Nemesis (Miss Marple 12)

“Michael—can’t remember his last name. It’s ten years ago that it happened—one forgets. Italian sort of name—like a picture. Someone who paints pictures—Raffle, that’s it—”

“Michael Rafiel?”

“That’s right! There was a rumour as went about that his father being so rich got him wangled out of prison. An escape like the Bank Robbers. But I think as that was just talk—”

So it had not been suicide. It had been murder. “Love!” Elizabeth Temple had named as the cause of a girl’s death. In a way she was right. A young girl had fallen in love with a killer—and for love of him had gone unsuspecting to an ugly death.

Miss Marple gave a little shudder. On her way along the village street yesterday she had passed a newspaper placard:

EPSOM DOWNS MURDER, SECOND GIRL’S BODY DISCOVERED, YOUTH ASKED TO ASSIST POLICE.

So history repeated itself. An old pattern—an ugly pattern. Some lines of forgotten verse came haltingly into her brain:

Rose white youth, passionate, pale,

A singing stream in a silent vale,

A fairy prince in a prosy tale,

Oh there’s nothing in life so finely frail

As Rose White Youth.

Who was there to guard Youth from Pain and Death? Youth who could not, who had never been able to, guard itself. Did they know too little? Or was it that they knew too much? And therefore thought they knew it all.

II

Miss Marple, coming down the stairs that morning, probably rather earlier than she had been expected, found no immediate sign of her hostesses. She let herself out at the front door and wandered once round the garden. It was not because she’d really enjoyed this particular garden. It was some vague feeling that there was something here that she ought to notice, something that would give her some idea, or that had given her some idea only she had not—well, frankly, she had not been bright enough to realize just what the bright idea had been. Something she ought to take note of, something that had a bearing.

She was not at the moment anxious to see any of the three sisters. She wanted to turn a few things over in her mind. The new facts that had come to her through Janet’s early tea chat.

A side gate stood open and she went through it to the village street and along a line of small shops to where a steeple poked up announcing the site of the church and its churchyard. She pushed open the lych-gate and wandered about among the graves, some dating from quite a while back, some by the far wall later ones, and one or two beyond the wall in what was obviously a new enclosure. There was nothing of great interest among the older tombs. Certain names recurred as they do in villages. A good many Princes of village origin had been buried. Jasper Prince, deeply regretted. Margery Prince, Edgar and Walter Prince, Melanie Prince, 4 years old. A family record. Hiram Broad—Ellen Jane Broad, Eliza Broad, 91 years.

She was turning away from the latter when she observed an elderly man moving in slow motion among the graves, tidying up as he walked. He gave her a salute and a “good morning.”

“Good morning,” said Miss Marple. “A very pleasant day.”

“It’ll turn to rain later,” said the old man.

He spoke with the utmost certainty.

“There seem to be a lot of Princes and Broads buried here,” said Miss Marple.

“Ah yes, there’ve always been Princes here. Used to own quite a bit of land once. There have been Broads a good many years, too.”

“I see a child is buried here. Very sad when one sees a child’s grave.”

“Ah, that’ll be little Melanie that was. Mellie, we called her. Yes, it was a sad death. Run over, she was. Ran out into the street, went to get sweets at the sweet shop. Happens a lot nowadays with cars going through at the pace they do.”

“It is sad to think,” said Miss Marple, “that there are so many deaths all the time. And one doesn’t really notice it until one looks at the inscriptions in the churchyard. Sickness, old age, children run over, sometimes even more dreadful things. Young girls killed. Crimes, I mean.”

“Ah, yes, there’s a lot of that about. Silly girls, I call most of ’em. And their mums haven’t got time to look after them properly nowadays—what with going out to work so much.”

Miss Marple rather agreed with his criticism, but had no wish to waste time in agreement on the trend of the day.

“Staying at The Old Manor House, aren’t you?” the old man asked. “Come here on the coach tour I saw. But it got too much for you, I suppose. Some of those that are gettin’ on can’t always take it.”

“I did find it a little exhausting,” confessed Miss Marple, “and a very kind friend of mine, a Mr. Rafiel, wrote to some friends of his here and they invited me to stay for a couple of nights.”

The name, Rafiel, clearly meant nothing to the elderly gardener.

“Mrs. Glynne and her two sisters have been very kind,” said Miss Marple. “I suppose they’ve lived here a long time?”

“Not so long as that. Twenty years maybe. Belonged to old Colonel Bradbury-Scott. The Old Manor House did. Close on seventy he was when he died.”

“Did he have any children?”

“A son what was killed in the war. That’s why he left the place to his nieces. Nobody else to leave it to.”

He went back to his work amongst the graves.

Miss Marple went into the church. It had felt the hand of a Victorian restorer, and had bright Victorian glass in the windows. One or two brasses and some tablets on the walls were all that was left of the past.

Miss Marple sat down in an uncomfortable pew and wondered about things.

Was she on the right track now? Things were connecting up—but the connections were far from clear.

A girl had been murdered—(actually several girls had been murdered)—suspected young men (or “youths” as they were usually called nowadays) had been rounded up by the police, to “assist them in their enquiries.” A common pattern, but this was all old history, dating back ten or twelve years. There was nothing to find out—now, no problems to solve. A tragedy labelled Finis.

What could be done by her? What could Mr. Rafiel possibly want her to do?

Elizabeth Temple … She must get Elizabeth Temple to tell her more. Elizabeth had spoken of a girl who had been engaged to be married to Michael Rafiel. But was that really so? That did not seem to be known to those in The Old Manor House.

A more familiar version came into Miss Marple’s mind—the kind of story that had been reasonably frequent in her own village. Starting as always, “Boy meets girl.” Developing in the usual way—

“And then the girl finds she is pregnant,” said Miss Marple to herself, “and she tells the boy and she wants him to marry her. But he, perhaps, doesn’t want to marry her—he has never had any idea of marrying her. Bu

t things may be made difficult for him in this case. His father, perhaps, won’t hear of such a thing. Her relations will insist that he ‘does the right thing.’ And by now he is tired of the girl—he’s got another girl perhaps. And so he takes a quick brutal way out—strangles her, beats her head to a pulp to avoid identification. It fits with his record—a brutal sordid crime—but forgotten and done with.”

She looked round the church in which she was sitting. It looked so peaceful. The reality of Evil was hard to believe in. A flair for Evil—that was what Mr. Rafiel had attributed to her. She rose and walked out of the church and stood looking round the churchyard again. Here, amongst the gravestones and their worn inscriptions, no sense of Evil moved in her.

Was it Evil she had sensed yesterday at The Old Manor House? That deep depression of despair, that dark desperate grief. Anthea Bradbury-Scott, her eyes gazing fearfully back over one shoulder, as though fearing some presence that stood there—always stood there—behind her.

They knew something, those Three Sisters, but what was it that they knew?

Elizabeth Temple, she thought again. She pictured Elizabeth Temple with the rest of the coach party, striding across the downs at this moment, climbing up a steep path and gazing over the cliffs out to sea.

Tomorrow, when she rejoined the tour, she would get Elizabeth Temple to tell her more.

III

Miss Marple retraced her steps to The Old Manor House, walking rather slowly because she was by now tired. She could not really feel that her morning had been productive in any way. So far The Old Manor House had given her no distinctive ideas of any kind, a tale of a past tragedy told by Janet, but there were always past tragedies treasured in the memories of domestic workers and which were remembered quite as clearly as all the happy events such as spectacular weddings, big entertainments and successful operations or accidents from which people had recovered in a miraculous manner.

As she drew near the gate she saw two female figures standing there. One of them detached itself and came to meet her. It was Mrs. Glynne.