Today would be a day like any other day, she said to herself.
Only, of course, it wasn’t.
Miss Marple carried out her programme as planned and was slowly making her way along the path towards the hotel when she met Molly Kendal. For once that sunny young woman was not smiling. Her air of distress was so unlike her that Miss Marple said immediately:
“My dear, is anything wrong?”
Molly nodded. She hesitated and then said: “Well, you’ll have to know—everyone will have to know. It’s Major Palgrave. He’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“Yes. He died in the night.”
“Oh, dear, I am sorry.”
“Yes, it’s horrid having a death here. It makes everyone depressed. Of course—he was quite old.”
“He seemed quite well and cheerful yesterday,” said Miss Marple, slightly resenting this calm assumption that everyone of advanced years was liable to die at any minute.
“He seemed quite healthy,” she added.
“He had high blood pressure,” said Molly.
“But surely there are things one takes nowadays—some kind of pill. Science is so wonderful.”
“Oh yes, but perhaps he forgot to take his pills, or took too many of them. Like insulin, you know.”
Miss Marple did not think that diabetes and high blood pressure were at all the same kind of thing. She asked:
“What does the doctor say?”
“Oh, Dr. Graham, who’s practically retired now, and lives in the hotel, took a look at him, and the local people came officially, of course, to give a death certificate, but it all seems quite straightforward. This kind of thing is quite liable to happen when you have high blood pressure, especially if you overdo the alcohol, and Major Palgrave was really very naughty that way. Last night, for instance.”
“Yes, I noticed,” said Miss Marple.
“He probably forgot to take his pills. It is bad luck for the old boy—but people can’t live for ever, can they? But it’s terribly worrying—for me and Tim, I mean. People might suggest it was something in the food.”
“But surely the symptoms of food poisoning and of blood pressure are quite different?”
“Yes. But people do say things so easily. And if people decided the food was bad—and left—or told their friends—”
“I really don’t think you need worry,” said Miss Marple kindly. “As you say, an elderly man like Major Palgrave—he must have been over seventy—is quite liable to die. To most people it will seem quite an ordinary occurrence—sad, but not out of the way at all.”
“If only,” said Molly unhappily, “it hadn’t been so sudden.”
Yes, it had been very sudden, Miss Marple thought as she walked slowly on. There he had been last night, laughing and talking in the best of spirits with the Hillingdons and the Dysons.
The Hillingdons and the Dysons … Miss Marple walked more slowly still … Finally she stopped abruptly. Instead of going to the bathing beach she settled herself in a shady corner of the terrace. She took out her knitting and the needles clicked rapidly as though they were trying to match the speed of her thoughts. She didn’t like it—no, she didn’t like it. It came so pat.
She went over the occurrences of yesterday in her mind.
Major Palgrave and his stories….
That was all as usual and one didn’t need to listen very closely … Perhaps, though, it would have been better if she had.
Kenya—he had talked about Kenya and then India—the North West Frontier—and then—for some reason they had got on to murder—And even then she hadn’t really been listening….
Some famous case that had taken place out here—that had been in the newspapers—
It was after that—when he picked up her ball of wool—that he had begun telling her about a snapshot—A snapshot of a murderer—that is what he had said.
Miss Marple closed her eyes and tried to remember just exactly how that story had gone.
It had been rather a confused story—told to the Major in his club—or in somebody else’s club—told him by a doctor—who had heard it from another doctor—and one doctor had taken a snapshot of someone coming through a front door—someone who was a murderer—
Yes, that was it—the various details were coming back to her now—
And he had offered to show her that snapshot—He had got out his wallet and begun hunting through its contents—talking all the time….
And then still talking, he had looked up—had looked—not at her—but at something behind her—behind her right shoulder to be accurate. And he had stopped talking, his face had gone purple—and he had started stuffing back everything into his wallet with slightly shaky hands and had begun talking in a loud unnatural voice about elephant tusks!
A moment or two later the Hillingdons and the Dysons had joined them….
It was then that she had turned her head over her right shoulder to look … But there had been nothing and nobody to see. To her left, some distance away, in the direction of the hotel, there had been Tim Kendal and his wife; and beyond them a family group of Venezuelans. But Major Palgrave had not been looking in that direction….
Miss Marple meditated until lunch time.
After lunch she did not go for a drive.
Instead she sent a message to say that she was not feeling very well and to ask if Dr. Graham would be kind enough to come and see her.
Four
MISS MARPLE SEEKS MEDICAL ATTENTION
Dr. Graham was a kindly elderly man of about sixty-five. He had practised in the West Indies for many years, but was now semi-retired, and left most of his work to his West Indian partners. He greeted Miss Marple pleasantly and asked her what the trouble was. Fortunately at Miss Marple’s age, there was always some ailment that could be discussed with slight exaggerations on the patient’s part. Miss Marple hesitated between “her shoulder” and “her knee,” but finally decided upon the knee. Miss Marple’s knee, as she would have put it to herself, was always with her.
Dr. Graham was exceedingly kindly but he refrained from putting into words the fact that at her time of life such troubles were only to be expected. He prescribed for her one of the brands of useful little pills that form the basis of a doctor’s prescriptions. Since he knew by experience that many elderly people could be lonely when they first came to St. Honoré, he remained for a while gently chatting.
“A very nice man,” thought Miss Marple to herself, “and I really feel rather ashamed of having to tell him lies. But I don’t quite see what else I can do.”
Miss Marple had been brought up to have a proper regard for truth and was indeed by nature a very truthful person. But on certain occasions, when she considered it her duty so to do, she could tell lies with a really astonishing verisimilitude.
She cleared her throat, uttered an apologetic little cough, and said, in an old ladyish and slightly twittering manner:
“There is something, Dr. Graham, I would like to ask you. I don’t really like mentioning it—but I don’t quite see what else I am to do—although of course it’s quite unimportant really. But you see, it’s important to me. And I hope you will understand and not think what I am asking is tiresome or—or unpardonable in any way.”
To this opening Dr. Graham replied kindly: “Something is worrying you? Do let me help.”
“It’s connected with Major Palgrave. So sad about his dying. It was quite a shock when I heard it this morning.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Graham, “it was very sudden, I’m afraid. He seemed in such good spirits yesterday.” He spoke kindly, but conventionally. To him, clearly, Major Palgrave’s death was nothing out of the way. Miss Marple wondered whether she was really making something out of nothing. Was this suspicious habit of mind growing on her? Perhaps she could no longer trust her own judgment. Not that it was judgment really, only suspicion. Anyway she was in for it now! She must go ahead.
“We were sitting talking together yesterday afternoon,
” she said. “He was telling me about his very varied and interesting life. So many strange parts of the globe.”
“Yes indeed,” said Dr. Graham, who had been bored many times by the Major’s reminiscences.