Patricia Wentworth - Latter End

The colour came up into his face.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” he said quickly. He got to his feet. “It’s been very good of you to let me come and see you. It’s relieved my mind no end-it really has.” His voice became tinged with embarrassment. “Will you tell me what I- I mean I owe you something-besides being awfully grateful-don’t I?”

Her smile had the effect of making him feel about ten years old.

“Not unless you decide to employ me, Mr. Latter.” She got up and put out her hand. “May I give you a word of advice?”

“I should be very grateful.”

He took her hand for a moment, and found it cool and small in his. She withdrew it and said,

“Do not try to combine in one house, people who are not really congenial to one another. Until your marriage, Miss Mercer was to all intents and purposes the mistress of the house. She is now in a different, and possibly difficult, position. I think her decision to go elsewhere is wise. Pray do not attempt to dissuade her. In the same way with your two young stepsisters, Mrs. Street and Miss Vane-until you married, Latter End was their home. It is unwise for them to continue to look upon it in that light. Encourage them in every way you can, even if possible financially, to make homes and centres of interest for themselves-” She paused, and added, “You might, I think, consider pensioning your old housekeeper, if it could be kindly done. So old a servant does not always fit in with a new mistress, and after more than fifty years of service she has earned a rest. There is one thing more. I should strongly advise Mrs. Latter to avoid eating or drinking anything which is separately or especially prepared for herself. Goodbye, Mr. Latter.”

It was a couple of days later that Antony Latter rang Julia up at her flat.

“Can I come round and see you?”

“If you don’t mind an awful mess. I’ve brought a lot of my things up from Latter End-books chiefly-and I’m unpacking them. They’re all over the floor.” When he walked in twenty minutes later he discovered this to be an understatement. They were not only all over the floor, but stacked on every chair and piled in sliding strata upon the table and the couch which was Julia’s bed. Julia herself in the red smock, which appeared to have been washed since he saw it last but which was rapidly acquiring a good deal of dust, looked up at him with a frown.

“It’s grim-isn’t it? I don’t know what happens to books when you get them out-there always seem to be about ten times as many of them. I’ve got a man coming to put up some shelves all round the window there, and I don’t know how I’m going to eat or sleep until he’s done it. I thought perhaps a big pile on each side of the door.”

“All right, we’ll each do one. No, I’ll bring you the books, and you can build the stacks. Your clothes won’t hurt, and mine will.”

She said, “Your precious trouser knees! All right.”

They began to build. After a minute or two he said,

“Well-how’s everything?” To which Julia replied,

“Hellish!”

He raised an eyebrow.

“In what particular way?”

She thumped a heavy book down on to the stack and said,

“In every way you can possibly think of! Lois swears someone’s trying to poison her. Jimmy has been practically tearing his hair out, Ellie’s worrying herself into an illness, and Minnie looks as if she was having one. I don’t know how I’ve stuck it out. I wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for Ellie, but I can’t leave her down there alone. I had to come up on business, so I brought these wretched books, but I shall go down again tomorrow. I suppose you couldn’t come too?”

“I could, darling-but you make it sound almost too alluring.”

He found her eyes fixed on him with an appeal which it was difficult to resist.

“ Antony, do come! It’s quite awful-it really is. I don’t think I can tackle it alone, and I think it ought to be tackled. I’ve got an idea-”

“What sort of idea?”

She hesitated.

“This poison business-it’s beastly, and it might be serious. Lois has had about five of these attacks. They’re not serious in themselves-she’s just sick, and then she’s all right again. Well, either she’s playing a trick on us, or somebody’s playing a trick on her. She won’t see a doctor, and she swears someone’s trying to poison her.” She gave a short scornful laugh. “Poisoners aren’t as inefficient as all that. No-she’s doing it herself, or someone else is doing it to frighten-or punish her.”

Antony shook his head.

“She isn’t doing it herself-you can wash that right out.”

“Yes, I think so. Too unbecoming. Well then, it’s somebody else. Who?”

“I don’t know. You said you had an idea. Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“Yes-I must. I’ve got a horrible feeling that it might be Manny.”

He looked first startled, and then relieved. “Manny?”

“Who else is there? Ellie-Minnie-me-you-Jimmy? You see? But Manny-well, I’m not so sure. She was frightfully angry about Mrs. Marsh going to the institute. She said-and it’s perfectly true-that Gladys Marsh wouldn’t have dared if Lois hadn’t backed her up. She’s seething about Hodson’s cottage, too, and about Lois not wanting to have Ronnie at Latter End, and-oh, heaps of things. Poor Minnie is the last straw. Manny knows she’s going, and of course she knows that Lois is at the bottom of it. And she’s got a nice bottle of ipecac sitting in the corner of the kitchen cupboard, with every opportunity of putting a teaspoonful in here and there when Lois has anything that the rest of us don’t.”

“Darling, what a lurid imagination you’ve got!”

She shook her head.

“I wish I had. I mean, I wish I didn’t think it was true, but-well, I’m practically sure. And-it isn’t safe, Antony.”

He said soberly, “There’s no proof. What are you going to do about it?”

He was sitting on the arm of a book-laden chair. She frowned up at him.

“I don’t know-tackle her, I suppose.”

His mouth drew awry.

“And what will you do if she bursts into tears on your shoulder and owns up?”

Julia turned a shade paler.

“I suppose I should have to tell Jimmy, and get him to pension her.”

He murmured, “Pensions for old age poisoners-Darling, I must say you’ve got a nerve! But suppose she denies it- where do we go from there?”

Julia’s eyes widened. The slanting light from the window behind Antony slid down into them, making them look like peaty water with the sun on it. She said slowly,

“I-don’t-know. I don’t know what there is to be done. It keeps me awake at night. You see, Lois makes everyone hate her, and when you get a lot of people all hating, things happen-horrid sorts of things. It’s like having a lot of electricity about-you don’t know where the lightning is going to strike.”

He said coolly, “Keep the drama for the great works, darling.”

The angry colour ran up into her face.

“You can laugh, but you don’t know what it feels like! I’m not dramatizing, I’m telling you about facts. Lois-well, she’s either got the wind up, or-I don’t know what. You know what it is when a person doesn’t show anything, but you can feel them being all worked up underneath-she’s like that. And Jimmy won’t let her take anything that’s made separately. He wanted her to knock off her beastly Turkish coffee, but she wouldn’t, so now he takes it too, poor darling, and you can see him hating every minute of it. Of course he knows perfectly well that no one will play tricks if he’s taking it.”

“So there have been no more attacks?”

“Not since you left. I say, that sounds rather incriminating, doesn’t it?” Her lips widened in the beginning of a smile, but it never got anywhere. She reached out for a small pile of books, dumped them on the stack, and said in a careful voice, “But it wouldn’t be you, naturally.”