“The things you imagine always seem perfectly plausible,” said Mr. Rafter.
“But I was stupid,” said Miss Marple, “very stupid. Everything fitted in really, you see. Tim Kendal was a very clever man as well as being a very wicked one. He was particularly good at putting about rumours. Half the things I’ve been told here came from him originally, I imagine. There were stories going around about Molly wanting to marry an undesirable young man but I rather fancy that the undesirable young man was actually Tim Kendal himself, though that wasn’t the name he was using then. Her people had heard something, perhaps that his background was rather fishy. So he put on a high indignation act, refused to be taken by Molly to be ‘shown off’ to her people and then he brewed up a little scheme with her which they both thought great fun. She pretended to sulk and pine for him. Then a Mr. Tim Kendal turned up, primed with the names of various old friends of Molly’s people, and they welcomed him with open arms as being the sort of young man who would put the former delinquent one out of Molly’s head. I am afraid Molly and he must have laughed over it a good deal. Anyway, he married her, and with her money he bought out the people who ran this place and they came out here. I should imagine that he ran through her money at a pretty fair rate. Then he came across Esther Walters and he saw a nice prospect of more money.”
“Why didn’t he bump me off?” said Mr. Rafter.
Miss Marple coughed. “I expect he wanted to be fairly sure of Mrs. Walters first. Besides, I mean . . .” She stopped, a little confused.
“Besides, he realised he wouldn’t have to wait long,” said Mr. Rafter, “and it would clearly be better for me to die a natural death. Being so rich. Deaths of millionaires are scrutinised rather carefully, aren’t they, unlike mere wives?”
“Yes, you’re quite right. Such a lot of lies as he told,” said Miss Marple. “Look at the lies he got Molly herself to believe, putting that book on mental disorders in her way. Giving her drugs which would give her dreams and hallucinations. You know, your Jackson was rather clever over that. I think he recognised certain of Molly’s symptoms as being the result of drugs. And he came into the bungalow that day to potter about a bit in the bathroom. That face cream he examined. He might have got some idea from the old tales of witches rubbing themselves with ointments that had belladonna in them. Belladonna in face cream could have produced just that result. Molly would have blackouts. Times she couldn’t account for, dreams of flying through the air. No wonder she got frightened about herself. She had all the signs of mental illness, Jackson was on the right track. Maybe he got the idea from Major Palgrave’s stories about the use of datura by Indian women on their husbands.”
“Major Palgrave!” said Mr. Rafter. “Really, that man!”
“He brought about his own murder,” said Miss Marple, “and that poor girl Victoria’s murder, and he nearly brought about Molly’s murder. But he recognised a murderer all right.”
“What made you suddenly remember about his glass eye?” asked Mr. Rafter curiously.
“Something that Señora de Caspearo said. She talked some nonsense about his being ugly, and having the Evil Eye; and I said it was only a glass eye, and he couldn’t help that, poor man, and she said his eyes looked different ways, they were cross-eyes—which, of course, they were. And she said it brought bad luck. I knew—I knew that I had heard something that day that was important. Last night, just after Lucky’s death, it came to me what it was! And then I realised there was no time to waste . . .”
“How did Tim Kendal come to kill the wrong woman?”
“Sheer chance. I think his plan was this: Having convinced everybody—and that included Molly herself—that she was mentally unbalanced, and after giving her a sizeable dose of the drug he was using, he told her that between them they were going to clear up all these murder puzzles. But she had got to help him. After everyone was asleep, they would go separately and meet at an agreed spot by the creek. He said he had a very good idea who the murderer was, and they would trap him. Molly went off obediently but she was confused and stupefied with the drug she had been given, and it slowed her up. Tim arrived there first and saw what he thought was Molly. Golden hair and pale green shawl. He came up behind her, put his hand over her mouth, and forced her down into the water and held her there.”