“No, I think in that case she would still have married Walter Fane. Oh, of course, I’m being stupid. Married man.” She looked triumphantly at Miss Marple.
“Exactly,” said Miss Marple. “That’s how I should reconstruct it. They fell in love, probably desperately in love. But if he was a married man — with children, perhaps—and probably an honourable type — well, that would be the end of it.” “Only she couldn’t go on and marry Walter Fane,” said Gwenda. “So she wired her brother and went home. Yes, that all fits. And on the boat home, she met my father…” She paused, thinking it out.
“Not wildly in love,” she said. “But attracted… and then there was me. They were both unhappy… and they consoled each other. My father told her about my mother, and perhaps she told him about the other man…. Yes — of course — ” She nicked over the pages of the diary. “I knew there was someone — she said as much to me on the boat — someone she loved and couldn’t marry. Yes — that’s it. Helen and my father felt they were alike — and there was me to be looked after, and she thought she could make him happy — and she even thought, perhaps, that she’d be quite happy herself in the end.” She stopped, nodded violently at Miss Marple, and said brightly: “That’s it.” Giles was looking exasperated.
“Really, Gwenda, you make a whole lot of things up and pretend that they actually happened.” “They did happen. They must have happened. And that gives us a third person for X.” “You mean —?” “The married man. We don’t know what he was like. He mayn’t have been nice at all.
He may have been a little mad. He may have followed her here — ” “You’ve just placed him as going out to India.” “Well, people can come back from India, can’t they? Walter Fane did. It was nearly a year later. I don’t say this man did come back, but I say he’s a possibility. You keep harping on who the men were in her life.
Well, we’ve got three of them. Walter Fane, and some young man whose name we don’t know, and a married man — ” “Whom we don’t know exists,” finished Giles.
“We’ll find out,” said Gwenda. “Won’t we. Miss Marple?” “With time and patience,” said Miss Marple, “we may find out a great deal. Now for my contribution. As a result of a very fortunate little conversation in the draper’s today, I have discovered that Edith Pagett who was cook at St. Catherine’s at the time we are interested in, is still in Dillmouth.
Her sister is married to a confectioner here.
I think it would be quite natural, Gwenda, for you to want to see her. She may be able to tell us a good deal.” “That’s wonderful,” said Gwenda. “I’ve thought of something else,” she added. “I’m going to make a new will. Don’t look so grave, Giles, I shall still leave my money to you. But I shall get Walter Fane to do it for me.” “Gwenda,” said Giles. “Do be careful.” “Making a will,” said Gwenda, “is a most normal thing to do. And the line of approach I’ve thought up is quite good.
Anyway, I want to see him. I want to see what he’s like, and if I think that possibly — ” She left the sentence unfinished.
“What surprises me,” said Giles, “is that no one else answered that advertisement of ours–this Edith Pagett, for example — ” Miss Marple shook her head.
“People take a long time to make up their minds about a thing like that in these country districts,” she said. “They’re suspicious. They like to think things over.”
12 LILY KIMBLE
LILY KIMBLE spread a couple of old newspapers on the kitchen table in readiness for draining the chipped potatoes which were hissing in the pan.
Humming tunelessly a popular melody of the day she leaned forward aimlessly studying the newsprint spread out before her.
Then suddenly she stopped humming and called: “Jim—Jim. Listen here, will you r3 Jim Kimble, an elderly man of few words, was washing at the scullery sink. To answer his wife, he used his favourite monosyllable.