Nine

I
I went and found Megan before leaving the house. She was in the gardenand seemed almost back to her usual self. She greeted me quite cheerfully.

I suggested that she should come back to us again for a while, but after amomentary hesitation she shook her head.

“It’s nice of you—but I think I’ll stay here. After all, it is—well, I suppose,it’s my home. And I dare say I can help with the boys a bit.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s as you like.”

“Then I think I’ll stay. I could— I could—”

“Yes?” I prompted.

“If—if anything awful happened, I could ring you up, couldn’t I, andyou’d come.”

I was touched. “Of course. But what awful thing do you think might hap-pen?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She looked vague. “Things seem rather like that justnow, don’t they?”

“For God’s sake,” I said. “Don’t go nosing out anymore bodies! It’s notgood for you.”

She gave me a brief flash of a smile.

“No, it isn’t. It made me feel awfully sick.”

I didn’t much like leaving her there, but after all, as she had said, it washer home. And I fancied that now Elsie Holland would feel more respons-ible for her.

Nash and I went up together to Little Furze. Whilst I gave Joanna an ac-count of the morning’s doings, Nash tackled Partridge. He rejoined uslooking discouraged.

“Not much help there. According to this woman, the girl only said shewas worried about something and didn’t know what to do and that she’dlike Miss Partridge’s advice.”

“Did Partridge mention the fact to anyone?” asked Joanna.

Nash nodded, looking grim.

“Yes, she told Mrs. Emory—your daily woman—on the lines, as far as Ican gather, that there were some young women who were willing to takeadvice from their elders and didn’t think they could settle everything forthemselves offhand! Agnes mightn’t be very bright, but she was a nice re-spectful girl and knew her manners.”

“Partridge preening herself, in fact,” murmured Joanna. “And Mrs.

Emory could have passed it round the town?”

“That’s right, Miss Burton.”

“There’s one thing rather surprises me,” I said. “Why were my sister andI included among the recipients of the anonymous letters? We werestrangers down here—nobody could have had a grudge against us.”

“You’re failing to allow for the mentality of a Poison Pen—all is grist thatcomes to their mill. Their grudge, you might say, is against humanity.”

“I suppose,” said Joanna thoughtfully, “that that is what Mrs. Dane Cal-throp meant.”

Nash looked at her inquiringly, but she did not enlighten him. The su-perintendent said:

“I don’t know if you happened to look closely at the envelope of the let-ter you got, Miss Burton. If so, you may have noticed that it was actuallyaddressed to Miss Barton, and the a altered to a u afterwards.”

That remark, properly interpreted, ought to have given us a clue to thewhole business. As it was, none of us saw any significance in it.

Nash went off, and I was left with Joanna. She actually said: “You don’tthink that letter can really have been meant for Miss Emily, do you?”

“It would hardly have begun ‘You painted trollop,’” I pointed out, andJoanna agreed.

Then she suggested that I should go down to the town. “You ought tohear what everyone is saying. It will be the topic this morning!”

I suggested that she should come too, but rather to my surprise Joannarefused. She said she was going to mess about in the garden.

I paused in the doorway and said, lowering my voice:

“I suppose Partridge is all right?”

“Partridge!”

The amazement in Joanna’s voice made me feel ashamed of my idea. Isaid apologetically: “I just wondered. She’s rather ‘queer’ in some ways—agrim spinster—the sort of person who might have religious mania.”

“This isn’t religious mania—or so you told me Graves said.”

“Well, sex mania. They’re very closely tied up together, I understand.

She’s repressed and respectable, and has been shut up here with a lot ofelderly women for years.”

“What put the idea into your head?”

I said slowly:

“Well, we’ve only her word for it, haven’t we, as to what the girl Agnessaid to her? Suppose Agnes asked Partridge to tell her why Partridge cameand left a note that day—and Partridge said she’d call round that after-noon and explain.”

“And then camouflaged it by coming to us and asking if the girl couldcome here?”

“Yes.”

“But Partridge never went out that afternoon.”

“We don’t know that. We were out ourselves, remember.”

“Yes, that’s true. It’s possible, I suppose.” Joanna turned it over in hermind. “But I don’t think so, all the same. I don’t think Partridge has thementality to cover her tracks over the letters. To wipe off fingerprints, andall that. It isn’t only cunning you want—it’s knowledge. I don’t think she’sgot that. I suppose—” Joanna hesitated, then said slowly, “they are sure itis a woman, aren’t they?”

“You don’t think it’s a man?” I exclaimed incredulously.

“Not—not an ordinary man—but a certain kind of man. I’m thinking,really, of Mr. Pye.”

“So Pye is your selection?”

“Don’t you feel yourself that he’s a possibility? He’s the sort of personwho might be lonely — and unhappy — and spiteful. Everyone, you see,rather laughs at him. Can’t you see him secretly hating all the normalhappy people, and taking a queer perverse artistic pleasure in what hewas doing?”

“Graves said a middle-aged spinster.”

“Mr. Pye,” said Joanna, “is a middle-aged spinster.”

“A misfit,” I said slowly.

“Very much so. He’s rich, but money doesn’t help. And I do feel he mightbe unbalanced. He is, really, rather a frightening little man.”

“He got a letter himself, remember.”

“We don’t know that,” Joanna pointed out. “We only thought so. Andanyway, he might have been putting on an act.”

“For our benefit?”

“Yes. He’s clever enough to think of that—and not to overdo it.”

“He must be a first-class actor.”

“But of course, Jerry, whoever is doing this must be a first-class actor.

That’s partly where the pleasure comes in.”

“For God’s sake, Joanna, don’t speak so understandingly! You make mefeel that you—that you understand the mentality.”

“I think I do. I can—just—get into the mood. If I weren’t Joanna Burton,if I weren’t young and reasonably attractive and able to have a good time,if I were—how shall I put it?—behind bars, watching other people enjoylife, would a black evil tide rise in me, making me want to hurt, to torture—even to destroy?”

“Joanna!” I took her by the shoulders and shook her. She gave a littlesigh and shiver, and smiled at me.

“I frightened you, didn’t I, Jerry? But I have a feeling that that’s the rightway to solve this problem. You’ve got to be the person, knowing how theyfeel and what makes them act, and then—and then perhaps you’ll knowwhat they’re going to do next.”

“Oh, hell!” I said. “And I came down here to be a vegetable and get inter-ested in all the dear little local scandals. Dear little local scandals! Libel,vilification, obscene language and murder!”