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“Oh no. I never did. She always rested after lunch. She had attacks of neuralgia—and they used to come on after meals. Dr. Griffith had given her some cachets to take. She used to lie down and try to sleep.”
Nash said in a casual voice:
“So no one would take her up the post?”
“The afternoon post? No, I’d look in the letter box and put the letters on the hall table when I came in. But very often Mrs. Symmington used to come down and get it herself. She didn’t sleep all the afternoon. She was usually up again by four.”
“You didn’t think anything was wrong because she wasn’t up that afternoon?”
“Oh, no, I never dreamed of such a thing. Mr. Symmington was hanging up his coat in the hall and I said, ‘Tea’s not quite ready, but the kettle’s nearly boiling,’ and he nodded and called out, ‘Mona, Mona!’—and then as Mrs. Symmington didn’t answer he went upstairs to her bedroom, and it must have been the most terrible shock to him. He called me and I came, and he said, ‘Keep the children away,’ and then he phoned Dr. Griffith and we forgot all about the kettle and it burnt the bottom out! Oh dear, it was dreadful, and she’d been so happy and cheerful at lunch.”
Nash said abruptly: “What is your own opinion of that letter she received, Miss Holland?”
Elsie Holland said indignantly:
“Oh, I think it was wicked—wicked!”
“Yes, yes, I don’t mean that. Did you think it was true?”
Elsie Holland said firmly:
“No, indeed I don’t. Mrs. Symmington was very sensitive—very sensitive indeed. She had to take all sorts of things for her nerves. And she was very—well, particular.” Elsie flushed. “Anything of that sort—nasty, I mean—would have given her a great shock.”
Nash was silent for a moment, then he asked:
“Have you had any of these letters, Miss Holland?”
“No. No, I haven’t had any.”
“Are you sure? Please”—he lifted a hand—“don’t answer in a hurry. They’re not pleasant things to get, I know. And sometimes people don’t like to admit they’ve had them. But it’s very important in this case that we should know. We’re quite aware that the statements in them are just a tissue of lies, so you needn’t feel embarrassed.”
“But I haven’t, superintendent. Really I haven’t. Not anything of the kind.”
She was indignant, almost tearful, and her denials seemed genuine enough.
When she went back to the children, Nash stood looking out of the window.
“Well,” he said, “that’s that! She says she hasn’t received any of these letters. And she sounds as though she’s speaking the truth.”
“She did certainly. I’m sure she was.”
“H’m,” said Nash. “Then what I want to know is, why the devil hasn’t she?”
He went on rather impatiently, as I stared at him.
“She’s a pretty girl, isn’t she?”
“Rather more than pretty.”
“Exactly. As a matter of fact, she’s uncommonly good-looking. And she’s young. In fact she’s just the meat an anonymous letter writer would like. Then why has she been left out?”
I shook my head.
“It’s interesting, you know. I must mention it to Graves. He asked if we could tell him definitely of anyone who hadn’t had one.”
“She’s the second person,” I said. “There’s Emily Barton, remember.”
Nash gave a faint chuckle.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you’re told, Mr. Burton. Miss Barton had one all right—more than one.”
“How do you know?”
“That devoted dragon she’s lodging with told me—her late parlourmaid or cook. Florence Elford. Very indignant she was about it. Would like to have the writer’s blood.”
“Why did Miss Emily say she hadn’t had any?”
“Delicacy. Their language isn’t nice. Little Miss Barton has spent her life avoiding the coarse and unrefined.”
“What did the letters say?”
“The usual. Quite ludicrous in her case. And incidentally insinuated that she poisoned off her old mother and most of her sisters!”
I said incredulously:
“Do you mean to say there’s really this dangerous lunatic going about and we can’t spot her right away?”
“We’ll spot her,” said Nash, and his voice was grim. “She’ll write just one letter too many.”
“But, my goodness, man, she won’t go on writing these things—not now.”
He looked at me.
“Oh yes she will. You see, she can’t stop now. It’s a morbid craving. The letters will go on, make no mistake about that.”
Nine
I
I went and found Megan before leaving the house. She was in the garden and seemed almost back to her usual self. She greeted me quite cheerfully.
I suggested that she should come back to us again for a while, but after a momentary hesitation she shook her head.
“It’s nice of you—but I think I’ll stay here. After all, it is—well, I suppose, it’s my home. And I dare say I can help with the boys a bit.”
“Well,” I said, “it’s as you like.”
“Then I think I’ll stay. I could— I could—”
“Yes?” I prompted.
“If—if anything awful happened, I could ring you up, couldn’t I, and you’d come.”
I was touched. “Of course. But what awful thing do you think might happen?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She looked vague. “Things seem rather like that just now, don’t they?”
“For God’s sake,” I said. “Don’t go nosing out anymore bodies! It’s not good for you.”
She gave me a brief flash of a smile.
“No, it isn’t. It made me feel awfully sick.”
I didn’t much like leaving her there, but after all, as she had said, it was her home. And I fancied that now Elsie Holland would feel more responsible for her.
Nash and I went up together to Little Furze. Whilst I gave Joanna an account of the morning’s doings, Nash tackled Partridge. He rejoined us looking discouraged.
“Not much help there. According to this woman, the girl only said she was worried about something and didn’t know what to do and that she’d like Miss Partridge’s advice.”
“Did Partridge mention the fact to anyone?” asked Joanna.
Nash nodded, looking grim.
“Yes, she told Mrs. Emory—your daily woman—on the lines, as far as I can gather, that there were some young women who were willing to take advice from their elders and didn’t think they could settle everything for themselves offha
nd! Agnes mightn’t be very bright, but she was a nice respectful girl and knew her manners.”
“Partridge preening herself, in fact,” murmured Joanna. “And Mrs. Emory could have passed it round the town?”
“That’s right, Miss Burton.”
“There’s one thing rather surprises me,” I said. “Why were my sister and I included among the recipients of the anonymous letters? We were strangers down here—nobody could have had a grudge against us.”
“You’re failing to allow for the mentality of a Poison Pen—all is grist that comes to their mill. Their grudge, you might say, is against humanity.”
“I suppose,” said Joanna thoughtfully, “that that is what Mrs. Dane Calthrop meant.”
Nash looked at her inquiringly, but she did not enlighten him. The superintendent said:
“I don’t know if you happened to look closely at the envelope of the letter you got, Miss Burton. If so, you may have noticed that it was actually addressed to Miss Barton, and the a altered to a u afterwards.”
That remark, properly interpreted, ought to have given us a clue to the whole business. As it was, none of us saw any significance in it.
Nash went off, and I was left with Joanna. She actually said: “You don’t think that letter can really have been meant for Miss Emily, do you?”
“It would hardly have begun ‘You painted trollop,’” I pointed out, and Joanna agreed.
Then she suggested that I should go down to the town. “You ought to hear what everyone is saying. It will be the topic this morning!”
I suggested that she should come too, but rather to my surprise Joanna refused. She said she was going to mess about in the garden.
I paused in the doorway and said, lowering my voice:
“I suppose Partridge is all right?”
“Partridge!”
The amazement in Joanna’s voice made me feel ashamed of my idea. I said apologetically: “I just wondered. She’s rather ‘queer’ in some ways—a grim spinster—the sort of person who might have religious mania.”
“This isn’t religious mania—or so you told me Graves said.”
“Well, sex mania. They’re very closely tied up together, I understand. She’s repressed and respectable, and has been shut up here with a lot of elderly women for years.”
