Sleeping Murder (Miss Marple 13)

Gwenda said she thought not for some days. They’d been away—up North, and the last few times they’d had a drink, they’d had gin. “But I nearly had some brandy yesterday,” said Gwenda. “Only it makes me think of Channel steamers, so Giles opened a new bottle of whisky.”

“That was very lucky for you, Mrs. Reed. If you’d drunk brandy yesterday, I doubt if you would be alive today.”

“Giles nearly drank some—but in the end he had whisky with me.”

Gwenda shivered.

Even now, alone in the house, with the police gone and Giles gone with them after a hasty lunch scratched up out of tins (since Mrs. Cocker had been removed to hospital), Gwenda could hardly believe in the morning turmoil of events.

One thing stood out clearly: the presence in the house yesterday of Jackie Afflick and Walter Fane. Either of them could have tampered with the brandy, and what was the purpose of the telephone calls unless it was to afford one or other of them the opportunity to poison the brandy decanter? Gwenda and Giles had been getting too near the truth. Or had a third person come in from outside, through the open dining room window perhaps, whilst she and Giles had been sitting in Dr. Kennedy’s house waiting for Lily Kimble to keep her appointment? A third person who had engineered the telephone calls to steer suspicion on the other two?

But a third person, Gwenda thought, didn’t make sense. For a third person, surely, would have telephoned to only one of the two men. A third person would have wanted one suspect, not two. And anyway, who could the third person be? Erskine had definitely been in Northumberland. No, either Walter Fane had telephoned to Afflick and had pretended to be telephoned to himself. Or else Afflick had telephoned Fane, and had made the same pretence of receiving a summons. One of those two, and the police, who were cleverer and had more resources than she and Giles had, would find out which. And in the meantime both of those men would be watched. They wouldn’t be able to—to try again.

Again Gwenda shivered. It took a little getting used to—the knowledge that someone had tried to kill you. “Dangerous,” Miss Marple had said long ago. But she and Giles had not really taken the idea of danger seriously. Even after Lily Kimble had been killed, it still hadn’t occurred to her that anyone would try and kill her and Giles. Just because she and Giles were getting too near the truth of what had happened eighteen years ago. Working out what must have happened then—and who had made it happen.

Walter Fane and Jackie Afflick….

Which?

Gwenda closed her eyes, seeing them afresh in the light of her new knowledge.

Quiet Walter Fane, sitting in his office—the pale spider in the centre of its web. So quiet, so harmless-looking. A house with its blinds down. Someone dead in the house. Someone dead eighteen years ago—but still there. How sinister the quiet Walter Fane seemed now. Walter Fane who had once flung himself murderously upon his brother. Walter Fane whom Helen had scornfully refused to marry, once here at home, and once again in India. A double rebuff. A double ignominy. Walter Fane, so quiet, so unemotional, who could express himself, perhaps, only in sudden murderous violence—as, possibly, quiet Lizzie Borden had once done….

Gwenda opened her eyes. She had convinced herself, hadn’t she, that Walter Fane was the man?

One might, perhaps, just consider Afflick. With her eyes open, not shut.

His loud check suit, his domineering manner—just the opposite to Walter Fane—nothing repressed or quiet about Afflick. But possibly he had put that manner on because of an inferiority complex. It worked that way, experts said. If you weren’t sure of yourself, you had to boast and assert yourself, and be overbearing. Turned down by Helen because he wasn’t good enough for her. The sore festering, not forgotten. Determination to get on in the world. Persecution. Everyone against him. Discharged from his employment by a faked charge made up by an “enemy.” Surely that did show that Afflick wasn’t normal. And what a feeling of power a man like that would get out of killing. That good-natured, jovial face of his, it was a cruel face really. He was a cruel man—and his thin pale wife knew it and was afraid of him. Lily Kimble had threatened him and Lily Kimble had died. Gwenda and Giles had interfered—then Gwenda and Giles must die, too, and he would involve Walter Fane who had sacked him long ago. That fitted in very nicely.

Gwenda shook herself, came out of her imaginings, and returned to practicality. Giles would be home and want his tea. She must clear away and wash up lunch.

She fetched a tray and took the things out to the kitchen. Everything in the kitchen was exquisitely neat. Mrs. Cocker was really a treasure.

By the side of the sink was a pair of surgical rubber gloves. Mrs. Cocker always wore a pair for washing up. Her niece, who worked in a hospital, got them at a reduced price.

Gwenda fitted them on over her hands and began to wash up the dishes. She might as well keep her hands nice.

She washed the plates and put them in the rack, washed and dried the other things and put everything neatly away.

Then, still lost in thought, she went upstairs. She might as well, she thought, wash out those stockings and a jumper or two. She’d keep the gloves on.

These things were in the forefront of her mind. But somewhere, underneath them, something was nagging at her.

Walter Fane or Jackie Afflick, she had said. One or the other of them. And she had made out quite a good case against either of them. Perhaps that was what really worried her. Because, strictly speaking, it would be much more satisfactory if you could only make out a good case against one of them. One ought to be sure, by now, which. And Gwenda wasn’t sure.

If only there was someone else … But there couldn’t be anyone else. Because Richard Erskine was out of it. Richard Erskine had been in Northumberland when Lily Kimble was killed and when the brandy in the decanter had been tampered with. Yes, Richard Erskine was right out of it.

She was glad of that, because she liked Richard Erskine. Richard Erskine was attractive, very attractive. How sad for him to be married to that megalith of a woman with her suspicious eyes and deep bass voice. Just like a man’s voice….

Like a man’s voice….

The idea flashed through her mind with a queer misgiving.

A man’s voice … Could it have been Mrs. Erskine, not her husband, who had replied to Giles on the telephone last night?

No—no, surely not. No, of course not. She and Giles would have known. And anyway, to begin with, Mrs. Erskine could have had no idea of who was ringing up. No, of course it was Erskine speaking, and his wife, as he said, was away.

His wife was away …

Surely—no, that was impossible … Could it have been Mrs. Erskine? Mrs. Erskine, driven insane by jealousy? Mrs. Erskine to whom Lily Kimble had written? Was it a woman Léonie had seen in the garden that night when she looked out of the window?

There was a sudden bang in the hall below. Somebody had come in through the front door.

Gwenda came out from the bathroom on to the landing and looked over the banisters. She was relieved to see it was Dr. Kennedy. She called down:

“I’m here.”

Her hands were held out in front of her—wet, glistening, a queer pinkish grey—they reminded her of something….

Kennedy looked up, shading his eyes.

“Is that you, Gwennie? I can’t see your face … My eyes are dazzled—”

And then Gwenda screamed….

Looking at those smooth monkey’s paws and hearing that voice in the hall—

“It was you,” she gasped. “You killed her … killed Helen … I—know now. It was you … all along … You….”

He came up the stairs towards her. Slowly. Looking up at her.

“Why couldn’t you leave m

e alone?” he said. “Why did you have to meddle? Why did you have to bring—Her—back? Just when I’d begun to forget—to forget. You brought her back again—Helen—my Helen. Bringing it all up again. I had to kill Lily—now I’ll have to kill you. Like I killed Helen … Yes, like I killed Helen….”

He was close upon her now—his hands out towards her—reaching, she knew, for her throat. That kind, quizzical face—that nice, ordinary, elderly face—the same still, but for the eyes—the eyes were not sane….

Gwenda retreated before him, slowly, the scream frozen in her throat. She had screamed once. She could not scream again. And if she did scream no one would hear.

Because there was no one in the house—not Giles, and not Mrs. Cocker, not even Miss Marple in the garden. Nobody. And the house next door was too far away to hear if she screamed. And anyway, she couldn’t scream … Because she was too frightened to scream. Frightened of those horrible reaching hands….

She could back away to the nursery door and then—and then—those hands would fasten round her throat….

A pitiful little stifled whimper came from between her lips.

And then, suddenly, Dr. Kennedy stopped and reeled back as a jet of soapy water struck him between the eyes. He gasped and blinked and his hands went to his face.

“So fortunate,” said Miss Marple’s voice, rather breathless, for she had run violently up the back stairs, “that I was just syringing the greenfly off your roses.”

Twenty-five

POSTSCRIPT AT TORQUAY

“But, of course, dear Gwenda, I should never have dreamed of going away and leaving you alone in the house,” said Miss Marple. “I knew there was a very dangerous person at large, and I was keeping an unobtrusive watch from the garden.”

“Did you know it was—him—all along?” asked Gwenda.

They were all three, Miss Marple, Gwenda and Giles, sitting on the terrace of the Imperial Hotel at Torquay.

“A change of scene,” Miss Marple had said, and Giles had agreed, would be the best thing for Gwenda. So Inspector Primer had concurred and they had driven to Torquay forthwith.