Mystery #04 — The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters

‘Not so very well,’ said Miss Trimble. ‘She’s got a bad heart, you know, poor old lady. She’s always so glad to see me on Mondays.’

‘And you must quite enjoy Mondays too,’ said Fatty. ‘Such a nice trip up to Sheepsale, isn’t it, and such a fine little market!’

Miss Trimble’s glasses fell off, and dangled on the end of their little gold chain. She put them on again, and smiled at Fatty.

‘Oh yes, I always enjoy my Mondays,’ she said.

‘I expect you know all the people who go in the bus!’ said Daisy, feeling that it was her turn to say something now.

‘Well, I do, unless there are strangers, and we don’t get many of those,’ said Miss Trimble. ‘Mrs. Jolly always goes, of course - such a nice person. And that artist-girl goes too - I don’t know her name - but she’s always so sweet and polite.’

‘Yes, we liked her too,’ said Fatty. ‘Did you see the man I sat by, Miss Trimble? Such a surly fellow.’

‘Yes. I’ve never seen him before,’ said Miss Trimble. ‘The vicar often gets on the bus at Buckle, and I usually have such a nice talk with him. Mr. Goon sometimes goes up on that bus too, to have a word with the policeman in charge of Sheepsale. But I’m always glad when he’s not there, somehow.’

‘I suppose one or two of the regular Monday bus-people weren’t there yesterday, were they?’ said Fatty innocently. ‘I thought the bus would be much more crowded than it was.’

‘Well, let me see now - yes, there are usually more people,’ said Miss Trimble, her glasses falling off again. The children held their breath. Now they would perhaps hear the name of the wicked letter-writer!

‘Anyone we know?’ asked Fatty.

‘Well, I don’t know if you know Miss Tittle, do you?’ said Miss Trimble. ‘She always goes up on a Monday, but she didn’t yesterday. She’s a dressmaker, you know, and goes up to Sheepsale House to sew all day Mondays.’

‘Really?’ said Fatty. ‘Is she a special friend of yours, Miss Trimble?’

‘Well, no,’ said Miss Trimble. ‘I can’t say she is. She’s like a lot of dressmakers, you know - full of gossip and scandal - a bit spiteful, and I don’t like that. It’s not Christian, I say. She pulls people to pieces too much for my liking. Knows a bit too much about everybody!’

The children immediately felt absolutely certain that Miss Tittle was the writer of those spiteful letters. She sounded exactly like them!

‘Aren’t the daffodils simply lovely?’ said Miss Trimble, as they came to the orchard.

‘Glorious!’ said Daisy. ‘Let’s sit down and enjoy them.’

They all sat down. Miss Trimble looked anxiously at the children and went rather red. ‘I don’t think I should have said that about Miss Tittle,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t thinking. She sometimes comes here to sew for Lady Candling, you know, and I do find it very difficult not to be drawn into gossip with her - she asks me such questions! She’s coming here this week, I believe, to make up the new summer curtains - and I’m not looking forward to it. I can’t bear all this nasty spitefulness.’

‘No, I should think not,’ said Bets, taking her turn at making a remark. ‘You’re not a bit like that.’

Miss Trimble was so pleased with this remark of Bets that she smiled, wrinkled her nose, and her glasses fell off.

‘That’s three times,’ said Bets. Miss Trimble put back her glasses and did not look quite so pleased. She couldn’t bear Bets to count like that.

‘We’d better be going,’ said Fatty. Then a thought struck him. ‘I suppose there aren’t any other Monday regulars on that bus, Miss Tremble - Trimble, I mean!’

‘You seem very interested in that bus!’ said Miss Trimble. ‘Well, let me think. There’s always old Nosey, of course. I don’t know why he didn’t go yesterday. He always goes up to the market.’

‘Old Nosey? Whoever is he?’ asked Fatty.

‘Oh, he’s the old fellow who lives with his wife in the caravan at the end of Rectory Field,’ said Miss Trimble. ‘Maybe you’ve never seen him.’

‘Oh yes, I have! Now I remember!’ said Fatty. ‘He’s a little stooping fellow, with a hooked nose and a droopy little moustache, who goes about muttering to himself.

‘He’s called Nosey because he’s so curious about everyone,’ said Miss Trimble. ‘The things he wants to know! How old my mother is - and how old I am too - and what Lady Candling does with her old clothes - and how much the gardener gets in wages. I don’t wonder people call him Old Nosey.’

Fatty looked round at the others. It sounded as if old Nosey, too, might be the letter-writer. He might be a bit daft and write the letters in a sort of spiteful fun. Fatty remembered a boy at his school who had loved to find out the weak spots in the others, and tease them about them. It was quite likely that Old Nosey was the letter-writer!

‘And then, of course, there’s always Mrs. Moon, your cook, Pip,’ said Miss Trimble, rather surprisingly. ‘She always has Mondays off to go and see to her old mother, just like me - and I usually see her every single Monday. But I didn’t see her yesterday.’