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“I hope they didn’t show it too plainly,” said Miss Marple. “That so often puts girls off from forming suitable attachments.”
“Yes, indeed.”
“One remembers oneself—” murmured Miss Marple, her mind going back to the past. A young man she had met at a croquet party. He had seemed so nice—rather gay, almost Bohemian in his views. And then he had been unexpectedly warmly welcomed by her father. He had been suitable, eligible; he had been asked freely to the house more than once, and Miss Marple had found that, after all, he was dull. Very dull.
The Canon seemed safely comatose and Miss Marple advanced tentatively to the subject she was anxious to pursue.
“Of course you know so much about this place,” she murmured. “You have been here several years running, have you not?”
“Well, last year and two years before that. We like St. Honoré very much. Always such nice people here. Not the flashy, ultra-rich set.”
“So I suppose you know the Hillingdons and the Dysons well?”
“Yes, fairly well.”
Miss Marple coughed and lowered her voice slightly.
“Major Palgrave told me such an interesting story,” she said.
“He had a great repertoire of stories, hadn’t he? Of course he had travelled very widely. Africa, India, even China I believe.”
“Yes indeed,” said Miss Marple. “But I didn’t mean one of those stories. This was a story concerned with—well, with one of the people I have just mentioned.”
“Oh!” said Miss Prescott. Her voice held meaning.
“Yes. Now I wonder—” Miss Marple allowed her eyes to travel gently round the beach to where Lucky lay sunning her back. “Very beautifully tanned, isn’t she,” remarked Miss Marple. “And her hair. Most attractive. Practically the same colour as Molly Kendal’s, isn’t it?”
“The only difference,” said Miss Prescott, “is that Molly’s is natural and Lucky’s comes out of a bottle!”
“Really, Joan,” the Canon protested, unexpectedly awake again. “Don’t you think that is rather an uncharitable thing to say?”
“It’s not uncharitable,” said Miss Prescott, acidly. “Merely a fact.”
“It looks very nice to me,” said the Canon.
“Of course. That’s why she does it. But I assure you, my dear Jeremy, it wouldn’t deceive any woman for a moment. Would it?” She appealed to Miss Marple.
“Well, I’m afraid—” said Miss Marple, “of course I haven’t the experience that you have—but I’m afraid—yes I should say definitely not natural. The appearance at the roots every fifth or sixth day—” She looked at Miss Prescott and they both nodded with quiet female assurance.
The Canon appeared to be dropping off again.
“Major Palgrave told me a really extraordinary story,” murmured Miss Marple, “about—well I couldn’t quite make out. I am a little deaf sometimes. He appeared to be saying or hinting—” she paused.
“I know what you mean. There was a great deal of talk at the time—”
“You mean at the time that—”
“When the first Mrs. Dyson died. Her death was quite unexpected. In fact, everybody thought she was a malade imaginaire—a hypochondriac. So when she had the attack and died so unexpectedly, well, of course, people did talk.”
“There wasn’t—any—trouble at the time?”
“The doctor was puzzled. He was quite a young man and he hadn’t had much experience. He was what I call one of those antibiotics-for-all men. You know, the kind that doesn’t bother to look at the patient much, or worry what’s the matter with him. They just give them some kind of pill out of a bottle and if they don’t get better, then they try a different pill. Yes, I believe he was puzzled, but it seemed she had had gastric trouble before. At least her husband said so, and there seemed no reason for believing anything was wrong.”
“But you yourself think—”
“Well, I always try to keep an open mind, but one does wonder, you know. And what with various things people said—”
“Joan!” The Canon sat up. He looked belligerent. “I don’t like—I really don’t like to hear this kind of ill-natured gossip being repeated. We’ve always set our faces against that kind of thing. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil—and what is more, think no evil! That should be the motto of every Christian man and woman.”
The two women sat in silence. They were rebuked, and in deference to their training they deferred to the criticism of a man. But inwardly they were frustrated, irritated and quite unrepentant. Miss Prescott threw a frank glance of irritation towards her brother. Miss Marple took out her knitting and looked at it. Fortunately for them Chance was on their side.
“Mon père,” said a small shrill voice. It was one of the French children who had been playing at the water’s edge. She had come up unnoticed, and was standing by Canon Prescott’s chair.
“Mon père,” she fluted.
“Eh? Yes, my dear? Oui, qu’est-ce qu’il y a, ma petite?”
The child explained. There had been a dispute about who should have the water-wings next and also other matters of seaside etiquette. Canon Prescott was extremely fond of children, especially small girls. He was always delighted to be summoned to act as arbiter in their disputes. He rose willingly now and accompanied the child to the water’s edge. Miss Marple and Miss Prescott breathed deep sighs and turned avidly towards each other.
II
“Jeremy, of course rightly, is very against ill-natured gossip,” said Miss Prescott, “but one cannot really ignore what people are saying. And there was, as I say, a great deal of talk at the time.”
“Yes?” Miss Marple’s tone urged her forward.
“This young woman, you see, Miss Greatorex I think her name was then, I can’t remember now, was a kind of cousin and she looked after Mrs. Dyson. Gave her all her medicines and things like that.” There was a short, meaningless pause. “And of course there had, I understand”—Miss Prescott’s voice was lowered—“been goings-on between Mr. Dyson and Miss Greatorex. A lot of people had noticed them. I mean things like that are quickly observed in a place like this. Then there was some curious story about some stuff that Edward Hillingdon got for her at a chemist.”
“Oh, Edward Hillingdon came into it?”
“Oh yes, he was very much attracted. People noticed it. And Lucky—Miss Greatorex—played them off against each other. Gregory Dyson and Edward Hillingdon. One has to face it, she has always been an attractive woman.”
“Though not as young as she was,” Miss Marple replied.
“Exactly. But she was always very well turned out and made up. Of course not so flamboyant when she was just the poor relation. She always seemed very devoted to the invalid. But, well, you see how it was.”
“What was this story about the chemist—how did that get known?”
“Well, it wasn’t in Jamestown, I think it was when they were in Martinique. The French, I believe, are more lax than we are in the matter of drugs—This chemist talked to someone, and the story got around—Well, you know how these things happen.”
Miss Marple did. None better.
“He said something about Colonel Hillingdon asking for something and not seeming to know what it was he was asking for. Consulting a piece of paper, you know, on which it was written down. Anyway, as I say, there was talk.”
“But I don’t see quite why Colonel Hillingdon—” Miss Marple frowned in perplexity.
“I suppose he was just being used as a cat’s-paw. Anyway, Gregory Dyson married again in an almost indecently short time. Barely a month later, I understand.”
They looked at each other.
“But there was no real suspicion?” Miss Marple asked.
“Oh no, it was just—well, talk. Of course there may have been absolutely nothing in it.”
“Major Palgrave thought there was.”
“Did he say so to you?”
“I wasn’t really listening very closely,” confe
ssed Miss Marple. “I just wondered if—er—well, if he’d said the same thing to you?”
“He did point her out to me one day,” said Miss Prescott.
“Really? He actually pointed her out?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I thought at first it was Mrs. Hillingdon he was pointing out. He wheezed and chuckled a bit and said, ‘Look at that woman over there. In my opinion that’s a woman who’s done murder and got away with it.’ I was very shocked, of course. I said, ‘Surely you’re joking, Major Palgrave,’ and he said, ‘Yes, yes, dear lady, let’s call it joking.’ The Dysons and the Hillingdons were sitting at a table quite near to us, and I was afraid they’d overhear. He chuckled and said ‘Wouldn’t care to go to a drinks party and have a certain person mix me a cocktail. Too much like supper with the Borgias.’”
“How very interesting,” said Miss Marple. “Did he mention—a—a photograph?”
“I don’t remember … Was it some newspaper cutting?”
Miss Marple, about to speak, shut her lips. The sun was momentarily obscured by a shadow. Evelyn Hillingdon paused beside them.
“Good morning,” she said.
“I was wondering where you were,” said Miss Prescott, looking up brightly.
“I’ve been to Jamestown, shopping.”
“Oh, I see.”
