I felt that Mrs. Dane Calthrop knew them.
For once in my life, I was positively delighted when Aimйe Griffith's hearty voice boomed out:
"Hullo, Maud.
Glad I've just caught you.
I want to suggest an alteration of date for the Sale of Work.
Morning, Mr. Burton."
She went on:
"I must just pop into the grocer's and leave my order, then I'll come along to the Institute if that suits you?"
"Yes, yes, that will do quite well," said Mrs. Dane Calthrop.
Aimйe Griffith went into the International Stores. Mrs. Dane Calthrop said,
"Poor thing."
I was puzzled.
Surely she could not be pitying Aimйe?
She went on, however: "You know, Mr. Burton, I'm rather afraid -"
"About this letter business?"
"Yes, you see it means - it must mean -"
She paused, lost in thought, her eyes screwed up.
Then she said slowly, as one who solves a problem,
"Blind hatred... yes, blind hatred.
But even a blind man might stab to the heart by pure chance...
And what would happen then, Mr. Burton?"
We were to know that before another day had passed.
Partridge, who enjoys calamity, came into Joanna's room at an early hour the following morning, and told her with considerable relish that Mrs. Symmington had committed suicide on the preceding afternoon.
Joanna, who had been lost in the mists of sleep, sat up in bed shocked wide awake.
"Oh, Partridge, how awful."
"Awful it is, Miss.
It's wickedness taking your own life.
Not but what she was drove to it, poor soul."
Joanna had an inkling of the truth then. She felt rather sick.
"Not - ?" Her eyes questioned Partridge and Partridge nodded.
"That's right, Miss.
One of them nasty letters."
"How beastly," said Joanna.
"How absolutely beastly!
All the same, I don't see why she should kill herself for a letter like that."
"Looks as though what was in the letter was true, Miss."
"What was in it?"
But that, Partridge couldn't or wouldn't say.
Joanna came in to me, looking white and shocked.
It seemed worse, somehow, that Mrs. Symmington was not the kind of person you associated with tragedy.
Joanna suggested that we might ask Megan to come to us for a day or two.
Elsie Holland, she said, would be all right with the children, but was the kind of person who would, almost certainly, drive Megan half mad.
I agreed.
I could imagine Elsie Holland uttering platitude after platitude and suggesting innumerable cups of tea.
A kindly creature but not the right person for Megan.
We drove down to the Symmingtons' house after breakfast.
We were both of us a little nervous.
Our arrival might look like sheer ghoulish curiosity.
Luckily we met Owen Griffith just coming out.
He greeted me with some warmth, his worried face lighting up.