Weekend with Death by Patricia Wentworth Page A

Marlowe?”
    As soon as she had said “Yes”, she heard it say, “She’s on the line, Mr. Cattermole,” and at once there was Wilson, speaking.
    â€œMiss Marlowe, I am so sorry to trouble you, but I have had a good deal on my mind, and I am not quite sure whether I asked you to post the letters I dictated this afternoon. If they are posted, never mind. But if by any chance I forgot, perhaps you would send Thompson to the post with them. I am afraid I can’t wait just now, but if you will just see to it, that will be quite all right. I am sorry to have troubled you. Good-night.”
    There was a click as the receiver was hung up at the other end. Sarah put back hers and looked about her. The letters.… No—they were in the post. He had given them to her and she had pushed them through the slit in their own corner letter-box with a feeling of good riddance. Joseph Cassidy, Esq., and the Rev. Peter Brown—a pair of bores who would be certain to reply at length and in the most tedious manner. It would be pleasant to think that their letters had gone astray. But no such luck—the perfect secretary had posted them with her own methodical hands.
    She thought, “He was worried enough to ring up, but he didn’t wait for an answer. Fancy worrying over Joseph and Peter!” And on that the telephone bell rang again and brought her back from the door. She banged it behind her and groped without waiting to put on the light. It would probably be Wilson again, to ask whether she had remembered to shut the inkpot, or put his address-book away.
    She got hold of the receiver, and it wasn’t Wilson, it was Henry Templar.
    â€œSarah—is that you?”
    Sarah said “‘M—” and added in a resigned voice, “It always is. But all the same you’d do better to make sure before you come out with your Sarahs like that.”
    Henry sounded impatient. Not that that was anything new.
    â€œLook here, I want to talk to you. But before I start I want to know whether there are any extensions your end.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI don’t want anyone listening in—that’s why. Are there any?”
    â€œNo—only for the bell.”
    â€œThat’s all right. Did you listen to the nine o’clock news?”
    â€œNo. We were interviewing Miss Cattermole’s smuggler with planchette—all eighteenth-century. Why—was there anything special?”
    â€œNot in the news. Sarah, what train did you come up by last night?”
    â€œLast night? Well, it was supposed to be the 5.17, but it was about three quarters of an hour late because of the fog.”
    â€œ5.17 from Craylea?” Henry sounded relieved.
    â€œNo—from the junction. All the trains were behind, and I thought I was going to be late for dinner—a frightful crime.”
    â€œWhen you say ‘the junction’, you mean Cray Bridge?”
    â€œYes, of course. What is all this about?”
    Henry said in what she stigmatized as a stuffy voice,
    â€œWhat did you do while you were waiting for your train?”
    A little warning bell rang in Sarah’s mind. She spoke lightly and at once.
    â€œDarling, what does one do? I got frightfully bored, and my feet froze solid.”
    It wasn’t any good. Henry was thorough both by nature and by training. He just went on.
    â€œWere you on the platform, or in the waiting-room?”
    Well, she wasn’t prepared to lie—not to Henry. She said in an exasperated voice,
    â€œMy good Henry, I’m not quite cracked. Why should I wait on the platform in a fog with the temperature heading for zero?”
    â€œYou were in the waiting-room?”
    â€œI was in one of them.”
    She oughtn’t to have said that. It would sound as if she knew what he was driving at. But it didn’t matter, because he just drove on.
    â€œWhat platform did your train go from?”
    â€œHow should I