Miss Silver never returned from a case without experiencing a very deep and heartfelt gratitude. For many years of her life she had lived permanently in other people’s houses. For many years of her life she had seen no prospect before her of doing anything else until, too elderly for her services as governess to be any longer in request, she retired to exist on the few shillings a week which her savings might bring in. You cannot save very much from the salary which governesses at that time received. To think of this, and then to see the front door of her little flat thrown wide with her faithful Emma waiting to welcome her, to come into her sitting-room and to behold its modest comfort—the pictures on its walls, the rows of photographs framed in plush, in beaten metal, in silver filigree, all speaking of valued friendships—never failed to evoke feelings of thankfulness.
If it made her happy to have these things for herself, it made her still happier to be able to share them with others— to pour tea from a Victorian silver teapot, and to dispense the sandwiches and little cakes in the making of which Emma Meadows excelled.
On the day after her return from Latter End, Sergeant Abbott dropped in to tea. For him Emma produced three separate kinds of sandwich, as well as drop scones which melted in the mouth, and a honeycomb which she would not ordinarily have produced for a visitor.
Frank gazed at the loaded cake-stand and groaned.
“If I came here as often as I’d like to I should be getting a Chief Inspector’s figure, and then as likely as not they’d never make me one.”
Miss Silver beamed upon him.
“My dear Frank, you are if anything too thin. Pray make a good tea.”
He proceeded to do so.
It was at about the third cup of tea and perhaps the tenth sandwich that he broke into Miss Silver’s best tea-table talk. He had been abstracted from what she was saying, but to the best of his subsequent recollection it was a computation of the variations in temperature between the September weather of this and several preceding years. He stretched out his hand for another sandwich and said,
“When did you first begin to suspect Mrs. Latter?”
Miss Silver set down her cup and reached for her knitting. She had begun a new grey stocking, the first of Derek’s second pair. Three inches of ribbing showed upon the needles. She began to knit, her expression thoughtful.
“That is a very difficult question to answer. The conflict between what I may call the material and the immaterial facts appeared to be complete. I do not recall any case where this has been so marked. If Mrs. Latter’s death was to be considered as suicide, there was the evidence of everyone who knew her that she was the last person in the world to throw away a life which she thoroughly enjoyed. If, on the other hand, she was murdered, there were only three people who could have made certain that it was she and not Mr. Latter who drank from the cup which had been poisoned. They were Mr. Latter himself, Mrs. Street, and Miss Mercer. The more I thought about these alternatives, the less could I persuade myself to accept either of them. I talked about the dead woman to each member of the family. Innumerable small touches made up the picture of a hard, determined woman who would stick at nothing to get her own way—a persevering woman. There were many small instances of this. A cool and calculating woman. Not at all the type to be abashed before her husband, or to commit suicide because she had been rebuffed by Mr. Antony, whom she might have married two years ago if she had chosen. She had independent means, she had magnificent health and self-confidence. She had as little sentiment and affection in her composition as anyone can have. She was handsome, and attractive to men. I could not bring myself to believe that she had committed suicide.”
Frank took another sandwich.
“Two minds with but a single thought—you and the Chief! Two hearts that beat as one!”
Miss Silver had a weakness for impudent young men. She coughed indulgently.
“When I considered the other alternative I was equally at a loss. If it was murder, was it Mr. Latter, or Mrs. Street, or Miss Mercer who had murdered her? Here again the physical and the psychological evidence were in contradiction. According to the former any one of the three might have done it. According to the latter not one of them. I will begin with Mrs. Street. When I realized how unhappy she was making herself over the separation from her husband, and how intensely she had desired that he should be received at Latter End, I gave some thought to the possibility that, regarding Mrs. Latter as an obstacle, she might have removed her. I discerned that she was terribly afraid that she might be losing her husband’s affection. She was overworked and overwrought. In fact she was in just the kind of nervous state in which some loss of mental balance might have occurred. If you add to this that Miss Mercer when interrogated about the medicine-cupboard stated that it was open on that Tuesday evening because she had been getting out some face-cream for Mrs. Street, you will see that I really did have food for thought. You will remember it was shortly afterwards that Miss Mercer noticed that the morphia bottle had been moved. I had to consider whether it was Mrs. Street who had moved it.”
“Well?”
Miss Silver regarded him intelligently.
“I became convinced that it was not in Mrs. Street’s character to commit a cold-blooded, premeditated murder. She is a gentle, not very efficient girl, and she is generally lacking in resource and initiative. She has, I imagine, been accustomed all her life to rely for these things upon her sister Julia, a very intelligent and forceful young woman. If Julia Vane had turned her attention to crime she would, I am convinced, have been most efficient. Fortunately for herself and for others, she has good principles and a warm and generous nature. Mrs. Street is of the type which drifts and suffers. I could not believe her capable of definite and ruthless action. I was really unable to believe in her as a poisoner.”
Frank Abbott nodded.
Miss Silver continued to knit.
“Mr. Latter, of course, had a very serious motive. It was quite natural that the Chief Inspector should have suspected him. He had indeed great provocation—just such provocation as has brought about so many crimes of violence. In the presence of strong conjugal jealousy few would look past the injured husband for a suspect. I myself was fully aware of my client’s dangerous position, but after he had talked to me I was able to reject the idea that he had poisoned his wife. He was in great agony of mind, and full of self-reproach because he was afraid that she had committed suicide. The one hope he clung to was that I might be able to prove that she had been murdered. I found him as open and as simple as a child, and of a kindly and forgiving nature. Whatever the evidence might be, I considered him incapable of murder.” She paused, coughed, and said, “Miss Mercer also had a very strong motive.”
Frank’s eyebrows rose.
“Would you call her motive so strong?”
She inclined her head.
“Yes, Frank—the strongest which a woman of her type could have. She loved Mr. Latter devotedly. It was impossible not to be aware of it. Unfortunately, I suppose it had never occurred to him. He had lived too close to her and become too much accustomed to her presence and to her affection to notice it until it was about to be withdrawn, when he became, according to all accounts, extremely unhappy. They are exactly suited to one another, and if they had married twenty years ago, it would have been an admirable thing for them both. Bearing all this in mind, you will see how strong Miss Mercer’s motive might have been. She saw Mr. Latter being made exceedingly unhappy, she saw Mrs. Latter determined to come between Mr. Antony and Miss Julia, she saw her set upon a course which threatened to disrupt the family. Yes, the motive might have been very strong. There was also the undoubted fact that she was in a state of mental distress even beyond what the situation warranted. I was convinced that she was concealing something, and that whatever it was, it was causing her great agony of mind.”
“Did you never think she had done it?”
Miss Silver met his look.
“I could not do so. Real goodness is a thing quite impossible to mistake. In Miss Mercer’s case it was present as the motive power of all her thoughts and actions. It was the atmosphere in which she lived. She was suffering very deeply, but it was the suffering of innocence in the presence of evil. This was my constant impression. I was therefore brought to the point at which I could not accept Mrs. Latter’s death either as the result of suicide or of murder.”
“In the absence of the Chief, we may perhaps call it an impasse. He won’t let me use French words, you know. He considers them uppish.”
“I have a great respect for Chief Inspector Lamb,” said Miss Silver reprovingly. “A man of real integrity.”
Sergeant Abbott blew her a kiss.
“It’s nothing to the respect I have for you. Continue, revered preceptress.”
Miss Silver gave a very slight cough.
“Really, my dear Frank, you sometimes talk great nonsense. When, as you say, I had reached this impasse, I decided to abandon the external evidence entirely, and to be guided solely by what I felt and had ascertained with regard to the characters of the people concerned. We do not in the animal kingdom expect the tiger to behave like the sheep, or the rabbit to comport itself in the manner natural to the wolf. The Scriptures inform us that we cannot look for grapes on thorns or figs from thistles. An overwhelming passion might shock any of us into the commission of a sudden violent act, but a carefully premeditated poisoning cannot be referred to this category. It must, without fail, be an indication of such evil traits of character as selfishness, inflated self-importance, or perhaps its dangerous opposite, a corroding sense of inferiority. There must be a ruthless disregard of others, a ruthless determination to achieve the desired end no matter what may stand in the way. When I began to look for these characteristics I found them all, with the exception of the inferiority complex, in Mrs. Latter herself. Everyone to whom I talked about her made some contribution to this view of her character. Even seen through the eyes of a grief-stricken and adoring husband, she appeared quite regardless of him or of anyone else who obstructed her wishes. There had been, therefore, one person at Latter End who was qualified to commit cold-blooded and carefully thought-out murder.” She coughed, turned Derek’s stocking, and continued. “But that person was herself the victim. I began to consider in what way she might have been taken in her own trap. I went back to the statements, and I noticed two things. Miss Mercer had watched from the doorway and seen Mrs. Latter putting what she thought was sugar or some sweetening compound into one of the cups. I considered originally that it might have been glucose, which exactly resembles powdered sugar, but I now began to examine the probabilities that it was the powdered morphia. The other point I noticed was that Miss Mercer had apparently stated that she did not see what happened to the coffee cups after she and Mrs. Latter returned from the terrace. The form of the narrative certainly gave the impression that Miss Mercer had followed Mrs. Latter immediately when she left the drawing-room for the terrace, but it was nowhere actually stated, and I began to think that Miss Mercer had not told all she knew, and that she might have altered the position of the cups. I thought it very improbable that Mrs. Latter would have risked leaving both cups together on the tray. When nobody seemed to remember who had placed Mr. Latter’s cup on the table beside his chair, I thought it more than probable that Mrs. Latter had done so herself, in which case Miss Mercer must have seen her do it, since she had her in view from the time she put the powder into the cup until she went out upon the terrace. I became convinced that Miss Mercer had changed the cups. The reason for her silence was obvious. She wished to protect Mr. Latter from the knowledge that his wife had attempted to poison him.”
Frank Abbott gazed at her with unfeigned admiration.
“The nonpareil and wonder of her kind!”
“My dear Frank!”
He said hastily, “Go on—I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
“That night Miss Mercer walked in her sleep. She would, I am sure, have crossed the hall to the drawing-room, but Miss Julia turned her back. When she said in tones of the deepest distress ‘What have I done!’ I was quite sure that I was on the right track. On the following night, as you know, she again walked in her sleep. This time she re-enacted the events of Wednesday night. With what I had already guessed, it was clear to me that she took an imaginary cup from the tray and set it down by Mr. Latter’s chair. She then came back with her hand still out before her as if it were holding a cup. She came like this as far as the table where the tray had been, and then stretched out her hand again as if she were putting something down. She said, ‘Oh, God—what have I done!’ and I felt quite sure that the mystery was solved.
Next morning at breakfast I had a natural opportunity of enquiring whether Mr. Latter liked his tea or coffee sweet. When I received the reply that he never took more than one lump in either, I concluded that this would be Miss Mercer’s reason for having changed the cups. Meanwhile Polly’s evidence had provided proof that Mrs. Latter had deliberately prepared the powdered morphia.”
“When do you think she took it? Before the scene between Mr. Latter and Miss Mercer on Tuesday evening, when Miss Mercer said she thought the morphia bottle had been moved?”
Miss Silver’s needles clicked.
“Oh, yes, she had taken it before then—possibly whilst the family were at breakfast. You will remember that she had hers in her room. The scene in Mr. Antony’s room had taken place during the night. The idea of getting rid of her husband may not have been a new one, but after that scene I believe she decided to proceed to extremities. Probably all the family knew where Miss Mercer kept the key of her medicine-cupboard. Mrs. Latter found the morphia, took what she wanted, wiped the bottle carefully, and put it back, not inside the box from which she had taken it, but on the shelf. You see, it was certainly part of her plan that Mr. Latter should be supposed to have committed suicide. She therefore left the bottle where it would have been convincingly easy to find. Just before lunch she crushed the tablets and put the powder into that little snuffbox. Then, some time after seven in the evening, Gladys Marsh came to her with her tale of Mr. Latter being in Miss Mercer’s room asking her for something to make him sleep. When she heard that he had actually handled the morphia bottle, that Miss Mercer had told him it was dangerous and he had replied, ‘I don’t care how dangerous it is so long as it makes me sleep,’ she must indeed have felt that she had all the cards in her hand. Consider, for instance—if Miss Mercer had not changed those cups and Mr. Latter had died of morphia poisoning, would there have been any question of murder? There was Gladys Marsh’s evidence that he had said, ‘I don’t care how dangerous it is so long as it makes me sleep’—evidence which Miss Mercer would have been bound to confirm. He had actually handled the morphia bottle. There could have been no suspicion of anything except suicide. A local jury would probably have brought in a verdict of accidental death. They would have taken the line that he was so desperate for sleep as to be reckless of the dose he took, a conclusion warranted by his own words. Mrs. Latter must have thought that the way before her was a safe and easy one. And then Miss Mercer changed the cups.”