Nemesis (Miss Marple 12)

“Oh yes, I make quite a study of it. I had some training in nursing, you know, and one thing and another.”

“Indeed.” Miss Marple pushed the cup away slightly. “I suppose there is no photograph of this girl?” she asked. “Verity Hunt, or whatever her name was? The Archdeacon was talking about her. He seemed to have been very fond of her.”

“I think he was. He was fond of all young people,” said Clotilde.

She got up, went across the room and lifted the lid of a desk. From that she brought a photograph and brought it over for Miss Marple to see.

“That was Verity,” she said.

“A beautiful face,” said Miss Marple. “Yes, a very beautiful and unusual face. Poor child.”

“It’s dreadful nowadays,” said Anthea, “these things seem to be happening the whole time. Girls going out with every kind of young man. Nobody taking any trouble to look after them.”

“They have to look after themselves nowadays,” said Clotilde, “and they’ve no idea of how to do it, heaven help them!”

She stretched out a hand to take back the photograph from Miss Marple. As she did so her sleeve caught the coffee cup and knocked it to the floor.

“Oh dear!” said Miss Marple. “Was that my fault? Did I jog your arm?”

“No,” said Clotilde, “it was my sleeve. It’s rather a floating sleeve. Perhaps you would like some hot milk, if you are afraid to take coffee?”

“That would be very kind,” said Miss Marple. “A glass of hot milk when I go to bed would be very soothing indeed, and always gives one a good night.”

After a little more desultory conversation, Miss Cooke and Miss Barrow took their departure. A rather fussy departure in which first one and then the other came back to collect some article they’d left behind. A scarf, a handbag and a pocket handkerchief.

“Fuss, fuss, fuss,” said Anthea, when they had departed.

“Somehow,” said Mrs. Glynne, “I agree with Clotilde that those two don’t seem real, if you know what I mean,” she said to Miss Marple.

“Yes,” said Miss Marple, “I do rather agree with you. They don’t seem very real. I have wondered about them a good deal. Wondered, I mean, why they came on this tour and if they were really enjoying it. And what was their reason for coming.”

“And have you discovered the answers to all those things?” asked Clotilde.

“I think so,” said Miss Marple. She sighed. “I’ve discovered the answers to a lot of things,” she said.

“Up to now I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself,” said Clotilde.

“I am glad to have left the tour now,” said Miss Marple. “I don’t think I should have enjoyed much more of it.”

“No. I can quite understand that.”

Clotilde fetched a glass of hot milk from the kitchen and accompanied Miss Marple up to her room.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” she asked. “Anything at all?”

“No, thank you,” said Miss Marple. “I have everything I want. I have my little night bag here, you see, so I need not do anymore unpacking. Thank you,” she said, “it is very kind of you and your sisters to put me up again tonight.”

“Well, we couldn’t do much less, having had Mr. Rafiel’s letter. He was a very thoughtful man.”

“Yes,” said Miss Marple, “the kind of man who—well, thinks of everything. A good brain, I should think.”

“I believe he was a very noted financier.”

“Financially and otherwise, he thought of a lot of things,” said Miss Marple. “Oh well, I shall be glad to get to bed. Good night, Miss Bradbury-Scott.”

“Shall I send you breakfast up in the morning, you’d like to have it in bed?”

“No, no, I wouldn’t put you out for the world. No, no, I would rather come down. A cup of tea, perhaps, would be very nice, but I want to go out in the garden. I particularly want to see that mound all covered with white flowers, so beautiful and so triumphant—”

“Good night,” said Clotilde, “sleep well.”

II

In the hall of The Old Manor House the grandfather clock at the bottom of the stairs struck two o’clock. The clocks in the house did not all strike in unison and some of them, indeed, did not strike at all. To keep a house full of antique clocks in working order was not easy. At three o’clock the clock on the first floor landing struck a soft-chimed three o’clock. A faint chink of light showed through the hinge of the door.

Miss Marple sat up in bed and put her fingers on the switch of the electric lamp by her bed. The door opened very softly. There was no light outside now but the soft footstep came through the door into the room. Miss Marple switched the light on.

“Oh,” she said, “it’s you, Miss Bradbury-Scott. Is there anything special?”

“I just came to see if you wanted anything,” said Miss Bradbury-Scott.

Miss Marple looked at her. Clotilde had on a long purple robe. What a handsome woman she was, thought Miss Marple. Her hair framing her forehead, a tragic figure, a figure of drama. Again Miss Marple thought of Greek plays. Clytemnestra again.

“You’re sure there is nothing I can bring you?”

“No, thank you,” said Miss Marple. “I’m afraid,” she said apologetically, “that I have not drunk my milk.”

“Oh dear, why not?”

“I did not think it would be very good for me,” said Miss Marple.

Clotilde stood there, at the foot of the bed, looking at her.

“Not wholesome, you know,” said Miss Marple.

“Just what do you mean by that?” Clotilde’s voice was harsh now.

“I think you know what I mean,” said Miss Marple. “I think you’ve known all the evening. Perhaps before that.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“No?” There was a faint satirical note to the questioning monosyllable.

“I am afraid the milk is cold now. I will take it away and get you some hot.”

Clotilde stretched out a hand and took the glass of milk from the bedside.

“Don’t trouble yourself,” said Miss Marple. “Even if you brought it me, I should not drink it.”

“I really cannot understand the point of what you’re saying. Really,” said Clotilde, looking at her. “What a very extraordinary person you are. What sort of a woman are you? Why are you talking like this? Who are you?”

Miss Marple pu

lled down the mass of pink wool that encircled her head, a pink wool scarf of the same kind that she had once worn in the West Indies.

“One of my names,” she said, “is Nemesis.”

“Nemesis? And what does that mean?”

“I think you know,” said Miss Marple. “You are a very well educated woman. Nemesis is long delayed sometimes, but it comes in the end.”

“What are you talking about?”

“About a very beautiful girl whom you killed,” said Miss Marple.

“Whom I killed? What do you mean?”

“I mean the girl Verity.”

“And why should I kill her?”

“Because you loved her,” said Miss Marple.

“Of course I loved her. I was devoted to her. And she loved me.”

“Somebody said to me not very long ago that love was a very frightening word. It is a frightening word. You loved Verity too much. She meant everything in the world to you. She was devoted to you until something else came into her life. A different kind of love came into her life. She fell in love with a boy, a young man. Not a very suitable one, not a very good specimen, not anyone with a good record, but she loved him and he loved her and she wanted to escape. To escape from the burden of the bondage of love she was living in with you. She wanted a normal woman’s life. To live with the man of her choice, to have children by him. She wanted marriage and the happiness of normality.”

Clotilde moved. She came to a chair and sat down in it, staring at Miss Marple.

“So,” she said, “you seem to understand very well.”

“Yes, I do understand.”

“What you say is quite true. I shan’t deny it. It doesn’t matter if I do or do not deny it.”

“No,” said Miss Marple, “you are quite right there. It will not matter.”

“Do you know at all—can you imagine—how I have suffered?”

“Yes,” said Miss Marple, “I can imagine it. I’ve always been able to imagine things.”

“Did you imagine the agony, the agony of thinking, of knowing you are going to lose the thing you love best in the world. And I was losing it to a miserable, depraved delinquent. A man unworthy of my beautiful, splendid girl. I had to stop it. I had to—I had to.”