The Terriford mystery

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Miss Prince put her book back on its shelf and went out on the landing. She listened intently for a few moments, and then, turning the handle of the door giving into her medicine room, she went through into the tiny bare chamber.

After having shut the door softly, she gazed at the substantial wooden cupboard in which she kept the drugs which were a survival of the days when she had been her father’s faithful assistant and dispenser.

The cupboard was locked now. But it had been often left open till a few days ago—owing to the trifling fact that something had gone wrong with the lock, and that it had become just a little tiresome to turn the key.

If only walls could speak! Miss Prince, gazing up at the grained wood, would have given years of her life to know if Harry Garlett had ever stood where she was standing now—but with the cupboard doors wide open before him.

At last, with an impatient movement, she took a step forward, and stood by the narrow window of her medicine room, and then, suddenly, she shrank back, and a deep frown gathered on her face.

Trudging quickly along in the wintry sunshine was James Kentworthy, the man who had, to use her own expression, bamboozled her. It was easy now to marvel at her stupidity in supposing for a moment that such an individual could have been connected, even very distantly, with her poor friend, Emily Garlett. But she had believed him, absolutely, and on the strength of it had asked him in to tea. Well she remembered the quiet, skilful way in which he had examined and cross-examined her concerning the inmates of the Thatched House.

James Kentworthy was on his way to Bonnie Doon, for it had been arranged that he and the doctor should drive together to Grendon in order to be present at the final inquiry before the magistrates.

The private inquiry agent felt, if possible, even more baffled than he had been at the end of his conversation with Jean Bower. He had learned everything there was to learn, or so he felt convinced, concerning the only people who had had access to Mrs. Garlett, and more and more it had become clear to him that the only human being with a paramount interest in her death was her husband, Harry Garlett. Twenty years of hard work in the Criminal Investigation Department had proved to him that where there is no motive there is no murder, and if this be true of an ordinary, sordid crime, how much more true when a secret poisoner is in question!

But Kentworthy was also aware of a fact which is often forgotten by those interested in murder mysteries—namely, that a motive which may seem utterly inadequate to one type of mind, to another may be overwhelmingly sufficient for almost any crime.

Again and again he had asked himself, in the last few days, what manner of woman was Agatha Cheale? Next to Harry Garlett she was the only human being who had benefited by Mrs. Garlett’s death. On the other hand, the young lady had been in the enjoyment of a very exceptional salary. For her apparently simple and easy services she had been paid at the rate of three hundred pounds a year. Further, Mr. Toogood had assured him that Mrs. Garlett, secretive as are so many people concerning their money affairs, had not even made the husband whom she dearly loved acquainted with the terms of her will.