Caribbean Mystery - Agatha Christie [50]
The Canon seemed safely comatose and Miss Marple advanced tentatively to the subject she was anxious to pursue.
“Of course you know so much about this place,” she murmured. “You have been here several years running, have you not?”
“Well, last year and two years before that. We like St. Honoré very much. Always such nice people here. Not the flashy, ultra-rich set.”
“So I suppose you know the Hillingdons and the Dysons well?”
“Yes, fairly well.”
Miss Marple coughed and lowered her voice slightly.
“Major Palgrave told me such an interesting story,” she said.
“He had a great repertoire of stories, hadn’t he? Of course he had travelled very widely. Africa, India, even China I believe.”
“Yes indeed,” said Miss Marple. “But I didn’t mean one of those stories. This was a story concerned with—well, with one of the people I have just mentioned.”
“Oh!” said Miss Prescott. Her voice held meaning.
“Yes. Now I wonder—” Miss Marple allowed her eyes to travel gently round the beach to where Lucky lay sunning her back. “Very beautifully tanned, isn’t she,” remarked Miss Marple. “And her hair. Most attractive. Practically the same colour as Molly Kendal’s, isn’t it?”
“The only difference,” said Miss Prescott, “is that Molly’s is natural and Lucky’s comes out of a bottle!”
“Really, Joan,” the Canon protested, unexpectedly awake again. “Don’t you think that is rather an uncharitable thing to say?”
“It’s not uncharitable,” said Miss Prescott, acidly. “Merely a fact.”
“It looks very nice to me,” said the Canon.
“Of course. That’s why she does it. But I assure you, my dear Jeremy, it wouldn’t deceive any woman for a moment. Would it?” She appealed to Miss Marple.
“Well, I’m afraid—” said Miss Marple, “of course I haven’t the experience that you have—but I’m afraid—yes I should say definitely not natural. The appearance at the roots every fifth or sixth day—” She looked at Miss Prescott and they both nodded with quiet female assurance.
The Canon appeared to be dropping off again.
“Major Palgrave told me a really extraordinary story,” murmured Miss Marple, “about—well I couldn’t quite make out. I am a little deaf sometimes. He appeared to be saying or hinting—” she paused.
“I know what you mean. There was a great deal of talk at the time—”
“You mean at the time that—”
“When the first Mrs. Dyson died. Her death was quite unexpected. In fact, everybody thought she was a malade imaginaire—a hypochondriac. So when she had the attack and died so unexpectedly, well, of course, people did talk.”
“There wasn’t—any—trouble at the time?”
“The doctor was puzzled. He was quite a young man and he hadn’t had much experience. He was what I call one of those antibiotics-for-all men. You know, the kind that doesn’t bother to look at the patient much, or worry what’s the matter with him. They just give them some kind of pill out of a bottle and if they don’t get better, then they try a different pill. Yes, I believe he was puzzled, but it seemed she had had gastric trouble before. At least her husband said so, and there seemed no reason for believing anything was wrong.”
“But you yourself think—”
“Well, I always try to keep an open mind, but one does wonder, you know. And what with various things people said—”
“Joan!” The Canon sat up. He looked belligerent. “I don’t like—I really don’t like to hear this kind of ill-natured gossip being repeated. We’ve always set our faces against that kind of thing. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil—and what is more, think no evil! That should be the motto of every Christian man and woman.”
The two women sat in silence. They were rebuked, and in deference to their training they deferred to the criticism of a man. But inwardly they were frustrated, irritated and quite unrepentant. Miss Prescott threw a frank glance