A Pocket Full of Rye Read online

  The necessity to talk grew upon Mrs. Emmett, and on that particular day it had burst its bounds, and Miss Marple had received the full flood of the torrent. She had been sorry for Mrs. Emmett then, and today she was rather sorry for Mrs. Percival Fortescue."

  Mrs. Percival had had a lot of grievances to bear and the relief of airing them to a more or less total stranger was enormous.

  "Of course, I never want to complain," said Mrs. Percival. "I've never been of the complaining kind. What I always say is that one must put up with things. What can't be cured must be endured and I'm sure I've never said a word to anyone. It's really difficult to know whom I could have spoken to. In some ways one is very isolated her very isolated. It's very convenient, of course, and a great saving of expense to have our own set of rooms in this house. But, of course, it's not at all like having a place of your own. I'm sure you agree."

  Miss Marple said she agreed.

  "Fortunately, our new house is almost ready to move into. It is a question really of getting the painters and decorators out. These men are so slow. My husband, of course, has been quite satisfied living here. But then it's different for a man. That's what I always say-it's so different for a man. Don't you agree?"

  Miss Marple agreed that it was very different for a man. She could say this without a qualm as it was what she really believed. "The gentlemen" were, in Miss Marple's mind, in a totally different category from her own sex. They required two eggs plus bacon for breakfast, three good nourishing meals a day, and were never to be contradicted or argued with before dinner. Mrs. Percival went on:

  "My husband, you see, is away all day in the city. When he comes home he's just tired and wants to sit down and read. But I, on the contrary, am alone here all day with no congenial company at all. I've been perfectly comfortable and all that. Excellent food. But what I do feel one needs is a really pleasant social circle. The people round here are really not my kind. Part of them are what I call a flashy, bridge-playing lot. Not nice bridge. I like a hand of bridge myself as well as anyone, but of course they're all very rich down here. "They play for enormously. high stakes, and there's a great deal of drinking. In fact, the sort of life, that I call really fast society. Then, of course, there’s a sprinkling of-what you can only call them old pussies who love to potter round with a trowel and do gardening."

  Miss Marple looked slightly guilty, since she was herself an inveterate gardener.

  "I don't want to say anything against the dead," resumed Mrs. Percy rapidly, "but there's no doubt about it, Mr. Fortescue, my father-in-law, I know, made a very foolish second marriage. My-well, I can't call her my mother-in-law, she was the same age as I am. The real truth of it is she was man-mad. Absolutely man-mad. And the way she spent money! My father-in-law was an absolute fool about her. Didn't care what bills she ran up. It vexed Percy very much, very much indeed. Percy is always so careful about money matters. He hates waste. And then what with Mr. Fortescue being so peculiar and so bad-tempered, flashing out in these terrible rages, spending money like water, backing wildcat schemes. Well-it wasn’t at all nice."

  Miss Marple ventured upon making a remark. It must have worried your husband, too? "Oh yes, it did. For the last year Percy's been very worried, indeed. It's really made him quite different. as manner, you know, changed even towards me. Sometimes when r talked to him he used not to answer." Ms. Percy sighed, then went on, 'Then Elaine, my sister-in-law, you know, she's a very odd sort of girl. Very out-of-doors and all that. Not only unfriendly, but not sympathetic, you know. She never wanted to go up to London to shop, or go to a matinee or anything of that kind. She wasn't even interested in clothes." Mrs. Percival sighed again and murmured, "But, of course, I don't want to complain in any way." A qualm of compunction came over her. She mid, hurriedly: "You must think it most odd, talking to you like this when you are a comparative stranger. But really, what with all the strain and shock-I think really it's the shock that matters most. Delayed shock. I feel so nervous, you know, that I really-well, I really must speak to someone. You remind me so much of a dear old lady, Miss Trefusis James. She fractured her femur when she was seventy-five. It was a very long business nursing her, and we became great friends. She gave me a fox fur cape when I left and I did think it was kind of her."

  "I know just how you feel," said Miss Marple.

  And this again was true. Mrs. Percival's husband was obviously bored by her and paid very little attention to her, and the poor woman had managed to make no local friends. Running up to London and shopping, matinees and a luxurious house to live in did not make up for the lack of humanity in her relations with her husband's family.

  "I hope it's not rude of me to say so," said Miss Marple in a gentle, old lady's voice, "but I really feel that the late Mr. Fortescue cannot have been a very nice man."

  "He wasn't," said his daughter-in-law. "Quite frankly, my dear, between you and me, he was a detestable old man. I don't wonder-I really don't-that someone put him out of the way."

  "You've no idea at all who--' began Miss Marple and broke off. "Oh dear, perhaps this is a question I should not ask-not even an idea who-who-well, who it might have been?"

  "Oh, I think it was that horrible man, Crump," said Mrs. Percival. "I've always disliked him very much. He's got a manner, not really rude, you know, but yet it is rude. Impertinent, that's more it."

  "Still, there would have to be a motive, I suppose."

  "I really don't know that that sort of person requires much motive. I daresay Mr. Fortescue ticked him off about some thing, and I rather suspect that sometimes be drinks too much. But what I really think is that he's a bit unbalanced, you know. Like that footman, or butler, whoever it was, who went round the house shooting everybody. Of course, to be quite honest with you, I did suspect that it was Adele who poisoned Mr. Fortescue. But now, of course, one can't suspect that since she's been poisoned herself. She may have accused Crump, you know. And then he lost his head and perhaps managed to put something in the sandwiches and Gladys saw him do it and so he killed her too. I think it's really dangerous having him in the house at all. Oh dear, I wish I could get away, but I suppose these horrible policemen won't let one do anything of the kind." She leant forward impulsively and put a plump hand on Miss Marple's arm. "Sometimes I feel I must get away-that if it doesn’t stop soon I shall-I shall actually run away. She leant back studying Miss Marple's fare.

  "But perhaps-that wouldn't be wise?"

  "No, I don't think it would be very wise. The police could soon find you, you know."

  "Could they? Could they really? You think they're clover enough for that?"

  "It is very foolish to underestimate the police. Inspector Neele strikes me as a particularly intelligent man."

  "Oh! I thought he was rather stupid."

  Miss Marple shook her head.

  "I can't help feeling—“ Jennifer Fortescue hesitated-- “that it's dangerous to stay here."

  "Dangerous for you, you mean?"

  “Ye-es-- well, yes—“

  'Because of something you—know?”

  Mrs. Percival seemed to take breath.

  "Oh no, of course. I don’t know anything. What should I know? It's just-just that I'm nervous. That man Crump.

  But it was not, Miss Marple thought, of Crump that Mrs. Percival Fortescue was thinking, watching the clenching and unclenching of Jennifer’s hands. Miss Marple thought that for some reason Jennifer Fortescue was very badly frightened indeed.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  IT WAS GROWING dark. Miss Marple had taken her knitting over to the window in the library. Looking out of the glass pane, she saw Pat Fortescue walking up and down the terrace outside. Miss Marple unlatched the window and called through it.

  "Come in, my dear. Do come in. I'm sure it's much

  too cold and damp for you to be out there without a coat on."

  Pat obeyed the summons. She came in and shut the window and turned on two of the lamps.

  "Yes," she said, "it'
s not a very nice afternoon." She sat down on the sofa by Miss Marple. "What are you knitting?

  "Oh, just a little matinee coat, dear. For a baby, you know. I always say young mothers can't have too many matinee coats for their babies. It's the second size. I always knit the second size. Babies so soon grow out of the first size."

  Pat stretched out long legs towards the fire.

  "It's nice in here today," she said "With the fire and the lamps and you knitting things for babies. It all seems cozy and homely and as England ought to be."

  "It's as England is," said Miss Marple. "There are not so many Yewtree Lodges, my dear."

  "I think that's a good thing," said Pat. "I don't believe this was ever a happy house. I don't believe anybody was ever happy in it, in spite of all the money they spent and the things they had."

  "No," Miss Marple agreed. "I shouldn't say it had been a happy house."

  "I suppose Adele may have been happy," said Pat. "I never met her, of course, so I don't know, but Jennifer is pretty miserable and Elaine's been eating her head out over a young man who she probably knows in her heart of hearts doesn't care for her. Oh, how I want to get away from here!" She looked at Marple and smiled suddenly. "D'you know," she said, "that Lance told me to stick as close to you as I could? He seemed to think I should be safe that way."

  "Your husband's no fool" said Miss Marple.

  "No. Lance isn't a fool. At least, he is in some ways. But I wish he'd tell me exactly what he's afraid of. One thing seems clear enough. Somebody in this house is mad, and madness is always frightening because you don't know how mad people's minds will work. You don't know what they'll do next."

  "My poor child," said Miss Marple.

  "Oh, I'm all right, really. I ought to be tough enough by now."

  Miss Marple said gently, "You've had a good deal of unhappiness, haven't you, my dear?"

  "Oh, I've had some very good times, too. I had a lovely childhood in Ireland, riding, hunting, and a great big, bare draughty house with lots and lots of sun in it. If you've had a happy childhood, nobody can take that away from you, can they? It was afterwards-when I grew up-that things seemed always to go wrong. To begin with, I suppose, it was the war."

  "Your husband was a fighter pilot, wasn't he?"

  "Yes. We'd only been married a month when Don was shot down." She stared ahead of her into the fire. "I thought at first I wanted to die, too. It seemed so unfair, so cruel. And yet-in the end-I almost began to see that it had been the best thing. Don was wonderful in the war. Brave and reckless and gay. He had all the qualities that are needed, wanted in a war. But I don't believe, somehow, peace would

  have suited him. He had a kind of-oh, how shall I put it?-arrogant insubordination. He wouldn't have fitted in or settled down. He'd have fought against things. He was, well, antisocial in a way. No, he wouldn't have fitted in."

  "It's wise of you to see that, my dear.- Miss Marple bent over her knitting, picked up a stitch, counted under her breath, "Three plain, two purl slip one, knit two together," and then said, aloud, "And your second husband, my dear?"

  "Freddy? Freddy shot himself."

  "Oh dear. How very sad. What a tragedy."

  "We were very happy together," said Pat. "I began to realize, about two years ago after we were married, that Freddy wasn't-well, wasn't always straight. I began to find out the sort of things that were going on. But it didn't seem to matter, between us two, that is. Because, you see, Freddy loved me and I loved him. I tried not to know what was going on. That was cowardly of me, I suppose, but I couldn't have changed him, you know. You can't change people."

  "No," said Miss Marple, "you can’t change people."

  "I'd taken him and loved him and married him for what he was, and I sort of felt that I just had to-put up with it. Then things went wrong and he couldn't face it, and he shot himself . After he died I went out to Kenya to stay with some friends there. I couldn't stop on in England and go on meeting a-all--all the old crowd that knew about it all. And out in Kenya I met Lance." Her face changed and softened. She went on looking into the fire, and Miss Marple looked at her. Presently Pat turned her head and said, "Tell me, Miss Marple, what do you really dig of Percival?"

  "Well, I've not seen very much of him. Just at breakfast, usually. That's all. I don't think he very much likes my being here."

  Pat laughed suddenly.

  "He's mean, you know. Terribly mean about money. Lance says he always was. Jennifer complains of it, too. Goes over the housekeeping accounts with Miss Dove. Complaining of every item. But Miss Dove manages to hold her own. She's rather a wonderful person. Don’t you think so?"

  "Yes, indeed. She reminds me of Mrs. Lattimer in my own village, St. Mary Meade. She ran the Women's Voluntary Services, you know, and the Girl Guides, and indeed, she ran practically everything there. It wasn't for quite five years that we discovered that-oh, but I mustn't gossip. Nothing is more boring than people talking to you about places and people whom you've never seen and know nothing about. You must forgive me, my dear."

  "Is St. Mary Meade a very nice village?"

  "Well, I don't quite know what you would can a nice village, my dear. It's quite a pretty village. There are some nice people living in it and some extremely unpleasant people as well. Very curious things go on there just as in any other village. Human nature is much the same everywhere, is it not?"

  "You go up and see Miss Ramsbottom a good deal, don't you?" said Pat. "Now, she really frightens me."

  "Frightens you? Why?"

  "Because I think she's crazy. I think she's got religious mania. You don't think she could be-really-mad, do you?"

  "In what way mad?"

  "Oh, you know what I mean, Miss Marple, well enough. She sits up there and never goes out, and broods about sin. Well, she might have felt in the end that it was her mission in life to execute judgment."

  "Is that what your husband &Ms?"

  "I don't know what Lance thinks. He won’t tell me. But I'm quite sure of one thing-that he believes that it's someone who's mad, and it's someone in the family. Well, Percival's sane enough, I should say. Jennifer's just stupid and rather pathetic. She's a bit nervy, but that's all, and Elaine is one of those queer, tempestuous, tense girls. She's desperately in love with this young man of hers and she'll never admit to herself for a moment that he's marrying her for her money."

  "You think he is marrying her for money?"

  "Yes, I do. Don't you think so?"

  "I should say so quite certainly," said Miss Marple. "Like young Ellis who married Marion Bates, the rich ironmonger’s daughter. She was a very plain girl and absolutely besotted about him. However, it turned out quite well. People like young Ellis and this Gerald Wright are only really disagreeable when they've married a poor girl for love. They are so annoyed with themselves for doing it that they take it out of the girl. But if they marry a rich girl they continue to respect her."

  "I don't see," went on Pat, frowning, "how it can be anyone from outside. And so-and so that accounts for the atmosphere that is here. Everyone watching everybody else.

  only something's got to happen soon-"

  "There won't be any more deaths," said Miss Marple. "At least, I shouldn't think so."

  "You can't be sure of that."

  "Well, as a matter of fact, I am fairly sure. The murderer's accomplished his purpose, you see."

  "His?"

  "Well, his or her. One says his for convenience."

  "You say his or her purpose. What sort of purpose?"

  Miss Marple shook her head-she was not yet quite sure

  herself.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  ONCE AGAIN MISS SOMERS had just made tea in the typists' room, and once again the kettle had not been boiling when Miss Somers poured the water on to the tea. History repeats itself. Miss Griffith, accepting her cup, thought to herself, I really must speak to Mr. Percival about Somers. I'm sure we can do better. But with all this terrible business going on, o
ne doesn't like to bother him over office details.