Poison In The Pen (7 page)

Jason Leigh came down the stairs at the Parsonage. He was whistling the odd haunting tune of a German folk song. He had heard it last in a very strange place indeed. He whistled it now, and the words went through his mind:

“On Sunday morning I go to the church,

The false tongues stand and talk in the porch,

Then one says this, and another says that,

And so I weep, and my eyes are wet.

Oh, thistles and thorns they prick full sore,

But a false, false tongue hurts a heart far more,

No fire on earth so burns and glows

As a secret love that no man knows.”

There would certainly be a considerable stabbing of tongues over Valentine’s broken marriage. Rough on Gilbert, but any man was a fool who married a girl who had nothing to give him. And if he didn’t know that she had nothing to give him, he was so big a fool that he was bound to get hurt anyway.

He opened the dining-room door and came into a light shabby room full of the comfortable smell of bacon and coffee. But the bacon was cooling on the Reverend Thomas Martin’s plate, the coffee in his cup skimming over, and both plate and cup had been pushed back. Tommy’s chair was pushed back too. He was standing in front of the fireplace at which he had so often scorched his trousers. This morning he could not have told whether there was any heat in the grate or not. He had an open letter in his hand, and he looked across it at Jason with an expression of incredulous horror on his big good-humoured face. What he saw was what he would have given a great deal to see at any time in the past six months— a young man with rather odd dark looks and a quizzical lift of the brows—the nephew who was as dear to him as any son could have been.

Jason shut the door behind him. He said,

“What’s the matter, Tommy—seen a basilisk or something?”

Tommy Martin held out the letter to him. It was written in a big awkward hand upon cheap white paper. Here and there the ink had run, as ink runs on blotting-paper. It began right at the top of the page without any form of address. With a slight intensification of his quizzical expression he read:

“I suppose you know what you are doing marrying Mr. Gilbert Earle to Miss Valentine Grey let alone his driving poor Doris Pell to take her life and leading another pore gurl astray as shall be nameless hadn’t you better find out about the pore gurl he married in Canada Miss Marie Dubois before you go helping him to commit bigamy with Miss Grey.”

Jason read it through to the end and came over to lay it down on the mantelpiece.

“Going to put it in the fire?”

“I can’t. I shall have to think.”

Jason’s mouth twisted.

“Anything in it?”

“No, no, of course not—there can’t be. We’ve had an epidemic of these things. That poor girl Doris Pell drowned herself because she got one. Just filth flung at random— nothing in it at all. But this suggestion of bigamy—that’s awkward. One can’t just ignore it.”

“I imagine not.”

Tommy Martin had a quick frown for that.

“Jason, you’ve known Gilbert Earle for a good long time, haven’t you? Ever come across anything to make you suppose—” He came to a stop.

Jason laughed.

“That there was something in this Marie Dubois business? My dear Tommy!”

“Well, I don’t like asking you, but I’ve got to.”

“Oh, I wasn’t at the wedding, you know.”

“Was there a wedding?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“My dear boy, this is serious. I must ask you to take it seriously.”

“All right then, here you are. I’ve known Gilbert on and off for quite a long time. I know him about as well as you know most of the people you are always running into because you go to the same houses and do the same sort of things. What you don’t know about anyone like that would fill several large volumes—I’ve never felt any urge to wade through them. In case you’re interested, your bacon is getting cold.” He went to the table, uncovered a dish, and helped himself.

Tommy shook his head.

“The bacon can wait.”

Jason looked shocked.

“Not on your life it can’t! Mine is past its best. I should say yours was a total loss.”

He was aware of an impatient movement and a more concentrated frown.

“My dear boy, you don’t realize the position. I shall have to get in touch with Gilbert. And there’s Roger—and Valentine—the wedding is at half past two—”

Jason helped himself to mustard.

“There isn’t going to be any wedding,” he said.

Tommy Martin stared.

“What do you mean?”

“There isn’t going to be a wedding. The question of Gilbert being a bigamist doesn’t arise, because he isn’t going to get married. Valentine isn’t going to marry him. There is no urgency about your seeing anyone. Relax and finish your breakfast.”

Tommy Martin came across and sat down in the chair which he had pushed back after opening the anonymous letter. He sat down, but he did not pull it in to the table. He looked hard at Jason and said,

“What have you been up to?”

“What do you suppose?”

“You’ve seen Valentine?”

“If you can call it seeing her. There wasn’t any light to speak of.”

“Jason—”

“All right, I will dot the i’s and cross the t’s. When I got here last night and found you were up at the Manor, I had a nice chatty séance with Mrs. Needham. She told me all about everything. At first I thought of going up to the Manor and joining the festivities, but I wasn’t dressed for the part, so I thought again. After which I wrote a line to Valentine telling her I would be at the gazebo until twelve—if she didn’t come, I would be calling bright and early in the morning. I then walked up to the Manor, in at the front door, and up the stairs, where I stuck the note on Val’s pincushion. I didn’t meet anyone, and nobody saw me. Valentine came to the gazebo and we talked. She decided that she had better not marry Gilbert. And that, Tommy, is all. The proceedings were quite unbelievably decorous. I didn’t even kiss her.”

Tommy Martin’s face had gone blank.

“She decided not to marry Gilbert?”

“She did.”

“What did you say to persuade her?”

“Very little. I didn’t have to. You can’t pretend you thought she was happy about it.”

The blank look broke up.

“No—no—it’s been troubling me. But she wasn’t happy at the Manor—she wanted to get away. Scilla and she are—” He paused for a word, and came out with, “Not very congenial.”

“I should say an understatement.”

Tommy Martin went on.

“There wasn’t any word of you. I don’t know how far the understanding between you went. There was no engagement—or was there?”

“No, there wasn’t any engagement.”

“And you might never have come back.”

“It was more than likely that I shouldn’t come back.”

“Did Valentine know that?”

“She didn’t know anything. As far as she was concerned, I just walked out on her.”

“That was cruel.”

Jason shook his head.

“Worse the other way. Besides, it is what everyone had to think. She might not have been able to resist the temptation to defend me. I couldn’t afford to risk it. There were a good many chances against pulling it off as it was. I wouldn’t have said anything, even last night, if you hadn’t guessed.”

Tommy Martin nodded.

“It wasn’t just guesswork. James Blacker dropped me a hint. We were up at College together. That sort of friendship doesn’t always last, but this one has. I ran into him the day after you went, and he told me where they were sending you. I may say now that when I walked in last night and you came out of the study to meet me, there was a moment when I wasn’t quite sure—” his voice shook, and steadied again— “Well, I wasn’t quite sure.”

Jason put milk into his coffee.

“I wasn’t quite sure myself. You know, there’s the point of view of the ghost as well as of the man who sees one. When you come to think of it, there are things one would rather do than find oneself lingering superfluous on the stage without a part to play. I don’t suppose the poor wretch enjoys seeing the odd friend or relations swoon at the sight of him.”

Tommy hadn’t swooned, but he had turned fairly green last night. The scene sprang into Jason’s mind—the dimly lighted hall, Tommy coming in out of the dark, and himself in silhouette against the bright rectangle left by the open study door. There had been a moment when he had felt as if he were really a ghost come back to haunt the place that had been his home. The moment was between them—something shared which couldn’t be put into words.

Neither of them would ever put it into words. Tommy Martin leaned forward, the letter still in his hand. He said abruptly,

“You went out again—after that?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I didn’t hear you.”

Jason laughed.

“I shouldn’t be much good at my job if I couldn’t get in or out of a house without anyone hearing me.”

Tommy Martin was looking at the letter, his shaggy brows drawn together, a lock of the hair that never would lie down falling over them. All at once his head jerked up.

“Jason, I don’t think it—but I’ve got to ask you. This isn’t your doing?”

“Mine? Oh, the letter? My dear Tommy!”

Tommy Martin said steadily,

“I just want you to say it isn’t.”

Jason’s mouth twitched. He had disposed of the bacon on his plate, and now reached for some rather hard toast and the marmalade.

“But how completely illogical! Because, just supposing that after being brought up by you I had gone sufficiently down into the gutter to take up anonymous letter writing as a recreation, why should you imagine I would stick at a lie—or at any number of lies for the matter of that? Would you like to pass me the butter?”

Tommy Martin made a long arm for the butter, placed symmetrically by Mrs. Needham on the far side of the table. He gave it an impatient shove in Jason’s direction and said in very nearly his ordinary voice,

“When one stops being illogical one becomes a machine.”

Jason piled butter on the toast, and marmalade on the butter. He was laughing a little.

“All right, have it your own way! I may become a poison-pen addict yet—‘ll ne faut pas dire, fontaine, je ne boirai jamais de ton eau—’ but I haven’t got there yet. You might have a little more confidence in yourself as an instructor of youth!”

The big hand which still held the letter relaxed.

“I said I didn’t think it. I had to ask you. Roger—”

“Roger may have the same pretty thought. Well, if he does, just draw his attention to a few cold facts. I had a nice newsy gossip with Mrs. Needham before you turned up last night. She told me all about your poison-pen, and I gathered that a good few people had been having letters, and that it had been going on for quite a time. Well, I only got across the Channel yesterday, so I suppose I may be considered to have an alibi.”

“Yes—yes—of course.”

He had let go of the letter, picked up his knife and fork, and begun on the now congealed bacon, when the door was thrown open without ceremony. Mrs. Needham stood there, flushed and panting.

“Oh, sir! Oh dear me, isn’t it dreadful! Who’d have thought of a thing like that happening! And Miss Valentine’s wedding-day and all! Oh, sir!”

Jason’s hand closed hard on the arm of his chair. Tommy Martin’s back was to the door. He swung round to face it.

“What has happened, Mrs. Needham?”

“Miss Connie, sir—poor Miss Connie Brooke! Oh dear me! And no time at all since she was here and I couldn’t help seeing how she’d been taking on!”

He got up out of his chair and towered there like a figure of judgment.

“Connie Brooke! Has anything happened to Connie Brooke?”

Jason’s hand had relaxed. It wasn’t Valentine. Nothing else mattered.

The tears were running down over Mrs. Needham’s big flushed cheeks.

“Oh dear me, yes! Oh, sir—oh Mr. Martin—she’s gone!”

“Gone!” This was his big pulpit voice that could fill the church.

She gulped and caught her breath.

“Oh, sir—the baker just brought the news! He come by, and there was Dr. Taylor’s car, and the police from Ledlington! She’s dead, sir—it’s all right enough! Miss Penny found her when she come—and went running for Miss Eccles— and Miss Eccles rung up the doctor—and he rung up the police! But none of it wasn’t any good!”

“You’re sure about this?”

“Oh, yes—it’s Gospel!”

The word struck ironically on Jason’s ear. Gospel—good news! Connie Brooke suddenly dead! He had come from places where the wastage of life was so great that only the nearest and dearest regarded it, but this was a peaceful English village where life was secure. And he had known Connie all her life. A plain, shy creature, not very interesting to anyone, but part of the accustomed scene.

Tommy Martin said abruptly, “I must go.” He pushed past Mrs. Needham into the hall. The front door opened and fell to behind him. Jason saw him go striding down to the gate and across the Green in his baggy, shabby suit. He had forgotten to take a hat.

Miss Silver was greeted with the news when she came down to breakfast. She had already been aware of some unusual commotion. The Croft was visible from her bedroom window. When first one car and then another stopped before the gate, she supposed that parents must be delivering their children at the school. It was a little early of course, but that might be accounted for by other engagements—a father proceeding to his office in Ledlington for instance. But when the car remained stationary and there was still further evidence of activity, this supposition had to be abandoned, and at a quarter past nine when she came downstairs Miss Wayne informed her in a shocked voice that Connie Brooke had been found dead in her bed.

“It seems quite impossible to believe that it is true—it does indeed! You saw her at the rehearsal only yesterday afternoon. She was the substitute bridesmaid—the rather plain girl in the homemade red cardigan. So very becoming—but oh dear, I oughtn’t to say that now, ought I? Poor Connie, I didn’t think she looked at all well. In fact, you know, I thought she looked as if she had been crying, but of course I never dreamed there could be anything really wrong. Such a shock—and poor Penny Marsh finding her like that! She has her own key, and she let herself in, and there was poor Connie dead on her bed! She came running for Mettie Eccles, and they got the doctor, but it wasn’t any use. Mettie says there wasn’t any hope right from the start—she must have been dead for hours. Of course, my room being at the back, I didn’t hear anything till Mettie came in just now and told me. But perhaps you—” She rubbed the pink tip of her nose and gazed hopefully at Miss Silver.

It appeared that at half past eight Miss Silver was in the bathroom and had heard nothing. Miss Wayne went on being shocked and telling her about what Miss Mettie had said, and what Dr. Taylor had said, and that, most shocking of all, the police had been sent for!

At the Manor Valentine was ringing up Gilbert Earle. From the call-box at the George he heard her voice, quiet and serious.

“Will you come up here as soon as you can?”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to see you until we met in church.”

“I think you must come.”

“Val—has anything happened?”

She said, “Yes.” And then, “Just come straight up to my sitting-room. I want to see you alone.”

She was telephoning from the study. When she had rung off she went directly upstairs to wait.

She had settled in her own mind exactly what she was going to do, and she didn’t want to see anyone else until it was done and couldn’t be undone. She had had an emotional interview with Maggie Repton in which the news of Connie’s death had been imparted and wept over.

“Such a terrible thing, and of course we must all feel it. But we can’t let it make any difference—it wouldn’t be right. My dear mother always used to say that nothing ought to be allowed to interfere with a wedding—not even the death of a near relative. Poor Connie is only a connection, and whatever Dr. Taylor may say, I cannot believe that I am in any way to blame. She looked terrible—you must have noticed it yourself. And she said she hadn’t been sleeping, so I gave her my own sleeping-pills with the dose quite clearly marked on the bottle. At least I suppose it was—they generally are. And it is quite ridiculous for Dr. Taylor to expect me to remember just how many tablets there were, because I can’t, and that is all there is about it.”

The scene had broken down in tears, after which Maggie Repton had been persuaded to lie down for a little. Valentine emerged with a sense of complete unreality. None of the things that seemed to be happening were really happening. They were not the sort of things that did happen, but as long as they seemed to be going on you had to play your part and do the best you could. She stood looking out of the window in her sitting-room and waited for Gilbert Earle. She heard his step in the passage and turned to meet him. When he had shut the door he saw that she had put her hand up, as if to keep him away. He took a step towards her, and she said,

“No. I told you that something had happened. We have got to talk.”

That halted him. But the news of Connie’s death had reached the George—it had reached him just after Valentine rang off. Of course it was a frightful shock to her and everyone. He supposed there might be some idea that the wedding ought to be put off until after the funeral. He said,

“I know—I’ve just heard. What on earth was it? Mrs. Simpson at the George said something about an overdose of sleeping-draught. They don’t think she took it on purpose, do they? And you won’t let it make any difference, surely? I mean, it isn’t as if she was a close friend or a near relation.”

She had gone back a step or two. Her hands rested on the back of a tall chair. She said,

“I didn’t ask you to come up here to talk about Connie.”

He stared.

“But it’s true, isn’t it—she’s dead?”

“Oh, yes, it’s true. We can make it an excuse if you like. You see, I can’t marry you, Gilbert.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“I mean I can’t marry you.”

The stare had become a very angry one.

“What do you mean, you can’t marry me? You’ve left it a bit late in the day, haven’t you?”

“Yes, it’s late, but it isn’t too late. There are things I could use for an excuse, but I’m not going to use them. I’ve thought about it, and I don’t think it would be fair. I’m going to tell you the truth. I can’t marry you, because Jason has come home.”

“And what the devil has Jason got to do with your marrying me?”

She said quite simply,

“I’ve always loved him. We belong. I oughtn’t ever to have said I would marry you. But he didn’t say anything, and he went away.”

He came a step nearer.

“Look here, Valentine, you can’t treat me like this! Do you know what people will say? If you don’t, I can tell you. It will be one of two things. Either you’ve found out something about me, or I have found out something about you. That’s the sort of mud that sticks, you know. And it will be a damned sight worse for you than it is for me, because as far as I’m concerned they’ll probably only credit me with a mistress, but it’s a hundred to one they’ll say it came out that you were going to have a baby, and that I turned you down. Pull yourself together and use some common sense!”

She shook her head.

“It’s no use, Gilbert. It doesn’t matter what anyone says or anyone does, I can’t marry anyone but Jason. I ought to have known that all along. I’ve been so unhappy that I didn’t seem to be able to think. We can just say that the wedding is put off. Everyone will think it is because of Connie.”

Gilbert lost his temper with a crash.

“Don’t be such a damned nitwit! What everyone will do is try and pin her suicide on to me. And if that doesn’t make me a laughingstock—”

The colour came suddenly, vividly to her face.

“Gilbert!”

“Connie Brooke—that fatuous white rabbit! I see myself!”

He gave a furious laugh.

She hadn’t meant to show him the letter, she hadn’t meant to shelter behind it in any way. If she loved him, she wouldn’t have believed it. If she had loved him, she wouldn’t have shown it to him. And if he had left Connie alone, she wouldn’t have shown it to him. But Connie hadn’t ever given him a thought, and Connie was dead. She was going to show it to him now.

She went over to her writing-table, took out the letter from between the leaves of the account-book where she had laid it for safety, and came back with it in her hand, her mind so concentrated on what she was doing and why she was doing it that it had no knowledge of whether Gilbert had gone on talking or not. When she held it out to him he said angrily, “What’s that?” and she put it into his hand.

She said, “You had better read it,” and backed away to stand by the tall chair again and rest her hands upon it.

Gilbert stared at the cheap paper, the big clumsy writing. He read:

“You may not mind his playing fast and loose with Doris Pell and driving her to take her life or about his carrying on with S R and if you don’t know what I mean you are more of a fool than what I took you for but you had better find out about his marrying Marie Dubois under a false name when he was in Canada or you may find yourself in the cart along of the other pore gurls he as led astray.”

He read to the end, looked across at her with blazing eyes, and demanded,

“What the devil is this?”

Valentine’s colour stood high.

“I got it this morning. I wasn’t going to show it to you— I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t said those things about Connie.”

“I never looked the same side of the road as Connie! Who would?”

There was a bright flame of anger in her. She cried back at him,

“She’s dead! How can you talk like that about her when she’s dead!”

It was like a head-on clash between them. Where had it come from suddenly, this hot antagonism? She thought, “Oh, God—I might have married him!” And he, “She won’t marry me now. There was something about Scilla in that damned letter. Better go on talking about Connie.”

His eyes went to the paper in his hand, and like a flash Valentine knew why. “You may not mind his carrying on with S R—” He was talking about Connie because he didn’t want to talk about that. He said in a moderated tone,

“Oh, well, I lost my temper. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, and I’m sorry if I did. I hardly knew the girl, but of course you did, and it’s been a shock and all that. I’m sorry if I said anything I shouldn’t. As for this—” he beat on the paper with his hand—“it’s just pure poison-pen! I suppose you’re not going to ask me whether I was really planning to commit bigamy?”

She said, “No—it doesn’t arise. I’m not asking you about Marie Dubois—I’m not asking you about Scilla.”

“Scilla—”

Her colour had begun to fade again, the flame in her was dying down. She said,

“I don’t need to ask about Scilla. I came in through the drawing-room last night. The door into her sitting-room was ajar, and I heard you. I suppose I shouldn’t have listened, but I did.”

He made a creditable effort.

“I don’t know what you heard. I’ve known her a long time. There’s never been anything serious. If you heard anything at all you would have gathered that whatever there had been, it was over.”

She said,

“It doesn’t matter. No, I suppose I oughtn’t to say that, because of course it matters to Roger. But it doesn’t matter to me—it didn’t matter last night. You see, I knew then I couldn’t marry you. I knew it as soon as Jason came back. I oughtn’t ever to have said I would. We don’t belong. Jason and I do. Now will you please go?”

Gilbert Earle went.