my tea.’
Giles and Gwenda thanked him, thanked his daughter, and came away.
‘So that’s proved,’ said Gwenda. ‘My father and I were at Hillside. What do we do next?’
‘I’ve been an idiot,’ said Giles. ‘Somerset House.’
‘What’s Somerset House?’ asked Gwenda.
‘It’s a record office where you can look up marriages. I’m going there to look up your father’s marriage. According to your aunt, your father was married to his second wife immediately on arriving in England. Don’t you see, Gwenda-it ought to have occurred to us before-it’s perfectly possible that “Helen” may have been a relation of your stepmother’s-a young sister, perhaps. Anyway, once we know what her surname was, we may be able to get on to someone who knows about the general set-up at Hillside. Remember the old boy said they wanted a house in Dillmouth to be near Mrs Halliday’s people. If her people live near here we may get something.’
‘Giles,’ said Gwenda. ‘I think you’re wonderful.’
Giles did not, after all, find it necessary to go to London. Though his energetic nature always made him prone to rush hither and thither and try to do everything himself, he admitted that a purely routine enquiry could be delegated.
He put through a trunk call to his office.
‘Got it,’ he exclaimed enthusiastically, when the expected reply arrived.
From the covering letter he extracted a certified copy of a marriage certificate.
‘Here we are, Gwenda. Friday, Aug. 7th Kensington Registry Office. Kelvin James Halliday to Helen Spenlove Kennedy.’
Gwenda cried out sharply!
‘Helen?’
They looked at each other.
Giles said slowly: ‘But-but-it can’t be her. I mean-they separated, and she married again-and went away.’
‘We don’t know,’ said Gwenda, ‘that she went away…’
She looked again at the plainly written name:
Helen Spenlove Kennedy.
Helen…
Chapter 7. Dr Kennedy
A few days later Gwenda, walking along the Esplanade in a sharp wind, stopped suddenly beside one of the glass shelters which a thoughtful Corporation had provided for the use of its visitors.
‘Miss Marple?’ she exclaimed in lively surprise.
For indeed Miss Marple it was, nicely wrapped up in a thick fleecy coat and well wound round with scarves.
‘Quite a surprise to you, I’m sure, to find me here,’ said Miss Marple briskly. ‘But my doctor ordered me away to the seaside for a little change, and your description of Dillmouth sounded so attractive that I decided to come here-especially as the cook and butler of a friend of mine take in boarders.’
‘But why didn’t you come and see us?’ demanded Gwenda.
‘Old people can be rather a nuisance, my dear. Newly married young couples should be left to themselves.’ She smiled at Gwenda’s protest. ‘I’m sure you’d have made me very welcome. And how are you both? And are you progressing with your mystery?’
‘We’re hot on the trail,’ Gwenda said, sitting beside her.
She detailed their various investigations up to date.
‘And now,’ she ended, ‘we’ve put an advertisement in lots of papers-local ones and The Times and the other big dailies. We’ve just said will anyone with any knowledge of Helen Spenlove Halliday, nee Kennedy, communicate etc. I should think, don’t you, that we’re bound to get some answers.’
‘I should think so, my dear-yes, I should think so.’
Miss Marple’s tone was placid as ever, but her eyes looked troubled. They flashed a quick appraising glance at the girl sitting beside her. That tone of determined heartiness did not ring quite true. Gwenda, Miss Marple thought, looked worried. What Dr Haydock had called ‘the implications’ were, perhaps, beginning to occur to her. Yes, but now it was too late to go back…
Miss Marple said gently and apologetically, ‘I have really become most interested in all this. My life, you know, has sofew excitements. I hope you won’t think mevery inquisitive if I ask you to let me know how you progress?’
‘Of course we’ll let you know,’ said Gwenda warmly. ‘You shall be in on everything. Why, but for you, I should be urging doctors to shut me up in a loony bin. Tell me your address here, and then you must come and have a drink-I mean, have tea with us, and see the house. You’ve got to see the scene of the crime, haven’t you?’
She laughed, but there was a slightly nervy edge to her laugh.
When she had gone on her way Miss Marple shook her head very gently and frowned.
Giles and Gwenda scanned the mail eagerly every day, but at first their hopes were disappointed. All they got was two letters from private enquiry agents who pronounced themselves willing and skilled to undertake investigations on their behalf.
‘Time enough for them later,’ said Giles. ‘And if we do have to employ some agency, it will be a thoroughly first-class firm, not one that touts through the mail. But I don’t really see what they could do that we aren’t doing.’
His optimism (or self-esteem) was justified a few days later. A letter arrived, written in one of those clear and yet somewhat illegible handwritings that stamp the professional man.
Galls Hill
Woodleigh Bolton.
Dear Sir,
In answer to your advertisement in The Times, Helen Spenlove Kennedy is my sister. I have lost touch with her for many years and should be glad to have news of her.
Yours faithfully,
James Kennedy, MD
‘Woodleigh Bolton,’ said Giles. ‘That’s not too far away. Woodleigh Camp is where they go for picnics. Up on the moorland. About thirty miles from here. We’ll write and ask Dr Kennedy if we may come and see him, or if he would prefer to come to us.’
A reply was received that Dr Kennedy would be prepared to receive them on the following Wednesday; and on that day they set off.
Woodleigh Bolton was a straggling village set along the side of a hill. Galls Hill was the highest house just at the top of the rise, with a view over Woodleigh Camp and the moors towards the sea.
‘Rather a bleak spot,’ said Gwenda shivering.
The house itself was bleak and obviously Dr Kennedy scorned such modern innovations as central heating. The woman who opened the door was dark and rather forbidding. She led them across the rather bare hall, and into a study where Dr Kennedy rose to receive them. It was a long, rather high room, lined with well-filled bookshelves.
Dr Kennedy was a grey-haired elderly man with shrewd eyes under tufted brows. His gaze went sharply from one to the other of them.
