'I wonder,' said Graves. He put his sad head a little on one side and asked, 'You don't know, definitely, of anyone who didn't have a letter?'
'What an extraordinary question! The population at large isn't likely to take me into their confidence.'
'No, no, Mr. Burton, I didn't mean that. I just wondered if you knew of any one person who quite definitely, to your certain knowledge, has not received an anonymous letter.'
'Well, as a matter of fact,' I hesitated, 'I do, in a way.'
And I repeated my conversation with Emily Barton and what she had said.
Graves received the information with a wooden face and said, 'Well, that may come in useful. I'll note it down.'
I went out into the afternoon sunshine with Owen Griffith. Once in the street, I swore aloud.
'What kind of place is this for a man to come to to lie in the sun and heal his wounds? It's full of festering poison, this place, and it looks as peaceful and as innocent as the Garden of Eden.'
'Even there,' said Owen drily, 'there was one serpent.'
'Look here, Griffith, do they know anything? Have they got any idea?'
'I don't know. They've got a wonderful technique, the police. They're seemingly so frank, and they tell you nothing.'
'Yes. Nash is a nice fellow.'
'And a very capable one.'
'If anyone's batty in this place, you ought to know it,' I said accusingly.
Griffith shook his head. He looked discouraged. But he looked more than that – he looked worried. I wondered if he had an inkling of some kind.
We had been walking along the High Street. I stopped at the door of the houseagents.
'I believe my second installment of rent is due – in advance. I've got a good mind to pay it and clear out with Joanna right away. Forfeit the rest of the tenancy.'
'Don't go,' said Owen.
'Why not?'
He didn't answer. He said slowly after a minute or two,
'After all – I dare say you're right. Lymstock isn't healthy just now. It might – it might harm you or – or your sister.'
'Nothing harms Joanna,' I said. 'She's tough. I'm the weakly one. Somehow this business makes me sick.'
'It makes me sick,' said Owen.
I pushed the door of the house agents' place half open.
'But I shan't go,' I said. 'Vulgar curiosity is stronger than pulsilanimity. I want to know the solution.'
I went in.
A woman who was typing got up and came toward me. She had frizzy hair and simpered, but I found her more intelligent than the spectacled youth who had previously held sway in the outer office.
A minute or two later something familiar about her penetrated through to my consciousness. It was Miss Ginch, lately Symmington's lady clerk.
I commented on the fact.
'You used to be with Galbraith, Galbraith, and Symmington, weren't you?' I said.
'Yes. Yes, indeed. But I thought it was better to leave. This is quite a good post, though not quite so well paid. But there are things that are more valuable than money, don't you think so?'
'Undoubtedly.'
'Those awful letters,' breathed Miss Ginch in a sibilant whisper. 'I got a dreadful one. About me and Mr. Symmington – oh, terrible it was, saying the most awful things! I knew my duty and I took it to the police, though of course it wasn't exactly pleasant for me, was it?'
'No, no, most unpleasant.'
'But they thanked me and said I had done quite right. But I felt that, after that, if people were talking – and evidently they must have been, or where did the writer get the idea from? – then I must avoid even the appearance of evil, though there has never been anything at all wrong between me and Mr. Symmington.'
I felt rather embarrassed.
'No, no, of course not.'
'But people have such evil minds. Yes, alas, such evil minds!'
Nervously trying to avoid it, I nevertheless met her eye, and I made a most unpleasant discovery.
Miss Ginch was thoroughly enjoying herself.
Already once today I had come across someone who reacted pleasurably to anonymous letters. Inspector Graves ' enthusiasm was professional. Miss Ginch's enjoyment I found merely suggestive and disgusting.
An idea flashed across my startled mind.
Had Miss Ginch written these letters herself?
When I got home I found Mrs. Dane Calthrop sitting talking to Joanna. She looked, I thought, gray and ill.
'This has been a terrible shock to me, Mr. Burton,' she said. 'Poor thing, poor thing.'
'Yes,' I said. 'It's awful to think of someone being driven to the stage of taking their own life.'
'Oh, you mean Mrs. Symmington?'
'Didn't you?'
Mrs. Dane Calthrop shook her head. 'Of course one is sorry for her, but it would have been bound to happen anyway, wouldn't it?'
'Would it?' said Joanna drily.
Mrs. Dane Calthrop turned to her.
'Oh, I think so, dear. If suicide is your idea of escape from trouble then it doesn't very much matter what the trouble is. Whenever some very unpleasant shock had to be faced, she'd have done the same thing. What it really comes down to is that she was that kind of woman. Not that one would have guessed it. She always seemed to me a selfish rather stupid woman, with a good firm hold on life. Not the kind to panic, you would think – but I'm beginning to realize how little I really know about anyone.'
'I'm still curious as to whom you meant when you said 'Poor thing,'' I remarked.
She stared at me.
'The woman who wrote the letters, of course.'
'I don't think,' I said drily, 'I shall waste sympathy on her.'
Mrs. Dane Calthrop leaned forward. She laid a hand on my knee.
'But don't you realise, can't you feel? Use your imagination. Think how desperately, violently unhappy anyone must be to sit down and write these things. How lonely, how cut off from humankind. Poisoned through and through, with a dark stream of poison that finds its outlet in this way. That's why I feel so self-reproachful. Somebody in this town has been racked with that terrible unhappiness, and I've had no idea of it. I should have had. You can't interfere with actions – I never do. But that black inward unhappiness – like a septic arm physically, all black and swollen. If you could cut it and let the poison out it would flow away harmlessly. Yes, poor soul, poor soul.'
She got up to go.
I did not feel like agreeing with her. I had no sympathy for our anonymous letter writer whatsoever. But I did ask curiously:
'Have you any idea at all, Mrs. Calthrop, who this woman is?'
She turned her fine perplexed eyes on me. 'Well, I can guess,' she said. 'But then I might be wrong, mightn't I?'
She went swiftly out through the door, popping her head back to ask: 'Do tell me, why have you never married, Mr. Burton?'
In anyone else it would have been impertinence, but with Mrs. Dane Calthrop you felt that the idea had suddenly come into her head and she had really wanted to know.
'Shall we say,' I said, rallying, 'that I have never met the right woman?'
'We can say so,' said Mrs. Dane Calthrop, 'but it wouldn't be a very good answer, because so many men have
