Nemesis - Agatha Christie [79]
‘So you think that’s what happened?’ said Miss Marple.
‘It did happen. The body was not found, I know, for some time afterwards. Verity just disappeared. She went away from home and was not seen again…’
‘But it must have happened then— that very day — ’
‘But surely at the trial — ’
‘You mean after the body was found, when the police finally arrested Michael?’
‘He had been one of the first, you know, to be asked to come and give assistance to the police. He had been seen about with the girl, she had been noticed in his car. They were sure all along that he was the man they wanted. He was their first suspect, and they never stopped suspecting him. The other young men who had known Verity were questioned, and one and all had alibis or lack of evidence. They continued to suspect Michael, and finally the body was found. Strangled and the head and face disfigured with heavy blows. A mad frenzied attack. He wasn’t sane when he struck those blows. Mr Hyde, let us say, had taken over.’
Miss Marple shivered.
The Archdeacon went on, his voice low and sad. ‘And yet, even now sometimes, I hope and feel that it was some other young man who killed her. Someone who was definitely mentally deranged, though no one had any idea of it. Some stranger, perhaps, whom she had met in the neighbourhood. Someone who she had met by chance, who had given her a lift in a car, and then — ’ He shook his head.
‘I suppose that could have been true,’ said Miss Marple.
‘Mike made a bad impression in court,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘Told foolish and senseless lies. Lied as to where his car had been. Got his friends to give him impossible alibis. He was frightened. He said nothing of his plan to marry. I believe his Counsel was of the opinion that that would tell against him — that she might have been forcing him to marry her and that he didn’t want to. It’s so long ago now, I remember no details. But the evidence was dead against him. He was guilty — and he looked guilty.
‘So you see, do you not, Miss Marple, that I’m a very sad and unhappy man. I made the wrong judgment, I encouraged a very sweet and lovely girl to go to her death, because I did not know enough of human nature. I was ignorant of the danger she was running. I believed that if she had had any fear of him, any sudden knowledge of something evil in him, she would have broken her pledge to marry him and have come to me and told me of her fear, of her knowledge of him. But nothing of that ever happened. Why did he kill her? Did he kill her because perhaps he knew she was going to have a child? Because by now he had formed a tie with some other girl and did not want to be forced to marry Verity? I can’t believe it. Or was it some entirely different reason. Because she had suddenly felt a fear of him, a knowledge of danger from him, and had broken off her association with him? Did that rouse his anger, his fury, and did that lead him to violence and to killing her? One does not know.’
‘You do not know?’ said Miss Marple, ‘but you do still know and believe one thing, don’t you?’
‘What do you mean exactly by “believe”? Are you talking from the religious point of view?’
‘Oh no,’ said Miss Marple, ‘I didn’t mean that. I mean, there seems to be in you, or so I feel it, a very strong belief that those two loved each other, that they meant to marry, but that something happened that prevented it. Something that ended in her death, but you still really believe that they were coming to you to get married that day?’
‘You are quite right, my dear. Yes, I cannot help still believing