“Not particularly nice now,” said Miss Marple. “When I could attend to it myself—”
“Oh I know. I understand just what you feel. I suppose you’ve got one of those—I have a lot of names for them, mostly very rude—elderly chaps who say they know all about gardening. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t know a thing about it. They come and have a lot of cups of tea and do a little very mild weeding. They’re quite nice, some of them, but all the same it does make one’s temper rise.” She added, “I’m quite a keen gardener myself.”
“Do you live here?” asked Miss Marple, with some interest.
“Well, I’m boarding with a Mrs. Hastings. I think I’ve heard her speak of you. You’re Miss Marple, aren’t you?”
“Oh yes.”
“I’ve come as a sort of companion-gardener. My name is Bartlett, by the way. Miss Bartlett. There’s not really much to do there,” said Miss Bartlett. “She goes in for annuals and all that. Nothing you can really get your teeth into.” She opened her mouth and showed her teeth when making this remark. “Of course I do a few odd jobs as well. Shopping, you know, and things like that. Anyway, if you want any time put in here, I could put in an hour or two for you. I’d say I might be better than any chap you’ve got now.”
“That would be easy,” said Miss Marple. “I like flowers best. Don’t care so much for vegetables.”
“I do vegetables for Mrs. Hastings. Dull but necessary. Well, I’ll be getting along.” Her eyes swept over Miss Marple from head to foot, as though memorizing her, then she nodded cheerfully and tramped off.
Mrs. Hastings? Miss Marple couldn’t remember the name of any Mrs. Hastings. Certainly Mrs. Hastings was not an old friend. She had certainly never been a gardening chum. Ah, of course, it was probably those newly built houses at the end of Gibraltar Road. Several families had moved in in the last year. Miss Marple sighed, looked again with annoyance at the antirrhinums, saw several weeds which she yearned to root up, one or two exuberant suckers she would like to attack with her secateurs, and finally, sighing, and manfully resisting temptation, she made a detour round by the lane and returned to her house. Her mind recurred again to Mr. Rafiel. They had been, he and she—what was the title of that book they used to quote so much when she was young? Ships that pass in the night. Rather apt it was really, when she came to think of it. Ships that pass in the night … It was in the night that she had gone to him to ask—no, to demand—help. To insist, to say no time must be lost. And he had agreed, and put things in train at once! Perhaps she had been rather lionlike on that occasion? No. No, that was quite wrong. It had not been anger she had felt. It had been insistence on something that was absolutely imperative to be put in hand at once. And he’d understood.
Poor Mr. Rafiel. The ship that had passed in the night had been an interesting ship. Once you got used to his being rude, he might have been quite an agreeable man? No! She shook her head. Mr. Rafiel could never have been an agreeable man. Well, she must put Mr. Rafiel out of her head.
Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing;
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness.
She would probably never think of him again. She would look out perhaps to see if there was an obituary of him in The Times. But she did not think it was very likely. He was not a very well known character, she thought. Not famous. He had just been very rich. Of course, many people did have obituaries in the paper just because they were very rich; but she thought that Mr. Rafiel’s richness would possibly not have been of that kind. He had not been prominent in any great industry, he had not been a great financial genius, or a noteworthy banker. He had just all his life made enormous amounts of money….
Two
CODE WORD NEMESIS
I
It was about a week or so after Mr. Rafiel’s death that Miss Marple picked up a letter from her breakfast tray, and looked at it for a moment before opening it. The other two letters that had come by this morning’s post were bills, or just possibly receipts for bills. In either case they were not of any particular interest. This letter might be.
A London postmark, typewritten address, a long, good quality envelope. Miss Marple slit it neatly with the paper knife she always kept handy on her tray. It was headed, Messrs. Broadribb and Schuster, Solicitors and Notaries Public, with an address in Bloomsbury. It asked her, in suitable courteous and legal phraseology, to call upon them one day in the following week, at their office, to discuss a proposition that might be to her advantage. Thursday, the 24th was suggested. If that date was not convenient, perhaps she would let them know what date she would be likely to be in London in the near future. They added that they were the solicitors to the late Mr. Rafiel, with whom they understood she had been acquainted.
Miss Marple frowned in some slight puzzlement. She got up rather more slowly than usual, thinking about the letter she had received. She was escorted downstairs by Cherry, who was meticulous in hanging about in the hall so as to make sure that Miss Marple did not come to grief walking by herself down the staircase, which was of the old-fashioned kind which turned a sharp corner in the middle of its run.
“You take very good care of me, Cherry,” said Miss Marple.
“Got to,” said Cherry, in her usual idiom. “Good people are scarce.”
“Well, thank you for the compliment,” said Miss Marple, arriving safely with her last foot on the ground floor.
“Nothing the matter, is there?” asked Cherry. “You look a bit rattled like, if you know what I mean.”
“No, nothing’s the matter,” said Miss Marple. “I had rather an unusual letter from a firm of solicitors.”
“Nobody is suing you for anything, are they?” said Cherry, who was inclined to regard solicitors’ letters as invariably associated with disaster of some kind.
“Oh no, I don’t think so,” said Miss Marple. “Nothing of that kind. They just asked me to call upon them next week in London.”
“Perhaps you’ve been left a fortune,” said Cherry, hopefully.
“That, I think, is very unlikely,” said Miss Marple.
“Well, you never know,” said Cherry.
Settling herself in her chair, and taking her knitting out of its embroidered knitting bag, Miss Marple considered the possibility of Mr. Rafiel having left her a fortune. It seemed even more unlikely than when Cherry had suggested it. Mr. Rafiel, she thought, was not that kind of a man.
It was not possible for her to go on the date suggested. She was attending a meeting of the Women’s Institute to discuss the raising of a sum for building a small additional couple of rooms. But she wrote, naming a day in the following week. In due course her letter was answered and the appointment definitely confirmed. She wondered what Messrs. Broadribb and Schuster were like. The letter had been signed by J. R. Broadribb who was, apparently, the senior partner. It was possible, Miss Marple thought, that Mr. Rafiel might have left her some small memoir or souvenir in his will. Perhaps some book on rare flowers that had been in his library and which he thought would please an old lady who was keen on gardening. Or perhaps a cameo brooch which had belonged to some great-aunt of his. She amused herself by these fancies. They were only fancies, she thought, because in either case it would merely be a case of the Executors—if these lawyers were the Executors—forwarding her by post any such object. They would not have wanted an interview.
“Oh well,” said Miss Marple, “I shall know next Tuesday.”
II
“Wonder what she’ll be like,” said Mr. Broadribb to Mr. Schuster, glancing at the clock as he did so.
“She’s due in a quarter of an hour,” said Mr. Schuster. “Wonder if she’ll be punctual?”
“Oh, I should think so. She’s elderly, I gather, and much more punctilious than the young scatterbrains of today.”
“Fat or thin, I wonder?” said Mr. Schuster.
Mr. Broadribb shook his head.
“Didn’t Rafiel ever describe her to
you?” asked Mr. Schuster.
“He was extraordinarily cagey in everything he said about her.”
“The whole thing seems very odd to me,” said Mr. Schuster. “If we only knew a bit more about what it all meant….”
“It might be,” said Mr. Broadribb thoughtfully, “something to do with Michael.”
“What? After all these years? Couldn’t be. What put that into your head? Did he mention—”
“No, he didn’t mention anything. Gave me no clue at all as to what was in his mind. Just gave me instructions.”
“Think he was getting a bit eccentric and all that towards the end?”
“Not in the least. Mentally he was a brilliant as ever. His physical ill health never affected his brain, anyway. In the last two months of his life he made an extra two hundred thousand pounds. Just like that.”
“He had a flair,” said Mr. Schuster with due reverence. “Certainly, he always had a flair.”
“A great financial brain,” said Mr. Broadribb, also in a tone of reverence suitable to the sentiment. “Not many like him, more’s the pity.”
A buzzer went on the table. Mr. Schuster picked up the receiver. A female voice said,
“Miss Jane Marple is here to see Mr. Broadribb by appointment.”
Mr. Schuster looked at his partner, raising an eyebrow for an affirmative or a negative. Mr. Broadribb nodded.
“Show her up,” said Mr. Schuster. And he added, “Now we’ll see.”
Miss Marple entered a room where a middle-aged gentleman with a thin, spare body and a long rather melancholy face rose to greet her. This apparently was Mr. Broadribb, whose appearance somewhat contradicted his name. With him was a rather younger middle-aged gentleman of definitely more ample proportions. He had black hair, small keen eyes and a tendency to a double chin.
“My partner, Mr. Schuster,” Mr. Broadribb presented.
“I hope you didn’t feel the stairs too much,” said Mr. Schuster. “Seventy if she is a day—nearer eighty perhaps,” he was thinking in his own mind.
“I always get a little breathless going upstairs.”
“An old-fashioned building this,” said Mr. Broadribb apologetically. “No lift. Ah well, we are a very long established firm and we don’t go in for as many of the modern gadgets as perhaps our clients expect of us.”
“This room has very pleasant proportions,” said Miss Marple, politely.
She accepted the chair that Mr. Broadribb drew forward for her. Mr. Schuster, in an unobtrusive sort of way, left the room.
“I hope that chair is comfortable,” said Mr. Broadribb. “I’ll pull that curtain slightly, shall I? You may feel the sun a little too much in your eyes.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Marple, gratefully.
She sat there, upright as was her habit. She wore a light tweed suit, a string of pearls and a small velvet toque. To himself Mr. Broadribb was saying, “The Provincial Lady. A good type. Fluffy old girl. May be scatty—may not. Quite a shrewd eye. I wonder where Rafiel came across her. Somebody’s aunt, perhaps, up from the country?” While these thoughts passed through his head, he was making the kind of introductory small talk relating to the weather, the unfortunate effects of late frosts early in the year and such other remarks as he considered suitable.
Miss Marple made the necessary responses and sat placidly awaiting the opening of preliminaries to the meeting.
“You will be wondering what all this is about,” said Mr. Broadribb, shifting a few papers in front of him and giving her a suitable smile. “You’ve heard, no doubt, of Mr. Rafiel’s death, or perhaps you saw it in the paper.”
“I saw it in the paper,” said Miss Marple.
“He was, I understand, a friend of yours.”
“I met him first just over a year ago,” said Miss Marple. “In the West Indies,” she added.
“Ah. I remember. He went out there, I believe, for his health. It did him some good, perhaps, but he was already a very ill man, badly crippled, as you know.”
“Yes,” said Miss Marple.
“You knew him well?”
“No,” said Miss Marple, “I would not say that. We were fellow visitors in a hotel. We had occasional conversations. I never saw him again after my return to England. I live very quietly in the country, you see, and I gather that he was completely absorbed in business.”
“He continued transacting business right up—well, I could almost say right up to the day of his death,” said Mr. Broadribb. “A very fine financial brain.”
“I am sure that was so,” said Miss Marple. “I realized quite soon that he was a—well, a very remarkable character altogether.”
“I don’t know if you have any idea—whether you’ve been given any idea at some time by Mr. Rafiel—as to what this proposition is that I have been instructed to put up to you?”
“I cannot imagine,” said Miss Marple, “what possible kind of proposition Mr. Rafiel might have wanted to put up to me. It seems most unlikely.”
“He had a very high opinion of you.”
“That is kind of him, but hardly justified,” said Miss Marple. “I am a very simple person.”
“As you no doubt realize, he died a very rich man. The provisions of his Will are on the whole fairly simple. He had already made dispositions of his fortune some time before his death. Trusts and other beneficiary arrangements.”
“That is, I believe, very usual procedure nowadays,” said Miss Marple, “though I am not at all cognizant of financial matters myself.”
“The purpose of this appointment,” said Mr. Broadribb, “is that I am instructed to tell you that a sum of money has been laid aside to become yours absolutely at the end of one year, but conditional on your accepting a certain proposition, with which I am to make you acquainted.”
He took from the table in front of him a long envelope. It was sealed. He passed it across the table to her.
“It would be better, I think, that you should read for yourself of what this consists. There is no hurry. Take your time.”
Miss Marple took her time. She availed herself of a small paper knife which Mr. Broadribb handed to her, slit up the envelope, took out the enclosure, one sheet of typewriting, and read it. She folded it up again, then reread it and looked at Mr. Broadribb.
“This is hardly very definite. Is there no more definite elucidation of any kind?”
“Not so far as I am concerned. I was to hand you this, and tell you the amount of the legacy. The sum in question is twenty thousand pounds free of legacy duty.”
Miss Marple sat looking at him. Surprise had rendered her speechless. Mr. Broadribb said no more for the moment. He was watching her closely. There was no doubt of her surprise. It was obviously the last thing Miss Marple had expected to hear. Mr. Broadribb wondered what her first words would be. She looked at him with the directness, the severity that one of his own aunts might have done. When she spoke it was almost accusingly.
“That is a very large sum of money,” said Miss Marple.
“Not quite so large as it used to be,” said Mr. Broadribb (and just restrained himself from saying, “Mere chicken feed nowadays”).
“I must admit,” said Miss Marple, “that I am amazed. Frankly, quite amazed.”
She picked up the document and read it carefully through again.
“I gather you know the terms of this?” she said.
“Yes. It was dictated to me personally by Mr. Rafiel.”
“Did he not give you any explanation of it?”
“No, he did not.”
“You suggested, I suppose, that it might be better if he did,” said Miss Marple. There was a slight acidity in her voice now.
Mr. Broadribb smiled faintly.
“You are quite right. That is what I did. I said that you might find it difficult to—oh, to understand exactly what he was driving at.”
“Very remarkable,” said Miss Marple.
“There is no need, of course,” said Mr. Broadribb, “for you to
give me an answer now.”
“No,” said Miss Marple, “I should have to reflect upon this.”
“It is, as you have pointed out, quite a substantial sum of money.”
“I am old,” said Miss Marple. “Elderly, we say, but old is a better word. Definitely old. It is both possible and indeed probable that I might not live as long as a year to earn this money, in the rather doubtful case that I was able to earn it.”
“Money is not to be despised at any age,” said Mr. Broadribb.
“I could benefit certain charities in which I have an interest,” said Miss Marple, “and there are always people. People whom one wishes one could do a little something for but one’s own funds do not admit of it. And then I will not pretend that there are not pleasures and desires—things that one has not been able to indulge in or to afford—I think Mr. Rafiel knew quite well that to be able to do so, quite unexpectedly, would give an elderly person a great deal of pleasure.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mr. Broadribb. “A cruise abroad, perhaps? One of these excellent tours as arranged nowadays. Theatres, concerts—the ability to replenish one’s cellars.”
“My tastes would be a little more moderate than that,” said Miss Marple. “Partridges,” she said thoughtfully, “it is very difficult to get partridges nowadays, and they’re very expensive. I should enjoy a partridge—a whole partridge—to myself, very much. A box of marrons glacés is an expensive taste which I cannot often gratify. Possibly a visit to the opera. It means a car to take one to Covent Garden and back, and the expense of a night in a hotel. But I must not indulge in idle chat,” she said. “I will take this back with me and reflect upon it. Really, what on earth made Mr. Rafiel—you have no idea why he should have suggested this particular proposition, and why he should think that I could be of service to him in any way? He must have known that it was over a year, nearly two years since he had seen me and that I might have got much more feeble than I have, and much more unable to exercise such small talents as I might have. He was taking a risk. There are other people surely much better qualified to undertake an investigation of this nature?”