She ran upstairs, still calling, knocked vigorously on door, and getting no reply, went in. Connie had taken off her dress, and she must have hung it up, because it wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but she hadn’t got any further than that. She was lying on the bed in her slip with the eiderdown pulled round her, and at first Penny thought that she was asleep, but when she touched the hand that lay on the coverlet and tried to unclasp its hold she knew that Connie was dead, because the hand was quite stiff – quite cold—
Her mind knew that something dreadful and final had happened. It was like a thing which you read about in a book, a thing that happened to other people, not to anyone who was part of your own life like Connie was. She let go of that cold, heavy hand and backed away from the bed. It wasn’t until she had reached the door that fear and desolation rushed in upon her. She found herself running down the stairs, out through the open door, and along the road to bang on Miss Eccles’s front door and clamour that Connie was dead.
Miss Eccles was extremely efficient. It would be unfair to say that she enjoyed the situation, but she certainly enjoyed her own competence in dealing with it. She rang up Dr Taylor, herself accompanied Penny back to the Croft, and there set her down to telling all parents who were on the telephone that Miss Brooke was ill and there would be no school today.
Dr Taylor when he came had nothing to tell her that she did not already know. Connie Brooke was dead – had been dead for hours.
‘We walked home together last night after the party at the Manor,’ she said. ‘She was all right then, except that she hadn’t been sleeping too well. Maggie Repton had given her some sleeping tablets.’
Dr Taylor was built on bulldog lines. He did not exactly bare his teeth, but he wrinkled up his nose and his voice was a growl.
‘She had no business to do any such thing.’
Mettie Eccles said, ‘Well, you know what people are – they will do it. I told her she had better not take more than one. She was going to dissolve it in her bedtime cocoa. You’ll remember she can’t swallow anything like a pill.’
He grunted, ‘Where’s the bottle?’
They found it on the kitchen dresser, and it was empty.
‘Know how much there was in it?’
‘No, I don’t. She just told me Maggie had given her some tablets, and I told her not to take more than one.’
He said in a rough voice, because death always made him angry, ‘Well, one couldn’t have killed her, nor two. I’ll get on to Miss Maggie and find out how many there were in the bottle. You would have thought she would have had more sense than to hand over enough to do any harm. And where did she get them from? That’s what I’d like to know. Not from me.’
Maggie Repton took the call in her bedroom. She found the extension there a great comfort, because she did like to go early to bed, and it was so very trying to have to go down to the study in a dressing-gown if anyone called up and wanted to speak to her. She was only half dressed now. She threw her dressing-gown round her shoulders and pulled the eiderdown across her knees before lifting the receiver. It was much too early to ring up – nobody should ring before nine o’clock – it was almost certain to be for Valentine.
But it was for her. Dr Taylor speaking.
‘That you, Miss Maggie? … What’s this I hear about your giving Connie Brooke sleeping tablets?’
She began to feel flustered at once.
‘Oh dear – I didn’t think there would be any harm in it. She really looked wretched, and she said she hadn’t been sleeping at all well.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t have done it. How many were there in the bottle?’
‘Oh dear – I’m sure I don’t know. You see, there were a few left from the ones Dr Porteous gave me when I was staying with my old cousin, Annie Pedlar. And then after Annie died there were some in another bottle – and I put the two together, but I never really counted them.’
Dr Taylor’s voice came through very sharp and barking.
‘You mixed the two!’
‘Oh, but they were the same sort, or very nearly – at least I thought they were. Oh dear, I hope there isn’t anything wrong!’
‘You haven’t got the other bottle, I suppose?’
‘Oh, no. It would have been thrown away when we sorted out poor Annie’s things. At least – no, I remember now, the nurse wouldn’t let me mix them. I was going to, but she said it wouldn’t be at all the thing to do, so I didn’t.’
He said with a sudden alarming quiet, ‘Are you sure about that?’
‘Oh, I think so. You confused me – but I think the nurse said not to mix them – oh, I don’t know—’
‘Miss Maggie, can you form any idea of how many tablets there were in the bottle when you gave it to Connie Brooke?’
‘Oh dear, I don’t know – I really don’t. But you can ask Connie.… Yes, why didn’t I think of that before? Of course Connie will know. Why don’t you ask her?’
He said, ‘Connie is dead,’ and rang off.
TWELVE
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 morn when 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 hair 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 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.’
&nbs
p; ‘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 for a year or two. 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 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 in the festivities, but I wasn’t dressed up 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 that’s 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 relation swoon at the sight of him.’
Tommy hadn’t swooned, but he had turned faintly 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 – “Il 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 la
st 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 judgement.
‘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! 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!’
Poison in the Pen (The Miss Silver Mysteries Book 29) Page 7