were dead against him.'
'Yes,' said Miss Marple, 'I did hear that.'
'And then she married Tim. Perhaps she was fond of him in a way. But the other man didn't give up. I've wondered once or twice if he didn't actually follow her out here.'
'Indeed. But- who?'
'I've no idea who,' said Esther, 'and I should imagine that they've been very careful.'
'You think she cares for this other man?'
Esther shrugged her shoulders. 'I dare say he's a bad lot,' she said, 'but that's very often the kind who knows how to get under a woman's skin and stay there.'
'You never heard what kind of a man- what he did- anything like that?'
Esther shook her head. 'No. People hazard guesses, but you can't go by that type of thing. He may have been a married man. That may have been why her people disliked it, or he may have been a real bad lot. Perhaps he drank. Perhaps he tangled with the law. I don't know. But she cares for him still. That I know positively.'
'You've seen something, heard something?' Miss Marple hazarded.
'I know what I'm talking about,' said Esther. Her voice was harsh and unfriendly.
'These murders-' began Miss Marple.
'Can't you forget murders?' said Esther. 'You've got Mr. Rafiel now all tangled up in them. Can't you just- let them be? You'll never find out any more, I'm sure of that.'
Miss Marple looked at her.
'You think you know, don't you?' she said.
'I think I do, yes. I'm fairly sure.'
'Then oughtn't you to tell what you know – do something about it?'
'Why should I? What good would it do? I couldn't prove anything. What would happen anyway? People get let off nowadays so easily. They call it diminished responsibility and things like that. A few years in prison and you're out again, as right as rain.'
'Supposing, because you don't tell what you know, somebody else gets killed – another victim?'
Esther shook her head with confidence.
'That won't happen,' she said.
'You can't be sure of it.'
'I am sure. And in any case I don't see who-' She frowned. 'Anyway,' she added, almost inconsequently, 'perhaps it is- diminished responsibility. Perhaps you can't help it – not if you are really mentally unbalanced. Oh, I don't know. By far the best thing would be if she went off with whoever it is, then we could all forget about things.'
She glanced at her watch, gave an exclamation of dismay and got up. 'I must go and change.'
Miss Marple sat looking after her. Pronouns, she thought, were always puzzling and women like Esther Walters were particularly prone to strew them about haphazard.
Was Esther Walters for some reason convinced that a woman had been responsible for the deaths of Major Palgrave and Victoria? It sounded like it.
Miss Marple considered.
'Ah, Miss Marple, sitting here all alone – and not even knitting?'
It was Dr. Graham for whom she had sought so long and so unsuccessfully.
And here he was prepared of his own accord to sit down for a few minutes' chat. He wouldn't stay long, miss Marple thought, because he too was bent on changing for dinner, and he usually dined fairly early. She explained that she had been sitting by Molly Kendal's bedside that afternoon.
'One can hardly believe she has made such a good recovery so quickly,' she said.
'Oh well,' said Dr. Graham, 'it's not very surprising. She didn't take a very heavy overdose, you know.'
'Oh, I understood she'd taken quite a half-bottle full of tablets.'
Dr. Graham was smiling indulgently.
'No,' he said, 'I don't think she took that amount. I dare say she meant to take them, then probably at the last moment she threw half of them away. People, even when they think they want to commit suicide, often don't really want to do it. They manage not to take a full overdose. It's not always deliberate deceit, it's just the subconscious looking after itself.'
'Or, I suppose it might be deliberate. I mean, wanting it to appear that…' Miss Marple paused.
'It's possible,' said Dr. Graham.
'If she and Tim had had a row, for instance?'
'They don't have rows, you know. They seem very fond of each other. Still, I suppose it can always happen once. No, I don't think there's very much wrong with her now. She could really get up and go about as usual. Still, it's safer to keep her where she is for a day or two-' He got up, nodded cheerfully and went off towards the hotel. Miss Marple sat where she was a little while longer.
Various thoughts passed through her mind. The book under Molly's mattress. The way Molly had feigned sleep. Things Joan Prescott and, later Esther Walters, had said… And then she went back to the beginning of it all – to Major Palgrave.
Something struggled in her mind. Something about Major Palgrave…
Something that if she could only remember…
Chapter 23
THE LAST DAY
I
'And the evening and the morning were the last day,' said Miss Marple to herself. Then, slightly confused, she sat upright again in her chair. She had dozed off, an incredible thing to do because the steel band was playing and anyone who could doze off during the steel band… Well, it showed, thought Miss Marple, that she was getting used to this place! What was it she had been saying? Some quotation that she'd got wrong. Last day? First day. That's what it ought to be. This wasn't the first day. Presumably it wasn't the last day either.
She sat upright again. The fact was that she was extremely tired. All this anxiety, this feeling of having been shamefully inadequate in some way… She remembered unpleasantly once more that queer sly look that Molly had given her from under her half-closed eyelids. What had been going on in that girl's head? How different, thought Miss Marple, everything had seemed at first. Tim Kendal and Molly, such a natural happy young couple. The Hillingdons so pleasant, so well bred, such what is called 'nice' people. The gay hearty extrovert, Greg Dyson, and the gay strident Lucky, talking nineteen to the dozen, pleased with herself and the world… A quartet of people getting on so well together. Canon Prescott, that genial kindly man. Joan Prescott, an acid streak in her, but a very nice woman, and nice women have to have their gossipy distractions. They have to know what is going on, to know when two and two make four, and when it is possible to stretch them to five! There was no harm in such women. Their tongues wagged but they were kind if you were in misfortune. Mr. Rafiel, a personality, a man of character, a man that you would never by any chance forget. But Miss Marple thought she knew something else about Mr. Rafiel. The doctors had often given him up, so he had said, but this time, she thought, they had been more certain in their pronouncements. Mr. Rafiel knew that his days were numbered.
Knowing this with certainty, was there any action he might have been likely to take?
Miss Marple considered the question.
It might, she thought, be important.
What was it exactly he had said, his voice a little too loud, a little too sure?
Miss Marple was very skillful in tones of voice. She had done so much listening in her life. Mr. Rafiel had been telling her something that wasn't true.
Miss Marple looked round her. The night air, the soft fragrance of flowers, the tables with their little lights,
