Nemesis - Agatha Christie [78]
‘She wanted information from you,’ said Miss Marple. ‘That, I am sure, was the reason she was coming to you.’
‘Yes. Yes, that is probably true. It seemed to me, you see, that Verity would have said nothing to the people who could have stopped her. Clotilde and Anthea Bradbury-Scott, but because she had always been very devoted to Elizabeth Temple — and Elizabeth Temple had had great influence over her — it seems to me that she would have written and given her information of some kind.’
‘I think she did,’ said Miss Marple.
‘Information, you think?’
‘The information she gave to Elizabeth Temple,’ said Miss Marple, ‘was this. That she was going to marry Michael Rafiel. Miss Temple knew that. It was one of the things she said to me. She said: “I knew a girl called Verity who was going to marry Michael Rafiel” and the only person who could have told her that was Verity herself. Verity must have written to her or sent some word to her. And then when I said “Why didn’t she marry him?” she said: “She died.” ’
‘Then we come to a full stop,’ said Archdeacon Brabazon. He sighed. ‘Elizabeth and I know no more than those two facts. Elizabeth, that Verity was going to marry Michael. And I that those two were going to marry, that they had arranged it and that they were coming on a settled day and time. And I waited for them, but there was no marriage. No bride, no bridegroom, no word.’
‘And you have no idea what happened?’ said Miss Marple.
‘I do not for one minute believe that Verity or Michael definitely parted, broke off.’
‘But something must have happened between them? Something that opened Verity’s eyes perhaps, to certain aspects of Michael’s character and personality, that she had not realized or known before.’
‘That is not a satisfying answer because still she would have let me know. She would not have left me waiting to join them together in holy matrimony. To put the most ridiculous side of it, she was a girl with beautiful manners, well brought up. She would have sent word. No. I’m afraid that only one thing could have happened.’
‘Death?’ said Miss Marple. She was remembering that one word that Elizabeth Temple had said which had sounded like the deep tone of a bell.
‘Yes.’ Archdeacon Brabazon sighed. ‘Death.’
‘Love,’ said Miss Marple thoughtfully.
‘By that you mean — ’ he hesitated.
‘It’s what Miss Temple said to me. I said “What killed her?” and she said “Love” and that love was the most frightening word in the world. The most frightening word.’
‘I see,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘I see — or I think I see.’
‘What is your solution?’
‘Split personality,’ he sighed. ‘Something that is not apparent to other people unless they are technically qualified to observe it. Jekyll and Hyde are real, you know. They were not Stevenson’s invention as such. Michael Rafiel was a — must have been schizophrenic. He had a dual personality. I have no medical knowledge, no psychoanalytic experience. But there must have been in him the two parts of two identities. One, a well-meaning, almost lovable boy, a boy perhaps whose principal attraction was his wish for happiness. But there was also a second personality, someone who was forced by some mental deformation perhaps — something we as yet are not sure of — to kill — not an enemy, but the person he loved, and so he killed Verity. Not knowing perhaps why he had to or what it meant. There are very frightening things in this world of ours, mental quirks, mental disease or deformity of a brain. One of my parishioners was a very sad case in point. Two elderly women living together, pensioned. They had been friends in service together somewhere. They appeared