“Yes, Joyce is very happy about it. He seems to have taken quite a turn. It is so good for him to be with other children.”
She made no comment upon this. After a moment she enquired,
“Do you know whether anyone else in Tilling has received an anonymous letter?”
He appeared faintly startled.
“Why do you ask that?”
“My dear Frank, you must surely see that it is a most important point. Such letters as you describe are instigated by a desire for power, or by either a personal or a general spite. If the motive is a personal one it may wear itself out or at any rate go no farther, but if it proceeds from a desire for power or from a general spite there is no saying where it will stop or how much mischief it may do.”
He said briefly, “That’s what worries me.”
“Mrs. Rodney has not thought of taking the matter to the police?”
He pushed back his chair.
“She wouldn’t hear of it. It would be very much resented in the village. I think it might make her position there impossible. Everyone has been very friendly, and the child is getting on so well.” He got up and put down his cup. “I don’t know why I bothered you about it. It will probably all fizzle out.”
CHAPTER 2
Of the two newspapers subscribed to by Miss Silver it was her habit to peruse the lighter and more pictorial at breakfast, reserving the solid fare provided by the Times for a later and more leisured hour. It was about ten days after Frank Abbott had tea with her that her eye was caught by a headline which displayed the name of Tilling Green:
INQUEST AT TILLING GREEN
She had often noticed how singularly an unfamiliar name, once noted, is apt to recur. She read the paragraph with interest. A young woman had been found drowned in a stretch of ornamental water belonging to the grounds of the Manor House.