Nemesis - Agatha Christie [47]
‘I would not set myself up as a good judge of people,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I would only say that certain people remind me of certain other people that I have known, and that therefore I can presuppose a certain likeness between the way they would act. If you think I know all about what I am supposed to be doing here, you are wrong.’
‘By accident more than design,’ said Professor Wanstead, ‘we seem to have settled here in a particularly suitable spot for discussion of certain matters. We do not appear to be overlooked, we cannot easily be overheard, we are not near a window or a door and there is no balcony or window overhead. In fact, we can talk.’
‘I should appreciate that,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I am stressing the fact that I am myself completely in the dark as to what I am doing or supposed to be doing. I don’t know why Mr Rafiel wanted it that way.’
‘I think I can guess that. He wanted you to approach a certain set of facts, of happenings, unbiased by what anyone would tell you first.’
‘So you are not going to tell me anything either?’ Miss Marple sounded irritated. ‘Really!’ she said, ‘there are limits.’
‘Yes,’ said Professor Wanstead. He smiled suddenly. ‘I agree with you. We must do away with some of these limits. I am going to tell you certain facts that will make certain things fairly clear to you. You in turn may be able to tell me certain facts.’
‘I rather doubt it,’ said Miss Marple. ‘One or two rather peculiar indications perhaps, but indications are not facts.’
‘Therefore — ’ said Professor Wanstead, and paused.
‘For goodness’ sake, tell me something,’ said Miss Marple.
Chapter 12
A Consultation
‘I’m not going to make a long story of things. I’ll explain quite simply how I came into this matter. I act as confidential adviser from time to time for the Home Office. I am also in touch with certain institutions. There are certain establishments which, in the event of crime, provide board and lodging for certain types of criminal who have been found guilty of certain acts. They remain there at what is termed Her Majesty’s pleasure, sometimes for a definite length of time and in direct association with their age. If they are below a certain age they have to be received in some place of detention specially indicated. You understand that, no doubt.’
‘Yes, I understand quite well what you mean.’
‘Usually I am consulted fairly soon after whatever the — shall we call it — crime has happened, to judge such matters as treatment, possibilities in the case, prognosis favourable or unfavourable, all the various words. They do not mean much and I will not go into them. But occasionally also I am consulted by a responsible Head of such an institution for a particular reason. In this matter I received a communication from a certain Department which was passed to me through the Home Office. I went to visit the Head of this institution. In fact, the Governor responsible for the prisoners or patients or whatever you like to call them. He was by way of being a friend of mine. A friend of fairly long standing though not one with whom I was on terms of great intimacy. I went down to the institution in question and the Governor laid his troubles before me. They referred to one particular inmate. He was not satisfied about this inmate. He had certain doubts. This was the case of a young man or one who had been a young man, in fact little more than a boy, when he came there. That was now several years ago. As time went on, and after the present Governor had taken up his own residence there (he had not been there at the original arrival of this prisoner), he became worried. Not because he himself was a professional man, but because he was a man of experience of criminal patients and prisoners. To put it quite simply, this had been a boy who from his early youth had been completely unsatisfactory. You can call it by what term you like. A young delinquent, a young thug, a bad lot, a person of diminished responsibility. There are many terms. Some of them fit, some of them don’t fit, some of them are merely puzzling.