As March said later on when they were alone, ‘He just blazed off at her, and then, I fancy, he realized what he would be letting himself in for if he turned her out neck and crop. I gather that he was supposed to be out, but he had forgotten a letter he wanted to post. He came back for it, and found her having a pretty compromising conversation with Earle. Not unnaturally, he went in off the deep end, and then had to get back to a more dignified position. But from what Miss Maggie says, after two days to think it over he was still all set to divorce her, and was only waiting for Connie Brooke’s funeral to be over to insist on her leaving the house.’
Miss Silver agreed.
‘Do you suppose that he was serious when he suggested that Mrs Repton might herself have written the letter which accused her?’
‘It is difficult to believe that he was. He was furious with her, and I should say at a guess that he wouldn’t be too particular about what weapon he was using. They are talking about the letter he had received, or rather shouting at each other about it, and he snatches at something that he thinks will frighten her.’
‘You think, then, that he did not really know who had written the letters?’
He lifted a hand and let it fall again.
‘He said that he knew. Florrie is quite definite about that, and she strikes me as a truthful witness.’
‘Truthful and accurate.’
He nodded.
‘So he said that he knew. The event rather bears that out, doesn’t it? Connie Brooke said she knew who had written the letters, and she is dead. Roger Repton said the same thing, and he has gone the same way. It rather looks as if somebody had believed what they said.’
But all this was afterwards. At the time, there was Florrie, rather pleased with herself, and thinking what a story she would have to tell them at home. She would have to tell it at the inquest too – a daunting but at the same time an uplifting thought.
Miss Silver’s voice broke in upon it. She was addressing the Chief Constable.
‘I wonder whether you will object to my asking Florrie a question.’
Inspector Crisp had his quick frown for that. He had been on a case with Miss Silver before, and he considered that she took liberties, and had been allowed to take them. He did not doubt that she would be allowed to take this one. And sure enough there was the Chief Constable giving way to her.
‘Oh, certainly, Miss Silver. What is it?’
She said with formal politeness, ‘Thank you very much, Mr March. When we were having tea in the dining-room I was sitting near the door with Miss Repton, who had been feeling faint, when Miss Eccles came by with the cup and plate which were afterwards found on the desk in the study. She said that Florrie had told her Colonel Repton was there, and she was taking him a cup of tea. I thought I would like to ask Florrie how she knew that Colonel Repton was in the study – whether she had actually seen him there, and when, and whether he was alone at the time.’
March said, ‘Well, Florrie?’
Her colour came up.
‘There wasn’t anything wrong about my telling Miss Eccles?’
He gave her his pleasant smile.
‘Oh, no, nothing like that. You are being a great help, you know.’
Thus encouraged, she relaxed again.
‘Well, he’d been there ever since lunch. Miss Maggie, she was there with him just before the Work Party ladies came. She came out when I went through to answer the door. What with them coming in by twos and threes, I was backwards and forwards to the door for the best part of half an hour. One time I went past the study there was Colonel Repton talking, and another man.’
‘Another man!’
Florrie nodded.
‘I hadn’t let him in, and I was ever so puzzled until I thought, “Well, it’ll only be Mr Barton, and he must have gone round the house and knocked on the window for the Colonel to let him in.” The study door was on the jar the way Miss Maggie would have left it. She always gives the handle a little turn so that it springs open again. So I went up close, and sure enough it was him.’
‘Did you say Mr Barton?’
‘Oh, yes – with the rent, sir. And I thought he couldn’t have known about the Work Party, or wild horses wouldn’t have dragged him, the way he is about ladies.’
‘Mr Barton was in the habit of coming up here and paying his rent?’
‘Oh, yes, sir – once a month he’d come. And some funny sort of a rent too. He’d come round mostly after dark, and sometimes he’d ring the bell, and sometimes he’d just go round to the study window.’
‘You said something about the rent being a funny one. What do you mean by that?’
Florrie let off a faint giggle.
‘Well, sir, it was what the Colonel was saying when I came up to the door. He said, “Come to pay your peppercorn rent, James?” and something about always being pleased to see him. And then he said, “Break through your rule for once and have a drink.” And Mr Barton said, “If you don’t know by now that it’s a waste of time to ask me, you won’t ever. It’s wicked stuff,” he said, “and you’d be better without it yourself.”’
March’s eyebrows rose.
‘Oh, they were on those sort of terms, were they?’
Florrie looked demure.
‘Yes, sir – it was all very friendly when Mr Barton came.’
‘And it was all very friendly this afternoon?’
‘So far as I know, sir, I just heard what I said.’
‘You’re sure about it being Mr Barton?’
‘Oh, yes, sir.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Because of what the Colonel said, and Mr Barton’s voice. He’s got ever such a deep voice, and sort of gaspy. My Dad says he was gassed in the war – the first war, that was, not the one my Dad was in.’
‘Then as far as you know, Mr Barton was the last person who saw Colonel Repton before Miss Eccles took him his tea?’
‘Oh, no, sir.’
‘Well, who else was there?’
Florrie had run on easily enough, but now she wasn’t easy any more. She wouldn’t have let anyone say she was frightened – there wasn’t anything to be frightened about. It was just that the Colonel being dead and the police in the house, it didn’t seem right to say what she had heard, but of course she would have to say it. She opened her mouth and shut it again. March said, ‘Come – who was it?’
She was astonished to hear how small her own voice sounded.
‘It was only Mrs Repton.’
‘I see. And you were passing the study door?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Perhaps you heard what was being said.’
‘Well, sir—’
It all came back to her with a rush and she couldn’t go on – the door flying open like it had, and Mrs Repton turning on the threshold. It had shaken her at the time, and it shook her now, the way Mrs Repton had looked and the thing she said. Florrie had been brought up to go to church and Sunday school. She thanked God fervently that Mrs Repton hadn’t seen her.
Miss Silver laid a hand upon the arm that had begun to shake.
‘There is nothing to be afraid of, Florrie.’
Florrie blinked.
‘Oh, miss, you didn’t see her.’
March said, ‘You saw Mrs Repton?’
She gulped and nodded.
‘Just tell us what happened.’
The words came tumbling out. It did her good to get rid of them.
‘I was coming through to the dining-room. They were talking ever so loud – I could hear their voices, and they sounded ever so angry. And then the door opened sudden and Mrs Repton came out. I didn’t want her to see me, so I stood against the wall, and she turned right round and looked back into the room. Oh, sir, it was the dreadfullest look you ever saw – and she said to the poor Colonel – oh sir, she said, “You’d be a lot more good to me dead than alive,” she said, and she come away and banged the door.’
TWENTY-SIX
FLORRIE HAD
GONE away, shaken but resilient. When the door had shut behind her Randal March said, ‘That being that, we had better see Mrs Repton. In the circumstances, I didn’t think it would be tactful to send a message by Florrie. Perhaps, Crisp, you wouldn’t mind—’
When the Inspector had gone out March said, ‘Well, what do you make of it?’
Miss Silver gave the faint cough with which she was wont to emphasize a point.
‘It is, I think, too soon to draw any conclusion. We know that there was anger between them, and people do not always mean what they say.’ He was silent. After a moment she said, ‘I do not think Mrs Repton will wish me to remain, in which case—’
‘You will have to go? Yes, I am afraid so. But I would much rather you stayed.’
Scilla Repton came into the room with Crisp behind her. She was still wearing the tartan skirt and emerald jumper, but she had taken time to put on fresh make-up, and her hair shone under the ceiling light. It had been in her mind to put on a black dress and play the disconsolate widow, but something in her rebelled. And what was the good of it anyway when there wasn’t anyone in the house that didn’t know that she and Roger were all washed up? He had talked to his sister – he had told her so – and no doubt she would make the most of it to the police, so why not be honest and have done with it? There would be another of those awful inquests, and she supposed she would have to stay for the funeral, but once all that was over Tilling Green wouldn’t see her again in a hurry. So what did it matter what any of these people thought or said about her? She didn’t give a damn.
Observing Miss Silver, she raised her carefully shaped eyebrows and said without anything in her voice to soften the words, ‘What is she doing here?’
March said, ‘Miss Repton and Florrie Stokes preferred to have another woman present, and Miss Silver was kind enough—’
She interrupted him with a short hard laugh.
‘A chaperone! My dear man, how prehistoric! I should have thought Maggie was past wanting one now anyhow, but of course you never can tell, can you?’
‘If you object to Miss Silver’s presence—’
She drew a chair to the other side of the writing-table, sat down, and proceeded to light a cigarette.
‘Oh, no, I don’t object. Why should I? If Maggie wants a chaperone, I’m sure I do.’
She flicked out the match and dropped it among the pens and pencils which Roger Repton would not use again. She drew on the cigarette and the tip brightened. She had quite deliberately turned her back upon Miss Silver, who now as deliberately changed her own position, moving from one corner of the leather-covered couch to the other, an adjustment which gave her a very good view of Mrs Repton as she sat, her legs crossed, the mesh of the stockings so fine that it hardly seemed to be there at all, the red shoes a little too ornate, a good deal too high in the heel.
If Miss Silver’s own garments were quite incredibly out of date, it was because she liked them that way and had discovered that an old-fashioned and governessy appearance was a decided asset in the profession which she had adopted. To be considered negligible may be the means of acquiring information which only becomes available when people are off their guard. She was fully aware that she was being treated as negligible now. She thought that Scilla Repton was putting on an act, and she wondered why she had chosen just this pose of callous indifference. She would not have expected good taste, but what was behind these bright colours, this careful indifference? A sudden death in a household must shock even its most indifferent member, and this was Roger Repton’s wife.
Randal March was speaking.
‘I believe you had a very serious quarrel with your husband on Saturday, Mrs Repton?’
She withdrew her cigarette and blew out a little cloud of smoke.
‘Who says so?’
He did not answer this.
‘In the course of this quarrel the question of the anonymous letters came up.’
‘What anonymous letters?’
‘Oh, I think you have heard of them. One of them was in evidence at the inquest on Doris Pell. Colonel Repton had interrupted a telephone conversation between you and Mr Gilbert Earle. During what followed he spoke of having received one of these letters, accusing you of carrying on an affair with Mr Earle. A very serious quarrel developed, in the course of which divorce was mentioned and he said that you must leave his house immediately. The actual words were that you must get out. Later this was to some extent modified. He had begun to think about the scandal, and said that it would be better if you stayed here till after Miss Brooke’s funeral.’
She said with an accentuation of her usual drawl, ‘You were listening at the door?’
‘Somebody was,’ said March dryly. ‘Voices raised in a violent quarrel do attract attention, and for part of the time at any rate I understand that the door was open.’
She lifted a shoulder in the slightest of shrugs.
‘Oh, well, people do have quarrels, you know. Roger and I had lots, but we always made them up again.’
‘Do you wish to imply that this was not the first time he had accused you of infidelity?’
‘I don’t mean to imply anything of the sort, and you know it!’
‘Then do you mean to imply that this particular quarrel was no more serious than others that had taken place, and that it was likely to have been made up?’
She said easily, ‘He wouldn’t have turned me out, you know.’
‘Mrs Repton, Miss Maggie Repton has stated that she had a conversation with her brother this afternoon just before three o’clock in which he told her that he had come to the end, and that you must go. Now I think you saw him after that.’
‘Who says so?’
‘You were seen coming out of the study.’
She drew on the cigarette and let the smoke go up between them.
‘All right – so what?’
‘The person who saw you states that both you and Colonel Repton were talking very loudly. She received the impression that you were quarrelling. Then the door opened and you were seen coming out, but you turned back again and spoke. And she heard what you said.’
A little ash dropped on the front of the emerald jumper. Scilla Repton brushed it off with a careless flick.
‘Really, Mr March?’
‘She states that she heard you say, “You’d be a lot more good to me dead than alive,” and after that you came away.’
‘Quite a good curtain,’ said Scilla Repton.
March said gravely, ‘And within an hour he was dead.’
‘It didn’t mean anything. It was the sort of thing one says.’
‘Not, I think, with a reconciliation in sight.’
She leaned over to stub out the cigarette where she had left the match in Roger Repton’s pen-tray.
The action set off a curious spark of anger in him. She had quarrelled with the husband who had found her out, she had wished him dead to his face, she had heard another woman accuse her over his dead body, and here, on the very spot where these things had happened, she could lean over and stub out her cigarette! It was a small thing, but it got him. He said sharply, ‘You wished him dead, and he was dead within the hour. You have been accused of having brought that death about.’
She actually laughed.
‘You’ve been listening to Mettie Eccles. My dear man, don’t be silly! She was head over ears in love with Roger – always has been, I can’t think why. And she has always been just as jealous of me as anyone could be, so naturally if there was anything wrong it would be my fault. I should think even a policeman could see that.’
He said abruptly, ‘There was cyanide in the gardener’s shed, wasn’t there?’
‘Cya – what?’
‘Cyanide. I suppose you’ve heard of it?’
‘No. What is it?’
‘I haven’t heard the surgeon’s report yet, but it could have been the poison which caused Colonel Repton’s death.’
She stared at him.
‘And
what would it be doing in the gardener’s shed?’
‘It is used to destroy wasps’ nests.’
She gave quite a natural shudder.
‘I can’t sit in the room with a wasp! That’s the worst of the country – all these insects! But if this cya stuff was used for them, how did it get into the house – unless – Oh, do you mean that Roger took it on purpose?’
Randal March said very gravely indeed, ‘No, Mrs Repton, I didn’t mean that.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
ABOUT HALF AN HOUR later March stopped his car on the other side of the Green, lifted the latch of a gate, and made his way with the help of a torch to the sideways-looking door of Gale’s Cottage. His knocking upon it brought a somewhat delayed and reluctant answer. There was no bell and no knocker. He was obliged to switch off his torch and use that, and he was beginning to wonder whether Mr James Barton could be out, when there was the sound of a slow footstep and the door was opened a bare two inches, and on the chain at that, since an unmistakable rattle came through the gap. A deep breathy voice said, ‘Who’s there?’
‘My name is March. I am the Chief Constable of the country, and I would like to have a word with you.’
The voice from within said, ‘Why?’
‘Because you were one of the last people to see Colonel Repton.’
There was a gasp, the rattle of the chain which held the door, and the sound of the door creaking back upon its hinges. There was no light in the narrow passage, but a door on the right stood half open and enough light came from it to throw up the figure of a tall man standing back about a yard from the threshold.
Poison in the Pen (The Miss Silver Mysteries Book 29) Page 15
