have noticed that it was actually addressed to Miss Barton, and the 'a' altered to a 'u' afterward.'
That remark, properly interpreted, ought to have given us a clue to the whole 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't think that letter can really have been meant for Miss Emily, do you?'
'It would hardly have begun 'You painted trollop,'' I pointed out, and Joanna agreed.
Then she suggested that I should go down to the town.
'You ought to hear what everyone is saying. It will be the topic this morning!'
I suggested that she should come too, but rather to my surprise Joanna refused. 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.
I said apologetically, 'I just wondered. She's rather 'queer' in some ways – a grim 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 of elderly women for years.'
'What put the idea into your head?'
'Well,' I said slowly, 'we've only her word for it, haven't we, as to what the girl Agnes said to her? Suppose Agnes asked Partridge to tell her why Partridge came and left a note that day – and Partridge said she'd call around that afternoon and explain.'
'And then camouflaged it by coming to us and asking if the girl could come here?'
'Yes.'
'But she never went out that afternoon.'
'You don't know that. We were out ourselves, remember.'
'Yes, that's true. It's possible, I suppose.' Joanna turned it over in her mind. 'But I don't think so, all the same. I don't think Partridge has the mentality to cover her tracks over the letters. To wipe off fingerprints, and all that. It isn't only cunning you want – it's knowledge. I don't think she's got that. I suppose -' Joanna hesitated, then said slowly, 'they are sure it is 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 person who might be lonely – and unhappy – and spiteful. Everyone, you see, rather laughs at him. Can't you see him secretly hating all the normal happy people, and taking a queer, perverse, artistic pleasure in what he was 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 might be 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. And anyway, 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 heaven's sake, Joanna, don't speak so understandingly! You make me feel that you – that you understand the mentality.'
'I think I do. I can – just – get into the mood. If I wasn't Joanna Burton, if I wasn't young and reasonably attractive and able to have a good time, if I was – how shall I put it? – behind bars, watching other people enjoy life, 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 little sigh and shiver, and smiled at me.
'I frightened you, didn't I, Jerry? But I have a feeling that that's the right way to solve this problem. You've got to be the person, knowing how they feel and what makes them act, and then – and then perhaps you'll know what they're going to do next.'
'Oh, gee!' I said. 'And I came down here to be a vegetable and get interested in all the dear little local scandals. Dear little local scandals! Libel, vilification, obscene language and murder!'
Joanna was quite right. The High Street was full of interesting groups. I was determined to get everyone's reactions in turn.
I met Griffith first. He looked terribly ill and tired. So much so that I wondered. Murder is not, certainly, all in the day's work to a doctor, but his profession does equip him to face most things including suffering, the ugly side of human nature, and the fact of death.
'You look all in,' I said.
'Do I?' He was vague. 'Oh! I've had some worrying cases lately.'
'Including our lunatic at large?'
'That, certainly.' He looked away from me across the street. I saw a fine nerve twitching in his eyelid.
'You've no suspicions as to – who?'
'No. No. I wish I had.'
He asked abruptly after Joanna and said, hesitatingly, that he had some photographs she'd wanted to see.
I offered to take them to her.
'Oh, it doesn't matter. I shall be passing that way actually later in the morning.'
I began to be afraid that Griffith had got it badly. Curse Joanna! Griffith was too good a man to be dangled as a scalp. I let him go, for I saw his sister coming and I wanted, for once, to talk to her.
Aimee Griffith began, as it were, in the middle of conversation.
'Absolutely shocking!' she boomed. 'I hear you were there – quite early?'
There was a question in the words, and her eyes glinted as she stressed the word 'early.' I wasn't going to tell her that Megan had rung me up. I said instead, 'You see, I was a bit uneasy last night. The girl was due to tea at our house and didn't turn up.'
'And so you feared the worst? Very smart of you!'
'Yes,' I said. 'I'm quite the human bloodhound.'
'It's the first murder we've ever had in Lymstock. Excitement is terrific. Hope the police can handle it all right.'
'I shouldn't worry,' I said. 'They're an efficient body of men.'
'Can't even remember what the girl looked like, although I suppose she's opened the door to me dozens of times. Quiet, insignificant little thing. Knocked on the head and then stabbed through the back of the neck, so Owen tells me. Looks like a boyfriend to me. What do you think?'
'That's your solution?'
'Seems the most likely one. Had a quarrel, I expect. They're very inbred around here – bad heredity, a lot of them.' She paused, and then went on: 'I hear Megan Hunter found the body? Must have given her a bit of a shock.'
I said shortly, 'It did.'
'Not too good for her, I should imagine. In my opinion she's not too strong in the head – and a thing like this might send her completely off her onion.'
I took a sudden resolution. I had to know something.
'Tell me, Miss Griffith, was it you who persuaded Megan to return home yesterday?'
