Miss Silver said, “Dear me!” Her needles clicked reassuringly. She looked up for a moment and said,

“What makes you think so?”

Rachel Treherne drew in her breath.

“1 came here to say that, but I don’t think I ever really meant to say it. Because when you say a thing like that nobody believes you, and now that I’ve said it, it sounds even worse than it did when I thought about saying it. Even then I knew that you wouldn’t believe me.”

“People so often say that,” said Miss Silver placidly. “The thing that is troubling them appears to be unbelievable. But then of course they have not, fortunately, any experience of crime. I, on the other hand, have a great deal of experience. I assure you, Miss Treherne, there is very little that I cannot believe. Now I think it would be a good thing if you told me the whole story. First of all, why should anyone want to kill you? Secondly, has any attempt been made, and if so, in what circumstances? And in the third place, whom do you suspect?” She laid down her knitting as she spoke, took a bright red exercise-book out of the top right-hand drawer, laid it open before her, dipped a pen, and wrote a careful heading.

These actions had a curiously composing effect upon Miss Treherne. The calming influence of routine made itself felt. Whatever she said would go down in that little book and be on record there. The book touched the schoolroom note again. Upon just such a page had she inscribed such classic phrases as “Have you the pen of the gardener’s aunt?” By the time Miss Silver looked up she was ready with what she had to say.

“I don’t know if you will believe me or not. You see, I don’t quite know what to believe myself. You don’t know me, but if you were to ask people who do know me, I think they would tell you that I am not naturally suspicious or hysterical. I have always had a great deal to do. I haven’t had much time to think about myself at all. I have had other interests.”