“What was this story about the chemist? How did that get known?”
“Well, it wasn’t in Jamestown; I think it was when they were in Martinique. The French, I believe, are more lax than we are in the matter of drugs. This chemist talked to someone, and the story got around. You know how these things happen.”
Miss Marple did. None better.
“He said something about Colonel Hillingdon asking for something and not seeming to know what it was he was asking for. Consulting a piece of paper, you know, on which it was written down. Anyway, as I say, there was talk.”
“But I don’t see quite why Colonel Hillingdon—” Miss Marple frowned in perplexity.
“I suppose he was just being used as a cat’s-paw. Anyway, Gregory Dyson married again in an almost indecently short time. Barely a month later, I understand.”
They looked at each other.
“But there was no real suspicion?” Miss Marple asked.
“Oh no, it was just—well, talk. Of course there may have been absolutely nothing in it.”
“Major Palgrave thought there was.”
“Did he say so to you?”
“I wasn’t really listening very closely,” confessed Miss Marple. “I just wondered if—er—well, if he’d said the same things to you?”
“He did point her out to me one day,” said Miss Prescott.
“Really? He actually pointed her out?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I thought at first it was Mrs. Hillingdon he was pointing out. He wheezed and chuckled a bit and said ‘Look at that woman over there. In my opinion that’s a woman who’s done murder and got away with it.’ I was very shocked, of course. I said, ‘Surely you’re joking, Major Palgrave,’ and he said, ‘Yes, yes, dear lady, let’s call it joking.’ The Dysons and the Hillingdons were sitting at a table quite near to us, and I was afraid they’d overhear. He chuckled and said ‘Wouldn’t care to go to a drink party and have a certain person mix me a cocktail. Too much like supper with the Borgias.'”
“How very interesting,” said Miss Marple.
“Did he mention a—a photograph?”
“I don’t remember . . . Was it some newspaper cutting?”
Miss Marple, about to speak, shut her lips. The sun was momentarily obscured by a shadow. Evelyn Hillingdon paused beside them.
“Good morning,” she said.
“I was wondering where you were,” said Miss Prescott, looking up brightly.
“I’ve been to Jamestown, shopping.”
“Oh, I see.”
Miss Prescott looked round vaguely and Evelyn Hillingdon said: “Oh, I didn’t take Edward with me. Men hate shopping.”
“Did you find anything of interest?”
“It wasn’t that sort of shopping. I just had to go to the chemist.” With a smile and a slight nod she went on down the beach.
“Such nice people, the Hillingdons,” said Miss Prescott, “though she’s not really very easy to know, is she? I mean, she’s always very pleasant and all that, but one never seems to get to know her any better.”
Miss Marple agreed thoughtfully.
“One never knows what she is thinking,” said Miss Prescott.
“Perhaps that is just as well,” said Miss Marple.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh nothing really, only that I’ve always had the feeling that perhaps her thoughts might be rather disconcerting.”
“Oh,” said Miss Prescott, looking puzzled. “I see what you mean.” She went on with a slight change of subject. “I believe they have a very charming place in Hampshire, and a boy—or is it two boys—who have just gone—or one of them—to Winchester.”
“Do you know Hampshire well?”
“No. Hardly at all. I believe their house is somewhere near Alton.”
“I see.” Miss Marple paused and then said, “And where do the Dysons live?”
“California,” said Miss Prescott. “When they are at home, that is. They are great travellers.”
“One really knows so little about the people one meets when one is travelling,” said Miss Marple. “I mean—how shall I put it—one only knows, doesn’t one, what they choose to tell you about themselves. For instance, you don’t really know that the Dysons live in California.”
Miss Prescott looked startled. “I’m sure Mr. Dyson mentioned it.”
“Yes. Yes, exactly. That’s what I mean. And the same thing perhaps with the Hillingdons. I mean when you say that they live in Hampshire, you’re really repeating what they told you aren’t you?”