Poison In The Pen Read online

  It was not until later in the day when she was dealing with her correspondence that the matter was once more brought to her attention. She was engaged with a letter from her niece Ethel Burkett. Raising, as it did, the question of Ethel’s sister Gladys, whose by no means harmonious relations with her husband Andrew Robinson were a perennial source of anxiety, it was affording her grave reason for thought.

  “Dear Auntie,” Ethel wrote, “I do not know whether Gladys has written to you, and I hate to trouble you with her affairs, but I really do think you have more influence with her than anyone else. A separation from Andrew would be fatal. He has been most tolerant and long-suffering and he has a horror of any scandal, but I have a feeling that if she were to go so far as to leave him, he would not readily take her back.”

  It was at this point, and while Miss Silver was reflecting upon just how far a selfish and headstrong young woman was likely to go in the process of cutting off her nose to spite her own face, that the telephone bell rang. She picked up the receiver and heard Frank Abbott say,

  “Hullo! Is that you?”

  Having been reassured upon this point, he continued.

  “Then may I come and see you?… Thank you. I’ll be right along.”

  She had no more than time to write what might be called an interim letter to Ethel setting out the view that Gladys, having no money of her own and being notoriously averse from anything in the nature of work, would, in her opinion, hesitate to separate herself from Andrew’s very comfortable income, when the door opened and Emma announced,

  “Mr. Frank—”

  She was, as always, affectionately pleased to see him, and he on his side as affectionately at home.

  When Miss Silver had settled herself in her chair and taken up her usual knitting, he said,

  “Well, I don’t know whether you can guess what has brought me.”

  She inclined her head.

  “I have seen the paragraph about an inquest at Tilling Green.”

  “Stupid, damnable affair. More damnable than stupid, I should say. What gets into any human being to make him— or her—set out to poison and destroy. Do you know, I met this girl when I was down there. She had come in to do some needlework for Miss Wayne. She was a sensitive, shy creature—coloured up to the roots of her hair when I spoke to her. Joyce had been good to her, and the girl obviously adored her.”

  Miss Silver had seldom seen him with his surface cynicism so completely broken through. The drawl was gone from his voice and the chill from his glance. She said with a good deal of warmth,

  “My dear Frank—”

  He nodded.

  “I am a fool, but it has got me on the raw. She was such an inoffensive creature—plain, simple, kindly. And someone could take pleasure in destroying her!”

  She knitted thoughtfully.

  “Is there any suspicion of foul play?”

  “Not in the technical sense. The law does not call that sort of thing murder. There seems no reason to doubt that she jumped into the lake and drowned herself—‘Whilst the balance of her mind was disturbed!’ That, as you will have seen, was the verdict. She had taken some work up to the Manor. They say she seemed as usual.” His shoulder jerked. “You may have noticed that people always do say that kind of thing when anything like this happens! There is a place where the drive crosses an ornamental stream. The stream passes under a bridge and falls over rocks to this lake they speak of. She must have jumped over the low parapet on the lake side and hit her head. After which she drowned. As the verdict says, she was off her balance, and the thing that drove her off her balance is patent. That is what I have come to see you about.”

  The blue frill which depended from the needles was lengthening. Miss Silver said,

  “Yes?”

  He spoke with a return to his usual manner,

  “You see, we’ve been asked to send someone down there. I don’t know whether you remember, but about five years ago there was a very nasty outbreak of this sort of thing about ten miles away at Little Poynton. They had a couple of suicides there and a lot of other trouble, and it was never satisfactorily cleared up. They ended by calling in the Yard. March has been on to us officially about this Tilling business. It seems that several people have had letters. He has got hold of two. One was posted in London. It is one of the most recent and may provide a clue. After all, only a small number of Tilling people can have been in Kensington on the day when the letter was posted there.”

  Miss Silver made a slight negative gesture.

  “I do not feel that a hardened writer of anonymous letters would provide so obvious a clue.”

  “I don’t know—everyone slips up sometimes. Anyhow it’s all the clue there is. The paper is cheap block stuff—ruled. Envelope rather better. Writing big and thick, clumsy ill-formed letters—the experts say left-handed. A sprinkling of spelling mistakes—probably deliberate. No fingerprints except what you would expect—branch office—postman—recipient. All very helpful!” He leaned forward suddenly. “Now what March suggests is that you go down there with the official blessing and do your stuff. The Chief thinks it is a good idea, and I am here to find out if you will take it on.”

  She knitted in silence for a little, and then said,

  “I do not, unfortunately, know anyone in the vicinity. It would be of no use for me to go down unless my visit could be contrived to appear a natural one.”

  “The Miss Waynes occasionally took in a paying guest. One of them was a Miss Cutler, now living in Chiswick. It could be arranged for you to meet her in a casual manner, after which it would be child’s play to induce her to recommend a country lodging. You could then write to Miss Wayne and enquire whether she would be prepared to take you in.”

  After a moment she said,

  “Miss Wayne is not to know?”

  “No one is to know, except Joyce. Miss Wayne least of all. She is constitutionally timid and would never have a happy moment if she thought she had a detective in the house.”

  She looked at him gravely.

  “I do not know. I do not like the idea of my hostess being in ignorance. It is in fact repugnant.”

  “My dear ma’am, if your advent is to be broadcast!”

  Her glance reproved him.

  “It would be a grave responsibility for Mrs. Rodney. Is she prepared to undertake it?”

  “She rang me up this morning from a call-box in Ledlington. She is very much worried, very much upset about Doris Pell, very much afraid that there may be further trouble. I had talked to her about you when she first told me about the letters. She asked me if you could not come down, and suggested this paying guest business. It seems Miss Wayne had been speaking about Miss Cutler and saying she really thought she must repeat what had been a very pleasant experience. So you see, it would be quite easy.”

  She drew upon her ball of wool.

  “Perhaps. But I would prefer that she should receive at the very least some hint that my visit was a professional one.”

  He said, “Impossible!” and then relaxed into a laugh.

  “The fact is she has one of those tongues which never really stop. You know—the gentle trickle just going on and on. She wouldn’t mean to give anything away—she probably wouldn’t know she was doing it—but you can’t talk all the time and be safe with a secret. Joyce said it would be hopeless, and that she really would be frightened to death. She is terrified already about the letters—gets up in the night to see that the doors are locked, doesn’t like being left alone in the house, all that sort of thing. Joyce says she will jump at having an extra person there. And you know, you couldn’t really do better. She has a cottage on the edge of the Green—neighbours to right and to left of her, the village shop within a stone’s throw, the entrance to the Manor just on the other side of the Green, and church and parsonage beyond. When I tell you that the chief village busybody, a Miss Eccles, lives next door on the one side, and the chief village mystery on the other, you will realize that you simply can’t refuse such a marvellous opportunity.”

  “And pray who or what is the chief village mystery?”

  “He is a gentleman of the name of Barton, a quiet, harmless old boy who keeps cats and doesn’t invite any of the ladies to tea. He doesn’t even have a woman to do for him, so naturally there is a general feeling that he must have something to conceal. He does his own cooking and cleaning, if any, and he keeps his door locked, which is a thing even Miss Wayne hasn’t done until lately.”

  In the course of her professional career Miss Silver had frequently been obliged to embark upon a course of action to which as a private gentlewoman she would not have committed herself. She began to consider the desirability of making Miss Cutler’s acquaintance.

  CHAPTER 3

  Elderly ladies cannot easily be hurried. It took a little time to contrive the kind of approach which Miss Cutler would consider to be pleasant and natural. A mutual friend, or someone who could play that part—a drawing-room humming with conversation, tea-cups poised and cake and biscuits in circulation—in such a setting it was easy enough to talk of country holidays, to mention Ledshire, and to be immediately the recipient of Miss Cutler’s interested comments upon the shocking fatality which had so recently taken place at Tilling Green—“Where I stayed, I actually stayed, Miss Silver, only just a year ago.”

  “Indeed?”

  Miss Cutler nodded vigorously. She had a bony intelligent face and hair which had shaded from red to so very pale a gold that it might almost have been taken for grey. It still curled, and she had long ago given up any attempt to control its exuberance.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, “I was there for three months with the Miss Waynes at Willow Cottage. That poor girl who committed suicide made me a couple of blouses. Such a nice q
uiet creature—I was quite dreadfully shocked.”

  Miss Silver heard all about the Miss Waynes.

  “You have never been back again?”

  “Well, no. Miss Esther died—very suddenly, poor thing. Though I’m sure I don’t know why one should be sorry for people who die suddenly. It is unpleasant for their families of course, but much happier for them. Anyhow it must have been a great shock for Miss Renie. She depended on her for everything. Really quite painful to see a grown woman so subservient. I hear she has a widowed niece living with her now.”

  “And does she still take in guests?”

  “I really don’t know. They were not at all well off, and if the niece is dependent… I have sometimes thought of going down again, but I don’t know what the housekeeping would be like now, unless the niece does it. Miss Renie was not a good cook! On the other hand, there was a very pleasant social circle at Tilling Green. Horrid for them all having this poison-pen business. And just as that charming girl at the Manor is getting married! There was another young man on the tapis when I was down there. She wasn’t engaged to him, but they all thought she was going to be. He was the parson’s nephew, Jason Leigh. Such an odd name—and rather an odd young man. Anyhow nothing came of it, and she is marrying the other one next week, I believe. I made friends with a Miss Eccles when I was down there, and she wrote and told me. We still correspond occasionally.” She went on talking about Tilling Green and the people whom she had met there. “Colonel Repton at the Manor, married to quite a young wife— very pretty, but not very popular. The people bore her, and they don’t like it… Valentine Grey has a lot of money. Gilbert Earle, the man she is marrying, is the heir to a title… Miss Eccles says Colonel Repton will be put to it to go on living at the Manor without the allowance which her trustees have been paying him while she lives there. She is herself some kind of distant connection of the family, so I suppose she knows. She says they are having a rehearsal of the wedding ceremony. I don’t know that I care about the idea. I know it is very generally done, but it seems to me to detract from the sacred nature of the occasion. I may be wrong, but that is how it seems to me.” Miss Cutler’s loud, decided voice continued with hardly a break, but she contrived to make a very good tea.

  Miss Silver was, of course, the perfect listener. She was interested, she was agreeable. When encouragement seemed desirable she supplied it. By the time she left she had quite a clear picture of Tilling Green and its inhabitants, together with a number of unrelated details which she memorized without effort and which she could rely upon herself to reproduce at will. She went home and wrote a letter which she addressed to Miss Wayne, Willow Cottage, Tilling Green, Ledshire. It began:

  “Dear Madam

  “An acquaintance of mine, Miss Cutler, has told me of the very pleasant holiday she spent with you some time ago. I am encouraged to write and ask you whether you would consider allowing me to come to you as a paying guest for a short time. The quiet surroundings of a village…”

  To this letter she presently received the reply which she expected. Miss Wayne would be very pleased. She was sure that any friend of Miss Cutler’s… She had lost her dear sister of whom Miss Cutler would doubtless have spoken, but she and her niece would do their best to make a guest’s stay pleasant. She was writing to thank Miss Cutler for the recommendation. As to terms, everything kept going up so. She felt obliged to charge a little more than they had asked a year ago…

  The small spidery writing ran on to a signature which could just be identified as Irene Wayne.

  CHAPTER 4

  Miss Silver found herself delighted with Willow Cottage. Tilling Green was a charming little place, far enough from Ledlington not to have been spoiled but within sufficiently easy reach by bus. It had a fourteenth-century church with some interesting tombstones and brasses, the fine old Manor house, and two or three really charming half-timbered cottages. Willow Cottage was of course of a later date, which she considered preferable from the point of view of a residence. Old cottages were doubtless picturesque, but they were sadly apt to have uncomfortably steep stairs and low ceilings, to say nothing of out-of-date sanitary arrangements and a shortage of hot water. Willow Cottage had a nice little modern bathroom which, as Miss Wayne informed her, had taken the place of an early Victorian conservatory.

  “We found it full of ferns when we bought the cottage— it is thirty years ago now—and it made the dining-room so damp. My sister decided immediately that it must go. She was a wonderful person, Miss Silver. She always made up her mind about things at once. The moment she saw that fernery she said that it must go. Now I am quite different. I am afraid I see so many difficulties. I said, ‘Oh, Esther!’—that was my sister’s name—and she said, ‘Well, what are you oh’ing about?’ It was very stupid of me of course, but I couldn’t help thinking how inconvenient it would be to go through the dining-room if one wanted to take a bath, but she pointed out that mealtimes would quite naturally be different from bathtimes, and that if one had a tendency to be late in the morning it would help one to overcome it. And so it actually did. I found that I was able to get up quite half an hour earlier without it being any trouble at all. It only needed a little perseverance.”

  Without thinking its situation ideal, Miss Silver was in no frame of mind to cavil at it. There might so easily have been no bathroom at all, and she was delighted with her bedroom, one of the two which looked towards the front of the house and provided that view across the Green towards the Manor gates and the neighbouring church described by Frank Abbott.

  Miss Wayne informed her that there was to be a wedding at the Manor within the next day or two.

  “Really Tilling Green will be quite gay—a rehearsal for the wedding on Wednesday and a party at the Manor in the evening. It is giving them a great deal of work—Colonel and Mrs. Repton and his sister. It is she who really does the housekeeping—young Mrs. Repton doesn’t take much interest. Joyce and I are not invited, but as I said to her, ‘My dear, we really can’t expect it. Of course I have known them for thirty years, and you and Valentine have been friendly—and we could have got Jessie Peck in to be with David—but as we were not asked, there is no more to be said about it. You must remember that we are not relations.’ I must say I shouldn’t myself consider Mettie Eccles or Connie Brooke to be anything more than connections. My dear sister always thought it absurd to use the word relation for anyone farther away than a second cousin.”

  Miss Silver checked this dissertation with a question.

  “And the bride? She is a young relative of Colonel Repton’s, I think you said? You have known her for some time?”

  “Oh dear me, yes—from a child—Valentine Grey. The wedding is on Thursday afternoon. Such a charming girl, and the bridegroom is so very goodlooking. Of course one didn’t quite expect—but people very seldom marry their first love, do they?”

  Miss Silver turned an interested ear.

  “Very seldom indeed, I should think.”

  “How kind of you,” said Miss Wayne in her small earnest voice. She proceeded in a burst of confidence. “I do really mean it, because I was just thinking that perhaps it was an unkind thing to say, and one doesn’t like to feel one has been unkind.”

  Miss Silver smiled.

  “It is, I think, a question of fact. Characters develop and tastes change. Someone who would be congenial as a companion at seventeen or eighteen years of age might no longer be so in five or six years’ time.”

  Miss Wayne continued to gaze. She was a little mousey creature with a tendency to turn pink about the eyes and nose when moved or distressed. She blinked and said,

  “How well you put it. I shouldn’t like to have felt that I had been unkind. Valentine is such a charming girl, and no one has heard anything of Jason Leigh for a very long time. I asked his uncle about him the other day—he is our Vicar’s nephew, you know—and he said, ‘Oh, he never writes.’ ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Oh dear, Mr. Martin, that is very sad for you, isn’t it?’ But he said he didn’t think it was, because young men liked to be off ‘adventuring.’ Don’t you think that was a very curious word for him to use?”