The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie

did at all. I wonder - do you think, Jerry, it could have been something that Aimйe Griffith said?”
    “You mean this morning, when they were talking on the doorstep?”
    “Yes. There wasn't much time, of course, but -”
    I finished the sentence: “But that woman's got the tread of a cow elephant! She might have -”
    The door opened and Miss Emily came in. She was pink and a little out of breath and seemed excited. Her eyes were very blue and shining.
    She chirruped at us in quite a distracted manner:
    “Oh, dear, I'm so sorry I'm late. Just doing a little shopping in the town, and the cakes at the Blue Rose didn't seem to me quite fresh, so I went on to Mrs. Lygon's. I always like to get my cakes the last thing, then one gets the newest batch just out of the oven, and one isn't put off with the day before's. But I am so distressed to have kept you waiting - really unpardonable -”
    Joanna cut in:
    “It's our fault, Miss Barton. We're early. We walked down and Jerry strides along so fast now that we arrive everywhere too soon.”
    “Never too soon, dear. Don't say that. One cannot have too much of a good thing, you know.”
    And the old lady petted Joanna affectionately on the shoulder. Joanna brightened up. At last, so it seemed, she was being a success. Emily Barton extended her smile to include me, but with a slight timidity in it, rather as one might approach a man-eating tiger guaranteed for the moment harmless.
    “It's very good of you to come to such a feminine meal as tea, Mr. Burton.”
    Emily Barton, I think, has a mental picture of men as interminably consuming whisky-and-sodas and smoking cigars, and in the intervals dropping out to do a few seductions of village maidens, or to conduct a liaison with a married woman.
    When I said this to Joanna later, she replied that it was probably wishful thinking, that Emily Barton would have liked to come across such a man, but alas, had never done so.
    In the meantime, Miss Emily was fussing around the room, arranging Joanna and myself with little tables, and carefully providing ashtrays, and a minute later the door opened and Florence came in bearing a tray of tea with some fine Crown Derby cups on it, which I gathered Miss Emily had brought with her. The tea was China and delicious and there were plates of sandwiches and thin bread and butter, and a quantity of little cakes.
    Florence was beaming now, and looked at Miss Emily with a kind of maternal pleasure, as at a favorite child enjoying a doll's tea party.
    Joanna and I ate far more than we wanted to, our hostess pressed us so earnestly. The little lady was clearly enjoying her tea party and I perceived that to Emily Barton, Joanna and I were a big adventure, two people from the mysterious world of London and sophistication.
    Naturally, our talk soon dropped into local channels. Miss Barton spoke warmly of Dr. Griffith, his kindness and his cleverness as a doctor. Mr. Symmington, too, was a very clever lawyer, and had helped Miss Barton to get some money back from the Income Tax which she would never have known about. He was so nice to his children, too, devoted to them and to his wife she caught herself up. "Poor Mrs. Symmington, it's so dreadfully sad, with those young children left motherless. Never, perhaps, a very strong woman - and her health had been bad of late.
    “A brainstorm, that is what it must have been. I read about such a thing in the paper. People really do not know what they are doing under those circumstances. And she can't have known what she was doing or else she would have remembered Mr. Symmington and the children.”
    “That anonymous letter must have shaken her up very badly,” said Joanna.
    Miss Barton flushed. She said, with a tinge of reproof in her voice:
    “Not a very nice thing to discuss, do you think, dear? I know there have been - er - letters, but we won't talk about them. Nasty things. I think they are better just ignored.”
    Well, Miss Barton might be able to ignore