Poison in the Pen

INQUEST AT TILLING GREEN

She had often noticed how singularly an unfamiliar name, once noted, is apt to recur. She read the paragraph with interest. A young woman had been found drowned in a stretch of ornamental water belonging to the grounds of the Manor House. Her name was Doris Pell, and she neither resided at the Manor nor was employed there. She lived with an aunt, and they carried on a business as dressmakers in a small way. The evidence reported her as having been greatly distressed by the receipt of anonymous letters accusing her of immorality, an accusation for which, the Coroner stated, there was no foundation-she was a perfectly respectable girl. The police were pursuing enquiries as to the authorship of the letters.

Miss Silver laid down the paper. A lamentable waste of a young life. She contrasted, not for the first time, the extreme courage and tenacity of purpose with which trouble is encountered in one case, and the ease with which it is succumbed to in another. Since this dead girl had apparently had the support of innocence, why had she put up no fight? The light that beats upon a village is of course sufficiently unsparing-white is white, and black is black, and a character once lost or even breathed upon will continue to be doubted indefinitely. But youth should possess some spring, some power of recovery, some ability to make a new beginning. Her thoughts remained saddened for some time.

It was not until later in the day when she was dealing with her correspondence that the matter was once more brought to her attention. She was engaged with a letter from her niece Ethel Burkett. Raising, as it did, the question of Ethel’s sister Gladys, whose by no means harmonious relations with her husband Andrew Robinson were a perennial source of anxiety, it was affording her grave reason for thought.

“Dear Auntie,” Ethel wrote, “I do not know whether Gladys has written to you, and I hate to trouble you with her affairs, but I really do think you have more influence with her than anyone else. A separation from Andrew would be fatal. He has been most tolerant and long-suffering and he has a horror of any scandal, but I have a feeling that if she were to go so far as to leave him, he would not readily take her back.”

It was at this point, and while Miss Silver was reflecting upon just how far a selfish and headstrong young woman was likely to go in the process of cutting off her nose to spite her own face, that the telephone bell rang. She picked up the receiver and heard Frank Abbott say,

“Hullo! Is that you?”

Having been reassured upon this point, he continued.

“Then may I come and see you?… Thank you. I’ll be right along.”

She had no more than time to write what might be called an interim letter to Ethel setting out the view that Gladys, having no money of her own and being notoriously averse from anything in the nature of work, would, in her opinion, hesitate to separate herself from Andrew’s very comfortable income, when the door opened and Emma announced,

“Mr. Frank-”

She was, as always, affectionately pleased to see him, and he on his side as affectionately at home.

When Miss Silver had settled herself in her chair and taken up her usual knitting, he said,

“Well, I don’t know whether you can guess what has brought me.”

She inclined her head.

“I have seen the paragraph about an inquest at Tilling Green.”

“Stupid, damnable affair. More damnable than stupid, I should say. What gets into any human being to make him- or her-set out to poison and destroy. Do you know, I met this girl when I was down there. She had come in to do some needlework for Miss Wayne. She was a sensitive, shy creature-coloured up to the roots of her hair when I spoke to her. Joyce had been good to her, and the girl obviously adored her.”

Miss Silver had seldom seen him with his surface cynicism so completely broken through. The drawl was gone from his voice and the chill from his glance. She said with a good deal of warmth,

“My dear Frank-”

He nodded.

“I am a fool, but it has got me on the raw. She was such an inoffensive creature-plain, simple, kindly. And someone could take pleasure in destroying her!”

She knitted thoughtfully.

“Is there any suspicion of foul play?”

“Not in the technical sense. The law does not call that sort of thing murder. There seems no reason to doubt that she jumped into the lake and drowned herself-‘Whilst the balance of her mind was disturbed!’ That, as you will have seen, was the verdict. She had taken some work up to the Manor. They say she seemed as usual.” His shoulder jerked. “You may have noticed that people always do say that kind of thing when anything like this happens! There is a place where the drive crosses an ornamental stream. The stream passes under a bridge and falls over rocks to this lake they speak of. She must have jumped over the low parapet on the lake side and hit her head. After which she drowned. As the verdict says, she was off her balance, and the thing that drove her off her balance is patent. That is what I have come to see you about.”

The blue frill which depended from the needles was lengthening. Miss Silver said,

“Yes?”

He spoke with a return to his usual manner,

“You see, we’ve been asked to send someone down there. I don’t know whether you remember, but about five years ago there was a very nasty outbreak of this sort of thing about ten miles away at Little Poynton. They had a couple of suicides there and a lot of other trouble, and it was never satisfactorily cleared up. They ended by calling in the Yard. March has been on to us officially about this Tilling business. It seems that several people have had letters. He has got hold of two. One was posted in London. It is one of the most recent and may provide a clue. After all, only a small number of Tilling people can have been in Kensington on the day when the letter was posted there.”

Miss Silver made a slight negative gesture.

“I do not feel that a hardened writer of anonymous letters would provide so obvious a clue.”

“I don’t know-everyone slips up sometimes. Anyhow it’s all the clue there is. The paper is cheap block stuff-ruled. Envelope rather better. Writing big and thick, clumsy ill-formed letters-the experts say left-handed. A sprinkling of spelling mistakes-probably deliberate. No fingerprints except what you would expect-branch office-postman-recipient. All very helpful!” He leaned forward suddenly. “Now what March suggests is that you go down there with the official blessing and do your stuff. The Chief thinks it is a good idea, and I am here to find out if you will take it on.”

She knitted in silence for a little, and then said,

“I do not, unfortunately, know anyone in the vicinity. It would be of no use for me to go down unless my visit could be contrived to appear a natural one.”

“The Miss Waynes occasionally took in a paying guest. One of them was a Miss Cutler, now living in Chiswick. It could be arranged for you to meet her in a casual manner, after which it would be child’s play to induce her to recommend a country lodging. You could then write to Miss Wayne and enquire whether she would be prepared to take you in.”

After a moment she said,

“Miss Wayne is not to know?”

“No one is to know, except Joyce. Miss Wayne least of all. She is constitutionally timid and would never have a happy moment if she thought she had a detective in the house.”

She looked at him gravely.

“I do not know. I do not like the idea of my hostess being in ignorance. It is in fact repugnant.”

“My dear ma’am, if your advent is to be broadcast!”

Her glance reproved him.

“It would be a grave responsibility for Mrs. Rodney. Is she prepared to undertake it?”

“She rang me up this morning from a call-box in Ledlington. She is very much worried, very much upset about Doris Pell, very much afraid that there may be further trouble. I had talked to her about you when she first told me about the letters. She asked me if you could not come down, and suggested this paying guest business. It seems Miss Wayne had been speaking about Miss Cutler and saying she really thought she must repeat what had been a very pleasant experience. So you see, it would be quite easy.”

She drew upon her ball of wool.

“Perhaps. But I would prefer that she should receive at the very least some hint that my visit was a professional one.”

He said, “Impossible!” and then relaxed into a laugh.

“The fact is she has one of those tongues which never really stop. You know-the gentle trickle just going on and on. She wouldn’t mean to give anything away-she probably wouldn’t know she was doing it-but you can’t talk all the time and be safe with a secret. Joyce said it would be hopeless, and that she really would be frightened to death. She is terrified already about the letters-gets up in the night to see that the doors are locked, doesn’t like being left alone in the house, all that sort of thing. Joyce says she will jump at having an extra person there. And you know, you couldn’t really do better. She has a cottage on the edge of the Green-neighbours to right and to left of her, the village shop within a stone’s throw, the entrance to the Manor just on the other side of the Green, and church and parsonage beyond. When I tell you that the chief village busybody, a Miss Eccles, lives next door on the one side, and the chief village mystery on the other, you will realize that you simply can’t refuse such a marvellous opportunity.”

“And pray who or what is the chief village mystery?”

“He is a gentleman of the name of Barton, a quiet, harmless old boy who keeps cats and doesn’t invite any of the ladies to tea. He doesn’t even have a woman to do for him, so naturally there is a general feeling that he must have something to conceal. He does his own cooking and cleaning, if any, and he keeps his door locked, which is a thing even Miss Wayne hasn’t done until lately.”

In the course of her professional career Miss Silver had frequently been obliged to embark upon a course of action to which as a private gentlewoman she would not have committed herself. She began to consider the desirability of making Miss Cutler’s acquaintance.