'And so the next month sped away. Mrs Pritchard made less protest than one would have imagined. I think she was superstitious enough to believe that she couldn't escape her fate. She repeated again and again: "The blue primrose - warning. The blue hollyhock - danger. The blue geranium - death." And she would lie looking at the clump of pinky-red geraniums nearest her bed.
'The whole business was pretty nervy. Even the nurse caught the infection. She came to George two days before full moon and begged him to take Mrs Pritchard away. George was angry.
'"If all the flowers on that damned wall turned into blue devils it couldn't kill anyone!" he shouted.
'"It might. Shock has killed people before now."
'"Nonsense," said George.
George has always been a shade pig-headed. You can't drive him. I believe he had a secret idea that his wife worked the changes herself and that it was all some morbid hysterical plan of hers.
'Well, the fatal night came. Mrs Pritchard locked the door as usual. She was very calm - in almost an exalted state of mind. The nurse was worried by her state - wanted to give her a stimulant, an injection of strychnine, but Mrs Pritchard refused. In a way, I believe, she was enjoying herself. George said she was.'
'I think that's quite possible,' said Mrs Bantry. 'There must have been a strange sort of glamour about the whole thing.'
'There was no violent ringing of a bell the next morning. Mrs Pritchard usually woke about eight When, at eight-thirty, there was no sign from her, nurse rapped loudly on the door. Getting no reply, she fetched George, and insisted on the door being broken open. They did so with the help of a chisel.
'One look at the still figure on the bed was enough for Nurse Copling. She sent George to telephone for the doctor, but it was too late. Mrs Pritchard, he said, must have been dead at least eight hours. Her smelling salts lay by her hand on the bed, and on the wall beside her one of the pinky-red geraniums was a bright deep blue.'
'Horrible,' said Miss Helier with a shiver.
Sir Henry was frowning.
'No additional details?'
Colonel Bantry shook his head, but Mrs Bantry spoke quickly.
'The gas.'
'What about the gas?' asked Sir Henry.
'When the doctor arrived there was a slight smell of gas, and sure enough he found the gas ring in the
fireplace very slightly turned on; but so little it couldn't have mattered.'
'Did Mr Pritchard and the nurse not notice it when they first went in?'
'The nurse said she did notice a slight smell. George said he didn't notice gas, but something made him feel very queer and overcome; but he put that down to shock - and probably it was. At any rate there was no question of gas poisoning. The smell was scarcely noticeable.'
'And that's the end of the story?'
'No, it isn't. One way and another, there was a lot of talk. The servants, you see, had overheard things - had heard, for instance, Mrs Pritchard telling her husband that he hated her and would jeer if she were dying. And also more recent remarks. She had said one day, apropos of his refusing to leave the house: "Very well, when I am dead, I hope everyone will realize that you have killed me." And as ill luck would have it, he had been mixing some weed killer for the garden paths the day before. One of the younger servants had seen him and had afterwards seen him taking up a glass of hot milk for his wife.
'The talk spread and grew. The doctor had given a certificate - I don't know exactly in what terms - shock, syncope, heart failure, probably some medical terms meaning nothing much. However the poor lady had not been a month in her grave before an exhumation order was applied for and granted.'
'And the result of the autopsy was nil, I remember,' said Sir Henry gravely. 'A case, for once, of smoke without fire.'
'The whole thing is really very curious,' said Mrs Bantry. 'That fortune-teller, for instance - Zarida. At the address where she was supposed to be, no one had ever heard of any such person!'
'She appeared once - out of the blue,' said her husband. 'and then utterly vanished. Out of the blue - that's rather good!'
'And what is more,' continued Mrs Bantry, 'little Nurse Carstairs, who was supposed to have recommended her, had never even heard of her.'
They looked at each other.
'It's a mysterious story,' said Dr Lloyd. 'One can make guesses; but to guess -'
He shook his head.
'Has Mr Pritchard married Miss Instow?' asked Miss Marple in her gentle voice.
'Now why do you ask that?' inquired Sir Henry.
Miss Marple opened gentle blue eyes.
'It seems to me so important,' she said. 'Have they married?'
Colonel Bantry shook his head.
'We - well, we expected something of the kind - but it's eighteen months now. I don't believe they even see much of each other.'
'That is important,' said Miss Marple. 'Very important.'
'Then you think the same as I do,' said Mrs Bantry. 'You think -'
'Now, Dolly,' said her husband. 'It's unjustifiable - what you're going to say. You can't go about accusing people without a shadow of proof.'
'Don't be so - so manly, Arthur. Men are always afraid to say anything. Anyway, this is all between ourselves. It's just a wild fantastic idea of mine that possibly - only possibly - Jean Instow disguised herself as a fortune-teller. Mind you, she may have done it for a joke. I don't for a minute think that she meant any harm; but if she did do it, and if Mrs Pritchard was foolish enough to die of fright - well, that's what Miss Marple meant, wasn't it?'
'No, dear, not quite,' said Miss Marple. 'You see, if I were going to kill anyone - which, of course, I wouldn't dream of doing for a minute, because it would be very wicked, and besides I don't like killing - not even wasps, though I know it has to be, and I'm sure the gardener does it as humanely as possible. Let me see, what was I saying?'
'If you wished to kill anyone,' prompted Sir Henry.
'Oh yes. Well, if I did, I shouldn't be at all satisfied to trust to fright. I know one reads of people dying of it, but it seems a very uncertain sort of thing, and the most nervous people are far more brave than one really thinks they are. I should like something definite and certain, and make a thoroughly good plan about it.'
'Miss Marple,' said Sir Henry, 'you frighten me. I hope you will never wish to remove me. Your plans would be too good.'
Miss Marple looked at him reproachfully.
'I thought I had made it clear that I would never contemplate such wickedness,' she said. 'No, I was trying to put myself in the place of - er - a certain person.'
'Do you mean George Pritchard?' asked Colonel Bantry. 'I'll never believe it of George - though - mind you, even the nurse believes it. I went and saw her about a month afterwards, at the time of the exhumation. She didn't know how it was done - in fact, she wouldn't say anything at all - but it was clear enough that she believed George to be in some way responsible for his wife's death. She was convinced of it'
'Well,' said Dr Lloyd, 'perhaps she wasn't so far wrong. And mind you, a nurse often knows. She can't say - she's got no proof - but she knows.'
Sir Henry leant forward.
'Come now, Miss Marple,' he said persuasively. 'You're lost in a daydream. Won't you tell us all about
it?'
Miss Marple started and turned pink.
'I beg your pardon,' she said. 'I was just thinking about our district nurse. A most difficult problem.'
'More difficult than the problem of the blue geranium?'