The police might have asked a lot of awkward questions and made a lot of awkward inquiries as to times and places.
No, his plan was simpler and, I think, more devilish. He only had Halliday to convince. First, that he had killed his wife.
Secondly that he was mad. He persuaded Halliday to go into a mental home, but I don’t think he really wanted to convince him that it was all a delusion. Your father accepted that theory, Gwennie, mainly, I should imagine, for your sake. He continued to believe that he had killed Helen.
He died believing that.” “Wicked,55 said Gwenda. “Wicked– wicked — wicked.” “Yes,” said Miss Marple. “There isn’t really any other word. And I think, Gwenda, that that is why your childish impression of what you saw remained so strong. It was real evil that was in the air that night.” “But the letters,” said Giles; “Helen’s letters? They were in her handwriting, so they couldn’t be forgeries.” “Of course they were forgeries! But that is where he overreached himself. He was so anxious, you see, to stop you and Giles making investigations. He could probably imitate Helen’s handwriting quite nicely — but it wouldn’t fool an expert. So the sample of Helen’s handwiting he sent you with the letter wasn’t her handwriting either.
He wrote it himself. So naturally it tallied.” “Goodness,” said Giles.cc! never thought of that.” “No,” said Miss Marple. “You believed what he said. It really is very dangerous to believe people. / never have for years.” “And the brandy?” “He did that the day he came to Hillside with Helen’s letter and talked to me in the garden. He was waiting in the house while Mrs. Cocker came out and told me he was there. It would only take a minute.” “Good Lord,” said Giles. “And he urged me to take Gwenda home and give her brandy after we were at the police station when Lily Kimble was killed. How did he arrange to meet her earlier?” “That was very simple. The original letter he sent her asked her to meet him at Woodleigh Camp and come to Matchings Halt by the two-five train from Dillmouth Junction. He came out of the copse of trees, probably, and accosted her as she was going up the lane — and strangled her.
Then he simply substituted the letter you all saw for the letter she had with her (and which he had asked her to bring because of the directions in it) and went home to prepare for you and play out the little comedy of waiting for Lily.” “And Lily really was threatening him?
Her letter didn’t sound as though she was.
Her letter sounded as though she suspected Afflick.” “Perhaps she did. But Leonie, the Swiss girl, had talked to Lily, and Leonie was the one danger to Kennedy. Because she looked out of the nursery window and saw him digging in the garden. In the morning he talked to her, told her bluntly that Major Halliday had killed his wife — that Major Halliday was insane, and that he, Kennedy, was hushing up the matter for the child’s sake. If, however, Leonie felt she ought to go to the police, she must do so, but it would be very unpleasant for her — and so on.
“Leonie took immediate fright at the mention of the police. She adored you and had implicit faith in what M. Ie docteur thought best. Kennedy paid her a handsome sum of money and hustled her back to Switzerland. But before she went, she hinted something to Lily as to your father’s having killed his wife and that she had seen the body buried. That fitted in with Lily’s ideas at the time. She took it for granted that it was Kelvin Halliday Leonie had seen digging the grave.” “But Kennedy didn’t know that, of courser said Giles.
“Of course not. When he got Lily’s letter the words in it that frightened him were that Leonie had told Lily what she had seen out of the window and the mention of the car outside.55 “The car? Jackie Afflick’s car?” “Another misunderstanding. Lily remembered, or thought she remembered, a car like Jackie Afflick’s being outside in the road. Already her imagination had got to work on the Mystery Man who came over to see Mrs. Halliday. With the hospital next door, no doubt a good many cars did park along this road. But you must remember that the doctors car was actually standing outside the hospital that night — he probably leaped to the conclusion that she meant his car. The adjective posh was meaningless to him.” “I see,” said Giles. “Yes, to a guilty conscience that letter of Lily’s might look like blackmail. But how do you know all about Leonie?” Her lips pursed close together. Miss Marple said: “He went–right over the edge, you know. As soon as the men Inspector Primer had left rushed in and seized him, he went over the whole crime again and again–everything he’d done.