Their similarity gave me a curious feeling of seeing – not double, but quadruple.
Mary came out of the kitchen and caught me staring at them.
“Come by hand since lunch time,” she volunteered. “All but one. I found that in the box.”
I nodded, gathered them up, and took them into the study.
The first one ran thus:
“DEAR MR. CLEMENT, – Something has come to my knowledge which I feel you ought to know. It concerns the death of poor Colonel Protheroe. I should much appreciate your advice on the matter – whether to go to the police or not. Since my dear husband’s death, I have such a shrinking from every kind of publicity. Perhaps you could run in and see me for a few minutes this afternoon.
Yours sincerely,
MARTHA PRICE RIDLEY.”
I opened the second:
“DEAR MR. CLEMENT, – I am so troubled – so exercised in my mind – to know what I ought to do. Something has come to my ears that I feel may be important. I have such a horror of being mixed up with the police in any way. I am so disturbed and distressed. Would it be asking too much of you, dear vicar, to drop in for a few minutes and solve my doubts and perplexities for me in the wonderful way you always do?
Forgive my troubling you,
Yours very sincerely,
CAROLINE WETHERBY.
The third, I felt, I could almost have recited beforehand.
“DEAR MR CLEMENT, – Something most important has come to my ears. I feel you should be the first to know about it. Will you call in and see me this afternoon some time. I will wait in for you.”
This militant epistle was signed “AMANDA HARTNELL.”
I opened the fourth missive. It has been my good fortune to be troubled with very few anonymous letters. An anonymous letter is, I think, the meanest and cruellest weapon there is. This one was no exception. It purported to be written by an illiterate person, but several things inclined me to disbelieve that assumption.
“DEAR VICAR, – I think you ought to know what is Going On. Your lady has been seen coming out of Mr. Redding’s cottage in a surreptitious manner. You know wot i mean. The two are Carrying On together. i think you ought to know.
A FRIEND.
I made a faint exclamation of disgust and crumpling up the paper tossed it into the open grate just as Griselda entered the room.
“What’s that you’re throwing down so contemptuously?” she asked.
“Filth,” I said.
Taking a match from my pocket, I struck it and bent down. Griselda, however, was too quick for me. She had stooped down and caught up the crumpled ball of paper and smoothed it out before I could stop her.
She read it, gave a little exclamation of disgust, and tossed it back to me, turning away as she did so. I lighted it and watched it burn.
Griselda had moved away. She was standing by the window looking out into the garden.
“Len,” she said, without turning round.
“Yes, my dear.”
“I’d like to tell you something. Yes, don’t stop me. I want to, please. When – when Lawrence Redding came here, I let you think that I had only known him slightly before. That wasn’t true. I – had known him rather well. In fact, before I met you, I had been rather in love with him. I think most people are with Lawrence. I was – well, absolutely silly about him at one time. I don’t mean I wrote him compromising letters or anything idiotic like they do in books. But I was rather keen on him once.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“Oh! because! I don’t know exactly except that – well, you’re foolish in some ways. Just because you’re so much older than I am, you think that I – well, that I’m likely to like other people. I thought you’d be tiresome, perhaps, about me and Lawrence being friends.”
“You’re very clever at concealing things,” I said, remembering what she had told me in that room less than a week ago, and the ingenuous natural way she had talked.