Nemesis - Agatha Christie [34]
‘He had a country house in Kent,’ said Clotilde. ‘He used to entertain there, I think, sometimes. Business friends, mostly you know, or people from abroad. I don’t think any of us ever visited him there. He nearly always entertained us in London on the rare occasions when we happened to meet.’
‘It was very kind of him,’ said Miss Marple, ‘to suggest to you that you should invite me here during the course of this tour. Very thoughtful. One wouldn’t really have expected a busy man such as he must have been to have had such kindly thoughts.’
‘We have invited before friends of his who have been on these tours. On the whole they are very considerate the way they arrange these things. It is impossible, of course, to suit everybody’s taste. The young ones naturally wish to walk, to make long excursions, to ascend hills for a view, and all that sort of thing. And the older ones who are not up to it, remain in the hotels, but hotels round here are not really at all luxurious. I am sure you would have found today’s trip and the one to St Bonaventure tomorrow also, very fatiguing. Tomorrow I believe there is a visit to an island, you know, in a boat and sometimes it can be very rough.’
‘Even going round houses can be very tiring,’ said Mrs Glynne.
‘Oh, I know,’ said Miss Marple. ‘So much walking and standing about. One’s feet get very tired. I suppose really I ought not to take these expeditions, but it is such a temptation to see beautiful buildings and fine rooms and furniture. All these things. And of course some splendid pictures.’
‘And the gardens,’ said Anthea. ‘You like gardens, don’t you?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Miss Marple, ‘specially the gardens. From the description in the prospectus I am really looking forward very much to seeing some of the really finely kept gardens of the historic houses we have still to visit.’ She beamed round the table.
It was all very pleasant, very natural, and yet she wondered why for some reason she had a feeling of strain. A feeling that there was something unnatural here. But what did she mean by unnatural? The conversation was ordinary enough, consisting mainly of platitudes. She herself was making conventional remarks and so were the three sisters.
The Three Sisters, thought Miss Marple once again considering that phrase. Why did anything thought of in threes somehow seem to suggest a sinister atmosphere? The Three Sisters. The Three Witches of Macbeth. Well, one could hardly compare these three sisters to the three witches. Although Miss Marple had always thought at the back of her mind that the theatrical producers made a mistake in the way in which they produced the three witches. One production which she had seen, indeed, seemed to her quite absurd. The witches had looked more like pantomime creatures with flapping wings and ridiculously spectacular steeple hats. They had danced and slithered about. Miss Marple remembered saying to her nephew, who was standing her this Shakespearean treat, ‘You know, Raymond, my dear, if I were ever producing this splendid play I would make the three witches quite different. I would have them three ordinary, normal old women. Old Scottish women. They wouldn’t dance or caper. They would look at each other rather slyly and you would feel a sort of menace just behind the ordinariness of them.’
Miss Marple helped herself to the last mouthful of plum tart and looked across the table at Anthea. Ordinary, untidy, very vague-looking, a bit scatty. Why should she feel that Anthea was sinister?
‘I am imagining things,’ said Miss Marple to herself. ‘I mustn’t do that.’
After luncheon she was taken on a tour of the garden. It was Anthea who was deputed to accompany her.