Miss Silver Deals With Death

CHAPTER 10

Four people wrote letters that evening. They too were to form part of the pattern.

Carola Roland wrote to someone whom she addressed as “Toots darling”. It was a gushing, girlish letter.

“Missing my Toots so dreadfully. Am just longing for us to be together, but of course I do see we’ve got to be ever so careful until your divorce is through. I’m living exactly like a nun here- you needn’t be afraid about that-but I don’t mind a bit really, because I’m always thinking about you, and when we can get married, and what a lovely time we’ll have…”

There was a lot more in the same vein.

This letter was not posted, because Miss Roland suddenly lost interest in it. She was, in fact, visited by a very bright idea. When you are bored beyond tears, bright ideas are exceedingly welcome. Miss Roland was bored to such an extent that any distraction was welcome. She had even snatched at Alfred Willard. Anyway writing to Toots was the last word in boredom.

It wouldn’t do him any harm to be kept waiting for her letter. She believed in keeping men waiting-it made them keen. Toots had got to be kept keen enough to come down with a wedding ring and a handsome settlement as soon as his divorce was made absolute. He might be a bore-he was a bore-but oh, boy, had he got the dough!

She pushed the letter inside a very fancy blotter, took a bunch of keys out of her handbag, and went down to the luggage-room. The bright idea was a positive Catherine-wheel of malicious dancing sparks.

She came upstairs again presently with a packet of letters and a large signed photograph. Setting the photograph conspicuously on the left-hand side of the mantlepiece, she sat down to read the letters…

Mr. Drake wrote to Agnes Lemming: “My dear, I must write, because I want you to have something which you can read when I am not there to say these things. You have lived long enough in prison. Come out and see what the world is like. I can only show you a very small corner of it, but it would be your corner and mine, and it would be a home, not a prison. I know what life looks like to a prisoner. Come out before it destroys you. When she has killed you, how will your mother be any the better for it? You say you could not leave her alone, but it is not your companionship she wants, it’s your service. Give her a paid servant who can leave if the chain is pulled too tight. You are not a daughter, you are a slave. Slavery is immoral and abhorrent. These are hard words, but you know perfectly well that they are true ones. I have wanted to say them for a long time now. Do you remember the day I carried your basket up from the town? It started then. The thing weighed a ton- your arm was shaking with the strain. I could have sworn at you for the patience in your eyes, and for the smile you gave me. People oughtn’t to be patient and smile under an intolerable tyranny. I found myself unable to get you out of my mind. I discovered that you are that most infuriating of human beings, the saint who invites martyrdom. It is a reckless act on my part to ask you to marry me. You will try to destroy my moral character and turn me into a monster of selfishness, but I am forewarned and, I hope, forearmed. My best weapon is the fact that I desire nothing so much in the world as to make you happy. I believe that I can do it. As this is not an argument that would appeal to you, I will add that I have not had much happiness myself, and that you can give me all that I have missed and more. Won’t you do it?”

Agnes Lemming wrote to Mr. Drake:

“We mustn’t think of it-indeed we mustn’t. If we could be friends-but that would not be fair to you. Don’t think of it any more. I ought to have told you at once and most definitely that it would never, never do. If only you are not unhappy…”

This letter, like Miss Roland’s, was never sent. It became too much blotted with tears. Painfully, and with the expenditure of a good many matches, Agnes contrived to burn the sheet.

Mrs. Spooner wrote to Meade Underwood:

“It may be in the bottom drawer, or if it isn’t there, will you be so kind as to look through all the others? One of those woven spencers with a crochet edge. I should be glad of it to wear under my uniform now the evenings are getting so cold. Bell has the key of the flat.”