Sleeping Murder - Agatha Christie [78]
“And in so doing, sealed his own fate and that of his wife. For Kennedy was not going to let Helen go and live happily with her husband. I think perhaps his idea was simply to break down Halliday’s health with drugs. But at the revelation that his victim and Helen were going to escape him, he became completely unhinged. From the hospital he went through into the garden of St. Catherine’s and he took with him a pair of surgical gloves. He caught Helen in the hall, and he strangled her. Nobody saw him, there was no one there to see him, or so he thought, and so, racked with love and frenzy, he quoted those tragic lines that were so apposite.”
Miss Marple sighed and clucked her tongue.
“I was stupid—very stupid. We were all stupid. We should have seen at once. Those lines from The Duchess of Malfi were really the clue to the whole thing. They are said, are they not, by a brother who has just contrived his sister’s death to avenge her marriage to the man she loved. Yes, we were stupid—”
“And then?” asked Giles.
“And then he went through with the whole devilish plan. The body carried upstairs. The clothes packed in a suitcase. A note, written and thrown in the wastepaper basket to convince Halliday later.”
“But I should have thought,” said Gwenda, “that it would have been better from his point of view for my father actually to have been convicted of the murder.”
Miss Marple shook her head.
“Oh no, he couldn’t risk that. He had a lot of shrewd Scottish common sense, you know. He had a wholesome respect for the police. The police take a lot of convincing before they believe a man guilty of murder. The police might have asked a lot of awkward questions and made a lot of awkward enquiries as to times and places. No, his plan was simpler and, I think, more devilish. He only had Halliday to convince. First, that he had killed his wife. Secondly that he was mad. He persuaded Halliday to go into a mental home, but I don’t think he really wanted to convince him that it was all a delusion. Your father accepted that theory, Gwennie, mainly, I should imagine, for your sake. He continued to believe that he had killed Helen. He died believing that.”
“Wicked,” said Gwenda. “Wicked—wicked—wicked.”
“Yes,” said Miss Marple. “There isn’t really any other word. And I think, Gwenda, that that is why your childish impression of what you saw remained so strong. It was real evil that was in the air that night.”
“But the letters,” said Giles. “Helen’s letters? They were in her handwriting, so they couldn’t be forgeries.”
“Of course they were forgeries! But that is where he overreached himself. He was so anxious, you see, to stop you and Giles making investigations. He could probably imitate Helen’s handwriting quite nicely—but it wouldn’t fool an expert. So the sample of Helen’s handwriting he sent you with the letter wasn’t her handwriting either. He wrote it himself. So naturally it tallied.”
“Goodness,” said Giles. “I never thought of that.”
“No,” said Miss Marple. “You believed what he said. It really is very dangerous to believe people. I never have for years.”
“And the brandy?”
“He did that the day he came to Hillside with Helen’s letter and talked to me in the garden. He was waiting in the house while Mrs. Cocker came out and told me he was there. It would only take a minute.”
“Good Lord,” said Giles. “And he urged me to take Gwenda home and give her brandy after we were at the police station when Lily Kimble was killed. How did he arrange to meet her earlier?”
“That was very simple. The original letter he sent her asked her to meet him at Woodleigh Camp and come to Matchings Halt by the two-five train from Dillmouth Junction. He came out of the copse of trees, probably, and accosted her as she was going up the lane—and strangled her. Then he simply substituted the letter you all saw for the letter she had with her (and which he had asked her to bring because of the directions in it) and went home to prepare for you and play out the little comedy of waiting for Lily.”
“And Lily really was threatening him? Her letter didn’t sound