Poison in the Pen

CHAPTER 26

Florrie had gone away, shaken but resilient. When the door had shut behind her Randal March said,

“That being that, we had better see Mrs. Repton. In the circumstances, I didn’t think it would be tactful to send a message by Florrie. Perhaps, Crisp, you wouldn’t mind-”

When the Inspector had gone out March said,

“Well, what do you make of it?”

Miss Silver gave the faint cough with which she was wont to emphasize a point.

“It is, I think, too soon to draw any conclusion. We know that there was anger between them, and people do not always mean what they say.”

He was silent. After a moment she said,

“I do not think Mrs. Repton will wish me to remain, in which case-”

“You will have to go? Yes, I am afraid so. But I would much rather you stayed.”

Scilla Repton came into the room with Crisp behind her. She was still wearing the tartan skirt and emerald jumper, but she had taken time to put on fresh make-up, and her hair shone under the ceiling light. It had been in her mind to put on a black dress and play the disconsolate widow, but something in her rebelled. And what was the good of it anyway when there wasn’t anyone in the house that didn’t know that she and Roger were all washed up? He had talked to his sister-he had told her so-and no doubt she would make the most of it to the police, so why not be honest and have done with it? There would be another of those awful inquests, and she supposed she would have to stay for the funeral, but once all that was over Tilling Green wouldn’t see her again in a hurry. So what did it matter what any of these people thought or said about her? She didn’t give a damn.

Observing Miss Silver, she raised her carefully shaped eyebrows and said without anything in her voice to soften the words,

“What is she doing here?”

March said,

“Miss Repton and Florrie Stokes preferred to have another woman present, and Miss Silver was kind enough-”

She interrupted him with a short hard laugh.

“A chaperone! My dear man, how prehistoric! I should have thought Maggie was past wanting one anyhow, but of course you never can tell, can you!”

“If you object to Miss Silver’s presence-”

She drew a chair to the other side of the writing-table, sat down, and proceeded to light a cigarette.

“Oh, no, I don’t object. Why should I? If Maggie wants a chaperone, I’m sure I do.”

She flicked out the match and dropped it among the pens and pencils which Roger Repton would not use again. She drew on the cigarette and the tip brightened. She had quite deliberately turned her back upon Miss Silver, who now as deliberately changed her own position, moving from one corner of the leather-covered couch to the other, an adjustment which gave her a very good view of Mrs. Repton as she sat, her legs crossed, the mesh of the stockings so fine that it hardly seemed to be there at all, the red shoes a little too ornate, a good deal too high in the heel.

If Miss Silver’s own garments were quite incredibly out of date, it was because she liked them that way and had discovered that an old-fashioned and governessy appearance was a decided asset in the profession which she had adopted. To be considered negligible may be the means of acquiring the kind of information which only becomes available when people are off their guard. She was fully aware that she was being treated as negligible now. She thought that Scilla Repton was putting on an act, and she wondered why she had chosen just this pose of callous indifference. She would not have expected good taste, but what was behind these bright colours, this careful indifference? A sudden death in a household must shock even its most indifferent member, and this was Roger Repton’s wife.

Randal March was speaking.

“I believe you had had a very serious quarrel with your husband on Saturday, Mrs. Repton.”

She withdrew her cigarette and blew out a little cloud of smoke.

“Who says so?”

He did not answer this.

“In the course of this quarrel the question of the anonymous letters came up.”

“What anonymous letters?”

“Oh, I think you have heard of them. One of them was in evidence at the inquest on Doris Pell. Colonel Repton had interrupted a telephone conversation between you and Mr. Gilbert Earle. During what followed he spoke of having received one of these letters, accusing you of carrying on an affair with Mr. Earle. A very serious quarrel developed, in the course of which divorce was mentioned and he said that you must leave this house immediately. The actual words were that you must get out. Later this was to some extent modified. He had begun to think about the scandal, and said that it would be better if you stayed here till after Miss Brooke’s funeral.”

She said with an accentuation of her usual drawl,

“You were listening at the door?”

“Somebody was,” said March drily. “Voices raised in a violent quarrel do attract attention, and for part of the time at any rate I understand that the door was open.”

She lifted a shoulder in the slightest of shrugs.

“Oh, well, people do have quarrels, you know. Roger and I had lots, but we always made them up again.”

“Do you wish to imply that this was not the first time he had accused you of infidelity?”

“I don’t mean to imply anything of the sort, and you know it!”

“Then do you mean to imply that this particular quarrel was no more serious than others that had taken place, and that it was likely to have been made up?”

She said easily,

“He wouldn’t have turned me out, you know.”

“Mrs. Repton, Miss Maggie Repton has stated that she had a conversation with her brother this afternoon just before three o’clock in which he told her that he had come to the end, and that you must go. Now I think you saw him after that.”

“Who says so?”

“You were seen coming out of the study.”

She drew at the cigarette and let the smoke go up between them.

“All right-so what?”

“The person who saw you states that both you and Colonel Repton were talking very loudly. She received the impression that you were quarrelling. Then the door opened and you were coming out, but you turned back again and spoke. And she heard what you said.”

A little ash dropped on the front of the emerald jumper. Scilla Repton brushed it off with a careless flick.

“Really, Mr. March?”

“She states that she heard you say, ‘You’d be a lot more good to me dead than alive,’ and after that you came away.”

“Quite a good curtain,” said Scilla Repton.

March said gravely,

“And within an hour he was dead.”

“It didn’t mean anything. It was the sort of thing one says.”

“Not, I think, with a reconciliation in sight.”

She leaned over to stub out the cigarette where she had left the match in Roger Repton’s pen-tray.

The action set off a curious spark of anger in him. She had quarrelled with the husband who had found her out, she had wished him dead to his face, she had heard another woman accuse her over his dead body, and here, on the very spot where these things had happened, she could lean over and stub out her cigarette! It was a small thing, but it got him. He said sharply,

“You wished him dead, and he was dead within the hour. You have been accused of having brought that death about.”

She actually laughed.

“You’ve been listening to Mettie Eccles. My dear man, don’t be silly! She was head over ears in love with Roger- always has been, I can’t think why. And she has always been just about as jealous of me as anyone could be, so naturally if there was anything wrong it would be my fault. I should think even a policeman could see that.”

He said abruptly,

“There was cyanide in the gardener’s shed, wasn’t there?”

“Cya-what?”

“Cyanide. I suppose you’ve heard of it?”

“No. What is it?”

“I haven’t had the surgeon’s report yet, but it could have been the poison which caused Colonel Repton’s death.”

She stared at him.

“And what would it be doing in the gardener’s shed?”

“It is used to destroy wasps’ nests.”

She gave quite a natural shudder.

“I can’t sit in the room with a wasp! That’s the worst of the country-all these insects! But if this cya stuff was used for them, how did it get into the house-unless-Oh, do you mean that Roger took it on purpose?”

Randal March said very gravely indeed,

“No, Mrs. Repton, I didn’t mean that.”