“And she died? Or was it divorce?”
“No. She died. Out here, I believe. I don’t mean this particular island but one of the West Indies islands. There was some sort of trouble, I believe, some kind of scandal or other. He never talks about her. Somebody else told me about it. They didn’t, I gather, get on very well together.”
“And then he married this wife. ‘Lucky’.” Miss Marple said the word with faint dissatisfaction as if to say “Really, a most incredible name!”
“I believe she was a relation of his first wife.”
“Have they known the Hillingdons a great many years?”
“Oh, I think only since the Hillingdons came out here. Three or four years, not more.”
“The Hillingdons seem very pleasant,” said Miss Marple. “Quiet, of course.”
“Yes. They’re both quiet.”
“Everyone says they’re very devoted to each other,” said Miss Marple. The tone of her voice was quite noncommittal but Esther Walters looked at her sharply. “But you don’t think they are?” she said.
“You don’t really think so yourself, do you, my dear?”
“Well, I’ve wondered sometimes . . .”
“Quiet men, like Colonel Hillingdon,” said Miss Marple “are often attracted to flamboyant types.” And she added, after a significant pause “Lucky—such a curious name. Do you think Mr. Dyson has any idea of—of what might be going on?”
“Old scandal-monger,” thought Esther Walters. “Really, these old women!”
She said rather coldly, “I’ve no idea.”
Miss Marple shifted to another subject. “It’s very sad about poor Major Palgrave isn’t it?” she said.
Esther Walters agreed, though in a somewhat perfunctory fashion. “The people I’m really sorry for are the Kendals,” she said.
“Yes, I suppose it is really rather unfortunate when something of that kind happens in an hotel.”
“People come here, you see, to enjoy themselves, don’t they?” said Esther. “To forget about illnesses and deaths and income tax and frozen pipes and all the rest of it. They don’t like—” she went on, with a sudden flash of an entirely different manner—”any reminders of mortality.”
Miss Marple laid down her knitting. “Now that is very well put, my dear,” she said, “very well put indeed. Yes, it is as you say.”
“And you see they’re quite a young couple,” went on Esther Walters. “They only just took over from the Sandersons six months ago and they’re terribly worried about whether they’re going to succeed or not, because they haven’t had much experience.”
“And you think this might be really disadvantageous to them?”
“Well, no, I don’t, frankly,” said Esther Walters. “I don’t think people remember anything for more than a day or two, not in this atmosphere of we’ve-all-come-out-here-to-enjoy-ourselves-let’s-get-on-with-it. I think a death just gives them a jolt for about twenty-four hours or so and then they don’t think of it again once the funeral is over. Not unless they’re reminded of it, that is. I’ve told Molly so, but of course she is a worrier.”
“Mrs. Kendal is a worrier? She always seems so carefree.”
“I think a lot of that is put on,” said Esther slowly. “Actually, I think she’s one of those anxious sort of people who can’t help worrying all the time that things may go wrong.”
“I should have thought he worried more than she did.”
“No, I don’t think so. I think she’s the worrier and he worries because she worries, if you know what I mean.”
“That is interesting,” said Miss Marple.
“I think Molly wants desperately to try and appear very gay and to be enjoying herself. She works at it very hard but the effort exhausts her. Then she has these odd fits of depression. She’s not—well not really well-balanced.”
“Poor child,” said Miss Marple. “There certainly are people like that, and very often outsiders don’t suspect it.”
“No, they put on such a good show, don’t they? However,” Esther added, “I don’t think Molly has really anything to worry about in this case. I mean, people are dying of coronary thrombosis or cerebral haemorrhage or things of that kind all the time nowadays. Far more than they used to, as far as I can see. It’s only food poisoning or typhoid or something like that, that makes people get het up.”