C S Lewis and the Country House Murders (C S Lewis Mysteries Book 2) (29 page)

Lady Pamela blinked away the tears that were once again beginning to form.

‘Might there not be other treatments that have not yet been tried? To have survived this long he must have a strong constitution. That being so, perhaps it’s time to tell the family the truth, to bring in new medical consultants—and to attempt a treatment, rather than just wait for his death.’

The rain had been thundering down steadily all through this conversation. Now it began to ease off. Lady Pamela rose, a little unsteadily, to her feet.

She took a few steps towards the library door, then turned and said, ‘You’ve given me something to think about, Mr Lewis. And I thank you for that.’ Then she was gone.

As I led Jack downstairs I asked him if he needed to borrow an umbrella. He insisted the rain had eased to a mere drizzle and he would be fine. Then I said I’d accompany him back to the pub—there was much we needed to talk about.

Keggs was waiting for us by the front door. We thanked him and set off briskly down the drive. I heard Keggs lock the door behind us, and I patted my pocket to make sure I was carrying my latch key as we walked swiftly towards the village street, and the light and warmth of the pub.

At
The Cricketers’ Arms
Mrs Rose offered us apple pie and clotted cream and a pot of tea for a late supper. We accepted enthusiastically.

Noticing Inspector Crispin and Sergeant Merrivale at their own supper across the room, I asked Jack, ‘Should we pass on what we’ve learned about Edmund to the police? Or to anyone else?’

‘Not for the moment. Let’s give Lady Pamela the chance to make her own decision.’

I nodded in agreement and then went back to attacking the apple pie and clotted cream.

About three mouthfuls later another thought occurred to me. ‘What did you make of that fragment of conversation we overheard coming from Sir William’s study?’

Jack polished off the last spoonful of his apple pie, leaned back in his chair and lit his pipe.

‘I think,’ he said as he poured another cup of tea, ‘that we’ve learned a little more about Sir William’s character. Nothing surprising really, just a little more confirmation.’

‘Does that count as a piece in your puzzle?’

‘A small but useful piece,’ Jack replied.

Ten minutes later we were instructing Alfred Rose to pass on our compliments to his wife for her home-baked apple pie when a shadow fell across our table. I looked up and saw it was the Long Arm of the Law—the shadow of Scotland Yard.

‘Evening, gentlemen,’ said Inspector Crispin, ‘may I join you?’

Without waiting for a reply he pulled up a chair and poured himself a cup from our pot of tea. He took a sip and then took a biscuit from the plate in the middle of the small table.

‘I love digestive biscuits with my tea,’ he said. Then he examined the biscuit itself and added, ‘and I do believe this is a Dyer’s Digestive Biscuit. Your employer, Mr Morris, and the owner of the house where this mystery began.’

‘If I were writing one of those mystery novels Warnie loves so much,’ I said, ‘I should call this
The Case of the Biscuits of Death
.’

Jack guffawed loudly. ‘But really, Morris, you would be misleading your prospective reader. I’ll grant you that the title has a certain ring to it, but in this case the cyanide was not in biscuits but in fruit cake and dry sherry.’

At this point Inspector Crispin helped himself to a second biscuit as he remarked quietly, ‘And in the brandy.’

‘Ah,’ said Jack, instantly latching on to the point, ‘the pathology report on Ruth Eggleston is back?’

‘Exactly,’ said the inspector, chasing his biscuit down with a sip of tea. ‘Once again, it’s cyanide poisoning. And from the stomach contents it appears she consumed the cyanide in brandy.’

‘Would that be strong enough to hide the bitter almond taste?’ Jack asked.

‘To a young person not used to drinking brandy, it probably would,’ the Scotland Yard man replied.

‘If it comes to that,’ I said, ‘how was the bitter almond taste masked in the dry sherry? Wouldn’t Stiffy Bassett have noticed something wrong with her sherry and refused to drink it?’

‘Do you have a theory on that, Mr Lewis?’ Crispin asked.

‘What if,’ said Jack, with a knowing look on his face, ‘the killer put sweet sherry into the dry sherry decanter, and then added cyanide? The combination of sweet and bitter might have made it taste like poor quality dry sherry—but by the time the victim thought to make a complaint, she would have sipped just enough of it to kill her.’

‘I do believe you’re right, Mr Lewis,’ said the inspector. ‘And the fruit cake?’

‘Well, many cooks include almonds in their rich, dark fruit cakes. Connie Worth may at first simply have assumed that she’d come across a bad almond—they can slip by even the most scrupulous of cooks. Once again, cyanide is swift acting and she was convulsing before she could complain.’

‘That’s exactly what the police have concluded, Mr Lewis,’ agreed the policeman.

For a few minutes we drank our tea in thoughtful silence.

‘Going back to poor Ruth Eggleston,’ I said. ‘Are you now convinced she falsified the record in the poisons book?’

‘I am absolutely convinced, Mr Morris,’ Crispin replied. ‘However, I should warn you that my local colleague, Inspector Hyde, is not.’

‘I can’t believe that!’ I protested. ‘The poor girl is killed to keep her quiet and he still thinks I purchased the missing cyanide from the local chemist!’

‘I’m very much afraid he does, Mr Morris. When we left him this afternoon he told us he was off to write up a report spelling out his case for your arrest. He intends to present this to the Chief Constable, Colonel Weatherly, and press very strongly for a warrant for your arrest to be issued immediately.’

I think I must have turned pale at these words, for Jack laughed and said, ‘Calm yourself, young Morris—an arrest warrant is not a death sentence. And for my good friend Inspector Crispin and me, the evidence is pointing in entirely another direction. Am I correct, inspector?’

‘You are, Mr Lewis.’

‘So how do you reconstruct the tragic story of young Ruth Eggleston?’ Jack asked the policeman.

‘She had some sort of relationship with the killer, that much is certain. Exactly what sort of relationship I’m not ready to speculate about just yet. But there must have been some sort of connection.’

‘One strong enough,’ Jack added, ‘to motivate her to steal cyanide from the chemist’s shop and then falsify the poisons book to make it appear that the missing cyanide had been sold to my friend Morris.’

‘Precisely. And that must be a very strong connection. Just what it is will, no doubt, appear in due course.’

Another rumbling roll of thunder made itself heard just then—but faintly and at a distance. The storm was moving away.

Inspector Crispin reached into his top coat pocket and produced a folded sheet of foolscap paper. This he unfolded and lay on the table in front of Jack. It was covered with closely spaced typing.

‘The autopsy report on Ruth Eggleston,’ he explained. ‘My sergeant doesn’t approve of my sharing police documents with civilians. But when I’m baffled by a case, I’m not too proud to admit it, and I’m not too proud to ask for help. Read it, Mr Lewis, and tell me what you think.’

Jack picked up the sheet and read it just as rapidly as he read everything. A moment later he handed it back to the inspector and said, ‘There are no surprises, are there? The killer talked her into stealing the cyanide and falsifying the poisons book. That’s a key clue to the whole mystery. I believe those steps were taken early, when the killer was still laying his plans, and before Ruth Eggleston had any idea of why she was doing what she was doing.’

‘And then,’ said the Scotland Yard man, ‘came the first death.’

‘At which point,’ Jack resumed, ‘she must have become frightened. She tried to play her part and continue the deception over the poisons book when we visited the chemist shop. But she was clearly uncomfortable, and she must have been having doubts about what her friend had asked her to do. Sadly, instead of coming to the police, as she should have done, the foolish girl decided to tackle her friend. Perhaps she refused to believe he was capable of murder. Perhaps he was persuasive when he protested that the stolen cyanide had nothing to do with Connie Worth’s murder. But as time went on, she must have found his protestations of innocence less and less convincing. I think he saw he was losing her. So he asked her to meet to talk the matter over one last time before she went to the police. Sadly, she agreed—and she walked to her death. He met her in some isolated spot, perhaps a regular meeting place of theirs. He offered her his flask of brandy—perhaps to steady her nerves, or because she was cold. She took a sip. She was sufficiently unfamiliar with brandy not to realise that the taste was all wrong. By then the cyanide was in her system. She would have died rapidly. Then the murderer disposed of her body in the manner we know he did.’

‘You keep saying “he”,’ I objected. ‘If Sergeant Merrivale were here he’d insist on “he or she”. Or are you saying that you know for certain the gender of the killer?’

Jack said, ‘At this stage Sergeant Merrivale’s qualification is probably still wise. But we’re getting closer, aren’t we, Crispin?’

‘I believe we are, Mr Lewis. I believe we are.’

‘Meanwhile,’ I said, a little petulantly, ‘Inspector Hyde is getting closer to me!’

Despite my late night I was awake early the next morning. I had slept badly, tossing in the bedclothes for much of the night with a dismal headache. Somehow the sheets and the blankets managed to creep off the bed in one direction and the counterpane in the other, while my pillow developed lumps I had never noticed before.

The best I could achieve all night was a little fitful and uncomfortable dozing. And from each doze I would wake with a fright, a cello player sawing away at the nerve endings in my brain and a persistent ringing in my ears. Then I would doze off again only to wake up cold and have to recover the bedclothes from the floor. These I made as comfortable as I could and eventually fell into a restless sleep.

When I finally awoke in the morning, I found one arm pinned under my body and riddled with pins and needles, while my feet had emerged from the blankets and were as cold as icicles.

When I tried to get up I discovered I had a crick in my neck and a headache that had just been waiting in the wings to return with a rush the moment I was vertical. My mouth, I found, was as dry as blotting paper and as rough as sandpaper. I downed the glass of water on my beside table, put on my dressing gown, grabbed a towel and made my way down the corridor to the bathroom.

Here I ran a hot bath, as hot as I thought I could stand, and sank into it with a sense of blessed relief. Once I had scrubbed, shaved and dressed in clean clothes I felt fully recovered and made my way downstairs to break my fast.

In the breakfast room Douglas and Will were helping themselves to generous servings of bacon and eggs from the sideboard. Uncle Teddy was already seated at the table, playing listlessly with a poached egg and staring at the piece of buttered toast in his hand as if he had never seen it before.

Just after I had helped myself to bacon, eggs, mushrooms and kidneys on toast, and taken my place at the table, Sir William and Lady Pamela entered the room together. But instead of going to the sideboard to load their plates with food, they stood just inside the door and surveyed us all.

Then they looked at each other, and Sir William said, ‘Douglas, Will—there’s someone we’d like you to meet.’

Lady Pamela stepped back into the doorway and led into the room a young man who came with her in shuffling, hesitant, reluctant steps. It was the same young man we had seen in Drax’s cottage the night before. He’d been cleaned up and was wearing better clothes, but it was the same man. His blond hair was tousled, and there was fear and confusion on his scarred, pockmarked face.

‘Boys,’ said Lady Pamela, ‘this is your Uncle Edmund.’

Douglas said, ‘No—that’s not Uncle Ed.’

Will said, ‘But he’s dead . . .’

Douglas said, ‘It can’t be!’