Nemesis

Why can't they say demonstration properly? I hate abbreviations. And how am I going to get along. Nobody to look after me, collect my luggage, take it in, take it out. Really. I'm paying, for this complete trip and everything.'

'I thought she seemed so attentive to you,' said Miss Marple.

'Well, not the last day or two. Girls don't understand that people have to have a little assistance when they get to middle age. They seem to have some absurd idea, she and the Price boy, of going to visit some mountain or some landmark. About a seven or eight mile walk there and back.'

'But surely if she has a sore throat and a temperature…'

'You'll see, as soon as the coach is gone the sore throat will get better and the temperature will go down,' said Mrs Riseley-Porter. 'Oh dear, we've got to get on board now. Oh, good-bye, Miss Marple, it's nice to have met you. I'm sorry you're not coming with us.'

'I'm very sorry myself,' said Miss Marple, 'but really you know, I'm not so young and vigorous as you are, Mrs Riseley-Porter, and I really feel after all the – well, shock and everything else the last few days, I really must have a complete twenty-four hours' rest.'

'Well, hope to see you somewhere in the future.'

They shook hands. Mrs Riseley-Porter climbed into the coach.

A voice behind Miss Marple's shoulder said:

'Bon Voyage and Good Riddance.'

She turned to see Emlyn Price. He was grinning.

'Was that addressed to Mrs Riseley-Porter?'

'Yes. Who else.'

'I'm sorry to hear that Joanna is under the weather this morning.'

Emlyn Price grinned at Miss Marple again.

'She'll be all right,' he said, 'as soon as that coach is gone.'

'Oh really!' said Miss Marple, 'do you mean?'

'Yes, I do mean,' said Emlyn Price. 'Joanna's had enough of that aunt of hers, bossing her around all the time.'

'Then you are not going in the coach either?'

'No. I'm staying on here for a couple of days. I'm going to get around a bit and do a few excursions. Don't look so disapproving, Miss Marple. You're not really as disapproving as all that, are you?'

'Well,' said Miss Marple, 'I have known such things happen in my own youth. The excuses may have been different, and I think we had less chance of getting away with things than you do now.'

Colonel and Mrs Walker came up and shook Miss Marple warmly by the hand.

'So nice to have known you and had all those delightful horticultural talks,' said the Colonel. 'I believe the day after tomorrow we're going to have a real treat, if nothing else happens. Really it's too sad, this very unfortunate accident. I must say I think myself it is an accident. I really think the Coroner was going beyond everything in his feelings about this.'

'It seems very odd,' said Miss Marple, 'that nobody has come forward, if they were up on top there, pushing about rocks and boulders and things, that they haven't come forward to say so.'

'Think they'll be blamed, of course,' said Colonel Walker. 'They're going to keep jolly quiet, that's what they're going to do. Well, good-bye. I'll send you a cutting of that Magnolia highdownensis and one of the Mahonia japonica too. Though I'm not quite sure if it would do as well where you live.'

They in turn got into the coach. Miss Marple turned away. She turned to see Professor Wanstead waving to the departing coach. Mrs Sandbourne came out, said good-bye to Miss Marple and got in the coach and Miss Marple took Professor Wanstead by the arm.

'I want you,' she said. 'Can we go somewhere where we can talk?'

'Yes. What about the place where we sat the other day?'

'Round here there's a very nice verandah place, I think.'

They walked round the corner of the hotel. There was some gay horn-blowing, and the coach departed.

'I wish, in a way, you know,' said Professor Wanstead, 'that you weren't staying behind. I'd rather have seen you safely on your way in the coach.' He looked at her sharply. 'Why are you staying here? Nervous exhaustion or something else?'

'Something else,' said Miss Marple. 'I'm not particularly exhausted, though it makes a perfectly natural excuse for somebody of my age.'

'I feel really I ought to stay here and keep an eye on you.'

'No,' said Miss Marple, 'there's no need to do that. There are other things you ought to be doing.'

'What things?' He looked at her.

'Have you got ideas or knowledge?'

'I think I have knowledge, but I'll have to verify it. There are certain things that I can't do myself. I think you will help to do them because you're in touch with what I refer to as the authorities.'

'Meaning Scotland Yard, Chief Constables and the Governors of Her Majesty's Prisons?'

'Yes. One or other or all of them. You might have the Home Secretary in your pocket, too.'

'You certainly do have ideas! Well, what do you want me to do?'

'First of all I want to give you this address.'

She took out a notebook and tore out one page and handed it to him.

'What's this? Oh yes, well known charity, isn't it?'

'One of the better ones, I believe. They do a lot of good. You send them clothes,' said Miss Marple, 'children's clothes and women's clothes. Coats. Pullovers, all those sort of things.'

'Well, do you want me to contribute to this?'

'No, it's not an appeal for charity, it's a bit of what belongs to what we're doing. What you and I are doing.'

'In what way?'

'I want you to make enquiries there about a parcel which was sent from here two days ago, posted from this post office.'

'Who posted it – did you?'

'No,' said Miss Marple. 'No. But I assumed responsibility for it.'

'What does that mean?'

'It means,' said Miss Marple, smiling slightly, 'that I went into the post office here and I explained rather scattily and well, like the old pussy I am, that I had very foolishly asked someone to take a parcel for me and post it, and I had put the wrong address on it. I was very upset by this. The post-mistress very kindly said she remembered the parcel, but the address on it was not the one I was mentioning. It was this one, the one I have just given to you. I explained that I had been very foolish and written the wrong address on it, confusing it with another one I sometimes send things to. She told me it was too late to do anything about it now because the parcel, naturally, had gone off. I said it was quite all right, that I would send a letter to the particular charity to which the parcel had been sent, and explain that it had been addressed to them by mistake. Would they very kindly forward it on to the charity that I had meant to receive it.'

'It seems rather a roundabout way.'

'Well,' said Miss Marple, 'one has to say something. I'm not going to do that at all. You are going to deal with the matter. We've got to know what's inside that parcel! I have no doubt you can get means.'

'Will there be anything inside the parcel to say who actually sent it?'

'I rather think not. It may have a slip of paper saying 'from friends' or it may have a fictitious name and address something like Mrs Pippin, 14 Westbourne Grove and if anyone made enquiries there, there'd be no person of such a name living there.'

'Oh. Any other alternatives?'

'It might possibly, most unlikely but possibly, have a slip saying 'From Miss Anthea Bradbury-Scott''

'Did she?'

'She took it to the post,' said Miss Marple.

'And you had asked her to take it there?'

'Oh no,' said Miss Marple. 'I hadn't asked anyone to post anything. The first I saw of the parcel was when Anthea passed the garden of the Golden Boar where you and I were sitting talking, carrying it.'