Pocket Full of Rye - Agatha Christie [77]
Yes, Inspector Neele thought, Lance Fortescue was brilliant and unscrupulous—but he was foolhardy, too. The risks he took were just a little too great.
Neele thought to himself, “I’ll get him!” Then, doubt sweeping over him, he looked at Miss Marple.
“It’s all pure assumption, you know,” he said.
“Yes—but you are sure, aren’t you?”
“I suppose so. After all, I’ve known his kind before.”
The old lady nodded.
“Yes—that matters so much—that’s really why I’m sure.”
Neele looked at her playfully.
“Because of your knowledge of criminals.”
“Oh no—of course not. Because of Pat—a dear girl—and the kind that always marries a bad lot—that’s really what drew my attention to him at the start—”
“I may be sure—in my own mind,” said the inspector, “but there’s a lot that needs explaining—the Ruby MacKenzie business for instance. I could swear that—”
Miss Marple interrupted:
“And you’re quite right. But you’ve been thinking of the wrong person. Go and talk to Mrs. Percy.”
II
“Mrs. Fortescue,” said Inspector Neele, “do you mind telling me your name before you were married.”
“Oh!” Jennifer gasped. She looked frightened.
“You needn’t be nervous, madam,” said Inspector Neele, “but it’s much better to come out with the truth. I’m right, I think, in saying that your name before you were married was Ruby MacKenzie?”
“My—well, oh well—oh dear—well, why shouldn’t it be?” said Mrs. Percival Fortescue.
“No reason at all,” said Inspector Neele gently, and added: “I was talking to your mother a few days ago at Pinewood Sanatorium.”
“She’s very angry with me,” said Jennifer. “I never go and see her now because it only upsets her. Poor Mumsy, she was so devoted to Dad, you know.”
“And she brought you up to have very melodramatic ideas of revenge?”
“Yes,” said Jennifer. “She kept making us swear on the Bible that we’d never forget and that we’d kill him one day. Of course, once I’d gone into hospital and started my training, I began to realize that her mental balance wasn’t what it should be.”
“You yourself must have felt revengeful though, Mrs. Fortescue?”
“Well, of course I did. Rex Fortescue practically murdered my father! I don’t mean he actually shot him, or knifed him or anything like that. But I’m quite certain that he did leave Father to die. That’s the same thing, isn’t it?”
“It’s the same thing morally—yes.”
“So I did want to pay him back,” said Jennifer. “When a friend of mine came to nurse his son I got her to leave and to propose my replacing her. I don’t know exactly what I meant to do . . . I didn’t, really I didn’t, Inspector, I never meant to kill Mr. Fortescue. I had some idea, I think, of nursing his son so badly that the son would die. But of course, if you are a nurse by profession you can’t do that sort of thing. Actually I had quite a job pulling Val through. And then he got fond of me and asked me to marry him and I thought, ‘Well, really that’s a far more sensible revenge than anything else.” I mean, to marry Mr. Fortescue’s eldest son and get the money he swindled Father out of back that way. I think it was a far more sensible way.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Inspector Neele, “far more sensible.” He added, “It was you, I suppose, who put the blackbirds on the desk and in the pie?”
Mrs. Percival flushed.
“Yes. I suppose it was silly of me really . . . But Mr. Fortescue had been talking about suckers one day and boasting of how he’d swindled people—got the best of them. Oh, in quite a legal way. And I thought I’d just like to give him—well, a kind of fright. And it did give him a fright! He was awfully upset.” She added anxiously, “But I didn’t do anything else! I didn’t really, Inspector. You don’t—you don’t honestly think I would murder anyone, do you?”
Inspector Neele smiled.
“No,” he said, “I don’t.” He added: “By the way, have you given Miss Dove any money lately?”
Jennifer’s jaw dropped.
“How did you know?”
“We know a lot of things,” said Inspector Neele and added to himself: “And guess a good many, too.”
Jennifer continued, speaking rapidly:
“She came to me and said that you’d accused