They do it with mirrors - Agatha Christie [53]
‘No, I’ve absolutely no idea. I can’t even think of a reason. It must have been something to do with his being here before — just over a month ago. Because otherwise I don’t think he would have come here suddenly again for no particular reason. Whatever it was must have started off then. I’ve thought and I’ve thought, but I can’t remember anything unusual.’
‘Oh! The same people who are here now — yes, Alex was down from London about then. And — oh yes, Ruth was here.’
‘Ruth?’
‘Her usual flying visit.’
‘Ruth,’ said Miss Marple again. Her mind was active. Christian Gulbrandsen and Ruth? Ruth had come away worried and apprehensive, but had not known why. Something was wrong was all that Ruth could say. Christian Gulbrandsen had known or suspected something that Ruth did not. He had known or suspected that someone was trying to poison Carrie Louise. How had Christian Gulbrandsen come to entertain those suspicions? What had he seen or heard? Was it something that Ruth also had seen or heard but which she had failed to appreciate at its rightful significance? Miss Marple wished that she knew what it could possibly have been. Her own vague hunch that it (whatever it was) had to do with Edgar Lawson seemed unlikely since Ruth had not mentioned him.
She sighed.
‘You’re all keeping something from me, aren’t you?’ asked Carrie Louise.
Miss Marple jumped a little as the quiet voice spoke.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because you are. Not Jolly. But everyone else. Even Lewis. He came in while I was having my breakfast, and he acted very oddly. He drank some of my coffee and even had a bit of toast and marmalade. That’s so unlike him, because he always has tea and he doesn’t like marmalade, so he must have been thinking of something else — and I suppose he must have forgotten to have his own breakfast. He does forget things like meals, and he looked so concerned and preoccupied.’
‘Murder — ’ began Miss Marple.
Carrie Louise said quickly:
‘Oh I know. It’s a terrible thing. I’ve never been mixed up in it before. You have, haven’t you, Jane?’
‘Well — yes — actually I have,’ Miss Marple admitted.
‘So Ruth told me.’
‘Did she tell you that last time she was down here?’ asked Miss Marple curiously.
‘No, I don’t think it was then. I can’t really remember.’
Carrie Louise spoke vaguely, almost absent-mindedly.
‘What are you thinking about, Carrie Louise?’
Mrs Serrocold smiled and seemed to come back from a long way away.
‘I was thinking of Gina,’ she said. ‘And of what you said about Stephen Restarick. Gina’s a dear girl, you know, and she does really love Wally. I’m sure she does.’
Miss Marple said nothing.
‘Girls like Gina like to kick up their heels a bit.’ Mrs Serrocold spoke in an almost pleading voice. ‘They’re young and they like to feel their power. It’s natural, really. I know Wally Hudd isn’t the sort of man we imagined Gina marrying. Normally she’d never have met him. But she did meet him, and fell in love with him — and presumably she knows her own business best.’
‘Probably she does,’ said Miss Marple.
‘But it’s so very important that Gina should be happy.’
Miss Marple looked curiously at her friend.
‘It’s important, I suppose, that everyone should be happy.’
‘Oh yes. But Gina’s a very special case. When we took her mother — when we took Pippa — we felt that it was an experiment that had simply got to succeed. You see, Pippa’s mother — ’
Carrie Louise paused.
Miss Marple said:
‘Who was Pippa’s mother?’
Carrie Louise said: ‘Eric and I agreed that we should never tell anybody that. She never knew herself.’
‘I’d like to know,’ said Miss Marple.
Mrs Serrocold looked at her doubtfully.
‘It isn’t just curiosity,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I really — well — need to know. I can hold my tongue, you know.’
‘You could always keep a secret, Jane,’ said Carrie Louise with a reminiscent smile. ‘Dr Galbraith — he’s the Bishop of Cromer now — he knows. But no one else. Pippa’s mother was Katherine Elsworth.’
‘Elsworth? Wasn’t that the woman who administered arsenic to her husband? Rather a celebrated