Poison In The Pen (22 page)

Miss Silver used the strongest expression which she permitted herself. She said, “Dear me!” And then, “You had better turn it off, or there will be an explosion.”

The smell was, in fact, in the room with them and quite strong. As she spoke she was already at the window, drawing back the curtains and throwing the casement wide. The night air came in with a rush.

Jason Leigh went on up to the Manor. As he came through the hall he saw Scilla Repton. She had put off her scarlet and green tartan and wore a dark skirt and a sweater of greyish blue. The effect was of a light that had been dimmed. Even her hair seemed to have lost some of its brightness. She half passed him, and then turned back again.

“You don’t lose much time!” she said. “I suppose you think you’re going to marry Valentine. And settle down here and let the dullness just soak into you until you die of boredom.”

He laughed.

“The country bores you because you don’t do any of the country things. I shan’t have time to be bored.”

She said, “Oh, well—” And then, “I can’t get out of it quick enough for me.” She went towards the stairs, got as far as the first step, and turned to say over her shoulder, “Are you one of the charming people who think that I poisoned Roger? I didn’t, you know. Foul minds the police have, don’t they?” She shrugged and went on up the stairs, drooping a little.

He went along to the drawing-room, where he found Valentine. They talked about themselves. It was too soon to make plans, but they found that they were making them. Miss Maggie must go on living at the Manor. Impossible to uproot her—impossible and unkind. But she could have her own sitting-room. Once the funeral was over, Scilla wouldn’t want to linger. Coming even closer to him and speaking very low indeed, Valentine said,

“Jason, they don’t really think—they can’t really—”

He said, “I’m afraid they do.”

She caught her breath.

“You don’t mean—they’ll arrest her—”

“I think they may.”

“Jason, do you think—Oh, she couldn’t—not Roger!”

He found himself saying, “No, somehow I don’t. I don’t quite know why. There could be quite a case against her.”

Looking back on it afterwards, that was where a chill discomfort began to invade his mind. It was like sitting in a room with a draught—you didn’t feel it much at first, but you kept on feeling it more and more. It reached the point when he got suddenly to his feet.

“Look here, I’ve got to go. I’ll be back again.”

Valentine hadn’t known him all her life without becoming inured to his being abrupt. She didn’t even say, “Where are you going?” and was rewarded by having the information flung at her as he made for the door.

“I’ll just pick up Miss Silver and walk home with her.”

He ran down the drive, over the bridge from which poor Doris had fallen to her death, and out through the open gates. When he came to the path across the Green he didn’t run but he hurried. It was as he came through the small rustic gate of Willow Cottage that the curtains of Miss Wayne’s sitting-room were run back and the casement window thrown wide. He stepped off the path and looked into the room. Miss Silver, who had opened the window, now had her back to it. Renie Wayne stood in front of the door, her face contorted with fury and her voice shrill. The smell of gas came floating out to meet him. Miss Wayne was saying,

“The gas is turned on in that cupboard and the door is locked. And do you know who I’ve got in there? Do you know who is going to die in there unless you shut that window and draw the curtains and put your hand on the Bible and swear solemnly that you will go away tomorrow and never breathe a word, a single word, about all the stupid, senseless lies you have been making up! It’s no use your looking at me like that, and it’s no use your thinking you can unlock the cupboard and get him out, because I’ve hidden the key, and the door is very strong—you would never get it broken down in time to save him!”

Miss Silver took an almost imperceptible step towards the door. She said in her grave, calm voice,

“To save whom?”

Miss Wayne tittered.

“Why, who should it be except David? Joyce brought him over to see me, and she left him here whilst she went to meet Penny Marsh at the Croft—this stupid idea about taking Connie’s place in the school, when she ought to be grateful to me for a home and doing her best to look after me and make me comfortable! I haven’t been pleased with Joyce for some time and I wanted to punish her, so I turned on the gas and locked David in. But I’ll give you the key to let him out if you’ll promise not to tell about the letters, or Connie, or anything.”

Jason came in through the window on a flying leap. Renie Wayne screamed and went back against the door. When his hands came down upon her shoulders she fought like a cornered rat.

Miss Silver went past them and up the narrow stair. Since Renie Wayne had been alone in the house, what reason would she have to hide the key of any door that she had locked? She hoped and prayed that it would be sticking in the keyhole.

The smell of gas became overpowering as she came up on to the dark landing and switched on the small electric bulb which lighted it. There was a window looking towards Holly Cottage, and she set it wide, her head swimming and her breath catching in her throat. When she had taken a couple of long, deep breaths she turned round with the wind blowing past her. There on the right was the cupboard door, and the key was sticking in the lock. Up to this moment there had been no time to think. She had set herself to come through the gas to the window and to open the cupboard door. She had not let herself think what she might find there.

She opened the door now. It swung outwards.

The cupboard was a deep one, and it was full of shadows. Hardly any light came in from the bulb at the end of the passage. There was a water-cistern like a black rock rising up out of the dark and there was something lying up against it, but she couldn’t see what it was. The gas made her head swim. She felt along the wall for the bracket and turned the tap. Then she went right in, holding her breath, and groping for the thing that was on the floor. Her hand touched something rough, and then the leather handles of a large old-fashioned carpet-bag. She pulled upon them with what seemed to be the last of her strength, and with an unwavering determination to get the bag and its contents into the draught by the open window. The air met her and she struggled towards it with a growing sense of thankfulness. The bag was heavy, but it was not heavy enough to contain the body of David Rodney. She struggled with the straps that fastened it and sank down by the sill. The wind blew round her and her head cleared. The open mouth of the bag disclosed the body of a large tabby cat.

Jason Leigh, taking the stairs three at a time, found her trying to lift Abimelech to meet the air.

It was with more than her usual thankfulness that Miss Silver contemplated the familiar comfort of her own sitting-room in Montagu Mansions. Everything so cosy and so peaceful. So many blessings had been bestowed upon her, and she felt as if she could never be sufficiently grateful. The pieces of furniture with which she was surrounded bore mute testimony to the kindly thought of an earlier generation. The chairs had been the bequest of a great-aunt. The bookcase and two small tables had come to her from her grandparents. The silver teapot and milk-jug which Emma kept in such beautiful order had belonged to a godmother. And if the past provided food for affectionate remembrance, how full of kindness and of constantly increasing friendships was the present! She had just endeavoured to put something of this into words as she filled up Frank Abbott’s cup for the second time and handed it to him.

“You will, I fear, accuse me, and with justice, of misquoting Lord Tennyson’s so often quoted words, or at any rate of wresting them from their meaning, when I say that I cannot help being reminded of the line about broadening down ‘from precedent to precedent.’ ”

He helped himself to another of Emma’s excellent sandwiches. His eyes sparkled as he said,

“If anyone has the right to correct the great Alfred’s words, it is a devout admirer like yourself.”

She said soberly,

“No, I do not think that I have the right, but I feel that those words do express something of what is in my mind.”

He looked at her with affection.

“You know, I never felt really happy about Tilling Green. You oughtn’t to have gone there, and that is a fact. It seemed such a good idea to start with, but after that second death I began to get the wind up, and if I had had the least suspicion that Renie Wayne was the poison pen I should have got down there somehow, if I had had to forge a medical certificate to do it.”

“My dear Frank!”

He laughed.

“It is you who turn my thoughts to crime. I can’t think of anyone else who would make me contemplate forgery. All right, ma’am, don’t bring up the big guns—I’m still on the right side of the law. Tell me, what made you pick on Renie as a suspect? Frankly, she never entered my head.”

Miss Silver added a little more milk to her cup. Emma was always inclined to put too much tea in the pot when Frank was expected. Her thought turned back to her first impressions of Tilling Green.

“There was an association with the similar outbreak of anonymous letter writing at Little Poynton five years ago. An old aunt of the Miss Waynes was living there at the time, and they used to go over and see her. The postmistress was under some suspicion—or at least that is what Miss Renie wished to convey. She also took care to tell me that this Mrs. Salt was a sister of Mrs. Gurney who has the post office at Tilling Green, and she used this fact to insinuate that it might be Mrs. Gurney who was responsible for the present crop of letters. When I asked her if there were any grounds for such a suspicion, she became a good deal agitated and said how much she disapproved of gossip, and how much her sister had disapproved of it.”

“And that made you suspect her?” She did not reply for a moment. Then she said, “I thought she was rather more agitated than she need have been, and there was the connection with Little Poynton. Then after Connie’s death and Colonel Repton’s she was one of the four people who had to be very seriously considered— Mrs. Repton, Miss Eccles, Miss Wayne, and Mr. Barton. If it had only been Colonel Repton’s death that was in question, Mrs. Repton must certainly have been arrested, but her connection with the other two deaths was slight, and in the case of Connie Brooke it is difficult to see what opportunity she could have had of drugging the cocoa. Miss Eccles, Miss Wayne, and Mr. Barton all had this opportunity, but I may say at once that I never really suspected Mr. Barton. His only motive, as well as that of Miss Eccles and Miss Renie, must have been fear of being identified as the writer of the letters. But after my interview with Miss Pell it was clear that the scrap of paper which would have identified this person had been picked up in one of the houses visited by Doris Pell on the afternoon before she was drowned. Those houses were the Manor, Willow Cottage where she called on Miss Wayne, Holly Cottage where she saw Miss Eccles, and the Croft where she saw and to some extent confided in Connie Brooke who had been her childhood’s playmate and companion. She certainly could not visit Mr. Barton whose door was never opened to a woman. I therefore dismissed him from my mind.”

“And you did not really suspect Scilla Repton. Why?” Again she was silent for a moment. She finished her cup of tea and set it back upon the tray.

“There was the question of the cocoa, and then—these things are difficult to put into words. There are impressions so slight, so indefinite, that one is scarcely aware of them, yet as one constantly succeeds another a picture is built up. Mrs. Repton struck me as unaware of being in any danger. She was conscious of having offended against the moral law, and aggressively impatient of that law and of the consequences which this breach was bringing down upon her. But she did not seem to me to be at all aware of any possible relation between herself and the criminal law, or of the consequences which it might have in store. She was brazening out the exposure of her intrigue with Mr. Earle, she was angry and resentful over the change in her husband’s will, and she was a good deal more shocked at his death than she was willing to admit. She was in fact a vain, selfish, idle and undisciplined young woman who found herself in uncongenial surroundings and snatched at anything which would alleviate her boredom, but in my opinion she would not have gone out of her way to write the anonymous letters, and she would not have poisoned her husband. And, as everyone is now aware, she did not do so.”

“And there was no one else at the Manor who could have filled the bill?”

“Oh, no. Miss Maggie is a gentle person, not very strong, not very efficient, but full of kindness, and Valentine Grey is a very charming girl. There is a good deal of sweetness in her character, and her principles are good.”

He laughed.

“Well, she’ll need the sweetness. Jason is an odd fish.”

Miss Silver smiled indulgently.

“They have known one another from childhood and are very deeply attached.”

“Well, so much for James Barton and the Manor. That left you with the occupants of three more houses.”

She shook her head reprovingly.

“Oh, no—with only two. The third house would be the Croft, and Connie Brooke who lived alone there was herself a victim. I was left with two possible suspects, Miss Eccles and Miss Wayne. Either of them could have met Doris Pell and pushed her into the pond, since either could have known that she was going up to the Manor that evening with Miss Maggie’s blouse. Either could have drugged Connie Brooke’s cocoa, Miss Wayne by slipping round to the Croft while Connie was at the Manor, and Miss Eccles by seeing her the whole way home instead of saying goodnight at the gate of Holly Cottage. Either could have introduced the cyanide into Colonel Repton’s whisky, Miss Eccles when she took him in his tea, and Miss Wayne by slipping out of the drawing-room and making an opportunity of entering the study. As you probably know, she prides herself on how cleverly she managed this. Miss Maggie having handed over to me the anonymous letter which she herself had received, I tore off a corner of the page and produced what I hoped was a passable imitation of the scrap of paper picked up by Doris Pell. After some experimenting with a pointed match dipped in ink, my suspicion that the letters had been written in this manner was confirmed. I wrote the first part of the word Tilling upon my torn-off corner and took it with me when I went down to Holly Cottage with a basket of fruit from Miss Maggie. I believed that the sight of that piece of paper in my possession could hardly fail to produce a strong reaction in the person who had seen such a piece in the possession of Doris Pell, and who had, I was sure, committed murder in order to suppress this damning evidence. Miss Eccles’ reaction was an open and natural one. She is a person with an extremely active and inquisitive mind. In spite of her state of grief she showed a very lively curiosity as to how I had come by this piece of evidence. Miss Wayne’s behaviour was very different. If she had not already betrayed herself by her complaint that she considered the cat Abimelech to be unsafe because he was in the habit of growling at her, the marked change which came over her when she saw my piece of paper would have done so. The shock, followed by my statement that I believed a piece of paper like this had brought Doris Pell to her death, and that Miss Wayne had seen it in her hand as she was now seeing it in mine, was sufficient to break her down. She could no longer control her fear, her anger, or the insensate pride which the criminal feels in his achievement. By the time that the police arrived her condition was plainly one of insanity. She must have been an anxiety to her sister for years. The elder Miss Wayne seems to have known that it was Miss Renie who was responsible for the affair of the anonymous letters at Little Poynton five years ago.”

Frank Abbott said,

“There were two suicides then. Miss Wayne should have told what she knew.”

Miss Silver had picked up her knitting. The rich red of Ethel Burkett’s cardigan lay in her lap, the green needles moved briskly. She said,

“Three lives would have been saved had she done so, all good, all useful. But few people are prepared to subordinate their private feelings to their public duty.”

Memorizing this as a vintage example of what he irreverently termed Maudie’s Moralities, Frank brought a lighter tone to the conversation by enquiring after the health of the cat Abimelech.

“I don’t know how many of his nine lives he had used up already, but the gas cupboard must have drawn pretty heavily on any that remained.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“He is the youngest of the cats, which accounts for his having been so foolish as to be lured through the hedge by the offer of a piece of mackerel, a fish of which he is inordinately fond. Miss Renie is very proud of the manner in which she trapped him by placing the mackerel in an old carpet-bag which could be closed by pulling on a string. Those bags have quite gone out now, but they were very capacious and the opening was strongly reinforced by a metal bar. I have no doubt that Abimelech fought to free himself, but with Miss Renie on the watch he had no chance. But he is quite himself again now, and received me in a very friendly manner when I called on Mr. Barton before leaving Tilling Green.”

“You called on Barton? My dear ma’am, you don’t mean to say he let you in!”

Miss Silver smiled benignantly.

“He did indeed. He made me a most excellent cup of tea and introduced all the cats.”

“Well, the case is over, and I suppose you have added Barton and half a dozen others to the list of your admirers.”

She said with an accent of reproof.

“Of my friends, Frank. Miss Maggie has been most kind, and I must confess to feeling an interest in Valentine and Mr. Leigh. Joyce Rodney too. Do you know whether she has decided to stay on in Tilling Green?”

Frank nodded.

“I think so. If Miss Renie is certified, as she is bound to be, the administration of the estate falls to Joyce. She could live at the Cottage and carry on the school with Penelope Marsh as they had planned. It will really be much better if she does.”

“You have seen her?”

“Well, no—she called me up.”

It might have been his fancy, but he thought he detected a shade of benevolence in her expression. She said,

“I am afraid that I may have hurt her feelings by my decision that it would be inadvisable for me to call her Joyce, but now that the case is over—”

“There will hardly be any opportunity.”

“You think not?”

He met her slightly disappointed gaze with a laughing one. “It’s no good, my dear ma’am, I am a hopeless case. You will just have to make do with Jason and Valentine!”

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