Caribbean Mystery (Miss Marple 10)

“Oh yes. Good working acquaintance with them. If you ask me, there are too many of them about nowadays. Too many tranquillizers and pep pills and miracle drugs and all the rest of it. All right if they’re given on prescription, but there are too many of them you can get without prescription. Some of them can be dangerous.”

“I suppose so,” said Miss Marple. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“They have a great effect, you know, on behaviour. A lot of this teenage hysteria you get from time to time. It’s not natural causes. The kids’ve been taking things. Oh, there’s nothing new about it. It’s been known for ages. Out in the East—not that I’ve ever been there—all sorts of funny things used to happen. You’d be surprised at some of the things women gave their husbands. In India, for example, in the bad old days, a young wife who married an old husband. Didn’t want to get rid of him, I suppose, because she’d have been burnt on the funeral pyre, or if she wasn’t burnt she’d have been treated as an outcast by the family. No catch to have been a widow in India in those days. But she could keep an elderly husband under drugs, make him semi-imbecile, give him hallucinations, drive him more or less off his head.” He shook his head. “Yes, lot of dirty work.”

He went on: “And witches, you know. There’s a lot of interesting things known now about witches. Why did they always confess, why did they admit so readily that they were witches, that they had flown on broomsticks to the Witches’ Sabbath?”

“Torture,” said Miss Marple.

“Not always,” said Jackson. “Oh yes, torture accounted for a lot of it, but they came out with some of those confessions almost before torture was mentioned. They didn’t so much confess as boast about it. Well, they rubbed themselves with ointment, you know. Anointing they used to call it. Some of the preparations, belladonna, atropine, all that sort of thing; if you rub them on the skin they give you hallucinations of levitation, of flying through the air. They thought it all was genuine, poor devils. And look at the Assassins—medieval people, out in Syria, the Lebanon, somewhere like that. They fed them Indian hemp, gave them hallucinations of Paradise and houris, and endless time. They were told that that was what would happen to them after death, but to attain it they had to go and do a ritual killing. Oh, I’m not putting it in fancy language, but that’s what it came to.”

“What it came to,” said Miss Marple, “is in essence the fact that people are highly credulous.”

“Well yes, I suppose you could put it like that.”

“They believe what they are told,” said Miss Marple. “Yes indeed, we’re all inclined to do that,” she added. Then she said sharply, “Who told you these stories about India, about the doping of husbands with datura,” and she added sharply, before he could answer, “Was it Major Palgrave?”

Jackson looked slightly surprised. “Well—yes, as a matter of fact, it was. He told me a lot of stories like that. Of course most of it must have been before his time, but he seemed to know all about it.”

“Major Palgrave was under the impression that he knew a lot about everything,” said Miss Marple. “He was often inaccurate in what he told people.” She shook her head thoughtfully. “Major Palgrave,” she said, “has a lot to answer for.”

There was a slight sound from the adjoining bedroom. Miss Marple turned her head sharply. She went quickly out of the bathroom into the bedroom. Lucky Dyson was standing just inside the window.

“I—oh! I didn’t think you were here, Miss Marple.”

“I just stepped into the bathroom for a moment,” said Miss Marple, with dignity and a faint air of Victorian reserve.

In the bathroom, Jackson grinned broadly. Victorian modesty always amused him.

“I just wondered if you’d like me to sit with Molly for a bit,” said Lucky. She looked over towards the bed. “She’s asleep, isn’t she?”

“I think so,” said Miss Marple. “But it’s really quite all right. You go and amuse yourself, my dear. I thought you’d gone on that expedition?”

“I was going,” said Lucky, “but I had such a filthy headache that at the last moment I cried off. So I thought I might as well make myself useful.”

“That was very nice of you,” said Miss Marple. She reseated herself by the bed and resumed her knitting, “but I’m quite happy here.”

Lucky hesitated for a moment or two and then turned away and went out. Miss Marple waited a moment then tiptoed back into the bathroom, but Jackson had departed, no doubt through the other door. Miss Marple picked up the jar of face cream he had been holding, and slipped it into her pocket.

Twenty-two

A MAN IN HER LIFE?

Getting a little chat in a natural manner with Dr. Graham was not so easy as Miss Marple had hoped. She was particularly anxious not to approach him directly since she did not want to lend undue importance to the questions that she was going to ask him.

Tim was back, looking after Molly, and Miss Marple had arranged that she should relieve him there during the time that dinner was served and he was needed in the dining room. He had assured her that Mrs. Dyson was quite willing to take that on, or even Mrs. Hillingdon, but Miss Marple said firmly that they were both young women who liked enjoying themselves and that she herself preferred a light meal early and so that would suit everybody. Tim once again thanked her warmly. Hovering rather uncertainly round the hotel and on the pathway which connected with various bungalows, among them Dr. Graham’s, Miss Marple tried to plan what she was going to do next.

She had a lot of confused and contradictory ideas in her head and if there was one thing that Miss Marple did not like, it was to have confused and contradictory ideas. This whole business had started out clearly enough. Major Palgrave with his regrettable capacity for telling stories, his indiscretion that had obviously been overheard and the corollary, his death within twenty-four hours. Nothing difficult about that, thought Miss Marple.

But afterwards, she was forced to admit, there was nothing but difficulty. Everything pointed in too many different directions at once. Once admit that you didn’t believe a word that anybody had said to you, that nobody could be trusted, and that many of the persons with whom she had conversed here had regrettable resemblances to certain persons at St. Mary Mead, and where did that lead you?

Her mind was increasingly focused on the victim. Someone was going to be killed and she had the increasing feeling that she ought to know quite well who that someone was. There had been something. Something she had heard? Noticed? Seen?

Something someone had told her that had a bearing on the case. Joan Prescott? Joan Prescott had said a lot of things about a lot of people. Scandal? Gossip? What exactly had Joan Prescott said?

Gregory Dyson, Lucky—Miss Marple’s mind hovered over Lucky. Lucky, she was convinced with a certainty born of her natural suspicions, had been actively concerned in the death of Gregory Dyson’s first wife. Everything pointed to it. Could it be that the predestined victim over whom she was worrying was Gregory Dyson? That Lucky intended to try her luck again with another husband, and for that reason wanted not only freedom but the handsome inheritance that she would get as Gregory Dyson’s widow?

> “But really,” said Miss Marple to herself, “this is all pure conjecture. I’m being stupid. I know I’m being stupid. The truth must be quite plain, if one could just clear away the litter. Too much litter, that’s what’s the matter.”

“Talking to yourself?” said Mr. Rafiel.

Miss Marple jumped. She had not noticed his approach. Esther Walters was supporting him and he was coming slowly down from his bungalow to the terrace.

“I really didn’t notice you, Mr. Rafiel.”

“Your lips were moving. What’s become of all this urgency of yours?”

“It’s still urgent,” said Miss Marple, “only I can’t just see what must be perfectly plain—”

“I’m glad it’s as simple as that—Well, if you want any help, count on me.”

He turned his head as Jackson approached them along the path.

“So there you are, Jackson. Where the devil have you been? Never about when I want you.”

“Sorry, Mr. Rafiel.”

Dexterously he slipped his shoulder under Mr. Rafiel’s. “Down to the terrace, sir?”

“You can take me to the bar,” said Mr. Rafiel. “All right, Esther, you can go now and change into your evening togs. Meet me on the terrace in half an hour.”

He and Jackson went off together. Mrs. Walters dropped into the chair by Miss Marple. She rubbed her arm gently.

“He seems a very light weight,” she observed, “but at the moment my arm feels quite numb. I haven’t seen you this afternoon at all, Miss Marple.”

“No, I’ve been sitting with Molly Kendal,” Miss Marple explained. “She seems really very much better.”

“If you ask me there was never very much wrong with her,” said Esther Walters.

Miss Marple raised her eyebrows. Esther Walters’s tone had been decidedly dry.

“You mean—you think her suicide attempt….”

“I don’t think there was any suicide attempt,” said Esther Walters. “I don’t believe for a moment she took a real overdose and I think Dr. Graham knows that perfectly well.”