Patricia Wentworth: Lonesome Road

Rachel Treherne leaned forward.

“I don’t think I should have come, Miss Silver. I wrote to you, but I think I have only come to apologize and to say-”

“Second thoughts are not always best,” said Miss Silver primly. “You are very nervous. You wrote to me because you were alarmed and you felt that you must speak to someone about what was alarming you. This gave you some momentary relief, and you began to think you had been foolish-”

“How do you know?” cried Rachel Treherne.

Miss Maud Silver nodded.

“It is my business to know things. And it is true, is it not? May I ask who recommended me to you?”

“No one.” Miss Treherne leaned back again. “Hilary Cunningham -she-the Cunninghams are connections of an old friend of mine. I met them there, and Hilary was talking about you-oh, months ago. And then when I felt I couldn’t bear it any longer I remembered your name and looked you up in the London directory. But, Miss Silver, I don’t want anyone to know-”

Miss Silver nodded again.

“Naturally, Miss Treherne. All my work is extremely confidential. As Lord Tennyson so beautifully puts it, ‘Oh, trust me all in all or not at all.’ I very frequently quote those lines to my clients. A great poet, now sadly neglected. And really very practical, because it is no use expecting me to help you if you will not tell me how I can do so.”

“No one can help me,” said Rachel Treherne.

Miss Silver’s needles clicked briskly.

“That sounds very foolish to me,” she said. “And-” she coughed slightly-“just a little impious too. No one will help you if you will not allow yourself to be helped. Now suppose you tell me just what is worrying you, and we will see what can be done about it.”

Rachel Treherne was irresistibly reminded of her schoolroom days. Miss Barker of estimable memory had displayed just such cheerful efficiency as this when confronted by the intricacies of Nathan der Weise or the inaccuracies of a muddled problem in arithmetic. Something in her responded to the click of the needles. She looked across the table with her dark eyes wide and said, “I think someone is trying to kill me.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me!” Her needles clicked reassuringly. She looked up for a moment and said,

“What makes you think so?”

Rachel Treherne drew in her breath.

“1 came here to say that, but I don’t think I ever really meant to say it. Because when you say a thing like that nobody believes you, and now that I’ve said it, it sounds even worse than it did when I thought about saying it. Even then I knew that you wouldn’t believe me.”

“People so often say that,” said Miss Silver placidly. “The thing that is troubling them appears to be unbelievable. But then of course they have not, fortunately, any experience of crime. I, on the other hand, have a great deal of experience. I assure you, Miss Treherne, there is very little that I cannot believe. Now I think it would be a good thing if you told me the whole story. First of all, why should anyone want to kill you? Secondly, has any attempt been made, and if so, in what circumstances? And in the third place, whom do you suspect?” She laid down her knitting as she spoke, took a bright red exercise-book out of the top right-hand drawer, laid it open before her, dipped a pen, and wrote a careful heading.

These actions had a curiously composing effect upon Miss Treherne. The calming influence of routine made itself felt. Whatever she said would go down in that little book and be on record there. The book touched the schoolroom note again. Upon just such a page had she inscribed such classic phrases as “Have you the pen of the gardener’s aunt?” By the time Miss Silver looked up she was ready with what she had to say.

“I don’t know if you will believe me or not. You see, I don’t quite know what to believe myself. You don’t know me, but if you were to ask people who do know me, I think they would tell you that I am not naturally suspicious or hysterical. I have always had a great deal to do. I haven’t had much time to think about myself at all. I have had other interests.”

“Yes?” said Miss Silver. “What interests, Miss Treherne?”

“You know the name of Rollo Treherne?”

“Ah,” said Miss Silver-“the Rollo Treherne Homes. Yes, indeed. You are associated with those Homes?”

“I am Rollo Treherne’s daughter. He made an immense fortune in America -you probably know that-and he left it to me as a trust to administer. He died seventeen years ago. It has kept me very busy.”

“The Homes were your own idea?”

Rachel Treherne hesitated.

“I think so. I had an old governess-we were all very fond of her. She made me feel how unfair it was that people like her should work for others all their lives and then have a bitterly poor old age. When I had to consider what I was to do with all this money I thought about Miss Barker, and that gave me the idea of the Treherne Homes.”

“You devoted the whole of your father’s fortune to the Homes?”

“Oh, no-I don’t want you to think that. There were certain sums I could touch, but a great deal of the capital was tied up-rather curiously tied up.” She paused, and her voice changed. “I could leave it by will, but I couldn’t give it away. It is a little difficult to explain. Legally I have entire discretion, but actually I am bound by my father’s wishes. That is why he left all the money to me-he knew that he could trust me to consider myself bound.”

Miss Silver’s eyes lifted again. She looked for a moment at Rollo Treherne’s daughter. Width of brow under the dark hair; eyes widely set; nostrils very sensitive; lips pressed together for control, but not thin-no, a good mouth, generously cut and meant to smile; chin firm. She thought she knew why this woman had been burdened with wealth. Just because it would be a burden to her, and not a toy. She said,

“Just so. You are a trustee-morally. I quite understand.”

Miss Treherne leaned an elbow on the table and rested her cheek upon her hand.

“It’s very difficult,” she said. “I had to give you the background, because without it you wouldn’t understand. About three months ago I got an anonymous letter. Of course, I’ve had them before, but it was different-”

“I hope you kept it, Miss Treherne.”

Rachel shook her head.

“Oh, no, I destroyed it at once. And it wouldn’t have helped you. It was just words cut out of a newspaper and stuck on to the commonest white writing-paper. There was no beginning and no signature. It said, ‘You have had that money long enough. It is other people’s turn now.’ ”

“Did it come by post?”

“Yes-with a London postmark. That was on August the twenty-sixth. A week later there was another, very short. It said, ‘You have lived long enough.’ And a week later again a third letter, ‘Get ready to die.’ ”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me! And you did not keep any of them. What a pity. How were the envelopes addressed?”

Rachel Treherne moved, sat back in her chair, and said,

“That is the strange part of it. The address in each case had been cut from a letter which I had already received.”

“You mean the envelope was an old one?”

“No, not the envelope. But a couple of inches with my name and address had been cut from a letter which had come to me through the post, and gummed on to a new envelope.”

“From what letters were they taken?”

“The first from a letter addressed by my sister Mabel, Mrs. Wadlow, the second from a letter from a cousin, Miss Ella Comperton and the third from another cousin, a young girl, Caroline Ponsonby. But of course it had nothing to do with them. Their letters had reached me and been read, and the envelopes thrown aside.”