Nothing worse could happen to her, could it, than that? Nothing worse…'
Chapter 23
I
'That old lady gives me the creeps,' said Sir Andrew McNeil, when he had said good-bye and thanks to Miss Marple.
'So gentle and so ruthless,' said the Assistant Commissioner.
Professor Wanstead took Miss Marple down to his car which was waiting, and then returned for a few final words.
'What do you think of her, Edmund?'
'The most frightening woman I ever met,' said the Home Secretary.
'Ruthless?' asked Professor Wanstead.
'No, no, I don't mean that but well, a very frightening woman.'
'Nemesis,' said Professor Wanstead thoughtfully.
'Those two women,' said the P.P.D. man, 'you know, the security agents who were looking after her, they gave a most extraordinary description of her that night. They got into the house quite easily, hid themselves in a small downstairs room until everyone went upstairs, then one went into the bedroom and into the wardrobe and the other stayed outside the room to watch. The one in the bedroom said that when she threw open the door of the wardrobe and came out, there was the old lady sitting up in bed with a pink fluffy shawl round her neck and a perfectly placid face, twittering away and talking like an elderly school marm. They said she gave them quite a turn.'
'A pink fluffy shawl,' said Professor Wanstead. 'Yes, yes, I do remember '
'What do you remember?'
'Old Rafiel. He told me about her, you know, and then he laughed. He said one thing he'd never forget in all his life. He said it was when one of the funniest scatter-brained old pussies he'd ever met came marching into his bedroom out in the West Indies, with a fluffy pink scarf round her neck, telling him he was to get up and do something to prevent a murder. And he said, 'What on earth do you think you're doing?' And she said she was Nemesis. Nemesis! He could not imagine anything less like it, he said. I like the touch of the pink woolly scarf,' said Professor Wanstead, thoughtfully, 'I like that, very much.'
II
'Michael,' said Professor Wanstead, 'I want to introduce you to Miss Jane Marple, who's been very active on your behalf.'
The young man of thirty-two, looked at the white-haired, rather dicky old lady with a slightly doubtful expression.
'Oh er,' he said, 'well, I guess I have heard about it. Thanks very much.'
He looked at Wanstead.
'It's true, is it, they're going to give me a free pardon or something silly like that?'
'Yes. A release will be put through quite soon. You'll be a free man in a very short time.'
'Oh.' Michael sounded slightly doubtful.
'It will take a little getting used to, I expect,' said Miss Marple kindly.
She looked at him thoughtfully. Seeing him in retrospect as he might have been ten years or so ago. Still quite attractive though he showed all the signs of strain. Attractive, yes. Very attractive, she thought he would have been once. A gaiety about him then, there would have been, and a charm. He'd lost that now, but it would come back perhaps. A weak mouth and attractively shaped eyes that could look you straight in the face, and probably had been always extremely useful for telling lies that you really wanted to believe. Very like – who was it? – she dived into past memories. Jonathan Birkin, of course. He had sung in the choir. A really delightful baritone voice. And how fond the girls had been of him! Quite a good job he'd had as clerk in Messrs Gabriel's firm. A pity there had been that little matter of the cheques.
'Oh,' said Michael. He said, with even more embarrassment, 'It's been very kind of you, I'm sure, to take so much trouble.'
'I've enjoyed it,' said Miss Marple. 'Well, I'm glad to have met you. Good-bye. I hope you've got a very good time coming to you. Our country is in rather a bad way just now, but you'll probably find some job or other that you might quite enjoy doing.'
'Oh yes. Thanks, thanks very much. I really am very grateful, you know.'
His tone sounded still extremely unsure about it.
'It's not me you ought to be grateful to,' said Miss Marple, 'you ought to be grateful to your father.'
'Dad? Dad never thought much of me.'
'Your father, when he was a dying man, was determined to see that you got justice.'
'Justice.' Michael Rafiel considered it.
'Yes, your father thought Justice was important. He was, I think, a very just man himself. In the letter he wrote me asking me to undertake this proposition, he directed me to a quotation:
'Let Justice roll down like waters
And Righteousness like an everlasting stream.''
'Oh! What's it mean? Shakespeare?'
'No, the Bible. One has to think about it – I had to.'
Miss Marple unwrapped a parcel she had been carrying.
'They gave me this,' she said. 'They thought I might like to have it because I had helped to find out the truth of what had really happened. I think, though, that you are the person who should have first claim on it, that is if you really want it. But maybe you do not want it -'
She handed him the photograph of Verity Hunt that Clotilde Bradbury-Scott had shown her once in the drawing room of The Old Manor House.
He took it and stood with it, staring down on it… His face changed, the lines of it softened, then hardened. Miss Marple watched him without speaking. The silence went on for some little time. Professor Wanstead also watched he watched them both, the old lady and the boy.
It came to him that this was in some way a crisis a moment that might affect a whole new way of life.
Michael Rafiel sighed… he stretched out and gave the photograph back to Miss Marple.
'No, you are right, I do not want it. All that life is gone – she's gone – I can't keep her with me. Anything I do now has got to be new – going forward. You -' he hesitated, looking at her. 'You understand?'
'Yes,' said Miss Marple. 'I understand… I think you are right. I wish you good luck in the life you are now going to begin.'
He said good-bye and went out.
'Well,' said Professor Wanstead, 'not an enthusiastic young man. He could have thanked you a bit more enthusiastically for what you did for him.'
'Oh, that's quite all right,' said Miss Marple. 'I didn't expect him to do so. It would have embarrassed him even more. It is, you know,' she added, 'very embarrassing when one has to thank people and start life again and see everything from a different angle and all that. I think he might do well. He's not bitter. That's the great thing. I understand quite well why that girl loved him.'
'Well, perhaps he'll go straight this time.'
