Patricia Wentworth: The Case of William Smith

Her thoughts slid to Katharine. She had kept her to the last. Katharine – Sylvia’s pretty, angry voice rang in her ears – ‘And who told you you could call her Katharine?’ If she had needed to have her purpose edged, that slap in the face would have done it. From the business point of view she wanted Katharine dead, because there would never be any question of those trust funds then – they came back to Cyril and Brett. But as far as her own private feelings went, it would be a considerable satisfaction to them to let Katharine live and suffer.

She turned to thinking of the future. She would make it up with Cyril of course, and they must pull the firm out of the mess. It could be done. Those toys of William’s – they had better take them up. Properly handled and pushed, there would be big money in them. Every child in the country would be wanting them. Even under the urgent pressure of danger it had outraged her business sense to turn them down as she had had to do in December. Now they could go straight ahead with them. She looked on and saw her own firm hands on the reins at Eversleys. She had a sense of power, domination, success. The way lay straight and open before her. She had never had anyone to help her except herself – her own wits, her own courage, her own skill in shaping the event to serve her purpose. And this was where it had brought her.

The front door bell jarred suddenly in the silence of the flat. For a moment she wasn’t sure whether it was the telephone. She thought of Brett, of Cyril – ringing up to say William was dead. Then the bell rang again, and she knew it was the front door.

Cyril? No – Brett said he was still at Evendon this morning – he wasn’t coming up. But it might be Brett-

She opened the door, and saw two strange men standing there. One of them stepped forward. His hand dropped on her shoulder. He said her name, and he got as far as ‘I have a warrant for your arrest,’ and then she twisted free, everything in her shrieking, ‘No – no – no!’ She reached the bedroom, banged the door, and locked it. There was time. There was just, just time.

When they broke the lock, she was there on the floor. Dead like Emily Salt.

In the next few days two inquests were held in two separate districts of London. Neither of them took long or attracted very much attention. The verdict in each case was suicide whilst the balance of the mind was disturbed. There was apparently nothing to connect May Woods, 39, married, with Emily Salt, 58, single, except the fact that they had both poisoned themselves by taking cyanide.

Where justice has no end to be served, it is not the policy of the police to provide the public with a dish of scandal at the expense of innocent survivors. Since neither Evans nor Donald was called as a witness, there was simply nothing to connect the two deaths. In the case of Emily Salt, the doctor who had attended her during a recent attack of influenza stated that she was, he considered, decidedly unhinged, and that he had advised her sister-in-law that it might be better if she could be placed under some restraint. Mrs. Salt and Miss Silver deposed to hearing her enter the house, and to finding her dead at the foot of the stairs. The police surgeon gave evidence as to the cause of death, and that was all. There was no mention of a pot of apple honey.

At the inquest on Mrs. Woods it was stated that on receiving a visit from a police officer she locked herself in her room, and when the door was broken down she was found to have taken a fatal dose of poison. The Coroner enquired whether Mrs. Woods had reason to suppose that she would be arrested. On receiving an affirmative reply he asked whether the police had any further evidence to offer, and was told that they had not. The deceased was identified as Mrs. May Woods by the caretaker of the block of flats in which she had resided for the past five years.

At Eversleys it became known that Miss Jones was dead. Cyril Eversley wore a black tie and stayed away from the office. He had been too profoundly shocked to realize that before very long he would be experiencing an almost equal degree of relief.

On the day after the two inquests Miss Silver dispensed coffee and conversation to Frank Abbott and to William and Katharine. It was icy cold outside, with a north wind full of little pricking points of snow, but Miss Silver’s room with its blue plush curtains drawn, a fire blazing, and cakes and coffee displayed beside it, was bright and comfortable. A warm, cheerful light illumined the patterned wall-paper, the photogravures in their yellow maple frames, Miss Silver’s gallery of photographs, and Miss Silver herself in a utility silk purchased in the last year of the war and worn one year for Sundays, a second for every day, and now come down to evening wear with the addition of a black velvet coatee – a most comfortable and treasured garment, so time-honoured as to verge upon the legendary.

Frank Abbott, very much off duty, looked across at William and said,

‘Good production, don’t you think? No fuss, no scandal, no headlines in the papers – in fact what the eye doesn’t see the heart needn’t grieve over.’

William said, ‘Yes, it was a good show – very well managed. We’re very grateful. You can’t afford that sort of publicity when you’re trying to get a business on its legs again.’

Frank lifted his coffee-cup.

‘Well, here’s luck – ’ his eyes went to Katharine – ‘to you both.’

She smiled at him.

‘You’ll come and see us sometimes, won’t you?’

‘I’d like to – if I shan’t have unpleasant associations. You’ve had a rotten time.’

She shook her head.

‘The bad part’s gone. We’ll keep the friends we’ve made – Mr. Tattlecombe, and Mrs. Salt, and Miss Silver, and you.’

Miss Silver smiled, then gave her slight cough.

‘I saw Mrs. Salt this afternoon. She told me one or two things which interested me extremely. I had been trying to think where this series of crimes and attempted crimes could really be said to have begun.In nearly every case one finds that the seed of a crime has been present in thought for a long time before it germinates and passes into action. There are, perhaps, years during which selfish, ruthless, ambitious, and despotic tendencies could, and should, be checked and eliminated. In the case of Emily Salt, in the case of Mavis Jones, we have to go a long way back. When I went to see Mrs. Salt I was very much struck by an enlarged portrait of her mother-in-law, Mrs. Harriet Salt, the mother of Emily and the grandmother of Mavis Jones. The features must always have been marked. In youth, Mrs. Salt tells me, they were remarkably handsome. But they had become harsh. The face as actually pictured was that of a ruthless despot. I learned this afternoon that the camera had not traduced her. It was under her iron domination that Emily Salt became the warped creature that she was. She might never have been very bright, but she need not have been repressed, thwarted, and bullied. With kindlier treatment her affections could have been developed and useful occupations found for her. She was not allowed to make friends, so all her capacity for affection was dammed up and became abnormal, manifesting itself in a crazy devotion which could only prove unwelcome to its object. A very sad case.’

Frank Abbott lifted a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Is the late Miss Mavis Jones, alias May Woods, a sad case too?’

Miss Silver looked at him gravely. ‘I think so, Frank. She was a wicked and unscrupulous woman. She might have been something very different. Her mother, as you know, was Mary Salt, Harriet Salt’s eldest daughter. She was, by all accounts, a handsome, high-spirited girl with a strong resemblance to her mother. When Abigail Salt first mentioned her she spoke of a runaway marriage, but I learned this afternoon that so far as the family knew no marriage had taken place. Mary Salt was going to have a child, and her mother turned her out. No one knows what happened to her or to her child for several years after that. Her name wais never mentioned. The family closed its ranks. For what follows, Emily Salt is the authority. When she was seeing a good deal of her niece just before the war she told Abigail that Mary Salt, after working her fingers to the bone to keep her child, had married a man called Jones, an elderly valetudinarian. I think he had been a schoolmaster. Mavis got a secondary school education, matriculated, and took a course in typing and shorthand. Her mother died when she was sixteen. Mr. Jones was then quite sunk in invalidism, and the sister who came to look after him turned Mavis out. This is, of course, her own account. She must have been about twenty-three when she entered your firm’s employment, Mr. Eversley. She had excellent abilities, a prepossessing appearance, and assured manners. She became Mr. Cyril Eversley’s secretary – in what year?’