"What about the previous week?
Could she have slipped the letter in the box?"
"It's possible.
She was shopping in the town that afternoon." He paused.
"The same applies to Miss Emily Barton.
She was out shopping early yesterday afternoon and she went for a walk to see some friends on the road past the Symmingtons' house the week before."
I shook my head unbelievingly.
Finding the cut book in Little Furze was bound, I knew, to direct attention to the owner of that house, but when I remembered Miss Emily coming in yesterday so bright and happy and excited...
Damn it all - excited... Yes, excited - pink cheeks - shining eyes - surely not because - not because -
I said thickly: "This business is bad for one!
One sees things - one imagines things -"
Nash nodded sympathetically.
"Yes, it isn't very pleasant to look upon these fellow creatures one meets as possible criminal lunatics." He paused for a moment, then went on,
"And there's Mr. Pye -" I said sharply
"Do you have considered him?"
Nash smiled.
"Oh yes, we've considered him all right.
A very curious character - not, I should say, a very nice character.
He has no alibi. He was in his garden, alone, on both occasions."
"So you're not only suspecting women?"
"I don't think men wrote the letters - in fact, I'm sure of it - always excepting our Mr. Pye, that is to say, who's got an abnormally female streak in his character.
But we've checked up on everybody for yesterday afternoon.
That's a murder case, you see.
You're all right," he grinned, "and so's your sister, and Mr. Symmington didn't leave his office after he got there and Dr. Griffith was on a round in the other direction, and I've checked up on his visits." He paused, smiled again, and said,
"You see, we are thorough."
I said slowly:
"So your case is eliminated down to those three?
Mr. Pye, Miss Griffith, little Miss Barton?"
"Oh, no, we've got a couple more - besides the vicar's lady."
"You've thought of her?"
"We've thought of everybody, but Mrs. Dane Calthrop is a little too openly mad, if you know what I mean. Still, she could have done it.
She was in a wood watching birds yesterday afternoon - and the birds can't speak for her."
He turned sharply as Owen Griffith came into the police station.
"Hullo, Nash.
I heard you were around asking for me this morning.
Anything important?"
"Inquest On Friday, if that suits you, Dr. Griffith."
"Right.
Moresby and I are doing the P.M. tonight."
Nash said, "There's just one other thing, Dr. Griffith.
Mrs. Symmington was taking some powders or something, that you prescribed to her -"
He paused.
Owen Griffith said interrogatively, "Yes?"
"Would an overdose of those powders have been fatal?"
"Certainly not," Griffith said drily. "Not unless she'd taken about twenty-five of them!"
"But you once warned her about exceeding the dose, so Miss Holland tells me."
"Oh, that, yes.
Mrs. Symmington was the sort of woman who would go and overdo anything she was given - fancy that to take twice as much would do her twice as much good, and you don't want anyone to overdo even phenacetin or aspirin - bad for the heart.
And anyway there's absolutely no doubt about the cause of death. It was cyanide."
"Oh, I know that - you don't get my meaning.