Poison in the Pen

CHAPTER 14

It was late on the following day that Miss Silver was called to the telephone. Since the instrument was in the dining-room and supper was in progress, she hoped that her tact and discretion would not be put to too great a test. Mrs. Rodney had handed her the receiver without saying who the caller was, but no sooner had a deep, pleasant voice pronounced her name than she was aware that it was Rietta March, the Chief Constable’s wife.

“Dear Miss Silver, how are you? I do hope this is not an inconvenient moment. You are not in the middle of a meal or anything?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“We are at supper, but I feel sure that my kind hostess will not mind a temporary interruption.”

Rietta, having been thus informed that the Tilling end of the conversation would be public property, and having in any case been instructed not to say anything that could not be proclaimed aloud upon the village green, continued.

“I should have rung up before, but Randal hasn’t had a moment. Now when are we going to see you? You can’t be in Ledshire without at least coming over to tea. Could you manage tomorrow?”

“Well, I don’t know, my dear-”

Rietta went on.

“Oh, please do come! George has grown tremendously, and you haven’t even seen little Meg. Look here, Randal says he will be over in your direction tomorrow-some tiresome business or other-and he could pick you up at half past three if that will suit you. Do please say that it will. He sends his love, and we both want to see you so much.”

Miss Silver returned to her cocoa and scrambled egg. The tip of Miss Wayne’s small pink nose twitched in a manner which strongly suggested a white mouse in the throes of curiosity. In her scholastic days Miss Silver had more than once had to contend with the passionate partiality which little boys seem to entertain for these creatures. She had never been able to share it. She found herself wishing that Miss Wayne did not so often remind her of them. She hastened to explain Rietta’s call.

“The Marches are old friends. Mrs. March has very kindly invited me to tea tomorrow. Her husband was once a pupil of mine. No one would ever think so to look at him now, but as a little boy he was considered too delicate to go to school, so he shared his sisters’ lessons.”

Miss Wayne quivered with interest.

“Do you mean the Chief Constable? Such a fine looking man! No one would ever think that he had been delicate. Now let me see-I am afraid you will have to start rather early, but if you take the three o’clock bus and change at the Merry Harvesters… No, we had better look it up-I am not quite sure about the connection. I hope we have a really up-to-date timetable. My dear sister was so methodical about these things.”

Miss Silver explained that Mr. March would call for her- he had business in this direction.

Miss Renie dabbed her nose.

“Oh dear-do you suppose that it would be something to do with poor Connie? It seems so terrible that people should think it could be anything except a dreadful, dreadful accident! I won’t say it wasn’t foolish of Maggie Repton to let poor Connie have those sleeping-tablets, because I suppose it was. Esther was always so very particular about things like that. Prescriptions should never be passed on, she used to say, because of course what agrees with one person may not agree with another. Let them go to the doctor themselves and not go borrowing, she used to say. So Maggie Repton ought not to have done it, but I’m afraid poor Connie must have been careless too. But I can’t see why the police should be interested. Mettie says poor Maggie Repton is quite prostrated. They keep asking her how many tablets there were in the bottle, and of course she has no idea. As if one counted things like that!” She gave a little tittering laugh and then dabbed her nose again. “Oh dear-I didn’t mean-of course one ought not to make a joke of it.”

Miss Silver went on talking about the March family.

“I have always kept up with them. The girls are very happily married.”

She discoursed upon the theme at some length-Isobel’s children-Margaret’s services during the war-the valued friendship of the elder Mrs. March.

There was a moment after supper when she and Joyce Rodney were alone. Plates and dishes had been cleared, and Joyce was washing up whilst Miss Silver, always anxious to be helpful, dried for her. In the dining-room Miss Wayne was engaged in setting out the breakfast things. The door through to that part of the house being shut, Joyce said quick and low,

“I am taking David to a friend of mine in Ledlington tomorrow. I don’t want him to hear anything-about Connie. Penny means to go on with the school, but it will have to be at Lower Tilling. Her mother has a biggish house there, but it would be a good deal farther for David to go-I should have to take him on my bicycle. Anyhow I thought if I could get him away until after the inquest and the funeral-”

Miss Silver registered approval.

“A very sensible idea. Your friend has children?”

“Two-and such a nice Nannie. David loves going there, and I shall be much happier about him.”

Miss Silver polished a tablespoon and laid it down on a baize-covered tray.

“People are sadly incautious about what they say in front of children,” she observed.

“They are frightful! Hilda Price was here this morning- you know, she comes to Aunt Renie on Wednesdays and Fridays-and I’m sure as far as getting on with her work was concerned she might just as well have stayed at home, because all she could do was talk about Connie. I told her when she came that I didn’t want David to hear anything, and she agreed with every word, and then about five minutes later there she was, talking to Aunt Renie at the top of her voice, going over some long story about Connie having gone up to the Parsonage in tears on Tuesday evening.”

Miss Silver finished the last tablespoon and began on the forks.

“Indeed?”

Joyce gave an emphatic nod.

“And there was David only a yard away drinking it all in. Aunt Renie should have known better, even if Hilda didn’t. Of course, I hustled him off to play in the garden at once, and I stayed around to see that he didn’t come back.”

Miss Silver said in a thoughtful voice,

“And pray how did Hilda Price come to know what had happened at the Parsonage?”

“Well, she has a sister-in-law who is a cousin of Mrs. Gurney who keeps the village shop, and she had it from Mrs. Emmott who is a friend of the parson’s housekeeper, Mrs. Needham.”

Miss Silver was not unaccustomed to villages. She found this a perfectly satisfactory explanation.

“Pray continue, Mrs. Rodney.”

“I do wish you would call me Joyce.”

“I really do not think it would be wise. I should like to know what is being said about Connie Brooke’s visit to the Parsonage.”

Joyce put the last plate up in the rack and emptied the washing-bowl.

“Mrs. Needham told Mrs. Emmott, and she told Mrs. Gurney, that Connie had been crying. She said her eyes were all red and swollen. She rang up, you know, and Mr. Martin was out. Mrs. Needham said she thought Connie was crying and she was dreadfully upset because he wasn’t there. Then whilst she was speaking he came in, so Connie said she would come along. Mrs. Needham was very much put out because of it being his supper time. She hates people like poison when they come and bother him at meal times, so she probably lurked in the hall and clattered with the tray. Anyhow she was there when Connie went away, because she heard Mr. Martin say that she had better think it well over, and if she really did know who was writing those poisonous letters it would be her duty to go to the police. Mrs. Needham said Connie cried dreadfully and said things like ‘Oh, poor Doris!’ and she didn’t know what to do but once she had said it she couldn’t take it back, could she? And Mr. Martin said no, she couldn’t, and got out his own handkerchief and gave it to her, which seems to have annoyed Mrs. Needham quite a lot. And he told Connie to go home and think it over. If that was all over the village by Wednesday, and I expect it was, because I know we had it here, the person who wrote the letters would have heard about it too.”

Miss Silver said, “Yes.”

“I thought at the rehearsal that Connie looked as if she had been crying her eyes out. If she really knew who had written those letters-but how could she-”

“Some accident may have placed her in possession of a clue. Pray finish what you were going to say.”

Joyce looked at her in a distressed manner.

“Well, it looks as if it was someone she knew quite well. She wouldn’t have been so distressed if it wasn’t. And that ties in with her going to see Tommy Martin and coming away in floods of tears without telling him anything. You see, when Mrs. Needham heard her say, ‘Once I’ve said it I can’t take it back, can I?’ and Tommy said no she couldn’t, and to think it well over, well it does sound as if perhaps she just couldn’t face up to it and Miss Maggie’s tablets might have been the answer. Do you think it was like that?”

Miss Silver looked at her with gravity.

“There is another possibility, Mrs. Rodney. The person who wrote those letters would have been ruined by exposure. He, or she, would have had a very strong motive for silencing Connie Brooke.”