Caribbean Mystery - Agatha Christie [45]
“No,” said Miss Marple, “I do not.”
“And why?”
“Well, really, I think just because you have got brains. Having brains, you can get most things you want without having recourse to murder. Murder is stupid.”
“And anyway who the devil should I want to murder?”
“That would be a very interesting question,” said Miss Marple. “I have not yet had the pleasure of sufficient conversation with you to evolve a theory as to that.”
Mr. Rafiel’s smile broadened.
“Conversations with you might be dangerous,” he said.
“Conversations are always dangerous, if you have something to hide,” said Miss Marple.
“You may be right. Let’s get on to Jackson. What do you think of Jackson?”
“It is difficult for me to say. I have not had the opportunity really of any conversation with him.”
“So you’ve no views on the subject?”
“He reminds me a little,” said Miss Marple reflectively, “of a young man in the Town Clerk’s office near where I live, Jonas Parry.”
“And?” Mr. Rafiel asked and paused.
“He was not,” said Miss Marple, “very satisfactory.”
“Jackson’s not wholly satisfactory either. He suits me all right. He’s first class at his job, and he doesn’t mind being sworn at. He knows he’s damn’ well paid and so he puts up with things. I wouldn’t employ him in a position of trust, but I don’t have to trust him. Maybe his past is blameless, maybe it isn’t. His references were all right but I discern—shall I say—a note of reserve. Fortunately, I’m not a man who has any guilty secrets, so I’m not a subject for blackmail.”
“No secrets?” said Miss Marple, thoughtfully. “Surely, Mr. Rafiel, you have business secrets?”
“Not where Jackson can get at them. No. Jackson is a smooth article, one might say, but I really don’t see him as a murderer. I’d say that wasn’t his line at all.”
He paused a minute and then said suddenly, “Do you know, if one stands back and takes a good look at all this fantastic business, Major Palgrave and his ridiculous stories and all the rest of it, the emphasis is entirely wrong. I’m the person who ought to be murdered.”
Miss Marple looked at him in some surprise.
“Proper type casting,” explained Mr. Rafiel. “Who’s the victim in murder stories? Elderly men with lots of money.”
“And lots of people with a good reason for wishing him out of the way, so as to get that money,” said Miss Marple. “Is that true also?”
“Well—” Mr. Rafiel considered. “I can count up to five or six men in London who wouldn’t burst into tears if they read my obituary in The Times. But they wouldn’t go so far as to do anything to bring about my demise. After all, why should they? I’m expected to die any day. In fact the bug—blighters are astonished that I’ve lasted so long. The doctors are surprised too.”
“You have, of course, a great will to live,” said Miss Marple.
“You think that’s odd, I suppose,” said Mr. Rafiel.
Miss Marple shook her head.
“Oh no,” she said, “I think it’s quite natural. Life is more worth living, more full of interest when you are likely to lose it. It shouldn’t be, perhaps, but it is. When you’re young and strong and healthy, and life stretches ahead of you, living isn’t really important at all. It’s young people who commit suicide easily, out of despair from love, sometimes from sheer anxiety and worry. But old people know how valuable life is and how interesting.”
“Hah!” said Mr. Rafiel, snorting. “Listen to a couple of old crocks.”
“Well, what I said is true, isn’t it?” demanded Miss Marple.
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Rafiel, “it’s true enough. But don’t you think I’m right when I say that I ought to be cast as the victim?”
“It depends on who has reason to gain by your death,” said Miss Marple.
“Nobody, really,” said Mr. Rafiel. “Apart, as I’ve said, from my competitors in the business world who, as I have also said, can count comfortably on my being out of it before very long. I’m not such a fool as to leave a lot of money divided up among my relations. Precious little they’d get of it after the Government had taken practically the lot.