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“Yes,” said Miss Marple. “Sooner than let the girl go, you killed her. Because you loved her, you killed her.”
“Do you think I could ever do a thing like that? Do you think I could strangle the girl I loved? Do you think I could bash her face in, crush her head to a pulp? Nothing but a vicious, depraved man would do a thing like that.”
“No,” said Miss Marple, “you wouldn’t do that. You loved her and you would not be able to do that.”
“Well then, you see, you are talking nonsense.”
“You didn’t do that to her. The girl that happened to was not the girl you loved. Verity’s here still, isn’t she? She’s here in the garden. I don’t think you strangled her. I think you gave her a drink of coffee or of milk, you gave her a painless overdose of sleeping stuff. And then when she was dead, you took her out into the garden, you pulled aside the fallen bricks of the greenhouse, and you made a vault for her there, under the floor with the bricks, and covered it over. And then the polygonum was planted there and has flowered ever since, growing bigger and stronger every year. Verity has remained here with you. You never let her go.”
“You fool! You crazy old fool! Do you think you are ever going to get away to tell this story?”
“I think so,” said Miss Marple. “I’m not quite sure of it. You are a strong woman, a great deal stronger than I am.”
“I’m glad you appreciate that.”
“And you wouldn’t have any scruples,” said Miss Marple. “You know one doesn’t stop at one murder. I have noticed that in the course of my life and in what I have observed of crime. You killed two girls, didn’t you? You killed the girl you loved and you killed a different girl.”
“I killed a silly little tramp, an adolescent tart. Nora Broad. How did you know about her?”
“I wondered,” said Miss Marple. “I didn’t think from what I saw of you that you could have borne to strangle and disfigure the girl you loved. But another girl disappeared also about that time, a girl whose body has never been found. But I thought the body had been found, only they hadn’t known that the body was Nora Broad’s. It was dressed in Verity’s clothes, it was identified as Verity by the person who would be the first applied to, the person who knew her better than anyone else. You had to go and say if the body found was the body of Verity. You recognized it. You said that that dead body was Verity’s.”
“And why should I do that?”
“Because you wanted the boy who had taken Verity away from you, the boy whom Verity had loved and who had loved Verity, you wanted him tried for murder. And so you hid that second body in a place where it would not be too easily discovered. When that was discovered, it would be thought to be the wrong girl. You would make sure that it was identified in the way you wanted. You dressed it in Verity’s clothes, put her handbag there; a letter or two, a bangle, a little cross on a chain—you disfigured her face.
“A week ago you committed a third murder, the murder of Elizabeth Temple. You killed her because she was coming to this part of the world, and you were afraid of what she might have known, from what Verity might have written to her or told her, and you thought that if Elizabeth Temple got together with Archdeacon Brabazon, they might with what they both knew come at some appraisal of the truth. Elizabeth Temple must not be allowed to meet the Archdeacon. You are a very powerful woman. You could have rolled that boulder down the hillside. It must have taken some doing, but you are a very strong woman.”
“Strong enough to deal with you,” said Clotilde.
“I don’t think,” said Miss Marple, “that you will be allowed to do that.”
“What do you mean, you miserable, shrivelled up old woman?”
“Yes,” said Miss Marple, “I’m an elderly pussy and I have very little strength in my arms or my legs. Very little strength anywhere. But I am in my own way an emissary of justice.”
Clotilde laughed, “And who’ll stop me from putting an end to you?”
“I think,” said Miss Marple, “my guardian angel.”
“Trusting to your guardian angel, are you?” said Clotilde, and laughed again.
She advanced towards the bed.
“Possibly two guardian angels,” said Miss Marple. “Mr. Rafiel always did things on a lavish scale.”
Her hand slipped under the pillow and out again. In it was a whistle which she put to her lips. It was something of a sensation in whistles. It had the shrill fury which would attract a policeman from the end of a street. Two things happened almost simultaneously. The door of the room opened. Clotilde turned. Miss Barrow was standing in the doorway. At the same moment the large wardrobe hanging cupboard opened and Miss Cooke stepped out of it. There was a grim air of professionalism about them both which was very noticeable, in contrast to their pleasant social behaviour a little earlier in the evening.
“Two guardian angels,” said Miss Marple happily. “Mr. Rafiel has done me very proud! as one used to say.”
Twenty-two
MISS MARPLE TELLS HER STORY
“When did you find out,” asked Professor Wanstead, “that those two women were private agents accompanying you for your protection?”
He leaned forward in his chair looking thoughtfully at the white-haired old lady who sat in an upright position in the chair opposite him. They were in an official Government building in London, and there were four other persons present.
An official from the Public Prosecutor’s Office; the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, Sir James Lloyd, the Governor of Manstone Prison, Sir Andrew McNeil. The fourth person was the Home Secretary.
“Not until the last evening,” said Miss Marple. “I wasn’t actually sure until then. Miss Cooke had come to St. Mary Mead and I found out fairly quickly that she was not what she represented herself to be, which was a woman knowledgeable in gardening who had come there to help a friend with her garden. So I was left with the choice of deciding what her real object had been, once she had acquainted herself with my appearance, which was obviously the only thing she could have come for. When I recognized her again, on the coach, I had to make up my mind if she was accompanying the tour in the rôle of guardianship, or whether those two women were enemies enlisted by what I might call the other side.
“I was only really sure that last evening when Miss Cooke prevented me, by very distinct words of warning, from drinking the cup of coffee that Clotilde Bradbury-Scott had just set down in front of me. She phrased it very cleverly, but the warning was clearly there. Later, when I was wishing those two good night, one of them took my hand in both of hers giving me a particularly friendly and affectionate handshake. And in doing so she passed something into my hand, which, when I examined it later, I found to be a high-powered whistle. I took it to bed with me, accepted the glass of milk which was urged upon me by my hostess, and wished her good night, being careful not to change my simple and friendly attitude.”
“You didn’t drink the milk?”
“Of course not,” said Miss Marple. “What do you take me for?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Professor Wanstead. “It surprises me that you didn’t lock your door.”
