Patricia Wentworth - Latter End

“Yes, Polly?”

“I didn’t know what to do. I thought I’d wait. She stopped hammering and opened the paper. There was a lot of white powder in it, and one or two bits that wasn’t quite powder yet. There was a box on the ledge. It’s a little box Mrs. Latter has on her dressing-table. It used to be a snuffbox. She took it up and opened it. I could see right inside. There were some white tablets. She took them out and put them down on the white powder, and folded the paper over and hammered them with the heel of her shoe. I didn’t ought to have stood there and watched her, miss-I dunno what come over me to do it-I was kind of frightened.” She caught her breath and twisted the corner of her apron with thin, nervous fingers. “I dunno what come over me-indeed I don’t. It didn’t seem as if I could move, not anyways.”

Miss Silver gave a gentle cough.

“How much of Mrs. Latter could you see, Polly? Could you see her face?”

Polly looked at her with frightened eyes. All the colour seemed to have been cried out of them and out of her face. Only the tip of her little thin nose was red. Her voice jerked and the words stumbled.

“Not at first I couldn’t, not when she was bending over and hammering on the ledge, but when she’d finished and she was putting the powder into the box, I saw her then.”

“How did she look?”

Polly twisted the corner of her apron and shook.

Miss Silver laid a hand on her knee.

“Come, my dear, if you saw her face you can tell me how she looked-grave-sad-unhappy?”

Polly went on shaking.

“Oh, no, miss, she didn’t.”

“Then how did she look?”

Breaking, stumbling, catching on the words, the small scared voice said,

“Oh, miss-she looked-ever so pleased.”

“Are you quite sure about that?”

“Oh, yes, miss. It frightened me ever so-I dunno why.”

“There is no need to be frightened. Did Mrs. Latter see you?”

“Oh, no, miss. When she finished putting the powder in the box I run out on the landing again and shut the door, and I knocked on it real hard and loud. And Mrs. Latter, she come and asked me what I wanted, and I said Mrs. Maniple wanted to know was she coming down to lunch, and she said she was, and I come away. Please, may I go, miss?”

Miss Silver looked at her encouragingly.

“Not just for a minute, Polly. You say Mrs. Latter put the powder into the little box. Had she taken all the tablets out of it? Was the box empty?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Have you seen this box since Wednesday?”

“No, miss.”

“Will you describe it to me?”

“It isn’t very big, but it’s ever so pretty-about two inches long, and all gold round the sides and underneath, with a painted picture on the top-a lady with nothing on but a sash, and a little boy with wings and a bow and arrow. It’s ever so pretty.”

“Just one more question, Polly.” Miss Silver’s voice was so equable that no one could have guessed how anxiously she awaited the answer to this question. “Just one more, and you shall go. Did Mrs. Latter take a bath when she dressed for dinner on Wednesday evening?”

“Oh, no, miss-she wouldn’t do that. Mrs. Latter, she always had her bath when she went to bed at night. The water had to be kept hot for her to have it then.”

Miss Silver said, “Thank you, Polly.” A sober gratitude filled her.

As soon as Polly had hurried away Miss Silver put on her dressing-gown, went downstairs to the study, and called up the Bull. When Frank Abbott came on the line, it was to tell her that the Chief was breakfasting with a view to an early start for Crampton, where he was meeting the Chief Constable and Inspector Smerdon.

Miss Silver coughed in a manner which informed him that she had not come to the telephone to listen. In grammatically correct but unmistakably homemade French she informed him that important new evidence had come to light, and that he should lose no time in repairing to Latter End.

Frank whistled.

“It’s really important?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“It clears my client,” she said, and replaced the receiver.

Sergeant Abbott reported to his Chief Inspector, who was putting away bacon and eggs and looking forward to toast and marmalade. The beds at the Bull had exceeded Frank’s worst fears-lumpy flock mattresses, short sheets, and narrow blankets. The bacon was underdone, but the eggs, being local produce, were fresh. Lamb was not so fastidious as his Sergeant. When he went to bed he slept, and when he sat down to a meal he ate with good appetite. He looked up now as Frank took the chair beside him, observed his expression, and said,

“Well, what is it?”

Sergeant Abbott lifted an eyebrow and said, “Maudie,” adding after an explosive pause-“in French. All very hush-hush.”

Lamb’s shining morning face had become decidedly overcast.

“What’s she want?”

Frank was smiling.

“You, sir-or, shall I say, us. I told her you were meeting the Chief Constable. She says evidence has turned up which will put Latter in the clear.”

Lamb’s voice said in its deepest growl,

“Tell you what it was?”

“No, sir.”

“Mare’s nest,” grunted Lamb. He added gloomily-“as like as not.”

“It sounded a good deal more like the ace of trumps.”

Lamb banged the table.

“Go on-back her up! That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? Who do you take your orders from?”

“You, sir,” Voice and manner were deferential in the extreme.

His Chief Inspector looked at him sharply and said,

“Just keep on bearing that in mind, will you!” Then, after a pause, “Well, you’d better go along and see what she’s got. I can be back by half-past ten. If there’s anything urgent, you can give me a ring-Crampton 121.”

Sergeant Abbott had his breakfast, eschewing the bacon and playing for safety by ordering two boiled eggs. He then betook himself to Latter End, and after a short interval rang up the Chief Inspector, who was not best pleased.

“Well, what is it? I’m talking to the Chief Constable.”

“Well, sir, you told me to ring you up if the new evidence was important-and it is. I think you’d better come out here as soon as you can. Meanwhile I’ve got specimens of a white powder taken from the lady’s bathroom which ought to be analysed without delay. I’ve sealed them up, and the local constable is bringing them out on his bike. We ought to have a report before the inquest opens.”

“Probably toothpowder!”

“I don’t think so, sir.”

The Chief Inspector said, “Tchah!”

Polly had told her story for the third time. Every time she told it she minded less. Probably no one but Miss Silver, with her peculiar mixture of unwavering kindness and unwavering authority, would have made the original breach in a crust of secrecy which was her protective armour. But having spoken once, it was easier to speak again. She told her story to Frank Abbott, and repeated it in front of the Chief Inspector with hardly an alteration in the order of the words. Those who have a small vocabulary are often extremely accurate. Children will repeat a story word for word, partly because there is for them no choice of words. One is reminded of ballads from the childhood of the race, in which gold is always red, and ladies fair. In a village this simplicity of thought persists.

Polly told her story in the only words she knew. By the time she told it to the Chief Inspector she didn’t even want to cry, though she still pleated her apron. When she had finished, and Lamb had asked her as many questions as he wanted to, he let her out of the room and turned to Miss Silver.