Am I being just silly and melodramatic? I suppose I am.
But it did sound like that…
And then – when it was all oer, and they’d got out and tried artificial respiration (but it was no go.
Inspector came to us and said to Grandam: ‘I’m afraid, Mrs Serrocold, there’s no hope.’ Grandam said very quietly: ‘Thank you, Inspector.’
Then she looked at us all longing to help knowing how, and Jolly, looking grtm and tender and to minister as usual, and Stephen stretching out, and funny old Miss Marple so sad.
Grandam looking so small and frail and leaning on
Gina paused and sucked the end of her fountair
She resumed:
About me and Wally – we’re coming back to the Statas soon as we can.
CHAPTER 23
‘What made you guess, Jane?’
Miss Marple took her time about replying. She looked thoughtfully at the other two – Carrie Louise thinner and frailer and yet curiously untouched – and the old man with the sweet smile and the thick white hair. Dr Galbraith, Bishop of Cromer.
The Bishop took Carrie Louise’s hand in his.
‘This has been a great sorrow to you, my poor child, and a great shock.’
‘A sorrow, yes, but not really a shock.’
‘No,’ said Miss Marple. ‘That’s what I discovered, you.know. Everyone kept saying how Carrie Louise lived in another world from this and was out of touch with reality.
But actually, Carrie Louise, it was reality you were in touch with, and not the illusion. You are never deceived by illusion like most of us are. When I suddenly realized that, I saw that I must go by what you thought and felt.
You were quite sure that no one would try to poison you, you couldn’t believe it – and you were quite right not to believe it, because it wasn’t so! You never believed that Edgar would harm Lewis – and again you were right. He never would have harmed Lewis. You were sure that Gina did not love anyone but her husband – and that again was quite true.
‘So therefore, if I was to go by you, all the things that seemed to be true were only illusions. Illusions created for a definite purpose – in the same way that conjurers create illusions, to deceive an audience. We were the audience.
‘Alex Restarick got an inkling of the truth first because he had the chance of seeing things from a different angle – from the outside angle. He was with the Inspector in the drive, and he looked at the house and realized the possibilities of the windows – and he remembered the sound of running feet he had heard that night, and then the timing of the constable showed him what a very short time things take to what we should imagine they would take. The constable panted a lot, and later, thinking of a puffing constable, I remembered that Lewis Serrocold was out of breath that night when he opened the study door. He’d just been running hard, you see.
‘But it was Edgar Lawson that was the pivot of it all to me. There was always something wrong to me about Edgar Lawson. All the things he said and did were exactly right for what he was supposed to be, but he himself wasn’t right. Because he was actually a normal young man playing the part of a schizophrenic – and he was always, as it were, a little larger than life. He was always theatrical.
‘It must have all been very carefully planned and thought out. Lewis must have realized on the occasion of Christian’s last visit that something had aroused his suspicions. And he knew Christian well enough to know that if he suspected he would not rest until he had satisfied himself that his suspicions were either justified or unfounded.’ Carrie Louise stirred.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Christian was like that. Slow and painstaking, but actually very shrewd. I don’t know what it was aroused his suspicions but he started investigating – and he found out the truth.’ The Bishop said: ‘I blame myself for not having been a more conscientious trustee.’ ‘It was never expected of you to understand finance,’ said Carrie Louise. ‘That was originally Mr Gilfoy’s province. Then, when he died, Lewis’s great experience put him in what amounted to complete control. And that, of course, was what went to his head.’ The pink colour came up in her cheeks.