• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 540 0

question that kept coming back to me. I had not been mistaken in that look. And almost against my will, an answer began to shape itself in my mind. Supposing the Spanish woman’s story were true; supposing that Mary Barton wilfully and in cold blood tried to drown Amy Durrant. She succeeds in holding her under water whilst pretending to be saving her. She is rescued by a boat. They are on a lonely beach far from anywhere. And then I appear—the last thing she expects. A doctor! And an English doctor! She knows well enough that people who have been under water far longer than Amy Durrant have been revived by artificial respiration. But she has to play her part—to go off leaving me alone with her victim. And as she turns for one last look, a terrible poignant anxiety shows in her face. Will Amy Durrant come back to life and tell what she knows?’

‘Oh!’ said Jane Helier. ‘I’m thrilled now.’

‘Viewed in that aspect the whole business seemed more sinister, and the personality of Amy Durrant became more mysterious. Who was Amy Durrant? Why should she, an insignificant paid companion, be murdered by her employer? What story lay behind that fatal bathing expedition? She had entered Mary Barton’s employment only a few months before. Mary Barton had brought her abroad, and the very day after they landed the tragedy had occurred. And they were both nice, commonplace, refined Englishwomen! The whole thing was fantastic, and I told myself so. I had been letting my imagination run away with me.’

‘You didn’t do anything, then?’ asked Miss Helier.

‘My dear young lady, what could I do? There was no evidence. The majority of the eye-witnesses told the same story as Miss Barton. I had built up my own suspicions out of a fleeting expression which I might possibly have imagined. The only thing I could and did do was to see that the widest inquiries were made for the relations of Amy Durrant. The next time I was in England I even went and saw the landlady of her room, with the results I have told you.’

‘But you felt there was something wrong,’ said Miss Marple.

Dr Lloyd nodded.

‘Half the time I was ashamed of myself for thinking so. Who was I to go suspecting this nice, pleasant-mannered English lady of a foul and cold-blooded crime? I did my best to be as cordial as possible to her during the short time she stayed on the island. I helped her with the Spanish authorities. I did everything I could do as an Englishman to help a compatriot in a foreign country; and yet I am convinced that she knew I suspected and disliked her.’

‘How long did she stay out there?’ asked Miss Marple.

‘I think it was about a fortnight. Miss Durrant was buried there, and it must have been about ten days later when she took a boat back to England. The shock had upset her so much that she felt she couldn’t spend the winter there as she had planned. That’s what she said.’

‘Did it seem to have upset her?’ asked Miss Marple.

The doctor hesitated.

‘Well, I don’t know that it affected her appearance at all,’ he said cautiously.

‘She didn’t, for instance, grow fatter?’ asked Miss Marple.

‘Do you know—it’s a curious thing your saying that. Now I come to think back, I believe you’re right. She—yes, she did seem, if anything, to be putting on weight.’

‘How horrible,’ said Jane Helier with a shudder. ‘It’s like—it’s like fattening on your victim’s blood.’

‘And yet, in another way, I may be doing her an injustice,’ went on Dr Lloyd. ‘She certainly said something before she left, which pointed in an entirely different direction. There may be, I think there are, consciences which work very slowly—which take some time to awaken to the enormity of the deed committed.

‘It was the evening before her departure from the Canaries. She had asked me to go and see her, and had thanked me very warmly for all I had done to help her. I, of course, made light of the matter, said I had only done what was natural under the circumstances, and so on. There was a pause after that, and then she suddenly asked me a question.

‘ “Do you think,” she asked, “that one is ever justified in taking