Nemesis - Agatha Christie [52]
‘So you learnt nothing during your stay?’
‘I learnt the facts of the case you’ve just told me. Not from them. From an elderly servant, who started her reminiscences dating back to the time of the uncle. She knew of Mr Rafiel only as a name. But she was eloquent on the theme of the murder: it had all started with the visit here of a son of Mr Rafiel’s who was a bad lot, of how the girl had fallen in love with him and that he’d strangled the girl, and how sad and tragic and terrible it all was. “With bells on”, as you might say,’ said Miss Marple, using a phrase of her youth. ‘Plenty of exaggeration, but it was a nasty story, and she seemed to believe that the police view was that this hadn’t been his only murder — ’
‘It didn’t seem to you to connect up with the three weird sisters?’
‘No, only that they’d been the guardians of the girl — and had loved her dearly. No more than that.’
‘They might know something — something about another man?’
‘Yes — that’s what we want, isn’t it? The other man — a man of brutality, who wouldn’t hesitate to bash in a girl’s head after he’d killed her. The kind of man who could be driven frantic with jealousy. There are men like that.’
‘No other curious things happened at The Old Manor?’
‘Not really. One of the sisters, the youngest I think, kept talking about the garden. She sounded as though she was a very keen gardener, but she couldn’t be because she didn’t know the names of half the things. I laid a trap or two for her, mentioning special rare shrubs and saying did she know it? and yes, she said, wasn’t it a wonderful plant? I said it was not very hardy and she agreed. But she didn’t know anything about plants. That reminds me — ’
‘Reminds you of what?’
‘Well, you’ll think I’m just silly about gardens and plants, but I mean one does know things about them. I mean, I know a few things about birds and I know some things about gardens.’
‘And I gather that it’s not birds but gardens that are troubling you.’
‘Yes. Have you noticed two middle-aged women on this tour? Miss Barrow and Miss Cooke.’
‘Yes. I’ve noticed them. Pair of middle-aged spinsters travelling together.’
‘That’s right. Well, I’ve found out something odd about Miss Cooke. That is her name, isn’t it? I mean it’s her name on the tour.’
‘Why — has she got another name?’
‘I think so. She’s the same person who visited me — I won’t say visited me exactly, but she was outside my garden fence in St Mary Mead, the village where I live. She expressed pleasure at my garden and talked about gardening with me. Told me she was living in the village and working in somebody’s garden, who’d moved into a new house there. I rather think,’ said Miss Marple, ‘yes, I rather think that the whole thing was lies. There again, she knew nothing about gardening. She pretended to but it wasn’t true.’
‘Why do you think she came there?’
‘I’d no idea at the time. She said her name was Bartlett — and the name of the woman she said she was living with began with “H”, though I can’t remember it for the moment. Her hair was not only differently done but it was a different colour and her clothes were of a different style. I didn’t recognize her at first on this trip. Just wondered why her face was vaguely familiar. And then suddenly it came to me. Because of the dyed hair. I said where I had seen her before. She admitted that she’d been there — but pretended that she, too, hadn’t recognized me. All lies.’
‘And what’s your opinion about all that?’
‘Well, one thing certainly — Miss Cooke (to give her her present name) came to St Mary Mead just to have a look at me — so that she’d be