Caribbean Mystery - Agatha Christie [42]
“He was taken aback,” said Miss Marple, “and he shoved it back in his wallet and began to talk loudly about something else.”
“He couldn’t have been sure,” said Mr. Rafiel, shrewdly.
“No,” said Miss Marple, “he couldn’t have been sure. But of course afterwards he would have studied the snapshot very carefully and would have looked at the man and tried to make up his mind whether it was just a likeness or whether it could actually be the same person.”
Mr. Rafiel reflected a moment or two, then he shook his head.
“There’s something wrong here. The motive’s inadequate. Absolutely inadequate. He was speaking to you loudly, was he?”
“Yes,” said Miss Marple, “quite loudly. He always did.”
“True enough. Yes, he did shout. So whoever was approaching would hear what he said?”
“I should imagine you could hear it for quite a good radius round.”
Mr. Rafiel shook his head again. He said, “It’s fantastic, too fantastic. Anybody would laugh at such a story. Here’s an old booby telling a story about another story somebody told him, and showing a snapshot, and all of it centring round a murder which had taken place years ago! Or at any rate, a year or two. How on earth can that worry the man in question? No evidence, just a bit of hearsay, a story at third hand. He could even admit a likeness, he could say: ‘Yes, I do look rather like that fellow, don’t I! Ha, ha!’ Nobody’s going to take old Palgrave’s identification seriously. Don’t tell me so, because I won’t believe it. No, the chap, if it was the chap, had nothing to fear—nothing whatever. It’s the kind of accusation he can just laugh off. Why on earth should he proceed to murder old Palgrave? It’s absolutely unnecessary. You must see that.”
“Oh I do see that,” said Miss Marple. “I couldn’t agree with you more. That’s what makes me uneasy. So very uneasy that I really couldn’t sleep last night.”
Mr. Rafiel stared at her. “Let’s hear what’s on your mind,” he said quietly.
“I may be entirely wrong,” said Miss Marple hesitantly.
“Probably you are,” said Mr. Rafiel with his usual lack of courtesy, “but at any rate let’s hear what you’ve thought up in the small hours.”
“There could be a very powerful motive if—”
“If what?”
“If there was going to be—quite soon—another murder.”
Mr. Rafiel stared at her. He tried to pull himself up a little in his chair.
“Let’s get this clear,” he said.
“I am so bad at explaining.” Miss Marple spoke rapidly and rather incoherently. A pink flush rose to her cheeks. “Supposing there was a murder planned. If you remember, the story Major Palgrave told me concerned a man whose wife died under suspicious circumstances. Then, after a certain lapse of time, there was another murder under exactly the same circumstances. A man of a different name had a wife who died in much the same way and the doctor who was telling it recognized him as the same man, although he’d changed his name. Well, it does look, doesn’t it, as though this murderer might be the kind of murderer who made a habit of the thing?”
“You mean like Smith, Brides in the Bath, that kind of thing. Yes.”
“As far as I can make out,” said Miss Marple, “and from what I have heard and read, a man who does a wicked thing like this and gets away with it the first time, is, alas, encouraged. He thinks it’s easy, he thinks he’s clever. And so he repeats it. And in the end, as you say, like Smith and the Brides in the Bath, it becomes a habit. Each time in a different place and each time the man changes his name. But the crimes themselves are all very much alike. So it seems to me, although I may be quite wrong—”
“But you don’t think you are wrong, do you?” Mr. Rafiel put in shrewdly.
Miss Marple went on without answering. “—that if that were so and if this—this person had got things all lined up for a murder out here, for getting rid of another wife, say, and if this is crime three or four, well then, the Major’s story would matter because the murderer couldn’t afford to have any similarity pointed out. If you remember, that was exactly the way Smith got caught. The circumstances