you’re frightened for me … I wish you’d tell
me.”
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“I can’t tell you. I don’t know anything.
But I wish to God you’d go away from here.”
“Darling,” said Pat, “I’m not going. I’m
staying here. For better, for worse. That’s
how I feel about it.” She added, with a
sudden catch in her voice, “Only with me it’s
always for worse.”
“What on earth do you mean. Pat?”
“I bring bad luck. That’s what I mean. I
bring bad luck to anybody I come in contact
with.”
“My dear adorable nitwit, you haven’t
brought bad luck to me. Look how after I
married you the old man sent for me to come
home and make friends with him.”
“Yes, and what happened when you did
come home? I tell you, I’m unlucky to
people.”
“Look here, my sweet, you’ve got a thing
about all this. It’s superstition, pure and
simple.”
“I can’t help it. Some people do bring bad
luck. I’m one of them.”
Lance took her by the shoulders and shook
her violently. “You’re my Pat and to be
married to you is the greatest luck in the
world. So get that into your silly head.”
Then, calming down, he said in a more sober
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voice, “But, seriously. Pat, do be very
careful. If there is someone unhinged round
here, I don’t want you to be the one who
stops the bullet or drinks the henbane.”
“Or drinks the henbane as you say.”
“When I’m not around, stick to that old
lady. What’s-her-name Marple. Why do you
think Aunt Effie asked her to stay here?”
“Goodness knows why Aunt EfFie does
anything. Lance, how long are we going to
stay here?”
Lance shrugged his shoulders.
“Difficult to say.”
“I don’t think,” said Pat, “that we’re really
awfully welcome.” She hesitated as she spoke
the words. “The house belongs to your
brother now, I suppose? He doesn’t really
want us here, does he?”
Lance chuckled suddenly.
“Not he, but he’s got to stick us for the
present at any rate.”
“And afterwards? What are we going to do,
Lance? Are we going back to East Africa or
what?”
“Is that what you’d like to do. Pat?”
She nodded vigorously.
“That’s lucky,” said Lance, “because it’s
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what I’d like to do, too. I don’t take much to
this country nowadays.”
Pat’s face brightened.
“How lovely. From what you said the other
day, I was afraid you might want to stop
here.”
A devilish glint appeared in Lance’s eyes.
“You’re to hold your tongue about our
plans. Pat,” he said. “I have it in my mind to
twist my dear brother Percival’s tail a bit.”
“Oh, Lance, do be careful.”
“I’ll be careful, my sweet, but I don’t see
why old Percy should get away with everything.”
II
With her head a little on one side looking like
an amiable cockatoo. Miss Marple sat in the
large drawing-room listening to Mrs. Percival
Fortescue. Miss Marple looked particularly
incongruous in the drawing-room. Her light
spare figure was alien to the vast brocaded
sofa in which she sat with its many-hued
cushions strewn round her. Miss Marple sat
very upright because she had been taught to
use a back-board as a girl, and not to loll. In
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a large armchair beside her, dressed in elaborate
black was Mrs. Percival, talking away
volubly at nineteen to the dozen. “Exactly,”
thought Miss Marple, “like poor Mrs.
Emmett, the bank manager’s wife.” She
remembered how one day Mrs. Emmett had
come to call and talk about the selling
arrangements for Poppy Day, and how after
the preliminary business had been settled, Mrs. Emmett had suddenly begun to talk and
talk and talk. Mrs. Emmett occupied rather a
difficult position in St. Mary Mead. She did
not belong to the old guard of ladies in
reduced circumstances who lived in neat
houses round the church, and who knew intimately
all the ramifications of the county
families even though they might not be
strictly county themselves. Mr. Emmett, the
bank manager, had undeniably married beneath
him and the result was that his wife was
in a position of great loneliness since she
could not, of course, associate with the wives