One thing stood out clearly: the presence in the house yesterday of Jackie Afflick and Walter Fane. Either of them could have tampered with the brandy, and what was the purpose of the telephone calls unless it was to afford one or other of them the opportunity to poison the brandy decanter?
Gwenda and Giles had been getting too near the truth. Or had a third person come in from outside, through the open diningroom window perhaps, whilst she and Giles had been sitting in Dr. Kennedy’s house waiting for Lily Kimble to keep her appointment? A third person who had engineered the telephone calls to steer suspicion on the other two?
But a third person, Gwenda thought, didn’t make sense. For a third person, surely, would have telephoned to only one of the two men. A third person would have wanted one suspect, not two. And anyway, who could the third person be? Erskine had definitely been in Northumberland.
No, either Walter Fane had telephoned to Afflick and had pretended to be telephoned to himself. Or else Afflick had telephoned Fane, and had made the same pretence of receiving a summons. One of those two, and the police, who were cleverer and had more resources than she and Giles had, would find out which. And in the meantime both of those men would be watched. They wouldn’t be able to — to try again.
Again Gwenda shivered. It took a little getting used to–the knowledge that someone had tried to kill you. “Dangerous,” Miss Marple had said long ago. But she and Giles had not really taken the idea of danger seriously. Even after Lily Kimble had been killed, it still hadn’t occurred to her that anyone would try and kill her and Giles. Just because she and Giles were getting too near the truth of what had happened eighteen years ago. Working out what must have happened then–and who had made it happen.
Walter Fane and Jackie Afflick.
Which?
Gwenda closed her eyes, seeing them afresh in the light of her new knowledge.
Quiet Walter Fane, sitting in his office — the pale spider in the centre of its web. So quiet, so harmless-looking. A house with its blinds down. Someone dead in the house. Someone dead eighteen years ago — but still there. How sinister the quiet Walter Fane seemed now. Walter Fane who had once flung himself murderously upon his brother. Walter Fane whom Helen had scornfully refused to marry, once here at home, and once again in India.
A double rebuff. A double ignominy.
Walter Fane, so quiet, so unemotional, who could express himself, perhaps, only in sudden murderous violence — as, possibly, quiet Lizzie Borden had once done.
Gwenda opened her eyes. She had convinced herself, hadn’t she, that Walter Fane was the man?
One might, perhaps, just consider Afflick.
With his eyes open, not shut.
His loud check suit, his domineering manner A– just the opposite to Walter Fane — nothing repressed or quiet about Afflick.
But possibly he had put that manner on because of an inferiority complex. It worked that way, experts said. If you weren’t sure of yourself, you had to boast and assert yourself, and be overbearing.
Turned down by Helen because he wasn’t good enough for her. The sore festering, not forgotten. Determination to get on in the world. Persecution. Everyone against him. Discharged from his employment by a faked charge made up by an “enemy”.
Surely that did show that Afflick wasn’t normal. And what a feeling of power a man like that would get out of killing. That good-natured, jovial face of his, it was a cruel face really. He was a cruel man— and his thin pale wife knew it and was afraid of him. Lily Kimble had threatened him and Lily Kimble had died. Gwenda and Giles had interfered—then Gwenda and Giles must die, too, and he would involve Walter Fane who had sacked him long ago. That fitted in very nicely.
Gwenda shook herself, came out of her imaginings, and returned to practicality.
Giles would be home and want his tea.
She must clear away and wash up lunch.
She fetched a tray and took the things out to the kitchen. Everything in the kitchen was exquisitely neat. Mrs. Cocker was really a treasure.