Four
HELEN?
F or a moment Gwenda stared at Miss Marple, then she pushed back the hair from her forehead.
“Why 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.
“You see,” she said, “I’m mad! I imagine things! I go about seeing things that aren’t there. First it was onlywallpapers—but now it’s dead bodies. So I’m getting worse.”
“Now don’t rush to conclusions, my dear—”
“Or 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 isgoing to be murdered there … Only I don’t see if it’s the house that’s haunted why I should see these awful thingswhen I am away from it. So I think really that it must be me that’s going queer. And I’d better go and see apsychiatrist at once—this morning.”
“Well, of course, Gwenda dear, you can always do that when you’ve exhausted¹ every other line of approach, but Ialways think myself that it’s better to examine the simplest and most commonplace explanations first. Let me get thefacts quite clear. There were three definite incidents that upset you. A path in the garden that had been planted over butthat you felt was there, a door that had been bricked up, and a wallpaper which you imagined correctly and in detailwithout having seen it? Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the easiest, the most natural explanation would be that you had seen them before.”
“In another life, you mean?”
“Well no, dear. I meant in this life. I mean that they might be actual memories.”
“But I’ve never been in England until a month ago, Miss Marple.”
“You are quite sure of that, my dear?”
“Of course I’m sure. I’ve lived near Christchurch in New Zealand all my life.”
“Were you born there?”
“No, I was born in India. My father was a British Army officer. My mother died a year or two after I was born andhe sent me back to her people in New Zealand to bring up. Then he himself died a few years later.”
“You don’t remember coming from India to New Zealand?”
“Not really. I do remember, frightfully vaguely³, being on a boat. A round window thing—a porthole, I suppose.

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