal of—well, queerness about—more than people imagine. I have seen some of it….”

Her face was thoughtful.

“There can’t be, you see, any normal explanation,” said Giles. “I’m taking now the fantastic hypothesis that Kelvin Halliday didn’t kill his wife, but genuinely thought he had done so. That’s what Dr. Penrose, who seems a decent sort of bloke, obviously wants to think. His first impression of Halliday was that there was a man who had killed his wife and wanted to give himself up to the police. Then he had to take Kennedy’s word for it that that wasn’t so, so he had perforce to believe that Halliday was a victim of a complex or a fixation or whatever the jargon is—but he didn’t really like that solution. He’s had a good experience of the type and Halliday didn’t square with it. However, on knowing Halliday better he became quite genuinely sure that Halliday was not the type of man who would strangle a woman under any provocation. So he accepted the fixation theory, but with misgivings. And that really means that only one theory will fit the case—Halliday was induced to believe that he had killed his wife, by someone else. In other words, we’ve come to X.

“Going over the facts very carefully, I’d say that that hypothesis is at least possible. According to his own account, Halliday came into the house that evening, went into the dining room, took a drink as he usually did—and then went into the next room, saw a note on the desk and had a blackout—”

Giles paused and Miss Marple nodded her head in approval. He went on:

“Say it wasn’t a blackout—that it was just simply dope—knock-out drops in the whisky. The next step is quite clear, isn’t it? X had strangled Helen in the hall, but afterwards he took her upstairs and arranged her artistically as a crime passionel on the bed, and that’s where Kelvin is when he comes to; and the poor devil, who may have been suffering from jealousy where she’s concerned, thinks that he’s done it. What does he do next? Goes off to find his brother-in-law—on the other side of the town and on foot. And that gives X time to do his next trick. Pack and remove a suitcase of clothes and also remove the body—though what he did with the body,” Giles ended vexedly, “beats me completely.”

“It surprises me you should say that, Mr. Reed,” said Miss Marple. “I should say that that problem would present few difficulties. But do please go on.”

“Who Were The Men In Her Life?” quoted Giles. “I saw that in a newspaper as we came back in the train. It set me wondering, because that’s really the crux of the matter, isn’t it? If there is an X, as we believe, all we know about him is that he must have been crazy about her—literally crazy about her.”

“And so he hated my father,” said Gwenda. “And he wanted him to suffer.”

“So that’s where we come up against it,” said Giles. “We know what kind of a girl Helen was—” he hesitated.

“Man mad,” supplied Gwenda.

Miss Marple looked up suddenly as though to speak, and then stopped.

“—and that she was beautiful. But we’ve no clue to what other men there were in her life besides her husband. There may have been any number.”

Miss Marple shook her head.

“Hardly that. She was quite young, you know. But you are not quite accurate, Mr. Reed. We do know something about what you have termed ‘the men in her life.’ There was the man she was going out to marry—”

>

“Ah yes—the lawyer chap? What was his name?”

“Walter Fane,” said Miss Marple.

“Yes. But you can’t count him. He was out in Malaya or India or somewhere.”

“But was he? He didn’t remain a tea-planter, you know,” Miss Marple pointed out. “He came back here and went into the firm, and is now the senior partner.”

Gwenda exclaimed: “Perhaps he followed her back here?”

“He may have done. We don’t know.”

Giles was looking curiously at the old lady.

“How did you find all this out?”

Miss Marple smiled apologetically.

“I’ve been gossiping a little. In shops—and waiting for buses. Old ladies are supposed to be inquisitive. Yes, one can pick up quite a lot of local news.”

“Walter Fane,” said Giles thoughtfully. “Helen turned him down. That may have rankled quite a lot. Did he ever marry?”

“No,” said Miss Marple. “He lives with his mother. I’m going to tea there at the end of the week.”

“There’s someone else we know about, too,” said Gwenda suddenly. “You remember there was somebody she got engaged to, or entangled with, when she left school—someone undesirable, Dr. Kennedy said. I wonder just why he was undesirable….”

“That’s two men,” said Giles. “Either of them may have had a grudge, may have brooded … Perhaps the first young man may have had some unsatisfactory mental history.”

“Dr. Kennedy could tell us that,” said Gwenda. “Only it’s going to be a little difficult asking him. I mean, it’s all very well for me to go along and ask for news of my stepmother whom I barely remember. But it’s going to take a bit of explaining if I want to know about her early love affairs. It seems rather excessive interest in a stepmother you hardly knew.”