Nemesis - Agatha Christie [102]
She handed him the photograph of Verity Hunt that Clotilde Bradbury-Scott had shown her once in the drawing-room of The Old Manor House.
He took it — and stood with it, staring down on it…His face changed, the lines of it softened, then hardened. Miss Marple watched him without speaking. The silence went on for some little time. Professor Wanstead also watched — he watched them both, the old lady and the boy.
It came to him that this was in some way a crisis — a moment that might affect a whole new way of life.
Michael Rafiel sighed — he stretched out and gave the photograph back to Miss Marple.
‘No, you are right, I do not want it. All that life is gone — she’s gone — I can’t keep her with me. Anything I do now has got to be new — going forward. You — ’ he hesitated, looking at her — ‘You understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Miss Marple — ‘I understand — I think you are right. I wish you good luck in the life you are now going to begin.’
He said goodbye and went out.
‘Well,’ said Professor Wanstead, ‘not an enthusiastic young man. He could have thanked you a bit more enthusiastically for what you did for him.’
‘Oh, that’s quite all right,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I didn’t expect him to do so. It would have embarrassed him even more. It is, you know,’ she added, ‘very embarrassing when one has to thank people and start life again and see everything from a different angle and all that. I think he might do well. He’s not bitter. That’s the great thing. I understand quite well why that girl loved him — ’
‘Well, perhaps he’ll go straight this time.’
‘One rather doubts that,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I don’t know that he’d be able to help himself unless — of course,’ she said, ‘the great thing to hope for is that he’ll meet a really nice girl.’
‘What I like about you,’ said Professor Wanstead, ‘is your delightfully practical mind.’
III
‘She’ll be here presently,’ said Mr Broadribb to Mr Schuster.
‘Yes. The whole thing’s pretty extraordinary, isn’t it?’
‘I couldn’t believe it at first,’ said Broadribb. ‘You know, when poor old Rafiel was dying, I thought this whole thing was — well, senility or something. Not that he was old enough for that.’
The buzzer went. Mr Schuster picked up the phone.
‘Oh, she’s here, is she? Bring her up,’ he said. ‘She’s come,’ he said. ‘I wonder now. You know, it’s the oddest thing I ever heard in my life. Getting an old lady to go racketing round the countryside looking for she doesn’t know what. The police think, you know, that that woman committed not just one murder but three. Three! I ask you! Verity Hunt’s body was under the mound in the garden, just as the old lady said it was. She hadn’t been strangled and the face was not disfigured.’
‘I wonder the old lady herself didn’t get done in,’ said Mr Broadribb. ‘Far too old to be able to take care of herself.’
‘She had a couple of detectives, apparently, looking after her.’
‘What, two of them?’
‘Yes, I didn’t know that.’
Miss Marple was ushered into their room.
‘Congratulations, Miss Marple,’ said Mr Broadribb, rising to greet her.
‘Very best wishes. Splendid job,’ said Mr Schuster, shaking hands.
Miss Marple sat down composedly on the other side of the desk.
‘As I told you in my letter,’ she said, ‘I think I have fulfilled the terms of the proposition that was made to me. I have succeeded in what I was asked to do.’
‘Oh I know. Yes, we’ve heard already. We’ve heard from Professor Wanstead and from the legal department and from the police authorities. Yes, it’s been a splendid job, Miss Marple. We congratulate you.’
‘I was afraid,’ said Miss Marple, ‘that I would not be able to do what was required of me. It seemed so very difficult, almost impossible at first.’
‘Yes indeed. It seems quite impossible to me. I don’t know how you did it, Miss Marple.’
‘Oh well,’ said Miss Marple, ‘it’s just perseverance, isn’t it, that leads to things.’
‘Now about