Nemesis (Miss Marple 12)

“You do not know?” said Miss Marple, “but you do still know and believe one thing, don’t you?”

“What do you mean exactly by ‘believe?’ Are you talking from the religious point of view?”

“Oh no,” said Miss Marple, “I didn’t mean that. I mean, there seems to be in you, or so I feel it, a very strong belief that those two loved each other, that they meant to marry, but that something happened that prevented it. Something that ended in her death, but you still really believe that they were coming to you to get married that day?”

“You are quite right, my dear. Yes, I cannot help still believing in two lovers who wished to get married, who were ready to take each other on for better, for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. She loved him and she would have taken him for better or for worse. As far as she had gone, she took him for worse. It brought about her death.”

“You must go on believing as you do,” said Miss Marple. “I think, you know, that I believe it too.”

“But then what?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Miss Marple. “I’m not sure, but I think Elizabeth Temple did know or was beginning to know what happened. A frightening word, she said. Love. I thought when she spoke that what she meant was that because of a love affair Verity committed suicide. Because she found out something about Michael, or because something about Michael suddenly upset her and revolted her. But it couldn’t have been suicide.”

“No,” said the Archdeacon, “that couldn’t be so. The injuries were described very fully at the trial. You don’t commit suicide by beating in your own head.”

“Horrible!” said Miss Marple. “Horrible! And you couldn’t do that to anyone you loved even if you had to kill ‘for love,’ could you? If he’d killed her, he couldn’t have done it that way. Strangling—perhaps, but you wouldn’t beat in the face and the head that you loved.” She murmured, “Love, love—a frightening word.”

Nineteen

GOOD-BYES ARE SAID

The coach was drawn up in front of the Golden Boar on the following morning. Miss Marple had come down and was saying good-bye to various friends. She found Mrs. Riseley-Porter in a state of high indignation.

“Really, girls nowadays,” she said. “No vigour. No stamina.”

Miss Marple looked at her enquiringly.

“Joanna, I mean. My niece.”

“Oh dear. Is she not well?”

“Well, she says not. I can’t see anything much the matter with her. She says she’s got a sore throat, she feels she might have a temperature coming on. All nonsense, I think.”

“Oh, I’m very sorry,” said Miss Marple. “Is there anything I can do? Look after her?”

“I should leave her alone, if I were you,” said Mrs. Riseley-Porter. “If you ask me, it’s all an excuse.”

Miss Marple looked enquiringly at her once more.

“Girls are so silly. Always falling in love.”

“Emlyn Price?” said Miss Marple.

“Oh, so you’ve noticed it too. Yes, they’re really getting to a stage of spooning about together. I don’t much care for him anyway. One of these long-haired students, you know. Always going on demos or something like that. Why can’t they say demonstration properly? I hate abbreviations. And how am I going to get along? Nobody to look after me, collect my luggage, take it in, take it out. Really. I’m paying for this complete trip and everything.”

“I thought she seemed so attentive to you,” said Miss Marple.

“Well, not the last day or two. Girls don’t understand that people have to have a little assistance when they get to middle age. They seem to have some absurd idea—she and the Price boy—of going to visit some mountain or some landmark. About a seven or eight mile walk there and back.”

“But surely if she has a sore throat and a temperature….”

“You’ll see, as soon as the coach is gone the sore throat will get better and the temperature will go down,” said Mrs. Riseley-Porter. “Oh dear, we’ve got to get on board now. Oh, good-bye, Miss Marple, it’s nice to have met you. I’m sorry you’re not coming with us.”

“I’m very sorry myself,” said Miss Marple, “but really you know, I’m not so young and vigorous as you are, Mrs. Riseley-Porter, and I really feel after all the—well, shock and everything else the last few days, I really must have a complete twenty-four hours’ rest.”

“Well, hope to see you somewhere in the future.”

They shook hands. Mrs. Riseley-Porter climbed into the coach.

A voice behind Miss Marple’s shoulder said:

“Bon Voyage and Good Riddance.”

She turned to see Emlyn Price. He was grinning.

“Was that addressed to Mrs. Riseley-Porter?”

“Yes. Who else.”

“I’m sorry to hear that Joanna is under the weather this morning.”

Emlyn Price grinned at Miss Marple again.

“She’ll be all right,” he said, “as soon as that coach is gone.”

“Oh really!” said Miss Marple, “do you mean—?”

“Yes, I do mean,” said Emlyn Price. “Joanna’s had enough of that aunt of hers, bossing her around all the time.”

“Then you are not going in the coach either?”

“No. I’m staying on here for a couple of days. I’m going to get around a bit and do a few excursions. Don’t look so disapproving, Miss Marple. You’re not really as disapproving as all that, are you?”

“Well,” said Miss Marple, “I have known such things happen in my own youth. The excuses may have been different, and I think we had less chance of getting away with things than you do now.”

Colonel and Mrs. Walker came up and shook Miss Marple warmly by the hand.

“So nice to have known you and had all those delightful horticultural talks,” said the Colonel. “I believe the day after tomorrow we’re going to have a real treat, if nothing else happens. Really it’s too sad, this very unfortunate accident. I must say I think myself it is an accident. I really think the Coroner was going beyond everything in his feelings about this.”

“It seems very odd,” said Miss Marple, “that nobody has come forward, if they were up on top there, pushing about rocks and boulders and things, that they haven’t come forward to say so.”

“Think they’ll be blamed, of course,” said Colonel Walker. “They’re going to keep jolly quiet, that’s what they’re going to do. Well, good-bye. I’ll send you a cutting of that magnolia highdownensis and one of the mahonia japonica too. Though I’m not quite sure if it would do as well where you live.”

They in turn got into the coach. Miss Marple turned away. She turned to see Professor Wanstead waving to the departing coach. Mrs. Sandbourne came out, said good-bye to Miss Marple and got in the coach and Miss Marple took Professor Wanstead by the arm.

“I want you,” she said. “Can we go somewhere where we can talk?”

“Yes. What about the place where we sat the other day?”

“Round here there’s a very nice verandah place, I think.”

They walked round the corner of the hotel. There was some gay horn blowing, and the coach departed.

“I wish, in a way, you know,” said Professor Wanstead, “that you weren’t staying behind. I’d rather have seen you safely on your way in the coach.” He looked at her sharply. “Why are you staying here? Nervous exhaustion or something else?”

“Something else,” said Miss Marple. “I’m not particularly exhausted, though it makes a perfectly natural excuse for somebody of my age.”

“I feel really I ought to stay here and keep an eye on you.”

“No,” said Miss Marple, “there’s no need to do that. There are other things you ought to be doing.”

“What things?” He looked at her. “Have you got ideas or knowledge?”

“I think I have knowledge, but I’ll have to verify it. There are certain things that I can’t do myself. I think you will help to do them because you’re

in touch with what I refer to as the authorities.”

“Meaning Scotland Yard, Chief Constables and the Governors of Her Majesty’s Prisons?”

“Yes. One or other or all of them. You might have the Home Secretary in your pocket, too.”

“You certainly do have ideas! Well, what do you want me to do?”

“First of all I want to give you this address.”

She took out a notebook and tore out one page and handed it to him.

“What’s this? Oh yes, well-known charity, isn’t it?”

“One of the better ones, I believe. They do a lot of good. You send them clothes,” said Miss Marple, “children’s clothes and women’s clothes. Coats. Pullovers, all those sort of things.”

“Well, do you want me to contribute to this?”

“No, it’s an appeal for charity, it’s a bit of what belongs to what we’re doing. What you and I are doing.”

“In what way?”

“I want you to make enquiries there about a parcel which was sent from here two days ago, posted from this post office.”

“Who posted it—did you?”