A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie Read Free Book Online Page B

certain,” said Seсora de Caspearo. “She is that type. But she is not so young any longer-Her husband-already his eyes go elsewhere. He makes passes-here, there, all the time. I know.”
    “Yes,” said Miss Marple, “I expect you would know.”
    Seсora de Caspearo shot a surprised glance at her. It was clearly not what she had expected from that quarter. Miss Marple, however, was looking at the waves with an air of gentle innocence.

A Caribbean Mystery
    II
    “May I speak to you, ma'am, Mrs. Kendal?”
    “Yes, of course,” said Molly. She was sitting at her desk in the office. Victoria Johnson, tall and buoyant in her crisp white uniform came in farther and shut the door behind her with a somewhat mysterious air.
    “I like to tell you something, please, Mrs. Kendal.”
    “Yes, what is it. Is anything wrong?”
    “I don't know that. Not for sure. It's the old gentleman who died. The Major gentleman. He die in his sleep.”
    “Yes, yes. What about it?”
    “There was a bottle of pills in his room. Doctor, he asked me about them.”
    “Yes?”
    “The doctor said: 'Let me see what he has here on the bathroom shelf,' and he looked, you see. He see there was tooth powder and indigestion pills and aspirin and cascara pills, and then these pills in a bottle called Serenite.”
    “Yes,” repeated Molly yet again.
    “And the doctor looked at them. He seemed quite satisfied, and nodded his head. But I get to thinking afterwards. Those pills weren't there before. I've not seen them in his bathroom before. The others, yes. The tooth powder and the aspirin and the aftershave lotion and all the rest. But those pills, those Serenite pills, I never noticed them before.”
    “So you think-” Molly looked puzzled.
    “I don't know what to think,” said Victoria. “I just think it's not right, so I think I better tell you about it. Perhaps you tell doctor? Perhaps it means something. Perhaps someone put those pills there so he take them and he died.”
    “Oh, I don't think that's likely at all,” said Molly.
    Victoria shook her dark head. “You never know. People do bad things.”
    Molly glanced out of the window. The place looked like an earthly paradise. With its sunshine, its sea, its coral reef, its music, its dancing, it seemed a Garden of Eden. But even in the Garden of Eden, there had been a shadow-the shadow of the Serpent. Bad things-how hateful to hear those words. “I'll make inquiries, Victoria,” she said sharply. “Don't worry. And above all don't go starting a lot of silly rumours.”
    Tim Kendal came in, just as Victoria was, somewhat unwillingly, leaving. “Anything wrong, Molly?”
    She hesitated-but Victoria might go to him. She told him what the girl had said.
    “I don't see what all this rigmarole-what were these pills anyway?”
    “Well, I don't really know, Tim. Dr. Robertson when he came said they were something to do with blood pressure, I think.”
    “Well, that would be all right, wouldn't it? I mean, he had high blood pressure, and he would be taking things for it, wouldn't he? People do. I've seen them, lots of times.”
    “Yes,” Molly hesitated, “but Victoria seemed to think that he might have taken one of these pills and it would have killed him.”
    “Oh darling, that is a bit too melodramatic! You mean that somebody might have changed his blood pressure pills for something else, and that they poisoned him?”
    “It does sound absurd,” said Molly apologetically, “when you say it like that. But that seemed to be what Victoria thought!”
    “Silly girl! We could go and ask Dr. Graham about it, I suppose he'd know. But really it's such nonsense that it's not worth bothering him.”
    “That's what I think.”
    “What on earth made the girl think anybody would have changed the pills. You mean, put different pills into the same bottle?”
    “I didn't quite gather,” said Molly, looking rather helpless. “Victoria seemed to think that was the first time that Serenite