The Thirteen Problems - Agatha Christie [55]
Miss Marple coughed and said gently:
‘Then, Sir Henry, if I understand you rightly, it is this young Mr Templeton only who is so much on your mind?’
‘Yes, in a sense. It should, in theory, be the same for all four, but that is not actually the case. Dobbs, for instance—suspicion may attach to him in my mind, but it will not actually affect his career. Nobody in the village has ever had any idea that old Dr Rosen’s death was anything but an accident. Gertrud is slightly more affected. It must make, for instance, a difference in Fräulein Rosen’s attitude toward her. But that, possibly, is not of great importance to her.
‘As for Greta Rosen—well, here we come to the crux of the matter. Greta is a very pretty girl and Charles Templeton is a good-looking young man, and for five months they were thrown together with no outer distractions. The inevitable happened. They fell in love with each other—even if they did not come to the point of admitting the fact in words.
‘And then the catastrophe happens. It is three months ago now and a day or two after I returned, Greta Rosen came to see me. She had sold the cottage and was returning to Germany, having finally settled up her uncle’s affairs. She came to me personally, although she knew I had retired, because it was really about a personal matter she wanted to see me. She beat about the bush a little, but at last it all came out. What did I think? That letter with the German stamp—she had worried about it and worried about it—the one Charles had torn up. Was it all right? Surely it must be all right. Of course she believed his story, but—oh! if she only knew! If she knew—for certain.
‘You see? The same feeling: the wish to trust—but the horrible lurking suspicion, thrust resolutely to the back of the mind, but persisting nevertheless. I spoke to her with absolute frankness, and asked her to do the same. I asked her whether she had been on the point of caring for Charles, and he for her.
‘ “I think so,” she said. “Oh, yes, I know it was so. We were so happy. Every day passed so contentedly. We knew—we both knew. There was no hurry—there was all the time in the world. Some day he would tell me he loved me, and I should tell him that I too—Ah! But you can guess! And now it is all changed. A black cloud has come between us—we are constrained, when we meet we do not know what to say. It is, perhaps, the same with him as with me…We are each saying to ourselves, ‘If I were sure!’ That is why, Sir Henry, I beg of you to say to me, ‘You may be sure, whoever killed your uncle, it was not Charles Templeton!’ Say it to me! Oh, say it to me! I beg—I beg!”
‘And, damn it all,’ said Sir Henry, bringing down his fist with a bang on the table, ‘I couldn’t say it to her. They’ll drift farther and farther apart, those two—with suspicion like a ghost between them—a ghost that can’t be laid.’
He leant back in his chair, his face looked tired and grey. He shook his head once or twice despondently.
‘And there’s nothing more can be done, unless—’ He sat up straight again and a tiny whimsical smile crossed his face—‘unless Miss Marple can help us. Can’t you, Miss Marple? I’ve a feeling that letter might be in your line, you know. The one about the Church Social. Doesn’t it remind you of something or someone that makes everything perfectly plain? Can’t you do something to help two helpless young people who want to be happy?’
Behind the whimsicality there was something earnest in his appeal. He had come to think very highly of the mental powers of this frail old-fashioned maiden lady. He looked across at her with something very like hope in his eyes.
Miss Marple coughed and smoothed her lace.
‘It does remind me a little of Annie Poultny,’ she admitted. ‘Of course the letter is perfectly plain—both to Mrs Bantry and myself. I don’t mean the Church Social letter, but the other one. You living so much in London and not being