'Helen Kennedy came out to India to marry me,’ said Walter Fane. 'Then she changed her mind. On the boat going home she met your father.'
It was a plain unemotional statement of fact. Gwenda still had the impression of a house with the blinds down.
'I'm so sorry,’ she said. 'Have I put my foot in it?'
Walter Fane smiled—his slow, pleasant smile. The blinds were up.
'It's nineteen or twenty years ago, Mrs Reed,’ he said. 'One's youthful troubles and follies don't mean much after that space of time. So you are Halliday's baby daughter. You know, don't you, that your father and Helen actually lived here in Dillmouth for a while?'
'Oh yes,’ said Gwenda, 'that's really why we came here. I didn't remember it properly, of course, but when we had to decide where we'd live in England, I came to Dillmouth first of all, to see what it was really like, and I thought it was such an attractive place that I decided that we'd park ourselves right here and nowhere else. And wasn't it luck? We've actually got the same house that my people lived in long ago.'
'I remember the house,’ said Walter Fane. Again he gave that slow, pleasant smile. 'You may not remember me, Mrs Reed, but I rather imagine I used to give you piggybacks once.'
Gwenda laughed.
'Did you really? Then you're quite an old friend, aren't you? I can't pretend I remember you—but then I was only about two and a half or three, I suppose... Were you back on leave from India or something like that?'
'No, I'd chucked India for good. I went out to try tea-planting—but the life didn't suit me. I was cut out to follow in my father's footsteps and be a prosy unadventurous country solicitor. I'd passed all my law exams earlier, so I simply came back and went straight into the firm.' He paused and said, 'I've been here ever since.'
Again there was a pause and he repeated in a lower voice, 'Yes—ever since...' But eighteen years, thought Gwenda, isn't really such a long time as all that...
Then, with a change of manner, he shook hands with her and said, 'Since we seem to be old friends, you really must bring your husband to tea with my mother one day. I'll get her to write to you. In the meanwhile, eleven o'clock on Thursday?'
Gwenda went out of the office and down the stairs. There was a cobweb in the angle of the stairway. In the middle of the web was a pale, rather nondescript spider. It didn't look, Gwenda thought, like a real spider. Not the fat juicy kind of spider who caught flies and ate them. It was more like a ghost of a spider. Rather like Walter Fane, in fact.
Giles met his wife on the seafront. 'Well?' he asked.
'He was here in Dillmouth at the time,’ said Gwenda. 'Back from India, I mean. Because he gave me piggybacks. But he couldn't have murdered anyone—not possibly. He's much too quiet and gentle. Very nice, really, but the kind of person you never really notice. You know, they come to parties, but you never notice when they leave. I should think he was frightfully upright and all that, and devoted to his mother, and with a lot of virtues. But from a woman's point of view, terribly dull. I can see why he didn't cut any ice with Helen. You know, a nice safe person to marry—but you don't really want to.'
'Poor devil,' said Giles. 'And I suppose he was just crazy about her.'
'Oh, I don't know... I shouldn't think so, really. Anyway, I'm sure he wouldn't be our malevolent murderer. He's not my idea of a murderer at all.'
'You don't really know a lot about murderers, though, do you, my sweet?' 'What do you mean?'
'Well—I was thinking about quiet Lizzie Borden—only the jury said she didn't do it. And Wallace, a quiet man whom the jury insisted did kill his wife, though the sentence was quashed on appeal. And Armstrong who everybody said for years was such a kind unassuming fellow. I don't believe murderers are ever a special type.'
'I really can't believe that Walter Fane—' Gwenda stopped. 'What is it?' 'Nothing.'
But she was remembering Walter Fane polishing his eyeglasses and the queer blind stare of his eyes when she had first mentioned St Catherine's.
'Perhaps,' she said uncertainly, 'he was crazy about her...'
Chapter 14 – Edith Pagett
Mrs Mountford's back parlour was a comfortable room. It had a round table covered with a cloth, and some old-fashioned armchairs and a stern-looking but unexpectedly well-sprung sofa against the wall. There were china dogs and other ornaments on the mantelpiece, and a framed coloured representation of the Princess Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. On another wall was the King in Naval uniform, and a photograph of Mr Mountford in a group of other bakers and confectioners. There was a picture made with shells and a watercolour of a very green sea at Capri. There were a great many other things, none of them with any pretensions to beauty or the higher life; but the net result was a happy, cheerful room where people sat round and enjoyed themselves whenever there was time to do so.
Mrs Mountford, nee Pagett, was short and round and dark-haired with a few grey streaks in the dark. Her sister, Edith Pagett, was tall and dark and thin. There was hardly any grey in her hair though she was at a guess round about fifty.
'Fancy now,' Edith Pagett was saying. 'Little Miss Gwennie. You must excuse me, m'am, speaking like that, but it does take one back. You used to come into my kitchen, as pretty as could be. "Winnies," you used to say. "Winnies." And what you meant was raisins— though why you called them winnies is more than I can say. But raisins was what you meant and raisins it was I used to give you, sultanas, that is, on account of the stones.'
Gwenda stared hard at the upright figure and the red cheeks and black eyes, trying to remember—to remember—but nothing came. Memory was an inconvenient thing.
'I wish I could remember—' she began.
'It's not likely that you would. Just a tiny little mite, that's all you were. Nowadays nobody seems to want to go in a house where there's children. I can't see it, myself. Children give life to a house, that's what I feel. Though nursery meals are always liable to cause a bit of trouble. But if you know what I mean, m'am, that's the nurse's fault, not the child's. Nurses are nearly always difficult—trays and waiting upon and one thing and another. Do you remember Layonee at all, Miss Gwennie? Excuse me, Mrs Reed, I should say.'
'Leonie? Was she my nurse?'
'Swiss girl, she was. Didn't speak English very well, and very sensitive in her feelings. Used to cry a lot if Lily said something to upset her. Lily was house parlour-maid. Lily Abbott. A young girl and pert in her ways and a bit flighty. Many a game Lily used to have with you, Miss Gwennie. Play peep-bo through the stairs.'
Gwenda gave a quick uncontrollable shiver. The stairs...
Then she said suddenly, 'I remember Lily. She put a bow on the cat.'
'There now, fancy you remembering that! On your birthday it was, and Lily she was all for it, Thomas must have a bow on. Took one off the chocolate box, and Thomas was mad about it. Ran off into the garden and rubbed through the bushes until he got it off. Cats don't like tricks being played on them.'
'A black and white cat.'
'That's right. Poor old Tommy. Caught mice something beautiful. A real proper mouser.' Edith Pagett paused and coughed primly. 'Excuse me running on like this, m'am. But talking brings the old days back. You wanted to ask me something?'
'I like hearing you talk about the old days,' said Gwenda. 'That's just what I want to hear about. You see, I was brought up by relations in New Zealand and of course they could never tell me anything about—about my father, and my stepmother. She—she was nice, wasn't she?'
'Very fond of you, she was. Oh yes, she used to take you down to the beach and play with you in the garden. She was quite young herself, you understand. Nothing but a girl, really. I often used to think she enjoyed the games as much as you did. You see she'd been an only child, in a manner of speaking. Dr Kennedy, her brother, was years and years older and always shut up with his books. When she wasn't away at school, she had to play by herself...'
Miss Marple, sitting back against the wall, asked gently, 'You've lived in Dillmouth all your life, haven't you?'
'Oh yes, madam. Father had the farm up behind the hill—Rylands it was always called. He'd no sons, and Mother couldn't carry on after he died, so she sold it and bought the little fancy shop at the end of the High Street. Yes, I've lived here all my life.'
'And I suppose you know all about everyone in Dillmouth?'
'Well, of course it used to be a small place, then. Though there used always to be a lot of summer visitors as long as I can remember. But nice quiet people who came here every year, not these trippers and charabancs we have nowadays. Good families they were, who'd come back to the same rooms year after year.'
'I suppose,' said Giles, 'that you knew Helen Kennedy before she was Mrs Halliday?'
'Well, I knew of her, so to speak, and I may have seen her about. But I didn't know her proper until I went into service there.'
'And you liked her,' said Miss Marple. Edith Pagett turned towards her.
'Yes, madam, I did,’ she said. There was a trace of defiance in her manner. 'No matter what anybody says. She was as nice as could be to me always. I'd never have believed she'd do what she did do. Took my breath away, it did. Although, mind you, there had been talk—'
She stopped rather abruptly and gave a quick apologetic glance at Gwenda. Gwenda spoke impulsively.
'I want to know,' she said. 'Please don't think I shall mind anything you say. She wasn't my own mother—'
'That's true enough, m'am.'
'And you see, we are very anxious to—to find her. She went away from here—and she seems to have been quite lost sight of. We don't know where she is living now, or even if she is alive. And there are reasons—'
She hesitated and Giles said quickly, 'Legal reasons. We don't know whether to presume death or—or what.'
'Oh, I quite understand, sir. My cousin's husband was missing—after Ypres it was—and there was a lot of trouble about presuming death and that. Real vexing it was for her. Naturally, sir, if there is anything I can tell you that will help in any way—it isn't as if you were strangers. Miss Gwenda and her "winnies". So funny you used to say it.'
'That's very kind of you,' said Giles. 'So, if you don't mind, I'll just fire away. Mrs Halliday left home quite suddenly, I understand?'
'Yes, sir, it was a great shock to all of us—and especially to the Major, poor man. He collapsed completely.'
'I'm going to ask you right out—have you any idea who the man was she went away with?' Edith Pagett shook her head.
'That's what Dr Kennedy asked me—and I couldn't tell him. Lily couldn't either. And of course that Layonee, being a foreigner, didn't know a thing about it.'
'You didn't know,' said Giles. 'But could you make a guess? Now that it's all so long ago, it wouldn't matter —even if the guess is all wrong. You must, surely, have had some suspicion.'
'Well, we had our suspicions... but mind you, it wasn't more than suspicions. And as far as I'm concerned, I never saw anything at all. But Lily who, as I told you, was a sharp kind of girl, Lily had her ideas—had had them for a long time. "Mark my words," she used to say. "That chap's sweet on her. Only got to see him looking at her as she pours out the tea. And does his wife look daggers!"'
'I see. And who was the—er—chap?'
'Now I'm afraid, sir, I just don't remember his name. Not after all these years. A Captain— Esdale—no, that wasn't it—Emery—no. I have a kind of feeling it began with an E. Or it might have been H. Rather an unusual kind of name. But I've never even thought of it for sixteen years. He and his wife were staying at the Royal Clarence.'
'Summer visitors?'
'Yes, but I think that he—or maybe both of them—had known Mrs Halliday before. They came to the house quite often. Anyway, according to Lily he was sweet on Mrs Halliday.'
'And his wife didn't like it.'
'No, sir... But mind you, I never believed for a moment that there was anything wrong about it. And I still don't know what to think.'
Gwenda asked, 'Were they still here—at the Royal Clarence—when—when Helen—my stepmother went away?'
'As far as I recollect they went away just about the same time, a day earlier or a day later—anyway, it was close enough to make people talk. But I never heard anything definite. It was all kept very quiet if it was so. Quite a nine days' wonder Mrs Halliday going off like that, so sudden. But people did say she'd always been flighty—not that I ever saw anything of the kind myself. I wouldn't have been willing to go to Norfolk with them if I'd thought that'
For a moment three people stared at her intently. Then Giles said, 'Norfolk? Were they going to Norfolk?'
'Yes, sir. They'd bought a house there. Mrs Halliday told me about three weeks before— before all this happened. She asked me if I'd come with them when they moved, and I said I would. After all, I'd never been away from Dillmouth, and I thought perhaps I'd like a change—seeing as I liked the family.'
'I never heard they had bought a house in Norfolk,' said Giles.
'Well, it's funny you should say that, sir, because Mrs Halliday seemed to want it kept very quiet. She asked me not to speak about it to anyone at all—so of course I didn't. But she'd been wanting to go away from Dillmouth for some time. She'd been pressing Major Halliday to go, but he liked it at Dillmouth. I even believe he wrote to Mrs Findeyson whom St Catherine's belonged to, asking if she'd consider selling it. But Mrs Halliday was dead against it. She seemed to have turned right against Dillmouth. It's almost as though she was afraid to stop there.'
