Murdering Ministers (17 page)

“Let me guess why,” Geoffrey offered smugly.

“Go ahead,” said Effie, munching on a celery stick.

“If you're right, and Tapster was poisoned, it must have been given to him shortly before he died. I mean, it wasn't as if he ingested it with his cornflakes that morning.”

“That's right. Strychnine should work within about ten to twenty minutes.”

“Well, the only things he consumed in the ten minutes before he died were bread and wine, during the Communion service. So the poison must have been in the bread or in the wine.”

“Go on.”

“And since Paul Piltdown passed him both, Paul must have been the killer.” Geoffrey folded his arms and smirked until his small eyes almost disappeared. Oliver considered tipping his friend's coffee into his lap.

“And so?” Effie asked.

“Er, that's it, actually,” Geoffrey concluded nervously.

“What do you mean that's it?” Oliver exploded, attracting odd glances from the diners at nearby tables. He lowered his voice.

“It doesn't answer anything,” he went on rapidly. “Did Tapster eat or drink anything else during those ten minutes? If he was poisoned, and the poison is strychnine, can it be administered some other way, such as through the skin? And if it
was
in the bread and wine, did Paul know it was there? Could someone else have spiked the sacraments? If the plates had been taken up and down the church first, what was to stop another communicant taking the poisoned pellet or glass? When it got back to the platform, how could Paul know which one to hand Tapster? Was the poison really meant for Tapster or was there a different intended victim? Or any intended victim at all—perhaps it was a random act of appalling mischief, and the lot fell on Tapster? Come on, Geoffrey, Inspector Welkin must have had more to go on than that before he arrested Paul!”

“He didn't,” Effie said abruptly, stopping Oliver before he was able to voice his opinion of Geoffrey's higher mental facilities.

“What?”

“It happened exactly as Geoffrey said,” she continued airily. “All the witness statements agreed that Paul was the last person to touch the bread and wine before Tapster, so he must have known which was the poisoned glass. Incidentally, we're assuming that the strychnine was dissolved in the wine. It would be easier to isolate a specially prepared glass than a single piece of bread in a big pile, and the alcohol in the wine would go a long way to masking the poison's bitterness.”

“Everything all right, darlings?” cried Susie, bustling into view with a coffee jug in each hand. “Anyone for a top-up?”

“‘The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle,'” muttered a distracted Oliver. “‘The flagon with the dragon is the brew that is true.'”

“Who are you calling a dragon, you Swithin you?” Susie demanded, although good humor flashed in her chocolate-brown eyes. She elbowed Oliver in the ear and filled their mugs without asking. “This is my special Generic Café brew,” she crowed. It has no caffeine, no special flavorings, and no foul aftertaste.”

“In fact, no taste whatsoever,” muttered Geoffrey, but the others noticed he waited until Susie had flounced out of earshot to terrorize her other customers. He scooped several spoonfuls of sugar into his mug.

“Then how does Welkin think Paul got the poison to Tapster?” Oliver asked.

“He's working on the notion that the poisoned glass was never on the serving trays. That Paul either slipped the strychnine into Tapster's glass just before he took it, or that he somehow had a prepared glass in his pocket or hidden under the table, which he palmed off on Tapster at the last moment. We didn't find anything that would back this up at the crime scene or in Paul's pockets—stuff like empty packets or pieces of cling-wrap or Sellotape. But I have to say, Paul's attitude didn't help his case.”

“The vicar a bit bolshy, was he?” asked Geoffrey.

“He was distinctly uncooperative. I had the same sense I had yesterday, when Oliver and I talked to him about Tina's disappearance. I think he's hiding something—even if it's only a suspicion of who's really behind Tapster's death. Paul's just not very good at lying.”

“It doesn't make sense,” Oliver said thoughtfully. “Even if Paul wanted to murder Tapster—and I know they had an argument the other day—why would he do it there and then?”

“Perhaps it was the only opportunity he would have to pass the poison?” Effie offered.

“No, he only had to inveigle Tapster round to the manse. You've seen how adept Paul is with a kettle and a packet of Jaffa Cakes. Well, not the Jaffa Cakes, maybe. In England, you offer tea to your worst foes.”

“And it would be a lot easier under those circumstances to prove that Paul did it,” said Effie. “In church, in a Communion service, you've got a full deck of deacons to stand in as the unusual suspects.”

“Tapster had no shortage of enemies on that platform,” Oliver remarked. “Paul and Nigel were at loggerheads over doctrinal issues, apparently. Old Cedric had just been supplanted on the diaconate. Patience Coppersmith feared for her son. Sam Quarterboy feared for his daughter. Only Dougie Dock seems free of any motive, which is a shame, because I'd like to see him locked up for life.”

“And let's not forget all the other communicants,” Geoffrey said, warming to Oliver's flight of imagination. “Perhaps all the church members ganged up to protect their children from the Exorcist of Plumley. On Friday night, they make Tapster a deacon, thus assuring him of his place at the Lord's table the next Sunday, when they ritually sacrifice him in full view of the entire Diaconalist congregation.”

He broke off. Susie had returned to the table, holding Detective Superintendent Mallard by the arm.

“Look what the cat's dragged in,” she sang gleefully, indulging her taste for older men and her affection for Mallard in particular by pressing her body against his and leaving several lip-prints on his neck. As always, Mallard handled it stoically, knowing that Oliver would report the encounter to his aunt anyway. He shook hands with Geoffrey and gave Effie a demure off-duty kiss on the cheek.

“Well, Uncle Tim…” Oliver began, as Mallard pulled a chair up to the table.

“Don't!” Mallard growled, glaring at his nephew.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Don't start with the comments. Why don't I take a seat, have I got to the bottom of this, is there no end to that. I'm sure you've told your friends all about my moment of indignity, and they're dying to join in, but I don't want to hear it.”

“What indignity?” asked Geoffrey, seemingly mystified.

“I'm not sure what you're referring to,” added Susie. “Did something happen to your…you know…London derriere.”

Mallard looked suspiciously around the table. “You didn't mention it?” he asked Oliver, who simply raised his eyebrows quizzically.

“Mention
what
?” Geoffrey demanded.

“It doesn't matter.”

“No, come on, Uncle Tim, you have to tell us now,” insisted Susie, perching on a chair.

Mallard lowered his gaze. “Oh, well, it was just something that happened the other evening, on the opening night of my play. I had a slight accident with my costume. I'm surprised Ollie hasn't described it. Let's just say…”

“The audience saw your Bottom!” Geoffrey and Susie chanted together, breaking up into howls of laughter. A couple at a neighboring table left without waiting for their change.

“I could have you all arrested!” Mallard thundered, trying to look as fierce as Assistant Commissioner Weed looked when he was mildly peeved. He held the expression for five seconds, then he started to laugh too.

He laughed longer and louder than the others. It was the first time since his enforced vacation and potential retirement that he had permitted himself to find anything funny. Oliver, watching his uncle wiping his eyes with a plain white napkin, knew this, and waited until his chuckles had largely subsided before asking the question that he guessed would be on Effie's mind, too, although he suspected he knew the true answer.

“So what brings you here, Uncle Tim?”

Mallard gave a brisk shrug. “Oh, I was just in the neighborhood,” he answered casually. “At the Yard actually, down the road. I called your house, but nobody was in. So I thought I take a chance and see if you'd popped over here for brunch, since I have a bit of time to kill before tonight's performance.”

As Oliver thought. Mallard was bored stiff at home. Because of the long hours of murder investigations, Aunt Phoebe had grown used to not having her husband around during the day, and she had adopted a slew of hobbies, activities, and local causes, which couldn't be put aside this side of Christmas. Phoebe had accepted that, apart from an elaborate annual jaunt to an exotic foreign location of her choosing, her quality time with Tim would have to be spent largely in bed at night, and she continued to make sure that they experienced the full range of options offered by that location, as she would often remark on family gatherings to Oliver's general discomfort. However, it did explain why Mallard always made the long trip back to Theydon Bois every night, even during an intense investigation, when his colleagues might have found a cheap hotel or kipped down on one of the Yard's well-used sofas.

“I thought you were on holiday,” Effie remarked.

“Oh, I needed to check something with the assistant commissioner's office,” Mallard answered airily.

“I'm surprised Weed was at work on a Sunday.”

“Er, he wasn't,” said Mallard, unavoidably glancing at Geoffrey. “In fact, the cleaners were in.” The two men smiled at each other. Oliver dismissed the hint of a conspiracy, on the grounds that Geoffrey Angelwine could not possibly have any secrets worth sharing. He assumed instead that Mallard's visit to the Yard was another abortive attempt to steal his personnel file.

“But enough about me,” Mallard said quickly. “How's the case?”

“Do you mean the disappearance or the murder?” Geoffrey asked before Oliver could stop him. He kicked him under the table anyway.

“A murder!” Mallard breathed, his eyes widening behind his glasses. He smoothed his white moustache. “You've had a murder in Plumley! Oh, Effie, tell me all about it.”

“Now, now, Tim,” she said quickly, “it only happened today, and I was there by accident, still looking for my runaway.”

“You mean
you
discovered the body?” he asked, almost drooling in his thirst for information.

“Not exactly. I was there even earlier.”

“You witnessed it! By the cringe, Eff, you actually witnessed a murder! So did you make an arrest?”

“An arrest has been made, but it wasn't as simple as that. You see, strychnine was used, and—”

”Strychnine!” Mallard exclaimed, thumping his coffee mug on the table and clutching his head in his hands. A couple of customers who had just sat down tossed aside their menus and headed quickly for the door. Susie ignored them.

“In thirty-five years on the force,” Mallard was complaining loudly, “I've never done a strychnine murder. Why, it's positively Agatha Christie. And I take one lousy, unplanned vacation, and you get strychnine poisoning. I'm going to
kill
that Weed!”

Three more tables tried to wave at their waiters, making scribbling gestures. Mallard sat up and pulled his chair closer to the table.

“All right, Effie,” he said, “here's what you have to do. Now the first thing to remember is that strychnine is surprisingly easy to find. It's in old medicines and tonics that you can find in junk stores or people's basements, it's been used for pest control, for controlling facial tics—you can even order it over the Internet. Second, people don't die through ingesting strychnine itself, but from the physical reactions it produces in the body. It takes about a hundred milligrams to be sure that somebody is dead…”

“Tim.”

“…but under certain circumstances, much lower doses will do the trick. So start by—”

He stopped, partly because it had occurred to him that she had spoken his name, but mainly because she was waving her napkin at him, like a surrendering bandit.

“Tim,” Effie said again, “I truly appreciate the advice, and there's nobody on Earth I would rather hear it from, but it's not my case. Detective Inspector Welkin is SIO. I'm only a sergeant, remember?”

“Yes, but I would have thought with your experience on the squad, even those idiots over at Plumley would have made an exception.”

“It's not very likely that any murder would be left to a mere sergeant, no matter how respected his or her mentor,” Effie said with a gentle smile. Mallard thought for a second.

“But surely young Welkin's made you his number two for this one?”

“No, and I don't blame him,” she added quickly, before he could object to his former protégé's apparent loss of reason. “This is a golden opportunity for the new man to train one or two of his regular team, not someone who'll be out of his manor in a week or so. What if the investigation goes on longer?”

Mallard knew she was right, and he sat in silence, distracted by the prospect of the following year. Yes, Effie would be out of Plumley CID and back at Scotland Yard on the second of January, but would he be there to lead her?

“I bet you wish you were in on this one, too, eh?” he said to Oliver in avuncular tones.

“Actually, Uncle, I spent an hour with the victim on Thursday and I visited the scene of the crime yesterday. And I've known the suspected killer since I was five.”

“How unlike the home life of our own dear Queen,” said Susie merrily, while Mallard gaped at his nephew. She stood up and looked around the deserted restaurant, puzzled. Then she sat down again and poured herself a cup of coffee.