Miss Silver said, “Yes?” again.

“She wrote very kindly-Joyce said it was like a gift from heaven. She couldn’t take a job unless it was something she could do at home, because the child needed great care. Miss Wayne offered a home and a small salary in return for duties about the house. I gather she does a pretty full day’s work- hens to feed, cooking, and all the rest of it-but she doesn’t complain about anything so long as it’s all right for the child.”

Miss Silver, having finished her tea, picked up a brightly flowered knitting-bag and extracted from it four needles from which depended about an inch of what was intended to be a child’s jumper in a pleasing shade of blue. Her niece Ethel Burkett’s little Josephine would be seven in a month’s time, and the garment was part of the twin set which had been planned as a birthday gift. She could always knit and listen at the same time, her hands held low in her lap, the needles moving rhythmically and at great speed. She said now in her pleasant voice,

“And there is something wrong?”

He nodded.

“She has been getting anonymous letters.”

“My dear Frank!”

“It is always unpleasant, and of course no one knows better than you that it can be a symptom of something very nasty indeed.”

“What are the letters about?”

He lifted a hand and let it fall again.

“She has torn them up-the usual instinct to get rid of something horrid.”

“But I suppose she would have given you some idea of the contents?”

“One of them was about her husband. He died rather suddenly-heat-stroke, I think. The letter suggested that it wasn’t a natural death. There have been two of them. The second went on to accuse her of having come to Tilling to ‘catch another man.’ ”