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“Meaning you discount them as dangerous?”
“Not at all,” said Craddock. “A murderer’s mind usually is childish. You’ve really no idea at all, Mr. Rudd, who sent these?”
“Not the least,” said Jason. “I can’t help feeling it’s more like a macabre joke than anything else. It seemed to me perhaps—” he hesitated.
“Yes, Mr. Rudd?”
“It could be somebody local, perhaps, who—who had been excited by the poisoning on the day of the fête. Someone perhaps, who has a grudge against the acting profession. There are rural pockets where acting is considered to be one of the devil’s weapons.”
“Meaning that you think Miss Gregg is not actually threatened? But what about this business of the coffee?”
“I don’t even know how you got to hear about that,” said Rudd with some annoyance.
Craddock shook his head.
“Everyone’s talked about that. It always comes to one’s ears sooner or later. But you should have come to us. Even when you got the result of the analysis you didn’t let us know, did you?”
“No,” said Jason. “No, I didn’t. But I had other things to think about. Poor Ella’s death for one thing. And now this business of Giuseppe. Inspector Craddock, when can I get my wife away from here? She’s half frantic.”
“I can understand that. But there will be the inquests to attend.”
“You do realize that her life is still in danger?”
“I hope not. Every precaution will be taken—”
“Every precaution! I’ve heard that before, I think… I must get her away from here, Craddock. I must.”
III
Marina was lying on the chaise longue in her bedroom, her eyes closed. She looked grey with strain and fatigue.
Her husband stood there for a moment looking at her. Her eyes opened.
“Was that that Craddock man?”
“Yes.”
“What did he come about? Ella?”
“Ella—and Giuseppe.”
Marina frowned.
“Giuseppe? Have they found out who shot him?”
“Not yet.”
“It’s all a nightmare… Did he say we could go away?”
“He said—not yet.”
“Why not? We must. Didn’t you make him see that I can’t go on waiting day after day for someone to kill me. It’s fantastic.”
“Every precaution will be taken.”
“They said that before. Did it stop Ella being killed? Or Giuseppe? Don’t you see, they’ll get me in the end… There was something in my coffee that day at the studio. I’m sure there was…if only you hadn’t poured it away! If we’d kept it, we could have had it analysed or whatever you call it. We’d have known for sure….”
“Would it have made you happier to know for sure?”
She stared at him, the pupils of her eyes widely dilated.
“I don’t see what you mean. If they’d known for sure that someone was trying to poison me, they’d have let us leave here, they’d have let us get away.”
“Not necessarily.”
“But I can’t go on like this! I can’t… I can’t… You must help me, Jason. You must do something. I’m frightened. I’m so terribly frightened… There’s an enemy here. And I don’t know who it is… It might be anyone—anyone. At the studios—or here in the house. Someone who hates me—but why?… Why?… Someone who wants me dead… But who is it? Who is it? I thought—I was almost sure—it was Ella. But now—”
“You thought it was Ella?” Jason sounded astonished. “But why?”
“Because she hated me—oh yes she did. Don’t men ever see these things? She was madly in love with you. I don’t believe you had the least idea of it. But it can’t be Ella, because Ella’s dead. Oh, Jinks, Jinks—do help me—get me away from here—let me go somewhere safe…safe….”
She sprang up and walked rapidly up and down, turning and twisting her hands.
The director in Jason was full of admiration for those passionate, tortured movements. I must remember them, he thought. For Hedda Gabler, perhaps? Then, with a shock, he remembered that it was his wife he was watching.
“It’s all right, Marina—all right. I’ll look after you.”
“We must go away from this hateful house—at once. I hate this house—hate it.”
“Listen, we can’t go away immediately.”
“Why not? Why not?”
“Because,” said Rudd, “deaths cause complications…and there’s something else to consider. Will running away do any good?”
“Of course it will. We’ll get away from this person who hates me.”
“If there’s anyone who hates you that much, they could follow you easily enough.”
“You mean—you mean—I shall never get away? I shall never be safe again?”
“Darling—it will be all right. I’ll look after you. I’ll keep you safe.”
She clung to him.
“Will you, Jinks? Will you see that nothing happens to me?”
She sagged against him, and he laid her down gently on the chaise longue.
“Oh, I’m a coward,” she murmured, “a coward…if I knew who it was—and why?… Get me my pills—the yellow ones—not the brown. I must have something to calm me.”
“Don’t take too many, for God’s sake, Marina.”
“All right—all right… Sometimes they don’t have any effect anymore…” She looked up in his face.
She smiled, a tender exquisite smile.
“You’ll take care of me, Jinks? Swear you’ll take care of me….”
“Always,” said Jason Rudd. “To the bitter end.”
Her eyes opened wide.
“You looked so—so odd when you said that.”
“Did I? How did I look?”
“I can’t explain. Like—like a clown laughing at something terribly sad, that no one else has seen….”
Twenty-one
I
It was a tired and depressed Inspector Craddock who came to see Miss Marple the following day.
“Sit down and be comfortable,” she said. “I can see you’ve had a very hard time.”
“I don’t like to be defeated,” said Inspector Craddock. “Two murders within twenty-four hours. Ah well, I’m poorer at my job than I thought I was. Give me a nice cup of tea, Aunt Jane, with some thin bread and butter and soothe me with your earliest remembrances of St. Mary M
ead.”
Miss Marple clicked with her tongue in a sympathetic manner.
“Now it’s no good talking like that, my dear boy, and I don’t think bread and butter is at all what you want. Gentlemen, when they’ve had a disappointment, want something stronger than tea.”
As usual, Miss Marple said the word “gentlemen” in the way of someone describing a foreign species.
“I should advise a good stiff whisky and soda,” she said.
“Would you really, Aunt Jane? Well, I won’t say no.”
“And I shall get it for you myself,” said Miss Marple, rising to her feet.
“Oh, no, don’t do that. Let me. Or what about Miss What’s-her-name?”
“We don’t want Miss Knight fussing about in here,” said Miss Marple. “She won’t be bringing my tea for another twenty minutes so that gives us a little peace and quiet. Clever of you to come to the window and not through the front door. Now we can have a nice quiet little time by ourselves.”
She went to a corner cupboard, opened it and produced a bottle, a syphon of soda and a glass.
“You are full of surprises,” said Dermot Craddock. “I’d no idea that’s what you kept in your corner cupboard. Are you quite sure you’re not a secret drinker, Aunt Jane?”
“Now, now,” Miss Marple admonished him. “I have never been an advocate of teetotalism. A little strong drink is always advisable on the premises in case there is a shock or an accident. Invaluable at such times. Or, of course, if a gentleman should arrive suddenly. There!” said Miss Marple, handing him her remedy with an air of quiet triumph. “And you don’t need to joke anymore. Just sit quietly there and relax.”
“Wonderful wives there must have been in your young days,” said Dermot Craddock.
“I’m sure, my dear boy, you would find the young lady of the type you refer to as a very inadequate helpmeet nowadays. Young ladies were not encouraged to be intellectual and very few of them had university degrees or any kind of academic distinction.”
“There are things that are preferable to academic distinctions,” said Dermot. “One of them is knowing when a man wants whisky and soda and giving it to him.”
Miss Marple smiled at him affectionately.
