I
“The old tabby’s looking for you, sir,” said Sergeant Hay in a conspiratorial whisper, as Inspector Neele descended the stairs. “It appears as how she’s got a lot more to say to you.”
“Hell and damnation,” said Inspector Neele.
“Yes, sir,” said Sergeant Hay, not a muscle of his face moving.
He was about to move away when Neele called him back.
“Go over those notes given us by Miss Dove, Hay, notes as to her former employment and situations. Check up on them—and, yes, there are just one or two other things that I would like to know. Put these inquiries in hand, will you?”
He jotted down a few lines on a sheet of paper and gave them to Sergeant Hay, who said:
“I’ll get onto it at once, sir.”
Hearing a murmur of voices in the library as he passed, Inspector Neele looked in. Whether Miss Marple had been looking for him or not, she was now fully engaged talking to Mrs. Percival Fortescue while her knitting needles clicked busily. The middle of the sentence which Inspector Neele caught was:
“. . . I have really always thought it was a vocation you needed for nursing. It certainly is very noble work.”
Inspector Neele withdrew quietly. Miss Marple had noticed him, he thought, but she had taken no notice of his presence.
She went on in her gentle, soft voice:
“I had such a charming nurse looking after me when I once broke my wrist. She went on from me to nurse Mrs. Sparrow’s son, a very nice young naval officer. Quite a romance, really, because they became engaged. So romantic I thought it. They were married and were very happy and had two dear little children.” Miss Marple sighed sentimentally. “It was pneumonia, you know. So much depends on nursing in pneumonia, does it not.”
“Oh, yes,” said Jennifer Fortescue, “nursing is nearly everything in pneumonia, though of course nowadays M and B works wonders, and it’s not the long, protracted battle it used to be.”
“I’m sure you must have been an excellent nurse, my dear,” said Miss Marple. “That was the beginning of your romance, was it not? I mean you came here to nurse Mr. Percival Fortescue, did you not?”
“Yes,” said Jennifer. “Yes, yes—that’s how it did happen.”
Her voice was not encouraging, but Miss Marple seemed to take no notice.
“I understand. One should not listen to servants’ gossip, of course, but I’m afraid an old lady like myself is always interested to hear about the people in the house. Now what was I saying? Oh, yes. There was another nurse at first, was there not, and she got sent away—something like that. Carelessness, I believe.”
“I don’t think it was carelessness,” said Jennifer. “I believe her father or something was desperately ill, and so I came to replace her.”
“I see,” said Miss Marple. “And you fell in love and that was that. Yes, very nice indeed, very nice.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” said Jennifer Fortescue. “I often wish”—her voice trembled—“I often wish I was back in the wards again.”
“Yes, yes, I understand. You were keen on your profession.”
“I wasn’t so much at the time, but now when I think of it—life’s so monotonous, you know. Day after day with nothing to do, and Val so absorbed in business.”
Miss Marple shook her head.
“Gentlemen have to work so hard nowadays,” she said. “There really doesn’t seem any leisure, no matter how much money there is.”
“Yes, it makes it very lonely and dull for a wife sometimes. I often wish I’d never come here,” said Jennifer. “Oh, well, I dare say it serves me right. I ought never to have done it.”
“Ought never to have done what, my dear?”
“I ought never to have married Val. Oh, well—” she sighed abruptly. “Don’t let’s talk of it anymore.”
Obligingly Miss Marple began to talk about the new skirts that were being worn in Paris.
II
“So kind of you not to interrupt just now,” said Miss Marple when, having tapped at the door of the study, Inspector Neele had told her to come in. “There were just one or two little points, you know, that I wanted to verify.” She added reproachfully: “We didn’t really finish our talk just now.”
“I’m so sorry, Miss Marple.” Inspector Neele summoned up a charming smile. “I’m afraid I was rather rude. I summoned you to a consultation and did all the talking myself.”
“Oh, that’s quite all right,” said Miss Marple immediately, “because, you see, I wasn’t really quite ready then to put all my cards on the table. I mean I wouldn’t like to make any accusation unless I was absolutely sure about it. Sure, that is, in my own mind. And I am sure, now.”
“You’re sure about what, Miss Marple?”
“Well, certainly about who killed Mr. Fortescue. What you told me about the marmalade, I mean, just clinches the matter. Showing how, I mean, as well as who, and well within the mental capacity.”
Inspector Neele blinked a little.
“I’m so sorry,” said Miss Marple, perceiving this reaction on his part, “I’m afraid I find it difficult sometimes to make myself perfectly clear.”
“I’m not quite sure yet, Miss Marple, what we’re talking about.”
“Well, perhaps,” said Miss Marple, “we’d better begin all over again. I mean if you could spare the time. I would rather like to put my own point of view before you. You see, I’ve talked a good deal to people, to old Miss Ramsbottom and to Mrs. Crump and to her husband. He, of course, is a liar, but that doesn’t really matter because, if you know liars are liars, it comes to the same thing. But I did want to get the telephone calls clear and the nylon stockings and all that.”
Inspector Neele blinked again and wondered what he had let himself in for and why he had ever thought that Miss Marple might be a desirable and clearheaded colleague. Still, he thought to himself, however muddleheaded she was, she might have picked up some useful bits of information. All Inspector Neele’s success in his profession had come from listening well. He was prepared to listen now.
“Please tell me all about it, Miss Marple,” he said, “but start at the beginning, won’t you.”
“Yes, of course,” said Miss Marple, “and the beginning is Gladys. I mean I came here because of Gladys. And you very kindly let me look through all her things. And what with that and the nylon stockings and the telephone calls and one thing and another, it did come out perfectly clear. I mean about Mr. Fortescue and the taxine.”
“You have a theory?” asked Inspector Neele, “as to who put the taxine into Mr. Fortescue’s marmalade.”
“It isn’t a theory,” said Miss Marple. “I know.”
For the third time Inspector Neele blinked.
“It was Gladys, of course,” said Miss Marple.
[A Pocket Full of Rye -Agatha Christie] Chapter Twenty-Five