CHAPTER 7

       Morning on the Beach

      It was mid-morning on the beach below the hotel.

      Evelyn Hillingdon came out of the water and dropped on the warm golden sand. She took off her bathing cap and shook her dark head vigorously. The beach was not a very big one. People tended to congregate there in the mornings and about 11.30 there was always something of a social reunion. To Evelyn’s left in one of the exotic-looking modern basket chairs lay Señora de Caspearo, a handsome woman from Venezuela. Next to her was old Mr Rafiel who was by now the doyen of the Golden Palm Hotel and held the sway that only an elderly invalid of great wealth could attain. Esther Walters was in attendance on him. She usually had her shorthand notebook and pencil with her in case Mr Rafiel should suddenly think of urgent business cables which must be got off at once. Mr Rafiel in beach attire was incredibly desiccated, his bones draped with festoons of dry skin. Though looking like a man on the point of death, he had looked exactly the same for at least the last eight years—or so it was said in the islands. Sharp blue eyes peered out of his wrinkled cheeks, and his principal pleasure in life was denying robustly anything that anyone else said.

      Miss Marple was also present. As usual she sat and knitted and listened to what went on, and very occasionally joined in the conversation. When she did so, everyone was surprised because they had usually forgotten that she was there! Evelyn Hillingdon looked at her indulgently, and thought that she was a nice old pussy.

      Señora de Caspearo rubbed some more oil on her long beautiful legs and hummed to herself. She was not a woman who spoke much. She looked discontentedly at the flask of sun oil.

      ‘This is not so good as Frangipanio,’ she said, sadly. ‘One cannot get it here. A pity.’ Her eyelids drooped again.

      ‘Are you going in for your dip now, Mr Rafiel?’ asked Esther Walters.

      ‘I’ll go in when I’m ready,’ said Mr Rafiel, snappishly.

      ‘It’s half past eleven,’ said Mrs Walters.

      ‘What of it?’ said Mr Rafiel. ‘Think I’m the kind of man to be tied by the clock? Do this at the hour, do this at twenty minutes past, do that at twenty to—bah!’

      Mrs Walters had been in attendance on Mr Rafiel long enough to have adopted her own formula for dealing with him. She knew that he liked a good space of time in which to recover from the exertion of bathing and she had therefore reminded him of the time, allowing a good ten minutes for him to rebut her suggestion and then be able to adopt it without seeming to do so.

      ‘I don’t like these espadrilles,’ said Mr Rafiel, raising a foot and looking at it. ‘I told that fool Jackson so. The man never pays attention to a word I say.’

      ‘I’ll fetch you some others, shall I, Mr Rafiel?’

      ‘No, you won’t, you’ll sit here and keep quiet. I hate people rushing about like clucking hens.’

      Evelyn shifted slightly in the warm sand, stretching out her arms.

      Miss Marple, intent on her knitting—or so it seemed—stretched out a foot, then hastily she apologized.

      ‘I’m so sorry, so very sorry, Mrs Hillingdon. I’m afraid I kicked you.’

      ‘Oh, it’s quite all right,’ said Evelyn. ‘This beach gets rather crowded.’

      ‘Oh, please don’t move. Please. I’ll move my chair a little back so that I won’t do it again.’

      As Miss Marple resettled herself, she went on talking in a childish and garrulous manner.

      ‘It still seems so wonderful to be here! I’ve never been to the West Indies before, you know. I thought it was the kind of place I never should come to and here I am. All by the kindness of my dear nephew. I suppose you know this part of the world very well, don’t you, Mrs Hillingdon?’

      ‘I have been in this island once or twice before and of course in most of the others.’