Poison In The Pen (8 page)

It was late on the following day that Miss Silver was called to the telephone. Since the instrument was in the dining-room and supper was in progress, she hoped that her tact and discretion would not be put to too great a test. Mrs. Rodney had handed her the receiver without saying who the caller was, but no sooner had a deep, pleasant voice pronounced her name than she was aware that it was Rietta March, the Chief Constable’s wife.

“Dear Miss Silver, how are you? I do hope this is not an inconvenient moment. You are not in the middle of a meal or anything?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“We are at supper, but I feel sure that my kind hostess will not mind a temporary interruption.”

Rietta, having been thus informed that the Tilling end of the conversation would be public property, and having in any case been instructed not to say anything that could not be proclaimed aloud upon the village green, continued.

“I should have rung up before, but Randal hasn’t had a moment. Now when are we going to see you? You can’t be in Ledshire without at least coming over to tea. Could you manage tomorrow?”

“Well, I don’t know, my dear—”

Rietta went on.

“Oh, please do come! George has grown tremendously, and you haven’t even seen little Meg. Look here, Randal says he will be over in your direction tomorrow—some tiresome business or other—and he could pick you up at half past three if that will suit you. Do please say that it will. He sends his love, and we both want to see you so much.”

Miss Silver returned to her cocoa and scrambled egg. The tip of Miss Wayne’s small pink nose twitched in a manner which strongly suggested a white mouse in the throes of curiosity. In her scholastic days Miss Silver had more than once had to contend with the passionate partiality which little boys seem to entertain for these creatures. She had never been able to share it. She found herself wishing that Miss Wayne did not so often remind her of them. She hastened to explain Rietta’s call.

“The Marches are old friends. Mrs. March has very kindly invited me to tea tomorrow. Her husband was once a pupil of mine. No one would ever think so to look at him now, but as a little boy he was considered too delicate to go to school, so he shared his sisters’ lessons.”

Miss Wayne quivered with interest.

“Do you mean the Chief Constable? Such a fine looking man! No one would ever think that he had been delicate. Now let me see—I am afraid you will have to start rather early, but if you take the three o’clock bus and change at the Merry Harvesters… No, we had better look it up—I am not quite sure about the connection. I hope we have a really up-to-date timetable. My dear sister was so methodical about these things.”

Miss Silver explained that Mr. March would call for her— he had business in this direction.

Miss Renie dabbed her nose.

“Oh dear—do you suppose that it would be something to do with poor Connie? It seems so terrible that people should think it could be anything except a dreadful, dreadful accident! I won’t say it wasn’t foolish of Maggie Repton to let poor Connie have those sleeping-tablets, because I suppose it was. Esther was always so very particular about things like that. Prescriptions should never be passed on, she used to say, because of course what agrees with one person may not agree with another. Let them go to the doctor themselves and not go borrowing, she used to say. So Maggie Repton ought not to have done it, but I’m afraid poor Connie must have been careless too. But I can’t see why the police should be interested. Mettie says poor Maggie Repton is quite prostrated. They keep asking her how many tablets there were in the bottle, and of course she has no idea. As if one counted things like that!” She gave a little tittering laugh and then dabbed her nose again. “Oh dear—I didn’t mean—of course one ought not to make a joke of it.”

Miss Silver went on talking about the March family.

“I have always kept up with them. The girls are very happily married.”

She discoursed upon the theme at some length—Isobel’s children—Margaret’s services during the war—the valued friendship of the elder Mrs. March.

There was a moment after supper when she and Joyce Rodney were alone. Plates and dishes had been cleared, and Joyce was washing up whilst Miss Silver, always anxious to be helpful, dried for her. In the dining-room Miss Wayne was engaged in setting out the breakfast things. The door through to that part of the house being shut, Joyce said quick and low,

“I am taking David to a friend of mine in Ledlington tomorrow. I don’t want him to hear anything—about Connie. Penny means to go on with the school, but it will have to be at Lower Tilling. Her mother has a biggish house there, but it would be a good deal farther for David to go—I should have to take him on my bicycle. Anyhow I thought if I could get him away until after the inquest and the funeral—”

Miss Silver registered approval.

“A very sensible idea. Your friend has children?”

“Two—and such a nice Nannie. David loves going there, and I shall be much happier about him.”

Miss Silver polished a tablespoon and laid it down on a baize-covered tray.

“People are sadly incautious about what they say in front of children,” she observed.

“They are frightful! Hilda Price was here this morning— you know, she comes to Aunt Renie on Wednesdays and Fridays—and I’m sure as far as getting on with her work was concerned she might just as well have stayed at home, because all she could do was talk about Connie. I told her when she came that I didn’t want David to hear anything, and she agreed with every word, and then about five minutes later there she was, talking to Aunt Renie at the top of her voice, going over some long story about Connie having gone up to the Parsonage in tears on Tuesday evening.”

Miss Silver finished the last tablespoon and began on the forks.

“Indeed?”

Joyce gave an emphatic nod.

“And there was David only a yard away drinking it all in. Aunt Renie should have known better, even if Hilda didn’t. Of course, I hustled him off to play in the garden at once, and I stayed around to see that he didn’t come back.”

Miss Silver said in a thoughtful voice,

“And pray how did Hilda Price come to know what had happened at the Parsonage?”

“Well, she has a sister-in-law who is a cousin of Mrs. Gurney who keeps the village shop, and she had it from Mrs. Emmott who is a friend of the parson’s housekeeper, Mrs. Needham.”

Miss Silver was not unaccustomed to villages. She found this a perfectly satisfactory explanation.

“Pray continue, Mrs. Rodney.”

“I do wish you would call me Joyce.”

“I really do not think it would be wise. I should like to know what is being said about Connie Brooke’s visit to the Parsonage.”

Joyce put the last plate up in the rack and emptied the washing-bowl.

“Mrs. Needham told Mrs. Emmott, and she told Mrs. Gurney, that Connie had been crying. She said her eyes were all red and swollen. She rang up, you know, and Mr. Martin was out. Mrs. Needham said she thought Connie was crying and she was dreadfully upset because he wasn’t there. Then whilst she was speaking he came in, so Connie said she would come along. Mrs. Needham was very much put out because of it being his supper time. She hates people like poison when they come and bother him at meal times, so she probably lurked in the hall and clattered with the tray. Anyhow she was there when Connie went away, because she heard Mr. Martin say that she had better think it well over, and if she really did know who was writing those poisonous letters it would be her duty to go to the police. Mrs. Needham said Connie cried dreadfully and said things like ‘Oh, poor Doris!’ and she didn’t know what to do but once she had said it she couldn’t take it back, could she? And Mr. Martin said no, she couldn’t, and got out his own handkerchief and gave it to her, which seems to have annoyed Mrs. Needham quite a lot. And he told Connie to go home and think it over. If that was all over the village by Wednesday, and I expect it was, because I know we had it here, the person who wrote the letters would have heard about it too.”

Miss Silver said, “Yes.”

“I thought at the rehearsal that Connie looked as if she had been crying her eyes out. If she really knew who had written those letters—but how could she—”

“Some accident may have placed her in possession of a clue. Pray finish what you were going to say.”

Joyce looked at her in a distressed manner.

“Well, it looks as if it was someone she knew quite well. She wouldn’t have been so distressed if it wasn’t. And that ties in with her going to see Tommy Martin and coming away in floods of tears without telling him anything. You see, when Mrs. Needham heard her say, ‘Once I’ve said it I can’t take it back, can I?’ and Tommy said no she couldn’t, and to think it well over, well it does sound as if perhaps she just couldn’t face up to it and Miss Maggie’s tablets might have been the answer. Do you think it was like that?”

Miss Silver looked at her with gravity.

“There is another possibility, Mrs. Rodney. The person who wrote those letters would have been ruined by exposure. He, or she, would have had a very strong motive for silencing Connie Brooke.”

Randal March drew up at Willow Cottage at a little after half past three on the following afternoon, whereupon Miss Silver came out of the front door in her black cloth coat and the new hat which she had intended to wear for the wedding. After an unbroken succession of black felts trimmed with ribbon and little bunches of flowers it really was, as Ethel Burkett had declared, “Quite a change,” being more of a toque, and the material black velvet. Three pompons nestled against the crown, grey, black, and lavender. As they drove away, Randal said with an affectionate smile,

“Surely that is a new hat. I like those what-you-may-call-’ems at the side.”

Miss Silver experienced a glow of modest pleasure. She supplied the name.

“They are pompons.”

“Most becoming.”

From this promising opening they proceeded to solicitous enquiries from Miss Silver and a budget of family news on the part of Randal March. Isobel’s second girl was demanding to go on the stage. Margaret and her husband were going to run a chicken farm in Devonshire—“And how anyone can deliberately set out to get mixed up with hens is beyond me.”

Miss Silver confessed that she would not care about it herself, but added that Margaret always knew exactly what she wanted to do, and that once her mind was made up it was no use trying to stop her.*

“Obstinate as a mule,” said Randal March.

It was obvious that no serious business would be discussed while they were still upon the road. Arrived at the house, they were met by Rietta March. The beauty which had once been rather austere was now softened by happiness. Miss Silver recalled the lines which she had heard applied to her when they had first been thrown together—“A daughter of the gods, divinely tall—” Her favourite Lord Tennyson had completed them with “and most divinely fair,” but Rietta Cray was a dark goddess, and in those days a tragic one, since the shadow of murder had rested upon her and hers— a shadow which Miss Silver had been instrumental in lifting. [see *Miss Silver Comes to Stay.] She looked younger now than she had then, and there was a carnation bloom in her cheeks. She kissed Miss Silver warmly and enquired, “When would you like to talk—now or after tea?”

Randal March said,

“Now, I think. And I want to take her into the drawing-room. This has got to be just a social visit, and you never know how things will get round.”

“Very well, I’ll go up to the children. You can call when you are ready for me to come down.”

Miss Silver watched her go away from them up the stairs graceful and gracious in a dress of dark red wool, one of the chrysanthemum shades. Then Randal was taking her into a pleasant room with flowered chintzes and big jars of dahlias, golden rod, and Michaelmas daisy. Seating herself and looking about her with pleasure, she reflected upon the happy atmosphere which filled the house. Although she had disciplined herself very severely in the matter of having favourites amongst her pupils, there was no contesting the fact that Randal March had always had a very special place in her affections. He had been a spoilt, delicate little boy when she arrived to superintend the schoolroom which he shared with two elder sisters. Previous governesses had pronounced him unmanageable, and he was too delicate to be sent to school. After two years of a rule which had combined authority, interest, and beneficence the delicacy had been outgrown, and a deep and enduring respect had been implanted in his mind. When, many years afterwards, he encountered Miss Silver in her capacity as a private enquiry agent, the respect was enhanced and the lively affection of the little boy developed into the enduring friendship and affection of the man. It was the horrible affair of the Poisoned Caterpillars which brought them together, and he had been forward to maintain that she had saved his life. Since those days he had become, first Superintendent at Ledlington, and then Chief Constable of the county, and their paths had continued to cross. He leaned back now in one of the comfortable chintz-covered chairs and said,

“And how are you getting along at Tilling Green?” Miss Silver took a moment before she said soberly, “I do not know that I can answer that. I need not tell you that there is a great deal of talk about the death of Connie Brooke. I do not know how much of it will have reached you.”

“Let us assume that I haven’t heard any of it. I may have done so, or I may not, but I would like to have your angle.”

She repeated what Joyce Rodney had told her. Randal March looked thoughtful.

“So you think she knew something about the anonymous letters, went to the Vicar to tell him what she knew, and came away without doing it on the grounds that once she had said it she couldn’t take it back. What do you make of that?”

“That the person whom she suspected, or against whom she really had some evidence, was someone she knew and someone who could not be lightly accused.”

He nodded.

“Had you met the girl at all? How did she strike you?”

“I saw her at the rehearsal of Valentine Grey’s wedding. Miss Wayne asked me to accompany her. That, as you may know, was on Wednesday afternoon. In the evening the poor girl attended a party at the Manor from which she walked home across the Green with Miss Eccles who lives at Holly Cottage next door to Miss Wayne.”

“Yes, I have seen her statement. She says they separated there, and that Connie Brooke went on alone.”

“Yes, I believe I heard them say good-night to one another.”

“Oh, you did? That might be quite an important point, you know.”

“I would not like to swear to it, Randal. I was dropping off to sleep. It was just an impression.”

“I see. Well, you saw the girl at this wedding rehearsal on Wednesday. That would be after her visit to the Vicar?”

“The following afternoon.”

“How did she strike you?”

“She had been brought in as a substitute for a Miss Merridew who had developed German measles. Shyness, nervousness, or excitement would not have been surprising, but there was no evidence of any of them. The first thing I noticed was that she had been crying. Not within the last few hours, but at some time previous to that—probably during the night. The eyelids were still reddened, and there was some swelling. There had been an unskilful attempt to cover up these traces with powder. The rehearsal was rather a fiasco, the bridegroom having been delayed by an accident to the car in which the best man was driving him down. Those present at the rehearsal were all more or less affected by this delay. There was a general uneasiness, a disposition to fidget, to whisper. Connie Brooke just stood there. I had the impression that she hardly knew what was going on.”

“You think she had something on her mind?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“And that practically everyone in the village was aware of the fact?”

“I suppose most people would know that she had been to see Mr. Martin about the anonymous letters and had come away without telling him what she knew.”

He leaned forward to put a log of wood on the fire. A little shower of sparks flew up.

“That sort of secret could be a dangerous one to keep. You know, she had taken, or been given, a tremendously strong dose of that sleeping stuff. I’ve had the report on the postmortem. It wasn’t a case of an extra tablet and a weak heart or anything like that. She had had about twice as much as would have been necessary to kill her. Now a very large dose like that points to suicide. You can’t swallow a whole lot of tablets without knowing what you are doing.”

Miss Silver gave the slight cough with which she had been accustomed to call a class to order.

“You should, I think, be informed that Connie Brooke had a nervous inability to swallow anything in the form of a pill or tablet. Miss Eccles, Miss Wayne, and Mrs. Rodney having all told me this, I should think it unlikely that anyone in Tilling Green was ignorant on the point. Anything in the form of a tablet must therefore have been crushed and dissolved, probably in her bedtime cocoa.”

“She was in the habit of taking cocoa when she went to bed?”

“Certainly. She found that it helped her to sleep. It seems she told Miss Eccles whilst they were walking home across the Green on Wednesday night that she had left this cocoa all ready mixed in a saucepan so that it wouldn’t take her any time to heat it up. They talked about the tablets Miss Repton had given her, and she said she would dissolve them and put them into the cocoa. Miss Mettie said why couldn’t she just swallow them. She says they went on talking about it all across the Green, and she is very insistent that she told Connie on no account to take more than one tablet.”

“Yes, she put that in her statement. I wonder if she is speaking the truth.”

Miss Silver did not reply. When he realized that her silence was deliberate he spoke again.

“It is quite an easy thing to say. And it puts Miss Mettie Eccles in a very favourable light. Is she the sort of person who sees to it that the light is favourable?”

Miss Silver’s small, neat features were expressionless. She said in a noncommittal voice,

“I suppose, Randal, that most of us would place a certain value upon the impression made by our conduct in an emergency.”

“You mean we all like to stand well with each other.”

“And with the police, Randal.”

He frowned.

“How does Miss Eccles strike you?”

She met his look with one of bright intelligence.

“She is a busy person. She has a hand in everything that goes on in the village. Her connection with the Reptons gives her a certain standing.”

“A finger in every pie, and quite a lot to say as to how the pie is baked!”

“She is efficient. What she does is well done. She talks a great deal. She has decided opinions. Her house is very well kept, the garden neat and formal.”

He laughed.

“Well, I’ve met her, so I know what she looks like. Most women would have started off with that, but you left it out— I wonder why.”

She gave him her peculiarly charming smile.

“There is no mystery about it, my dear Randal. She told me that she had met you.”

“I see. Well, well—Now look here, either this girl melted down a large number of tablets in her cocoa, or someone else put the drug into the cocoa and either left it there hoping she would take it, or came in with her and persuaded her to do so. I find considerable difficulty in believing in either of these theories. As to the first, I don’t believe there were anything like so many tablets in that bottle Miss Repton gave her. I’ve seen Maggie Repton myself. I thought I should probably get more out of her than Crisp.”

“And did you?”

“Yes, I think I did. She’s the well-meaning, nervous kind— afraid to commit herself, afraid to be definite about anything. The kind who holds up a statement for half an hour while she tries to think whether something quite irrelevant took place at half a minute to seven or half a minute past. I spent quite a lot of time getting her sufficiently soothed down to say anything at all, and even then she qualified everything until neither of us knew where we were. But I did emerge with an impression—in fact you can say almost with a conviction—that there weren’t very many tablets in that bottle.”

“Indeed, Randal?”

He nodded.

“It sounds a bit vague, but then so is Maggie Repton.”

Miss Silver was looking at him.

“Would it be possible that she desired to give you that impression?”

“My dear Miss Silver, you simply can’t have Maggie Repton as a suspect.”

“You say that with a good deal of confidence.”

He laughed.

“Come now, what motive could she possibly have?”

She replied soberly.

“The person who wrote the letters would have a motive. If, in fact, Connie Brooke was deliberately removed, there could be only one possible motive for removing her, the fact that she knew, or guessed, the identity of the person who wrote the anonymous letters. The person, and that person alone, would have the necessary motive.”

“You are right about that of course. But Maggie Repton is an impossibility. She is the mildest, vaguest, and most blameless of women—the kind of stay-at-home daughter and sister who is rapidly becoming extinct. She nursed her parents, she kept house for her brother until he married—in fact I believe she still does so. The domestic arts are not much in Scilla Repton’s line.”

Miss Silver gave her slight deliberate cough.

“But do you not see that it is amongst just such people that the anonymous letter-writer is to be found? Too little occupied with their own affairs, having in fact no affairs with which to occupy themselves, too timid and ineffectual to express their own opinions—do you not see that it is to just such a person that the writing of an anonymous letter might appeal? It affords an opportunity for the release of concealed resentments, suppressed desires, the envy, the grudge which has been secretly cherished. There may, or may not, have been some specific sense of injury, but I believe that in most cases it is a feeling of inferiority or frustration which provides the background of these painful cases. As in so many other circumstances, it is only the first step which is hard to take. Once that has been taken, the vice grows rapidly. In a village the effect of each letter can be observed. A sense of power and importance comes to the writer, the letters become more numerous and more poisonous, the appetite grows with what it feeds upon. And then there comes the threat of discovery. A timid person does not suddenly become brave, but he or she may become desperate. Timidity may itself be the incentive to a crime. If Connie Brooke was in a position to ruin such a person, would not that provide a motive for her murder?”

The word had been skirted round, now it had been said. Miss Silver was reminded of poor Connie’s words, “Once I’ve told it, I can’t take it back.” They had been discussing the possibility of murder, but it had not been named until now.

Randal March threw out a hand.

“Of course everything you say is perfectly true, but—if you knew Miss Maggie—”

She said mildly,

“I do not wish you to think that I am accusing her. I am only anxious that in this matter there should be no one so privileged by place, position, or character, as to be withdrawn from the most careful scrutiny. In the case of Miss Repton, she has the background which I have suggested as a probable one, and she is known to have pressed a bottle of sleeping tablets on Connie Brooke. We do not know how many there were in the bottle, nor do we know whether anything was said as to the number it would be prudent to take. If it could be proved that there were only a few tablets, Miss Repton would be exonerated, since it would not have been possible for her to have left the Manor at any time during the evening. There is, in fact, plenty of evidence to show that she did not do so. It would not, therefore, have been possible for her to have tampered with the cocoa which Connie had left in readiness for her return.”