Agatha Christie: Miss Marple's final cases

At first, as I say, Sylvia laughed at me. She thought it a huge joke. Then she didn't think the joke so funny. Finally she didn't think it a joke at all -

And slowly, she began to draw away from me. Not in any physical sense, but she withdrew her secret mind from me. I no longer knew what her thoughts were. She was kind - but sadly, as though from a long distance.

Little by little I realised that she no longer loved me. Her love had died and it was I who had killed it …

The next step was inevitable, I found myself waiting for it - dreading it …

Then Derek Wainwright came into our lives. He had everything that I hadn't. He had brains and a witty tongue. He was good-looking, too, and - I'm forced to admit it - a thoroughly good chap. As soon as I saw him I said to myself, 'This is just the man for Sylvia … '

She fought against it. I know she struggled … but gave her no help. I couldn't. I was entrenched in my gloomy, sullen reserve. I was suffering like hell - and I couldn't stretch out a finger to save myself. I didn't help her. I made things worse. I let loose at her one day - a string of savage, unwarranted abuse. I was nearly mad with jealousy and misery. The things I said were cruel and untrue and I knew while I was saying them how cruel and untrue they were. And yet I took a savage pleasure I saying them …

I remember how Sylvia flushed and shrank …

I drove her to the edge of endurance.

I remember she said, 'This can't go on … '

When I came home that night the house was empty - empty. There was a note - quite in the traditional fashion.

In it she said that she was leaving me - for good. She was going down to Badgeworthy for a day or two. After that she was going to the one person who loved her and needed her. I was to take that as final.

I suppose that up to then I hadn't really believed my own suspicions. This confirmation in black and white of my worst fears sent me raving mad. I went down to Badgeworthy after her as fast as the car would take me.

She had just changed her frock for dinner, I remember, when I burst into the room. I can see her face - startled - beautiful - afraid.

I said, 'No one but me shall ever have you. No one.'

And I caught her throat in my hands and gripped it and bent her backwards.

Suddenly I saw our reflection in the mirror. Sylvia choking and myself strangling her, and the scar on my cheek where the bullet grazed it under the right ear.

No - I didn't kill her. That sudden revelation paralysed me and I loosened my grasp and let her slip on to the floor …

And then I broke down - and she comforted me … Yes, she comforted me.

I told her everything and she told me that by the phrase 'the one person who loved and needed her' she had meant her brother Alan … We saw into each other's hearts that night, and I don't think, from that moment, that we ever drifted away from each other again…

It's a sobering thought to go through life with - that, but for the grace of God and a mirror, one might be a murderer…

One thing did die that night - the devil of jealousy that had possessed me so long…

But I wonder sometimes - suppose I hadn't made that initial mistake - the scar on the left cheek - when really it was the right - reversed by the mirror … Should I have been so sure the man was Charles Crawley? Would I have warned Sylvia? Would she be married to me - or to him?

Or are the past and the future all one?

I'm a simple fellow - and I can't pretend to understand these things - but I saw what I saw - and because of what I saw, Sylvia and I are together in the old-fashioned words - till death do us part. And perhaps beyond…