Agatha Christie - Sleeping Murder: Miss Marples Final Case

Sleeping Murder

When Giles came back from seeing Dr Kennedy off, he found Gwenda sitting where he had left her. There was a bright red patch on each of her cheeks, and her eyes looked feverish. When she spoke her voice was harsh and brittle.

'What's the old catchphrase? Death or madness either way? That's what this isdeath or madness.'

'Gwendadarling.' Giles went to herput his arm round her. Her body felt hard and stiff.

'Why didn't we leave it all alone? Why didn't we? It was my own father who strangled her. And it was my own father's voice I heard saying those words. No wonder it all came backno wonder I was so frightened. My own father.'

'Wait, Gwendawait. We don't really know'

'Of course we know! He told Dr Kennedy he had strangled his wife, didn't he?'

'But Kennedy is quite positive he didn't'

'Because he didn't find a body. But there was a bodyand I saw it.'

'You saw it in the hallnot the bedroom.'

'What difference does that make?'

'Well, it's queer, isn't it? Why should Halliday say he strangled his wife in the bedroom if he actually strangled her in the hall?'

'Oh, I don't know. That's just a minor detail.'

'I'm not so sure. Pull your socks up, darling. There are some very funny points about the whole set-up. We'll take it, if you like, that your father did strangle Helen. In the hall. What happened next?'

'He went off to Dr Kennedy.'

'And told him he had strangled his wife in the bedroom, brought him back with him and there was no body in the hallor in the bedroom. Dash it all, there can't be a murder without a body. What had he done with the body?'

'Perhaps there was one and Dr Kennedy helped him and hushed it all uponly of course he couldn't tell us that,

Giles shook his head.

'No, GwendaI don't see Kennedy acting that way. He's a hard-headed, shrewd, unemotional Scotsman. You're suggesting that he'd be willing to put himself in jeopardy as an accessory after the fact. I don't believe he would. He'd do his best for Halliday by giving evidence as to his mental statethat, yes. But why should he stick his neck out to hush the whole thing up? Kelvin Halliday wasn't any relation to him, nor a close friend. It was his own sister who had been killed and he was clearly fond of hereven if he did show slight Victorian disapproval of her gay ways. It's not, even, as though you were his sister's child. No, Kennedy wouldn't connive at concealing murder. If he did, there's only one possible way he could have set about it, and that would be deliberately to give a death certificate that she had died of heart failure or something. I suppose he might have got away with thatbut we know definitely that he didn't do that. Because there's no record of her death in the Parish registers, and if he had done it, he would have told us that his sister had died. So go on from there and explain, if you can, what happened to the body.'

'Perhaps my father buried it somewherein the garden?'

'And then went to Kennedy and told him he'd murdered his wife? Why? Why not rely on the story that she'd left him?'

Gwenda pushed back her hair from her forehead. She was less stiff and rigid now, and the patches of sharp colour were fading.

'I don't know,' she admitted. 'It does seem a bit screwy now you've put it that way. Do you think Dr Kennedy was telling us the truth?'

'Oh yesI'm pretty sure of it. From his point of view it's a perfectly reasonable story. Dreams, hallucinationsfinally a major hallucination. He's got no doubt that it was a hallucination because, as we've just said, you can't have a murder without a body. That's where we're in a different position from him. We know that there was a body.'

He paused and went on: 'From his point of view, everything fits in. Missing clothes and suitcase, the farewell note. And later, two letters from his sister.'

Gwenda stirred.

'Those letters. How do we explain those?'

'We don'tbut we've got to. If we assume that Kennedy was telling us the truth (and as I say, I'm pretty sure that he was), we've got to explain those letters.'

'I suppose they really were in his sister's handwriting? He recognized it?'

'You know, Gwenda, I don't believe that point would arise. It's not like a signature on a doubtful cheque. If those letters were written in a reasonably close imitation of his sister's writing, it wouldn't occur to him to doubt them. He's already got the preconceived idea that she's gone away with someone. The letters just confirmed that belief. If he had never heard from her at allwhy, then he might have got suspicious. All the same, there are certain curious points about those letters that wouldn't strike him, perhaps, but do strike me. They're strangely anonymous. No address except a poste restante. No indication of who the man in the case was. A clearly stated determination to make a clean break with all old ties. What I mean is, they're exactly the kind of letters a murderer would devise if he wanted to allay any suspicions on the part of his victim's family. It's the old Crippen touch again. To get the letters posted from abroad would be easy.'

'You think my father'

'Nothat's just itI don't. Take a man who's deliberately decided to get rid of his wife. He spreads rumours about her possible unfaithfulness. He stages her departurenote left behind, clothes packed and taken. Letters will be received from her at carefully spaced intervals from somewhere abroad. Actually he has murdered her quietly and put her, say, under the cellar floor. That's one pattern of murderand it's often been done. But what that type of murderer doesn't do is to rush to his brother-in-law and say he's murdered his wife and hadn't they better go to the police? On the other hand, if your father was the emotional type of killer, and was terribly in love with his wife and strangled her in a fit of frenzied jealousyOthello fashion(and that fits in with the words you heard) he certainly doesn't pack clothes and arrange for letters to come, before he rushes off to broadcast his crime to a man who isn't the type likely to hush it up. It's all wrong, Gwenda. The whole pattern is wrong.'

'Then what are you trying to get at, Giles?'

'I don't know... It's just that throughout it all, there seems to be an unknown factorcall him X. Someone who hasn't appeared as yet. But one gets glimpses of his technique.'

'X?' said Gwenda wonderingly. Then her eyes darkened. 'You're making that up, Giles. To comfort me.'

'I swear I'm not. Don't you see yourself that you can't make a satisfactory outline to fit all the facts? We know that Helen Halliday was strangled because you saw'

He stopped.

'Good Lord! I've been a fool. I see it now. It covers everything. You're right. And Kennedy's right, too. Listen, Gwenda. Helen's preparing to go away with a loverwho that is we don't know.'

'X?'

Giles brushed her interpolation aside impatiently.

'She's written her note to her husbandbut at that moment he comes in, reads what she's writing and goes haywire. He crumples up the note, slings it into the waste-basket, and goes for her. She's terrified, rushes out into the hallhe catches up with her, throttles her she goes limp and he drops her. And then, standing a little way from her, he quotes those words from The Duchess of Malfi just as the child upstairs has reached the banisters and is peering down.'

'And after that?'

'The point is, that she isn't dead. He may have thought she was deadbut she's merely semi-suffocated. Perhaps her lover comes roundafter the frantic husband has started for the doctor's house on the other side of the town, or perhaps she regains consciousness by herself. Anyway, as soon as she has come to, she beats it. Beats it quickly. And that explains everything. Kelvin's belief that he has killed her. The disappearance of the clothes; packed and taken away earlier in the day. And the subsequent letters which are perfectly genuine. There you arethat explains everything.'