Sleeping Murder - Agatha Christie [67]
Miss Marple nodded.
“He had to be—on the spot. I remember your saying that that was important. We’ve got to see which of our three suspects fits in best with the requirements. We’ll take Erskine first. Now he definitely was on the spot. By his own admission he walked up here with Helen Kennedy from the beach at round about nine o’clock. He said good-bye to her. But did he say good-bye to her? Let’s say instead that he strangled her.”
“But it was all over between them,” cried Gwenda. “Long ago. He said himself that he was hardly ever alone with Helen.”
“But don’t you see, Gwenda, that the way we must look at it now, we can’t depend on anything anyone says.”
“Now I’m so glad to hear you say that,” said Miss Marple. “Because I’ve been a little worried, you know, by the way you two have seemed willing to accept, as actual fact, all the things that people have told you. I’m afraid I have a sadly distrustful nature, but, especially in a matter of murder, I make it a rule to take nothing that is told to me as true, unless it is checked. For instance, it does seem quite certain that Lily Kimble mentioned the clothes packed and taken away in a suitcase were not the ones Helen Halliday would herself have taken, because not only did Edith Pagett tell us that Lily said so to her, but Lily herself mentioned the fact in her letter to Dr. Kennedy. So that is one fact. Dr. Kennedy told us that Kelvin Halliday believed that his wife was secretly drugging him, and Kelvin Halliday in his diary confirms that—so there is another fact—and a very curious fact it is, don’t you think? However, we will not go into that now.
“But I would like to point out that a great many of the assumptions you have made have been based upon what has been told you—possibly told you very plausibly.”
Giles stared hard at her.
Gwenda, her colour restored, sipped coffee, and leaned across the table.
Giles said: “Let’s check up now on what three people have said to us. Take Erskine first. He says—”
“You’ve got a down on him,” said Gwenda. “It’s waste of time going on about him, because now he’s definitely out of it. He couldn’t have killed Lily Kimble.”
Giles went on imperturbly: “He says that he met Helen on the boat going out to India and they fell in love, but that he couldn’t bring himself to leave his wife and children, and that they agreed they must say good-bye. Suppose it wasn’t quite like that. Suppose he fell desperately in love with Helen, and that it was she who wouldn’t run off with him. Supposing he threatened that if she married anyone else he would kill her.”
“Most improbable,” said Gwenda.
“Things like that do happen. Remember what you overheard his wife say to him. You put it all down to jealousy, but it may have been true. Perhaps she has had a terrible time with him where women are concerned—he may be a little bit of a sex maniac.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“No, because he’s attractive to women. I think, myself, that there is something a little queer about Erskine. However, let’s go on with my case against him. Helen breaks off her engagement to Fane and comes home and marries your father and settles down here. And then suddenly, Erskine turns up. He comes down ostensibly on a summer holiday with his wife. That’s an odd thing to do, really. He admits he came here to see Helen again. Now let’s take it that Erskine was the man in the drawing room with her that day when Lily overheard her say she was afraid of him. ‘I’m afraid of you—I’ve always been afraid of you—I think you’re mad.’
“And, because she’s afraid, she makes plans to go and live in Norfolk, but she’s very secretive about it. No one is to know. No one is to know, that is, until the Erskines have left Dillmouth. So far that fits. Now we come to the fatal night. What the Hallidays