Nemesis - Agatha Christie [56]
‘Oh yes? The pullover — ’ He looked at her curiously. ‘What was it that struck you about that?’
‘It was very noticeable,’ said Miss Marple. ‘That is what your words led me to infer. It was very mentionable. So much so that the girl Joanna mentioned it specifically.’
‘Yes. And what does that suggest to you?’
‘The trailing of flags,’ said Miss Marple thoughtfully. ‘Something that will be seen, remembered, observed, recognized.’
‘Yes.’ Professor Wanstead looked at her with encouragement.
‘When you describe a person you have seen, seen not close at hand but from a distance, the first thing you will describe will be their clothes. Not their faces, not their walk, not their hands, not their feet. A scarlet tam-o’-shanter, a purple cloak, a bizarre leather jacket, a pullover of brilliant reds and blacks. Something very recognizable, very noticeable. The object of it being that when that person removes that garment, gets rid of it, sends it by post in a parcel to some address, say, about a hundred miles away, or thrusts it in a rubbish bin in a city or burns it or tears it up or destroys it, she or he will be the one person modestly and rather drably attired who will not be suspected or looked at or thought of. It must have been meant, that scarlet and black check jersey. Meant so that it will be recognized again though actually it will never again be seen on that particular person.’
‘A very sound idea,’ said Professor Wanstead. ‘As I have told you,’ continued the Professor, ‘Fallowfield is situated not very far from here. Sixteen miles, I think. So this is Elizabeth Temple’s part of the world, a part she knows well with people in it that she also might know well.’
‘Yes. It widens the possibilities,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I agree with you,’ she said presently, ‘that the attacker is more likely to have been a man than a woman. That boulder, if it was done with intent, was sent on its course very accurately. Accuracy is more a male quality than a female one. On the other hand there might easily have been someone on our coach, or possibly in the neighbourhood, who saw Miss Temple in the street, a former pupil of hers in past years. Someone whom she herself might not recognize after a period of time. But the girl or woman would have recognized her, because a Headmaster or Headmistress of over sixty is not unlike the same Headmaster or Headmistress at the age of fifty. She is recognizable. Some woman who recognized her former mistress and also knew that her mistress knew something damaging about her. Someone who might in some way prove a danger to her.’ She sighed. ‘I myself do not know this part of the world at all. Have you any particular knowledge of it?’
‘No,’ said Professor Wanstead. ‘I could not claim a personal knowledge of this part of the country. I know something, however, of various things that have happened in this part of the world entirely because of what you have told me. If it had not been for my acquaintanceship with you and the things you have told me I could have been more at sea than I am.
‘What are you yourself actually doing here? You do not know. Yet you were sent here. It was deliberately arranged by Rafiel that you should come here, that you should take this coach tour, that you and I should meet. There have been other places where we have stopped or through which we have passed, but special arrangements were made so that you should actually stay for a couple of nights here. You were put up with former friends of his who would not have refused any request he made. Was there a reason for that?’
‘So that I could learn certain facts that I had to know,’ said Miss Marple.
‘A series of murders that took place a good many years ago?’ Professor Wanstead looked doubtful. ‘There is nothing unusual in that. You can say the same of many places in England and Wales. These things seem always to go in a series. First a girl found assaulted and murdered. Then another girl not very far away. Then something of the same kind perhaps twenty miles away. The same pattern of