Caribbean Mystery - Agatha Christie [63]
“Indeed. But—who?”
“I’ve no idea who,” said Esther, “and I should imagine that they’ve been very careful.”
“You think she cares for this other man?”
Esther shrugged her shoulders. “I dare say he’s a bad lot,” she said, “but that’s very often the kind who knows how to get under a woman’s skin and stay there.”
“You never heard what kind of a man—what he did—anything like that?”
Esther shook her head. “No. People hazard guesses, but you can’t go by that type of thing. He may have been a married man. That may have been why her people disliked it, or he may have been a real bad lot. Perhaps he drank. Perhaps he tangled with the law—I don’t know. But she cares for him still. That I know positively.”
“You’ve seen something, heard something?” Miss Marple hazarded.
“I know what I’m talking about,” said Esther. Her voice was harsh and unfriendly.
“These murders—” began Miss Marple.
“Can’t you forget murders?” said Esther. “You’ve got Mr. Rafiel now all tangled up in them. Can’t you just—let them be? You’ll never find out any more, I’m sure of that.”
Miss Marple looked at her.
“You think you know, don’t you?” she said.
“I think I do, yes. I’m fairly sure.”
“Then oughtn’t you to tell what you know—do something about it?”
“Why should I? What good would it do? I couldn’t prove anything. What would happen anyway? People get let off nowadays so easily. They call it diminished responsibility and things like that. A few years in prison and you’re out again, as right as rain.”
“Supposing, because you don’t tell what you know, somebody else gets killed—another victim?”
Esther shook her head with confidence. “That won’t happen,” she said.
“You can’t be sure of it.”
“I am sure. And in any case I don’t see who—” She frowned. “Anyway,” she added, almost inconsequently, “perhaps it is—diminished responsibility. Perhaps you can’t help it—not if you are really mentally unbalanced. Oh, I don’t know. By far the best thing would be if she went off with whoever it is, then we could all forget about things.”
She glanced at her watch, gave an exclamation of dismay and got up.
“I must go and change.”
Miss Marple sat looking after her. Pronouns, she thought, were always puzzling and women like Esther Walters were particularly prone to strew them about haphazard. Was Esther Walters for some reason convinced that a woman had been responsible for the deaths of Major Palgrave and Victoria? It sounded like it. Miss Marple considered.
“Ah, Miss Marple, sitting here all alone—and not even knitting?”
It was Dr. Graham for whom she had sought so long and so unsuccessfully. And here he was prepared of his own accord to sit down for a few minutes’ chat. He wouldn’t stay long, Miss Marple thought, because he too was bent on changing for dinner, and he usually dined fairly early. She explained that she had been sitting by Molly Kendal’s bedside that afternoon.
“One can hardly believe she has made such a good recovery so quickly,” she said.
“Oh well,” said Dr. Graham, “it’s not very surprising. She didn’t take a very heavy overdose, you know.”
“Oh, I understood she’d taken quite a half-bottle full of tablets.”
Dr. Graham was smiling indulgently.
“No,” he said, “I don’t think she took that amount. I dare say she meant to take them, then probably at the last moment she threw half of them away. People, even when they think they want to commit suicide, often don’t really want to do it. They manage not to take a full overdose. It’s not always deliberate deceit, it’s just the subconscious looking after itself.”
“Or, I suppose it might be deliberate. I mean, wanting it to appear that….” Miss Marple paused.
“It’s possible,” said Dr. Graham.
“If she and Tim had had a row, for instance?”
“They don’t have rows, you know. They seem very fond of each other. Still, I suppose it can always happen once. No, I don’t think there’s very much wrong with her now. She could really get up and go about as usual. Still, it’s safer to keep her where she is for a day or two—”
He got up, nodded cheerfully