Miss Marple's final cases - Agatha Christie [10]
‘The point is that the “everything” he left turned out to be practically nothing at all. And that, frankly, was a bit of a blow to us both, wasn’t it, Edward?’
The amiable Edward agreed. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘we’d counted on it a bit. I mean, when you know a good bit of money is coming to you, you don’t—well—buckle down and try to make it yourself. I’m in the army—not got anything to speak of outside my pay—and Charmian herself hasn’t got a bean. She works as a stage manager in a repertory theatre—quite interesting, and she enjoys it—but no money in it. We’d counted on getting married, but weren’t worried about the money side of it because we both knew we’d be jolly well off some day.’
‘And now, you see, we’re not!’ said Charmian. ‘What’s more, Ansteys—that’s the family place, and Edward and I both love it—will probably have to be sold. And Edward and I feel we just can’t bear that! But if we don’t find Uncle Mathew’s money, we shall have to sell.’
Edward said, ‘You know, Charmian, we still haven’t come to the vital point.’
‘Well, you talk, then.’
Edward turned to Miss Marple. ‘It’s like this, you see. As Uncle Mathew grew older, he got more and more suspicious. He didn’t trust anybody.’
‘Very wise of him,’ said Miss Marple. ‘The depravity of human nature is unbelievable.’
‘Well, you may be right. Anyway, Uncle Mathew thought so. He had a friend who lost his money in a bank, and another friend who was ruined by an absconding solicitor, and he lost some money himself in a fraudulent company. He got so that he used to hold forth at great length that the only safe and sane thing to do was to convert your money into solid bullion and bury it.’
‘Ah,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I begin to see.’
‘Yes. Friends argued with him, pointed out that he’d get no interest that way, but he held that that didn’t really matter. The bulk of your money, he said, should be “kept in a box under the bed or buried in the garden”. Those were his words.’
Charmian went on. ‘And when he died, he left hardly anything at all in securities, though he was very rich. So we think that that’s what he must have done.’
Edward explained. ‘We found that he had sold securities and drawn out large sums of money from time to time, and nobody knows what he did with them. But it seems probable that he lived up to his principles, and that he did buy gold and bury it.’
‘He didn’t say anything before he died? Leave any paper? No letter?’
‘That’s the maddening part of it. He didn’t. He’d been unconscious for some days, but he rallied before he died. He looked at us both and chuckled—a faint, weak little chuckle. He said, “You’ll be all right, my pretty pair of doves.” And then he tapped his eye—his right eye—and winked at us. And then—he died. Poor old Uncle Mathew.’
‘He tapped his eye,’ said Miss Marple thoughtfully.
Edward said eagerly. ‘Does that convey anything to you? It made me think of an Arsene Lupin story where there was something hidden in a man’s glass eye. But Uncle Mathew didn’t have a glass eye.’
Miss Marple shook her head. ‘No—I can’t think of anything at the moment.’
Charmian said disappointedly, ‘Jane told us you’d say at once where to dig!’
Miss Marple smiled. ‘I’m not quite a conjurer, you know. I didn’t know your uncle, or what sort of man he was, and I don’t know the house or the grounds.’
Charmian said, ‘If you did know them?’
‘Well, it must be quite simple, really, mustn’t it?’ said Miss Marple.
‘Simple!’ said Charmian. ‘You come down to Ansteys and see if it’s simple!’
It is possible that she did not mean the invitation to be taken seriously, but Miss Marple said briskly, ‘Well, really, my dear, that’s very kind of you. I’ve always wanted to have the chance of looking for buried treasure. And,’ she added, looking at them with a beaming, late-Victorian smile, ‘with a love interest, too!’