Sleeping Murder (Miss Marple 13)

It was very lonely in among the trees. There was no one to hear a cry or a struggle. Actually there was no cry and the struggle was very soon over.

A wood-pigeon, disturbed, flew out of the wood….

III

“What can have become of the woman?” demanded Dr. Kennedy irritably.

The hands of the clock pointed to ten minutes to five.

“Could she have lost her way coming from the station?”

“I gave her explicit directions. In any case it’s quite simple. Turn to the left when she got out of the station and then take the first road to the right. As I say, it’s only a few minutes’ walk.”

“Perhaps she’s changed her mind,” said Giles.

“It looks like it.”

“Or missed the train,” suggested Gwenda.

Kennedy said slowly, “No, I think it’s more likely that she decided not to come after all. Perhaps her husband stepped in. All these country people are quite incalculable.”

He walked up and down the room.

Then he went to the telephone and asked for a number.

“Hullo? Is that the station? This is Dr. Kennedy speaking. I was expecting someone by the four thirty-five. Middle-aged country woman. Did anyone ask to be directed to me? Or—what do you say?”

The others were near enough to hear the soft lazy accent of Woodleigh Bolton’s one porter.

“Don’t think as there could be anyone for you, Doctor. Weren’t no strangers on the four thirty-five. Mr. Narracotts from Meadows, and Johnnie Lawes, and old Benson’s daughter. Weren’t no other passengers at all.”

“So she changed her mind,” said Dr. Kennedy. “Well, I can offer you tea. The kettle’s on. I’ll go out and make it.”

He returned with the teapot and they sat down.

“It’s only a temporary check,” he said more cheerfully. “We’ve got her address. We’ll go over and see her, perhaps.”

The telephone rang and the doctor got up to answer.

“Dr. Kennedy?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Inspector Last, Longford police station. Were you expecting a woman called Lily Kimble—Mrs. Lily Kimble—to call upon you this afternoon?”

“I was. Why? Has there been an accident?”

“Not what you’d call an accident exactly. She’s dead. We found a letter from you on the body. That’s why I rang you up. Can you make it convenient to come along to Longford police station as soon as possible?”

“I’ll come at once.”

IV

“Now let’s get this quite clear,” Inspector Last was saying.

He looked from Kennedy to Giles and Gwenda who had accompanied the doctor. Gwenda was very pale and held her hands tightly clasped together. “You were expecting this woman by the train that leaves Dillmouth Junction at four-five? And gets to Woodleigh Bolton at four thirty-five?”

Dr. Kennedy nodded.

Inspector Last looked down at the letter he had taken from the dead woman’s body. It was quite clear.

Dear Mrs. Kimble (Dr. Kennedy had written)

I shall be glad to advise you to the best of my power. As you will see from the heading of this letter I no longer live in Dillmouth. If you will take the train leaving Coombeleigh at 3.30, change at Dillmouth Junction, and come by the Lonsbury Bay train to Woodleigh Bolton, my house is only a few minutes’ walk. Turn to the left as you come out of the station, then take the first road on the right. My house is at the end of it on the right. The name is on the gate.

Yours truly,

James Kennedy.

“There was no question of her coming by an earlier train?”

“An earlier train?” Dr. Kennedy looked astonished.

“Because that’s what she did. She left Coombeleigh, not at three thirty but at one thirty—caught the two-five from Dillmouth Junction and got out, not at Woodleigh Bolton, but at Matchings Halt, the station before it.”

“But that’s extraordinary!”

“Was she consulting you professionally, Doctor?”

“No. I retired from practice some years ago.”

“That’s what I thought. You knew her well?”

Kennedy shook his head.

“I hadn’t seen her for nearly twenty years.”

“But you—er—recognized her just now?”

Gwenda shivered, but dead bodies did not affect a doctor and Kennedy replied thoughtfully: “Under the circumstances it is hard to say if I recognized her or not. She was strangled, I presume?”

“She was strangled. The body was found in a copse a short way along the track leading from Matchings Halt to Woodleigh Camp. It was found by a hiker coming down from the Camp at about ten minutes to four. Our police surgeon puts the time of death at between two fifteen and three o’clock. Presumably she was killed shortly after she left the station. No other passenger got out at Matchings Halt. She was the only person to get out of the train there.

“Now why did she get out at Matchings Halt? Did she mistake the station? I hardly think so. In any case she was two hours early for her appointment with you, and had not come by the train you suggested, although she had your letter with her.

“Now just what was her business with you, Doctor?”

Dr. Kennedy felt in his pocket and brought out Lily’s letter.

“I brought this with me. The enclosed cutting and the insertion put in the local paper by Mr. and Mrs. Reed here.”

Inspector Last read Lily Kimble’s letter and the enclosure. Then he looked from Dr. Kennedy to Giles and Gwenda.

“Can I have the story behind all this? It goes back a long way, I gather?”

“Eighteen years,” said Gwenda.

Piecemeal, with additions, and parentheses, the story came out. Inspector Last was a good listener. He let the three people in front of him tell things in their own way. Kennedy was dry, and factual, Gwenda was slightly incoherent, but her narrative had imaginative power. Giles gave, perhaps, the most valuable contribution. He was clear and to the point, with less reserve than Kennedy, and with more coherence than Gwenda. It took a long time.

Then Inspector Last sighed and summed up.

“Mrs. Halliday was Dr. Kennedy’s sister and your stepmother, Mrs. Reed. She disappeared from the house you are at present living in eighteen years ago. Lily Kimble (whose maiden name was Abbott) was a servant (house-parlourmaid) in the house at the time. For some reason Lily Kimble inclines (after the passage of years) to the theory that there was foul play. At the time it was assumed that Mrs. Halliday had gone away with a man (identity unknown). Major Halliday died in a mental establishment fifteen years ago still under the delusion that he had strangled his wife—if it was a delusion—”

He paused.