فصل 06 - 01

CHAPTER SIX

The inquest was held three days later.

The time of Mrs Symmington’s death was put at between three and four o’clock. She was alone in the house, Symmington was at his office, the maids were having their day off, Elsie Holland and the children were out walking and Megan had gone for a bicycle ride.

The letter must have come by the afternoon post. Mrs Symmington must have read it and been very upset, so she had gone to the garden shed, found some of the cyanide kept there for killing wasps, mixed it with water and drunk it after writing those last words, ‘I can’t go on…’

The coroner said that whoever had written that evil anonymous letter was morally guilty of murder. The verdict was: Suicide while temporarily insane.

The coroner had done his best. Dr Griffith also had done his best when he spoke about Mrs Symmington’s nervous condition. But afterwards, walking through the High Street, I heard the same hateful whisper I had begun to know so well, ‘No smoke without fire!’

‘There must have been something that was true in the letter. She wouldn’t have done it otherwise…’

And just for a moment I hated Lymstock.