Sleeping Murder - Agatha Christie [79]
“Perhaps she did. But Léonie, the Swiss girl, had talked to Lily, and Léonie was the one danger to Kennedy. Because she looked out of the nursery window and saw him digging in the garden. In the morning he talked to her, told her bluntly that Major Halliday had killed his wife—that Major Halliday was insane, and that he, Kennedy, was hushing up the matter for the child’s sake. If, however, Léonie felt she ought to go to the police, she must do so, but it would be very unpleasant for her—and so on.
“Léonie took immediate fright at the mention of the police. She adored you and had implicit faith in what M. le docteur thought best. Kennedy paid her a handsome sum of money and hustled her back to Switzerland. But before she went, she hinted something to Lily as to your father’s having killed his wife and that she had seen the body buried. That fitted in with Lily’s ideas at the time. She took it for granted that it was Kelvin Halliday Léonie had seen digging the grave.”
“But Kennedy didn’t know that, of course,” said Gwenda.
“Of course not. When he got Lily’s letter the words in it that frightened him were that Léonie had told Lily what she had seen out of the window and the mention of the car outside.”
“The car? Jackie Afflick’s car?”
“Another misunderstanding. Lily remembered, or thought she remembered, a car like Jackie Afflick’s being outside in the road. Already her imagination had got to work on the Mystery Man who came over to see Mrs. Halliday. With the hospital next door, no doubt a good many cars did park along this road. But you must remember that the doctor’s car was actually standing outside the hospital that night—he probably leaped to the conclusion that she meant his car. The adjective posh was meaningless to him.”
“I see,” said Giles. “Yes, to a guilty conscience that letter of Lily’s might look like blackmail. But how do you know all about Léonie?”
Her lips pursed close together, Miss Marple said: “He went—right over the edge, you know. As soon as the men Inspector Primer had left rushed in and seized him, he went over the whole crime again and again—everything he’d done. Léonie died, it seems, very shortly after her return to Switzerland. Overdose of some sleeping tablets … Oh no, he wasn’t taking any chances.”
“Like trying to poison me with the brandy.”
“You were very dangerous to him, you and Giles. Fortunately you never told him about your memory of seeing Helen dead in the hall. He never knew there had been an eyewitness.”
“Those telephone calls to Fane and Afflick,” said Giles. “Did he put those through?”
“Yes. If there was an enquiry as to who could have tampered with the brandy, either of them would make an admirable suspect, and if Jackie Afflick drove over in his car alone, it might tie him in with Lily Kimble’s murder. Fane would most likely have an alibi.”
“And he seemed fond of me,” said Gwenda. “Little Gwennie.”
“He had to play his part,” said Miss Marple. “Imagine what it meant to him. After eighteen years, you and Giles come along, asking questions, burrowing into the past, disturbing a murder that had seemed dead but was only sleeping … Murder in retrospect … A horribly dangerous thing to do, my dears. I have been sadly worried.”
“Poor Mrs. Cocker,” said Gwenda. “She had a terribly near escape. I’m glad she’s going to be all right. Do you think she’ll come back to us, Giles? After all this?”
“She will if there’s a nursery,” said Giles gravely, and Gwenda blushed, and Miss Marple smiled a little and looked out across Torbay.
“How very odd it was that it should happen the way it did,” mused Gwenda. “My having those rubber gloves on, and looking at them, and then his coming into the hall and saying those words that sounded so like the others. ‘Face’… and then: ‘Eyes dazzled’—”
She shuddered.
“Cover her face … Mine eyes dazzle … she died young … that might have been me … if Miss Marple hadn’t been there.”
She paused and said softly, “Poor Helen … Poor lovely Helen, who died young … You know, Giles, she isn