yupitxt.cc 
She shook off these reflections and turned to her companion.
'Why exactly are you telling me this?' she asked frankly.
'Because I don't know what to do about Sylvia,' he said simply.
'You think she doesn't know?' 'Of course she doesn't know. Ought I to tell her?' 'It's very difficult ' 'It is difficult. That's why I thought you might be able to help me. Sylvia has taken a great fancy to you. She doesn't care much for any of the people round about, but she liked you at once, she tells me. What ought I to do. Lady Frances? By telling her I shall add a great burden to her life.' 'If she knew she might have some influence,' suggested Frankie.
'I doubt it. When it's a case of drug-taking, nobody, even the nearest and dearest, has any influence.' 'That's rather a hopeless point of view, isn't it?' 'It's a fact. There are ways, of course. If Henry would only consent to go in for a cure - there's a place actually near here.
Run by a Dr Nicholson.' 'But he'd never consent, would he?' 'He might. You can catch a morphia taker in a mood of extravagant remorse sometimes when they'd do anything to cure themselves. I'm inclined to think that Henry might be got to that frame of mind more easily if he thought Sylvia didn't know - if her knowing was held over him as a kind of threat. If the cure was successful (they'd call it "nerves", of course) she never need know.' 'Would he have to go away for the cure?' 'The place I mean is about three miles from here, the other side of the village. It's run by a Canadian - Dr Nicholson. A very clever man, I believe. And, fortunately. Henry likes him.
Hush - here comes Sylvia.' Mrs Bassington-ffrench joined them, observing: 'Have you been very energetic?' 'Three sets,' said Frankie. 'And I was beaten every time.' 'You play a very good game,' said Roger.
'I'm terribly lazy about tennis,' said Sylvia. 'We must ask the Nicholsons over one day. She's very fond of a game. Why what is it?' She had caught the glance the other two had exchanged.
'Nothing - only I happened to be talking about the Nicholsons to Lady Frances.' 'You'd better call her Frankie like I do,' said Sylvia. 'Isn't it odd how whenever one talks of any person or thing, somebody else does the same immediately afterwards?' 'They are Canadians, aren't they?' inquired Frankie.
'He is, certainly. I rather fancy she is English, but I'm not sure. She's a very pretty little thing - quite charming with the most lovely big wistful eyes. Somehow or other, I fancy she isn't terribly happy. It must be a depressing life.' 'He runs a kind of sanatorium, doesn't he?' 'Yes - nerve cases and people who take drugs. He's very successful, I believe. He's rather an impressive man.' 'You like him?' 'No,' said Sylvia abruptly, 'I don't.' And rather vehemently, after a moment or two, she added: 'Not at all.' Later on, she pointed out to Frankie a photograph of a charming large-eyed woman which stood on the piano.
'That's Moira Nicholson. An appealing face, isn't it? A man who came down here with some friends of ours some time ago was quite struck with it. He wanted an introduction to her, I think.' She laughed.
'I'll ask them to dinner tomorrow night. I'd like to know what you think of him.' 'Him?' 'Yes. As I told you, I dislike him, and yet he's quite an attractive-looking man.' Something in her tone made Frankie look at her quickly, but Sylvia Bassington-ffrench had turned away and was taking some dead flowers out of a vase.
'I must collect my ideas,' thought Frankie, as she drew a comb through her thick dark hair when dressing for dinner that night. 'And,' she added resolutely, 'it's time I made a few experiments.' Was, or was not, Roger Bassington-ffrench the villain she and Bobby assumed him to be?
She and Bobby had agreed that whoever had tried to put the latter out of the way must have easy access to morphia. Now in a way this held good for Roger Bassington-ffrench. If his brother received supplies of morphia by post, it would be easy enough for Roger to abstract a packet and use it for his own purposes.
'Mem.,' wrote Frankie on a sheet of paper:
'(1) Find out where Roger was on the 16th - day when Bobby was poisoned.' She thought she saw her way to doing that fairly clearly.
'(2),' she wrote. 'Produce picture of dead man and observe reactions if any. Also noteifR.B.F. admits being in Marchbolt then.' She felt slightly nervous over the second resolution. It meant coming out into the open. On the other hand, the tragedy had happened in her own part of the world, and to mention it casually would be the most natural thing in the world.
She crumpled up the sheet of paper and burnt it.
She managed to introduce the first point fairly naturally at dinner.
'You know,' she said frankly to Roger. 'I can't help feeling that we've met before. And it wasn't very long ago, either. It wasn't, by any chance, at that party of Lady Shane's at Claridges. On the 16th it was.' 'It couldn't have been on the 16th,' said Sylvia quickly.
'Roger was here then. I remember, because we had a children's party that day and what I should have done without Roger I simply don't know.' She gave a grateful glance at her brother-in-law and he smiled back at her.
'I don't feel I've ever met you before,' he said thoughtfully to Frankie, and added: 'I'm sure if I had I'd remember it.' He said it rather nicely.
'One point settled,' thought Frankie. 'Roger Bassingtonffrench was not in Wales on the day that Bobby was poisoned.' The second point came up fairly easily later. Frankie led the talk to country places, the dullness thereof, and the interest aroused by any local excitement.
'We had a man fall over the cliff last month,' she remarked.
'We were all thrilled to the core. I went to the inquest full of excitement, but it was all rather dull, really.' 'Was that a place called Marchbolt?' asked Sylvia suddenly.
Frankie nodded.
'Derwent Castle is only about seven miles from Marchbolt,' she explained.
'Roger, that must have been your man,' cried Sylvia.
Frankie looked inquiringly at him.
'I was actually in at the death,' said Roger. 'I stayed with the body till the police came.' 'I thought one of the Vicar's sons did that,' said Frankie.
'He had to go off to play the organ or something - so I took over.' 'How perfectly extraordinary,' said Frankie. 'I did hear somebody else had been there, too, but I never heard the name.
So it was you?' There was a general atmosphere of 'How curious. Isn't the world small?' Frankie felt she was doing this rather well.
'Perhaps that's where you saw me before - in Marchbolt?' suggested Roger.
'I wasn't there actually at the time of the accident,' said Frankie. 'I came back from London a couple of days afterwards.
Were you at the inquest?' 'No. I went back to London the morning after the tragedy.' 'He had some absurd idea of buying a house down there,' said Sylvia.
'Utter nonsense,' said Henry Bassingtonf&ench.
'Not at all,' said Roger good-humouredly.
'You know perfectly well, Roger, that as soon as you'd bought it, you'd get a fit of wanderlust and go off abroad again.' 'Oh, I shall settle down some day, Sylvia.' 'When you do you'd better settle down near us,' said Sylvia.
'Not go off to Wales.' Roger laughed. Then he turned to Frankie.
'Any points of interest about the accident? It didn't turn out to be suicide or anything?' 'Oh, no, it was all painfully above board and some appalling relations came and identified the man. He was on a walking tour, it seems. Very sad, really, because he was awfully goodlooking.
Did you see his picture in the papers?' 'I think I did,' said Sylvia vaguely. 'But I don't remember.' 'I've got a cutting upstairs from our local paper.' Frankie was all eagerness. She ran upstairs and came down with the cutting in her hand. She gave it to Sylvia. Roger came and looked over Sylvia's shoulder.
'Don't you think he's good-looking?' she demanded in a rather school-girl manner.
'He is, rather,' said Sylvia. 'He looks very like that man, Alan Carstairs, don't you think so, Roger? I believe I remembered saying so at the time.' 'He's got quite a look of him here,' agreed Roger. 'But there wasn't much real resemblance, you know.' 'You can't tell from newspaper pictures, can you?' said Sylvia, as she handed the cutting back.
Frankie agreed that you couldn't.
The conversation passed to other matters.
Frankie went to bed undecided. Everyone seemed to have reacted with perfect naturalness. Roger's house-hunting stunt had been no secret.
The only thing she had succeeded in getting was a name.
The name of Alan Carstairs.
CHAPTER 14 Dr Nicholson
Frankie attacked Sylvia the following morning.
