Patricia Wentworth - Lonesome Road

Rachel rested her hand on the back of the proffered chair.

“I am certainly going to listen,” she said. “You will please not interrupt, Louisa.” She drew her wrap about her and sat down. “Now, Miss Silver.”

Miss Silver sat down too. Louisa put out a hand and took hold of the brass rail at the head of the bed. She was a little behind Rachel and facing Miss Silver, at whom she stared with hard and angry eyes.

Miss Silver addressed herself to Rachel sitting very composed and upright with her hands folded in her lap.

“When you came to see me in London, Miss Treherne, I derived certain very definite impressions from what you told me. I could see that you believed yourself to have been the victim of three murderous attempts, but I did not feel entirely able to take that view myself-not on the evidence you then laid before me. To me it pointed, not necessarily to attempted murder, but rather to the presence in your household of some neurotic person who wished to make you believe that you were in danger, or who was actuated by what, I understand, is now termed exhibitionism. It used to be called showing off.”

“The Lord’s my witness!” Louisa Barnet’s voice shook passionately.

Rachel put up a hand without looking round.

“If you want to stay, Louie, you must be quiet.”

Miss Silver went on as if there had been no interruption.

“It was the second attempt which made me suspect that we had a neurotic to deal with. I do not know why nervously disturbed persons should so commonly set fire to window curtains, but it is quite a constant occurrence. It makes a lot of show and does very little harm. When I discovered from Louisa herself that the fire in this instance occurred at a time when any member of the household would know that it was bound to be discovered by your maid, who would naturally be in attendance to help you dress for dinner-well, if I had needed convincing I should then have been convinced. But I had already made up my mind. I arrived down here to find in Louisa Barnet the very type I was looking for.”

Louisa flung up her hand.

“Miss Rachel-are you going to listen to this?”

“I think we will both listen,” said Rachel.

Miss Silver went on speaking.

“After I had left you, Miss Treherne, I went to Louisa Barnet’s room, and there I found two things which I had expected to find. One of them was a shrimping-net.”

Rachel became so pale that there was no color left in her face at all. She put out a hand is if to ward something off, and said in a whisper,

“Oh, no, no-not Louie!”

“Miss Rachel-”

“It was Louisa Barnet who put the snakes in your bed, Miss Treherne.”

Rachel turned. She moved her chair, and turned in it so that she could see Louisa’s face. She said,

“Did you, Louie?”

Louisa came with a rush and fell at her knees.

“It wasn’t to do you no harm-oh, my dear, it wasn’t! They’ll make you think it was, but it wasn’t. No, she won’t make you think it, because you know my heart. You know-oh, my dear, you know!”

“Why did you do it, Louie?”

Louisa sat back on her heels with the tears running down her face.

“You wouldn’t listen to nothing, and you wouldn’t believe nothing. What could I do?”

“So you put adders in my bed. Get up, Louie, and sit down!” She turned to Miss Silver. “Did she do the other things too?”

“Yes, Miss Treherne, but I do not think she meant you to be hurt. She wanted to frighten you-about your relations, to make you believe they were trying to injure you. She began by writing you anonymous letters. Then she made the stairs slippery, but she was there to warn you not to step on them. She set your curtains on fire, but she put them out again. She made you believe that your chocolates had been poisoned, but I think it was only ammoniated quinine-I found the bottle on the washstand. It is a great pity that you did not have the chocolates analysed, but she was, of course, quite sure that you would not do so.”

“Ammoniated quinine-was that the second thing you found?”

“Yes, Miss Treherne. I had expected it. A very bitter taste, and quite harmless. Louisa did not wish to poison your body-she merely wished to poison your mind. Against your relations. Chiefly, I think, against Miss Caroline, of whom she is jealous.”

There was a silence. Then Rachel said in a mere ghost of a voice,

“Oh, Louie!”

Louisa stood up. She stood up, tall and fierce, and said in a hard even voice,

“You don’t ask me if it’s true.”

“Is it true, Louie?”

She threw up her head.

“I’m going to tell you what’s true.” She turned as if she was looking for something and snatched up a square old-fashioned Bible from the table beside the bed. “I’ll tell you the truth, and the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God-and I’ll swear it on that woman’s Bible. But I can’t make you believe me if so be she’ve stopped your ears with her lies.”

“Are they lies, Louie?”

“It’s a lie for anyone to say I’d hurt you! I’ve never wanted nothing but to see you happy, and I’ve never done nothing but to keep you safe. But I couldn’t get you to believe me.”

“Tell me what you did and why you did it, Louie.”

Louisa sat down on the side of the bed again. She clasped her hands over the Bible and said,

“If she can read anyone like a book, then she’ll know I’m speaking true. I’ve heard of such, but how she does it passes me. And if she can read everyone so clever, why don’t she tell you who it is doing the devil’s work in this house? For this is what I’ll tell you, and it’s true. There was someone polished the step before ever I did it. And it wasn’t that day-it was the Sunday evening, and Miss Rachel come in late. Everyone knew it, and knew she was bound to be late for dinner. So there they all were, waiting for Miss Rachel to come hurrying down so as not to keep them. And one of them knew that when she come hurrying she’d be bound to fall because the top step was polished like glass. But, Miss Rachel, you sent me down to tell them not to wait, and I wasn’t hurrying myself for them, so I’d time to take hold of the banisters and save myself. And I took hot water and washed the stuff off and never said nothing because it wasn’t no use. But in the night it come to me that I’d got to show you. I thought if you saw it with your own eyes, maybe you’d believe me, so I did the three stairs when you were washing Noisy the next Saturday, but you wouldn’t take no heed. And I did the curtains like she says, and the chocolates, and the adders. But don’t you never think I’d have let you step into that there bed, my dear. Adders is stupid in the winter, and I reckoned they’d stay in the warmth by the hot water bottle. And what I was going to do was turn the bed right back and see something. And call out, like I did, and strip the bed. But I got a fright, for I didn’t reckon on their being so lively. It must have been the heat. They were like dead things when I bought them.”

Rachel leaned her head on her hand.

“Noisy killed them clever enough, and I put them on the fire with a good heart. I thought now you’d believe there was someone trying to do you a mischief.”

“And it was you all the time! Only you, Louie!”

Louisa leaned forward, gripping the Bible.

“You’re not going to believe that, my dear!” She turned to Miss Silver. “Are you going to let her believe that? If you can’t tell lies from truth, what’s the good of you? I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t mean to do nothing to those chocolates-it never came into my head. But whilst Miss Rachel was in her bath I went in and had a look at them. The soft ones was in a bag separate, and I thought I’d see if I couldn’t get them into the box. I’d about finished, when one of them rolled over, and there, underneath, you could see it had been meddled with. I put it straight in the fire before I stopped to think, and then it come to me I’d thrown away my chance to make Miss Rachel believe. So I looked to see if that was the only one, and it was. I looked quick and careful, but there wasn’t any more. So then I thought what I could do, and I done it with the ammoniated quinine, like she says.”