Nemesis by Agatha Christie Page B

slight surprise.
    “Yes. A very old friend of ours wrote to us - oh, quite some time ago, it must have been three weeks ago, but he asked us to make a note of this date. The date of the Famous Houses and Gardens Tour. He said that a great friend of his, or a relation, I'm not quite sure which would be on that tour.”
    Miss Marple continued to look surprised.
    “I'm speaking of a Mr Rafiel,” said Mrs Glynne.
    “Oh! Mr Rafiel,” said Miss Marple. “You - you know that -”
    “That he died? Yes. So sad. Just after his letter came. I think it must have been certainly very soon after he wrote to us. But we felt a special urgency to try to do what he had asked. He suggested, you know, that perhaps you would like to come and stay with us for a couple of nights. This part of the tour is rather strenuous. I mean, it's all right for the young people, but it is very trying for anyone older. It involves several miles of walking and a certain amount of climbing up difficult cliff paths and places. My sisters and I would be so very pleased if you could come and stay in our house here. It is only ten minutes' walk from the hotel and I'm sure we could show you many interesting things locally.”
    Miss Marple hesitated a minute. She liked the look of Mrs Glynne, plump, good-natured, and friendly though a little shy. Besides - here again must be Mr Rafiel's instructions...the next step for her to take? Yes, it must be so.
    She wondered why she felt nervous. Perhaps because she was now at home with the people in the tour, felt part of the group although as yet she had only known them for three days.
    She turned to where Mrs Glynne was standing, looking up at her anxiously.
    “Thank you, it is most kind of you. I shall be very pleased to come.”

Nemesis

Chapter 8
    THE THREE SISTERS
    Miss Marple stood looking out of a window. Behind her, on the bed, was her suitcase. She looked out over the garden with unseeing eyes. It was not often that she failed to see a garden she was looking at, in either a mood of admiration or a mood of criticism. In this case it would presumably have been criticism. It was a neglected garden, a garden on which little money had been spent possibly for some years, and on which very little work had been done. The house, too, had been neglected. It was well proportioned, the furniture in it had been good furniture once, but had had little in late years of polishing or attention. It was not a house, she thought, that had been, at any rate of late years, loved in any way. It lived up to its name: The Old Manor House... A house, built with grace and a certain amount of beauty, lived in, once cherished. The daughters and sons had married and left and now it was lived in by Mrs Glynne who, from a word she had let fall when she showed Miss Marple up to the bedroom appointed to her, had inherited it with her sisters from an uncle and had come here to live with her sisters after her husband had died. They had all grown older, their incomes had dwindled, labour had been more difficult to get.
    The other sisters, presumably, had remained unmarried, one older, one younger than Mrs Glynne, two Miss Bradbury-Scotts.
    There was no sign of anything which belonged to a child in the house. No discarded ball, no old perambulator, no little chair or a table. This was just a house with three sisters.
    “Sounds very Russian,” murmured Miss Marple to herself. She did mean The Three Sisters, didn't she? Chekhov, was it? or Dostoievsky? Really, she couldn't remember. Three sisters. But these would certainly not be the kind of three sisters who were yearning to go to Moscow. These three sisters were presumably, she was almost sure they were, content to remain where they were. She had been introduced to the other two who had come, one out of the kitchen and one down a flight of stairs, to welcome her. Their manners were well bred and gracious. They were what Miss Marple would have called in her youth by the now obsolete term