Nemesis - Agatha Christie [45]
‘Yes, I had a description of you — ’ he paused for a moment. His voice was not exactly lowered, but it lost volume, although she could still hear it quite easily ‘ — from Mr Rafiel.’
‘Oh,’ said Miss Marple, startled. ‘From Mr Rafiel.’
‘You are surprised?’
‘Well, yes, I am rather.’
‘I don’t know that you should be.’
‘I didn’t expect — ’ began Miss Marple and then stopped.
Professor Wanstead did not speak. He was merely sitting, looking at her intently. In a minute or two, thought Miss Marple to herself, he will say to me, ‘What symptoms exactly, dear lady? Any discomfort in swallowing? Any lack of sleep? Digestion in good order?’ She was almost sure now that he was a doctor.
‘When did he describe me to you? That must have been — ’
‘You were going to say some time ago — some weeks ago. Before his death — that is so. He told me that you would be on this tour.’
‘And he knew that you would be on it too — that you were going on it.’
‘You can put it that way,’ said Professor Wanstead. ‘He said,’ he continued, ‘that you would be travelling on this tour, that he had in fact arranged for you to be travelling on this tour.’
‘It was very kind of him,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Very kind indeed. I was most surprised when I found he’d booked me. Such a treat. Which I could not have afforded for myself.’
‘Yes,’ said Professor Wanstead. ‘Very well put.’ He nodded his head as one who applauds a good performance by a pupil.
‘It is sad that it has been interrupted in this fashion,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Very sad indeed. When I am sure we were all enjoying ourselves so much.’
‘Yes,’ said Professor Wanstead. ‘Yes, very sad. And unexpected, do you think, or not unexpected?’
‘Now what do you mean by that, Professor Wanstead?’
His lips curled in a slight smile as he met her challenging look.
‘Mr Rafiel,’ he said, ‘spoke to me about you at some length, Miss Marple. He suggested that I should be on this tour with you. I should in due course almost certainly make your acquaintance, since members in a tour inevitably do make each other’s acquaintance, though it usually takes a day or two for them to split up, as it were, into possible groupings led by similar tastes or interests. And he further suggested to me that I should, shall we say, keep an eye on you.’
‘Keep an eye on me?’ said Miss Marple, showing some slight displeasure. ‘And for what reason?’
‘I think reasons of protection. He wanted to be quite sure that nothing should happen to you.’
‘Happen to me? What should happen to me, I should like to know?’
‘Possibly what happened to Miss Elizabeth Temple,’ said Professor Wanstead.
Joanna Crawford came round the corner of the hotel. She was carrying a shopping basket. She passed them, nodding a little, she looked towards them with slight curiosity and went on down the street. Professor Wanstead did not speak until she had gone out of sight.
‘A nice girl,’ he said, ‘at least I think so. Content at present to be a beast of burden to an autocratic aunt, but I have no doubt will reach the age of rebellion fairly soon.’
‘What did you mean by what you said just now?’ said Miss Marple, uninterested for the moment in Joanna’s possible rebellion.
‘That is a question which, perhaps, owing to what has happened, we shall have to discuss.’
‘You mean because of the accident?’
‘Yes. If it was an accident.’
‘Do you think it wasn’t an accident?’
‘Well, I think it’s just possible. That’s all.’
‘I don’t of course know anything about it,’ said Miss Marple, hesitating.
‘No. You were absent from the scene. You were — shall I put it this way — were you just possibly on duty elsewhere?’
Miss Marple was silent for a moment. She looked at Professor Wanstead once or twice and then she said:
‘I don’t think I know exactly what you mean.’
‘You are being careful. You are quite right to be careful.’
‘I have made it a habit,’ said Miss Marple.
‘To be careful?’
‘I should not put it exactly like that, but I have made a point of being always ready to disbelieve as well as believe anything that is told to me.’
‘Yes, and you