“Yes, yes. Oh, anything you like.”

He read Meg’s artless letter, and failed to see why Jenny should have been so much upset by it. He said so.

“She’s a nice child and very fond of you. I don’t know why it should upset you.”

“I don’t know why either, but it did-it does.”

“I can’t imagine why it should.”

She took the letter from his hand and read it through. Then she turned a puzzled glance on him.

“Richard-”

“What is it, darling?”

“I don’t know why it upset me so much. I don’t know why.”

“As long as it doesn’t go on upsetting you-”

“No, it doesn’t-not now. It was just one of those things. I opened the letter, and first of all I was pleased because Meg had written to me. And then quite suddenly I was most dreadfully afraid. It was just as if there was something shut up in the letter and I had opened the door for it to get out. I’ve never had a feeling like that before. It was quite dreadfully strong. It-it frightened me.”

He was watching her intently.

“You’re not frightened now, are you?”

“Not like I was. No, I’m not frightened-not any more. But I still don’t want to write to Mrs. Forbes.”

“You must,” he said. And with that Caroline came into the room with the bacon.

They had breakfast without any more discussion, but when they had finished Richard said,

“Jenny has had a letter from one of the little girls. It’s from Meg. She knows that Jenny is here.”

Caroline looked up.

“That’s due to Mrs. Merridew of course,” she said. “You couldn’t hope to keep it a private matter with her writing to her cousin at Alingford- and she’d be bound to do that. You say the letter is from the child?”

“Yes,” said Jenny. “It’s from Meg.”

“Well, I think that you ought to write to Mrs. Forbes, Jenny. It won’t be easy of course, but it hasn’t been really right-” Her voice trailed away.

Jenny was looking at her.

“No,” she said. “None of it’s right, is it?”

She wrote to Mrs. Forbes after breakfast. She sat for a long time with the pen in her hand before she got going. In the end she dipped the pen again and wrote:

“Dear Mrs. Forbes,

I heard what Mac said to you the night I went away. I couldn’t stay after what I heard. I didn’t mean to listen. I was in the window seat behind the curtain, and I thought that you would just look in and go away. But you didn’t. When I heard what you had to say I couldn’t get up and show myself. I suppose I ought to have done it, but I couldn’t. I heard everything. You can’t be surprised that I went away. I couldn’t stay. I don’t think you will want to see me. I am here with Richard’s aunt, Miss Danesworth. I met Richard when I was running away, and he brought me here. He is Richard Alington Forbes, and he is a cousin. Richard went to Somerset House in London and got a copy of my father and mother’s marriage certificate.

Jenny Forbes.”

When she had finished writing she put her letter in an envelope and addressed and stamped it. Just before she shut it up she went into the kitchen and showed it to Caroline and Richard.

“Is it all right?” she said. “I can’t write it again-I really can’t.”

Caroline read it, kissed her without speaking, and went out of the room. Jenny was left with Richard. He, too, read the letter.

Jenny was watching him.

“There’s nothing else to say, is there? Nothing at all?”

He put the letter back into her hand.

“No, there’s nothing else,” he said.

Miss Silver had come down to Hazeldon. One or two points had arisen at the inquest, and she had a strong feeling that Hazeldon would bear to have a magnifying glass turned on it. For one thing, she believed Jimmy Mottingley’s story. She found it impossible to do otherwise. Now, if Miriam Richardson had got up to go at seven o’clock, she must have been there on the Heath a few minutes later-a very few minutes. And Jimmy Mottingley was still in his mother’s drawing-room listening impatiently to her conversation with old Mrs. Marsden at either six-fifteen or six-thirty. To have accomplished the drive in three-quarters of an hour would have been a clear impossibility. To have covered the same distance in a quarter of an hour’s extra time would have been just barely possible.

According to the evidence of the stranger, Mrs. Marsden, the time at which he left was just short of ten minutes past six, but his mother put it twenty minutes later. In the circumstances her evidence would be gravely suspect, and in view of Jimmy’s statement that the clock was to say the least of it erratic, no reliance could be placed upon it. If he had really left at ten minutes past six and had driven as fast as possible, he might have been at the place where Miriam met her death by, say, ten past seven. That is, ten minutes after she left Miss Danesworth’s house. Miss Silver thought that she might try and find out whether anyone in Hazeldon had noticed the arrival of Jimmy Mottingley’s car. If they had, and if they had any idea at what time they noticed it, it would certainly be a help.

She went into Mrs. Dean’s shop, and was quite pleased to find it full and everyone talking. The first words she caught told her what they were talking about. She stood still in the corner of the shop looking earnestly at some rather damaged liquorice sweets and hoped that her attention would appear to be focussed on them.

A fair-haired young woman was saying, “That Jimmy Mottingley he’ve got a sort of look of my brother Bill, and I’m sure Bill wouldn’t lay a finger on a fly.”

An older woman took her up.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” she said.

“You don’t know about what, Mrs. Wilson?” The young woman had flushed up. She had a pretty skin and a clear colour. “You are not saying that our Bill ’ud do a thing like that, are you? Because if you are-”

“Well, I’m not, me dear, and that’s that, and no need to get red about it either. And I’ll have a quarter of the tea and a pot of that black currant jelly. My black currants were no good at all this year. I’ll have to have the bushes out, that’s what, and whether it’s worth while I don’t know. I don’t ever remember those bushes having anything wrong with them when I was a girl, but nowadays they keep on getting that big bud they talk about.”

A little pale-faced woman next to her broke in.

“I don’t know what things are coming to, I’m sure. They find out new diseases every five minutes, that’s what I say. You dunno where you are for them. There’s that myxy that all those rabbits have gone for-” Her voice died away. She said in a nervous undertone, “I don’t know, I’m sure. There’s some thinks one way, and some thinks another.”

Mrs. Dean leaned across the counter and addressed Miss Silver.

“Good-morning,” she said.

“Oh, good-morning.” Miss Silver looked in her bag and drew out her purse. “I wonder if you have any peppermints.”

By the time that the peppermints were bought she had established the most cordial relations. The shop had cleared a little, and she managed to bring the conversation round to Jimmy Mottingley.

“That was a strange case you had here. The week before last, was it?”

“Dreadful,” said Mrs. Dean. “You read about things like that in the papers, but you don’t expect to see them happening on your own doorstep so to speak.”

“No indeed,” said Miss Silver warmly.

“Though I don’t say it was a right down surprise to me her being murdered. I suppose I oughtn’t to say so now that she’s dead, but if she wasn’t the very type and moral of what gets into the papers one way or another, well, I don’t know what I’m talking about.” She tossed her head as much as to say she knew very well, and so did Miss Silver.

Miss Silver looked suitably shocked.

“This girl-you knew her?”

“I’ve seen her,” said Mrs. Dean darkly. “You’re not supposed to say things about people who are dead, but I can’t see it that way myself. If you’re flighty and domineering, then you are and there’s no getting from it, and dead or alive it’s all one. But that’s my way of thinking and no call to press it on you.”