Speedy Death (27 page)

3.
Dorothy Bing.
—Well, poisoning is quite as much a woman’s crime as it is a man’s—more so, perhaps, as a man tends to rely upon his physical strength more than a woman does upon hers. Nevertheless, the important aspect of character comes in again here. One cannot tolerate the thought of that charming little girl as a murderer. Still, the facts of the case must not be burked on that account. Dorothy Bing’s life had been in danger from Eleanor.
N.B.
—I have not had the courage to ask her whether she knew that fact. I ought to have done so. In fact, I
must
do so. It would clear up a doubtful point. If she did know that Eleanor meant to kill her, she would have had a powerful motive for wishing Eleanor out of the way. Undoubtedly she has become a very different person since Eleanor’s death.

4.
Bertie Philipson.
—I cannot understand this young man. He poses as a butterfly, but there is something deeper in his nature than he wants one to see. He was in love with Dorothy Clark, and he certainly was quixotic enough to want Dorothy’s enemy to be out of the way. Of course, he has an alibi of a sort for that night when, presumably, the poison was administered, but that says nothing, because there is no evidence as to the exact time of death.

5.
Mrs Bradley.
—The evidence points a little more to her than to anybody else at present. The prosecution is bound to stress that point about the dirty coffee cup, unless the defence can put up a good show about the wineglass which was found.

At this point, Carstairs laid down his pen and laughed ruefully. Then he picked up his pencil, re-read his notes, looked at the clock, and determined to go for a walk and thrash the whole thing out again in his mind.

‘Starting from the point that poor Eleanor Bing was undoubtedly mad,’ he added, half humorously.

An hour’s hard walking brought him no further light, and he turned into his usual place for lunch with the problem still bombarding his brain. To his relief, nobody of his acquaintance was lunching near him, for he felt in no mood for the usual urbanities. Just as he was drinking coffee, however, in came a man he had known fairly well for some years. He was a medical man, a specialist in his own line, which happened to be tropical diseases. Carstairs determined to ask him a few questions. He had his coffee taken to the doctor’s table in response to a signalled invitation, and sat down there.

‘What do you mean by lunching, when all your patients are clamouring for attention?’ said Carstairs, smiling.

The other man grinned. He was tall, thin, and might easily have passed for an Oriental, so expressionless and dignified was his face, so urbane his manner, so charmingly polite and yet so absolutely non-committal his air.

‘My wife’s on holiday,’ he explained. ‘Must lunch somewhere, and I detest my own home when she isn’t there. Beastly month for a holiday, September, I think. But the school vacations settle these matters for us, don’t they?’

‘I am not a parent,’ said Carstairs dryly. ‘How is your daughter?’

‘Mavis? Oh, charming, charming! Of course, I very rarely see her. She is always out when I’m at home, or else in bed, or, as in this case, away with Phyllis. They’ve gone to Normandy. Do you know Normandy?’

‘Yes. My old nurse lives there,’ confessed Carstairs. ‘She is one hundred and two. But look here, Woodford, do you mind answering a few questions?’

‘My dear chap! Nothing wrong with you, I hope.’ The doctor was all professional concern at once.

‘No. Nothing wrong with me. But, Woodford, you have heard of the Bing case?’

‘I should think so! Oh, of course, you were staying there at the time. Found hyoscin-hydrobromide in the viscera, didn’t they? That’s a queer drug for a lay murderer to get hold of. Reminds me of the Crippen case. Do they know where she got it?’

‘Where who got it?’ asked the startled Carstairs.

‘Why, the woman they have arrested. Mrs Bradley, you know.’

‘Look here,’ said Carstairs. ‘I wanted to ask you about that drug. You see, strictly between ourselves, the other people down at the house—Chaynings, you know—don’t believe for an instant that this Mrs Bradley did it, and neither do I. There are various others who could equally well be suspected, as a matter of fact, but immediately the second inquest was over the police collared Mrs Bradley on very
slight evidence (it seemed to us), and charged her with the crime. She is behaving rather madly, I think, by reserving her defence.’

‘Oh? Is she doing that? Looks fishy, you know. Much better to make a frank statement to a magistrate or the coroner. The prosecution are certain to make a big point of that.’

Carstairs nodded gloomily. ‘She will not be persuaded,’ he said. ‘But what I really wanted to ask you was this. You say it is a queer drug for a lay murderer to procure. What’s your definition of a lay murderer?’

The other smiled.

‘I mean, of course, someone who is not a medical man—or woman.’

‘Thank you. Would a medical student be able to procure hyoscin easily?’

‘Oh, I should hardly think so. Certainly not enough to kill anybody, I should imagine.’

‘How much constitutes a fatal dose? It was given in the medical evidence at the inquest, of course, but I didn’t make a note of it.’

‘A fatal dose? Oh, a quarter to half a grain, I believe, but really, you know, it is out of my line. If you want to know all about hyoscin, an asylum for the insane is your objective. It is a calmative drug, often used for cases of nymphomania, I believe, and for violent cases—homicidal mania and so on. They use it a lot in America, if you feel inclined for a short sea trip.’

Carstairs left the doctor, feeling more downhearted than ever.

Hyoscin was a difficult drug to obtain. It was unlikely that Garde, the medical student, could have had any quantity of it in his possession. But it was used in the treatment of lunatics—and Mrs Bradley was a psycho-analyst and a specialist in mental and nervous diseases. She had visited asylums, both public and private, in America, where the drug was commonly used.

It looked a black, a horribly black, prospect for Mrs Bradley, if these facts came out in court.

‘The thing to do,’ Carstairs told himself glumly, ‘is to return to Chaynings and hunt about to find some clue to Mrs Bradley’s innocence which the police have overlooked.’

He arrived in the early afternoon to find Dorothy cutting roses and Garde seated on the verandah enjoying a cigarette.

‘Why on earth didn’t you let us know you were coming?’ cried Dorothy. ‘We could have met you with the car. What a long, dusty walk you must have had.’

‘Can I see Alastair?’ asked Carstairs.

‘That is just what you cannot do,’ said Garde, scowling. ‘The silly ass has gone to Tibet.’

‘Gone—where?’ cried Carstairs.

‘I don’t wonder you’re surprised,’ said Dorothy, laughing to see Carstairs’ look of bewilderment. ‘No, Garde is not pulling your leg. It’s the truth. He must have been quite prepared, and must have had all his arrangements cut and dried, because, the same day that the police arrested Mrs Bradley, off he went without a word to any of us. It was the
inspector who found out where he was bound for, and the police are afraid they won’t get him back in time for the trial. You see, they only found out for certain where he was going the day before yesterday, so he’s had nearly a month’s start. Of course he isn’t an important witness, but still——’

Carstairs whistled softly.

‘But surely he knew he would be wanted as a witness,’ he said. ‘I can’t understand it.’

‘I can,’ said Garde. ‘Lazy old devil! Didn’t want to be bothered. Thought he’d get away before they could serve the papers on him. Well, I jolly well hope they catch him. And I jolly well hope the defending counsel makes it hot for him. Of course, Dorothy and I don’t mind. It’s quite jammy for us to have the house to ourselves.’

‘I suppose, then, I can ask the favour of you that I’d intended to obtain from Alastair,’ said Carstairs.

‘Rather,’ cried Dorothy. ‘What is it?’

‘Shut up, minx,’ observed her husband, pulling her down on to his knee. ‘No petticoat government here.’

‘I want you to let me search the house and grounds to try and find any clue which will help to clear Mrs Bradley,’ said Carstairs. ‘As things are at present, it’s a poor look-out for her, I’m afraid.’

‘Do what you like, sir, of course,’ said Garde warmly. ‘I’ll tell the servants to let you have keys and things, and, if we can do anything to help, you must be sure to let us know.’

‘Thanks very much, old man,’ replied Carstairs.

‘Oh, and by the way, you might like to have a go at interrogating Mabel Cobb,’ suggested Garde. ‘I have a kind of notion that she’s thought over what she said at the inquest, and has decided that she can add a bit to it. She’s tried to sound me about what happens if a person tells less than the whole truth in court. I didn’t see what she was driving at, and I’m afraid I frightened her a bit, so I haven’t been able to get any more out of her. So you have a go. It may be important, or it may not.’

‘And there’s Eleanor’s diary,’ chimed in Dorothy. ‘We can’t make anything out of it, but you may be able to put two and two together.’

‘This sounds too good to be true,’ cried Carstairs. ‘Mabel Cobb and Eleanor’s diary! I suppose the police have seen it?’

‘The diary? Yes. The Chief Constable and the inspector have both seen it, and have come to the conclusion that Eleanor certainly murdered Everard Mountjoy. But, as we had all come to that conclusion ages ago, it seemed a bit pointless to rake it all up again,’ said Garde. ‘However, the police haven’t done any more nosing round in the house since they arrested Mrs Bradley, so, unless we’ve inadvertently disturbed them, your clues are all ready and waiting for you.’

Carstairs smiled.

‘I don’t really expect to have any luck,’ he said. ‘But I feel I must do something.’

The first thing he did was to send for Mabel Cobb.

Without any preliminary questions, and as a shot in the dark, he said:

‘What did you do with the coffee cup on the morning of Miss Bing’s death?’

‘I picked it up and took it downstairs to be washed up,’ said Mabel sullenly, and obviously prepared for a trap.

‘Oh? And, look here, Mabel, who was it you saw on the landing in the morning on the day of Miss Bing’s death?’

The shot told. Mabel gulped, turned red and then pale, and clutched the table as though she had received a blow and wanted to steady herself.

‘I—I—I—never saw nobody!’ she faltered at last.

Carstairs glared at her ferociously. ‘That won’t do!’ he barked. ‘Come, now!’

But Mabel had got over her momentary terror. Her foolish face was set like stone, and so had lost its foolish expression. Her hands were clenched, and she no longer held the table for support. Her voice was little more than a whisper, but what she said was short and to the point.

‘You can go to Jericho wi’ your old questions,’ said Mabel, ‘for I shan’t answer any of ’em! Who be you?’

With which Parthian shot she moved with dignity from the library.

Carstairs bit his lip, choked back burning words, and finally laughed.

‘I shall have to talk it over with Garde,’ he
thought. ‘But it can wait. Let’s see what we have here.’

He picked up Eleanor’s diary and opened it at the first page.

A good deal of the diary referred to household matters. It appeared that Eleanor used it as a memorandum for shopping, special cleaning, servants’ holidays, their hours off, their illnesses, and the like; Carstairs skipped the first half of the little book, which held nothing to interest him.

At the end of May, however, the tone of the entries changed. The references to household matters were as frequent, but were jotted down in a very brief form, shorthand signs being used here and there, obviously to leave room for other and, it appeared, more pressing matters.

There was a reference under the date of May 28th which ran: ‘Hodges. Windows. Din: 7. H. home wk-end. Father behaved scandalously. Cannot think what to do. Mabel notice. Could not sleep for thinking. Snake in the grass.’

‘I wonder what Alastair’s unfortunate lapse could have been, and what could have been its consequences,’ mused Carstairs, smiling.

Other references were made (on several subsequent dates) to the same occurrence, and the writer stressed the necessity for ‘getting rid of the dreadful girl at once.’

Farther on, Mabel was referred to as ‘that brazen hussy,’ and Alastair Bing as ‘my father, a monster of iniquity.’

‘She certainly seems to have taken something to
heart all right,’ thought Carstairs, turning to the next entry with interest.

It read, under the date of June 17th: ‘Father refuses to “shirk his responsibilities” as he (nobly!) calls them. The atrocity Mabel is to stay. Garde supports Father. I feel that it is pollution to be in the same house with them.’

‘Fancy anyone being so stirred up,’ thought Carstairs. ‘Poor Eleanor! She seems to have taken things to heart far more than any of them gave her credit for.’

He read on, under the date of June 24th:

‘Either that hideous snake or I must leave this house. I cannot and I will not remain under the same roof with her.’

At last there came the reference which Carstairs had been hoping to find. It appeared under the date of June 30th.

‘Father has had the audacity to invite guests as though nothing had happened. For the credit of the family I cannot go away until their visit is over. Garde has invited a woman, a Mrs Lestrange Bradley. I remember her.’

This entry continued straight on through the next day’s portion of this page.

‘She is that horrid little woman who inspected us in France. She got Garde out of some scrape—an Unpleasant Episode, I expect, if the truth were known,’ wrote the puritanical Eleanor, in highly suggestive capital letters.

Further on came the reference to Mountjoy.

‘One younger man is here to whom I feel
curiously attracted. Everard Mountjoy is his name.’

Here the diarist had scribbled the name ‘Everard’ several times at the bottom of the page, and in one place had followed it with the surname ‘Mountjoy,’ and then, very faintly, but perfectly plain to be seen, the word ‘Mrs’ had been insinuated in front of the whole name.