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Nemesis: A Miss Marple Mystery
Nemesis: A Miss Marple Mystery
Nemesis: A Miss Marple Mystery
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Nemesis: A Miss Marple Mystery

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

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Even the unflappable Miss Marple is astounded as she reads the letter addressed to her on instructions from the recently deceased tycoon Mr. Jason Rafiel, whom she had met on holiday in the West Indies (A Caribbean Mystery). Recognizing in her a natural flair for justice and a genius for crime-solving, Mr. Rafiel has bequeathed to Miss Marple a £20,000 legacy -- and a legacy of an entirely different sort. For he has asked Miss Marple to investigate...his own murder. The only problem is, Mr. Rafiel has failed to name a suspect or suspects. And, whoever they are, they will certainly be determined to thwart Miss Marple's inquiries -- no matter what it will take to stop her.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateJun 15, 2004
ISBN9780061753831
Author

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She died in 1976, after a prolific career spanning six decades.

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Reviews for Nemesis

Rating: 3.708877229765013 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Another one of Christie's Miss Marple mysteries. The central plotline hinges on the idea that a sweet fluttery elderly lady is an expert in evil and an instrument of justice for the Greek goddess Nemesis. Old sins have long shadows and new victims in this classic mystery.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I hadn't read an Agatha Christie for quite a long time and I had forgotten how delightful her books are. The crisp storyline and good characters made for a great read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    All I ever seem to say about Agatha Christie books is that they're quite fun, now I've read a bundle of them. I suppose they're all the same, in some ways -- the clue-puzzle is always at the heart of it, not so much the characters. She has a nice touch with describing some characters and getting them just right, of course, and I really love the image of fluffy pink Miss Marple as Nemesis. And I liked Mr Rafiel and his posthumous quest: that was quite a nice plot touch. I got to like his character more, somehow, even though he was already dead.

    The main downfall of these books, reading them now, is how dated the attitudes contained therein have become. Especially in this book, with the talk of mental illness and girls crying rape for no real reason, etc -- especially for me, given that my mother's a doctor and works for the police on rape cases, etc, and given that I'm quite irritated by the general perceptions of rape. But it's easy enough to ignore it, and remember that it was written in its moment, for me.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    In which I mostly skirt around my incredibly long and ever-expanding views on societal victim-shaming because who has days to type that up and people just want to know about the wacky British people, for godssakeNemesis starts very intriguingly, with Mr. Rafiel, introduced in A Caribbean Mystery leaving Miss Marple in his will twenty-thousand pounds, given she solve a mystery for him. Old hat for Miss Marple, right? Except she won't be told the who, the what, the where, or the when of the crime, only the code word "Nemesis".I feel a little guilty giving this a lower rating than A Caribbean Mystery, as it does feature a much more involving mystery, full of messed-up psycho-sexual dimensions to which Agatha Christie gives much more body than Caribbean trifle. But it is also in need of a judicious amount of editing: it takes a far bit to get moving, the same clues and recaps of events are repeated incessantly, and Christie's style heavily leans on dialogue where a little narration would be a lot more efficient. This undermines the solid core of the story Christie is weaving, but more problematic is her shockingly regressive views, which arise in several contexts, but most specifically as those that shame how young women of "today"(1971 is the publication date) act too "loosely".This is most egregious in some victim-shaming that occurs, which crops up not once but multiple times by several different characters. I chose one example to discuss, just because it's the most elaborated, but the other examples are much the same. **MILD SPOILERS, if you don't want to know anything about what the case is** The following are words from a crime/police-psychologist, who thinks the man in question does not have the personality of someone capable of the murder of a girlfriend for which he's been convicted. Said convict is a known compulsive liar, thief, gangster, delinquent baby daddy, and who was involved in a previous assault case with another girlfriend: (excuse the length, but I wanted to give you the fullest context necessary)"That [earlier case] told against him, of course. Not in the jury's mind, because of course they did not hear about that until after the judge's summing up, but certainly in the judge's mind [...] I made a few inquiries myself afterwards. He had assaulted a girl. He had conceivably raped her, but he had not attempted to strangle her and in my opinion--I have seen a great many cases which come before the assizes--it seemed to me highly unlikely that there was a very definite case case of rape. Girls, you must remember, are far more ready to be raped nowadays than they used to be. Their mothers insists, very often, that they should call it rape. The girl in question had had several boy friends who had gone further than friendship. I did not think it counted very greatly as evidence against him. The actual murder case--yes, that was undoubtedly murder--but I continued to feel by all the tests [...] none of them accorded with this particular crime." Yes, a man who fits many of the dimensions by which we define sociopathy, and who has a history of violence towards a girlfriend, is totally incapable of committing a murder (of which he was convicted even without the details of the assault-case being heard at trial, a trial where he had the best defense money could buy). He beat her, but he didn't strangle her, so he's clearly he's a nonviolent soul. Women who have had several boyfriends cannot be raped. She's lying. These later two implications are particularly horrible and hurtful, because besides being ugly and ignorant and false, are also much more prevalent even today than they should be in any right-minded society.**end spoilers**I'm not demonizing Agatha Christie. I haven't read enough of her to characterize her work as a whole or to really disseminate her worldview. But I do think it's very telling looking at the publication dates of her most popular works, that most of them were from the 30s and 40s and none of them were from the 60s or the 70s. As a character, Miss Marple represents to me a subversive celebration of qualities that are normally derided in Western culture as being stereotypical-elderly-people traits-- and so it's incredibly disappointing to have her instead be a figurehead of stereotypical qualities are just plain ugly.Note: Nemesis is the basis of one of my favorite Agatha Christie's Marple episodes (2007), staring Geraldine McEwan. It's a little camp and a lot of fun, and it irons out most of the unfortunate implications. I recommend the series in general. It's nice slight viewing that has a great sense of humor about itself.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Classic Ms. Marple -- what's not to love? And this is actually one of her best -- but read Caribbean Mystery first.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I've seen several film versions of this story. I am not sure whether the book is best in this case or not. The TV series versions shift some of the scenes and even bring in Miss Marple's nephew as her travelling companion, and I rather liked those changes. The book is great, walking the reader through the case without giving anything away too soon or springing new evidence on the reader in the conclusion to solve the case. Some of the characters in this novel espouse awfully sexist perspectives on women, which I though interesting since the sleuth is a woman and so is the killer in this book. Miss Marple seems content to let her example answer all the sexism and ageism she encounters, but clearly the author was addressing gender stereotypes and other prejudices through her characters in this novel.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    And so we come to the end of the line, the last Miss Marple in my ordered re-read. I'm sorry to say goodbye to Jane, who as always is the smartest cookie in the tin, the brightest bulb in the chandelier, the sharpest knife in the drawer. She takes on a posthumous challenge from Mr. Rafiel, whom we met in A Caribbean Mystery, and solves a decade-old multiple murder mystery without dropping a stitch in her nonstop knitting of babies' jackets and fluffy pink shawls. What a woman.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In a sequel to "The Caribbean Mystery"; Miss Marple receives a letter from Mr Rafiel (now deceased) asking her to accept a quest for justice, but does not tell her what she will be doing nor does he give her any clues, but assuring her that there will be at least one Guardian Angel about looking after her safety.

    His subsequent letter sends her on a Historic Home & Garden tour where she meets a former headmistress of an acclaimed all girls school who is on a pilgrimage to make peace with the murder of a former student.... Mr. Rafiel also has arranged for Miss Marple to stay with "Three Weird Sisters" in a decaying manor, whom were friends w/ Mr. Rafiel and the guardians of the young murdered woman.

    The young murdered woman was to marry via elopment Mr Rafiel's troubled (bad seed) son, but she never showed up and the young man was put away in a mental prison for the murder of the young woman....

    At the same time of the first murder another young woman goes missing... and as Miss Marple investigates the Headmistress is crushed while hiking by a boulder.... On her deathbed, the Headmistress talks to Miss Marple and gives her more clues...

    I liked the mystery just fine, I figured out the killer & the details of the victims.... I did not care for the 2nd to last chapter which consisted of Miss Marple's overly long & detailed explanation of the murder, who did it, why, and how she figured it all out. In fact I skipped most of it!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Another excellent book by Mrs. Christie, with one of my favorite characters: Miss Jane Marple. Her prior book, Passenger to Frankfurt, written when she was 80, got quite negative reviews. Critics called her prose “incomprehensible muddle” and “idiotic conventions”, and ridiculed her by dubbing her an “old dear.” In this book I see Miss Marple as Christie’s alter-ego. She constantly complains (to herself) what a muddled brain she is becoming, etc, yet, single-handedly unveiled the truth and found the criminal! And so Mrs. Christie took revenge on the condescending critics: at 81, she wrote another best-seller! (Just don't watch the movie before you read the book: the latter is way better and more intricate, although Joan Hickson does a wonderful Marple.)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sleeping Murder was the last published Miss Marple novel but was written some 30 years earlier. That makes Nemesis the final Miss Marple novel that she wrote. And, it is a fine coda to the old sleuth.After learning of the death of Mr. Rafiel, whom she had met during “A Caribbean Mystery,” Miss Marple receives a summons to a lawyer. Mr. Rafiel has left instructions, and a potential financial reward, for Jane to take on her role of Nemesis once again and find justice. The only problem is that Mr. Rafiel has left no information about the case – at all. She doesn’t know who needs justice, or was denied justice. She assumes it has to do with a murder, since it was a murder that brought her into Rafiel’s circle. So, a good portion of the opening has Miss Marple blindly searching for direction. It isn’t until she is contacted to take an all-expense paid tour, arranged by Rafiel, that the suspects are introduced, and the mystery begins to unfold. The book is relatively long (compared to other Marple books), and I was initially afraid it would be a meandering, boring mess like “At Betram’s Hotel”. The first third was very slow, but it picked up significantly in the second half. I liked the mystery: a young man in prison for murder, the deaths of two young girls years ago, and a fellow passenger now. And, it made sense why Rafiel kept Jane in the dark – he wanted her to investigate without any preconceived ideas. The mystery was very good, but I enjoyed much more that Miss Marple was actively engaged throughout. There is no police inspector taking the lead; no frequent switching between character POVs. It’s all Jane – and that makes the story better than it would have been otherwise. Plus, Jane is quite old by now and the danger more acute when the killer begins to see her as a threat.Overall, while not Christie’s best Miss Marple mystery, I loved that Nemesis focuses almost exclusively on Miss Marple and that it tied to a previous book. The resolution was well supported, if a trifle predictable, and the final showdown was more exciting than one would expect from an elderly sleuth.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Rafiel leaves Miss Marple a mystery in his will. Two mysteries, in fact, since she must figure out what the mysery is first! Without knowing any details, she must undertake to correct an injustice.This novel meanders through coach tours, English gardens and village life before arriving at the core of the mystery.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This just didn't hold my interest long enough to get into it, and these days I haven't got the reading time to waste on books that don't get me 'in' right from the start. Shame, because I've just discovered Agatha Christie's novels!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Nemesis by Agatha Christie features Miss Jane Marple as she embarks upon a quest that a previous acquaintance has asked her to complete. She feels compelled to do this as the request came from beyond the grave. She is supplied tickets to a coach tour of Beautiful Homes and Gardens, and having no real knowledge of what she is supposed to discover, off she goes.Tension mounts slowly in this book as Miss Marple painstakingly puts the pieces together and finally realizes that she is to be the Nemesis for someone who got away with murder a number of years ago. She must study the characters around her, both on the tour and in the countryside where they stay. With her uncanny knack for sensing evil on full alert, it isn’t too long before murder is on the agenda, and Jane Marple must tread very carefully or she could very well be in great danger as well.This was an interesting mystery that had Miss Marple more actively involved then usual. Instead of being overlooked while she observes all quietly from a corner, this time Miss Marple is front and center in the storyline as she takes control of the investigation. A well-done, entertaining mystery, that suffers a little from a slow start but the suspense builds nicely.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is the 9th c hristie book i've read. It came out in 1971, just four years before Christie's death in 1975. Miss Marple is given a vague assignment by a man she had encountered in the West Indies who has died. He seeks to have his wayward son cleared of a murder he doesn't think he committed. Miss Marple goes on the bus tour of gardens and houses in England designated by the dead man, and when the tourt gets to a certain town she is invited to stay at the house of three sisters. There are 2 old murders and one new one and of course Miss maple solves them all. The scenario nis very contrived and everything goes like clockwork, in typical Christie fashion. I read it with interest but it does not compare with the realy great Christie novels such as And Then There Were None and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. But it was OK.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Later Christie and perhaps not quite up to her usual standard, but still it *is* Miss Marple who manages to triumph in her delving - and, gets out of bed at the end to prove it.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    ‘She’s going to take it on, is she? Sporting old bean,’ he said. Then he added, ‘I suppose she knows something of what it’s all about, does she?’ ‘Apparently not,’ said Mr Broadribb.

    I would have reviewed this one a while ago, right after I read the book, in fact, but I really didn't want to be reminded about much of the book.

    I have really grown to dislike Miss Marple and this book is a fine example of everything that bugs me about her character.

    From her innate xenophobia:

    "The fourth chair was occupied by Mr Caspar whom Miss Marple considered as not sufficiently conversant with the English language to matter."
    ....
    "Miss Marple had never quite succeeded in abandoning her Victorian view of foreigners. One never knew with foreigners. Quite absurd, of course, to feel like that – she had many friends from various foreign countries. All the same . . . ?"

    to her being a judgmental old busy-body:

    "One of them was very definitely the complaining type, one who would want to have seats at the front of the coach or else would make a point of having them at the back of the coach. Would wish to sit on the sunny side or could only bear to sit on the shady side. Who would want more fresh air, or less fresh air."

    and a little bit deluded - though it was weird to even read about this potential love interest:

    "Poor Mr Rafiel. The ship that had passed in the night had been an interesting ship. Once you got used to his being rude, he might have been quite an agreeable man? No! She shook her head. Mr Rafiel could never have been an agreeable man. Well, she must put Mr Rafiel out of her head. Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing; Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness."

    I have not read The Caribbean Mystery, yet, but I somehow doubt there was such a thing in it as a blossoming romance between old Marple and Mr. Rafiel.
    Just as I know there is a disconnect between this utterance...

    "Miss Marple packed a suitcase bag, went to London, booked a room at a modest hotel – (‘Ah, Bertram’s Hotel,’ she thought in her mind, ‘what a wonderful hotel that was!"

    ...and the fact that Marple disapproved of Bertram's Hotel by the end of the book (At Bertram's Hotel) written six years before Nemesis. So, having paid a little attention, I found this book to be containing more "continuity errors" than I can put up with.

    Anyway, I won't give anything away about the somewhat far-fetched plot but Marple is not the only bone of contention with this book. As others have also summarised, there are also concerns with the book with respect to the issue of victim shaming and the trivialisation of rape.

    I don't know if the poor quality of the story is down to Dame Agatha loosing touch with readers in her later work or what, but Nemesis pretty much made the decision for me that Miss Marple is not all she's cracked up to be.


    "She looked round the church in which she was sitting. It looked so peaceful. The reality of Evil was hard to believe in. A flair for Evil – that was what Mr Rafiel had attributed to her."

    Yeah, I think I'm with Mr. Rafiel on this one.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The last of the Marple novels to be written, and the second last in chronological order. It shows, with Miss Marple feeling her age, and feeling the loss of her ability to tend to her garden herself. But her gardening skills feature strongly in this book, as she uses them to test the claimed background of various suspects. Marple herself doesn't know what the mystery is at first, because she has been asked by an acquaintence from a previous case to investigate something for him -- only the request is set up to be delivered after his death, and with no actual information about the case, simpy instructions that take her to places where she can observe and form her own conclusions untainted by his biases. Marple is indeed the Nemesis that Jason Rafiel was hoping for, bringing a late but much-needed justice to an old case.I thought the writing could have been tighter, but Marple herself was a delight in this book. Enjoyed this a lot.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Although this is a very late Christie, written well beyond her golden era, the opening chapter is a sheer delight in the author's classic style, as Miss Marple indulges in a long, discursive meditation on reading the newspapers.Miss M., despite being considerably aged and lame ("On'e feet are not what one would like feet to be," she silently laments as she contemplates her infirmities), she's still very sharp, if a bit more scattered, and able to spot a killer with ease. The careful reader will spot the truth fairly early on, but getting to Miss Marple's conclusions is interesting, if not as much fun as the earlier novels. One thing that makes this less than her best book is the absence of some of the characters from her standard books. A good relaxing read, but not her best book.If you like Christie, do give this a chance.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I love Agatha Christie! Nemesis is the goddess of retribution, and that is what Miss Marple is in this story. Nemesis is a Miss Marple mystery, and I have to say, it is probably my favorite Miss Marple mystery (my favorite Agatha novels are from Poirot). Miss Marple is thrown into a mystery by a letter of an old friend, and she has pretty much nothing to start with. It's very fun seeing how she begins to collect this information throughout the story, as opposed to other mysteries where she has some facts to start with.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I thought it was an above average mystery, with some deep themes about love and the dark side of love.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Perhaps my favorite Agatha Christie to date.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Read them all......My favorites are the Miss Marples.......
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Re-read after watching the travesty that was the "Marple" TV adapataion (which seems to have been written by someone who read a brief summary the plot and had not paid attention in either history or RE classes at school). It is a much better book, Miss Marple, at the behest of a recently dead acquaintance is sent on a coach tour with instructions to right a wrong, to see justice done, in fact to once again become Nemesis in a pink fluffy shawl. Excellent.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Kinda dull, but still a good cozy mystery!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A bit too contrived for my taste.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    At 81 years, Agatha Christie (1890 - 1976) is nearing the end of her writing life - in fact she will write only two more novels after NEMESIS although four will be published, the last one posthumously. 1971, NEMESIS - Miss Marple 1972, ELEPHANTS CAN REMEMBER - Poirot 1973, POSTERN OF FATE (Last novel Christie ever wrote) - Tommy and Tuppence 1975, CURTAIN (Poirot's last case, written about 35 years earlier) 1976, SLEEPING MURDER (Miss Marple's last case, written about 35 years earlier)The novel begins with Miss Marple sitting in her front room, no longer able to venture into the garden. The emphasis is on how much she has aged, as well as how times have changed.It takes her some little while to identify the name Rafiel that she reads in the death notices, and then things come flooding back about the holiday she spent in the Caribbean and the mystery she became involved in there. (See A CARIBBEAN MYSTERY).Mr Rafiel, in his bequest gives her the option of staying at home and continuing to do her knitting, or of undertaking a little task on his behalf, in her role as Nemesis, the harbinger of Justice. However she needs to discover for herself what injustice has been committed.When Miss Marple joins a Famous Homes and Gardens bus tour, ticket organised and paid for by Mr Rafiel prior to his death, she discovers she is one of sixteen passengers. She immediately notices that there are four other "elderly ladies", two in their seventies, more or less her age, and two in their sixties. As I am older than these two I was somewhat amused. Anybody who has been on a similar bus tour will enjoy her observations about the other passengers. Her categorisation of retired people being middle-aged seems a little inconsistent with modern terminology.There are times in NEMESIS when Jane Marple seems a bit "slow off the mark" but I think Christie does a good job in summarising why Miss Marple has had so many murders fall into her lap. I presume that Christie here had an image of her female sleuth as being just a little younger than herself, although for much of her writing life Jane Marple was actually older. In fact she was old when she first came on the scene, and seems not to have aged that much at all. The question of how old Jane Marple really is, is always an interesting contemplation.I don't think I have actually ever read this novel right through. I have seen various televised versions, but none quite matched the actual plot of the book. There is a lot of Christie's philosophy about the nature of sin, whether there are any truly unredeemable characters, whether there is a detectable miasma of evil. I came expecting to be a little disappointed with the quality of the writing, expecting Christie to write as an old person who maybe had "lost her marbles", but came away satisfied. Perhaps it did stretch the limits of credibility a little - Mr Rafiel seemed to have thought of everything - but it was a nice swan song for Jane Marple.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    These are mostly my notes - not much of a review....

    I heard a bit on RadioLab about Christie possibly having Alzheimers and using the book "Elephants Can Remember" as an example of her loss of words. Nemesis was published right before that book, and I can see where the writing seems to be not a tight as her other books. There are a couple of loose ends not addressed and word repetition.

    While the killer's identity was a bit of a surprise, it wasn't a complete shock. I found the "guardian angels" to be more of a surprise. Overall, this book was an enjoyable read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Another great Miss Marple mystery. Miss Marple is set with a seemingly impossible task. She may look like a sweet old lady, but looks can be deceiving.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An intriguing premise for the last of the Miss Marple's books. The narration by Emiliia Fox made this a compelling audio to listen to and enjoy, also bumping it up, in my opinion, from three to four stars. Written in 1971, with a few out-of-date views, I managed to put those aside (though some readers may not find so easy to ignore) since I found myself hooked on the storyline.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    4 stars for the mystery, 2 stars for the Agatha Christie Problems. Agatha Christie Problems: the dangerous and harmful myth that women claim to be raped after consensual sex is repeated multiple times by many characters. They also like to talk about girls not being chaperoned by their mothers enough (a common Christie theme) and one mention that girls like bad boys instead of nice ones.

Book preview

Nemesis - Agatha Christie

One

OVERTURE

In the afternoons it was the custom of Miss Jane Marple to unfold her second newspaper. Two newspapers were delivered at her house every morning. The first one Miss Marple read while sipping her early morning tea, that is, if it was delivered in time. The boy who delivered the papers was notably erratic in his management of time. Frequently, too, there was either a new boy or a boy who was acting temporarily as a stand-in for the first one. And each one would have ideas of his own as to the geographical route that he should take in delivering. Perhaps it varied monotony for him. But those customers who were used to reading their paper early so that they could snap up the more saucy items in the day’s news before departing for their bus, train or other means of progress to the day’s work were annoyed if the papers were late, though the middle-aged and elderly ladies who resided peacefully in St. Mary Mead often preferred to read a newspaper propped up on their breakfast table.

Today, Miss Marple had absorbed the front page and a few other items in the daily paper that she had nicknamed the Daily All-Sorts, this being a slightly satirical allusion to the fact that her paper, the Daily Newsgiver, owing to a change of proprietor, to her own and to other of her friends’ great annoyance, now provided articles on men’s tailoring, women’s dress, female heartthrobs, competitions for children, and complaining letters from women and had managed pretty well to shove any real news off any part of it but the front page, or to some obscure corner where it was impossible to find it. Miss Marple, being old-fashioned, preferred her newspapers to be newspapers and give you news.

In the afternoon, having finished her luncheon, treated herself to twenty minutes’ nap in a specially purchased, upright armchair which catered for the demands of her rheumatic back, she had opened The Times, which lent itself still to a more leisurely perusal. Not that The Times was what it used to be. The maddening thing about The Times was that you couldn’t find anything anymore. Instead of going through from the front page and knowing where everything else was so that you passed easily to any special articles on subjects in which you were interested, there were now extraordinary interruptions to this time-honoured programme. Two pages were suddenly devoted to travel in Capri with illustrations. Sport appeared with far more prominence than it had ever had in the old days. Court news and obituaries were a little more faithful to routine. The births, marriages and deaths which had at one time occupied Miss Marple’s attention first of all owing to their prominent position had migrated to a different part of The Times, though of late, Miss Marple noted, they had come almost permanently to rest on the back page.

Miss Marple gave her attention first to the main news on the front page. She did not linger long on that because it was equivalent to what she had already read this morning, though possibly couched in a slightly more dignified manner. She cast her eye down the table of contents. Articles, comments, science, sport; then she pursued her usual plan, turned the paper over and had a quick run down the births, marriages and deaths, after which she proposed to turn to the page given to correspondence, where she nearly always found something to enjoy; from that she passed on to the Court Circular, on which page today’s news from the Sale Rooms could also be found. A short article on Science was often placed there but she did not propose to read that. It seldom made sense for her.

Having turned the paper over as usual to the births, marriages and deaths, Miss Marple thought to herself, as so often before,

"It’s sad really, but nowadays one is only interested in the deaths!"

People had babies, but the people who had babies were not likely to be even known by name to Miss Marple. If there had been a column dealing with babies labelled as grandchildren, there might have been some chance of a pleasurable recognition. She might have thought to herself,

"Really, Mary Prendergast has had a third granddaughter!," though even that perhaps might have been a bit remote.

She skimmed down Marriages, also with not a very close survey, because most of her old friends’ daughters or sons had married some years ago already. She came to the Deaths column, and gave that her more serious attention. Gave it enough, in fact, so as to be sure she would not miss a name. Alloway, Angopastro, Arden, Barton, Bedshaw, Burgoweisser—(dear me, what a German name, but he seemed to be late of Leeds). Carpenter, Camperdown, Clegg. Clegg? Now was that one of the Cleggs she knew? No, it didn’t seem to be. Janet Clegg. Somewhere in Yorkshire. McDonald, McKenzie, Nicholson. Nicholson? No. Again not a Nicholson she knew. Ogg, Ormerod—that must be one of the aunts, she thought. Yes, probably so. Linda Ormerod. No, she hadn’t known her. Quantril? Dear me, that must be Elizabeth Quantril. Eighty-five. Well, really! She had thought Elizabeth Quantril had died some years ago. Fancy her having lived so long! So delicate she’d always been, too. Nobody had expected her to make old bones. Race, Radley, Rafiel. Rafiel? Something stirred. That name was familiar. Rafiel. Belford Park, Maidstone. Belford Park, Maidstone. No, she couldn’t recall that address. No flowers. Jason Rafiel. Oh well, an unusual name. She supposed she’d just heard it somewhere. Ross-Perkins. Now that might be—no, it wasn’t. Ryland? Emily Ryland. No. No, she’d never known an Emily Ryland. Deeply loved by her husband and children. Well, very nice or very sad. Whichever way you liked to look at it.

Miss Marple laid down her paper, glancing idly through the crossword while she puzzled to remember why the name Rafiel was familiar to her.

It will come to me, said Miss Marple, knowing from long experience the way old people’s memories worked.

It’ll come to me, I have no doubt.

She glanced out of the window towards the garden, withdrew her gaze and tried to put the garden out of her mind. Her garden had been the source of great pleasure and also a great deal of hard work to Miss Marple for many, many years. And now, owing to the fussiness of doctors, working in the garden was forbidden to her. She’d once tried to fight this ban, but had come to the conclusion that she had, after all, better do as she was told. She had arranged her chair at such an angle as not to be easy to look out in the garden unless she definitely and clearly wished to see something in particular. She sighed, picked up her knitting bag and took out a small child’s woolly jacket in process of coming to a conclusion. The back was done and the front. Now she would have to get on with the sleeves. Sleeves were always boring. Two sleeves, both alike. Yes, very boring. Pretty coloured pink wool, however. Pink wool. Now wait a minute, where did that fit in? Yes—yes—it fitted in with that name she’d just read in the paper. Pink wool. A blue sea. A Caribbean sea. A sandy beach. Sunshine. Herself knitting and—why, of course, Mr. Rafiel. That trip she had made to the Caribbean. The island of St. Honoré. A treat from her nephew Raymond. And she remembered Joan, her niece-in-law, Raymond’s wife, saying:

Don’t get mixed up in any more murders, Aunt Jane. It isn’t good for you.

Well, she hadn’t wished to get mixed up in any murders, but it just happened. That was all. Simply because of an elderly Major with a glass eye who had insisted on telling her some very long and boring stories. Poor Major—now what was his name? She’d forgotten that now. Mr. Rafiel and his secretary, Mrs.—Mrs. Walters, yes, Esther Walters, and his masseur-attendant, Jackson. It all came back. Well, well. Poor Mr. Rafiel. So Mr. Rafiel was dead. He had known he was going to die before very long. He had practically told her so. It seemed as though he had lasted longer than the doctors had thought. He was a strong man, an obstinate man—a very rich man.

Miss Marple remained in thought, her knitting needles working regularly, but her mind not really on her knitting. Her mind was on the late Mr. Rafiel, and remembering what she could remember about him. Not an easy man to forget, really. She could conjure his appearance up mentally quite well. Yes, a very definite personality, a difficult man, an irritable man, shockingly rude sometimes. Nobody ever resented his being rude, though. She remembered that also. They didn’t resent his being rude because he was so rich. Yes, he had been very rich. He had had his secretary with him and a valet attendant, a qualified masseur. He had not been able to get about very well without help.

Rather a doubtful character that nurse-attendant had been, Miss Marple thought. Mr. Rafiel had been very rude to him sometimes. He had never seemed to mind. And that, again, of course was because Mr. Rafiel was so rich.

Nobody else would pay him half what I do, Mr. Rafiel had said, and he knows it. He’s good at his job, though.

Miss Marple wondered whether Jackson?—Johnson? had stayed on with Mr. Rafiel. Stayed on for what must have been—another year? A year and three or four months. She thought probably not. Mr. Rafiel was one who liked a change. He got tired of people, tired of their ways, tired of their faces, tired of their voices.

Miss Marple understood that. She had felt the same sometimes. That companion of hers, that nice, attentive, maddening woman with her cooing voice.

Ah, said Miss Marple, what a change for the better since— oh dear, she’d forgotten her name now—Miss—Miss Bishop?—no, not Miss Bishop. Oh dear, how difficult it was.

Her mind went back to Mr. Rafiel and to—no, it wasn’t Johnson, it had been Jackson, Arthur Jackson.

Oh, dear, said Miss Marple again, "I always get all the names wrong. And of course, it was Miss Knight I was thinking of. Not Miss Bishop. Why do I think of her as Miss Bishop?" The answer came to her. Chess, of course. A chess piece. A knight. A bishop.

I shall be calling her Miss Castle next time I think of her, I suppose, or Miss Rook. Though, really, she’s not the sort of person who would ever rook anybody. No, indeed. And now what was the name of that nice secretary that Mr. Rafiel had. Oh yes, Esther Walters. That was right. I wonder what has happened to Esther Walters? She’d inherited money? She would probably inherit money now.

Mr. Rafiel, she remembered, had told her something about that, or she had—oh, dear, what a muddle things were when you tried to remember with any kind of exactitude. Esther Walters. It had hit her badly, that business in the Caribbean, but she would have got over it. She’d been a widow, hadn’t she? Miss Marple hoped that Esther Walters had married again, some nice, kindly, reliable man. It seemed faintly unlikely. Esther Walters, she thought, had had rather a genius for liking the wrong kind of men to marry.

Miss Marple went back to thinking about Mr. Rafiel. No flowers, it had said. Not that she herself would have dreamed of sending flowers to Mr. Rafiel. He could buy up all the nurseries in England if he’d wanted to. And anyway, they hadn’t been on those terms. They hadn’t been—friends, or on terms of affection. They had been—what was the word she wanted?—allies. Yes, they had been allies for a very short time. A very exciting time. And he had been an ally worth having. She had known so. She’d known it as she had gone running through a dark, tropical night in the Caribbean and had come to him. Yes, she remembered, she’d been wearing that pink wool—what used they to call them when she was young?—a fascinator. That nice pink wool kind of shawl-scarf that she’d put round her head, and he had looked at her and laughed, and later when she had said—she smiled at the remembrance—one word she had used and he had laughed, but he hadn’t laughed in the end. No, he’d done what she asked him and therefore—Ah! Miss Marple sighed, it had been, she had to admit it, all very exciting. And she’d never told her nephew or dear Joan about it because, after all, it was what they’d told her not to do, wasn’t it? Miss Marple nodded her head. Then she murmured softly,

Poor Mr. Rafiel, I hope he didn’t—suffer.

Probably not. Probably he’d been kept by expensive doctors under sedatives, easing the end. He had suffered a great deal in those weeks in the Caribbean. He’d nearly always been in pain. A brave man.

A brave man. She was sorry he was dead because she thought that though he’d been elderly and an invalid and ill, the world had lost something through his going. She had no idea what he could have been like in business. Ruthless, she thought, and rude and overmastering and aggressive. A great attacker. But—but a good friend, she thought. And somewhere in him a deep kind of kindness that he was very careful never to show on the surface. A man she admired and respected. Well, she was sorry he was gone and she hoped he hadn’t minded too much and that his passing had been easy. And now he would be cremated no doubt and put in some large, handsome marble vault. She didn’t even know if he’d been married. He had never mentioned a wife, never mentioned children. A lonely man? Or had his life been so full that he hadn’t needed to feel lonely? She wondered.

She sat there quite a long time that afternoon, wondering about Mr. Rafiel. She had never expected to see him again after she had returned to England and she never had seen him again. Yet in some queer way she could at any moment have felt she was in touch with him. If he had approached her or had suggested that they meet again, feeling perhaps a bond because of a life that had been saved between them, or of some other bond. A bond—

Surely, said Miss Marple, aghast at an idea that had come into her mind, "there can’t be a bond of ruthlessness between us? Was she, Jane Marple—could she ever be—ruthless? D’you know, said Miss Marple to herself, it’s extraordinary, I never thought about it before. I believe, you know, I could be ruthless…."

The door opened and a dark, curly head was popped in. It was Cherry, the welcome successor to Miss Bishop—Miss Knight.

Did you say something? said Cherry.

I was speaking to myself, said Miss Marple, I just wondered if I could ever be ruthless.

What, you? said Cherry. Never! You’re kindness itself.

All the same, said Miss Marple, "I believe I could be ruthless if there was due cause."

What would you call due cause?

In the cause of justice, said Miss Marple.

You did have it in for little Gary Hopkins I must say, said Cherry. When you caught him torturing his cat that day. Never knew you had it in you to go for anyone like that! Scared him stiff, you did. He’s never forgotten it.

I hope he hasn’t tortured anymore cats.

Well, he’s made sure you weren’t about if he did, said Cherry. In fact I’m not at all sure as there isn’t other boys as got scared. Seeing you with your wool and the pretty things you knits and all that—anyone would think you were gentle as a lamb. But there’s times I could say you’d behave like a lion if you was goaded into it.

Miss Marple looked a little doubtful. She could not quite see herself in the rôle in which Cherry was now casting her. Had she ever—she paused on the reflection, recalling various moments—there had been intense irritation with Miss Bishop—Knight. (Really, she must not forget names in this way.) But her irritation had shown itself in more or less ironical remarks. Lions, presumably, did not use irony. There was nothing ironical about a lion. It sprang. It roared. It used its claws, presumably it took large bites at its prey.

Really, said Miss Marple, "I don’t think I have ever behaved quite like that."

Walking slowly along her garden that evening with the usual feelings of vexation rising in her, Miss Marple considered the point again. Possibly the sight of a plant of snapdragons recalled it to her mind. Really, she had told old George again and again that she only wanted sulphur-coloured antirrhinums, not that rather ugly purple shade that gardeners always seemed so fond of. Sulphur yellow, said Miss Marple aloud.

Someone the other side of the railing that abutted on the lane past her house turned her head and spoke.

I beg your pardon? You said something?

I was talking to myself, I’m afraid, said Miss Marple, turning to look over the railing.

This was someone she did not know, and she knew most people in St. Mary Mead. Knew them by sight even if not personally. It was a thickset woman in a shabby but tough tweed skirt, and wearing good country shoes. She wore an emerald pullover and a knitted woollen scarf.

I’m afraid one does at my age, added Miss Marple.

Nice garden you’ve got here, said the other woman.

Not particularly nice now, said Miss Marple. When I could attend to it myself—

Oh I know. I understand just what you feel. I suppose you’ve got one of those—I have a lot of names for them, mostly very rude—elderly chaps who say they know all about gardening. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t know a thing about it. They come and have a lot of cups of tea and do a little very mild weeding. They’re quite nice, some of them, but all the same it does make one’s temper rise. She added, I’m quite a keen gardener myself.

Do you live here? asked Miss Marple, with some interest.

Well, I’m boarding with a Mrs. Hastings. I think I’ve heard her speak of you. You’re Miss Marple, aren’t you?

Oh yes.

I’ve come as a sort of companion-gardener. My name is Bartlett, by the way. Miss Bartlett. There’s not really much to do there, said Miss Bartlett. She goes in for annuals and all that. Nothing you can really get your teeth into. She opened her mouth and showed her teeth when making this remark. Of course I do a few odd jobs as well. Shopping, you know, and things like that. Anyway, if you want any time put in here, I could put in an hour or two for you. I’d say I might be better than any chap you’ve got now.

That would be easy, said Miss Marple. I like flowers best. Don’t care so much for vegetables.

I do vegetables for Mrs. Hastings. Dull but necessary. Well, I’ll be getting along. Her eyes swept over Miss Marple from head to foot, as though memorizing her, then she nodded cheerfully and tramped off.

Mrs. Hastings? Miss Marple couldn’t remember the name of any Mrs. Hastings. Certainly Mrs. Hastings was not an old friend. She had certainly never been a gardening chum. Ah, of course, it was probably those newly built houses at the end of Gibraltar Road. Several families had moved in in the last year. Miss Marple sighed, looked again with annoyance at the antirrhinums, saw several weeds which she yearned to root up, one or two exuberant suckers she would like to attack with her secateurs, and finally, sighing, and manfully resisting temptation, she made a detour round by the lane and returned to her house. Her mind recurred again to Mr. Rafiel. They had been, he and she—what was the title of that book they used to quote so much when she was young? Ships that pass in the night. Rather apt it was really, when she came to think of it. Ships that pass in the night … It was in the night that she had gone to him to ask—no, to demand—help. To insist, to say no time must be lost. And he had agreed, and put things in train at once! Perhaps she had been rather lionlike on that occasion? No. No, that was quite wrong. It had not been anger she had felt. It had been insistence on something that was absolutely imperative to be put in hand at once. And he’d understood.

Poor Mr. Rafiel. The ship that had passed in the night had been an interesting ship. Once you got used to his being rude, he might have been quite an agreeable man? No! She shook her head. Mr. Rafiel could never have been an agreeable man. Well, she must put Mr. Rafiel out of her head.

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing;

Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness.

She would probably never think of him again. She would look out perhaps to see if there was an obituary of him in The Times. But she did not think it was very likely. He was not a very well known character, she thought. Not famous. He had just been very rich. Of course, many people did have obituaries in the paper just because they were very rich; but she thought that Mr. Rafiel’s richness would possibly not have been of that kind. He had not been prominent in any great industry, he had not been a great financial genius, or a noteworthy banker. He had just all his life made enormous amounts of money….

Two

CODE WORD NEMESIS

I

It was about a week or so after Mr. Rafiel’s death that Miss Marple picked up a letter from her breakfast tray, and looked at it for a moment before opening it. The other two letters that had come by this morning’s post were bills, or just possibly receipts for bills. In either case they were not of any particular interest. This letter might be.

A London postmark, typewritten address, a long, good quality envelope. Miss Marple slit it neatly with the paper knife she always kept handy on her tray. It was headed, Messrs. Broadribb and Schuster, Solicitors and Notaries Public, with an address in Bloomsbury. It asked her, in suitable courteous and legal phraseology, to call upon them one day in the following week, at their office, to discuss a proposition that might be to her advantage. Thursday, the 24th was suggested. If that date was not convenient, perhaps she would let them know what date she would be likely to be in London in the near future. They added that they were the solicitors to the late Mr. Rafiel, with whom they understood she had been acquainted.

Miss Marple frowned in some slight puzzlement. She got up rather more slowly than usual, thinking about the letter

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