Adders on the Heath (14 page)

'What do you want with me, anyway?' Borgia demanded, highly suspicious of the compliment.

'Tales out of school.'

'
How
much?'

'Tell me all about hydrocyanic acid.'

'Eh? Why?'

'Because I represent the Home Office.'

'What's that?'

'Ultimately it is the authority which decides whether murderers shall be hanged.'

'Oh, I see. And you represents 'em, does you?' His voice was contemptuous. Dame Beatrice leered at him and answered him blandly.

'From the psychiatric angle, yes. Now, look here, my poor young man, for your own sake you would be well advised to answer my questions.'

'And for why?'

'Two people have been poisoned, the one by hydrocyanic acid and the other by potassium cyanide. So far as we have been able to discover, you are one of the few people connected with the case who had access to both these poisons.'

'Wodger mean, connected with the case? I don't know nothing about it!'

'Come now,' said Dame Beatrice persuasively, 'you cannot deny that both substances are to be found in the school laboratory in which you work.'

'
Did
work.'

'I accept that amendment. You knew that they were there, and I have it upon evidence that you have been known to boast that you could kill the whole school, if you wished to do so.'

'It was only a bit of a joke.' He was on the defensive at last.

'So I suppose, but it may help you to avoid being suspected of two dastardly murders if you will help me in my enquiries.'

''Ow?'

'By telling me who, besides yourself and the science master, could have known that the poisons were there.'

'Why, anybody could of knowed-anybody at the school, that is.'

'Yes, but who, in particular, comes into your mind? You realise that one of the two murdered men may have had one particular connection with the school?'

'I don't realise nothing.' She knew that he did not. It would have been surprising if he had.

'Look, Mr.-er-Borgia-' she said.

'That ain't my name!'

'No, I did not suppose it was. On the other hand, you appear to have been proud enough of calling yourself by it until now.'

'I ain't give nobody no poison!'

'It might suit me to believe that, if I had no other sources of information.'

Borgia raised his voice.

'You're out to frame me! I don't know nothing about it! My name's Robinson and you're tryin' to take it away! Leave me be, I tell you, else I'll
do
you, you old...!'

'Very well,' said Dame Beatrice.

Robinson stood up and leaned menacingly over her.

'You ain't 'eard the last of this,' he said. 'No, nor you ain't 'eard the last of
me
, neither.'

'I look forward to the oral reunion,' said Dame Beatrice. 'Nevertheless, should anything come to your mind which might clear you of active participation in this affair, it might be as well to let me know. This address will find me.' She put a visiting-card on the table. The young man snatched it up.

'Oh?' he said, studying it. 'Oh, I getcher, Dame. Well, I better think things over. Ta for the tip. Be seein' yer.'

It was a strange kind of retreat, Dame Beatrice thought. She had scared him. So much was obvious. But whether he had guilty knowledge of the murders, or whether there was something else on his conscious, or whether, like so many persons, ignorant or otherwise, he had a horror of anything to do with the police, it was neither just nor possible, at this stage, to determine.

'He sounds a gosh-awful little oik,' commented Laura, when she was accorded an account of the interview. 'Do you really think he did it?'

'We should need to establish a connection between him and the two dead men before we could begin to speculate upon his guilt or innocence, child, and I do not think that any such connection exists.'

'Meaning,' said Laura shrewdly, 'that, although he's a filthy little basket, you don't believe he'd commit murder.'

'Well, not these particular murders. No, frankly, I do not think he would use poison. It would require an even lower type of mentality than that with which heaven appears to have blessed him, to call himself Borgia, if he really
did
intend to poison people, don't you think?'

'I've stopped thinking about this case,' said Laura. 'I always come back to the same old starting-point.'

'And that, in your opinion, is...?'

'Who on earth except Denis could have known that Richardson was camping up there on the heath
and
that he'd had two rows with that man? Again, who would have risked changing over the bodies like that, knowing (I somehow feel), that Richardson had seen the first one?'

'Ah,' said Dame Beatrice, wagging her head. 'Think it out for yourself. There is only one answer to each of those questions and I fancy I know what it is. But we must have proof.'

CHAPTER TWELVE

WOMAN AND CHILD

'What a situation am I in! If what you say appears, I shall then find a guilty son.'

Oliver Goldsmith-
She Stoops to Conquer

The boy was called Clive Maidston and appeared to be a spoilt child. Mr Maidston was at work when Dame Beatrice called, and his wife received her with a certain amount of reserve.

'Mr Richardson?' she said. 'Well, there, of course, there were difficulties.'

'I
liked
Mr Richardson,' said Clive. 'You needn't have sent him away.'

'Oh, he was sent away, was he?' asked Dame Beatrice.

'It wasn't my fault,' said the boy. 'I didn't want him to leave.'

'Now, Clive,' said his mother, 'you must either go out of the room or else you must stop listening.'

'Sex means nothing to me,' said Clive, a small, pale boy with large eyes. 'When I'm eighteen I shall go into a monastery. I may get a bit of peace there.'

'They wouldn't have you, dear. You have to be a
good
boy for that,' retorted his mother.

'You think you have a vocation?' asked Dame Beatrice, fixing the child with her basilisk gaze.

'I'm pretty sure I have.'

'How old are you?'

'Never you mind. God made me what I am.'

'We must circumvent Him, then.'

'You're a nut case.'

'And you,' his mother broke in, 'are a rude, impertinent boy and a disgrace to your upbringing.'

'Impudent, not impertinent. Why don't you use the dictionary?' demanded the child. 'Well, what have you come for?' he asked Dame Beatrice. 'You're not one of these psychology sharks, are you?'

Dame Beatrice leered at him.

'Your perspicacity does you credit,' she replied. 'How did you guess, I wonder?'

'I didn't. I was being bloody rude.'

'Clive! Really
!' protested his mother.

'Why
was
Mr Richardson dismissed?' Dame Beatrice enquired. She was beginning to wonder why Richardson had not resigned this particular post instead of waiting to be asked to leave.

'It was the letters,' said Clive.

'Clive, dear, don't be
silly
! You know nothing about it,' said his mother.

'I do, too. I read the letters. They were all lies. Mr Richardson didn't have a girl friend in this house.'

'Who said anything about girls?'

'Oh, mother, be your age!'

'I believe that particular expression to be outdated,' said Dame Beatrice.

'Well, how the hell should
I
know? I'm not allowed to go anywhere, or see anybody or anything!' He flung himself on the floor and began to drum his heels. 'Why can't I go back to school?'

'Oh, dear!' said his mother. 'Now he's gone into one of his moods! He really is
terribly
difficult!'

'I wouldn't be difficult if you weren't a-old-!' screamed Clive. Dame Beatrice picked him up, and stood him on his feet and gave him a slight and friendly shake.

'That's enough,' she said gently. 'Go out of the room and come back when you can behave like a boy and not like an hysterical puppy.'

'Well, really!' said his mother. Clive glowered darkly at Dame Beatrice and muttered, 'I'll
get
you,' but he went out of the room.

'Now,' said Dame Beatrice, 'what can you tell me about Mr Richardson?'

'Oh, but I must go and see to Clive. We never know
what
to do with him when he flies into one of his tempers. He might throw himself out of his bedroom window. He's often threatened it.'

'Always a splendid sign. The children who do it seldom threaten it beforehand.'

'But you
shook
him!'

'Yes, yes. And now about Mr Richardson. What were those letters your son mentioned?'

'Nothing. Some anonymous filth.'

'How did your son come to read them?'

'Oh, they were addressed to my husband, and Clive stole the keys of his desk.'

'But they referred to Mr Richardson?'

'In the most sensational terms, so much so that we felt we could not keep him on.'

'Perhaps I may be allowed to read them.'

'I don't suppose my husband has kept them, but I'll go and see, if you wish.' She went out of the room, but soon returned with the news, not unexpected by Dame Beatrice, that she could not find the letters. Dame Beatrice gave a non-committal nod and demanded briskly,

'Why does not Clive go back to school, if that's what he wants?'

'I thought I had mentioned that. He is very delicate and very highly strung.'

'A very old-fashioned boy,' said Dame Beatrice. At this moment Clive flung the door open and appeared as dramatically as an amateur actor making an over-played entrance.

'I burnt them! I burnt them!' he yelled. Dame Beatrice regarded him with benign interest. He stared at her for a moment and then cast himself into her arms.

'Well, really, Clive!' said his mother. Dame Beatrice pushed him, kindly but without emotion, on to the sofa.

'Did you, now?' she said. 'Well, you read them before you burnt them. Did they add to the total of the world's knowledge?'

'They were a lot of damned lies,' sobbed the child.

'So much is obvious. Be specific,' said Dame Beatrice.

'What's that?' He sat up, master of himself again.

'
You
know!' retorted Dame Beatrice, who had learned this cliche from her secretary.

They said he...well,
you
know!' said Clive, adroitly turning the tables.

'And you know that this was not true?'

'That string-bean!'

'
Really
, Clive!' protested his mother.

'He does not lack stamina,' said Dame Beatrice; but whether she referred to Richardson or to Clive, neither the boy nor his mother could tell. Dame Beatrice did not beat about the bush. 'How well do you know some people named Campden-Towne?' she enquired of the woman. Her tone was abrupt and compelling. Mrs Maidston glanced at Clive. His eyes were venomous.

'Campden-Towne? Oh, well, yes, I suppose you might call them acquaintances of ours,' she said weakly. Clive made a very rude noise. She ignored it. 'Why do you ask?'

'There is some slight evidence that they may be able to shed a little light on Mr Richardson's activities when he discovered that a dead man had been placed in his tent. You have read about that, I am sure.'

'Well, I don't see what it has to do with us.'

'Yes, you do,' said Clive. 'You sacked Mr Richardson. That's what she's here about. She just wants to know
why
. It
wasn't
the letters, whatever you may say. You didn't have to
believe
the letters. They were phoney, and you jolly well know they were. You said yourself, a minute ago-'

'Be quiet, Clive! You weren't in the room-'

'No, but I listened outside the door,' observed the repellent but pathetic child. 'You ought to know me by now.'

'Indeed?' said his mother, very coldly, but with a terrified glance at Dame Beatrice. 'You are an untruthful, nasty-minded little boy and had better go to your room.'

The boy put out his tongue at her and accepted this advice. Left by themselves, the two women faced one another squarely.

Clive's mother fidgeted with a bracelet.

'He's such a little snooper,' she said.

'Well, now, why
was
Mr Richardson dismissed?' demanded Dame Beatrice. 'You are not going to tell me that you or your husband would jeopardise a young man's future because of some anonymous comments on his character?-comments which you yourself describe as filthy.'

'Well, of course, it wasn't only the letters. He was unsatisfactory,' said Mrs Maidston, hedging.

'As a tutor?'

'Oh, in other ways, too. He was quite disinclined to exert himself in any way which did not take his fancy.'

'Such as...?'

'Well, there seemed no reason why he should not have done a little secretarial work for my husband in the evenings, but would he help him?'

'I presume that he would not. Was it agreed beforehand that he should do so?'

'It couldn't have been, could it? Otherwise my husband would have insisted. One would have thought, though, that Mr Richardson might have stretched a point in order to help out. My husband is a very busy man.'

'How
did
Mr Richardson spend his evenings?'

'In his own room, mostly, using the electric light and the electric fire. Sometimes he switched on his wireless set.'

'His own property?'

'Oh, yes, but
our
electricity. It wasn't a battery set, you see. That young man had plenty of perks here.'

'How did he and your son get on together?'

'When you speak of Clive as my son, well, of course, he isn't. He is the child of a maid we used to have. It's not a formal adoption. She agreed to let us have him, but since then she has completely disappeared. We've tried to trace her, but without success.'

'You wish to adopt the boy?'

'I want to get rid of him. He's uncouth and unmannerly, as you saw for yourself. He's nothing but a tie, and he's so ungrateful for everything that's done for him that he doesn't deserve a good home.'

'But he and Mr Richardson seemed to hit it off, I gather. Why do you think that was?' The woman clasped her hands together.

'I have no idea,' she replied. 'Clive did not seem to be learning anything and his manners did not improve. In any case, I...there were things about Mr Richardson of which nobody could possibly approve. When he was not wasting our electricity in his own room, he was disporting himself at the local public house.'

'Disporting himself?'

'Beer, darts and, no doubt, flashy girls.'

'Ah, yes, no doubt. And the anonymous letters enlarged upon the importance in his life of the flashy girls, I suppose.'

'I suppose so, if you care to put it that way. Anyhow, what with Clive's lack of progress
and
the anonymous letters
and
these public house visits (all too frequent, I'm afraid),
and
his disobligingness towards my husband,
and
the waste of electricity with the consequent expense...well, I ask you!'

'Expense? I suppose, though, that, even allowing for the electricity plus Mr Richardson's salary, it was a good deal cheaper to keep Clive in tutors than to pay the fees at a preparatory school.'

'I have never considered the matter, and I am certain my husband has not.'

'I am sorry I could not meet him.' Dame Beatrice rose to take her leave. 'Thank you so much for receiving me. I have found our talk most informative and have enjoyed it very much.'

Clive's foster-mother rang the bell and directed a tousle-haired maid to show Dame Beatrice out. On the drive was the child. He sidled up to Dame Beatrice and cast conspiratorial glances round about.

'Hist!' he said. 'Do you read the Bible at all?'

'A most interesting library,' she replied.

'Yes, well, what about Potiphar's wife?' He leapt away, but, with a yellow claw of surprising strength, Dame Beatrice collared him.

'Before you return to your room, to which I believe you were sent by your mother,' she said, 'there is something I should be interested to know. There are two things, in fact.'

'I shall please myself whether I tell you.'

'Of course, Clive. That is understood.'

'You see,' said Clive, 'I'm a bastard.'

'So was the Duke of Orleans at the time of Joan of Arc. He was also a most able general. Then, of course, there is Shakespeare's
King Lear,
in which a bastard is one of the most important characters. But you were saying...?'

'Oh, nothing. What do you want to know?'

'Where you went to school and how you got on with Mr Richardson while he was your tutor.'

'My form-master, too. He saved me from a licking once, for something I hadn't done. He got the push later on, but I don't know why. My people took me away before he went. I was ever so surprised when he turned up here as my tutor.'

'Oh, dear! These coincidences!' said Dame Beatrice, disguising her delight at obtaining this valuable information. 'Well, good-bye, Clive. I hope we shall meet again at some future time. I suppose you weren't
expelled
from the school, were you?'

'Me? Don't give it a thought. Of course I wasn't. Mind you, I ought to have been, but nobody knew about that...no one at school, I mean, except-well, he took the money all right. I told them at home because I didn't want any mistakes.'

'What kind of mistakes?'