Someone we wot of got off very lightly. You will realise from even this rather confused report that someone must have put the bottle of strychnine into the unhappy man’s bedroom—­also that he absolutely denied having touched it.  No one connected with the household, save of course Mrs. Crofton, had ever seen the bottle until after his death.

It is a strange and sinister story, but I remember my father used to say that Dr. Pomfrett (who for fifty years was the great medical man of our part of the world) had told him that not one murder in ten committed by people of the educated class was ever discovered.

  I think you know that Mrs. C. has had a very handsome offer for The
  Trellis House from that foolish Mrs. Wallis, but I believe that up to
  yesterday she had not vouchsafed any answer.

  Your affectionate,

  Olivia Pendarth.

  P.S.—­Please burn this note as soon as read.  I don’t want to be had up
  for libel.

Timmy read the letter twice through.  Then he very carefully folded up the newspaper in its original creases, put Miss Pendarth’s letter inside, and made as tidy a roll as he could with the help of the brown paper.  Finally he slipped on the india-rubber band, and scrambling up from the floor, unlocked the door.  Taking Nanna’s Bible off the round table, he went into his own bedroom and there laboriously copied out, with the help of a very blunt pencil, the text where the pin had rested in church.  Then he took the Bible into Nanna’s room.

“What’s that you’re holding?” she asked suspiciously.

“It’s something I have to give to Mum.”

Somehow the sight of Nanna, sitting up there in her big armchair, made him feel extremely guilty, and he was relieved when she said mildly:  “You run along and give it to her, then.”

He found his mother in his father’s study, and they both stopped abruptly when he came in.  Timmy supposed, rightly, that they had been speaking of Dolly and her engagement.

Janet took the roll of paper from her boy and slipped off the band absently:  “What’s this?” she exclaimed.  And then, “How stupid of me!  I remember now.”  She turned to her husband.  “It’s an account of the inquest held on Colonel Crofton.  What a tremendous long thing!  I shall have to put it aside till after lunch.”

She did, however, read through Miss Pendarth’s letter.

“Oh!  John,” she said, smiling, “this letter is too funny!  Olivia Pendarth may be a good friend, but she’s certainly a good hater.  She simply loathes Mrs. Crofton.”  Then, deliberately, she went over to the fireplace and, lighting a match, set fire to the letter.

Timmy watched the big sheet of paper curling up in the flame.  He was glad indeed that he had read the letter before it was burnt, but he made up his mind that when he was a grown-up man, he also would burn any letter that he thought the writer would prefer destroyed.  In a way Janet was her son’s great exemplar, but he was apt to postpone following the example he admired.