The Poison Pen

by Evelyn James

  “I don’t know,” Clara answered, an honest enough response.

  Alfie gave her a nod of thanks then vanished inside the station. Clara watched him go, wondering how Alfie had known the man in the archives was former Constable Brompton without actually seeing him? She had been suspicious before, now she was even more so, as she headed off to see Miss Wicks about unpleasant letters.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Miss Wicks greeted Clara on her doorstep with the most disagreeable scowl imaginable.

  “I have changed my mind about talking to you,” the door rapidly closed in Clara’s face.

  Undeterred, Clara stood on the doorstep and rapped the knocker loudly. There was no answer.

  “She is a humbug, that one.”

  Clara glanced to her right and saw a man leaning against Miss Wicks’ garden wall. Miss Wicks lived in an end terrace and it was easy for the man to come around the corner and lean into the garden. He was a workman of some description, wearing a flat cap and a faded jacket, but his clean hands implied he did not work in a dirty industry.

  “I would give up on that one. What are you trying to sell, anyway?”

  “I am not selling anything,” Clara told him, wondering if she looked like a door-to-door salesperson. “I had an appointment to speak with Miss Wicks concerning a private matter.”

  “The nasty letters?” the man asked.

  Clara took another good look at him, but his face didn’t ring a bell.

  “My sister had one of those letters,” he added, to explain how he knew about the matter. “Mrs Uxbridge.”

  “Oh,” Now Clara looked, there was a slight resemblance between the man in the flat cap and the woman who had been accused of poisoning a wedding cake. “I see.”

  “No, you don’t. You are wondering how I know about Miss Wicks. Well, I do some odd jobs for people around here and I laid some new linoleum for Miss Wicks a couple of weeks back. She might look a sour-faced creature, but everyone needs to talk sometimes, and it happened she talked to me.”

  Clara stepped off the doorstep and came closer to the man leaning on the wall.

  “You are?”

  “Matthew O’Donaghue. Carpenter by trade, but I do anything that pays the bills.”

  “Might you be able to suggest a way I can get Miss Wicks to speak to me?”

  “Pick another day,” O’Donaghue laughed at his own wit. “She has funny moods, that one. Today she will bite your head off. Tomorrow she will be as nice as an angel. But I can tell you about the letter she received.”

  Clara stared at him.

  “Really?”

  “I told you, when I laid her linoleum she chose to talk. I think the letter had just come and she needed to get things off her chest. Miss Wicks doesn’t exactly have many friends.”

  Clara hesitated. Talking about Miss Wicks behind her back seemed unprofessional, yet the woman had simply refused to speak with her. Clara glanced back at the house.

  “What precisely do you know?” she asked after a moment of indecision.

  “Well, for a start, I read the letter,” O’Donaghue grinned. “Some good stuff there was in it too. Buy me a cup of tea and I will tell you all about it.”

  Clara stared back at Miss Wicks’ house yet again. Her better judgement told her to go away and call on the woman another day, but she was feeling impatient with the case, and Brompton was always on her mind. She wasn’t sure she had time to deal with Miss Wicks’ ‘moods’, or the patience. O’Donaghue was still grinning at her. A compromise was in order.

  “I’ll buy you a cup of tea and a sandwich if you persuade Miss Wicks to talk to me,” she said.

  O’Donaghue’s smile faded.

  “She won’t.”

  “I sense you are a man who could charm blood out of a stone,” Clara responded. “I think this is a perfect occasion for you to demonstrate your talents. Besides, you are the one she confided in.”

  O’Donaghue looked glum, but the promise of a free sandwich gave him the incentive to try his hand on the old battleaxe. He gave Clara a helpless look, then headed around the back of Miss Wicks’ house, entering via the yard, to knock on the back door. Clara waited impatiently. It was cold in the front garden. A bitter wind was cutting down the street and buffeting everything in its path. Clara huddled in her coat, hoping O’Donaghue was already convincing Miss Wicks to welcome Clara inside. The time seemed to drag by, with Clara growing colder and colder. How could it be so difficult to help someone, after all? In any case, she had been asked here, it was not as if she had turned up unannounced. The only reason she was being so persistent was because, so far, clues as to who was writing the poison pen letters were few and far between. Miss Wicks might hold some nugget of information that would help, and even that felt like a vain hope. Had Clara been further forward in her case she would have just walked away, as it was, she was reluctant to let any potential lead elude her.

  Her feet were numb by the time O’Donaghue reappeared looking sheepish.

  “She reckons she will talk with you after all,” he said. “Now, that sandwich?”

  Clara rummaged in her purse and handed him some money.

  “Hear anything useful about these letters, Mr O’Donaghue, come see me,” she handed him one of her cards too. “I’m sure I can stretch to more tea and sandwiches.”

  O’Donaghue took the card, grinning again.

  “You can rely on me,” he tugged the rim of his cap in a gesture of respect and then went off up the street whistling to himself.

  Clara had to smile at the man’s carefree attitude, not even a bitter February wind dinted his spirit. She headed through the back gate (deciding to assume she was not welcome at the front door) and found herself in Miss Wicks’ extremely neat yard. Back yards, in Clara’s experience, were not easy to maintain in military order. They tended to collect debris; things that needed to be thrown away, items awaiting fixing, or some other chore. They invariably retained a scruffy air, no matter how house proud the owner of the property was. In contrast, Miss Wicks’ yard was alarmingly clean and, Clara mused for the right word, yes, sterile. The paving slabs were sparkling white, scrubbed within an inch of their lives. The brick walls were white-washed and reflected the grey daylight into brilliance. The space was almost empty otherwise. A washing line was wrapped in a neat bundle and hung on a hook on the wall, but aside from that there was not a bucket or broom, or any similar item one might find in someone’s yard, in sight. Clara felt oddly exposed as she darted across the open space to Miss Wicks’ back door.

  The door was open a fraction and when Clara knocked on it, it swung open even further. She glanced into an extremely well-ordered kitchen. At a white pine kitchen table Miss Wicks sat with her back to Clara.

  “You can come in,” she said in a voice that made Clara feel more of an intruder than ever.

  Clara entered the kitchen and quietly came around the table. Miss Wicks stared at her with cold eyes. She was in her fifties, a tall, spindly thing, who looked as if all the joy and pleasantness had been siphoned out of her long ago. Miss Wicks was like a shrivelled up lemon, sour and bitter beneath her waxen skin. She didn’t offer Clara a chair, but Clara took one anyway. The two women stared at one another for some time, the only sound the idle ticking of a clock.

  “You received a letter,” Clara said, her patience gone.

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t hand it over on the evening of the meeting so I could read it.”

  “No.”

  Clara felt she was pulling metaphorical teeth. She phrased her next question to require more than a single syllable answer.

  “Why?”

  Miss Wicks gave a haughty sniff

  “It was private.”

  “You don’t have to tell me the contents of the letter…”

  “I know.”

  “…but, if the contents might provide a clue to the writer, I would suggest explaining them to me.”

  Miss Wicks looked extremely unamused by this
suggestion.

  “The only thing that letter could tell you, was that the person who wrote it was extremely unpleasant. Gossip is a sin, Miss Fitzgerald, and the writer of those letters is guilty of it. They will go to Hell, I am certain.”

  “Did you recognise the handwriting?”

  “No.”

  “And the things it said, were they something anyone might know, or something very private?”

  Miss Wicks hesitated at that, a chink in her armour had appeared.

  “I couldn’t say. I suppose it was a thing that people could have imagined. There was no truth in the letter, naturally, but people will create such silly ideas in their heads.”

  “Were you upset by it?”

  “I don’t allow such nonsense to disturb me,” Miss Wicks said a little too quickly. “Miss Fitzgerald, I really don’t think I can help you.”

  “If I could see the letter…”

  “Absolutely not!” Miss Wicks’ eyes blazed with fury. “I don’t need another busybody interfering in my business. It’s just a silly letter.”

  “To you, maybe,” Clara said calmly. “But others have been deeply upset by the things written in these letters. The person behind them must be stopped. I take this all very seriously.”

  “Then you are a fool. This is nothing but a silly game someone is playing.”

  Clara decided there was no point arguing further. She only had one card left to play.

  “I don’t suppose you know the Cotterley sisters?”

  The question produced such a reaction in Miss Wicks, that Clara was almost startled. The sour, pale face grew red and awful, the eyes bulged and, when she spoke, Miss Wicks’ voice had been narrowed to an irate hiss.

  “Those women should be burned as witches!”

  Clara could hardly mask her surprise.

  “They are evil,” Miss Wicks continued. “They have nothing good left in their souls.”

  “You are the first to say so.”

  “That is because I am one of the few who used to know them well,” Miss Wicks drew a raspy breath. “I once thought of them as friends, until I realised how despicable they were. If you displease them, they turn on you like a pack of rabid dogs.”

  “Would you know their handwriting?”

  Miss Wicks suddenly cocked her head on one side and looked at Clara curiously.

  “If you are implying that they wrote that letter to me, you are mistaken. It was not their handwriting, I know it well enough. Though, I suppose I could imagine them wicked enough to do such a thing.”

  Another dead end. Clara decided she had had enough of Miss Wicks’ presence and excused herself. In the street again, she pulled her coat tight around her and wondered how one row of houses could collect such a strange assortment of souls. She checked her watch. There was around two hours before she had her appointment with Mrs Prinner; that was one interview she was looking forward to. Mrs Wilton believed Mrs Prinner knew something and her odd behaviour the other night certainly implied she was hiding something. Whether it was important or not, was another matter. Clara headed to the nearest teashop to warm herself and pass the time.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Being confined to a wheelchair sometimes made Tommy frustrated. He could not go where he pleased as other people did; he always needed someone to push him along, or help him up and down steps. There always seemed to be some challenge ahead, whether it was a narrow hallway or an awkward staircase. The world was not designed for people who could not walk, and yet now so many of Tommy’s contemporaries were cripples, their agility taken away by four years of war. The old county cricket team was a sorry sight these days; half the players were invalids in some way. Bright, beautiful youth snatched away, to leave in its place prematurely old men, missing limbs, unable to walk, or gasping from gassed lungs. And those were only the ones whose wounds were visible; there were others whose scars ran deep inside and whose pain was mental rather than physical. Tommy felt they suffered the worst.

  For a long time Tommy had avoided his old friends, too afraid to see his own traumas reflected in their faces. How did you look at a man you once laughed and cheered with now he was so different? Tommy used his own disabilities as an excuse. After all, it was hard for him to simply go to the pub or even take a stroll, and no one expected him to appear at the cricket ground, knowing the pain it would cause him. But, time was passing, and Tommy was beginning to see his personal retreat as something more harmful than protective. It was with this in mind that he began to think about Herbert Phinn.

  Herbert was one of those boys who arrive at school wearing thick glasses, and who you know will spend most of the day being bullied by the more athletic lads who have yet to learn the value of intelligence. Herbert was a kind boy who tried to make friends through being generous with his sweets and pocket money, and who invariably ended up being hurt.

  Tommy had recognised a lame duck as soon as he saw Herbert and took it upon himself to save the boy from the foxes who were crowding around ready to take a bite out of him. Back then, Tommy was the lad who was taller than everyone else, who could run the fastest and who knew how to fight with his fists. No one argued with Tommy once he took someone under his protection, be that his little sister or Herbert Phinn. Herbert repaid Tommy in the only way he knew how; he showed him everything he knew about science, for which he had an extraordinary passion. Herbert was very good at chemical experiments and had his own small laboratory kit, provided by a doting father. He refrained from making such childish things as stink bombs, but he could reanimate a dead frog using electricity and grow crystals in a dish. Everyone expected Herbert to become a chemist, and he didn’t disappoint. The last time Tommy heard of him, he was off to university. That was five days before Tommy went to the front.

  In the intervening years, Tommy had lost track of Herbert. He sometimes wondered if he was dead, like so many others. Had Herbert’s genius died in a blaze of futile glory on the battlefield? Or perhaps he had dreamed of his last scientific experiments in some hospital bed, while he awaited death from war wounds?

  With that in mind, it had taken Tommy by surprise to open the crime magazine Clara had brought home for him, and to see staring back at him the round face of Herbert Phinn. He was even more surprised to learn that Herbert was back in Brighton, having finished a degree in chemistry. The magazine described him as a well-respected expert on poisonous substances and, even more importantly to Tommy, on handwriting. Apparently, Herbert had begun studying the subject of handwriting while at university. He had been experimenting with different ways of identifying various common pen inks using chemical tests, and had studied a number of friends’ letters in the process. As he dabbled with chemical reactions, he started to become curious about the actual handwriting in the letters – the way the letters curled and curved, they were like chemical markers, all unique and able to identify their master. There were only a handful of handwriting experts in the country, but Herbert found one willing to tutor him and spent the next year learning all he could. The war intervened in his studies, in that ghastly way it was so able to, and for three years Herbert found himself dodging bullets and gas, while continuing his studies whenever he could. Chemistry was almost impossible in the trenches, but he could hone his skills in understanding handwriting by examining the letters his comrades received. He soon realised there was a great deal to be learned about the way a person put pen to paper.

  Then he was home and he returned to his chemistry studies, but wind of his skills with handwriting got out and he was requested for help by a friend who was concerned that a relative’s will had been forged. “The rest,” Herbert told the magazine interviewer who spoke to him afterwards, “was history.” Herbert was now being called a handwriting expert and, when he wasn’t pursuing his passion for chemistry, he was in court giving testimony on who wrote what.

  Tommy found himself smiling at the serendipitous nature of the article. Herbert Phinn, who would have thought it? Had Clara not had to waste time in a
shop selling newspapers, had she not found this magazine and decided to buy it for him, had he not once upon a time taken a boy with thick glasses and no sense for survival whatsoever under his wing, then he never would have had the opportunity to get an expert to take a look at the poison pen letters.

  Tommy wasted no time finding the telephone number for Herbert’s parents. He knew they had a ‘phone as they were very modern people, who liked to keep abreast of technology. He had heard that Herbert’s father had even invested in a radio; a quite extravagant device that was virtually pointless, as there was only one radio station currently broadcasting, and that only played intermittent and extremely dull music. But Mr Phinn dreamed of the future and he believed the radio was the way forward. His neighbours might mock the great mahogany box that blared out tinny blasts of music, but Mr Phinn believed.

  Tommy was grateful to anyone who was on the ‘phone. It made life for him so much easier, seeing as he could not pay calls on people very easily, and sending messages via letters was such a drawn-out chore. He had rung Herbert’s parents at once and introduced himself. They remembered him well and when he said he was hoping to speak with Herbert, they were only too delighted. They had promised to forward a message to their son and, within half-an-hour, Herbert was on the line, enthusiastically greeting his old friend.

  They discussed old times and the terribleness of war for a while. Then Tommy explained how he had seen the article and described Clara’s work, by the time he reached the part about the letters he could tell that Herbert was chomping at the bit to come over and take a look. He agreed to come at once, and Tommy had just enough time to ask Annie to nip out for some buns, before Herbert was on the doorstep, beaming at him.

  Herbert had not changed. He was still the boy with the thick glasses who talked a little too much and who bubbled with enthusiasm. The only thing that briefly halted his effervescence was the sight of Tommy in a wheelchair. For an instant he was speechless. It was a look Tommy had seen all too often, and one he had come to loathe. It was the moment when someone was taken by surprise and couldn’t hide their confusion. Herbert blustered through the awkward moment far faster than most. He righted himself within seconds and his goofy smile returned. Instead of the usual apologies or attempts at sympathy, he blurted out;