CHAPTER SEVENTEENIt was Miss Silver’s practice to open her letters before she looked at the morning papers. There had been times during the war when she had departed from her usual custom, but except under the pressure of a national emergency she would deal with her correspondence before she so much as scanned the headlines. On this Saturday morning London was even hotter than Ledstow. The thermometer in her bedroom already registered 75°, and would certainly pass the 80° mark by midday.
She took up her letters and sorted them through—one from her niece Ethel Burkett; one from Ethel’s sister Gladys, a selfish young woman for whom she had no great affection; a third in a handwriting which she had seen before but could not immediately identify, the postmark Ledstow. Her brows drew together
