"Oh, hullo, Burton, I'm glad to see you.
What I was afraid would happen sooner or later has happened.
A damnable business!"
"Good morning, Dr. Griffith," said Joanna, using the voice she keeps for one of our deafer aunts.
Griffith started and flushed.
"Oh - oh, good morning, Miss Burton."
"I thought perhaps," said Joanna, "that you didn't see me."
Owen Griffith got redder still.
His shyness enveloped him like a mantle.
"I'm - I'm so sorry - preoccupied - I didn't."
Joanna went on mercilessly.
"After all, I am life-size."
"Merely kit-kat," I said in a stern aside to her. Then I went on:
"My sister and I, Griffith, wondered whether it would be a good thing if the girl came and stopped with us for a day or two?
What do you think?
I don't want to butt in - but it must be rather grim for the poor child.
What would Symmington feel about it, do you think?"
Griffith turned the idea over in his mind for a moment or two.
"I think it would be an excellent thing," he said at last.
"She's a queer, nervous sort of girl, and it would be good for her to get away from the whole thing.
Miss Holland is doing wonders - she's an excellent head on her shoulders, but she really has quite enough to do with the two children and Symmington himself.
He's quite broken up - bewildered."
"It was" - I hesitated - "suicide?"
Griffith nodded.
"Oh, yes.
No question of accident.
She wrote, 'I can't go on,' on a scrap of paper.
The letter must have come by yesterday afternoon's post.
The envelope was down on the floor by her chair and the letter itself was screwed up into a ball and thrown into the fireplace."
"What did -"
I stopped, rather horrified at myself.
"I beg your pardon," I said.
Griffith gave a quick, unhappy smile.
"You needn't mind asking.
That letter will have to be read at the inquest. No getting out of it, more's the pity.
It was the usual kind of thing - couched in the same foul style.
The specific accusation was that the second boy, Colin, was not Symmington's child."
"Do you think that was true?" I exclaimed incredulously.
Griffith shrugged his shoulders.
"I've no means of forming a judgement.
I've only been here five years.
As far as I've ever seen, the Symmingtons were a placid, happy couple devoted to each other and their children.
It's true that the boy doesn't particularly resemble his parents - he's got bright red hair, for one thing - but a child often throws back in appearance to a grandfather or grandmother."
"That lack of resemblance might have been what prompted the particular accusation.
A foul and quite uncalled-for blow at a venture."
"But it happened to hit the bull's-eye," said Joanna.
"After all, she wouldn't have killed herself otherwise, would she?"
Griffith said doubtfully:
"I'm not quite sure.
She's been ailing in health for some time - neurotic, hysterical.