Patricia Wentworth: Poison In The Pen

Miss Silver – #28, 1955

Miss Silver looked across the tea-tray a good deal in the manner of the affectionate aunt who entertains a deserving nephew, but the young man who leaned forward to take the cup of tea which she had just poured out for him was not really related to her in any way. He was, in fact, Detective Inspector Frank Abbott of Scotland Yard, enjoying a Sunday afternoon off duty and very much at his ease. It would have been difficult to guess his profession. He might have been in the Army, the Navy or the Foreign Office, he might have been at the Bar. For the rest, he wore discreet and beautiful clothes of a most admirable cut, and his tall, slim figure accommodated itself with the ease of long custom to the largest of Miss Silver’s curly walnut chairs, whose spreading laps and carved encircling arms were so much more comfortable than they looked. The cool light eyes set in a pale irregular face softened noticeably as they rested upon his hostess. He admired her-his own word would have been revered. She entertained, she amused, she instructed, she provided his sense of humour with unfailing food, but even in his most irreverent moments he never ceased to feel a profound respect for her.

She smiled at him now and enquired whether he had enjoyed his leave.

“You were staying in Ledshire, were you not, for at least part of the time? The cards you sent me revived quite a number of memories. The one of the Market Place at Ledlington-”

He laughed.

“The view of Sir Albert’s trousers is superb, isn’t it?”

Since the statue of Sir Albert Dawnish which dominates the square is known to be one of England ’s leading eyesores, Miss Silver did not encourage this frivolity. She remarked instead that the Dawnish Quick Cash Stores had become a national institution, and that Ledlington, and in fact the whole county, had benefited by Sir Albert’s generous disposal of his wealth. After which she returned to the question of his holiday.

“Did you see anything of the Marches?”

“I was invited to a cocktail party. The cousins I was staying with were going. I saw the Chief Constable, the beautiful Rietta, and the son and heir. And the infant daughter. It was being handed round with the drinks. A pleasant gurgling child. It stuck a fist in my eye and said ‘Goo!’.”

Miss Silver beamed.

“They are so delighted to have a little girl. Only children are a great mistake. Were you staying with cousins all the time?”

He reached for one of Emma’s scones, feather light and sinfully enriched with both butter and honey.

“Cousins? Yes-but not the same ones all the time. I always forget just how many children my great-grandfather had, but I believe I am as well provided with relations as any man in England, to say nothing of the Scotch and Irish branches and a few adventurous spirits who have scattered themselves over the Commonwealth and the United States. As they are all very matey and hospitable, I need never pay an hotel bill, and holidays come cheap. I did three separate lots this time and finished up with Joyce Rodney, who is really only a step-cousin but we used to be rather friends.”

He put down his cup and Miss Silver filled it again. She said, “Yes?” in a mildly interrogative tone, and he laughed.

“ ‘Yes’ it is, though I don’t know how you spotted it. But then I never do. As a matter of fact Joyce was worried, and I would rather like to talk the business over with you.” He took a sandwich and dismissed her murmured “If you think that she would not mind” with a quick “No, no, she will be only too glad. She isn’t used to anything of the sort, and it is getting her down.”

She sat back in the chair which was the feminine counterpart of his own and waited. He thought what strange stories this tranquil room had heard. The Victorian pictures on the walls- -Hope, The Black Brunswicker, The Soul’s Awakening , the old-fashioned furniture, reproduced the atmosphere of an older and less hurried day before the aeroplane brought the countries of the world so close together that they must either learn to live together in peace or rush upon some final conflagration. Carpet and curtains repeated as nearly as possible the colour and pattern of those which had originally companioned the furniture, their predominant shade a cheerful peacock-blue, modified in the carpet by wreaths of pink and yellow flowers. The workmanlike writing-table and the numerous photographs with which mantelpiece, bookcases and occasional tables were crowded testified to the profession which had provided this modest comfort. There had been a time when Miss Silver had engaged in what she always alluded to as the scholastic profession, when she had in fact been a private governess with no other expectation than that of spending her life in other people’s houses until such time as she retired on what must perforce have been very meagre savings. That the way should have opened for her to become a private enquiry agent she regarded as providential. She became known to an increasing circle, she earned a sufficient income, she had her flat, her comforts, her attached housekeeper Emma Meadows. She had a great many devoted friends. The photographs in frames of silver, of plush, of silver filagree on plush, testified to this. Many frightened people had sat where Frank Abbott was sitting now. Strange stories had been stammered out in this quiet room, and in the upshot virtue had been vindicated, crime exposed and justice done in the manner of the Victorian tract. Always conscious of these things, Frank found them very much in evidence as he said,

“Joyce has recently gone to live at Tilling Green. She lost her husband out in the Middle East -he was working for one of the big oil companies. There is a delicate child and no money. She has no near relations of her own, and she went to Tilling because Jack Rodney had an elderly cousin there who offered her a home.”

Miss Silver said, “Yes?” again.

“She wrote very kindly-Joyce said it was like a gift from heaven. She couldn’t take a job unless it was something she could do at home, because the child needed great care. Miss Wayne offered a home and a small salary in return for duties about the house. I gather she does a pretty full day’s work- hens to feed, cooking, and all the rest of it-but she doesn’t complain about anything so long as it’s all right for the child.”

Miss Silver, having finished her tea, picked up a brightly flowered knitting-bag and extracted from it four needles from which depended about an inch of what was intended to be a child’s jumper in a pleasing shade of blue. Her niece Ethel Burkett’s little Josephine would be seven in a month’s time, and the garment was part of the twin set which had been planned as a birthday gift. She could always knit and listen at the same time, her hands held low in her lap, the needles moving rhythmically and at great speed. She said now in her pleasant voice,

“And there is something wrong?”

He nodded.

“She has been getting anonymous letters.”

“My dear Frank!”

“It is always unpleasant, and of course no one knows better than you that it can be a symptom of something very nasty indeed.”

“What are the letters about?”

He lifted a hand and let it fall again.

“She has torn them up-the usual instinct to get rid of something horrid.”

“But I suppose she would have given you some idea of the contents?”

“One of them was about her husband. He died rather suddenly-heat-stroke, I think. The letter suggested that it wasn’t a natural death. There have been two of them. The second went on to accuse her of having come to Tilling to ‘catch another man.’ ”