it was Dr Kennedy. She called down:
‘I’m here.’
Her hands were held out in front of her-wet, glistening, a queer pinkish grey-they reminded her of something…
Kennedy looked up, shading his eyes.
‘Is that you, Gwennie? I can’t see your face…My eyes are dazzled-’
And then Gwenda screamed…
Looking at those smooth monkey’s paws and hearing that voice in the hall-
‘It was you,’ she gasped. ‘You killed her…killed Helen…I-know now. It was you…all along…You…’
He came up the stairs towards her. Slowly. Looking up at her.
‘Why couldn’t you leave me alone?’ he said. ‘Why did you have to meddle? Why did you have to bring-Her-back? Just when I’d begun to forget-to forget. You brought her back again-Helen-my Helen. Bringing it all up again. I had to kill Lily-now I’ll have to kill you. Like I killed Helen…Yes, like I killed Helen…’
He was close upon her now-his hands out towards her-reaching, she knew, for her throat. That kind, quizzical face-that nice, ordinary, elderly face-the same still, but for the eyes-the eyes were not sane…
Gwenda retreated before him, slowly, the scream frozen in her throat. She had screamed once. She could not scream again. And if she did scream no one would hear.
Because there was no one in the house-not Giles, and not Mrs Cocker, not even Miss Marple in the garden. Nobody. And the house next door was too far away to hear if she screamed. And anyway, she couldn’t scream…Because she was too frightened to scream. Frightened of those horrible reaching hands…
She could back away to the nursery door and then-and then-those hands would fasten round her throat…
A pitiful little stifled whimper came from between her lips.
And then, suddenly, Dr Kennedy stopped and reeled back as a jet of soapy water struck him between the eyes. He gasped and blinked and his hands went to his face.
‘So fortunate,’ said Miss Marple’s voice, rather breathless, for she had run violently up the back stairs, ‘that I was just syringing the greenfly off your roses.’
Chapter 25 Postscript at Torquay
‘But, of course, dear Gwenda, I should never have dreamed of going away and leaving you alone in the house,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I knew there was a very dangerous person at large, and I was keeping an unobtrusive watch from the garden.’
‘Did you know it was-him-all along?’ asked Gwenda.
They were all three, Miss Marple, Gwenda and Giles, sitting on the terrace of the Imperial Hotel at Torquay.
‘A change of scene,’ Miss Marple had said, and Giles had agreed, would be the best thing for Gwenda. So Inspector Primer had concurred and they had driven to Torquay forthwith.
Miss Marple said in answer to Gwenda’s question, ‘Well, he did seem indicated, my dear. Although unfortunately there was nothing in the way of evidence to go upon. Just indications, nothing more.’
Looking at her curiously, Giles said, ‘But I can’t see any indications even.’
‘Oh dear, Giles, think. He was on the spot, to begin with.’
‘On the spot?’
‘But certainly. When Kelvin Halliday came to him that night he had just come back from the hospital. And the hospital, at that time, as several people told us, was actually next door to Hillside, or St Catherine’s as it was then called. So that, as you see, puts him in the right place at the right time. And then there were a hundred and one little significant facts. Helen Halliday told Richard Erskine she had gone out to marry Walter Fane because she wasn’t happy at home. Not happy, that is, living with her brother. Yet her brother was by all accounts devoted to her. So why wasn’t she happy? Mr Afflick told you that “he was sorry for the poor kid”. I think that he was absolutely truthful when he said that. He was sorry for her. Why did she have to go and meet young Afflick in that clandestine way? Admittedly she was not wildly in love with him. Was it because she couldn’t meet young men in the ordinary normal way? Her brother was “strict” and “old-fashioned”. It is vaguely reminiscent, is it not, of Mr Barrett of Wimpole Street?’
Gwenda shivered.
‘He was mad,’ she said. ‘Mad.’
‘Yes,’ said Miss Marple. ‘He wasn’t normal. He adored his half-sister, and that affection became possessive and unwholesome. That kind of thing happens oftener than you’d think. Fathers who don’t want their daughters to marry-or even to meet young men. Like Mr Barrett. I thought of that when I heard about the tennis net.’
‘The tennis net?’
‘Yes, that seemed to me very significant. Think of that girl, young Helen, coming home from school, and eager for all a young girl wants out of life, anxious to meet young men-to flirt with them-’
‘A little sex-crazy.’
‘No,’ said Miss Marple with emphasis. ‘Thatis one of the wickedest things about this crime. Dr Kennedy didn’t only kill her physically. If you think back carefully, you’ll see that the only evidence for Helen Kennedy’s having been man mad or practically-what is the word you used, dear? oh yes, a nymphomaniac- came actually from Dr Kennedy himself. I think, myself, that she was a perfectly normal young girl who wanted to have fun and a good time and flirt a little and finally settle down with the man of her choice-no more than that. And see what steps her brother took. First he was strict and old-fashioned about allowing her liberty. Then, when she wanted to give tennis parties - a most normal and harmless desire - he pretended to agree and then one night secretly cut the tennis net to ribbons - a very significant and sadistic action. Then, since she could still go out to play tennis or to dances, he took advantage of a grazed foot which he treated, to infect it so that it wouldn’t heal. Oh yes, I think he did that…in fact, I’m sure of it.
‘Mind you. I don’t think Helen realized any of all this. She knew her brother had a deep affection for her and I don’t think she knew why she felt uneasy and unhappy at home. But she did feel like that and at last she decided to go out to India and marry young Fane simply in order to get away. To get away from what? She didn’t know. She was too young and guileless to know. So she went off to India and on the way she met Richard Erskine and fell in love with him. There again, she behaved not like a sex-crazy girl, but like a decent and honourable girl. She didn’t urge him to leave his wife. She urged him not to do so. But when she saw Walter Fane she knew that she couldn’t marry him, and because she didn’t know what else to do, she wired her brother for money to go home.
‘On the way home she met your father-and another way of escape showed itself. This time it was one with good prospect of happiness.
‘She didn’t marry your father under false pretences, Gwenda. He was recovering from the death of a dearly loved wife. She was getting over an unhappy love-affair. They could both help each other. I think it is significant that she and Kelvin Halliday were married in London and then went down to Dillmouth to break the news to Dr Kennedy. She must have had some instinct that that would be a wiser thing to do than to go down and be married in Dillmouth, which ordinarily would have been the normal thing to do. I still think she didn’t know what she was up against-but she was uneasy, and she felt safer in presenting her brother with the marriage as afait accompli.
‘Kelvin Halliday was very friendly to Kennedy and liked him. Kennedy seems to have gone out of his way to appear pleased about the marriage. The couple took a furnished house there.
‘And now we come to that very significant fact-the suggestion that Kelvin was being drugged by his wife. There are only two possible explanations of that-because there are only two people who could have had the opportunity of doing such a thing. Either Helen Hallidaywas drugging her husband, and if so, why? Or else the drugs were being administered by Dr Kennedy. Kennedy was Halliday’s physician as is clear by
