young Helen Halliday was killed. We’ve thought so all along and now we know.’
‘And according to you we ought to know where the body is,’ said Giles. ‘The cellar, I suppose.’
‘No, no, Mr Reed. You remember Edith Pagett said she went down there on the morning after because she was disturbed by what Lily had said, and she found no signs of anything of the kind-and there would be signs, you know, if somebody was really looking for them.’
‘Then what happened to it? Taken away in a car and thrown over a cliff into the sea?’
‘No. Come now, my dears, what struck you first of all when you came here-struck you, Gwenda, I should say. The fact that from the drawing-room window, you had no view down to the sea. Where you felt, very properly, that steps should lead down to the lawn-there was instead a plantation of shrubs. The steps, you found subsequently, had been there originally, but had at some time been transferred to the end of the terrace. Why were they moved?’
Gwenda stared at her with dawning comprehension.
‘You mean that that’s where-’
‘There must have been a reason for making the change, and there doesn’t really seem to be a sensible one. It is, frankly, a stupid place to have steps down to the lawn. But that end of the terrace is a very quiet place-it’s not overlooked from the house except by one window-the window of the nursery, on the first floor. Don’t you see, that if you want to bury a body the earth will be disturbed and there must be a reason for its being disturbed. The reason was that it had been decided to move the steps from in front of the drawing-room to the end of the terrace. I’ve learnt already from Dr Kennedy that Helen Halliday and her husband were very keen on the garden, and did a lot of work in it. The daily gardener they employed used merely to carry out their orders, and if he arrived to find that this change was in progress and some of the flags had already been moved, he would only have thought that the Hallidays had started on the work when he wasn’t there. The body, of course, could have been buried at either place, but we can be quite certain, I think, that it is actually buried at the end of the terrace and not in front of the drawing-room window.’
‘Why can we be sure?’ asked Gwenda.
‘Because of what poor Lily Kimble said in her letter-that she changed her mind about the body being in the cellar because of what Leonie saw when she looked out of the window. That makes it very clear, doesn’t it? The Swiss girl looked out of the nursery window at some time during the night and saw the grave being dug. Perhaps she actually saw who it was digging it.’
‘And never said anything to the police?’
‘My dear, there was no question at the time of a crime having occurred. Mrs Halliday had run away with a lover-that was all that Leonie would grasp. She probably couldn’t speak much English anyway. She did mention to Lily, perhaps not at the time, but later, a curious thing she had observed from her window that night, and that stimulated Lily’s belief in a crime having occurred. But I’ve no doubt that Edith Pagett told Lily off for talking nonsense, and the Swiss girl would accept her point of view and would certainly not wish to be mixed up with the police. Foreigners always seem to be particularly nervous about the police when they are in a strange country. So she went back to Switzerland and very likely never thought of it again.’
Giles said: ‘If she’s alive now-if she can be traced-’
Miss Marple nodded her head. ‘Perhaps.’
Giles demanded: ‘How can we set about it?’
Miss Marple said: ‘The police will be able to do that much better than you can.’
‘Inspector Last is coming over here tomorrow morning.’
‘Then I think I should tell him-about the steps.’
‘And about what I saw-or think I saw-in the hall?’ asked Gwenda nervously.
‘Yes, dear. You’ve been very wise to say nothing of that until now. Very wise. But I think the time has come.’
Giles said slowly: ‘She was strangled in the hall, and then the murderer carried her upstairs and put her on the bed. Kelvin Halliday came in, passed out with doped whisky, and in his turn was carried upstairs to the bedroom. He came to, and thought he had killed her. The murderer must have been watching somewhere near at hand. When Kelvin went off to Dr Kennedy’s, the murderer took away the body, probably hid it in the shrubbery at the end of the terrace and waited until everybody had gone to bed and was presumably asleep, before he dug the grave and buried the body. That means he must have been here, hanging about the house, pretty well all that night?’
Miss Marple nodded.
‘He had to be on the spot. I remember your saying that that was important. We’ve got to see which of our three suspects fits in best with the requirements. We’ll take Erskine first. Now he definitely was on the spot. By his own admission he walked up here with Helen Kennedy from the beach at round about nine o’clock. He said goodbye to her. But did he say goodbye to her? Let’s say instead that he strangled her.’
‘But it was all over between them,’ cried Gwenda. ‘Long ago. He said himself that he was hardly ever alone with Helen.’
‘But don’t you see, Gwenda, that the way we must look at it now, we can’t depend on anything anyone says.’
‘Now I’m so glad to hear you say that,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Because I’ve been a little worried, you know, by the way you two have seemed willing to accept, as actual fact, all the things that people have told you. I’m afraid I have a sadly distrustful nature, but, especially in a matter of murder, I make it a rule to take nothing that is told to me as true, unless it is checked. For instance, it does seem quite certain that Lily Kimble mentioned the clothes packed and taken away in a suitcase were not the ones Helen Halliday would herself have taken, because not only did Edith Pagett tell us that Lily said so to her, but Lily herself mentioned the fact in her letter to Dr Kennedy. So that is one fact. Dr Kennedy told us that Kelvin Halliday believed that his wife was secretly drugging him, and Kelvin Halliday in his diary confirms that-so there is another fact-and a very curious fact it is, don’t you think? However, we will not go into that now.
‘But I would like to point out that a great many of the assumptions you have made have been based upon what has been told you-possibly told you very plausibly.’
Giles stared hard at her.
Gwenda, her colour restored, sipped coffee, and leaned across the table.
Giles said: ‘Let’s check up now on what three people have said to us. Take Erskine first. He says-’
‘You’ve got a down on him,’ said Gwenda. ‘It’s waste of time going on about him, because now he’s definitely out of it. He couldn’t have killed Lily Kimble.’
Giles went on imperturbly: ‘He says that he met Helen on the boat going out to India and they fell in love, but that he couldn’t bring himself to leave his wife and children, and that they agreed they must say goodbye. Suppose it wasn’t quite like that. Suppose he fell desperately in love with Helen, and that it was she who wouldn’t run off with him. Supposing he threatened that if she married anyone else he would kill her.’
‘Most improbable,’ said Gwenda.
‘Things like that do happen. Remember what you overheard his wife say to him. You put it all down to jealousy, but it may have been true. Perhaps she has had a terrible time with him where women are concerned-he may be a little bit of a sex maniac.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘No, because he’s attractive to women. I think, myself, that there is something a little queer about Erskine. However, let’s go on with my case against him. Helen breaks off her engagement to Fane and comes home and marries your father and settles down here. And then suddenly, Erskine turns up. He comes down ostensibly on a summer holiday with his wife. That’s an odd thing to do, really. He admits he came here to see Helen again. Now let’s take it thatErskine was the man in the drawing-room with her that day when Lily overheard her say she was afraid of him. “I’m afraid of you-I’ve always been afraid of you-I think you’re mad.”
‘And, because she’s afraid, she makes plans to go and live in Norfolk, but she’s very secretive about it. No one is to know. No one is to know, that is, until the Erskines have left Dillmouth. So far that fits. Now we come to the fatal night. What the Hallidays were doing earlier that evening we don’t know-’
Miss Marple coughed.
