A Pocket Full of Rye (13 page)

A
t the Pinewood Private Sanatorium, Inspector Neele, sitting in the visitors' parlour, was facing a grey-haired, elderly lady. Helen MacKenzie was sixty-three, though she looked younger. She had pale blue, rather vacant-looking eyes, and a weak, indeterminate chin. She had a long upper lip which occasionally twitched. She held a large book in her lap and was looking down at it as Inspector Neele talked to her. In Inspector Neele's mind was the conversation he had just had with Dr. Crosbie, the head of the establishment.

“She's a voluntary patient, of course,” said Dr. Crosbie, “not certified.”

“She's not dangerous, then?”

“Oh, no. Most of the time she's as sane to talk to as you or me. It's one of her good periods now so that you'll be able to have a perfectly normal conversation with her.”

Bearing this in mind, Inspector Neele started his first conversational essay.

“It's very kind of you to see me, madam,” he said. “My name is Neele. I've come to see you about a Mr. Fortescue who has recently died. A Mr. Rex Fortescue. I expect you know the name.”

Mrs. MacKenzie's eyes were fixed on her book. She said:

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Mr. Fortescue, madam. Mr. Rex Fortescue.”

“No,” said Mrs. MacKenzie. “No. Certainly not.”

Inspector Neele was slightly taken aback. He wondered whether this was what Dr. Crosbie called being completely normal.

“I think, Mrs. MacKenzie, you knew him a good many years ago.”

“Not really,” said Mrs. MacKenzie. “It was yesterday.”

“I see,” said Inspector Neele, falling back upon this formula rather uncertainly. “I believe,” he went on, “that you paid him a visit many years ago at his residence, Yewtree Lodge.”

“A very ostentatious house,” said Mrs. MacKenzie.

“Yes. Yes, you might call it that. He had been connected with your husband, I believe, over a certain mine in Africa. The Blackbird Mine, I believe it was called.”

“I have to read my book,” said Mrs. MacKenzie. “There's not much time and I have to read my book.”

“Yes, madam. Yes, I quite see that.” There was a pause, then Inspector Neele went on, “Mr. MacKenzie and Mr. Fortescue went out together to Africa to survey the mine.”

“It was my husband's mine,” said Mrs. MacKenzie. “He found it and staked a claim to it. He wanted money to capitalize it. He went to Rex Fortescue. If I'd been wiser, if I'd known more, I wouldn't have let him do it.”

“No, I see that. As it was, they went out together to Africa, and there your husband died of fever.”

“I must read my book,” said Mrs. MacKenzie.

“Do you think Mr. Fortescue swindled your husband over the Blackbird Mine, Mrs. MacKenzie?”

Without raising her eyes from the book, Mrs. MacKenzie said:

“How stupid you are.”

“Yes, yes, I dare say . . . But you see it's all a long time ago and making inquiries about a thing that is over a long time ago is rather difficult.”

“Who said it was over?”

“I see. You don't think it is over?”

“
No question is ever settled until it is settled right.
Kipling said that. Nobody reads Kipling nowadays, but he was a great man.”

“Do you think the question will be settled right one of these days?”

“Rex Fortescue is dead, isn't he? You said so.”

“He was poisoned,” said Inspector Neele.

Rather disconcertingly, Mrs. MacKenzie laughed.

“What nonsense,” she said, “he died of fever.”

“I'm talking about Mr. Rex Fortescue.”

“So am I.” She looked up suddenly and her pale blue eyes fixed his. “Come now,” she said, “he died in his bed, didn't he? He died in his bed?”

“He died in St. Jude's Hospital,” said Inspector Neele.

“Nobody knows where my husband died,” said Mrs. MacKenzie. “Nobody knows how he died or where he was buried . . . All anyone knows is what Rex Fortescue
said.
And Rex Fortescue was a liar!”

“Do you think there may have been foul play?”

“Foul play, foul play, fowls lay eggs, don't they?”

“You think that Rex Fortescue was responsible for your husband's death?”

“I had an egg for breakfast this morning,” said Mrs. MacKenzie. “Quite fresh, too. Surprising, isn't it, when one thinks that it was thirty years ago?”

Neele drew a deep breath. It seemed unlikely that he was ever going to get anywhere at this rate, but he persevered.

“Somebody put dead blackbirds on Rex Fortescue's desk about a month or two before he died.”

“That's interesting. That's very, very interesting.”

“Have you any idea, madam, who might have done that?”

“Ideas aren't any help to one. One has to have action. I brought them up for that, you know, to take action.”

“You're talking about your children?”

She nodded her head rapidly.

“Yes. Donald and Ruby. They were nine and seven and left without a father. I told them. I told them every day. I made them swear it every night.”

Inspector Neele leant forward.

“What did you make them swear?”

“That they'd kill him, of course.”

“I see.”

Inspector Neele spoke as though it was the most reasonable remark in the world.

“Did they?”

“Donald went to Dunkirk. He never came back. They sent me a wire saying he was dead: ‘Deeply regret killed in action.' Action, you see, the wrong kind of action.”

“I'm sorry to hear that, madam. What about your daughter?”

“I haven't got a daughter,” said Mrs. MacKenzie.

“You spoke of her just now,” said Neele. “Your daughter, Ruby.”

“Ruby. Yes, Ruby.” She leaned forward. “Do you know what I've done to Ruby?”

“No, madam. What have you done to her?”

She whispered suddenly:

“Look here at the Book.”

He saw then that what she was holding in her lap was a Bible. It was a very old Bible and as she opened it, on the front page, Inspector Neele saw that various names had been written. It was obviously a family Bible in which the old-fashioned custom had been continued of entering each new birth. Mrs. MacKenzie's thin forefinger pointed to the two last names. “Donald MacKenzie” with the date of his birth, and “Ruby MacKenzie” with the date of hers. But a thick line was drawn through Ruby MacKenzie's name.

“You see?” said Mrs. MacKenzie. “I struck her out of the Book. I cut her off forever! The Recording Angel won't find her name there.”

“You cut her name out of the book? Now, why, madam?”

Mrs. MacKenzie looked at him cunningly.

“You know why,” she said.

“But I don't. Really, madam, I don't.”

“She didn't keep faith. You know she didn't keep faith.”

“Where is your daughter now, madam?”

“I've told you. I have no daughter. There isn't such a person as Ruby MacKenzie any longer.”

“You mean she's dead?”

“Dead?” The woman laughed suddenly. “It would be better for her if she were dead. Much better. Much, much better.” She sighed and turned restlessly in her seat. Then her manner reverting to a kind of formal courtesy, she said: “I'm so sorry, but really I'm afraid I can't talk to you any longer. You see, the time is getting very short, and I
must
read my book.”

To Inspector Neele's further remarks Mrs. MacKenzie returned no reply. She merely made a faint gesture of annoyance and continued to read her Bible with her finger following the line of the verse she was reading.

Neele got up and left. He had another brief interview with the superintendent.

“Do any of her relations come to see her?” he asked. “A daughter, for instance?”

“I believe a daughter did come to see her in my predecessor's time, but her visit agitated the patient so much that he advised her not to come again. Since then everything is arranged through solicitors.”

“And you've no idea where this Ruby MacKenzie is now?”

The superintendent shook his head.

“No idea whatsoever.”

“You've no idea whether she's married, for instance?”

“I don't know, all I can do is to give you the address of the solicitors who deal with us.”

Inspector Neele had already tracked down those solicitors. They were unable, or said they were unable, to tell him anything. A trust fund had been established for Mrs. MacKenzie which they managed. These arrangements had been made some years previously and they had not seen Miss MacKenzie since.

Inspector Neele tried to get a description of Ruby MacKenzie but the results were not encouraging. So many relations came to visit patients that after a lapse of years they were bound to be remembered dimly, with the appearance of one mixed-up with the appearance of another. The matron who had been there for many years seemed to remember that Miss MacKenzie was small and dark. The only other nurse who had been there for any length of time recalled that she was heavily built and fair.

“So there we are, sir,” said Inspector Neele as he reported to the assistant commissioner. “There's a whole crazy setup and it fits together. It
must
mean something.”

The AC nodded thoughtfully.

“The blackbirds in the pie tying up with the Blackbird Mine, rye in the dead man's pocket, bread and honey with Adele Fortescue's tea—(not that that is conclusive. After all, anyone might have had bread and honey for tea!) The third murder, that girl strangled with a stocking and a clothes-peg nipped onto her nose. Yes, crazy as the setup is, it certainly can't be ignored.”

“Half a minute, sir,” said Inspector Neele.

“What is it?”

Neele was frowning.

“You know, what you've just said. It didn't ring true. It was wrong somewhere.” He shook his head and sighed. “No. I can't place it.”

I

L
ance and Pat wandered round the well-kept grounds surrounding Yewtree Lodge.

“I hope I'm not hurting your feelings, Lance,” Pat murmured, “if I say this is quite the nastiest garden I've ever been in.”

“It won't hurt my feelings,” said Lance. “Is it? Really I don't know. It seems to have three gardeners working on it very industriously.”

Pat said:

“Probably that's what's wrong with it. No expense spared, no signs of an individual taste. All the right rhododendrons and all the right bedding out done in the proper season, I expect.”

“Well, what would
you
put in an English garden, Pat, if you had one?”

“My garden,” said Pat, “would have hollyhocks, larkspurs and Canterbury bells, no bedding out and none of these horrible yews.”

She glanced up at the dark yew hedges, disparagingly.

“Association of ideas,” said Lance easily.

“There's something awfully frightening about a poisoner,” said Pat. “I mean it must be a horrid, brooding revengeful mind.”

“So that's how you see it? Funny! I just think of it as businesslike and cold-blooded.”

“I suppose one could look at it that way.” She resumed, with a slight shiver, “All the same, to do
three
murders . . . Whoever did it
must
be mad.”

“Yes,” said Lance, in a low voice. “I'm afraid so.” Then breaking out sharply, he said: “For God's sake, Pat, do go away from here. Go back to London. Go down to Devonshire or up to the Lakes. Go to Stratford-on-Avon or go and look at the Norfolk Broads. The police wouldn't mind your going—you had nothing to do with all this. You were in Paris when the old man was killed and in London when the other two died. I tell you it worries me to death to have you here.”

Pat paused a moment before saying quietly:

“You know who it is, don't you?”

“No, I don't.”

“But you
think
you know . . . That's why you're frightened for
me . . . I
wish you'd tell me.”

“I can't tell you. I don't know anything. But I wish to God you'd go away from here.”

“Darling,” said Pat. “I'm not going. I'm staying here. For better, for worse. That's how I feel about it.” She added, with a sudden catch in her voice: “Only with me it's always for worse.”

“What on earth do you mean, Pat?”

“I bring bad luck. That's what I mean. I bring bad luck to anybody I come in contact with.”

“My dear adorable nitwit, you haven't brought bad luck to me. Look how after I married you the old man sent for me to come home and make friends with him.”

“Yes, and what happened when you did come home? I tell you, I'm unlucky to people.”

“Look here, my sweet, you've got a thing about all this. It's superstition, pure and simple.”

“I can't help it. Some people do bring bad luck. I'm one of them.”

Lance took her by the shoulders and shook her violently. “You're my Pat and to be married to you is the greatest luck in the world. So get that into your silly head.” Then, calming down, he said in a more sober voice: “But, seriously, Pat, do be very careful. If there
is
someone unhinged round here, I don't want you to be the one who stops the bullet or drinks the henbane.”

“Or drinks the henbane as you say.”

“When I'm not around, stick to that old lady. What's-her-name Marple. Why do you think Aunt Effie asked her to stay here?”

“Goodness knows why Aunt Effie does anything. Lance, how long are
we
going to stay here?”

Lance shrugged his shoulders.

“Difficult to say.”

“I don't think,” said Pat, “that we're really awfully welcome.” She hesitated as she spoke the words. “The house belongs to your brother now, I suppose? He doesn't really want us here, does he?”

Lance chuckled suddenly.

“Not he, but he's got to stick us for the present at any rate.”

“And afterwards? What are we going to do, Lance? Are we going back to East Africa or what?”

“Is that what you'd like to do, Pat?”

She nodded vigorously.

“That's lucky,” said Lance, “because it's what I'd like to do, too. I don't take much to this country nowadays.”

Pat's face brightened.

“How lovely. From what you said the other day, I was afraid you might want to stop here.”

A devilish glint appeared in Lance's eyes.

“You're to hold your tongue about our plans, Pat,” he said. “I have it in my mind to twist dear brother Percival's tail a bit.”

“Oh, Lance, do be careful.”

“I'll be careful, my sweet, but I don't see why old Percy should get away with everything.”

II

With her head a little on one side looking like an amiable cockatoo, Miss Marple sat in the large drawing room listening to Mrs. Percival Fortescue. Miss Marple looked particularly incongruous in the drawing room. Her light spare figure was alien to the vast brocaded sofa in which she sat with its many-hued cushions strewn around her. Miss Marple sat very upright because she had been taught to use a backboard as a girl, and not to loll. In a large armchair beside her, dressed in elaborate black, was Mrs. Percival, talking away volubly at nineteen to the dozen. “Exactly,” thought Miss Marple, “like poor Mrs. Emmett, the bank manager's wife.” She remembered how one day Mrs. Emmett had come to call and talk about the selling arrangements for Poppy Day, and how after the preliminary business had been settled, Mrs. Emmett had suddenly begun to talk and talk and talk. Mrs. Emmett occupied rather a difficult position in St. Mary Mead. She did not belong to the old guard of ladies in reduced circumstances who lived in neat houses around the church, and who knew intimately all the ramifications of the county families even though they might not be strictly county themselves. Mr. Emmett, the bank manager, had undeniably married beneath him and the result was that his wife was in a position of great loneliness since she could not, of course, associate with the wives of the trades people. Snobbery here raised its hideous head and marooned Mrs. Emmett on a permanent island of loneliness.

The necessity to talk grew upon Mrs. Emmett, and on that particular day it had burst its bounds, and Miss Marple had received the full flood of the torrent. She had been sorry for Mrs. Emmett then, and today she was rather sorry for Mrs. Percival Fortescue.

Mrs. Percival had had a lot of grievances to bear and the relief of airing them to a more or less total stranger was enormous.

“Of course I never want to complain,” said Mrs. Percival. “I've never been of the complaining kind. What I always say is that one must put up with things. What can't be cured must be endured and I'm sure I've never said a word to
anyone.
It's really difficult to know who I
could
have spoken to. In someways one is very isolated here—very isolated. It's very convenient, of course, and a great saving of expense to have our own set of rooms in this house. But of course it's not at all like having a place of your own. I'm sure you agree.”

Miss Marple said she agreed.

“Fortunately our new house is almost ready to move into. It is a question really of getting the painters and decorators out. These men are so slow. My husband, of course, has been quite satisfied living here. But then it's different for a man. Don't you agree?”

Miss Marple agreed that it was very different for a man. She could say this without a qualm as it was what she really believed. “The gentlemen” were, in Miss Marple's mind, in a totally different category to her own sex. They required two eggs plus bacon for breakfast, three good nourishing meals a day and were never to be contradicted or argued with before dinner. Mrs. Percival went on.

“My husband, you see, is away all day in the city. When he comes home he's just tired and wants to sit down and read. But I, on the contrary, am alone here all day with no congenial company
at all.
I've been perfectly comfortable and all that. Excellent food. But what I do feel one needs is a really pleasant social circle. The people round here are really not my kind. Part of them are what I call a flashy, bridge-playing lot. Not
nice
bridge. I like a hand at bridge myself as well as anyone, but of course, they're all very rich down here. They play for enormously high stakes, and there's a great deal of drinking. In fact, the sort of life that I call really fast society. Then, of course, there's a sprinkling of—well, you can only call them
old pussies
who love to potter round with a trowel and do gardening.”

Miss Marple looked slightly guilty since she was herself an inveterate gardener.

“I don't want to say anything against the dead,” resumed Mrs. Percy rapidly, “but there's no doubt about it, Mr. Fortescue, my father-in-law, I mean, made a very foolish second marriage. My—well I can't call her my mother-in-law, she was the same age as I am. The real truth of it is she was man-mad. Absolutely man-mad. And the way she spent money! My father-in-law was an absolute fool about her. Didn't care what bills she ran up. It vexed Percy very much, very much indeed. Percy is always so careful about money matters. He hates waste. And then what with Mr. Fortescue being so peculiar and so bad tempered, flashing out in these terrible rages, spending money like water backing wildcat schemes. Well—it wasn't at all nice.”

Miss Marple ventured upon making a remark.

“That must have worried your husband, too?”

“Oh, yes, it did. For the last year Percy's been very worried indeed. It's really made him quite different. His manner, you know, changed even towards me. Sometimes when I talked to him he used not to answer.” Mrs. Percy sighed, then went on: “Then Elaine, my sister-in-law, you know, she's a
very
odd sort of girl. Very out of doors and all that. Not exactly unfriendly, but not sympathetic, you know. She never wanted to go to London and shop, or go to a matinée or anything of that kind. She wasn't even interested in clothes.” Mrs. Percival sighed again and murmured: “But of course I don't want to complain in any way.” A qualm of compunction came over her. She said, hurriedly: “You must think it most odd, talking to you like this when you are a comparative stranger. But really, what with all the strain and shock—I think really it's the shock that matters most. Delayed shock. I feel so nervous, you know, that I really—well, I really must speak to
someone.
You remind me so much of a dear old lady, Miss Trefusis James. She fractured her femur when she was seventy-five. It was a very long business nursing her and we became great friends. She gave me a fox fur cape when I left and I did think it was kind of her.”

“I know just how you feel,” said Miss Marple.

And this again was true. Mrs. Percival's husband was obviously bored by her and paid very little attention to her, and the poor woman had managed to make no local friends. Running up to London and shopping, matinées and a luxurious house to live in did not make up for the lack of humanity in her relations with her husband's family.

“I hope it's not rude of me to say so,” said Miss Marple in a gentle old lady's voice, “but I really feel that the late Mr. Fortescue cannot have been a very nice man.”

“He wasn't,” said his daughter-in-law. “Quite frankly my dear, between you and me, he was a detestable old man. I don't wonder—I really don't—that someone put him out of the way.”

“You've no idea at all who—” began Miss Marple and broke off. “Oh dear, perhaps this is a question I should not ask—not even an idea who—who—well, who it might have been?”

“Oh, I think it was that horrible man Crump,” said Mrs. Percival. “I've always disliked him very much. He's got a manner, not really rude, you know, but yet it
is
rude. Impertinent, that's more it.”

“Still, there would have to be a motive, I suppose.”

“I really don't know that that sort of person requires much motive. I dare say Mr. Fortescue ticked him off about something, and I rather suspect that sometimes he drinks too much. But what I really think is that he's a bit unbalanced, you know. Like that footman, or butler, whoever it was, who went round the house shooting everybody. Of course, to be quite honest with you, I
did
suspect that it was
Adele
who poisoned Mr. Fortescue. But now, of course, one can't suspect that since she's been poisoned herself. She may have accused Crump, you know. And then he lost his head and perhaps managed to put something in the sandwiches and Gladys saw him do it and so he killed her too—I think it's really dangerous having him in the house at all. Oh dear, I wish I could get away, but I suppose these horrible policemen won't let one do anything of the kind.” She leant forward impulsively and put a plump hand on Miss Marple's arm. “Sometimes I feel I must get away—that if it doesn't all stop soon I shall—I shall actually
run away.
”

She leant back studying Miss Marple's face.

“But perhaps—that wouldn't be wise?”

“No—I don't think it would be very wise—the police could soon find you, you know.”

“Could they? Could they really? You think they're clever enough for that?”

“It is very foolish to underestimate the police. Inspector Neele strikes me as a particularly intelligent man.”

“Oh! I thought he was rather stupid.”

Miss Marple shook her head.

“I can't help feeling”—Jennifer Fortescue hesitated—“that it's dangerous to stay here.”

“Dangerous for you, you mean?”

“Ye-es—well, yes—”

“Because of something you—know?”