The Thirteen Problems - Agatha Christie [40]
‘It’s a mysterious story,’ said Dr Lloyd. ‘One can make guesses; but to guess—’
He shook his head.
‘Has Mr Pritchard married Miss Instow?’ asked Miss Marple in her gentle voice.
‘Now why do you ask that?’ inquired Sir Henry.
Miss Marple opened gentle blue eyes.
‘It seems to me so important,’ she said. ‘Have they married?’
Colonel Bantry shook his head.
‘We—well, we expected something of the kind—but it’s eighteen months now. I don’t believe they even see much of each other.’
‘That is important,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Very important.’
‘Then you think the same as I do,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘You think—’
‘Now, Dolly,’ said her husband. ‘It’s unjustifiable—what you’re going to say. You can’t go about accusing people without a shadow of proof.’
‘Don’t be so—so manly, Arthur. Men are always afraid to say anything. Anyway, this is all between ourselves. It’s just a wild fantastic idea of mine that possibly—only possibly—Jean Instow disguised herself as a fortune-teller. Mind you, she may have done it for a joke. I don’t for a minute think that she meant any harm; but if she did do it, and if Mrs Pritchard was foolish enough to die of fright—well, that’s what Miss Marple meant, wasn’t it?’
‘No, dear, not quite,’ said Miss Marple. ‘You see, if I were going to kill anyone—which, of course, I wouldn’t dream of doing for a minute, because it would be very wicked, and besides I don’t like killing—not even wasps, though I know it has to be, and I’m sure the gardener does it as humanely as possible. Let me see, what was I saying?’
‘If you wished to kill anyone,’ prompted Sir Henry.
‘Oh yes. Well, if I did, I shouldn’t be at all satisfied to trust to fright. I know one reads of people dying of it, but it seems a very uncertain sort of thing, and the most nervous people are far more brave than one really thinks they are. I should like something definite and certain, and make a thoroughly good plan about it.’
‘Miss Marple,’ said Sir Henry, ‘you frighten me. I hope you will never wish to remove me. Your plans would be too good.’
Miss Marple looked at him reproachfully.
‘I thought I had made it clear that I would never contemplate such wickedness,’ she said. ‘No, I was trying to put myself in the place of—er—a certain person.’
‘Do you mean George Pritchard?’ asked Colonel Bantry. ‘I’ll never believe it of George—though—mind you, even the nurse believes it. I went and saw her about a month afterwards, at the time of the exhumation. She didn’t know how it was done—in fact, she wouldn’t say anything at all—but it was clear enough that she believed George to be in some way responsible for his wife’s death. She was convinced of it.’
‘Well,’ said Dr Lloyd, ‘perhaps she wasn’t so far wrong. And mind you, a nurse often knows. She can’t say—she’s got no proof—but she knows.’
Sir Henry leant forward.
‘Come now, Miss Marple,’ he said persuasively. ‘You’re lost in a daydream. Won’t you tell us all about it?’
Miss Marple started and turned pink.
‘I beg your pardon,’ she said. ‘I was just thinking about our District Nurse. A most difficult problem.’
‘More difficult than the problem of the blue geranium?’
‘It really depends on the primroses,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I mean, Mrs Bantry said they were yellow and pink. If it was a pink primrose that turned blue, of course, that fits in perfectly. But if it happened to be a yellow one—’
‘It was a pink one,’ said Mrs Bantry.
She stared. They all stared at Miss Marple.
‘Then that seems to settle it,’ said Miss Marple. She shook her head regretfully. ‘And the wasp season and everything. And of course the gas.’
‘It reminds you, I suppose, of countless village tragedies?’ said Sir Henry.
‘Not tragedies,’ said Miss Marple. ‘And certainly nothing criminal. But it does remind me a little of the trouble we are having with the District Nurse. After all, nurses are human beings, and what with having to be so correct in their behaviour and wearing those uncomfortable collars and being so thrown with the family—well, can you wonder that things sometimes happen?’
A glimmer of light broke