'Nothing,' said Miss Marple. 'Three sisters.'
'Three weird sisters?'
'They ought to have been,' said Miss Marple, 'but I don't think they were. They didn't seem to be anyway. I don't know yet. I suppose they may have been – they may be, I mean. They seem ordinary enough. They didn't belong to this house. It had belonged to an uncle of theirs and they'd come here to live some years ago. They are in rather poor circumstances, they are amiable, not particularly interesting. All slightly different in type. They do not appear to have been well acquainted with Mr Rafiel. Any conversation I have had with them appears to yield nothing.'
'So you learnt nothing during your stay?'
'I learnt the facts of the case you've just told me. Not from them. From an elderly servant, who started her reminiscences dating back to the time of the uncle. She knew of Mr Rafiel only as a name. But she was eloquent on the theme of the murder, it had all started with the visit here of a son of Mr Rafiel's who was a bad lot, of how the girl had fallen in love with him and that he'd strangled the girl, and how sad and tragic and terrible it all was. 'With bells on', as you might say,' said Miss Marple, using a phrase of her youth. 'Plenty of exaggeration, but it was a nasty story, and she seemed to believe that the police view was that this hadn't been his only murder -'
'It didn't seem to you to connect up with the three weird sisters?'
'No, only that they'd been the guardians of the girl and had loved her dearly. No more than that.'
'They might know something about another man?'
'Yes – that's what we want, isn't it? The other man – a man of brutality, who wouldn't hesitate to bash in a girl's head after he'd killed her. The kind of man who could be driven frantic with jealousy. There are men like that.'
'No other curious things happened at The Old Manor?'
'Not really. One of the sisters, the youngest I think, kept talking about the garden. She sounded as though she was a very keen gardener, but she couldn't be because she didn't know the names of half the things. I laid a trap or two for her, mentioning special rare shrubs and saying did she know it? and yes, she said, wasn't it a wonderful plant? I said it was not very hardy and she agreed. But she didn't know anything about plants. That reminds me -'
'Reminds you of what?'
'Well, you'll think I'm just silly about gardens and plants, but I mean one does know things about them. I mean, I know a few things about birds and I know some things about gardens.'
'And I gather that it's not birds but gardens that are troubling you.'
'Yes. Have you noticed two middle-aged women on this tour? Miss Barrow and Miss Cooke.'
'Yes. I've noticed them. Pair of middle-aged spinsters travelling together.'
'That's right. Well, I've found out something odd about Miss Cooke. That is her name, isn't it? I mean it's her name on the tour.'
'Why, has she got another name?'
'I think so. She's the same person who visited me – I won't say visited me exactly, but she was outside my garden fence in St Mary Mead, the village where I live. She expressed pleasure at my garden and talked about gardening with me. Told me she was living in the village and working in somebody's garden, who'd moved into a new house there. I rather think,' said Miss Marple, 'yes, I rather think that the whole thing was lies. There again, she knew nothing about gardening. She pretended to but it wasn't true.'
'Why do you think she came there?'
'I'd no idea at the time. She said her name was Bartlett. and the name of the woman she said she was living with began with 'H', though I can't remember it for the moment. Her hair was not only differently done but it was a different colour and her clothes were of a different style. I didn't recognise her at first on this trip. Just wondered why her face was vaguely familiar. And then suddenly it came to me. Because of the dyed hair. I said where I had seen her before. She admitted that she'd been there but pretended that she, too, hadn't recognised me. All lies.'
'And what's your opinion about all that?'
'Well, one thing certainly… Miss Cooke (to give her her present name) came to St Mary Mead just to have a look at me so that she'd be quite sure to be able to recognise me when we met again '
'And why was that felt to be necessary?'
'I don't know. There are two possibilities. I'm not sure that I like one of them very much.'
'I don't know,' said Professor Wanstead, 'that I like it very much either.'
They were both silent for a minute or two, and then Professor Wanstead said.
'I don't like what happened to Elizabeth Temple. You've talked to her during this trip?'
'Yes, I have. When she's better I'd like to talk to her again – she could tell me, us – things about the girl who was murdered. She spoke to me of this girl, who had been at her school, who had been going to marry Mr Rafiel's son – but didn't marry him. Instead she died. I asked how or why she died – and she answered with the word 'Love'. I took it as meaning a suicide – but it was murder. Murder through jealousy would fit. Another man. Some other man we've got to find. Miss Temple may be able to tell us who he was.'
'No other sinister possibilities?'
'I think, really, it is casual information we need. I see no reason to believe that there is any sinister suggestion in any of the coach passengers – or any sinister suggestion about the people living in The Old Manor House. But one of those three sisters may have known or remembered something that the girl or Michael once said. Clotilde used to take the girl abroad. Therefore, she may know of something that occurred on some foreign trip perhaps. Something that the girl said or mentioned or did on some trip. Some man that the girl met. Something which has nothing to do with The Old Manor House here. It is difficult because only by talking, by casual information, can you get any clue. The second sister, Mrs Glynne married fairly early, has spent time, I gather, in India and in Africa. She may have heard of something through her husband, or through her husband's relations, through various things that are unconnected with The Old Manor House here although she has visited it from time to time. She knew the murdered girl presumably, but I should think she knew her much less well than the other two. But that does not mean that she may not know some significant facts about the girl. The third sister is more scatty, more localised, does not seem to have known the girl as well. But still, she too may have information about possible lovers – or boyfriends – seen the girl with an unknown man. That's her, by the way, passing the hotel now.'
Miss Marple, however occupied by her tete-a-tete, had not relinquished the habits of a lifetime. A public thoroughfare was always to her an observation post. All the passers-by, either loitering or hurrying, had been noticed automatically.
'Anthea Bradbury-Scott, the one with the big parcel. She's going to the post office, I suppose. It's just round the corner, isn't it?'
'Looks a bit daft to me,' said Professor Wanstead, 'all that floating hair – grey hair too – a kind of Ophelia of fifty.'
'I thought of Ophelia too, when I first saw her. Oh dear, I wish I knew what I ought to do next. Stay here at the Golden Boar for a day or two, or go on with the coach tour. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack. If you stick your fingers in it long enough, you ought to come up with something – even if one does get pricked in the process.'
Chapter 13
I
Mrs Sandbourne returned just as the party was sitting down to lunch. Her news was not good. Miss Temple was still unconscious. She certainly could not be moved for several days.
