Four

I
It was, I think, about a week later, that Partridge informed me that Mrs.

Baker would like to speak to me for a minute or two if I would be so kind.

The name Mrs. Baker conveyed nothing at all to me.

“Who is Mrs. Baker?” I said, bewildered—“Can’t she see Miss Joanna?”

But it appeared that I was the person with whom an interview was de-sired. It further transpired that Mrs. Baker was the mother of the girl Beat-rice.

I had forgotten Beatrice. For a fortnight now, I had been conscious of amiddle-aged woman with wisps of grey hair, usually on her knees retreat-ing crablike from bathroom and stairs and passages when I appeared, andI knew, I suppose, that she was our new Daily Woman. Otherwise the Be-atrice complication had faded from my mind.

I could not very well refuse to see Beatrice’s mother, especially as Ilearned that Joanna was out, but I was, I must confess, a little nervous atthe prospect. I sincerely hoped that I was not going to be accused of hav-ing trifled with Beatrice’s affections. I cursed the mischievous activities ofanonymous letter writers to myself at the same time as, aloud, I comman-ded that Beatrice’s mother should be brought to my presence.

Mrs. Baker was a big broad weather-beaten woman with a rapid flow ofspeech. I was relieved to notice no signs of anger or accusation.

“I hope, sir,” she said, beginning at once when the door had closed be-hind Partridge, “that you’ll excuse the liberty I’ve taken in coming to seeyou. But I thought, sir, as you was the proper person to come to, and Ishould be thankful if you could see your way to telling me what I ought todo in the circumstances, because in my opinion, sir, something ought to bedone, and I’ve never been one to let the grass grow under my feet, andwhat I say is, no use moaning and groaning, but ‘Up and doing’ as vicarsaid in his sermon only the week before last.”

I felt slightly bewildered and as though I had missed something essentialin the conversation.

“Certainly,” I said. “Won’t you—er—sit down, Mrs. Baker? I’m sure Ishall be glad to—er help you in anyway I can—”

I paused expectantly.

“Thank you, sir.” Mrs. Baker sat down on the edge of a chair. “It’s verygood of you, I’m sure. And glad I am that I came to you, I said to Beatrice, Isaid, and her howling and crying on her bed, Mr. Burton will know whatto do, I said, being a London gentleman. And something must be done,what with young men being so hotheaded and not listening to reason theway they are, and not listening to a word a girl says, and anyway, if it wasme, I says to Beatrice I’d give him as good as I got, and what about that girldown at the mill?”

I felt more than ever bewildered.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I don’t quite understand. What has happened?”

“It’s the letters, sir. Wicked letters—indecent, too, using such words andall. Worse than I’ve ever seen in the Bible, even.”

Passing over an interesting sideline here, I said desperately:

“Has your daughter been having more letters?”

“Not her, sir. She had just the one. That one as was the occasion of herleaving here.”

“There was absolutely no reason—” I began, but Mrs. Baker firmly andrespectfully interrupted me:

“There is no need to tell me, sir, that what was wrote was all wicked lies.

I had Miss Partridge’s word for that—and indeed I would have known itfor myself. You aren’t that type of gentleman, sir, that I well know, andyou an invalid and all. Wicked untruthful lies it was, but all the same Isays to Beatrice as she’d better leave because you know what talk is, sir.

No smoke without fire, that’s what people say. And a girl can’t be too care-ful. And besides the girl herself felt bashful like after what had been writ-ten, so I says, ‘Quite right,’ to Beatrice when she said she wasn’t coming uphere again, though I’m sure we both regretted the inconvenience beingsuch—”

Unable to find her way out of this sentence, Mrs. Baker took a deepbreath and began again.

“And that, I hoped, would be the end of any nasty talk. But now George,down at the garage, him what Beatrice is going with, he’s got one of them.

Saying awful things about our Beatrice, and how she’s going on with FredLedbetter’s Tom—and I can assure you, sir, the girl has been no more thancivil to him and passing the time of day so to speak.”

My head was now reeling under this new complication of Mr. Ledbet-ter’s Tom.

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “Beatrice’s—er—young man has had ananonymous letter making accusations about her and another youngman?”

“That’s right, sir, and not nicely put at all—horrible words used, and itdrove young George mad with rage, it did, and he came round and told Be-atrice he wasn’t going to put up with that sort of thing from her, and hewasn’t going to have her go behind his back with other chaps—and shesays it’s all a lie—and he says no smoke without fire, he says, and rushesoff being hot-like in his temper, and Beatrice she took on ever so, poor girl,and I said I’ll put my hat on and come straight up to you, sir.”

Mrs. Baker paused and looked at me expectantly, like a dog waiting forreward after doing a particularly clever trick.

“But why come to me?” I demanded.

“I understood, sir, that you’d had one of these nasty letters yourself, andI thought, sir, that being a London gentleman, you’d know what to doabout them.”

“If I were you,” I said, “I should go to the police. This sort of thing oughtto be stopped.”

Mrs. Baker looked deeply shocked.

“Oh, no, sir. I couldn’t go to the police.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve never been mixed up with the police, sir. None of us ever have.”

“Probably not. But the police are the only people who can deal with thissort of thing. It’s their business.”

“Go to Bert Rundle?”

Bert Rundle was the constable, I knew.

“There’s a sergeant, or an inspector, surely, at the police station.”

“Me, go into the police station?”

Mrs. Baker’s voice expressed reproach and incredulity. I began to feelannoyed.

“That’s the only advice I can give you.”

Mrs. Baker was silent, obviously quite unconvinced. She said wistfullyand earnestly:

“These letters ought to be stopped, sir, they did ought to be stopped.

There’ll be mischief done sooner or later.”

“It seems to me there is mischief done now,” I said.

“I meant violence, sir. These young fellows, they get violent in their feel-ings—and so do the older ones.”

I asked:

“Are a good many of these letters going about?”

Mrs. Baker nodded.

“It’s getting worse and worse, sir. Mr. and Mrs. Beadle at the Blue Boar—very happy they’ve always been—and now these letters comes and itsets him thinking things—things that aren’t so, sir.”

I leaned forward:

“Mrs. Baker,” I said, “have you any idea, any idea at all, who is writingthese abominable letters?”

To my great surprise she nodded her head.

“We’ve got our idea, sir. Yes, we’ve all got a very fair idea.”

“Who is it?”

I had fancied she might be reluctant to mention a name, but she repliedpromptly:

“’Tis Mrs. Cleat—that’s what we all think, sir. ’Tis Mrs. Cleat for sure.”

I had heard so many names this morning that I was quite bewildered. Iasked:

“Who is Mrs. Cleat?”

Mrs. Cleat, I discovered, was the wife of an elderly jobbing gardener.

She lived in a cottage on the road leading down to the Mill. My furtherquestions only brought unsatisfactory answers. Questioned as to why Mrs.

Cleat should write these letters, Mrs. Baker would only say vaguely that“’T would be like her.”

In the end I let her go, reiterating once more my advice to go to the po-lice, advice which I could see Mrs. Baker was not going to act upon. I wasleft with the impression that I had disappointed her.

I thought over what she had said. Vague as the evidence was, I decidedthat if the village was all agreed that Mrs. Cleat was the culprit, then it wasprobably true. I decided to go and consult Griffith about the whole thing.

Presumably he would know this Cleat woman. If he thought advisable, heor I might suggest to the police that she was at the bottom of this growingannoyance.

I timed my arrival for about the moment I fancied Griffith would havefinished his “Surgery.” When the last patient had left, I went into the sur-gery.

“Hallo, it’s you, Burton.”

I outlined my conversation with Mrs. Baker, and passed on to him theconviction that this Mrs. Cleat was responsible. Rather to my disappoint-ment, Griffith shook his head.

“It’s not so simple as that,” he said.

“You don’t think this Cleat woman is at the bottom of it?”

“She may be. But I should think it most unlikely.”

“Then why do they all think it is her?”

He smiled.

“Oh,” he said, “you don’t understand. Mrs. Cleat is the local witch.”

“Good gracious!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, sounds rather strange nowadays, nevertheless that’s what itamounts to. The feeling lingers, you know, that there are certain people,certain families, for instance, whom it isn’t wise to offend. Mrs. Cleat camefrom a family of ‘wise women.’ And I’m afraid she’s taken pains to cultiv-ate the legend. She’s a queer woman with a bitter and sardonic sense ofhumour. It’s been easy enough for her, if a child cut its finger, or had abad fall, or sickened with mumps, to nod her head and say, ‘Yes, he stolemy apples last week’ or ‘He pulled my cat’s tail.’ Soon enough motherspulled their children away, and other women brought honey or a cakethey’d baked to give to Mrs. Cleat so as to keep on the right side of her sothat she shouldn’t ‘ill wish’ them. It’s superstitious and silly, but it hap-pens. So naturally, now, they think she’s at the bottom of this.”

“But she isn’t?”

“Oh, no. She isn’t the type. It’s—it’s not so simple as that.”

“Have you any idea?” I looked at him curiously.

He shook his head, but his eyes were absent.

“No,” he said. “I don’t know at all. But I don’t like it, Burton—some harmis going to come of this.”