Nemesis - Agatha Christie [16]
Esther laughed slightly.
‘He wasn’t married, was he?’ asked Miss Marple. ‘He never mentioned a wife.’
‘He lost his wife many years ago. Quite soon after they were married, I believe. I believe she was much younger than he was — I think she died of cancer. Very sad.’
‘Had he children?’
‘Oh yes, two daughters, and a son. One daughter is married and lives in America. The other daughter died young, I believe. I met the American one once. She wasn’t at all like her father. Rather a quiet, depressed looking young woman.’ She added, ‘Mr Rafiel never spoke about the son. I rather think that there had been trouble there. A scandal or something of that kind. I believe he died some years ago. Anyway — his father never mentioned him.’
‘Oh dear. That was very sad.’
‘I think it happened quite a long time ago. I believe he took off for somewhere or other abroad and never came back — died out there, wherever it was.’
‘Was Mr Rafiel very upset about it?’
‘One wouldn’t know with him,’ said Esther. ‘He was the kind of man who would always decide to cut his losses. If his son turned out to be unsatisfactory, a burden instead of a blessing, I think he would just shrug the whole thing off. Do what was necessary perhaps in the way of sending him money for support, but never thinking of him again.’
‘One wonders,’ said Miss Marple. ‘He never spoke of him or said anything?’
‘If you remember, he was a man who never said anything much about personal feelings or his own life.’
‘No. No, of course not. But I thought perhaps, you having been — well, his secretary for so many years, that he might have confided any troubles to you.’
‘He was not a man for confiding troubles,’ said Esther. ‘If he had any, which I rather doubt. He was wedded to his business, one might say. He was father to his business and his business was the only kind of son or daughter that he had that mattered, I think. He enjoyed it all, investment, making money. Business coups — ’
‘Call no man happy until he is dead — ’ murmured Miss Marple, repeating the words in the manner of one pronouncing them as a kind of slogan, which indeed they appeared to be in these days, or so she would have said.
‘So there was nothing especially worrying him, was there, before his death?’
‘No. Why should you think so?’ Esther sounded surprised.
‘Well, I didn’t actually think so,’ said Miss Marple, ‘I just wondered because things do worry people more when they are — I won’t say getting old — because he really wasn’t old, but I mean things worry you more when you are laid up and can’t do as much as you did and have to take things easy. Then worries just come into your mind and make themselves felt.’
‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ said Esther. ‘But I don’t think Mr Rafiel was like that. Anyway,’ she added, ‘I ceased being his secretary some time ago. Two or three months after I met Edmund.’
‘Ah yes. Your husband. Mr Rafiel must have been very upset at losing you.’
‘Oh I don’t think so,’ said Esther lightly. ‘He was not one who would be upset over that sort of thing. He’d immediately get another secretary — which he did. And then if she didn’t suit him he’d just get rid of her with a kindly golden handshake and get somebody else, till he found somebody who suited him. He was an intensely sensible man always.’
‘Yes. Yes, I can see that. Though he could lose his temper very easily.’
‘Oh, he enjoyed losing his temper,’ said Esther. ‘It made a bit of drama for him, I think.’
‘Drama,’ said Miss Marple thoughtfully. ‘Do you think — I have often wondered — do you think that Mr Rafiel had any particular interest in criminology, the study of it, I mean? He — well, I don’t know…’
‘You mean because of what happened in the Caribbean?’ Esther’s voice had gone