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Amy Durrant drowns while swimming with her employer, Mrs. Burton, during their vacation in the Canary Islands. A month later, Mrs. Burton commits suicide entering resolutely out to the sea, where the current was known to be dangerous. Agatha Christie poses an interesting mystery that Miss Marple will solve, showing in what curious way appearances can be deceiving.
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Seitenzahl: 33
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Chapter 1
“Now, Dr. Lloyd”, said Miss Haley, “don’t you know any creepy stories?”
She smiled at him —the smile that nightly bewitched the theatre—going public. Jane Haley was sometimes called the most beautiful woman in England, and jealous members of her own profession were in the habit of saying to each other, Of course, Jane’s not an artist. She can’t act, if you know what I mean. It’s those eyes.
And those eyes were at this minute fixed appealingly on the grizzled elderly bachelor doctor, who, for the last five years, had ministered to the ailments of the village of St. Mary Mead.
With an unconscious gesture, the doctor pulled down his waistcoat (inclined of late to be uncomfortably tight) and racked his brain, so as not to disappoint the lovely creature who had dressed him so confidently.
“I feel”, said Jane dreamily, “that I would like to wallow in crime this evening”.
“Splendid” said Colonel Bantry, her host. “Splendid!” And he laughed a loud, hearty military laugh.
“Eh, Dolly?”
His wife, hastily recalled to the exigencies of social life, she had been planning her spring border, a great deal of time, and a great deal of time, and she agreed enthusiastically.
“Of course, it’s splendid” she said heartily, but vaguely. “I always thought so.”
“Did you, my dear?” said old Miss Marple, and her eyes twinkled a little.
“We don’t get much in the creepy line —and still less in the criminal line— in St. Mary Mead, you know, Miss Hellier,” said Dr. Lloyd.
“You surprise me” said Sir Henry Clithering. The ex—commissioner, of Scotland Yard, turned to Miss Marple. “I always understood from our friend here, that St. Mary Mead is a positive hotbed of crime and vice.”
“Oh, Sir Henry” protested Miss Marple, a spot of color coming into her cheeks. “I’m sure I never said anything of the kind. The only thing I ever said was that human nature is much the same in a village as anywhere else, only that it’s not the same in a village. One has opportunities and leisure for seeing it at closer quarters.”
“But you haven’t always lived here,” said Jane Hellier, still addressing the doctor. “You have been in all sorts of queer places all over the world, places where things happen”.
“That is so, of course” said Dr. Lloyd, still thinking desperately. “Yes, of course... Yes! Ah! I have it!”
He sank back with a sigh of relief.
“It is some years ago now ——I had almost forgotten. But the facts were really very strange ——very strange indeed. And the final coincidence which put the clue into my hand was strange also.”
Miss Hellier drew her chair a little nearer to him, applied some lipstick, and waited expectantly.
The others also turned interested faces towards him. I don’t know whether any of you know the Canary Islands, began the doctor.
“They must be wonderful”, said Jane Hellier. “They’re in the South Seas, aren’t they? Or is it the Mediterranean?”
“I’ve called in there on my way to South Africa,” said the colonel. “The peak of Tenerife is a fine sight with a setting sun on it”.
“The incident I’m describing happened in the island of Grand Canary, not Tenerife. It is a good many years ago now, but I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. I had had a breakdown in health and was forced to give up my practice in England and go abroad. I practiced in Las Palmas, which is the principal town of Grand Canary.
“In many ways I enjoyed the life out there very much. The climate was mild and sunny. There was excellent surf—bathing, and I’m an enthusiastic bather, and the sea life of the port attracted me. Ships from all over the world put in at a time. I used to walk along the mole every morning, far more interested than any member of the fair sex could be in a street of hat shops.
