“Mr. Dyson has got blood pressure. His wife mentioned it,” said Miss Marple.
“So it was put in Palgrave’s room to suggest that he suffered from blood pressure and to make his death seem natural.”
“Exactly,” said Miss Marple. “And the story was put about, very cleverly, that he had frequently mentioned to people that he had high blood pressure. But you know, it’s very easy to put about a story. Very easy. I’ve seen a lot of it in my time.”
“I bet you have,” said Mr. Rafter.
“It only needs a murmur here and there,” said Miss Marple. “You don’t say it of your own knowledge you just say that Mrs. B. told you that Colonel C. told her. It’s always at second hand or third hand or fourth hand and it’s very difficult to find out who was the original whisperer. Oh yes, it can be done. And the people you say it to go on and repeat it to others as if they know it of their own knowledge.”
“Yes,” said Miss Marple, “I think somebody’s been quite clever.”
“This girl saw something, or knew something and tried blackmail, I suppose,” said Mr. Rafter.
“She mayn’t have thought of it as blackmail,” said Miss Marple. “In these large hotels, there are often things the maids know that some people would rather not have repeated. And so they hand out a larger tip or a little present of money. The girl possibly didn’t realise at first the importance of what she knew.”
“Still, she got a knife in her back all right,” said Mr. Rafter brutally.
“Yes. Evidently someone couldn’t afford to let her talk.”
“Well? Let’s hear what you think about it all.”
Miss Marple looked at him thoughtfully.
“Why should you think I know any more than you do, Mr. Rafter?”
“Probably you don’t,” said Mr. Rafter, “but I’m interested to hear your ideas about what you do know.”
“But why?”
“There’s not very much to do out here,” said Mr. Rafter, “except make money.”
Miss Marple looked slightly surprised.
“Make money? Out here?”
“You can send out half a dozen cables in code every day if you like,” said Mr. Rafter. “That’s how I amuse myself.”
“Takeover bids?” Miss Marple asked doubtfully, in the tone of one who speaks a foreign language.
“That kind of thing,” agreed Mr. Rafter. “Pitting your wits against other people’s wits. The trouble is it doesn’t occupy enough time, so I’ve got interested in this business. It’s aroused my curiosity. Palgrave spent a good deal of his time talking to you. Nobody else would be bothered with him, I expect. What did he say?”
“He told me a good many stories,” said Miss Marple.
“I know he did. Damn boring, most of them. And you hadn’t only got to hear them once. If you got anywhere within range you heard them three or four times over.”
“I know,” said Miss Marple. “I’m afraid that does happen when gentlemen get older.”
Mr. Rafter looked at her very sharply.
“I don’t tell stories,” he said. “Go on. It started with one of Palgrave’s stories, did it?”
“He said he knew a murderer,” said Miss Marple. “There’s nothing really special about that,” she added in her gentle voice, “because I suppose it happens to nearly everybody.”
“I don’t follow you,” said Mr. Rafter.
“I don’t mean specifically,” said Miss Marple. “but surely, Mr. Rafter, if you cast over in your mind your recollections of various events in your life, hasn’t there nearly always been an occasion when somebody has made some careless reference such as ‘Oh yes I knew the So-and-So quite well—he died very suddenly and they always say his wife did him in, but I daresay that’s just gossip’. You’ve heard people say something like that, haven’t you?”
‘Well, I suppose so—yes, something of the kind. But not well, not seriously.”
“Exactly,” said Miss Marple, “but Major Palgrave was a very serious man. I think he enjoyed telling this story. He said he had a snapshot of the murderer. He was going to show it to me but—actually—he didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because he saw something,” said Miss Marple. “Saw someone, I suspect. His face got very red and he shoved back the snapshot into his wallet and began talking on another subject.”