4.50 From Paddington (17 page)

“Do you believe in the mysterious Martine, Miss Marple?”

“I'm quite ready to believe that Edmund Crackenthorpe either married, or meant to marry, a girl called Martine. Emma Crackenthorpe showed you his letter, I understand, and from what I've seen of her and from what Lucy tells me, I should say Emma Crackenthorpe is quite incapable of making up a thing of that kind - indeed, why should she?”

“So granted Martine,” said Craddock thoughtfully, "there is a motive of a kind.

Martine's reappearance with a son would diminish the Crackenthorpe inheritance - though hardly to a point, one would think, to activate murder. They're all very hard-up -"

“Even Harold?” Lucy demanded incredulously.

“Even the prosperous-looking Harold Crackenthorpe is not the sober and conservative financier he appears to be. He's been plunging heavily and mixing himself up in some rather undesirable ventures. A large sum of money, soon, might avoid a crash.”

“But if so -” said Lucy, and stopped.

“Yes, Miss Eyelesbarrow -”

“I know, dear,” said Miss Marple. “The wrong murder, that's what you mean.”

“Yes. Martine's death wouldn't do Harold - or any of the others - any good. Not until -”

“Not until Luther Crackenthorpe died. Exactly. That occurred to me. And Mr. Crackenthorpe, senior, I gather from his doctor, is a much better life than any outsider would imagine.”

“He'll last for years,” said Lucy. Then she frowned.

“Yes?” Craddock spoke encouragingly.

“He was rather ill at Christmas-time,” said Lucy. “He said the doctor made a lot of fuss about it - 'Anyone would have thought I'd been poisoned by the fuss he made.' That's what he said.”

She looked inquiringly at Craddock.

“Yes,” said Craddock. “That's really what I want to ask Dr. Quimper about.”

“Well, I must go,” said Lucy. “Heavens, it's late.”

Miss Marple put down her knitting and picked up The Times with a half-done crossword puzzle.

“I wish I had a dictionary here,” she murmured. “Tontine and Tokay - I always mix those two words up. One, I believe, is a Hungarian wine.”

“That's Tokay,” said Lucy, looking back from the door. “But one's a five-letter word and one's a seven. What's the clue?”

“Oh, it wasn't in the crossword,” said Miss Marple vaguely. “It was in my head.”

Inspector Craddock looked at her very hard. Then he said good-bye and went.

Craddock had to wait a few minutes whilst Quimper finished his evening surgery, and then the doctor came to him. He looked tired and depressed.

He offered Craddock a drink and when the latter accepted he mixed one for himself as well.

“Poor devils,” he said as he sank down in a worn easy-chair. “So scared and so stupid - no sense. Had a painful case this evening. Woman who ought to have come to me a year ago. If she'd come then, she might have been operated on successfully. Now it's too late. Makes me mad. The truth is people are an extraordinary mixture of heroism and cowardice. She's been suffering agony, and borne it without a word, just because she was too scared to come and find out that what she feared might be true. At the other end of the scale are the people who come and waste my time because they've got a dangerous swelling causing them agony on their little finger which they think may be cancer and which turns out to be a common or garden chilblain! Well, don't mind me. I've blown off steam now. What did you want to see me about?”

“First, I've got you to thank, I believe, for advising Miss Crackenthorpe to come to me with the letter that purported to be from her brother's widow.”

“Oh, that? Anything in it? I didn't exactly advise her to come. She wanted to. She was worried. All the dear little brothers were trying to hold her back, of course.”

“Why should they?”

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

“Afraid the lady might be proved genuine, I suppose.”

“Do you think the letter was genuine?”

“No idea. Never actually saw it. I should say it was someone who knew the facts, just trying to make a touch. Hoping to work on Emma's feelings. They were dead wrong, there. Emma's no fool. She wouldn't take an unknown sister-in-law to her bosom without asking a few practical questions first.”

He added with some curiosity:

“But why ask my views? I've got nothing to do with it!”

“I really came to ask you something quite different - but I don't quite know how to put it.”

Dr. Quimper looked interested.

“I understand that not long ago - at Christmas-time, I think it was - Mr. Crackenthorpe had rather a bad turn of illness.”

He saw a change at once in the doctor's face. It hardened.

“Yes.”

“I gather a gastric disturbance of some kind?”

“Yes.”

“This is difficult... Mr. Crackenthorpe was boasting of his health, saying he intended to outlive most of his family. He referred to you - you'll excuse me, Doctor...”

“Oh, don't mind me. I'm not sensitive as to what my patients say about me!”

“He spoke of you as an old fusspot.”

Quimper smiled. “He said you had asked him all sorts of questions, not only as to what he had eaten, but as to who prepared it and served it.”

The doctor was not smiling now. His face was hard again.

“God.”

“He used some such phrase as - 'Talked as though he believed someone had poisoned me.' ”

There was a pause.

“Had you - any suspicion of that kind?”

Quimper did not answer at once. He got up and walked up and down. Finally, he wheeled round on Craddock.

“What the devil do you expect me to say? Do you think a doctor can go about flinging accusations of poisoning here and there without any real evidence?”

“I'd just like to know, off the record, if - that idea - did enter your head?”

Dr. Quimper said evasively:

“Old Crackenthorpe leads a fairly frugal life. When the family comes down, Emma steps up the food. Result - a nasty attack of gastro-enteritis. The symptoms were consistent with that diagnosis.”

Craddock persisted.

“I see. You were quite satisfied? You were not at all - shall we say - puzzled?”

“All right. All right. Yes, I was Yours Truly Puzzled! Does that please you?”

“It interests me,” said Craddock. “What actually did you suspect - or fear?”

“Gastric cases vary, of course, but there were certain indications that would have been, shall we say, more consistent with arsenical poisoning than with plain gastro enteritis. Mind you, the two things are very much alike. Better men than myself have failed to recognise arsenical poisoning - and have given a certificate in all good faith.”

“And what was the result of your inquiries?”

“It seemed that what I suspected could not possibly be true. Mr. Crackenthorpe assured me that he had had similar attacks before I attended him - and from the same cause, he said. They had always taken place when there was too much rich food about.”

“Which was when the house was full? With the family? Or guests?”

“Yes. That seemed reasonable enough. But frankly, Craddock, I wasn't happy. I went so far as to write to old Dr. Morris. He was my senior partner and retired soon after I joined him. Crackenthorpe was his patient originally. I asked about these earlier attacks that the old man had had.”

“And what response did you get?”

Quimper grinned.

“I got a flea in the ear. I was more or less told not to be a damned fool. Well -” he shrugged his shoulders - “presumably I was a damned fool.”

“I wonder.” Craddock was thoughtful.

Then he decided to speak frankly.

“Throwing discretion aside. Doctor, there are people who stand to benefit pretty considerably from Luther Crackenthorpe's death,” The doctor nodded. “He's an old man - and a hale and hearty one. He may live to be ninety odd?”

“Easily. He spends his life taking care of himself, and his constitution is sound.”

“And his sons - and daughter - are all getting on, and they are all feeling the pinch?”

“You leave Emma out of it. She's no poisoner. These attacks only happen when the others are there - not when she and he are alone.”

“An elementary precaution - if she's the one,” the inspector thought, but was careful not to say aloud.

He paused, choosing his words carefully.

“Surely - I'm ignorant in these matters - but supposing just as a hypothesis that arsenic was administered - hasn't Crackenthorpe been very lucky not to succumb?”

“Now there,” said the doctor, “you have got something odd. It is exactly that fact that leads me to believe that I have been, as old Morris puts it, a damned fool. You see, it's obviously not a case of small doses of arsenic administered regularly - which is what you might call the classic method of arsenic poisoning. Crackenthorpe has never had any chronic gastric trouble. In a way, that's what makes these sudden violent attacks seem unlikely. So, assuming they are not due to natural causes, it looks as though the poisoner is muffing it every time - which hardly makes sense.”

“Giving an inadequate dose, you mean?”

"Yes. On the other hand, Crackenthorpe's got a strong constitution and what might do in another man, doesn't do him in. There's always personal idiosyncrasy to be reckoned with. But you'd think that by now the poisoner - unless he's unusually timid - would have stepped up the dose. Why hasn't he?

“That is,” he added, “if there is a poisoner which there probably isn't! Probably all my ruddy imagination from start to finish.”

“It's an odd problem,” the inspector agreed. “It doesn't seem to make sense.”