“And how are you getting along at Tilling Green?” Miss Silver took a moment before she said soberly, “I do not know that I can answer that. I need not tell you that there is a great deal of talk about the death of Connie Brooke. I do not know how much of it will have reached you.”

“Let us assume that I haven’t heard any of it. I may have done so, or I may not, but I would like to have your angle.”

She repeated what Joyce Rodney had told her. Randal March looked thoughtful.

“So you think she knew something about the anonymous letters, went to the Vicar to tell him what she knew, and came away without doing it on the grounds that once she had said it she couldn’t take it back. What do you make of that?”

“That the person whom she suspected, or against whom she really had some evidence, was someone she knew and someone who could not be lightly accused.”

He nodded.

“Had you met the girl at all? How did she strike you?”

“I saw her at the rehearsal of Valentine Grey’s wedding. Miss Wayne asked me to accompany her. That, as you may know, was on Wednesday afternoon. In the evening the poor girl attended a party at the Manor from which she walked home across the Green with Miss Eccles who lives at Holly Cottage next door to Miss Wayne.”

“Yes, I have seen her statement. She says they separated there, and that Connie Brooke went on alone.”

“Yes, I believe I heard them say good-night to one another.”

“Oh, you did? That might be quite an important point, you know.”

“I would not like to swear to it, Randal. I was dropping off to sleep. It was just an impression.”

“I see. Well, you saw the girl at this wedding rehearsal on Wednesday. That would be after her visit to the Vicar?”

“The following afternoon.”

“How did she strike you?”

“She had been brought in as a substitute for a Miss Merridew who had developed German measles. Shyness, nervousness, or excitement would not have been surprising, but there was no evidence of any of them. The first thing I noticed was that she had been crying. Not within the last few hours, but at some time previous to that-probably during the night. The eyelids were still reddened, and there was some swelling. There had been an unskilful attempt to cover up these traces with powder. The rehearsal was rather a fiasco, the bridegroom having been delayed by an accident to the car in which the best man was driving him down. Those present at the rehearsal were all more or less affected by this delay. There was a general uneasiness, a disposition to fidget, to whisper. Connie Brooke just stood there. I had the impression that she hardly knew what was going on.”

“You think she had something on her mind?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“And that practically everyone in the village was aware of the fact?”

“I suppose most people would know that she had been to see Mr. Martin about the anonymous letters and had come away without telling him what she knew.”

He leaned forward to put a log of wood on the fire. A little shower of sparks flew up.

“That sort of secret could be a dangerous one to keep. You know, she had taken, or been given, a tremendously strong dose of that sleeping stuff. I’ve had the report on the postmortem. It wasn’t a case of an extra tablet and a weak heart or anything like that. She had had about twice as much as would have been necessary to kill her. Now a very large dose like that points to suicide. You can’t swallow a whole lot of tablets without knowing what you are doing.”

Miss Silver gave the slight cough with which she had been accustomed to call a class to order.

“You should, I think, be informed that Connie Brooke had a nervous inability to swallow anything in the form of a pill or tablet. Miss Eccles, Miss Wayne, and Mrs. Rodney having all told me this, I should think it unlikely that anyone in Tilling Green was ignorant on the point. Anything in the form of a tablet must therefore have been crushed and dissolved, probably in her bedtime cocoa.”

“She was in the habit of taking cocoa when she went to bed?”

“Certainly. She found that it helped her to sleep. It seems she told Miss Eccles whilst they were walking home across the Green on Wednesday night that she had left this cocoa all ready mixed in a saucepan so that it wouldn’t take her any time to heat it up. They talked about the tablets Miss Repton had given her, and she said she would dissolve them and put them into the cocoa. Miss Mettie said why couldn’t she just swallow them. She says they went on talking about it all across the Green, and she is very insistent that she told Connie on no account to take more than one tablet.”

“Yes, she put that in her statement. I wonder if she is speaking the truth.”

Miss Silver did not reply. When he realized that her silence was deliberate he spoke again.

“It is quite an easy thing to say. And it puts Miss Mettie Eccles in a very favourable light. Is she the sort of person who sees to it that the light is favourable?”

Miss Silver’s small, neat features were expressionless. She said in a noncommittal voice,

“I suppose, Randal, that most of us would place a certain value upon the impression made by our conduct in an emergency.”

“You mean we all like to stand well with each other.”

“And with the police, Randal.”

He frowned.

“How does Miss Eccles strike you?”

She met his look with one of bright intelligence.

“She is a busy person. She has a hand in everything that goes on in the village. Her connection with the Reptons gives her a certain standing.”

“A finger in every pie, and quite a lot to say as to how the pie is baked!”

“She is efficient. What she does is well done. She talks a great deal. She has decided opinions. Her house is very well kept, the garden neat and formal.”

He laughed.

“Well, I’ve met her, so I know what she looks like. Most women would have started off with that, but you left it out- I wonder why.”

She gave him her peculiarly charming smile.

“There is no mystery about it, my dear Randal. She told me that she had met you.”

“I see. Well, well-Now look here, either this girl melted down a large number of tablets in her cocoa, or someone else put the drug into the cocoa and either left it there hoping she would take it, or came in with her and persuaded her to do so. I find considerable difficulty in believing in either of these theories. As to the first, I don’t believe there were anything like so many tablets in that bottle Miss Repton gave her. I’ve seen Maggie Repton myself. I thought I should probably get more out of her than Crisp.”

“And did you?”

“Yes, I think I did. She’s the well-meaning, nervous kind- afraid to commit herself, afraid to be definite about anything. The kind who holds up a statement for half an hour while she tries to think whether something quite irrelevant took place at half a minute to seven or half a minute past. I spent quite a lot of time getting her sufficiently soothed down to say anything at all, and even then she qualified everything until neither of us knew where we were. But I did emerge with an impression-in fact you can say almost with a conviction-that there weren’t very many tablets in that bottle.”

“Indeed, Randal?”

He nodded.

“It sounds a bit vague, but then so is Maggie Repton.”

Miss Silver was looking at him.

“Would it be possible that she desired to give you that impression?”

“My dear Miss Silver, you simply can’t have Maggie Repton as a suspect.”

“You say that with a good deal of confidence.”

He laughed.

“Come now, what motive could she possibly have?”

She replied soberly.

“The person who wrote the letters would have a motive. If, in fact, Connie Brooke was deliberately removed, there could be only one possible motive for removing her, the fact that she knew, or guessed, the identity of the person who wrote the anonymous letters. The person, and that person alone, would have the necessary motive.”