The Terriford mystery

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Of the letters written to her by people known to her there was only one that seemed to bring a touch of comfort to her sore heart.

It came from a girl, Rachel North by name, with whom she had worked for eight months in a war hospital. They had drifted into something very like close friendship during that time, but, as so often happens in life, though they had each made an effort to keep up their friendship by correspondence, the letters had become fewer and fewer on either side, and had now ceased for nearly a year. Thus Jean was the more touched when she received the following letter from her friend:

January 14th.

My dear Jean,

This is only to tell you that I feel deeply grieved for you and that you are a great deal in my thoughts. I know so well what you must be going through, and I will tell you now what I have never told you yet. My father, to whom I was devoted, was falsely accused of having embezzled a considerable sum of money. Though he was only technically guilty, for it was his partner who had embezzled the money, it was thought that my father had shown carelessness. Accordingly, though the other man got four years, my father received six months’ imprisonment. His death occurred two months after he had left prison.

I hope, my dear, that this man whom you love and who seems to be a splendid fellow, will get through his awful ordeal. Don’t trouble to answer this letter, but remember that if at any time you want to spend a night in London I can take you in. I am now cashier in a big boot store. The work is hard and the pay is poor, but I have had the great luck to be lent a small flat of three rooms for six months.

Your old friend who never forgets what a difference you made to her life during that dreary time in that convalescent hospital,

Rachel North.

This was the only letter that Jean had cared to keep, and after answering it she had put it carefully away. It had comforted her, if only because it had been written by some one who had gone through in a smaller measure the anxiety, the anguish, and the suspense she was going through now.

Though the world at large had suspended its interest in the Terriford Mystery, that was not the case in this neighbourhood. There the excitement was kept alive by all sorts of happenings. The chief of these was the occasional appearance of James Kentworthy, and his eager attempts to get hold of any shred of evidence that would help his client. But in spite of his efforts he found no one who could throw even a glimmer of light on the apparently unsolvable problem of Emily Garlett’s death. The one weak link in the evidence against Harry Garlett, from the point of view of the prosecution, continued to be that up to the present no arsenic had been traced in any form to his possession. Inquiries were still being made all over England, and especially where Garlett had been either playing cricket or acting as a glorified commercial traveller to the Etna China factory. But so far these inquiries had yielded nothing.