Page 25 of Marriage and Murder
“Let’s say mid-August as the time H first made contact,” Barnaby said. “It’s mid-October now, so we’re looking at the passage of less than two months.”
Stokes had pulled out his notebook and was flipping through the pages. “A fast worker, then, this H.”
“Well,” Penelope reminded them, “Viola described him as amazingly charming.”
“So since mid-August,” Barnaby said, “H has been visiting Viola at the cottage.”
“That seems likely.” Penelope frowned and glanced at Stokes, then looked at Barnaby. “But where did they first meet? It can’t have been anywhere obvious in the village, much less at the cottage door.”
Eyes narrowing in thought, Stokes ventured, “Salisbury, perhaps. It’s the only other place Viola visited regularly, and sometimes, she was there alone.”
Barnaby nodded. “Shopping or whatever else she went there to do. Given she was a Salisbury native, her area of interaction could have been quite wide.”
“I would say that we should ask Mrs. Foswell,” Penelope said, “but she was quite put out that she knew nothing of this H, and I think she would have leapt to tell us if, when she was visiting Salisbury with Viola, she’d ever met any man who might be him.”
Stokes grimaced. “I agree. This H has been very careful not to be seen by others.”
“Except at a distance.” Barnaby looked at Penelope. “I assume we’re working on the supposition that the gentleman seen by several villagers walking over the fields toward the cottage is, indeed, Viola’s ‘secret admirer, H.’”
Penelope admitted, “In general, I don’t like making such assumptions, yet in this case, given he was seen approaching only at times when Viola would have been alone, I think it’s reasonable to make the connection.”
Stokes shifted, getting more comfortable. “That he’s taken such pains to avoid all others certainly paints this H in an exceedingly suspicious light.”
“True,” Barnaby said. “But let’s return to our time line. Beyond the mention of H in Viola’s letters and the sightings of him across the fields, we have no incidents of note until this past Wednesday, when Jim Swinson drove Viola into Salisbury, and while she was there, it seemed a great deal changed.”
Penelope nodded. “She sent a letter to her sister on Wednesday morning, and at that point, according to Viola, all in her life was rosy.”
“We shouldn’t forget that Madeline thought Viola was expecting H to propose,” Stokes said.
“So,” Penelope said, “Viola was likely expecting to see H quite soon, meaning the next time she would be alone, which was Thursday afternoon.”
“But something she learned in Salisbury shattered her expectations.” Barnaby looked at Stokes. “You could say that the scales wrought by charm had been ripped away.”
Stokes was nodding. “We need to learn where she went in Salisbury—who she met with, what she heard, and what she then knew.”
“That’s not going to be easy,” Barnaby observed. “Salisbury is a large and busy town, and as she was a native born and bred, her acquaintance could be extensive.”
Penelope grimaced. “And she was away—out of sight of Jim Swinson—for at least an hour and a half.”
“Let’s leave the question of what happened in Salisbury for now,” Stokes said, “and continue with our time line.” He looked at Barnaby and Penelope. “We’re up to the point of her leaving Salisbury. What happened next?”
Penelope obliged. “Jim Swinson said she was upset from that point on, as if she grew angrier and angrier but was doing her best to hide it.”
“Indeed,” Barnaby said. “And when she reached home, with a personality such as hers, she very likely spent the evening and night stewing over whatever she’d learned.”
“Then the next morning”—Penelope took up the tale—“she wrote the urgent letter to Madeline and gave it to Mrs. Gilroy to post when she left at noon for her half day off.”
A moment of silence fell, then Stokes said, “I think we have to assume that Viola was expecting H to call that afternoon.”
“In her shoes,” Penelope said, “I would have sent a note and put him off, at least until I’d had time to consult with Madeline and she was present to act as support, and that Viola didn’t do so suggests that she had no way of contacting H.”
Barnaby nodded. “She didn’t know where he lives.”
“That realization alone must have been disconcerting.” Stokes scribbled the point in his notebook. “Clearly, H was running some sort of swindle—everything points to that.”
“Hmm.” Penelope looked thoughtful. “What if her expectations of a proposal were correct, and he was planning to marry her for her money?” She frowned. “But why, then, if he was indeed wooing her, be so secretive?”
“I suspect,” Barnaby cynically said, “that when we learn who he is, we’ll have the answer to that.”
