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The boy went through the glass door into the garden. He walked briskly up the path, kicking a pebble as he went, and then he sat down on the bench where, not so very long ago, Olivia Pendarth and Godfrey Radmore had sat discussing the curious and tragic occurrence which still filled Miss Pendarth's mind. Timmy asked himself what exactly was the meaning of the word inquest?
Betty remained silent, and for once her old friend felt what she too seldom did feel that she might just as well have kept her thoughts to herself. Miss Pendarth was really attached to Betty Tosswill, but she was one of those people there are many such who find it all too easy to hurt those they love. They both got up. "I'm afraid you think me very uncharitable," said the older woman suddenly.
Surely everyone present should have rejoiced from every point of view. Had a different verdict been returned, it would have put the unfortunate chemist in a very difficult position, and might easily have ruined his business. Though Radmore was grateful to Miss Pendarth for allowing him to read the report, it had an effect very different from that she had intended, for it made him pity Mrs.
Miss Pendarth walked off with her quick, light footsteps towards the house, and Radmore, gazing after her, told himself that she was indeed a strange woman. In some ways he had liked her far better to-day than he had ever liked her before, but the low, silly bit of gossip she had just told him filled him with disgust. Very soon she was back, holding in her hand a newspaper.
"I think it's very good of you all to put up with him," said Miss Pendarth drily, "I've never said so before, my dear, but I thought it exceedingly ungrateful of him not to have come down here when he was in England a year ago, I mean when he sent that puppy to your brother Timmy."
These were the folk, idle people most of them, and very well-to-do, who, having made fortunes in London, now lived within a radius of five to ten miles round Beechfield. Miss Pendarth was on excellent terms with what one must call, for want of a better name, the cottage class.
Her husband was quartered there at the same time as Godfrey." She paused uncomfortably somehow she found it very difficult to go on and say what, after all, she had come here to say this morning. "I suppose," said Miss Pendarth at last, "that Godfrey Radmore is back in Brisbane by now.
She turned to her sister-in-law: "I think Miss Pendarth knew poor Cecil years and years ago," she said softly. "Are you you must be Olivia Pendarth?" There was a touch of emotion in Alice Crofton's level voice. "Yes, I am Olivia Pendarth." Enid was surprised not over pleased by the revelation that these two knew one another. "I suppose it's a long time since you met?" she said pleasantly.
Miss Pendarth looked up, and Janet was struck by her pallor and look of pain. "Yes, Janet; he died of a big dose of strychnine, and the medical evidence given at the inquest makes most painful reading." "It must have been a mistake on the part of the chemist. No sane man would take strychnine in order to commit suicide. Besides, how could he have got it?"
With what was for her really eager sympathy, Miss Pendarth had offered to write to a friend in Essex, in order to discover the name of the local paper where, without doubt, a full account of the inquest on Colonel Crofton must have been published. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, slipped away, and on Tuesday there seemed no reason why Godfrey Radmore should leave Old Place.
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