Poison in the Pen

CHAPTER 3

Elderly ladies cannot easily be hurried. It took a little time to contrive the kind of approach which Miss Cutler would consider to be pleasant and natural. A mutual friend, or someone who could play that part-a drawing-room humming with conversation, tea-cups poised and cake and biscuits in circulation-in such a setting it was easy enough to talk of country holidays, to mention Ledshire, and to be immediately the recipient of Miss Cutler’s interested comments upon the shocking fatality which had so recently taken place at Tilling Green-“Where I stayed, I actually stayed, Miss Silver, only just a year ago.”

“Indeed?”

Miss Cutler nodded vigorously. She had a bony intelligent face and hair which had shaded from red to so very pale a gold that it might almost have been taken for grey. It still curled, and she had long ago given up any attempt to control its exuberance.

“Oh, yes,” she said, “I was there for three months with the Miss Waynes at Willow Cottage. That poor girl who committed suicide made me a couple of blouses. Such a nice quiet creature-I was quite dreadfully shocked.”

Miss Silver heard all about the Miss Waynes.

“You have never been back again?”

“Well, no. Miss Esther died-very suddenly, poor thing. Though I’m sure I don’t know why one should be sorry for people who die suddenly. It is unpleasant for their families of course, but much happier for them. Anyhow it must have been a great shock for Miss Renie. She depended on her for everything. Really quite painful to see a grown woman so subservient. I hear she has a widowed niece living with her now.”

“And does she still take in guests?”

“I really don’t know. They were not at all well off, and if the niece is dependent… I have sometimes thought of going down again, but I don’t know what the housekeeping would be like now, unless the niece does it. Miss Renie was not a good cook! On the other hand, there was a very pleasant social circle at Tilling Green. Horrid for them all having this poison-pen business. And just as that charming girl at the Manor is getting married! There was another young man on the tapis when I was down there. She wasn’t engaged to him, but they all thought she was going to be. He was the parson’s nephew, Jason Leigh. Such an odd name-and rather an odd young man. Anyhow nothing came of it, and she is marrying the other one next week, I believe. I made friends with a Miss Eccles when I was down there, and she wrote and told me. We still correspond occasionally.” She went on talking about Tilling Green and the people whom she had met there. “Colonel Repton at the Manor, married to quite a young wife- very pretty, but not very popular. The people bore her, and they don’t like it… Valentine Grey has a lot of money. Gilbert Earle, the man she is marrying, is the heir to a title… Miss Eccles says Colonel Repton will be put to it to go on living at the Manor without the allowance which her trustees have been paying him while she lives there. She is herself some kind of distant connection of the family, so I suppose she knows. She says they are having a rehearsal of the wedding ceremony. I don’t know that I care about the idea. I know it is very generally done, but it seems to me to detract from the sacred nature of the occasion. I may be wrong, but that is how it seems to me.” Miss Cutler’s loud, decided voice continued with hardly a break, but she contrived to make a very good tea.

Miss Silver was, of course, the perfect listener. She was interested, she was agreeable. When encouragement seemed desirable she supplied it. By the time she left she had quite a clear picture of Tilling Green and its inhabitants, together with a number of unrelated details which she memorized without effort and which she could rely upon herself to reproduce at will. She went home and wrote a letter which she addressed to Miss Wayne, Willow Cottage, Tilling Green, Ledshire. It began:

“Dear Madam

“An acquaintance of mine, Miss Cutler, has told me of the very pleasant holiday she spent with you some time ago. I am encouraged to write and ask you whether you would consider allowing me to come to you as a paying guest for a short time. The quiet surroundings of a village…”

To this letter she presently received the reply which she expected. Miss Wayne would be very pleased. She was sure that any friend of Miss Cutler’s… She had lost her dear sister of whom Miss Cutler would doubtless have spoken, but she and her niece would do their best to make a guest’s stay pleasant. She was writing to thank Miss Cutler for the recommendation. As to terms, everything kept going up so. She felt obliged to charge a little more than they had asked a year ago…

The small spidery writing ran on to a signature which could just be identified as Irene Wayne.