Nemesis - Agatha Christie [81]
‘Oh really!’ said Miss Marple, ‘do you mean —?’
‘Yes, I do mean,’ said Emlyn Price. ‘Joanna’s had enough of that aunt of hers, bossing her around all the time.’
‘Then you are not going in the coach either?’
‘No. I’m staying on here for a couple of days. I’m going to get around a bit and do a few excursions. Don’t look so disapproving, Miss Marple. You’re not really as disapproving as all that, are you?’
‘Well,’ said Miss Marple, ‘I have known such things happen in my own youth. The excuses may have been different, and I think we had less chance of getting away with things than you do now.’
Colonel and Mrs Walker came up and shook Miss Marple warmly by the hand.
‘So nice to have known you and had all those delightful horticultural talks,’ said the Colonel. ‘I believe the day after tomorrow we’re going to have a real treat, if nothing else happens. Really it’s too sad, this very unfortunate accident. I must say I think myself it is an accident. I really think the Coroner was going beyond everything in his feelings about this.’
‘It seems very odd,’ said Miss Marple, ‘that nobody has come forward, if they were up on top there, pushing about rocks and boulders and things, that they haven’t come forward to say so.’
‘Think they’ll be blamed, of course,’ said Colonel Walker. ‘They’re going to keep jolly quiet, that’s what they’re going to do. Well, goodbye. I’ll send you a cutting of that magnolia highdownensis and one of the mahonia japonica too. Though I’m not quite sure if it would do as well where you live.’
They in turn got into the coach. Miss Marple turned away. She turned to see Professor Wanstead waving to the departing coach. Mrs Sandbourne came out, said goodbye to Miss Marple and got in the coach and Miss Marple took Professor Wanstead by the arm.
‘I want you,’ she said. ‘Can we go somewhere where we can talk?’
‘Yes. What about the place where we sat the other day?’
‘Round here there’s a very nice verandah place, I think.’
They walked round the corner of the hotel. There was some gay horn-blowing, and the coach departed.
‘I wish, in a way, you know,’ said Professor Wanstead, ‘that you weren’t staying behind. I’d rather have seen you safely on your way in the coach.’ He looked at her sharply. ‘Why are you staying here? Nervous exhaustion or something else?’
‘Something else,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I’m not particularly exhausted, though it makes a perfectly natural excuse for somebody of my age.’
‘I feel really I ought to stay here and keep an eye on you.’
‘No,’ said Miss Marple, ‘there’s no need to do that. There are other things you ought to be doing.’
‘What things?’ He looked at her. ‘Have you got ideas or knowledge?’
‘I think I have knowledge, but I’ll have to verify it. There are certain things that I can’t do myself. I think you will help to do them because you’re in touch with what I refer to as the authorities.’
‘Meaning Scotland Yard, Chief Constables and the Governors of Her Majesty’s Prisons?’
‘Yes. One or other or all of them. You might have the Home Secretary in your pocket, too.’
‘You certainly do have ideas! Well, what do you want me to do?’
‘First of all I want to give you this address.’
She took out a notebook and tore out one page and handed it to him.
‘What’s this? Oh yes, well known charity, isn’t it?’
‘One of the better ones, I believe. They do a lot of good. You send them clothes,’ said Miss Marple, ‘children’s clothes and women’s clothes. Coats. Pullovers, all those sort of things.’
‘Well, do you want me to contribute to this?’
‘No, it’s an appeal for charity, it’s a bit of what belongs to what we’re doing. What you and I are doing.’
‘In what way?’
‘I want you to make enquiries there about a parcel which was sent from here two days ago, posted from this post office.’
‘Who posted it — did you?’
‘No,’ said Miss Marple. ‘No. But I assumed responsibility for it.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means,’ said Miss Marple, smiling slightly, ‘that I went into the post office here and I explained rather scattily and — well, like the old pussy I am — that I had very