“Do you think that she resented you?—the fact that you were a newcomer, and that you didn’t regard her with the awe that she thought was her due?”
“She had no reason to. I made it quite clear from the outset that I took no interest in Gramarye and that I had no intention of interfering. But dislike is generally mutual. The fact that I disliked her probably awoke reciprocal tendencies. But I don’t quite see where this is getting you. I didn’t bat her over the head, you know.”
“I wasn’t supposing that you did,” said Macdonald, “but I was wondering if the fact of your arrival here had any indirect effect on her behaviour?”
“How so?”
“She would have known that your patients would probably confide in you. Sergeant Peel tells me that you are well thought of in the village and she would have known that. Did it occur to her that you might eventually learn something that would make her own position here untenable, and that she was making a last bid for power and pushed somebody too far?”
“Well…might be,” said Ferens. “The whole situation was pretty complicated, as I saw it. Miss Torrington was strongly upheld by all the authorities here, and it would have taken something pretty drastic to discredit her.”
“She may have been strongly upheld by the authorities, but it’s my belief that someone did bat her over the head,” said Macdonald, “and it must have been something ‘pretty drastic’ that made them do it.”
Ferens grinned. “Oh, quite. You’re asking me if I’ve any ideas on who was irritated enough to do the batting. I don’t like repeating gossip. Some of the old Biddies in this village pour out floods of tripe, but most of it isn’t true: however, there are a few side-lights on Sister M.’s mentality which I might repeat. Her long suit was suggesting a fact by denying it. For instance, there’s John Sanderson, the estate agent, a very decent kindly bloke. Sister M. had her knife into him. She went round saying she was sure it wasn’t true that it was Sanderson who got Nancy Bilton into trouble. That was her method; the result was that some people went round saying that it was Sanderson who got Nancy Bilton into trouble. Sanderson ignored it. It’s not everybody who would have done so.”
“Agreed. Why did Miss Torrington get her knife into Sanderson?”
“You’d better ask him. He’s a very straightforward chap. He came fresh to this place after being in the Army and a refresher course at an Ag. Col. and he saw the woman as I did. He had to superintend post-war redecoration at Gramarye, so he saw it from the inside. He didn’t like what he saw—but he never suggested the children were ill-treated. However—you go and see him.”
“I will. Is he married, by the way?”
“No. But don’t go getting ideas into your head on that account.”
“I don’t get ideas of that variety into my head,” said Macdonald. “I’m allergic to them. Also I’m a bachelor myself.”
“Are you, by Jove. Seems a pity… Incidentally, here’s another Torrington-ism. Sister was quite sure there was nothing wrong when Anne—that’s my wife—asked Sanderson to this house to have a drink when I was out. I’m justified in repeating that one, because it reflects on Sanderson and me fifty-fifty, but I think you’d better find another source for others of the same kind in case you think I’m an interested party.”
“Right. Now for a few questions. You said Miss Torrington was strongly upheld by authority here. Did she ever use her negative technique against what you call ‘authority’?”
“No. Never. She was no sort of fool.” Ferens paused a moment and then went on: “The only one of the gentry who was included was old Miss Braithwaite, who used to be on the committee at Gramarye. She put down a motion that Sister Monica be retired at the age of sixty, and a younger Warden be appointed. After that, a story seeped round the village that the girl child whom Miss Braithwaite adopted in 1920 was not Miss Braithwaite’s own infant. Sorry if that sounds involved, but that’s how it went.”
“I see. You say Miss Braithwaite used to be on the committee. Did she resign?”
“Yes. I imagine she was asked to resign. Lady Ridding and the vicar and the M.O. all had full confidence in the Warden and did not want to lose her.”
Macdonald sat in silence for a moment and his next question was unexpected. “Who was it who did get Nancy Bilton into trouble?”
Ferens’ eyebrows shot up. “I wasn’t here at the time,” he said. “I never saw Nancy Bilton.”
“I know you didn’t, but from what you’ve told me it’s plain enough that one of your patients told you all the current ‘Torrington-isms,’ to quote your word. I know the way news seeps around a village like this one, and I know how determined villagers are not to share their news with outsiders, but a doctor very soon ceases to be an outsider. In the nature of things confidences come his way, as they’ve certainly come yours.”
“To a certain extent, yes,” replied Ferens guardedly.
Macdonald chuckled: “Meaning an uncertain extent. I argue this way. It’s obvious you were interested in the Torrington situation. So should I have been. It had a fantastic quality, because the woman herself was fantastic. The most dramatic thing that happened in this village for years was Nancy Bilton’s death—Milham in the Moor has an unusually clean sheet in such matters as suicide and sudden deaths—. Nancy Bilton was a maid at
