Nemesis - Agatha Christie [103]
‘Twenty thousand pounds,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Yes, it is a very large sum by my way of thinking. Quite extraordinary,’ she added.
‘If you would like an introduction to our brokers, they could give you possibly some ideas about investing.’
‘Oh, I don’t want to invest any of it.’
‘But surely it would be — ’
‘There’s no point in saving at my age,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I mean the point of this money — I’m sure Mr Rafiel meant it that way — is to enjoy a few things that one thought one never would have the money to enjoy.’
‘Well, I see your point of view,’ said Mr Broadribb. ‘Then your instructions would be that we pay this sum of money into your bank?’
‘Middleton’s Bank, 132 High Street, St Mary Mead,’ said Miss Marple.
‘You have a deposit account, I expect. We will place it to your deposit account?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Put it into my current account.’
‘You don’t think — ’
‘I do think,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I want it in my current account.’
She got up and shook hands.
‘You could ask your bank manager’s advice, you know, Miss Marple. It really is — one never knows when one wants something for a rainy day.’
‘The only thing I shall want for a rainy day will be my umbrella,’ said Miss Marple.
She shook hands with them both again.
‘Thank you so much, Mr Broadribb. And you too, Mr Schuster. You’ve been so kind to me, giving me all the information I needed.’
‘You really want that money put into your current account?’
‘Yes,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I’m going to spend it, you know. I’m going to have some fun with it.’
She looked back from the door and she laughed. Just for one moment Mr Schuster, who was a man of more imagination than Mr Broadribb, had a vague impression of a young and pretty girl shaking hands with the vicar at a garden party in the country. It was, as he realized a moment later, a recollection of his own youth. But Miss Marple had, for a minute, reminded him of that particular girl, young, happy, going to enjoy herself.
‘Mr Rafiel would have liked me to have fun,’ said Miss Marple.
She went out of the door.
‘Nemesis,’ said Mr Broadribb. ‘That’s what Rafiel called her. Nemesis. Never seen anybody less like Nemesis, have you?’
Mr Schuster shook his head.
‘It must have been another of Mr Rafiel’s little jokes,’ said Mr Broadribb.
E-Book Extras
The Marples
Essay by Charles Osborne
The Marples
The Murder at the Vicarage ;
The Thirteen Problems ;
The Body in the Library ;
The Moving Finger ;
A Murder Is Announced ;
They Do It with Mirrors ;
A Pocket Full of Rye ;
4.50 from Paddington ;
The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side ;
A Caribbean Mystery ;
At Bertram’s Hotel ;
Nemesis ;
Sleeping Murder ;
Miss Marple’s Final Cases
1. The Murder at the Vicarage (1930)
The murder of Colonel Protheroe — shot through the head — is a shock to everyone in St. Mary Mead, though hardly an unpleasant one. Now even the vicar, who had declared that killing the detested Protheroe would be ‘doing the world at large a favour,’ is a suspect — the Colonel has been dispatched in the clergyman’s study, no less. But tiny St. Mary Mead is overpopulated with suspects. There is of course the faithless Mrs Protheroe; and there is of course her young lover — an artist, to boot. Perhaps more surprising than the revelation of the murderer is the detective who will crack the case: ‘a whitehaired old lady with a gentle, appealing manner.’ Miss Jane Marple has arrived on the scene, and crime literature’s private men’s club of great detectives will never be the same.
Saturday Review of Literature: ‘When she really hits her stride, as she does here, Agatha Christie is hard to surpass.’
2. The Thirteen Problems (1932)
Over six Tuesday evenings a group gathers at Miss Marple’s house to ponder unsolved