“Oh I do see that,” said Miss Marple. “I couldn’t agree with you more. That’s what makes me uneasy. So very uneasy that I really couldn’t sleep last night.”
Mr. Rafter stared at her. “Let’s hear what’s on your mind,” he said quietly.
“I may be entirely wrong,” said Miss Marple hesitantly.
“Probably you are,” said Mr. Rafter with his usual lack of courtesy, “but at any rate let’s hear what you’ve thought up in the small hours.”
“There could be a very powerful motive if—”
“If what?”
“If there was going to be—quite soon—another murder.”
Mr. Rafter stared at her. He tried to pull himself up a little in his chair.
“Let’s get this clear,” he said.
“I am so bad at explaining.” Miss Marple spoke rapidly and rather incoherently. A pink flush rose to her cheeks. “Supposing there was a murder planned. If you remember, the story Major Palgrave told me concerned a man whose wife died under suspicious circumstances. Then, after a certain lapse of time, there was another murder under exactly the same circumstances. A man of a different name had a wife who died in much the same way and the doctor who was telling it recognised him as the same man, although he’d changed his name. Well, it does look, doesn’t it, as though this murderer might be the kind of murderer who made a habit of the thing?”
“You mean like Smith, Brides in the Bath, that kind of thing. Yes?”
“As far as I can make out,” said Miss Marple, “and from what I have heard and read, a man who does a wicked thing like this and gets away with it the first time, is, alas, encouraged. He thinks it’s easy, he thinks he’s clever. And so he repeats it. And in the end, as you say, like Smith and the Brides in the Bath, it becomes a habit. Each time in a different place and each time the man changes his name. But the crimes themselves are all very much alike. So it seems to me, although I may be quite wrong—”
“But you don’t think you are wrong, do you?” Mr. Rafter put it shrewdly.
Miss Marple went on without answering. “—that if that were so and if this—this person had got things all lined up for a murder out here, for getting rid of another wife, say, and if this is crime three or four, well then, the Major’s story would matter because the murderer couldn’t afford to have any similarity pointed out. If you remember, that was exactly the way Smith got caught. The circumstances of a crime attracted the attention of somebody who compared it with a newspaper clipping of some other case. So you do see, don’t you, that if this wicked person has got a crime planned, arranged, and shortly about to take place, he couldn’t afford to let Major Palgrave go about telling this story and showing that snapshot.”
She stopped and looked appealingly at Mr. Rafter.
“So you see he had to do something very quickly, as quickly as possible.”
Mr. Rafter spoke, “In fact, that very same night, eh?”
“Yes,” said Miss Marple.
“Quick work,” said Mr. Rafter, “but it could be done. Put the tablets in old Palgrave’s room, spread the blood pressure rumour about and add a little of our fourteen syllable drug to a Planters Punch. Is that it?”
“Yes. But that’s all over. We needn’t worry about it. It’s the future. It’s now. With Major Palgrave out of the way and the snapshot destroyed, this man will go on with his murder as planned.”
Mr. Rafter whistled.
“You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?”
Miss Marple nodded. She said in a most unaccustomed voice, firm and almost dictatorial, “And we’ve got to stop it. You’ve got to stop it, Mr. Rafter.”
“Me?” said Mr. Rafter, astonished, “why me?”
“Because you’re rich and important,” said Miss Marple, simply. “People will take notice of what you say or suggest. They wouldn’t listen to me for a moment. They would say that I was an old lady imagining things.”
“They might at that,” said Mr. Rafter. “More fools if they did. I must say, though, that nobody would think you had any brains in your head to hear your usual line of talk. Actually, you’ve got a logical mind. Very few women have.” He shifted himself uncomfortably in his chair. “Where the hell’s Esther or Jackson?” he said. “I need resettling. No, it’s no good your doing it. You’re not strong enough. I don’t know what they mean, leaving me alone like this.”