“What did she tell you?”

“She said it had come to her who had written those dreadful letters, and she said it was this way. There were the four houses she’d been in that day-up at the Manor with Miss Maggie’s blouse, and at Willow Cottage with Miss Wayne’s blue wool, and into Holly Cottage about Miss Mettie’s nightgown. And last of all in at the Croft with Miss Connie. That’s the only four houses she was in. And in one of them-and she didn’t tell me which-she picked up a little bit of paper that was on the floor. You know how it is, if you see something lying about like that, it just comes natural to stoop down and pick it up. Well, that’s what Doris did, and when she’d got it in her hand she could see it was a torn-off piece of one of the letters she’d had. A bottom left-hand piece it was, with the Til of Tilling on it. Torn right in half the word was on the letter when she got it, where it said everyone in Tilling Green knew that Doris went with men on the sly. Well, there was this piece and she’d picked it up, and she came over faint and had to sit down.”

Miss Silver said quickly, “Which house was it?”

Miss Pell took a long sighing breath.

“She never told me. I told her she would have to, and she said she didn’t think she ought, and perhaps it would be better to tell the person she knew and make them promise solemn that they’d never do it again. I asked her if she’d told Connie, and she said, ‘No more than I’ve told you, and she’s promised the same as you have.’ ”

Miss Silver said slowly, “But Connie said that she knew who it was.”

“There may have been something that she thought about afterwards. She came here to me on the Monday-that would be a couple of days before she died-and she said had Doris told me about the bit of paper? And I said whatever Doris told me, I’d promised I wouldn’t say a word. So she said, ‘Well, you don’t need to, because I know what you know, and a bit more too.’ I asked her what she meant, and she said it was something Doris had said that she remembered. ‘Doris picked up a bit of paper, Miss Pell,’ she said, ‘and she didn’t say where she picked it up, but she said how white it showed up against the carpet, and she said what colour the carpet was.’ Connie said she didn’t think about it at first, but it had come back to her, and now she couldn’t get away from it because she knew the house that had a carpet that colour, and that would be the house where Doris had picked the paper up.”

“She really did say that?”

Miss Pell put up her hand to her head for a moment.

“Oh, yes, she said it just like I’m telling you. I’ve wished she hadn’t ever since, but once a thing’s said it’s said, and you can’t take it back any more than you can forget it when it’s been said to you.”

“And Connie said the paper showed up white against this carpet, but she didn’t tell you what the colour of the carpet was?”

Miss Pell shook her head.

“No, she didn’t, nor what house it was in, nor anything more than what I’ve told you. She sat just there where you are sitting now, and she told me about the bit of paper, and she said, ‘I wish Doris hadn’t told me, for I don’t know what I ought to do. You see, Miss Pell,’ she said, ‘if I tell, it will get round to the police, and even if it doesn’t it’s going to cause the most dreadful talk and the most dreadful trouble, and perhaps a case in court, and me having to go into the witness box and tell about someone that is a neighbour and would never get over it if I did. And what good will it do now Doris is dead? It won’t bring her back again.’ And I said, ‘No it won’t bring Doris back.’ ”

Miss Silver said gravely,

“It might have saved Connie’s own life if she had spoken. Have you said anything about this to anyone except myself?”

She shook her head again.

“There’s been enough talk. And Doris is dead, and Connie is dead. The way I see it there’s been too much said already. And if anyone had told me I’d talk the way I have to a stranger, I wouldn’t have believed them. And I wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for my dream, and the verse in Zechariah, and what you said when you come in.”

Miss Silver got up to go. But before she left the room she said very earnestly indeed,

“Do not tell anyone, not anyone at all, what you have just been telling me. If it comes to telling the police, I will be there, and I will make sure that you are adequately protected.”

Miss Pell looked first surprised and then a good deal alarmed. She had risen from her chair, and now went back a step, her eyes widening and her face paling. The nervous hesitation with which she had begun the interview had returned upon her. She said with trembling lips,

“They say it’s a sin to take your own life, but I say the sin is on them that drove poor Doris to it-and Connie too.”

“Miss Pell, I do not believe that Connie Brooke took her own life, and I am beginning to have very grave doubts as to whether your niece did either.”

Miss Pell’s hand went up to her shaking lips and pressed them hard.

“You don’t think-oh, you don’t think there was anything done to them by somebody else?”

Miss Silver said, “Yes, I am afraid I do.”

CHAPTER 31

Miss Silver woke next morning to the reflection that this was Wednesday, and that a week ago Connie Brooke was alive and Valentine Grey was still expecting to be married next day. Last Wednesday was, in fact, the day of the wedding rehearsal, and the Wednesday evening the evening of the party at the Manor from which Connie had walked home with Miss Eccles and said good-night to her at the gate of Holly Cottage. They were now on the eve of another inquest, and she was herself still staying with Miss Maggie, who appeared to derive a good deal of support from her presence.

“I can’t say, I really can’t say, how grateful I shall be if you could just stay on until after the inquest and the funeral. I don’t feel that I ought to press you, for of course I have no claim and this is a house of mourning, but you don’t know how much, how very much, I should appreciate it if you were to stay. The fact is-” she proceeded in a burst of confidence-“my sister-in-law-oh, dear it does seem so dreadful to call her that when, if it hadn’t been for her, my dear brother might still be with us-the fact is, I really don’t feel that I can meet her just as if nothing had happened. Because Roger was going to divorce her-you know that, don’t you-but I never would have thought that he would do anything so dreadful as to take his own life, and in such a terrible way. Oh, Miss Silver, do you think he really did? Nora Mallett came in to see me yesterday afternoon when you were out, and when I said that to her-I hardly like to repeat it-but do you know what she said? Of course she is very downright and I have known her all my life, but she said, ‘Of course he didn’t, Maggie, and no one who knew him would believe it. That woman poisoned him.’ Oh, Miss Silver, you don’t think-do you? But it does make me feel so very nervous being here with her alone-and dear Valentine too. So if you could stay on for a little-because I keep hoping she will go away as soon as the funeral is over.”

They did not actually have to see very much of Scilla Repton, since she only appeared at meals. She had rung up Gilbert Earle and found that he could hardly drop his end of the conversation quickly enough. And she had rung up her convenient friend Mamie Foster, who amongst a scattering of “Darlings” had advised her strongly to dig her toes in and stay where she was.

“Of course, darling, I’d simply love to have you and all that, but if there’s been any awkwardness like you say, then if I were you I’d dig my toes in. Because even if he did change his will, as long as you’re in you’re in, and not all that easy for anyone to put you out without making the hell of a scandal. But once you’re out, it mightn’t be so easy to get back, darling, if you know what I mean.”