Fire in the Thatch by Edith Caroline Rivett

“Let us have the whole story in perspective,” said Macdonald at length. “Nicholas Vaughan fell in love with a girl named Molly White up at Lannerdale, but was too slow to tell her so. This girl, having come to the conclusion that she would never have a chance of marrying Vaughan, married Howard Brendon—for security and a home. She soon found out that her husband was a sadist, a cruel, unprincipled man. She also had reason to suspect that he was a bigamist. She left him and went back to hospital work. Here she met Vaughan again as a patient, and they fell in love. She told Vaughan the truth about her husband, and he said: ‘Whether he is a bigamist or not, you’re never going back to him. You are going to marry me when we have got things straightened out.’ Vaughan took Little Thatch for two reasons: one was that Brendon was selling his Dulverton home and going to a place in the Midlands: two, was that he could not take Molly White home to Lannerdale for a few years, because people up there knew that she had recently married another man. So Nicholas Vaughan took Little Thatch, and Nurse White went to the hospital near Tiverton. From this place she used to phone the code message to Vaughan telling him the hour she could meet him at the spinney. Unhappily, Brendon heard her voice over the phone sending a message—about duck’s eggs—to Nicholas Vaughan. He began to think—for he was a desperately jealous man—and he also knew that he was in a dangerous position if his wife suspected his own past doings. Brendon undoubtedly spied on his wife, and at length learnt the place of her meeting with Vaughan. When any one person goes frequently to a given spot, like the spinney, it’s not very difficult to trace them, if you have a car and plenty of patience. Brendon decided that an accident should end Vaughan’s life—and I have no doubt if the ‘accident’ verdict had been accepted another accident would have happened to Nurse White.”

“You put a stop to that,” said St Cyres gruffly, for Anne was incapable of saying anything at all.