“I—oh! I didn’t think you were here, Miss Marple.”
“I just stepped into the bathroom for a moment,” said Miss Marple, with dignity and a faint air of Victorian reserve.
In the bathroom, Jackson grinned broadly. Victorian modesty always amused him.
“I just wondered if you’d like me to sit with Molly for a bit,” said Lucky. She looked over towards the bed. “She’s asleep, isn’t she?”
“I think so,” said Miss Marple. “But it’s really quite all right. You go and amuse yourself, my dear. I thought you’d gone on that expedition?”
“I was going,” said Lucky, “but I had such a filthy headache that at the last moment I cried off. So I thought I might as well make myself useful.”
“That was very nice of you,” said Miss Marple. She reseated herself by the bed and resumed her knitting, “but I’m quite happy here.”
Lucky hesitated for a moment or two and then turned away and went out.
Miss Marple waited a moment then tiptoed back into the bathroom, but Jackson had departed, no doubt through the other door. Miss Marple picked up the jar of face cream he had been holding, and slipped it into her pocket.
22
A MAN IN HER LIFE
GETTING a little chat in a natural manner with Dr. Graham was not so easy as Miss Marple had hoped. She was particularly anxious not to approach him directly since she did not want to lend undue importance to the questions she was going to ask him.
Tim was back, looking after Molly and Miss Marple had arranged that she should relieve him there during the time that dinner was served and he was needed in the dining room. He had assured her that Mrs. Dyson was quite willing to take that on, or even Mrs. Hillingdon, but Miss Marple said firmly that they were both young women who liked enjoying themselves and that she herself preferred a light meal early and so that would suit everybody. Tim once again thanked her warmly. Hovering rather uncertainly round the hotel and on the pathway which connected with various bungalows, among them Dr. Graham’s, Miss Marple tried to plan what she was going to do next.
She had a lot of confused and contradictory ideas in her head and if there was one thing that Miss Marple did not like, it was to have confused and contradictory ideas. This whole business had started out clearly enough. Major Palgrave with his regrettable capacity for telling stories, his indiscretion that had obviously been overheard and the corollary, his death within twenty-four hours. Nothing difficult about that, thought Miss Marple. But afterwards, she was forced to admit, there was nothing but difficulty.
Everything pointed in too many different directions at once. Once admit that you didn’t believe a word that anybody had said to you, that nobody could be trusted, and that many of the persons with whom she had conversed here had had regrettable resemblances to certain persons at St. Mary Mead, and where did that lead you? Her mind was increasingly focused on the victim. Someone was going to be killed and she had the increasing feeling that she ought to know quite well who that someone was.
There had been something. Something she had heard? Noticed? Seen?
Something someone had told her that had a bearing on the case. Joan Prescott? Joan Prescott had said a lot of things about a lot of people. Scandal? Gossip? What exactly had Joan Prescott said?
Gregory Dyson, Lucky—Miss Marple’s mind hovered over Lucky. Lucky, she was convinced with a certainty born of her natural suspicions, had been actively concerned in the death of Gregory Dyson’s first wife. Everything pointed to it. Could it be that the predestined victim over whom she was worrying was Gregory Dyson? That Lucky intended to try her luck again with another husband, and for that reason wanted not only freedom but the handsome inheritance that she would get as Gregory Dyson’s widow?
“But really,” said Miss Marple to herself, “this is all pure conjecture. I’m being stupid. I know I’m being stupid. The truth must be quite plain, if one could just clear away the litter. Too much litter, that’s what’s the matter.”