Poison In The Pen (18 page)

Miss Silver coughed faintly.

“In arguing a case it is better that there should be no exception, but I was about to remind you that Connie Brooke in telling Miss Pell of her conversation with Doris reported her as saying that the scrap of paper had shown up so white against the carpet, and that she had told her what the colour of the carpet was.”

“And what was it?”

“Unfortunately, Connie did not say. But with regard to a piece of paper showing up well upon it, the carpet in Miss Maggie’s room would not answer such a purpose at all well, since it is of Indian manufacture and there is a good deal of white in the groundwork.”

He said with a smile, “Miss Maggie is exonerated.”

A shade of severity just tinged Miss Silver’s manner.

“With regard to the other people in the house, I find that Florrie let Doris in and took her up to Miss Maggie’s room. She thinks that at this time Mrs. Repton was out and so was Valentine Grey, but she is not sure. Neither is she sure whether either of them returned before Doris left. Valentine Grey is not really a suspect, but this leaves us uncertain as to whether Mrs. Repton could have seen Doris pick up that scrap of paper. Colonel Repton we need not consider, since he was to be one of the victims. As for Florrie and the other maids, I feel sure they have nothing to do with the case.”

“There I am able to agree with you.”

She continued as if he had not spoken.

“To come to Willow Cottage where Miss Wayne tried on a dress, I think we may conclude that this would also take place in her bedroom. The carpet there is a plain Wilton in a faded shade of pink. That in the spare room, which I have been occupying but which would have been empty at the time of Doris’ visit and might therefore have possibly been used for the trying on, is in a similar shade of blue. A piece of paper would certainly show up much better than on a carpet with a pattern. In the case of Miss Eccles there was no question of trying anything on. The interview with Doris for the purpose of selecting a nightdress pattern could have taken place wherever it suited Miss Eccles’ convenience, but it would most likely have been held in the sitting-room. I have seen this carpet for myself, and it is darker in tone than the one in Miss Maggie’s bedroom. Colonel Repton was for a number of years in the East and brought these carpets back with him as presents for his sister and his cousin. I have not seen the carpet in Miss Eccles’ bedroom, but Mrs. Rodney informs me that it is a square of powder blue with a border in a darker tone. A piece of paper would show up very well on this, but no better than on either of the carpets at Miss Wayne’s. I do not feel that any conclusion can be drawn from these particulars, but I thought it right to touch upon them.”

“Do you really feel that any conclusions are to be drawn at all?”

“Some, I believe. You see, Randal, whether it can ever be proved or not, I am convinced that Doris Pell did not commit suicide. The account I received from her aunt does not warrant the theory. A girl who was so completely shattered by the allegations in an anonymous letter as to fly in the face of her upbringing and her religious training by taking her own life was not the girl who set out that afternoon on a round of errands and was prepared to go up to the Manor again in the evening. If she had been in the state of morbid despair which had been indicated, she would have shrunk from meeting people, shunned her friends, and implored her aunt to do the errands for her. In response to a question from me Miss Pell stated that Doris set off quite cheerfully. It is true that she was upset when she came home, but this was entirely natural, and the distress was not of the kind to drive her into suicide. She had discovered the writer of the anonymous letters, and she was profoundly shocked and on the whole disinclined to expose the person. Her mind was, in fact, fully occupied in considering what she ought to do. Could there be any moment when she would be less likely to take her own life? There is simply no motive for it at all.”

He smiled.

“You build up a very good case.”

“And you do not take it seriously, do you? Well, I have nearly finished, but I have just this to add. We shall probably never know whether the matter of Doris’ discovery was mentioned between her and the person whom she suspected. There could have been fear and suspicion on both sides, with neither so sure of her ground as to risk putting suspicion into words. On the other hand it is possible that words were startled out of one of them, some interim pledge demanded and given, some appointment made. I incline to think that is how it happened, since Doris neither told Connie Brooke nor her aunt the identity of the person whom she suspected. Doris went home, and later on after supper she went back to the Manor with Miss Maggie’s blouse. Is it assuming too much to suppose that she had talked of this errand in the other houses where she had been that afternoon? She could have been met in the Manor drive by someone either from Willow Cottage or from Holly Cottage. She could have been followed when she left the house by someone from the Manor. There is a point where the drive passes along the edge of the lake. You will remember the spot. A stream flows in there and is crossed by a bridge. Can you tell me just where Doris’ body was found?”

He said,

“At the spot which you describe. It was considered that she had thrown herself from the bridge.”

She said with great earnestness,

“Randal, can you really believe that she was not pushed?”

March remained looking, not at her but past her into the small fire which burned on the study hearth. Actually, his mind had swung back to the recollection of other times when Miss Silver had used that earnest tone and when she had been right. Throughout his experience she had made a habit of being in the right. It might be, it frequently was, exasperating, but it had to be reckoned with. He felt himself obliged to reckon with it now. He could depend upon his own judgment to be intelligent, temperate, and fair, but he felt bound to recognise in Miss Silver something to which he could not lay a claim. And of course he could always save his pride by having recourse to the perfectly legitimate argument that she had the opportunity denied to the police of seeing the various suspects at their ease and without any consciousness that they were being watched. He found that he did not desire or intend to avail himself of this argument. His desire was, quite simply, to arrive at the truth. He turned an open look upon her and said,

“I wonder—”

He was aware of some added warmth in her regard. The answer had pleased her. He was conscious of an absurd satisfaction. She said,

“I think, like myself, you must feel unable to push coincidence beyond a reasonable point. Doris Pell comes back to her aunt and says that she knows who wrote the anonymous letters. She is drowned the same evening. Connie Brooke is heard to say that she knows who wrote the letters. The story is all round the village within twenty-four hours, and only a few hours after that Connie is found dead in her bed from an overdose of sleeping-tablets. On Saturday Colonel Repton is heard asserting that he knows who wrote the letters. Once more the story is circulated. On the Monday afternoon he is found poisoned in this very room. Can you possibly believe that the case of Doris Pell has no connection with the other two cases, and that they are not all the work of the same hand?”

He nodded.

“It certainly looks that way. But as long as the first death stood alone and Miss Pell withheld her evidence, no other verdict than suicide could be expected in the case of Doris Pell. There is now a presumption that these three deaths were caused by the same person. The question is, what person? And it seems to me that the additional evidence you have produced piles up at Scilla Repton’s door. Doris could have picked up the compromising scrap of paper somewhere else than in Miss Maggie’s room. We don’t know in what circumstances it came to be on the floor at all. It could have spilled out of a drawer, a book, or a blotter. It could have been pulled out of a pocket with a handkerchief. It could have dropped from a waste-paper basket or a handbag. You say that Doris was shown up to Miss Maggie’s room. What happened when she left?”

“Florrie took her up, but she found her own way down.”

“Then she could have gone or been called into Scilla Repton’s bedroom, or into her sitting-room which has a door into the hall as well as into the drawing-room. Was there anything to prevent that?”

“Not that I know of, Randal.”

“Mrs. Repton may have wanted her to undertake some work for her. They could have been looking at patterns, and the piece of paper may have been caught up with them and fallen. Mrs. Repton would know that Doris was returning to the Manor after dark, and she is a strong, active young woman who could easily have pushed her off the bridge. If she did take that first step, the others would follow, with a strong additional money motive in Roger Repton’s case. There is, of course, no evidence to connect her with Connie Brooke on the night of her death, but if it can be proved that she poisoned her husband, there would be no need to proceed with the other two cases.”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“I cannot feel any assurance of Mrs. Repton’s guilt.”

“Would you like to tell me why?”

The crochet hook went in and out, drawing the blue wool into a trellised edging. She said,

“It is very difficult to put into words. If she is guilty, I should expect some indication of her guilt, some suggestion that she is vulnerable. But I could not discern that Mrs. Repton had the least awareness of danger. Fear is the hardest thing in the world to disguise. Had she been afraid, I do not believe that she could so entirely have concealed the fact. It did not seem to me she realized that she had any cause for fear.”

“I should say she was fairly tough.”

“Even the most hardened criminal has an instinct for the approach of danger. Had Mrs. Repton been conscious when you were questioning her that she had committed three murders, and that she now stood on the brink of discovery, I feel sure that her reactions would have been other than they were. There was a kind of lack of awareness which impressed me. I do not know that I can get nearer to it than that.”

“She is tough, and she was putting on an act. If these three people were murdered, I maintain that she is the most likely person to have murdered them.”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“This case does not begin with the murders, Randal. It begins with the anonymous letters. They are quite fundamental. In looking for their author you are looking for a frustrated person with a secret passion for power.”

He lifted his brows.

“I can imagine that Scilla Repton might feel frustrated in Tilling Green.”

“Oh, no, Randal—not at the time when the letters began. Her affair with Gilbert Earle was going on, and her mind would have been occupied with the shifts and subterfuges which such an intrigue entails. Also I gravely doubt if she would have accused herself of infidelity, as the letters certainly did.”

“Did any other letters accuse her besides the one to Colonel Repton?”

“I think it likely that Miss Grey’s letter did so. According to Florrie, she received one. In fact she admitted as much to you, did she not?”

“Oh, yes—she said that she had burned it. I should say that you are probably right, and that it accused Scilla Repton and Gilbert Earle of an intrigue.”

“And do you think that Mrs. Repton herself would have written such a letter?”

“I don’t know. I think she might have done if she was out to smash Valentine Grey’s marriage regardless of who got hurt. That was the motive suggested by her husband.” He moved, got up. “This is all sheer speculation, you know, and I must get on. I think myself that we have enough evidence to warrant the arrest.”

She put away her work and rose.

“Will you question her again?”

“I do not see that there is any other course open to me. She will have to be cautioned this time.”

He left the room feeling a little as if he had not quite measured up to some indeterminable standard.

Some little while later, lunch being over, Miss Silver was taking coffee in the drawing-room in the company of Miss Maggie Repton. Little Josephine’s cardigan, now completed and needing only to be pressed, had been displayed and admired and Ethel Burkett and her family had been the subject of some desultory conversation, when Miss Maggie sighed and said,

“I have often thought how delightful it would be if Valentine were married and had a family. It is so interesting to see children growing up. But of course I oughtn’t to be talking of anything of the sort now that she isn’t even engaged.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“It may be too soon to call it an engagement, but surely she and Mr. Leigh—”

Miss Maggie said, “Oh dear—” and then, “Do you think that people have noticed anything?”

Miss Silver said indulgently,

“I do not see how they can help it.”

Miss Maggie said “Oh dear—” again. She gave another sigh and followed it up with a hesitating, “If only there isn’t another of those wicked letters—”

Miss Silver had been waiting for just such an opening. She said with a good deal of sympathy,

“Did you ever have one yourself?”

Miss Maggie looked over her shoulder in an apprehensive manner. The large room was empty of anything but its proper furnishings.

“Oh,” she said—“oh, Miss Silver, I never told anyone… But yes, I did.” She put down her coffee-cup because her hand had begun to shake. She really couldn’t help it. Everything in her shook when she thought about those dreadful letters.

“It would have been better if you had shown it to the police.”

A thin dull colour came up into Miss Maggie’s cheeks.

“Oh, I couldn’t—I really couldn’t! It said such dreadful things!”

“About your sister-in-law?”

“Yes—you have no idea—”

“Did you keep it?”

Miss Maggie dropped her voice to a trembling whisper.

“Oh, yes, I did—in my jewel-case—locked up. Would you like me to show it to you? Since—since Roger died I have thought—I have wondered if I ought to show it to someone. You are such a help to me. If you would look at it—perhaps you could tell me—what I ought to do.”

Miss Silver smiled in a reassuring manner.

“I will look at it when you go up to have your rest.”

Miss Maggie’s jewel-case was one of the large old-fashioned sort covered in black leather with a small gold pattern stamped round the edge and the initials M. B. upon the lid. The leather was shabby, especially at the corners, and the gold almost worn away. Miss Maggie explained the initials as being her grandmother’s—“She was Lady Margaret Brayle”—and opened the box with a small round brass key. There were several trays inside lined with violet velvet and edged with the same gold pattern as the lid, only a good deal fresher. From the second tray she lifted a heavy bracelet and produced from beneath it a folded sheet of paper. Then, having taken it out, she stood with it in her hand and hesitated.

“I really don’t like to show it to you.”

“If it would ease your mind—”

“Oh, it would—it would indeed!”

Miss Silver extended her hand.

“Then I will look at it.”

The paper was as described by Randal March, cheap and flimsy with lines upon it. But the writing made no attempt to follow the lines. It sprawled across the sheet in large ungainly letters which did not look as if they had been formed by a nib—the strokes were too thick and too smeared. It occurred to Miss Silver that if a matchstick were slightly pointed and dipped in the ink it might produce this kind of effect, and she thought it might be quite a good way to disguise one’s writing.

The wording of the letter was even worse than she expected. Scilla Repton was accused in language of the coarsest kind. She turned the page and read to the end where the signature “Well-wisher” ran slanting down into the right-hand corner. The other corner was blank. Turning it over, she discovered that the space on the other side was empty too. An idea immediately presented itself to her mind. She said,

“Dear Miss Repton, I do think that this should be shown to the police.”

Miss Maggie’s eyes filled with tears.

“I should feel so ashamed.”

“If you would like me to do so, I would show it to the Chief Constable.”

Miss Maggie clasped her hands.

“Oh, if you only would! I have really laid awake at night wondering what I ought to do and feeling that perhaps I ought to have told Mr. March about it. I did try and answer all his questions, and he asked me about Roger getting one of these dreadful letters, and about Valentine getting one, but he never asked me whether I had had one myself—and I did feel so ashamed of showing it to anyone, especially to a man.”

When she had tucked Miss Maggie up on her bed in a warm dressing-gown with an eiderdown to cover her and a hot water-bottle at her feet, Miss Silver went to the bedroom which had been allotted to her next door, a comfortable old-fashioned room with a good deal of dark mahogany furniture and a handsome purple bedspread which gave the bed rather the appearance of a catafalque. Not that this comparison would have occurred to Miss Silver. She considered the material to be sumptuous, and the colouring extremely rich. The fact that the room had a northern aspect had preserved it from fading, and both the spread and the curtains, which displayed a pattern of grapes and vine leaves in shades of brown and purple, were in a remarkable state of preservation. The carpet, of the best quality Brussels, had once possessed a small design in such dark colours as could be trusted to show no marks. They were all now gone away in a general gloom. The room had been furnished as a guest-room by that Lady Margaret whose initials lingered upon her jewel-case. She had considered herself very modern and advanced when, the year being 1840, she had done away with the tester which had until then surmounted the bed, and the heavy curtains which surrounded it.

Miss Silver went over to the dressing-table and sat down there. She spread out the letter which Miss Maggie had given her and looked at it for quite a long time.