to do-if he’s alive still, that is. Anyway, it’s on my conscience I never told him about Layonee-or about that car.’
There was silence for some time apart from the laborious scratching of Lily’s pen. It was very seldom that she wrote a letter and she found the composition of it a considerable effort.
However it was done at last and she put it into an envelope and sealed it up.
But she felt less satisfied than she had expected. Ten to one the doctor was dead or had gone away from Dillmouth.
Was there anyone else?
What was the name, now, of that fellow?
If she could only rememberthat…
Chapter 20. The Girl Helen
Giles and Gwenda had just finished breakfast on the morning after their return from Northumberland when Miss Marple was announced. She came rather apologetically.
‘I’m afraid this is a very early call. Not a thing I am in the habit of doing. But there was something I wanted to explain.’
‘We’re delighted to see you,’ said Giles, pulling out a chair for her. ‘Do have a cup of coffee.’
‘Oh no, no, thank you-nothing at all. I have breakfasted most adequately. Now let me explain. I came in whilst you were away, as you kindly said I might, to do a little weeding-’
‘Angelic of you,’ said Gwenda.
‘And it really did strike me that two days a week is not quite enough for this garden. In any case I think Foster is taking advantage of you. Too much tea and too much talk. I found out that he couldn’t manage another day himself, so I took it upon myself to engage another man just for one day a week- Wednesdays-today, in fact.’
Giles looked at her curiously. He was a little surprised. It might be kindly meant, but Miss Marple’s action savoured, very faintly, of interference. And interference was unlike her.
He said slowly: ‘Foster’s far too old, I know, for really hard work.’
‘I’m afraid, Mr Reed, that Manning is even older. Seventy-five, he tells me. But you see, I thought employing him, just for a few odd days, might be quite an advantageous move, because he used, many years ago, to be employed at Dr Kennedy’s. The name of the young man Helen got engaged to was Afflick, by the way.’
‘Miss Marple,’ said Giles, ‘I maligned you in thought. You are a genius. You know I’ve got those specimens of Helen’s handwriting from Kennedy?’
‘I know. I was here when he brought them.’
‘I’m posting them off today. I got the address of a good handwriting expert last week.’
‘Let’s go into the garden and see Manning,’ said Gwenda.
Manning was a bent, crabbed-looking old man with a rheumy and slightly cunning eye. The pace at which he was raking a path accelerated noticeably as his employers drew near.
‘Morning, sir. Morning, m’am. The lady said as how you could do with a little extra help of a Wednesday. I’ll be pleased. Shameful neglected, this place looks.’
‘I’m afraid the garden’s been allowed to run down for some years.’
‘It has that. Remember it, I do, in Mrs Findeyson’s time. A picture it were, then. Very fond of her garden she was, Mrs Findeyson.’
Giles leaned easily against a roller. Gwenda snipped off some rose heads. Miss Marple, retreating a little up stage, bent to the bindweed. Old Manning leant on his rake. All was set for a leisurely morning discussion of old times and gardening in the good old days.
‘I suppose you know most of the gardens round here,' said Giles encouragingly.
‘Ar, I know this place moderate well, I do. And the fancies people went in for. Mrs Yule, up at Niagra, she had a yew hedge used to be clipped like a squirrel. Silly, I thought it. Peacocks is one thing and squirrels is another. Then Colonel Lampard, he was a great man for begonias-lovely beds of begonias he used to have. Bedding out now, that’s going out of fashion. I wouldn’t like to tell you how often I’ve had to fill up beds in the front lawns and turf ’em over in the last six years. Seems people ain’t got no eye for geraniums and a nice bit of lobelia edging no more.’
‘You worked at Dr Kennedy’s, didn’t you?’
‘Ar. Long time ago, that were. Must have been 1920 and on. He’s moved now-given up. Young Dr Brent’s up at Crosby Lodge now. Funny ideas, he has-little white tablets and so on. Vittapins he calls ’em.’
‘I suppose you remember Miss Helen Kennedy, the doctor’s sister.’
‘Ar, I remember Miss Helen right enough. Pretty maid, she was, with her long yellow hair. The doctor set a lot of store by her. Come back and lived in this very house here, she did, after she was married. Army gentleman from India.’
‘Yes,’ said Gwenda. ‘We know.’
‘Ar. I did ’ear-Saturday night it was-as you and your ’usband was some kind of relations. Pretty as a picter, Miss Helen was, when she first come back from school. Full of fun, too. Wanting to go everywhere-dances and tennis and all that. ’Ad to mark the tennis court, I ’ad-hadn’t been used for nigh twenty years, I’d say. And the shrubs overgrowing it cruel. ’Ad to cut ’em back, I did. And get a lot of whitewash and mark out the lines. Lot of work it made-and in the end hardly played on. Funny thing I always thought that was.’
‘What was a funny thing?’ asked Giles.
‘Business with the tennis court. Someone come along one night-and cut it to ribbons. Just to ribbons it was. Spite, as you might say. That was what it was-nasty bit of spite.’
‘But who would do a thing like that?’
‘That’s what the doctor wanted to know. Proper put out about it he was-and I don’t blame him. Just paid for it, he had. But none of us could tell who’d done it. We never did know. And he said he wasn’t going to get another- quite right, too, for if it’s spite one time, it would be spite again. But Miss Helen, she was rare and put out. She didn’t have no luck, Miss Helen didn’t. First that net-and then her bad foot.’
‘A bad foot?’ asked Gwenda.
‘Yes-fell over a scraper or somesuch and cut it. Not much more than a graze, it seemed, but it wouldn’t heal. Fair worried about it, the doctor was. He was dressing it and treating it, but it didn’t get well. I remember him saying “I can’t understand it-there must have been something spectic-or some word like that-on that scraper. And anyway,” he says, “what was the scraper doing out in the middle of the drive?” Because that’s where it was when Miss Helen fell over it, walking home on a dark night. The poor maid, there she was, missing going to dances and sitting about with her foot up. Seemed as though there was nothing but bad luck for her.’
The moment had come, Giles thought. He asked casually, ‘Do you remember somebody called Afflick?’
‘Ar. You mean Jackie Afflick? As was in Fane and Watchman’s office?’
‘Yes. Wasn’t he a friend of Miss Helen’s?’
‘That were just a bit of nonsense. Doctor put a stop to it and quite right too. He wasn’t any class, Jackie Afflick. And he was the kind that’s too sharp by half. Cut themselves in the end, that kind do. But he weren’t here long. Got himself into hot water. Good riddance. Us don’t want the likes of he in Dillmouth. Go and be smart somewhere else, that’s what he were welcome to do.’
Gwenda said: ‘Was he here when that tennis net was cut up?’
‘Ar. I see what you’re thinking. But he wouldn’t do a senseless thing like that. He were smart, Jackie Afflick were. Whoever did that it was just spite.’
‘Was there anybody who had a down on Miss Helen? Who would be likely to feel spiteful?’
Old Manning chuckled softly.
‘Some of the young ladies might have felt spiteful all right. Not a patch on Miss Helen to look at, most of ’em weren’t. No, I’d say that was done just in foolishness. Some tramp with a grudge.’
‘Was Helen very upset about Jackie Afflick?’ asked Gwenda.
