in the bath—eh?’
‘That kind of thing, yes.’
‘Doctor let me have that snap just as a curiosity—’
Major Palgrave began fumbling through an overstuffed wallet murmuring to himself: ‘Lots of things in here—don’t know why I keep all these things …’
Miss Marple thought she did know. They were part of the Major’s stock-in-trade. They illustrated his repertoire of stories. The story he had just told, or so she suspected, had not been originally like that—it had been worked up a good deal in repeated telling.
The Major was still shuffling and muttering—‘Forgotten all about that business. Good-looking woman she was, you’d never suspect—now where—Ah—that takes my mind back—what tusks! I must show you—’
He stopped—sorted out a small photographic print and peered down at it.
‘Like to see the picture of a murderer?’
He was about to pass it to her when his movement was suddenly arrested. Looking more like a stuffed frog than ever, Major Palgrave appeared to be staring fixedly over her right shoulder—from whence came the sound of approaching footsteps and voices.
‘Well, I’m damned—I mean—’ He stuffed everything back into his wallet and crammed it into his pocket.
His face went an even deeper shade of purplish red—He exclaimed in a loud, artificial voice:
‘As I was saying—I’d like to have shown you those elephant tusks—Biggest elephant I’ve ever shot—Ah, hallo!’ His voice took on a somewhat spurious hearty note.
‘Look who’s here! The great quartette—Flora and Fauna—What luck have you had today—Eh?’
The approaching footsteps resolved themselves into four of the hotel guests whom Miss Marple already knew by sight. They consisted of two married couples and though Miss Marple was not as yet acquainted with their surnames, she knew that the big man with the upstanding bush of thick grey hair was addressed as ‘Greg’, that the golden blonde woman, his wife, was known as Lucky—and that the other married couple, the dark lean man and the handsome but rather weather-beaten woman, were Edward and Evelyn. They were botanists, she understood, and also interested in birds.
‘No luck at all,’ said Greg—‘At least no luck in getting what we were after.’
‘Don’t know if you know Miss Marple? Colonel and Mrs Hillingdon and Greg and Lucky Dyson.’
They greeted her pleasantly and Lucky said loudly that she’d die if she didn’t have a drink at once or sooner.
Greg hailed Tim Kendal who was sitting a little way away with his wife poring over account books.
‘Hi, Tim. Get us some drinks.’ He addressed the others. ‘Planters Punch?’
They agreed.
‘Same for you, Miss Marple?’
Miss Marple said Thank you, but she would prefer fresh lime.
‘Fresh lime it is,’ said Tim Kendal, ‘and five Planters Punches.’
‘Join us, Tim?’
‘Wish I could. But I’ve got to fix up these accounts. Can’t leave Molly to cope with everything. Steel band tonight, by the way.’
‘Good,’ cried Lucky. ‘Damn it,’ she winced, ‘I’m all over thorns. Ouch! Edward deliberately rammed me into a thorn bush!’
‘Lovely pink flowers,’ said Hillingdon.
‘And lovely long thorns. Sadistic brute, aren’t you, Edward?’
‘Not like me,’ said Greg, grinning. ‘Full of the milk of human kindness.’
Evelyn Hillingdon sat down by Miss Marple and started talking to her in an easy pleasant way.
Miss Marple put her knitting down on her lap. Slowly and with some difficulty, owing to rheumatism in the neck, she turned her head over her right shoulder to look behind her. At some little distance there was the large bungalow occupied by the rich Mr Rafiel. But it showed no sign of life.
She replied suitably to Evelyn’s remarks (really, how kind people were to her!) but her eyes scanned thoughtfully the faces of the two men.
Edward Hillingdon looked a nice man. Quiet but with a lot of charm … And Greg—big, boisterous, happy-looking. He and Lucky were Canadian or American, she thought.
She looked at Major Palgrave, still acting a bonhomie a little larger than life.
Interesting …
It was very gay that evening at the Golden Palm Hotel.
Seated at her little corner table, Miss Marple looked round her in an interested fashion. The dining-room was a large room open on three sides to the soft warm scented air of the West Indies. There were small table lamps, all softly coloured. Most of the women were in evening dress: light cotton prints out of which bronzed shoulders and arms emerged. Miss Marple herself had been urged by her nephew’s wife, Joan, in the sweetest way possible, to accept ‘a small cheque’.
‘Because, Aunt Jane, it will be rather hot out there, and I don’t expect you have any very thin clothes.’
Jane Marple had thanked her and had accepted the cheque. She came of the age when it was natural for the old to support and finance the young, but also for the middle-aged to look after the old. She could not, however, force herself to buy anything very thin! At her age she seldom felt more than pleasantly warm even in the hottest weather, and the temperature of St Honoré was not really what is referred to as ‘tropical heat’. This evening she was attired in the best traditions of the provincial gentlewoman of England—grey lace.
Not that she was the only elderly person present. There were representatives of all ages in the room. There were elderly tycoons with young third or fourth wives. There were middle-aged couples from the North of England. There was a gay family from Caracas complete with children. The various countries of South America were well represented, all chattering loudly in Spanish or Portuguese. There was a solid English background of two clergymen, one doctor and one retired judge. There was even a family of Chinese. The dining-room service was mainly done by women, tall black girls of proud carriage, dressed in crisp white; but there was an experienced Italian head waiter in charge, and a French wine waiter, and there was the attentive eye of Tim Kendal watching over everything, pausing here and there to have a social word with people at their tables. His wife seconded him ably. She was a good-looking girl. Her hair was a natural golden blonde and she had a wide generous mouth that laughed easily. It was very seldom that Molly Kendal was out of temper. Her staff worked for her enthusiastically, and she adapted her manner carefully to suit her different
