Sleeping Murder - Agatha Christie [30]
It’s the best way … No scandal … The best way for the child. I can’t go on. Not year after year. I must take the short way out. Gwennie will never know anything about all this. She’ll never know her father was a murderer….
Tears blinded Gwenda’s eyes. She looked across at Giles, sitting opposite her. But Giles’s eyes were riveted on the opposite corner.
Aware of Gwenda’s scrutiny, he motioned faintly with his head.
Their fellow passenger was reading an evening paper. On the outside of it, clearly presented to their view was a melodramatic caption: Who were the men in her life?
Slowly, Gwenda nodded her head. She looked down at the diary.
There was someone—I know there was someone….
Eleven
THE MEN IN HER LIFE
I
Miss Marple crossed Sea Parade and walked along Fore Street, turning up the hill by the Arcade. The shops here were the old-fashioned ones. A wool and art needlework shop, a confectioner, a Victorian-looking Ladies’ Outfitter and Draper and others of the same kind.
Miss Marple looked in at the window of the art needlework shop. Two young assistants were engaged with customers, but an elderly woman at the back of the shop was free.
Miss Marple pushed open the door and went in. She seated herself at the counter and the assistant, a pleasant woman with grey hair, asked, “What can I do for you, madam?”
Miss Marple wanted some pale blue wool to knit a baby’s jacket. The proceedings were leisurely and unhurried. Patterns were discussed, Miss Marple looked through various children’s knitting books and in the course of it discussed her great-nephews and nieces. Neither she nor the assistant displayed impatience. The assistant had attended to customers such as Miss Marple for many years. She preferred these gentle, gossipy, rambling old ladies to the impatient, rather impolite young mothers who didn’t know what they wanted and had an eye for the cheap and showy.
“Yes,” said Miss Marple. “I think that will be very nice indeed. And I always find Storkleg so reliable. It really doesn’t shrink. I think I’ll take an extra two ounces.”
The assistant remarked that the wind was very cold today, as she wrapped up the parcel.
“Yes, indeed, I noticed it as I was coming along the front. Dillmouth has changed a good deal. I have not been here for, let me see, nearly nineteen years.”
“Indeed, madam? Then you will find a lot of changes. The Superb wasn’t built then, I suppose, nor the Southview Hotel?”
“Oh no, it was quite a small place. I was staying with friends … A house called St. Catherine’s—perhaps you know it? On the Leahampton road.”
But the assistant had only been in Dillmouth a matter of ten years.
Miss Marple thanked her, took the parcel, and went into the draper’s next door. Here, again, she selected an elderly assistant. The conversation ran much on the same lines, to an accompaniment of summer vests. This time, the assistant responded promptly.
“That would be Mrs. Findeyson’s house.”
“Yes—yes. Though the friends I knew had it furnished. A Major Halliday and his wife and a baby girl.”
“Oh yes, madam. They had it for about a year, I think.”
“Yes. He was home from India. They had a very good cook—she gave me a wonderful recipe for baked apple pudding—and also, I think, for gingerbread. I often wonder what became of her.”
“I expect you mean Edith Pagett, madam. She’s still in Dillmouth. She’s in service now—at Windrush Lodge.”
“Then there were some other people—the Fanes. A lawyer, I think he was!”
“Old Mr. Fane died some years ago—young Mr. Fane, Mr. Walter Fane, lives with his mother. Mr. Walter Fane never married. He’s the senior partner now.”
“Indeed? I had an idea Mr. Walter Fane had gone out to India—tea-planting or something.”
“I believe he did, madam. As a young man.