'Should I touch the letter?' she asked doubtfully. 'What about fingerprints?'
'Well, that's interesting in itself. Whoever wrote it wore gloves.'
She took the letter from the envelope and spread it on the table. It was printed in block capitals:
RUTH LASCELLES WAS IN CEDAR HOUSE THE DAY MRS. GILLESPIE DIED.
SHE STOLE SOME EARRINGS. JOANNA KNOWS SHE TOOK THEM. JOANNA
LASCELLES IS A PROSTITUTE IN LONDON. ASK HER WHAT SHE SPENDS HER
MONEY ON. ASK HER WHY SHE TRIED TO KILL HER DAUGHTER. ASK HER WHY
MRS. GILLESPIE THOUGHT SHE WAS MAD.
Sarah turned the envelope over to look at the frank mark. It had been posted in Learmouth. 'And you've no idea who wrote it?'
'None at all.'
'It can't be true. You told me yourself that Ruth was under the watchful eye of her housemistress at school.'
He looked amused. 'As I told you, I never set much store by alibis. If that young lady wanted to sneak out I can't see her housemistress stopping her.'
'But Southcliffe's thirty miles away,' Sarah protested. 'She couldn't have got here without a car.'
He changed tack. 'What about this reference to madness? Did Mrs. Gillespie ever mention to you that her daughter was mad?'
She considered this for a moment. 'Madness is a relative term, quite meaningless out of context.'
He was unruffled. 'So Mrs. Gillespie did mention something of the sort?'
Sarah didn't answer.
'Come on, Dr. Blakeney. Joanna's not your patient so you're not giving away any confidences. And let me tell you something else, she's not doing you any favours at the moment. Her view is that you had to kill the old lady PDQ before she had time to change her will back, and she isn't keeping those suspicions to herself.'
Sarah fingered her wine glass. 'The only thing Mathilda ever said on the subject was that her daughter was unstable. She said it wasn't Joanna's fault but was due to incompatibility between Mathilda's genes and Joanna's father's genes. I told her she was talking rubbish but, at the time, I didn't know that Joanna's father was Mathilda's uncle. I imagine she was concerned about the problems of recessive genes but, as we didn't pursue it any further, I can't say for sure.'
'Inbreeding, in other words?'
Sarah gave a small shrug of acquiescence. 'Presumably.'
'Do you like Mrs. Lascelles?'
'I hardly know her.'
'Your husband seems to get on with her well enough.'
'That's below the belt, Sergeant.'
'I don't understand why you're bothering to defend her. She's got her knife into you right up to the hilt.'
'Do you blame her?' She leaned her chin on her hand. 'How would you feel if in a few short weeks, you discovered that you were the product of an incestuous relationship, that your father killed himself with an overdose, that your mother died violently either by her own hand or someone else's and that, to cap it all, the security you were used to was about to be snatched away and given to a stranger? She seems remarkably sane to me in the circumstances.'
He took a drink from his glass. 'Do you know anything about her being a prostitute?'
'No.'
'Or what she spends her money on?'
'No.'
'Any ideas?'
'It's nothing to do with me. Why don't you ask her?'
'I have. She told me to mind my own business.'
Sarah chuckled. 'I'd have done the same.'
He stared at her. 'Has anyone ever told you you're too good to be true, Dr. Blakeney?' He spoke with a touch of sarcasm.
She held his gaze, but didn't say anything.
'Women in your position drive their husband's car through their rival's front door, or take a chainsaw to the rival's furniture. At the very least, they feel acute bitterness. Why don't you?'
'I'm busy shoring up my house of cards,' she said cryptically. 'Have some more wine.' She filled her own glass, then his. 'It's not bad, this one. Australian Shiraz and fairly inexpensive.'
He was left with the impression that, of the two women, Joanna Lascelles was the less puzzling. 'Would you have described yourself and Mrs. Gillespie as friends?' he asked.
'Of course.'
'Why 'of course'?'
'I describe everyone I know well as a friend.'
