“Well you went up to see Colonel Repton. What did you talk about?”

“Him.” Barton stared at the cloth. “I went round to the study window and knocked on it because they’d got company-a lot of women visiting Miss Repton for a sewing-party. Miss Wayne from next door, she was there, and the one that’s staying with her. I’d forgotten about it, but I wasn’t going to let it put me off. I knew he wouldn’t be having any truck with it anyway. So I went round by the far end of the Green and got in over the wall and round to the study window. I’d done it before.”

“And when you got there Colonel Repton asked you if you’d come to pay your peppercorn rent and offered you a drink.”

He got a startled sideways look.

“If you know all the answers you can find them for yourself.”

March was made to feel that he had been clumsy. He hastened to make amends.

“Mr. Barton, please do not be offended. It would be a natural way for Colonel Repton to receive you, wouldn’t it? And I am really anxious to know about the drink, because, you see, the cyanide-we are practically sure that it was cyanide-was in a small decanter of whisky on his writing-table, and I would like to know whether you saw the decanter there.”

He was staring at March now.

“Oh, yes, I saw it. And he offered me a drink out of it all right, but that was just a joke between us-he knew I wouldn’t take it. It’s devil’s stuff, and I don’t use it. He knew that well enough. It’s always the same when I go up-he says, ‘Have a drink,’ and I say, ‘No,’ the same as he knows I’m going to.”

“Well, that being over, you say you talked about him.”

“Yes-about him and about women-he knows what I think of them. He talked about his wife.”

“What did he say about her?”

“Said she’d done the dirty on him and he was going to divorce her. I never spoke to her in my life-I don’t have any truck with women-but I could have told him she was that sort right from the word go. I could have told him, but it wouldn’t have been any good. That’s the sort of thing you have to find out for yourself. Cats and dogs, they go after their nature, and you know what that nature is-it’s the way they’re made. And women are just the same, but they’re not honest about it the way an animal is. They lie, and creep, and go round corners, pretending to be holy angels-angels of light, and not the drabs and sluts they are.”

March broke in.

“Are you perfectly sure that Colonel Repton spoke of divorcing his wife?”

“Of course I’m sure. Why should I make it up? He said he was all through with her and she’d be clearing out just so soon as Connie Brooke’s funeral was over. He said he’d been telling his sister, and once the funeral was over everyone would know.”

“That was a very confidential way for him to talk.”

The hand that was resting on Barton’s knee moved and clenched. He said in his deep hoarse voice,

“Sometimes it eases a man to talk. I’ve had troubles myself.”

March waited for a moment before he spoke again. Then he said,

“Well, he talked to you in this confidential way. Did he say anything-anything at all to suggest that he had the thought of suicide in his mind?”

He got a quick angry look.

“No, he didn’t!”

“Because that would be a possible alternative to murder. A man who had, or thought he had, discovered that his wife was unfaithful might have taken his own life.”

Mr. Barton brought his fist down upon the table.

“Not if it was Colonel Repton, he wouldn’t! And I’ll take my Bible oath he wasn’t thinking of any such thing. He talked about getting rid of her-said it oughtn’t to take so long to get a case through the courts now. Well, if he was planning about that, he wasn’t thinking of killing himself, was he?”

“Not then.”

“When did it happen?”

“He was seen alive at half past four, and found dead at his desk just after five o’clock.”

“That means the stuff was there in the decanter when I was with him. He’d never have offered me a drink the way he did if he knew there was poison in it.”

“He might have if he was sure you wouldn’t take it.”

The fist came down on the table again.

“Not on your life! It’s not what any man would do-not to a friend! Cyanide? That’s the stuff that kills you dead in a minute. There’s something in a man that would turn at offering it to a friend.”

“He knew you wouldn’t take it-you said so yourself.”

Barton shook his head.

“He’d not have done it. Just thinking of it would have turned him. And he wasn’t thinking about suicide-I’ll swear he wasn’t.”

CHAPTER 28

Miss Silver walked across the Green to fetch the few things that she would need for the night. Miss Wayne displayed some incredulity.

“You are going to stay at the Manor?”

“Miss Repton would like me to do so. It has been a great shock to her.”

Miss Renie’s handkerchief dabbed sketchily at eyes and nose.

“Oh, yes indeed-and to us all. But surely a stranger-one would have thought Lady Mallett, or at any rate a friend-”

“Lady Mallett was herself a good deal distressed. Sometimes it is easier to be with a stranger whose personal feelings are not involved.”

Miss Renie sniffed and dabbed.

“I should have thought that Mettie Eccles would have stayed.”

Miss Silver gave a slight reproving cough.

“I am afraid the shock has been worse for her than for anyone, since it was she who made the dreadful discovery.”

“I offered to wait and go home with her,” said Miss Renie. “The police wished to question her, and she was obliged to stay. I was feeling the shock a good deal myself, but I was perfectly willing to remain there with her. And all she said was, ‘For God’s sake let me alone!’ Really quite profane! After that, of course, I couldn’t say any more, could I?”

Whilst Miss Silver was putting a few things into a case Joyce Rodney came in. She shut the door and sat down upon the bed.

“Oh, Miss Silver, I’m so thankful I took David away.”

Miss Silver looked up from folding a warm blue dressing-gown.

“I think you did wisely, and I am sure he is very happy with your friend in Ledlington.”

“Oh, yes, he is. I’m so thankful I was there today, and not at the Manor. It must have been dreadful.” She hesitated, and then went on. “Penny Marsh came to see me this morning. She wanted to know whether I would take Connie’s place and help her to run the school.”

“Yes, Mrs. Rodney?”

Joyce Rodney made an impatient movement.

“I do wish you would call me Joyce! Everyone does.”

Miss Silver’s reply was kind but firm.

“I have told you that I do not consider it advisable.”

“Yes, I know. All the same I wish you would. When Penny spoke to me about the school I felt as if it might be a very good plan. Of course I couldn’t go on doing so much for Aunt Renie, but I would be able to pay for my board, and she could have extra help-only with these dreadful things happening-” She broke off, looked very directly at Miss Silver, and said, “About Colonel Repton-you were there when it happened. Was it suicide? Aunt Renie says it was-but was it?”

Miss Silver laid the dressing-gown in the suitcase.

“Neither Miss Wayne nor myself is in a position to say.”

“Well, you know, everyone says that he and Scilla had had a frightful quarrel, and that she was only waiting until after Connie’s funeral to clear out. They say he was going to divorce her.”

Miss Silver said mildly, “That scarcely appears to be compatible with suicide.”

“No, it doesn’t, does it? Frankly, I shouldn’t have thought anyone would kill himself because Scilla was walking out on him. Of course she’s pretty, but she doesn’t do a single thing that a man like Colonel Repton expects his wife to do-why, she doesn’t even keep house. And she’s got an odious temper.”