Poison in the Pen (The Miss Silver Mysteries Book 29)

by Patricia Wentworth

  ‘What’s this about Colonel Repton?’

  ‘I believe you were one of the last people to see him.’

  Barton repeated the words almost in a whisper.

  ‘To see him?’

  March said, ‘Mr Barton, if Colonel Repton was a friend of yours, I’m afraid you must be prepared for a shock, because he is dead.’

  James Barton said, ‘Oh, my God!’ And then, ‘But he can’t be – I was talking to him – Oh, come in!’

  The room with the half-open door was the kitchen, and it was warm and comfortable, with an oil-lamp on the dresser, a bright fire, and thick red curtains at the window. There was a table covered with a crimson cloth, an old leather-covered armchair, and a strip of carpet in front of the fireplace upon which lay seven large tabby cats.

  In the light Mr Barton was seen to be a thin and rather stooping person with a good deal of grizzled hair and a straggling beard, but even the beard and the bushy eyebrows did not hide the terrible scar which ran right across his face. Before March had taken in these particulars he was saying, ‘Colonel Repton – what has happened? I was up there – he wasn’t ill.’

  ‘Yes, that is why I have come to see you. He wasn’t ill, and he is dead. I believe that he was murdered.’

  ‘Murdered—’

  There were a couple of plain wooden chairs in the room. Barton sank down on one of the them and leaned forward over the table, folding his arms and dropping his head upon them. His breathing quickened into sobs. After a minute or two he straightened himself.

  ‘He was a very good friend to me. It’s knocked me over. Will you tell me what happened?’

  ‘He was poisoned – we believe, with cyanide.’

  ‘That’s the stuff they use for wasps?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who would do such a thing?’

  March had taken the other chair. He said, ‘I hope you can help us to find out.’

  Barton raised a hand and let it fall again.

  ‘Isn’t that what the police always say when they’re talking about the chap they’ve got it in for?’

  ‘If you mean have we any special reason to suspect you at present, the answer is no. But since you were one of the last people to see Colonel Repton alive – By the way, just when did you leave him?’

  ‘It would be four o’clock, or a little later. I don’t carry a watch.’

  ‘Do you mind telling me why you went to see him, and what passed between you?’

  ‘I went to pay my rent.’

  ‘I see. And just what do you pay for this cottage?’

  Barton was leaning on an elbow, staring down at the red tablecloth. He jerked his head up at that and said roughly, ‘What’s that got to do with the police?’

  ‘Is there any reason why you should mind answering the question?’

  ‘Oh, no – no— I just wondered why you should ask it, that’s all. If you must know, it was what is called a peppercorn rent.’

  ‘You mean you didn’t pay him anything at all?’

  ‘No, I don’t. I mean I paid him a peppercorn – one a month – and we’d sit talking for a bit. He was about the only one I ever did talk to, and I suppose you’ll try and make out I did him in.’

  ‘Will you tell me what you talked about this afternoon?’

  Barton went back to staring down upon the red tablecloth.

  ‘Most times I’d go up after dark, but I didn’t today.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d a fancy to go when I did, that’s all. I’d been thinking of things, and I’d got to the point where they didn’t bear thinking about, so it came to me I’d go up and see the Colonel.’

  March’s memory produced a date. He wouldn’t have sworn to it in court, but short of that he was as certain of it as makes no difference. This was the thirteenth of October, and on the thirteenth of October some thirty years ago … He said, ‘Well, you went up to see Colonel Repton. What did you talk about?’

  ‘Him.’ Barton stared at the cloth. ‘I went round to the study window and knocked on it because they’d got company – a lot of women visiting Miss Repton for a sewing-party. Miss Wayne from next door, she was there, and the one that’s staying with her. I’d forgotten about it, but I wasn’t going to let it put me off. I knew he wouldn’t be having any truck with it anyway. So I went round by the far end of the Green and got in over the wall and round to the study window. I’d done it before.’

  ‘And when you got there Colonel Repton asked you if you’d come to pay your peppercorn rent and offered you a drink.’

  He got a startled sideways look.

  ‘If you know all the answers you can find them for yourself.’

  March was made to feel that he had been clumsy. He hastened to make amends.

  ‘Mr Barton, please do not be offended. It would be a natural way for Colonel Barton to receive you, wouldn’t it? And I am really anxious to know about the drink, because, you see, the cyanide – we are practically sure that it was cyanide – was in a small decanter of whisky on his writing-table, and I would like to know whether you saw the decanter there.’

  He was staring at March now.

  ‘Oh yes, I saw it. And he offered me a drink out of it all right, but that was just a joke between us – he knew I wouldn’t take it. It’s devil’s stuff, and I don’t use it. He knew that well enough. It’s always the same when I go up – he says, “Have a drink,” and I say, “No,” the same as he knows I’m going to.’

  ‘Well, that being over, you say you talked about him.’

  ‘Yes – about him and about women – he knows what I think of them. He talked about his wife.’

  ‘What did he say about her?’

  ‘Said she’d done the dirty on him and he was going to divorce her. I never spoke to her in my life – I don’t have any truck with women – but I could have told him she was that sort right from the word go. I could have told him, but it wouldn’t have been any good. That’s the sort of thing you have to find out for yourself. Cats and dogs, they go after their nature, and you know what that nature is – it’s the way they’re made. And women are just the same, but they’re not honest about it the way an animal is. They lie, and creep, and go round corners, pretending to be holy angels – angels of light, and not the drabs and sluts they are.’

  March broke in.

  ‘Are you perfectly sure that Colonel Repton spoke of divorcing his wife?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. Why should I make it up? He said he was all through with her and she’d be clearing out just as soon as Connie Brooke’s funeral was over. He said he’d been telling his sister, and once the funeral was over everyone would know.’

  ‘That was a very confidential way for him to talk.’

  The hand that was resting on Barton’s knee moved and clenched. He said in his deep hoarse voice, ‘Sometimes it eases a man to talk. I’ve had troubles myself.’

  March waited for a moment before he spoke again. Then he said, ‘Well, he talked to you in this confidential way. Did he say anything – anything at all to suggest that he had the thought of suicide in his mind?’

  He got a quick angry look.

  ‘No, he didn’t!’

  ‘Because that would be a possible alternative to murder. A man who had, or thought he had, discovered that his wife was unfaithful might have taken his own life.’

  Mr Barton brought his fist down upon the table.

  ‘Not if it was Colonel Repton, he wouldn’t! And I’ll take my Bible oath he wasn’t thinking of any such thing. He talked about getting rid of her – said it oughtn’t to take so long to get a case through the courts now. Well, if he was planning about that, he wasn’t thinking of killing himself, was he?’

  ‘Not then.’

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘He was seen alive at half-past four, and found dead at his desk just after five o’clock.’

  ‘That means the stuff was there in the decanter when I was with him. He’d never have
offered me a drink the way he did if he knew there was poison in it.’

  ‘He might have if he was sure you wouldn’t take it.’

  The fist came down on the table again.

  ‘Not on your life! It’s not what any man would do – not to a friend! Cyanide? That’s the stuff that kills you dead in a minute. There’s something in a man that would turn at offering it to a friend.’

  ‘He knew you wouldn’t take it – you said so yourself.’

  Barton shook his head.

  ‘He’d not have done it. Just thinking of it would have turned him. And he wasn’t thinking about suicide – I’ll swear he wasn’t.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  MISS SILVER WALKED across the Green to fetch the few things that she would need for the night. Miss Wayne displayed some incredulity.

  ‘You are going to stay at the Manor?’

  ‘Miss Repton would like me to do so. It has been a great shock to her.’

  Miss Renie’s handkerchief dabbed sketchily at eyes and nose.

  ‘Oh, yes indeed – and to us all. But surely a stranger – one would have thought Lady Mallett, or at any rate a friend—’

  ‘Lady Mallett was herself a good deal distressed. Sometimes it is easier to be with a stranger whose personal feelings are not involved.’

  Miss Renie sniffed and dabbed.

  ‘I should have thought that Mettie Eccles would have stayed.’

  Miss Silver gave a slight reproving cough.

  ‘I’m afraid the shock has been worse for her than for anyone, since it was she who made the dreadful discovery.’

  ‘I offered to wait and go home with her,’ said Miss Renie. ‘The police wished to question her, and she was obliged to stay. I was feeling the shock a good deal myself, but I was perfectly willing to remain there with her. And all she said was, “For God’s sake let me alone!” Really quite profane! After that, of course, I couldn’t say any more, could I?’

  Whilst Miss Silver was putting a few things into a case Joyce Rodney came in. She shut the door and sat down upon the bed.

  ‘Oh, Miss Silver, I’m so thankful I took David away.’

  Miss Silver looked up from folding a warm blue dressing-gown.

  ‘I think you did wisely, and I am sure he is very happy with your friend in Ledlington.’

  ‘Oh, yes, he is. I’m so thankful I was there today, and not at the Manor. It must have been dreadful.’ She hesitated, and then went on. ‘Penny Marsh came to see me this morning. She wanted to know whether I would take Connie’s place and help her to run the school.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Rodney?’

  Joyce Rodney made an impatient movement.

  ‘I do wish you would call me Joyce! Everyone does.’

  Miss Silver’s reply was kind but firm.

  ‘I have told you that I do not consider it advisable.’

  ‘Yes, I know. All the same I wish you would. When Penny spoke to me about the school I felt as if it might be a very good plan. Of course I couldn’t go on doing so much for Aunt Renie, but I would be able to pay for my board, and she could have extra help – only with these dreadful things happening—’ She broke off, looked very directly at Miss Silver, and said, ‘About Colonel Repton – you were there when it happened. Was it suicide? Aunt Renie says it was – but was it?’

  Miss Silver laid the dressing-gown in the suitcase.

  ‘Neither Miss Wayne nor myself is in a position to say.’

  ‘Well, you know, everyone says that he and Scilla had had a frightful quarrel, and that she was only waiting until after Connie’s funeral to clear out. They say he was going to divorce her.’

  Miss Silver said mildly, ‘That scarcely appears to be compatible with suicide.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t, does it? Frankly, I shouldn’t have thought anyone would kill himself because Scilla was walking out on him. Of course she’s pretty, but she doesn’t do a single thing that a man like Colonel Repton expects his wife to do – why, she doesn’t even keep house. And she’s got an odious temper.’

  Miss Silver put a sponge, a nailbrush, a toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste into a blue waterproof case which had been a last year’s Christmas gift from her niece by marriage, Dorothy Silver, who was the wife of Ethel Burkett’s brother. She said, ‘Men do not take the same view of these things that we do. Mrs Repton has the type of looks which is apt to render them indifferent to practical considerations.’

  Joyce laughed.

  ‘How right you are! And I was being thoroughly catty. I dare say she is all right against her own background, and she must have been hideously bored down here, but I do hate to see anyone take on a job and then not lift a finger to make a success of it. Look here, I’ll walk back across the Green with you and carry that case.’

  It was when they were alone under the night sky with the empty Green stretching round them that Joyce said out of the middle of what had been quite a long silence, ‘Miss Silver – about Colonel Repton – you never did say whether you thought it was suicide. Do you know, I don’t somehow feel as if it was. Florrie has been telling everyone that he said he was going to divorce his wife. Well, as you say, if he was going to do that he wouldn’t commit suicide, would he?’

  To this bald but common-sense statement of a problem upon which she did not desire to enlarge, Miss Silver thought it best to observe in a noncommittal manner that suicide was sometimes due to a sudden impulse, and that there was not at present enough evidence to show how Colonel Repton had met with his death.

  It was about this time that Valentine was saying to Jason Leigh, ‘He didn’t kill himself. Oh, Jason, he didn’t – he wouldn’t!’ She stood in the circle of his arms and felt safe. But outside of that charmed circle there was a world of which the foundations had been shaken. She had never known her father, and she could only remember her mother as someone very vague and shadowy who lay on a sofa, and then one day wasn’t there any more and Aunt Maggie said she had gone to heaven. But Roger had always been there, part of the established order of things. He was not at all exciting, but always a kind person round whom the house revolved. It had never occurred to her to think whether she loved him or not. Now that he was dead, it was like being in a house with one of the walls sheared off and letting in all the winds of calamity. She pressed against Jason and heard them blow, but they couldn’t touch her as long as he held her close. He said, ‘I shouldn’t have thought he would either.’

  ‘He didn’t. I am quite sure he didn’t. He talked to me about suicide once, and he said it was running away. He said he didn’t believe it got you out of anything either. It was shirking, and if you shirked you only made things harder for yourself and everyone else.’

  ‘You had better tell that to the Chief Constable.’

  ‘I have. He didn’t say anything. Jason, what is so frightful about it is that if he didn’t do it himself, there is only one person I can think of who would have done it.’

  ‘Scilla? You’d better not go about saying that, darling.’

  ‘As if I would! As if I wanted to! I’ve been trying not to say it to myself, but it keeps on coming back. There was a story I read once about a room in a house. Someone had been murdered there, and the door wouldn’t stay shut. It’s like that – about Scilla – in my mind. I try to shut it away, but the door won’t stay shut.’ Her voice had gone away to just a breath against his cheek. They were so close that he couldn’t be sure whether he heard the words or just knew that she was saying them. He kept his own voice down, but it sounded too loud.

  ‘Why should she?’

  ‘He was going to divorce her. He told Maggie. That is why she looked so ghastly at the Work Party this afternoon – he had just been telling her. There was an affair – with Gilbert – and he had found it out.’

  ‘Is that why you broke it off?’ The words came hard and hot before he could stop them.

  ‘No – no, it wasn’t. You’ve got to be quite sure about that, because it’s true. I didn’t know – I hadn’t any idea until
that Wednesday night. When I left you and came back to the house they were in her sitting-room. I was coming in through the drawing-room window, and the door between the rooms wasn’t quite shut. I heard – something – and I oughtn’t to have listened – but I did. He was telling her it was over. He said he was – fond of me.’

  ‘That was very kind of him.’

  ‘It was quite horrid,’ said Valentine with sudden vigour. ‘I came away after that. In the morning I got one of those poison-pen letters. It said Gilbert had been carrying on with Scilla. But you are never to think that that was when I made up my mind to break it off, because it wasn’t. It was quite, quite made up when I was with you in the gazebo. You told me I couldn’t marry Gilbert, and I knew I couldn’t. I knew it the way you know something that you don’t have to think about. It was just there.’

  They kissed.

  TWENTY-NINE

  MISS REPTON WAS better in the morning. She was in deep grief, but the sense of shock was lifting. She found herself able to read her Bible, and expressed a wish to see Mr Martin, with whom she presently had a very comforting talk. It appeared he did not adhere to the school of thought which believed that those who passed away remained asleep in their coffins until the Day of Judgement, a belief which had been entertained by her parents and handed down to her by them. It had never occurred to her to question it before, but she found the Vicar’s more modern view very comforting indeed. She was also extremely grateful for the continued presence of Miss Silver, both on her own account and for the sake of Valentine. As she put it with rather touching simplicity, ‘I do not wish to have unkind thoughts about anyone, and I had been praying to be delivered from any harsh judgements, but I am afraid that everyone will know by now that dear Roger was going to divorce his wife, and one can’t help wondering – no one can help wondering – whether— And it does seem more suitable that there should be somebody else with dear Valentine.’

  Late in the morning the Chief Constable came over. He asked to see Miss Silver, and she came down to him in the study, where she found him looking out of the window. He turned as she came in, informed her briefly that the post-mortem had established the fact that death was due to cyanide poisoning, and went on, ‘Crisp saw the gardener last night, and he says it was used to destroy wasps’ nests near the house in July. Everybody knew it had been used. He had pointed the nests out to Roger Repton and told him something ought to be done about them or they would be overrun with wasps hatching out in August, and then what was going to happen to the fruit? Scilla Repton came along while he was talking and wanted to know all about it, and said she was scared of wasps. Was he sure that was something that would kill them, and what was it? In fact considerable interest was displayed, and when he was destroying the nests she came out and watched him. He said he had to tell her not to touch the stuff, because it was the worst kind of poison. Casting back to my interview with her yesterday, it seems to me that she rather overdid her ignorance of cyanide and all its works.’