Poison in the Pen

CHAPTER 33

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.