Miss Marple was also present. As usual she sat and knitted and listened to what went on, and very occasionally joined in the conversation. When she did so, everyone was surprised because they had usually forgotten that she was there!
Evelyn Hillingdon looked at her indulgently, and thought that she was a nice old pussy.
Señora de Caspearo rubbed some more oil on her long beautiful legs and hummed to herself. She was not a woman who spoke much. She looked discontentedly at the flask of sun oil. “This is not so good as Frangipani,” she said, sadly. “One cannot get it here. A pity.” Her eyelids drooped again.
“Are you going in for your dip now, Mr. Rafter?” asked Esther Walters tactfully.
“I’ll go in when I’m ready,” said Mr. Rafter, snappishly.
“It’s half past eleven,” said Mrs. Walters.
“What of it?” said Mr. Rafter. “Think I’m the kind of man to be tied by the clock? Do this at the hour, do this at twenty minutes past, do that at twenty to—bah!”
Mrs. Walters had been in attendance on Mr. Rafter long enough to have adopted her own formula for dealing with him. She knew that he liked a good space of time in which to recover from the exertion of bathing and she had therefore reminded him of the time, allowing a good ten minutes for him to rebut her suggestion and then be able to adopt it without seeming to do so.
“I don’t like these espadrilles,” said Mr. Rafter raising a foot and looking at it. “I told that fool Jackson so. The man never pays attention to a word I say.”
“I’ll fetch you some others, shall I, Mr. Rafter?”
“No, you won’t, you’ll sit here and keep quiet. I hate people rushing about like clucking hens.”
Evelyn shifted slightly in the warm sand, stretching out her arms. Miss Marple, intent on her knitting—or so it seemed—stretched out a foot, then hastily she apologised. “I’m so sorry, so very sorry, Mrs. Hillingdon. I’m afraid I kicked you.”
“Oh, it’s quite all right,” said Evelyn. “This beach gets rather crowded.”
“Oh, please don’t move. Please. I’ll move my chair a little back so that I won’t do it again.”
As Miss Marple resettled herself, she went on talking in a childish and garrulous manner. “It seems so wonderful to be here. I’ve never been to the West Indies before, you know. I thought it was the kind of place I never should come to and here I am. All by the kindness of my dear nephew. I suppose you know this part of the world very well, don’t you, Mrs. Hillingdon?”
“I have been in this island once or twice before and of course in most of the others.”
“Oh yes. Butterflies, isn’t it, and wild flowers? You and your—your friends—or are they relations?”
“Friends. Nothing more.”
“And I suppose you go about together a great deal because of your interests being the same?”
“Yes. We’ve travelled together for some years now.”
“I suppose you must have had some rather exciting adventures sometimes?”
“I don’t think so,” said Evelyn. Her voice was unaccentuated, slightly bored. “Adventures always seem to happen to other people.” She yawned.
“No dangerous encounters with snakes or with wild animals or with natives gone berserk?” (“What a fool I sound,”) thought Miss Marple.
“Nothing worse than insect bites,” Evelyn assured her.
“Poor Major Palgrave, you know, was bitten by a snake once,” said Miss Marple, making a purely fictitious statement.
“Was he?”
“Did he never tell you about it?”
“Perhaps. I don’t remember.”
“I suppose you knew him quite well, didn’t you?”
“Major Palgrave? No, hardly at all.”
“He always had so many interesting stories to tell.”
“Ghastly old bore,” said Mr. Rafter. “Silly fool, too. He needn’t have died if he’d looked after himself properly.”
“Oh come now, Mr. Rafter,” said Mrs. Walters.
“I know what I’m talking about. If you look after your health properly you’re all right anywhere. Look at me. The doctors gave me up years ago. All right, I said, I’ve got my rules of health and I shall keep to them. And here I am.” He looked round proudly. It did indeed seem rather a miracle that he should be there.