Sleeping Murder - Christie Agatha (читаем книги онлайн без регистрации .txt) 📗

Miss Marple bent down on the terrace outside the french window and dealt with some insidious bindweed. It was only a minor victory, since beneath the surface the bindweed remained in possession as always. But at least the delphiniums knew a temporary deliverance.

Mrs Cocker appeared in the drawing-room window.

‘Excuse me, madam, but Dr Kennedy has called. He is anxious to know how long Mr and Mrs Reed will be away, and I told him I couldn’t take it upon myself to say exactly, but that you might know. Shall I ask him to come out here?’

‘Oh. Oh, yes please, Mrs Cocker.’

Mrs Cocker reappeared shortly afterwards with Dr Kennedy.

Rather flutteringly, Miss Marple introduced herself.

‘-and I arranged with dear Gwenda that I would come round and do a little weeding while she was away. I think, you know, that my young friends are being imposed upon by their jobbing gardener, Foster. He comes twice a week, drinks a great many cups of tea, does a lot of talking, and not-so far as I can see-very much work.’

‘Yes,’ said Dr Kennedy rather absently. ‘Yes. They’re all alike-all alike.’

Miss Marple looked at him appraisingly. He was an older man than she had thought from the Reeds’ description of him. Prematurely old, she guessed. He looked, too, both worried and unhappy. He stood there, his fingers caressing the long, pugnacious line of his jaw.

‘They’ve gone away,’ he said. ‘Do you know for how long?’

‘Oh, not for long. They have gone to visit some friends in the North of England. Young people seem to me so restless, always dashing about here and there.’

‘Yes,’ said Dr Kennedy. ‘Yes-that’s true enough.’

He paused and then said rather diffidently, ‘Young Giles Reed wrote and asked me for some papers-er-letters, if I could find them-’

He hesitated, and Miss Marple said quietly, ‘Your sister’s letters?’

He shot her a quick, shrewd glance.

‘So-you’re in their confidence, are you? A relation?’ 

‘Only a friend,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I have advised them to the best of my capacity. But people seldom take advice…A pity, perhaps, but there it is…’

‘What was your advice?’ he asked curiously.

‘To let sleeping murder lie,’ said Miss Marple firmly.

Dr Kennedy sat down heavily on an uncomfortable rustic seat.

‘That’s not badly put,’ he said. ‘I’m fond of Gwennie. She was a nice small child. I should judge that she’s grown up to be a nice young woman. I’m afraid that she’s heading for trouble.’

‘There are so many kinds of trouble,’ said Miss Marple.

‘Eh? Yes-yes-true enough.’

He sighed. Then he said, ‘Giles Reed wrote and asked me if I could let him have my sister’s letters, written after she left here-and also some authentic specimen of her handwriting.’ He shot a keen glance at her. ‘You see what that means?’

Miss Marple nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘They’re harking back to the idea that Kelvin Halliday, when he said he had strangled his wife, was speaking neither more nor less than the truth. They believe that the letters my sister Helen wrote after she went away weren’t written by her at all-that they were forgeries. They believe that she never left this house alive.’ 

Miss Marple said gently, ‘And you are not, by now, so very sure yourself?’

‘I was at the time.’ Kennedy still stared ahead of him. ‘It seemed absolutely clear. Pure hallucination on Kelvin’s part. There was no body, a suitcase and clothes were taken-what else could I think?’

‘And your sister had been-recently-rather-ahem-’ Miss Marple coughed delicately-‘interested in-in a certain gentleman?’

Dr Kennedy looked at her. There was deep pain in his eyes.

‘I loved my sister,’ he said, ‘but I have to admit that, with Helen, there was always some man in the offing. There are women who are made that way-they can’t help it.’

‘It all seemed clear to you at the time,’ said Miss Marple. ‘But it does not seem so clear now. Why?’

‘Because,’ said Kennedy with frankness, ‘it seems incredible to me that, if Helen is still alive, she has not communicated with me all these years. In the same way, if she is dead, it is equally strange that I have not been notified of the fact. Well-’

He got up. He took a packet from his pocket.

‘Here is the best I can do. The first letter I received from Helen I must have destroyed. I can find no trace of it. But I did keep the second one-the one that gave the poste restante address. And here, for comparison, is the only bit of Helen’s handwriting I’ve been able to find. It’s a list of bulbs, etc., for planting. A copy that she had kept of some order. The handwriting of the order and the letter look alike to me, but then I’m no expert. I’ll leave them here for Giles and Gwenda when they return. It’s probably not worth forwarding.’

‘Oh no, I believe they expect to return tomorrow-or the next day.’

The doctor nodded. He stood, looking along the terrace, his eyes still absent. He said suddenly, ‘You know what’s worrying me? If Kelvin Halliday did kill his wife, he must have concealed the body or got rid of it in some way-and that means (I don’t know what else it can mean) that his story to me was a cleverly made-up tale-that he’d already hidden a suitcase full of clothes to give colour to the idea that Helen had gone away-that he’d even arranged for letters to arrive from abroad…It means, in fact, that it was a cold-blooded premeditated murder. Little Gwennie was a nice child. It would be bad enough for her to have a father who’s a paranoiac, but it’s ten times worse to have a father who’s a deliberate murderer.’

He swung round to the open window. Miss Marple arrested his departure by a swift question.

‘Who was your sister afraid of, Dr Kennedy?’

He turned back to her and stared.

‘Afraid of? No one, as far as I know.’ 

‘I only wondered…Pray excuse me if I am asking indiscreet questions-but there was a young man, wasn’t there?-I mean, some entanglement-when she was very young. Somebody calledAfflick, I believe.’

‘Oh, that. Silly business most girls go through. An undesirable young fellow, shifty-and of course not her class, not her class at all. He got into trouble here afterwards.’

‘I just wondered if he could have been-revengeful.’

Dr Kennedy smiled rather sceptically.

‘Oh, I don’t think it went deep. Anyway, as I say, he got into trouble here, and left the place for good.’

‘What sort of trouble?’

‘Oh, nothing criminal. Just indiscretions. Blabbed about his employer’s affairs.’

‘And his employer was Mr Walter Fane?’

Dr Kennedy looked a little surprised.

‘Yes-yes-now you say so, I remember, he did work in Fane and Watchman’s. Not articled. Just an ordinary clerk.’

Just an ordinary clerk? Miss Marple wondered, as she stooped again to the bindweed, after Dr Kennedy had gone…