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and I saw her lying there. Sprawled out—dead. Her hair all golden and her face all—all blue! She was dead, strangled, and someone was saying those words in that same horrible gloating way—and I saw his hands—grey, wrinkled—not hands—monkey’s paws … It was horrible, I tell you. She was dead….”
    Miss Marple asked gently: “Who was dead?”
    The answer came back quick and mechanical.
    â€œHelen….”

Four
H ELEN?
    F or a moment Gwenda stared at Miss Marple, then she pushed back the hair from her forehead.
    â€œWhy did I say that?” she said. “Why did I say Helen? I don’t know any Helen!”
    She dropped her hands with a gesture of despair.
    â€œYou see,” she said, “I’m mad! I imagine things! I go about seeing things that aren’t there. First it was only wallpapers—but now it’s dead bodies. So I’m getting worse.”
    â€œNow don’t rush to conclusions, my dear—”
    â€œOr else it’s the house. The house is haunted—or bewitched or something … I see things that have happened there—or else I see things that are going to happen there—and that would be worse. Perhaps a woman called Helen is going to be murdered there … Only I don’t see if it’s the house that’s haunted why I should see these awful things when I am away from it. So I think really that it mustbe me that’s going queer. And I’d better go and see a psychiatrist at once —this morning.”
    â€œWell, of course, Gwenda dear, you can always do that when you’ve exhausted every other line of approach, but I always think myself that it’s better to examine the simplest and most commonplace explanations first. Let me get the facts quite clear. There were three definite incidents that upset you. A path in the garden that had been planted over but that you felt was there, a door that had been bricked up, and a wallpaper which you imagined correctly and in detail without having seen it? Am I right?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWell, the easiest, the most natural explanation would be that you had seen them before.”
    â€œIn another life, you mean?”
    â€œWell no, dear. I meant in this life. I mean that they might be actual memories. ”
    â€œBut I’ve never been in England until a month ago, Miss Marple.”
    â€œYou are quite sure of that, my dear?”
    â€œOf course I’m sure. I’ve lived near Christchurch in New Zealand all my life.”
    â€œWere you born there?”
    â€œNo, I was born in India. My father was a British Army officer. My mother died a year or two after I was born and he sent me back to her people in New Zealand to bring up. Then he himself died a few years later.”
    â€œYou don’t remember coming from India to New Zealand?”
    â€œNot really. I do remember, frightfully vaguely, being on a boat. A round window thing—a porthole, I suppose. And a man in white uniform with a red face and blue eyes, and a mark on his chin—ascar, I suppose. He used to toss me up in the air and I remember being half frightened and half loving it. But it’s all very fragmentary.”
    â€œDo you remember a nurse—or an ayah?”
    â€œNot an ayah—Nannie. I remember Nannie because she stayed for some time—until I was five years old. She cut ducks out of paper. Yes, she was on the boat. She scolded me when I cried because the Captain kissed me and I didn’t like his beard.”
    â€œNow that’s very interesting, dear, because you see you are mixing up two different voyages. In one, the Captain had a beard and in the other he had a red face and a scar on his chin.”
    â€œYes,” Gwenda considered, “I suppose I must be.”
    â€œIt seems possible to me,” said Miss Marple, “that when your mother died, your father brought you to England with him first, and