Miss Marple's final cases - Agatha Christie [25]
After greeting the two ladies, Harry turned to the counter and was just demanding a toothbrush when he stopped in mid-speech and exclaimed heartily, ‘Well, well, just see who’s here! Bella, I do declare.’
Mrs Edge, who had hurried out from the back parlour to attend to the congestion of business, beamed back cheerfully at him, showing her big white teeth. She had been a dark, handsome girl and was still a reasonably handsome woman, though she had put on weight, and the lines of her face had coarsened; but her large brown eyes were full of warmth as she answered, ‘Bella, it is, Mr Harry, and pleased to see you after all these years.’
Harry turned to his wife. ‘Bella’s an old flame of mine, Louise,’ he said. ‘Head-over-heels in love with her, wasn’t I, Bella?’
‘That’s what you say,’ said Mrs Edge.
Louise laughed. She said, ‘My husband’s very happy seeing all his old friends again.’
‘Ah,’ said Mrs Edge, ‘we haven’t forgotten you, Mr Harry. Seems like a fairy tale to think of you married and building up a new house instead of that ruined old Kingsdean House.’
‘You look very well and blooming,’ said Harry, and Mrs Edge laughed and said there was nothing wrong with her and what about that toothbrush?
Clarice, watching the baffled look on Miss Harmon’s face, said to herself exultantly, Oh, well done, Harry. You’ve spiked their guns.
VII
Doctor Haydock said abruptly to his niece, ‘What’s all this nonsense about old Mrs Murgatroyd hanging about Kingsdean and shaking her fist and cursing the new regime?’
‘It isn’t nonsense. It’s quite true. It’s upset Louise a good deal.’
‘Tell her she needn’t worry—when the Murgatroyds were caretakers they never stopped grumbling about the place—they only stayed because Murgatroyd drank and couldn’t get another job.’
‘I’ll tell her,’ said Clarice doubtfully, ‘but I don’t think she’ll believe you. The old woman fairly screams with rage.’
‘Always used to be fond of Harry as a boy. I can’t understand it.’
Clarice said, ‘Oh, well—they’ll be rid of her soon. Harry’s paying her passage to America.’
Three days later, Louise was thrown from her horse and killed.
Two men in a baker’s van were witnesses of the accident. They saw Louise ride out of the gates, saw the old woman spring up and stand in the road waving her arms and shouting, saw the horse start, swerve, and then bolt madly down the road, flinging Louise Laxton over his head.
One of them stood over the unconscious figure, not knowing what to do, while the other rushed to the house to get help.
Harry Laxton came running out, his face ghastly. They took off a door of the van and carried her on it to the house. She died without regaining consciousness and before the doctor arrived.
(End of Doctor Haydock’s manuscript.)
VIII
When Doctor Haydock arrived the following day, he was pleased to note that there was a pink flush in Miss Marple’s cheek and decidedly more animation in her manner.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘what’s the verdict?’
‘What’s the problem, Doctor Haydock?’ countered Miss Marple.
‘Oh, my dear lady, do I have to tell you that?’
‘I suppose,’ said Miss Marple, ‘that it’s the curious conduct of the caretaker. Why did she behave in that very odd way? People do mind being turned out of their old homes. But it wasn’t her home. In fact, she used to complain and grumble while she was there. Yes, it certainly looks very fishy. What became of her, by the way?’
‘Did a bunk to Liverpool. The accident scared her. Thought she’d wait there for her boat.’
‘All very convenient for somebody,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Yes, I think the “Problem of the Caretaker’s Conduct” can be solved easily enough. Bribery, was it not?’
‘That’s your solution?’
‘Well, if it wasn’t natural for her to behave in that way, she must have been “putting on an act” as people say, and that means that somebody paid her to do what she did.’
‘And you know who that somebody was?’
‘Oh, I think so. Money again, I’m afraid. And I’ve always noticed that gentlemen always tend to admire