“Who do you think gave them to Mrs. Garlett?”
Lucy hesitated. “If it comes to that, the missus may have got them for ’erself.”
“I thought she never went into the passage.”
“She came downstairs in the middle of the night spry enough,” said the girl bitterly. “Besides, there’s nothing to prove she got the poison with them strawberries—it’s only a idea.”
But Jean was hardly listening, for her mind was full of something very different.
“You are quite sure, Lucy, that it was Miss Cheale who was in the wood with Mr. Garlett?”
“I’m more than sure. I saw ’er quite plain.”
“Then there’s nothing more to be said. But I’m bitterly disappointed,” said Jean sadly. “Somehow I had hoped that whoever was in the wood with Mr. Garlett would—” she did not quite know how to frame her meaning—“would, well, provide a clue,” she ended.
Lucy gave an odd glance at Jean. She felt very sorry for Dr. Maclean’s niece.
“Miss Cheale was in the village the very day Mr. Garlett was sent for trial,” she muttered.