Sleeping Murder mm-14 Page 3

  An elderly parlourmaid entered the room with a telegram on a salver which she handed to Gwenda.

  ‘The boy wants to know if there’s an answer, ma’am?’

  Gwenda tore it open. It had been retelegraphed on from Dillmouth. She stared at it for a moment or two uncomprehendingly, then screwed it into a ball.

  ‘There’s no answer,’ she said mechanically.

  The maid left the room.

  ‘Not bad news, I hope, dear?’

  ‘It’s Giles-my husband. He’s flying home. He’ll be here in a week.’

  Her voice was bewildered and miserable. Miss Marple gave a gentle little cough.

  ‘Well-surely-that is very nice, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it? When I’m not sure if I’m mad or not? If I’m mad I ought never to have married Giles. And the house and everything. I can’t go back there. Oh, I don’t know what to do.’

  Miss Marple patted the sofa invitingly.

  ‘Now suppose you sit down here, dear, and just tell me all about it.’

  It was with a sense of relief that Gwenda accepted the invitation. She poured out the whole story, starting with her first view of Hillside and going on to the incidents that had first puzzled her and then worried her.

  ‘And so I got rather frightened,’ she ended. ‘And I thought I’d come up to London-get away from it all. Only, you see, I couldn’t get away from it. It followed me. Last night-’ she shut her eyes and gulped reminiscently.

  ‘Last night?’ prompted Miss Marple.

  ‘I dare say you won’t believe this,’ said Gwenda, speaking very fast. ‘You’ll think I’m hysterical or queer or something. It happened quite suddenly, right at the end. I’d enjoyed the play. I’d never thought once of the house. And then it came-out of the blue-when he said those words-’

  She repeated in a low quivering voice: ‘Cover her face, mine eyes dazzle, she died young.

  ‘I was back there-on the stairs, looking down on the hall through the banisters, and I saw her lying there. Sprawled out-dead. Her hair all golden and her face all-all blue! She was dead, strangled, and someone was saying those words in that same horrible gloating way-and I saw his hands-grey, wrinkled-not hands-monkey’s paws…It was horrible, I tell you. She was dead…’

  Miss Marple asked gently: ‘Who was dead?’

  The answer came back quick and mechanical.

  ‘Helen…’

  Chapter 4. Helen?

  For a moment Gwenda stared at Miss Marple, then she pushed back the hair from her forehead.

  ‘Why did I say that?’ she said. ‘Why did I say Helen? I don’t know any Helen!’

  She dropped her hands with a gesture of despair.

  ‘You see,’ she said, ‘I’m mad! I imagine things! I go about seeing things that aren’t there. First it was only wallpapers-but now it’s dead bodies. So I’m getting worse.’

  ‘Now don’t rush to conclusions, my dear-’

  ‘Or else it’s the house. The house is haunted-or bewitched or something…I see things that have happened there-or else I see things that are going to happen there-and that would be worse. Perhaps a woman called Helen is going to be murdered there…Only I don’t see if it’s the house that’s haunted why I should see these awful things when I am away from it. So I think really that it must be me that’s going queer. And I’d better go and see a psychiatristat once -this morning.’

  ‘Well, of course, Gwenda dear, you can always do that when you’ve exhausted every other line of approach, but I always think myself that it’s better to examine the simplest and most commonplace explanations first. Let me get the facts quite clear. There were three definite incidents that upset you. A path in the garden that had been planted over but that you felt was there, a door that had been bricked up, and a wallpaper which you imagined correctly and in detail without having seen it? Am I right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, the easiest, the most natural explanation would be that you had seen them before.’

  ‘In another life, you mean?’

  ‘Well no, dear. I meant in this life. I mean that they might be actual memories.’

  ‘But I’ve never been in England until a month ago, Miss Marple.’

  ‘You are quite sure of that, my dear?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. I’ve lived near Christchurch in New Zealand all my life.’

  ‘Were you born there?’

  ‘No, I was born in India. My father was a British Army officer. My mother died a year or two after I was born and he sent me back to her people in New Zealand to bring up. Then he himself died a few years later.’

  ‘You don’t remember coming from India to New Zealand?’

  ‘Not really. I do remember, frightfully vaguely, being on a boat. A round window thing-a porthole, I suppose. And a man in white uniform with a red face and blue eyes, and a mark on his chin-a scar, I suppose. He used to toss me up in the air and I remember being half frightened and half loving it. But it’s all very fragmentary.’

  ‘Do you remember a nurse-or an ayah?’

  ‘Not an ayah-Nannie. I remember Nannie because she stayed for some time-until I was five years old. She cut ducks out of paper. Yes, she was on the boat. She scolded me when I cried because the Captain kissed me and I didn’t like his beard.’

  ‘Now that’s very interesting, dear, because you see you are mixing up two different voyages. In one, the Captain had a beard and in the other he had a red face and a scar on his chin.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gwenda considered, ‘I suppose I must be.’

  ‘It seems possible to me,’ said Miss Marple, ‘that when your mother died, your father brought you to England with him first, and that you actually lived at this house, Hillside. You’ve told me, you know, that the house felt like home to you as soon as you got inside it. And that room you chose to sleep in, it was probably your nursery-’

  ‘It was a nursery. There were bars on the windows.’

  ‘You see? It had this pretty gay paper of cornflowers and poppies. Children remember their nursery walls very well. I’ve always remembered the mauve irises on my nursery walls and yet I believe it was repapered when I was only three.’

  ‘And that’s why I thought at once of the toys, the dolls’ house and the toy cupboards?’

  ‘Yes. And the bathroom. The bath with the mahogany surround. You told me that you thought of sailing ducks in it as soon as you saw it.’

  Gwenda said thoughtfully. ‘It’s true that I seemed to know right away just where everything was-the kitchen and the linen cupboard. And that I kept thinking there was a door through from the drawing-room to the dining-room. But surely it’s quite impossible that I should come to England and actually buy the identical house I’d lived in long ago?’

  ‘It’s not impossible, my dear. It’s just a very remarkable coincidence-and remarkable coincidences do happen. Your husband wanted a house on the south coast, you were looking for one, and you passed a house that stirred memories, and attracted you. It was the right size and a reasonable price and so you bought it. No, it’s not too wildly improbable. Had the house been merely what is called (perhaps rightly) a haunted house, you would have reacted differently, I think. But you had no feeling of violence or repulsion except, so you have told me, at one very definite moment, and that was when you were just starting to come down the staircase and looking down into the hall.’

  Some of the scared expression came back into Gwenda’s eyes.

  She said: ‘You mean-that-that Helen-that that’s true too?’

  Miss Marple said very gently: ‘Well, I think so, my dear…I think we must face the position that if the other things are memories, that is a memory too…’

  ‘That I really saw someone killed-strangled-and lying there dead?’

  ‘I don’t suppose you knew consciously that she was strangled, that was suggested by the play last night and fits in with your adult recognition of what a blue convulsed face must mean. I think a very young child, creeping down the stairs,
would realize violence and death and evil and associate them with a certain series of words-for I think there’s no doubt that the murderer actuallysaid those words. It would be a very severe shock to a child. Children are odd little creatures. If they are badly frightened, especially by something they don’t understand, they don’t talk about it. They bottle it up. Seemingly, perhaps, they forget it. But the memory is still there deep down.’

  Gwenda drew a deep breath.

  ‘And you think that’s what happened to me? But why don’t I remember it all now? ’

  ‘One can’t remember to order. And often when one tries to, the memory goes further away. But I think there are one or two indications that that is what did happen. For instance when you told me just now about your experience in the theatre last night you used a very revealing turn of words. You said you seemed to be looking “through the banisters”-but normally, you know, one doesn’t look down into a hall through the banisters but over them. Only a child would look through.’

  ‘That’s clever of you,’ said Gwenda appreciatively.

  ‘These little things are very significant.’

  ‘But who was Helen?’ asked Gwenda in a bewildered way.

  ‘Tell me, my dear, are you still quite sure it was Helen?’

  ‘Yes…It’s frightfully odd, because I don’t know who “Helen” is-but at the same time I do know-I mean I know that it was “Helen” lying there…How am I going to find out more?’

  ‘Well, I think the obvious thing to do is to find out definitely if you ever were in England as a child, or if you could have been. Your relatives-’

  Gwenda interrupted. ‘Aunt Alison. She would know, I’m sure.’

  ‘Then I should write to her by air mail. Tell her circumstances have arisen which make it imperative for you to know if you have ever been in England. You would probably get an answer by air mail by the time your husband arrives.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Miss Marple. You’ve been frightfully kind. And I do hope what you’ve suggested is true. Because if so, well, it’s quite all right. I mean, it won’t be anything supernatural.’

  Miss Marple smiled.

  ‘I hope it turns out as we think. I am going to stay with some old friends of mine in the North of England the day after tomorrow. I shall be passing back through London in about ten days. If you and your husband are here then, or if you have received an answer to your letter, I should be very curious to know the result.’

  ‘Of course, dear Miss Marple! Anyway, I want you to meet Giles. He’s a perfect pet. And we’ll have a good pow-wow about the whole thing.’

  Gwenda’s spirits were fully restored by now.

  Miss Marple, however, looked thoughtful.

  Chapter 5. Murder in Retrospect

  It was some ten days later that Miss Marple entered a small hotel in Mayfair, and was given an enthusiastic reception by young Mr and Mrs Reed.

  ‘This is my husband, Miss Marple. Giles, I can’t tell you how kind Miss Marple was to me.’

  ‘I’m delighted to meet you, Miss Marple. I hear Gwenda nearly panicked herself into a lunatic asylum.’

  Miss Marple’s gentle blue eyes summed up Giles Reed favourably. A very likeable young man, tall and fair with a disarming way of blinking every now and then out of a natural shyness. She noted his determined chin and the set of his jaw.

  ‘We’ll have tea in the little waiting-room, the dark one,’ said Gwenda. ‘Nobody ever comes there. And then we can show Miss Marple Aunt Alison’s letter.

  ‘Yes,’ she added, as Miss Marple looked up sharply. ‘It’s come, and it’s almost exactly what you thought.’ Tea over, the air mail letter was spread out and read.

  Dearest Gwenda,(Miss Danby had written)

  I was much disturbed to hear you had had some worrying experience. To tell you the truth, it had really entirely escaped my memory that you had actually resided for a short time in England as a young child.

  Your mother, my sister Megan, met your father, Major Halliday, when she was on a visit to some friends of ours at that time stationed in India. They were married and you were born there. About two years after your birth your mother died. It was a great shock to us and we wrote to your father with whom we had corresponded, but whom actually we had never seen, begging him to entrust you to our care, as we would be only too glad to have you, and it might be difficult for an Army man stranded with a young child. Your father, however, refused, and told us he was resigning from the Army and taking you back with him to England. He said he hoped we would at some time come over and visit him there.

  I understand that on the voyage home, your father met a young woman, became engaged to her, and married her as soon as he got to England. The marriage was not, I gather, a happy one, and I understand they parted about a year later. It was then that your father wrote to us and asked if we were still willing to give you a home. I need hardly tell you, my dear, how happy we were to do so. You were sent out to us in the charge of an English nurse, and at the same time your father settled the bulk of his estate upon you and suggested that you might legally adopt our name. This, I may say, seemed a little curious to us, but we felt that it was kindly meant-and intended to make you more one of the family-we did not, however, adopt that suggestion. About a year later your father died in a nursing home. I surmise that he had already received bad news about his health at the time when he sent you out to us.

  I’m afraid I cannot tell you where you lived whilst with your father in England. His letter naturally had the address on it at the time but that is now eighteen years ago and I’m afraid one doesn’t remember such details. It was in the South of England, I know-and I fancy Dillmouth is correct. I had a vague idea it was Dartmouth, but the two names are not unlike. I believe your stepmother married again, but I have no recollection of her name, nor even of her unmarried name, though your father had mentioned it in the original letter telling of his remarriage. We were, I think, a little resentful of his marrying again so soon, but of course one knows that on board ship the influence of propinquity is very great-and he may also have thought that it would be a good thing on your account.

  It seemed stupid of me not to have mentioned to you that you had been in England even if you didn’t remember the fact, but, as I say, the whole thing had faded from my mind. Your mother’s death in India and your subsequently coming to live with us always seemed the important points.

  I hope this is all cleared up now?

  I do trust Giles will soon be able to join you. It is hard for you both being parted at this early stage.

  All my news in my next letter, as I am sending this off hurriedly in answer to your wire.

  Your loving aunt,

  Alison Danby.

  PS. You do not say what your worrying experience was?

  ‘You see,’ said Gwenda. ‘It’s almost exactly as you suggested.’

  Miss Marple smoothed out the flimsy sheet.

  ‘Yes-yes, indeed. The common-sense explanation. I’ve found, you know, that that is so often right.’

  ‘Well, I’m very grateful to you, Miss Marple,’ said Giles. ‘Poor Gwenda was thoroughly upset, and I must say I’d have been rather worried myself to think that Gwenda was clairvoyant or psychic or something.’

  ‘It might be a disturbing quality in a wife,’ said Gwenda. ‘Unless you’ve always led a thoroughly blameless life.’

  ‘Which I have,’ said Giles.

  ‘And the house? What do you feel about the house?’ asked Miss Marple.

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. We’re going down tomorrow. Giles is dying to see it.’

  ‘I don’t know whether you realize it, Miss Marple,’ said Giles, ‘but what it amounts to is, that we’ve got a first-class murder mystery on our hands. Actually on our very doorstep-or more accurately in our front hall.’

  ‘I had thought of that, yes,’ said Miss Marple slowly.

  ‘And Giles simply loves detective stories,’ said Gwenda.

  ‘Well, I mean, it is a detective s
tory. Body in the hall of a beautiful strangled woman. Nothing known of her but her Christian name. Of course I know it’s nearly twenty years ago. There can’t be any clues after all this time, but one can at least cast about, and try to pick up some of the threads. Oh! I dare say one won’t succeed in solving the riddle-’

  ‘I think you might,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Even after eighteen years. Yes, I think you might.’

  ‘But at any rate it won’t do any harm to have a real good try?’

  Giles paused, his face beaming.

  Miss Marple moved uneasily, her face was grave-almost troubled.

  ‘But it might do a great deal of harm,’ she said. ‘I would advise you both-oh yes, I really would advise it very strongly-to leave the whole thing alone.’

  ‘Leave it alone? Our very own murder mystery-if itwas murder!’

  ‘It was murder, I think. And that’s just why I should leave it alone. Murder isn’t-it really isn’t-a thing to tamper with light-heartedly.’

  Giles said: ‘But, Miss Marple, if everybody felt like that-’

  She interrupted him.

  ‘Oh, I know. There are times when it is one’s duty - an innocent person accused - suspicion resting on various other people - a dangerous criminal at large who may strike again. But you must realize that this murder is very much in the past. Presumably it wasn’t known for murder - if so, you would have heard fast enough from your old gardener or someone down there - a murder, however long ago, is always news. No, the body must have been disposed of somehow, and the whole thing never suspected. Are you sure - are you really sure, that you are wise to dig it all up again?’

  ‘Miss Marple,’ cried Gwenda, ‘you sound really concerned?’

  ‘I am, my dear. You are two very nice and charming young people (if you will allow me to say so). You are newly married and happy together. Don’t, I beg of you, start to uncover things that may-well, that may-how shall I put it?-that may upset and distress you.’

  Gwenda stared at her. ‘You’re thinking of something special-of something-what is it you’re hinting at?’

  ‘Not hinting, dear. Just advising you (because I’ve lived a long time and know how very upsetting human nature can be) to let well alone. That’s my advice: let well alone.’