‘And he seemed fond of me,’ said Gwenda. ‘Little Gwennie.’
‘He had to play his part,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Imagine what it meant to him. After eighteen years, you and Giles come along, asking questions, burrowing into the past, disturbing a murder that had seemed dead but was only sleeping…Murder in retrospect…A horribly dangerous thing to do, my dears. I have been sadly worried.’
‘Poor Mrs Cocker,’ said Gwenda. ‘She had a terribly near escape. I’m glad she’s going to be all right. Do you think she’ll come back to us, Giles? After all this?’
‘She will if there’s a nursery,’ said Giles gravely, and Gwenda blushed, and Miss Marple smiled a little and looked out across Torbay.
‘How very odd it was that it should happen the way it did,’ mused Gwenda. ‘My having those rubber gloves on, and looking at them, and then his coming into the hall and saying those words that sounded so like the others. “Face”…and then: “Eyes dazzled”-’
She shuddered.
‘Cover her face…Mine eyes dazzle…she died young…that might have been me…if Miss Marple hadn’t been there.’
She paused and said softly, ‘Poor Helen…Poor lovely Helen, who died young…You know, Giles, she isn’t there any more-in the house-in the hall. I could feel that yesterday before we left. There’s just the house. And the house is fond of us. We can go back if we like…’
