“Do you remember a nurse–or an ayah?” “Not an ayah–Nannie. I remember Nannie because she stayed for some time — until I was five years old. She cut ducks out of paper. Yes, she was on the boat. She scolded me when I cried because the Captain kissed me and I didn’t like his beard.” “Now that’s very interesting, dear, because you see you are mixing up two different voyages. In one, the Captain had a beard and in the other he had a red face and a scar on his chin.3′ “Yes,” Gwenda considered, “I suppose I must be.” “It seems possible to me,” said Miss Marple, “that when your mother died, your father brought you to England with him first, and that you actually lived at this house. Hillside. You’ve told me, you know, that the house felt like home to you as soon as you got inside it. And that room you chose to sleep in, it was probably your nursery — ” “It was a nursery. There were bars on thewindows.” “You see? It had this pretty gay paper of cornflowers and poppies. Children remember their nursery walls very well.
I’ve always remembered the mauve irises on my nursery walls and yet I believe it was re-papered when I was only three.” “And that’s why I thought at once of the toys, the dolls’ house and the toy cupboards?” “Yes. And the bathroom. The bath with the mahogany surround. You told me that you thought of sailing ducks in it as soon as you saw it.” Gwenda said thoughtfully, “It’s true that I seemed to know right away just where everything was — the kitchen and the linen cupboard. And that I kept thinking there was a door through from the drawing-room to the dining-room. But surely it’s quite impossible that I should come to England and actually buy the identical house I’d lived in long ago?5′ “It’s not impossible, my dear. It’s just a very remarkable coincidence — and remarkable coincidences do happen. Your husband wanted a house on the south coast, you were looking for one, and you passed a house that stirred memories, and attracted you. It was the right size and a reasonable price and so you bought it.
No, it’s not too wildly improbable. Had the house been merely what is called (perhaps rightly) a haunted house, you would have reacted quite differently, I think. But you had no feeling of violence or repulsion except, so you have told me, at one very definite moment, and that was when you were just starting to come down the staircase and looking down into the hall.” Some of the scared expression came back into Gwenda’s eyes.
She said: “You mean–that–that Helen — that that’s true too?” Miss Marple said very gently: “Well, I think so, my dear… I think we must face the position that if the other things are memories, that is a memory too.. /’ “That I really saw someone killed — strangled — and lying there dead?55 “I don’t suppose you knew consciously that she was strangled, that was suggested by the play last night and fits in with your adult recognition of what a blue convulsed face must mean. I think a very young child, creeping down the stairs, would realize violence and death and evil and associate them with certain series of words–for I think there’s no doubt that the murderer actually said those words. It would be very a severe shock to a child. Children are odd little creatures. If they are badly frightened, especially by something they don’t understand, they don’t talk about it. They bottle it up. Seemingly, perhaps, they forget it. But the memory is still there deep down.” Gwenda drew a deep breath.
“And you think that’s what happened to me? But why don’t I remember it all now?” “One can’t remember to order. And often when one tries to, the memory goes further away. But I think there are one or two indications that that is what did happen. For instance when you told me just now about your experience in the theatre last night you used a very revealing turn of words. You said you seemed to be looking through the banisters’ — but normally, you know, one doesn’t look down into a hall through the banisters but over them. Only a child would look through.” “That’s clever of you,” said Gwenda appreciatively.