Caribbean Mystery - Agatha Christie [13]
“Oh I’m sure you looked carefully—I didn’t mean that—I was just interested—We all tend to keep such very odd things—”
“Treasures from the past,” said the doctor smiling.
He said goodbye and departed.
Miss Marple remained looking thoughtfully at the palm trees and the sea. She did not pick up her knitting again for some minutes. She had a fact now. She had to think about that fact and what it meant. The snapshot that the Major had brought out of his wallet and replaced so hurriedly was not there after he died. It was not the sort of thing the Major would throw away. He had replaced it in his wallet and it ought to have been in his wallet after his death. Money might have been stolen, but no one would want to steal a snapshot. Unless, that is, they had a special reason for so doing….
Miss Marple’s face was grave. She had to take a decision. Was she, or was she not, going to allow Major Palgrave to remain quietly in his grave? Might it not be better to do just that? She quoted under her breath. “Duncan is dead. After Life’s fitful fever he sleeps well!” Nothing could hurt Major Palgrave now. He had gone where danger could not touch him. Was it just a coincidence that he should have died on that particular night? Or was it just possibly not a coincidence? Doctors accepted the deaths of elderly men so easily. Especially since in his room there had been a bottle of the tablets that people with high blood pressure had to take every day of their lives. But if someone had taken the snapshot from the Major’s wallet, that same person could have put that bottle of tablets in the Major’s room. She herself never remembered seeing the Major take tablets; he had never spoken about his blood pressure to her. The only thing he had ever said about his health was the admission—“Not as young as I was.” He had been occasionally a little short of breath, a trifle asthmatic, nothing else. But someone had mentioned that Major Palgrave had high blood pressure—Molly? Miss Prescott? She couldn’t remember.
Miss Marple sighed, then admonished herself in words, though she did not speak those words aloud.
“Now, Jane, what are you suggesting or thinking? Are you, perhaps, just making the whole thing up? Have you really got anything to build on?”
She went over, step by step, as nearly as she could, the conversation between herself and the Major on the subject of murder and murderers.
“Oh dear,” said Miss Marple. “Even if—really, I don’t see how I can do anything about it—”
But she knew that she meant to try.
Six
IN THE SMALL HOURS
I
Miss Marple woke early. Like many old people she slept lightly and had periods of wakefulness which she used for the planning of some action or actions to be carried out on the next or following days. Usually, of course, these were of a wholly private or domestic nature, of little interest to anybody but herself. But this morning Miss Marple lay thinking soberly and constructively of murder, and what, if her suspicions were correct, she could do about it. It wasn’t going to be easy. She had one weapon and one weapon only, and that was conversation.
Old ladies were given to a good deal of rambling conversation. People were bored by this, but certainly did not suspect them of ulterior motives. It would not be a case of asking direct questions. (Indeed, she would have found it difficult to know what questions to ask!) It would be a question of finding out a little more about certain people. She reviewed these certain people in her mind.
She could find out, possibly, a little more about Major Palgrave, but would that really help her? She doubted if it would. If Major Palgrave had been killed it was not because of secrets in his life or to inherit his money or for revenge upon him. In fact, although he was the victim, it was one of those rare cases where a greater