Agatha Christie - Sleeping Murder

‘It was queer,’ said Gwenda. ‘In his office that day I had an odd sort of feeling that he was like a house with its blinds pulled down…and I even had a fanciful idea that-that there was someone dead in the house.’

She looked at Miss Marple.

‘Does that seem very silly to you?’ she asked.

‘No, my dear. I think that perhaps you were right.’

‘And now,’ said Gwenda, ‘we come to Afflick. Afflick’s Tours. Jackie Afflick who was always too smart by half. The first thing against him is that Dr Kennedy believed he had incipient persecution mania. That is-he was never really normal. He’s told us about himself and Helen-but we’ll agree now that that was all a pack of lies. He didn’t just think she was a cute kid-he was madly, passionately in love with her. But she wasn’t in love with him. She was just amusing herself. She was man mad, as Miss Marple says.’

‘No, dear. I didn’t say that. Nothing of the kind.’

‘Well, a nymphomaniac if you prefer the term. Anyway, she had an affair with Jackie Afflick and then wanted to drop him. He didn’t want to be dropped. Her brother got her out of her scrape, but Jackie Afflick never forgave or forgot. He lost his job-according to him through being framed by Walter Fane. That shows definite signs of persecution mania.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Giles. ‘But on the other hand, if it was true, it’s another point against Fane-quite a valuable point.’

Gwenda went on.

‘Helen goes abroad, and he leaves Dillmouth. But he never forgets her, and when she returns to Dillmouth, married, he comes over and visits her. He said first of all, he came once, but later on, he admits that he came more than once. And, oh Giles, don’t you remember? Edith Pagett used a phrase about “our mystery man in a flashy car”. You see, he came often enough to make the servants talk. But Helen took pains not to ask him to a meal-not to let him meet Kelvin. Perhaps she was afraid of him. Perhaps-’

Giles interrupted.

‘This might cut both ways. Supposing Helen was in love with him-the first man she ever was in love with, and supposing she went on being in love with him. Perhaps they had an affair together and she didn’t let anyone know about it. But perhaps he wanted her to go away with him, and by that time she was tired of him, and wouldn’t go, and so-and so-he killed her. And all the rest of it. Lily said in her letter to Dr Kennedy there was a posh car standing outside that night. It was Jackie Afflick’s car. Jackie Afflick was “on the spot”, too.

‘It’s an assumption,’ said Giles. ‘But it seems to me a reasonable one. But there are Helen’s letters to be worked into our reconstruction. I’ve been puzzling my brains to think of the “circumstances”, as Miss Marple put it, under which she could have been induced to write those letters. It seems to me that to explain them, we’ve got to admit that she actuallyhad a lover, and that she was expecting to go away with him. We’ll test our three possibles again. Erskine first. Say that he still wasn’t prepared to leave his wife or break up his home, but that Helen had agreed to leave Kelvin Halliday and go somewhere where Erskine could come and be with her from time to time. The first thing would be to disarm Mrs Erskine’s suspicions, so Helen writes a couple of letters to reach her brother in due course which will look as though she has gone abroad with someone. That fits in very well with her being so mysterious about who the man in question is.’

‘But if she was going to leave her husband for him, why did he kill her?’ asked Gwenda.

‘Perhaps because she suddenly changed her mind. Decided that she did really care for her husband after all. He just saw red and strangled her. Then, he took the clothes and suitcase and used the letters. That’s a perfectly good explanation covering everything.’

‘The same might apply to Walter Fane. I should imagine that scandal might be absolutely disastrous to a country solicitor. Helen might have agreed to go somewhere nearby where Fane could visit her but pretend that she had gone abroad with someone else. Letters all prepared and then, as you suggested, she changed her mind. Walter went mad and killed her.’

‘What about Jackie Afflick?’

‘It’s more difficult to find a reason for the letters with him. I shouldn’t imagine that scandal would affect him. Perhaps Helen was afraid, not of him, but of my father-and so thought it would be better to pretend she’d gone abroad-or perhaps Afflick’s wife had the money at that time, and he wanted her money to invest in his business. Oh yes, there are lots of possibilities for the letters.’

‘Which one do you fancy, Miss Marple?’ asked Gwenda. ‘I don’t really think Walter Fane-but then-’

Mrs Cocker had just come in to clear away the coffee cups.

‘There now, madam,’ she said. ‘I quite forgot. All this about a poor woman being murdered and you and Mr Reed mixed up in it, not at all the right thing for you, madam, just now. Mr Fane was here this afternoon, asking for you. He waited quite half an hour. Seemed to think you were expecting him.’

‘How strange,’ said Gwenda. ‘What time?’

‘It must have been about four o’clock or just after. And then, after that, there was another gentleman, came in a great big yellow car. He was positive you were expecting him. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Waited twenty minutes. I wondered if you’d had some idea of a tea-party and forgotten it.’

‘No,’ said Gwenda. ‘How odd.’

‘Let’s ring up Fane now,’ said Giles. ‘He won’t have gone to bed.’

He suited the action to the word.

‘Hullo, is that Fane speaking? Giles Reed here. I hear you came round to see us this afternoon-What?-No-no, I’m sure of it-no, how very odd. Yes, I wonder, too.’

He laid down the receiver.

‘Here’s an odd thing. He was rung up in his office this morning. A message left would he come round and see us this afternoon. It was very important.’

Giles and Gwenda stared at each other. Then Gwenda said, ‘Ring up Afflick.’

Again Giles went to the telephone, found the number and rang through. It took a little longer, but presently he got the connection.

‘Mr Afflick? Giles Reed, I-’

Here he was obviously interrupted by a flow of speech from the other end.

At last he was able to say:

‘But we didn’t-no, I assure you-nothing of the kind-Yes-yes, I know you’re a busy man. I wouldn’t have dreamed of-Yes, but look here, who was it rang you-a man?-No, I tell you it wasn’t me. No-no, I see. Well, I agree, it’s quite extraordinary.’

He replaced the receiver and came back to the table.

‘Well, there it is,’ he said. ‘Somebody, a man who said he was me, rang up Afflick and asked him to come over here. It was urgent-big sum of money involved.’

They looked at each other.

‘It could have been either of them,’ said Gwenda. ‘Don’t you see, Giles? Either of them could have killed Lily and come on here as an alibi.’

‘Hardly an alibi, dear,’ put in Miss Marple.

‘I don’t mean quite an alibi, but an excuse for being away from their office. What I mean is, one of them is speaking the truth and one is lying. One of them rang up the other and asked him to come here-to throw suspicion on him-but we don’t know which. It’s a clear issue now between the two of them. Fane or Afflick. I say-Jackie Afflick.’

‘I think Walter Fane,’ said Giles.

They both looked at Miss Marple.

She shook her head.

‘There’s another possibility,’ she said.

‘Of course. Erskine.’

Giles fairly ran across to the telephone.

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Gwenda.

‘Put through a trunk call to Northumberland.’