Pocket Full of Rye - Agatha Christie [73]
“Please tell me all about it, Miss Marple,” he said, “but start at the beginning, won’t you.”
“Yes, of course,” said Miss Marple, “and the beginning is Gladys. I mean I came here because of Gladys. And you very kindly let me look through all her things. And what with that and the nylon stockings and the telephone calls and one thing and another, it did come out perfectly clear. I mean about Mr. Fortescue and the taxine.”
“You have a theory?” asked Inspector Neele, “as to who put the taxine into Mr. Fortescue’s marmalade.”
“It isn’t a theory,” said Miss Marple. “I know.”
For the third time Inspector Neele blinked.
“It was Gladys, of course,” said Miss Marple.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Inspector Neele stared at Miss Marple and slowly shook his head.
“Are you saying,” he said incredulously, “that Gladys Martin deliberately murdered Rex Fortescue? I’m sorry, Miss Marple, but I simply don’t believe it.”
“No, of course she didn’t mean to murder him,” said Miss Marple, “but she did it all the same! You said yourself that she was nervous and upset when you questioned her. And that she looked guilty.”
“Yes, but not guilty of murder.”
“Oh, no, I agree. As I say, she didn’t mean to murder anybody, but she put the taxine in the marmalade. She didn’t think it was poison, of course.”
“What did she think it was?” Inspector Neele’s voice still sounded incredulous.
“I rather imagine she thought it was a truth drug,” said Miss Marple. “It’s very interesting, you know, and very instructive—the things these girls cut out of papers and keep. It’s always been the same, you know, all through the ages. Recipes for beauty, for attracting the man you love. And witchcraft and charms and marvellous happenings. Nowadays they’re mostly lumped together under the heading of Science. Nobody believes in magicians anymore, nobody believes that anyone can come along and wave a wand and turn you into a frog. But if you read in the paper that by injecting certain glands scientists can alter your vital tissues and you’ll develop froglike characteristics, well, everybody would believe that. And having read in the papers about truth drugs, of course Gladys would believe it absolutely when he told her that that’s what it was.”
“When who told her?” said Inspector Neele.
“Albert Evans,” said Miss Marple. “Not of course that that is really his name. But anyway he met her last summer at a holiday camp, and he flattered her up and made love to her, and I should imagine told her some story of injustice or persecution, or something like that. Anyway, the point was that Rex Fortescue had to be made to confess what he had done and make restitution. I don’t know this, of course, Inspector Neele, but I’m pretty sure about it. He got her to take a post here, and it’s really very easy nowadays with the shortage of domestic staff, to obtain a post where you want one. Staffs are changing the whole time. They then arranged a date together. You remember on that last postcard he said: ‘Remember our date.’ That was to be the great day they were working for. Gladys would put the drug that he gave her into the top of the marmalade, so that Mr. Fortescue would eat it at breakfast and she would also put the rye in his pocket. I don’t know what story he told her to account for the rye, but as I told you from the beginning, Inspector Neele, Gladys Martin was a very credulous girl. In fact, there’s hardly anything she wouldn’t believe if a personable young man put it to her the right way.”
“Go on,” said Inspector Neele in a dazed voice.
“The idea probably was,” continued Miss Marple, “that Albert was going to call upon him at the office that day, and that by that time the truth drug would have worked, and that Mr. Fortescue would have confessed everything and so on and so on. You can imagine the poor girl’s feelings when she