Nemesis - Agatha Christie [50]
‘And what did he feel about his son?’ said Miss Marple.
‘Ah, you want to know that. So did I. He was, I think, extremely honest with me even if — ’
‘ — even if rather ruthless?’ said Miss Marple.
‘Yes, Miss Marple. You are using the right word. He was a ruthless man, but he was a just man and an honest man. He said, “I’ve known what my son was like for many years. I have not tried to change him because I don’t believe that anyone could change him. He is made a certain way. He is crooked. He’s a bad lot. He’ll always be in trouble. He’s dishonest. Nobody, nothing could make him go straight. I am well assured of that. I have in a sense washed my hands of him. Though not legally or outwardly; he has always had money if he required it. Help legal or otherwise if he gets into trouble. I have done always what I could do. Well, let us say if I had a son who was a spastic who was sick, who was epileptic, I would do what I could for him. If you have a son who is sick morally, shall we say, and for whom there is no cure, I have done what I could also. No more and no less. What can I do for him now?” I told him that it depended what he wanted to do. “There’s no difficulty about that,” he said. “I am handicapped but I can see quite clearly what I want to do. I want to get him vindicated. I want to get him released from confinement. I want to get him free to continue to lead his own life as best he can lead it. If he must lead it in further dishonesties, then he must lead it that way. I will leave provision for him, to do for him everything that can be done. I don’t want him suffering, imprisoned, cut off from his life because of a perfectly natural and unfortunate mistake. If somebody else, some other man killed that girl, I want the fact brought to light and recognized. I want justice for Michael. But I am handicapped. I am a very ill man. My time is measured now not in years or months but in weeks.”
‘Lawyers, I suggested — I know a firm — He cut me short. “Your lawyers will be useless. You can employ them but they will be useless. I must arrange what I can arrange in such a limited time.” He offered me a large fee to undertake the search for the truth and to undertake everything possible with no expense spared. “I can do next to nothing myself. Death may come at any moment. I empower you as my chief help, and to assist you at my request I will try to find a certain person.” He wrote down a name for me. Miss Jane Marple. He said “I don’t want to give you her address. I want you to meet her in surroundings of my own choosing,” and he then told me of this tour, this charming, harmless, innocent tour of historic houses, castles and gardens. He would provide me with a reservation on it ahead for a certain date. “Miss Jane Marple,” he said, “will also be on that tour. You will meet her there, you will encounter her casually, and thus it will be seen clearly to be a casual meeting.”
‘I was to choose my own time and moment to make myself known to you if I thought that that would be the better way. You have already asked me if I or my friend, the Governor, had any reason to suspect or know of any other person who might have been guilty of the murder. My friend the Governor certainly suggested nothing of the kind, and he had already taken up the matter with the police officer who had been in charge of the case. A most reliable detective-superintendent with very good experience in these matters.’
‘No other man was suggested? No other friend of the girl’s? No other former friend who might have been supplanted?