CHAPTER XI — INQUEST

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      Suicide is an ugly word. Everyone shied from it, so that it remained unspoken. But, before nightfall, the village was stiff with conflicting rumours. It was whispered that Miss Corner had been the victim of a baseless suspicion—since the anonymous letter-writer had proved her innocence—in primitive fashion—with a lethal puncture of toxin.

      Everyone was overcome with pity and remorse. The doctor had said that she had taken, in error, an overdose of sleeping-mixture. This story was accepted, as coming from an official source, especially as Miss Corner's slap-dash methods were well-known, and the episode of the smashed glasses was authentic.

      Besides, everyone wanted to believe it. Because the village feared she might have been driven to take her own life, it was the more determined to prove to itself that such an extreme course was an impossibility.

      Yet, underneath the stream of foaming excitement, stole the poisoned undertow. Ada had been warned by both Sergeant James and Dr. Perry, not to talk about the discovery of the whisky-bottle. But, unfortunately, she was in no awe of the police, as she happened to be closely related to it, and had seen it eat with its mouth full. Also, she was an adept in dropping a hint, and had a wide circle of friends.

      The whisper spread, from house to house, about the secret of the wardrobe; and every repetition held its tincture of horror. While the stimulant, itself, could be accepted on medical grounds, everyone asked the same question.

      'Who was the unknown enemy, who had exact knowledge of a lady's privacy, and who used it, as a weapon, to stab her in the back?'

      Fear—no longer a formless huddle, or a black flicker—stalked the village that night; like a garrotter, it lurked in the shadows, only to mark its prey before it leaped. The blinds were drawn earlier than usual, and, for the first time, four walls heard the circulation of scandal.

      When—true to his promise—Dr. Perry called at the Clock House, he was cheered by a sane and wholesome atmosphere.

      Mrs. Scudamore had proved her quality by remaining mistress of the situation. There was no reflection of social disorder in the peace and comfort of her drawing-room, with its soft neutral tints, its collection of miniatures, and its great bow-fronted cabinets of family glass and silver. The air was fragrant with bowls of forced sweet-peas, and a small wood fire burned in the old-fashioned steel grate.

      Mrs. Scudamore wore a high-necked evening-gown of black lace and ornaments of old silver and jade. Her well-dressed crown of hair gleamed in the shaded lamp-light, as she read aloud to her husband, who was pasting stamps into his album. It was a picture of domestic bliss, which was anodyne to the doctor's nerves.

      Mrs. Scudamore thanked him for calling, and the lawyer said the whole thing was distressing. Both accepted the doctor's explanation of an overdose, taken by mistake, and hoped that the sad affair would soon be forgotten.

      But Mr. Scudamore betrayed the fact that Fear had, at least, flicked a single seam of his dinner jacket, in one cautious question.

      "What about this anonymous letter? Is the writer anyone we know—should you think?"

      The doctor's reassurance restored Darby and Joan to their former fireside peace.

      "As a medical man," he told them, "I take a pathological view of the writer. It's probably some hysterical woman, who is working off suppressed steam. It may do her good, and it will do us no harm. As for the bull's eye she scored, that was purely a lucky shot in the dark."

      But when Dr. Perry reached his home he had to face a more difficult task. The gracious old hall was unlighted, and looked cheerless and untidy with its clutter of forgotten toys. As he anticipated, he found Marianne in the night-nursery. She had not changed for dinner, and was still dressed in the creased suit of strawberry silk she had worn in Miss Corner's bedroom.

      Her face looked green with worry as she spoke in a husky whisper.

      "Horatio, she's dead...I didn't realise it at the time."

      "Yes," nodded the doctor. "I feel it, too."

      "No, I won't be a hypocrite," declared Marianne passionately. "I'm thinking of them."

      She glanced at the babies, sleeping in their opulent cots. "D'you know what I've been doing?" she asked. "I got out your Pass-Book and I've been adding up all the cheques from her that we've paid in this year...It's awful...We've lost our best patient."

      "Nonsense. We don't live by Miss Corner alone. What concerns me most is that I've lost a friend."

      Marianne did not notice her husband's drawn face as she began to pace the room.

      "I know, I know," she declared. "But it's been such a terrible day, and I'm frightened tonight. It seems to me—somehow—that this is the beginning of the end. And baby held on to my finger with his little fist. Just as if he was asking me to take care of him."

      As he listened to her, Dr. Perry lost his patience to the extent of wishing to strike a woman—a delicate attention which Marianne might have appreciated, as showing understanding of her special temperament. But he was too civilised to understand such subtleties, so he lost his opportunity.

      "You're exaggerating to a ridiculous degree," he said coldly. "When you consider our own favoured conditions and compare them with those Outside"—the whole of England was 'Outside,' to the village—"it amounts to sheer wicked ingratitude. Marianne, I'm ashamed of you. If everyone was like you no one would have the courage to have children at all."

      Then he looked into