‘You will, I fear, accuse me, and with justice, of misquoting Lord Tennyson’s so often quoted words, or at any rate of wresting them from their meaning, when I say that I cannot help being reminded of the line about broadening down “from precedent to precedent.”’
He helped himself to another of Hannah’s excellent sandwiches. His eyes sparkled as he said, ‘If anyone has the right to correct the great Alfred’s words, it is a devout admirer like yourself.’
She said soberly, ‘No, I do not think that I have the right, but I feel that those words do express something of what is in my mind.’
He looked at her with affection.
‘You know, I never felt really happy about Tilling Green. You oughtn’t to have gone there, and that is a fact. It seemed such a good idea to start with, but after that second death I began to get the wind up, and if I had had the least suspicion that Renie Wayne was the poison pen I should have got down there somehow, if I had had to forge a medical certificate to do it.’
‘My dear Frank!’
He laughed.
‘It is you who turn my thoughts to crime. I can’t think of anyone else who would make me contemplate forgery. All right, ma’am, don’t bring up the big guns – I’m still on the right side of the law. Tell me, what made you pick on Renie as a suspect? Frankly, she never entered my head.’
Miss Silver added a little more milk to her cup. Hannah was always inclined to put too much tea in the pot when Frank was expected. Her thought turned back to her first impressions of Tilling Green.
‘There was an association with the similar outbreak of anonymous writing at Little Poynton five years ago. An old aunt of the Miss Waynes was living there at the time, and they used to go over and see her. The postmistress was under some suspicion – or at least that is what Miss Renie wished to convey. She also took care to tell me that this Mrs Salt was a sister of Mrs Gurney who has the post office at Tilling Green, and she used this fact to insinuate that it might be Mrs Gurney who was responsible for the present crop of letters. When I asked her if there were any grounds for such a suspicion she became a good deal agitated and said how much she disapproved of gossip, and how much her sister had disapproved of it.’
‘And that made you suspect her?’
She did not reply for a moment. Then she said, ‘I thought she was rather more agitated than she need have been, and there was the connection with Little Poynton. Then after Connie’s death and Colonel Repton’s she was one of the four people who had to be very seriously considered – Mrs Repton, Miss Eccles, Miss Wayne, and Mr Barton. If it had only been Colonel Repton’s death that was in question, Mrs Repton must certainly have been arrested, but her connection with the other two deaths was slight, and in the case of Connie Brooke it is difficult to see what opportunity she could have had of drugging the cocoa. Miss Eccles, Miss Wayne, and Mr Barton all had this opportunity, but I may say at once that I never really suspected Mr Barton. His only motive, as well as that of Miss Eccles and Miss Renie, must have been fear of being identified as the writer of the letters. But after my interview with Miss Pell it was clear that the scrap of paper which would have identified this person had been picked up in one of the houses visited by Doris Pell on the afternoon before she was drowned. Those houses were the Manor, Willow Cottage where she called on Miss Wayne, Holly Cottage where she saw Miss Eccles, and the Croft where she saw and to some extent confided in Connie Brooke who had been her childhood’s playmate and companion. She certainly did not visit Mr Barton whose door was never opened to a woman. I therefore dismissed him from my mind.’
‘And you did not really suspect Scilla Repton. Why?’
Again she went silent for a moment. She finished her cup of tea and set it back upon the tray.
‘There was the question of the cocoa, and then – these things are difficult to put into words. There are impressions so slight, so indefinite, that one is scarcely aware of them, yet as one constantly succeeds another a picture is built up. Mrs Repton struck me as unaware of being in any danger. She was conscious of having offended against the moral law, and aggressively impatient of that law and of the consequences which this breach was bringing down upon her. But she did not seem to me to be at all aware of any possible relation between herself and the criminal law, or of the consequences which it might have in store. She was brazening out the exposure of her intrigue with Mr Earle, she was angry and resentful over the change in her husband’s will, and she was a good deal more shocked at his death than she was willing to admit. She was in fact a vain, selfish, idle and undisciplined young woman who found herself in uncongenial surroundings and snatched at anything which would alleviate her boredom, but in my opinion she would not have gone out of her way to write the anonymous letters, and she would not have poisoned her husband. And as everyone is now aware, she did not do so.’
‘And there was no one else at the Manor who could have filled the bill?’
‘Oh, no. Miss Maggie is a gentle person, not very strong, not very efficient, but full of kindness, and Valentine Grey is a very charming girl. There is a good deal of sweetness in her character, and her principles are good.’
He laughed.
‘Well, she’ll need the sweetness. Jason is an odd fish.’
Miss Silver smiled indulgently.
‘They have known one another from childhood and are very deeply attached.’
‘Well, so much for James Barton and the Manor. That left you with the occupants of three more houses.’
She shook her head reprovingly.
‘Oh, no – with only two. The third house would be the Croft, and Connie Brooke who lived alone there was herself a victim. I was left with two possible suspects, Miss Eccles and Miss Wayne. Either of them could have met Doris Pell and pushed her into the pond, since either could have known that she was going up to the Manor that evening with Miss Maggie’s blouse. Either could have drugged Connie Brooke’s cocoa, Miss Wayne by slipping round to the Croft while Connie was at the Manor, and Miss Eccles by seeing her the whole way home instead of saying good-night at the gate of Holly Cottage. Either could have introduced the cyanide into Colonel Repton’s whisky, Miss Eccles when she took him in his tea, and Miss Wayne by slipping out of the drawing-room and making an opportunity of entering the study. As you probably know, she prides herself on how cleverly she managed this. Miss Maggie having handed over to me the anonymous letter which she herself had received, I tore off a corner of the page and produced what I hoped was a passable imitation of the scrap of paper picked up by Doris Pell. After some experimenting with a pointed match dipped in ink, my suspicion that the letters had been written in this manner was confirmed. I wrote the first part of the word Tilling upon my torn-off corner and took it with me when I went down to Holly Cottage with a basket of fruit from Miss Maggie. I believed that the sight of that piece of paper in my possession could hardly fail to produce a strong reaction in the person who had seen such a piece in the possession of Doris Pell, and who had, I was sure, committed murder in order to suppress this damning evidence. Miss Eccles’s reaction was an open and natural one. She is a person with an extremely active and inquisitive mind. In spite of her state of grief she showed a very lively curiosity as to how I had come by this piece of evidence. Miss Wayne’s behaviour was very different. If she had not already betrayed herself by her complaint that she considered the cat Abimelech to be unsafe because he was in the habit of growling at her, the marked change which came over her when she saw my piece of paper would have done so. The shock, followed by my statement that I believed a piece of paper like this had brought Doris Pell to her death, and that Miss Wayne had seen it in her hand as she was now seeing it in mine, was sufficient to break her down. She could no longer control her fear, her anger, or the insensate pride which the criminal feels in his achievement. By the time that the police arrived her condition was plainly one of insanity. She must have been an anxiety to her sister for years. The elder Miss Wayne appears to have known that it was Miss R
enie who was responsible for the affair of the anonymous letters at Little Poynton five years ago.’
Frank Abbott said, ‘There were two suicides then. Miss Wayne should have told what she knew.’
Miss Silver had picked up her knitting. The rich red of Ethel Burkett’s cardigan lay in her lap, the green needles moved briskly. She said, ‘Three lives would have been saved had she done so, all good, all useful. But few people are prepared to subordinate their private feelings to their public duty.’
Memorizing this as a vintage example of what he irreverently termed Maudie’s Moralities, Frank brought a lighter tone to the conversation by enquiring after the health of the cat Abimelech.
‘I don’t know how many of his nine lives he had used up already, but the gas cupboard must have drawn pretty heavily on any that remained.’
Miss Silver smiled.
‘He is the youngest of the cats, which accounts for his having been so foolish as to be lured through the hedge by the offer of a piece of mackerel, a fish of which he is inordinately fond. Miss Renie is very proud of the manner in which she trapped him by placing the mackerel in an old carpet-bag which could be closed by pulling on a string. Those bags have quite gone out now, but they were very capacious and the opening was strongly reinforced by a metal bar. I have no doubt that Abimelech fought to free himself, but with Miss Renie on the watch he had no chance. But he is quite himself again now, and received me in a very friendly manner when I called on Mr Barton before leaving Tilling Green.’
‘You called on Barton? My dear ma’am, you don’t mean to say he let you in!’
Miss Silver smiled benignly.
‘He did indeed. He made me a most excellent cup of tea and introduced all the cats.’
‘Well, the case is over, and I suppose you have added Barton and half a dozen others to the list of your admirers.’
She said with an accent of reproof, ‘Of my friends, Frank. Miss Maggie has been most kind, and I must confess to feeling an interest in Valentine and Mr Leigh. Joyce Rodney too. Do you know whether she has decided to stay on in Tilling Green?’
Frank nodded.
‘I think so. If Miss Renie is certified, as she is bound to be, the administration of the estate falls to Joyce. She could live at the cottage and carry on the school with Penelope Marsh as they had planned. It will really be much better if she does.’
‘You have seen her?’
‘Well, no – she called me up.’
It might have been his fancy, but he thought he detected a shade of benevolence in her expression. She said, ‘I am afraid that I may have hurt her feelings by my decision that it would be inadvisable for me to call her Joyce, but now that the case is over—’
‘There will hardly be any opportunity.’
‘You think not?’
He met her slightly disappointed gaze with a laughing one.
‘It’s no good, my dear ma’am, I am a hopeless case. You will just have to make do with Jason and Valentine!’
Turn the page to continue reading from the Miss Silver Mysteries
ONE
FRANK ABBOTT WAS pleasantly occupied in forgetting that he was a Detective Inspector. Certainly no one meeting him for the first time would have suspected him of having any connection with Scotland Yard or the inexorable processes of the law, though he might just possibly have been a barrister. He had, in fact, been intended for the Bar, but his father’s sudden death had necessitated some occupation more likely to solve the immediate problem of food to eat and a roof over his head. With more relations than anyone in England – his paternal great-grandfather had married three times and done his duty by the nation to the extent of having some two dozen children – he had never lacked a social background. In the country he could stay in almost any county without having to incur an hotel bill, and in town he received a good many more invitations than he was able to accept. When he was younger his immediate superior Chief Inspector Lamb, always on the alert for symptoms of wind in the head, had composed a special homily on the subject of Social Dissipation and its Inevitable and Deteriorating Results, which he delivered so often that Frank could have picked it up at any given point and finished it for himself. Although not now so much in use as formerly, it was still liable to be dug out, refurbished, and delivered with undiminished vigour.
Tonight, however, was a carefree occasion. His cousin Cicely Abbott and her husband Grant Hathaway were up in town and giving a party to celebrate the extremely lucrative sale, for export, of a young pedigree bull. The party was small, intimate, and amusing. It is also memorable for the fact that Anthony Hallam was present, and that he and Frank spent a good part of the evening picking up threads and bringing themselves up to date after a five years’ interval during which they had neither met nor written to one another. Out of sight had perhaps been out of mind, but no sooner were they once more in sight and touch than the old liking was strong between them. Old friendships do not always endure as characters develop and circumstances change, but in this case each was secretly a little surprised to find how quickly the five years’ gap was bridged. When Anthony urged him to come down to Field End, Frank could very easily have refused, but found that he had no desire to do so.
‘It’s old Jonathan Field’s place. He’s some sort of a cousin of my mother’s. There’s no wife, but he’s got two nieces. They are giving a dance, and I’ve been asked to bring another man. They’ll put us up. I suppose you get an occasional Saturday night and Sunday off?’
Frank nodded. If it hadn’t been for Jonathan Field’s name, he might have said, ‘No,’ just like that. As it was, he said quickly,
‘The Jonathan Field – the fingerprint man?’
Regardless of grammar, Anthony Hallam said,
‘That’s him. Extraordinary hobby. He has the fingerprints of everyone who has ever stayed there – his version of a visitors’ book. I asked him whether some of them didn’t object, and he wagged a finger at me and said he would nourish the deepest suspicions of anyone who did.’
Frank said,
‘That didn’t exactly answer the question, did it?’
‘Oh, he didn’t want to answer it, but I asked Georgina—’
‘And who is Georgina?’
Anthony laughed. The laugh had a warm, pleased sound.
‘Wait and see! She’s the niece who lives with him, Georgina Grey. I won’t attempt to describe her.’
‘Didn’t you say there were two nieces?’
‘Oh, the other one is a sort of cousin, not really a niece at all. Her name is Mirrie Field. She’s a recent introduction. Little bit of a thing, with eyelashes.’
It was at this point that Cicely came up and made a face at them.
‘If you two think you are going to talk to each other instead of dancing—’
They both groaned. Frank said,
‘He was describing the latest girl friend’s eyelashes. I can’t wait to see them!’
Cicely was still just a little brown thing, but she too had eyelashes, and when she was happy she had her points. She was certainly happy tonight. She caught Frank’s hand.
‘You can dance with me! And Anthony will be lucky if he gets Vivia Marsden. She’s going to be a top star in ballet.’
Cicely herself was like a feather in the wind. Frank looked down at her with the affection which his cool elegance belied. The mirror-smooth fair hair, the eyes of a cold and icy blue, the features which he had inherited from his grandmother the formidable Lady Evelyn Abbott, combined to produce a somewhat daunting impression. But he had never daunted his cousin Cicely. Looking up as he looked down, she showed him the tip of a scarlet tongue and said,
‘Isn’t Grant clever to have got such a lot for Deepside Diggory? I hope they’ll be nice to him. He really is an angel lamb.’
‘He’ll be on velvet. You are clever, Grant is clever, and let us hope that Diggory will be clever too. And now we won’t talk about bulls any more. I have reached saturation point.’
Cicely al
lowed a very small frown to appear. Then she said,
‘I never really can make out whether you hate the country, or whether you won’t talk about it because you would really like to live there most frightfully and farm like Grant does, only you can’t.’
Frank said,
‘Heaven forbid!’ Then he laughed. ‘I’m coming down to a do at Field End with Anthony next weekend. Any chance of your being there?’
‘Oh, yes, we’ll be there. It’s a birthday party for Georgina. At least it started that way, but now they’ve got Mirrie Field there it looks as if it was turning into a coming-out party for her. She’s a Field relation that nobody had ever heard about before.’
‘Before what?’
‘Oh, the last couple of months or so. Old Jonathan ran into her somewhere, found out she was some kind of seventeenth cousin, and brought her back on a visit. She hasn’t any people and she hasn’t any money, but she’s got a very clinging disposition, and if you ask me, I should say they’ll have her for keeps.’
Frank was not interested in Mirrie Field – not then. He said, ‘Did I ask you?’ in his most detached manner, and she pinched his arm and told him he would probably fall in love with Georgina Grey.
‘Only I warn you it won’t be the least bit of good, because if she doesn’t take Anthony, it will almost certainly be Johnny Fabian.’
‘Oh – what is he doing in your parts?’
‘Making love to Georgina, I expect. Or Mirrie. Or both of them, but probably Georgina because of the money. He hasn’t got a bean, and she is supposed to be Jonathan’s heiress. Personally I should say that Mirrie was a runner-up, but Johnny can’t afford to take risks. Anyhow, money or no money, Georgina will be an ass if she marries him. I don’t suppose she will – she ought to know him too well for that. His step-mother, Mrs. Fabian, lives at Field End, you know.’
Poison in the Pen (The Miss Silver Mysteries Book 29) Page 24