Strong Poison (30 page)

“I’ve still got to prove it.”

“A secondary consideration, my lord.”

“Wimsey yawned. When Bunter returned a minute or two later with the coffee, he was asleep.

Bunter put the books quietly away, and looked with some curiosity at the chosen few left on the table. They were: The Trial of Florence Maybrick; Dixon Mann’s Forensic Medicine and Toxicology; a book with a German title which Bunter could not read; and A. E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad.

Bunter studied these for a few moments, and then slapped his thigh softly.

“Why, of course!” he said under his breath, “why, what a mutton-headed set of chumps we’ve all been!” He touched his master lightly on the shoulder,

“Your coffee, my lord.”

“Then you won’t marry me?” said Lord Peter.

The prisoner shook her head.

“No. It wouldn’t be fair to you. And besides -”

“Well?”

“I’m frightened of it. One couldn’t get away. I’ll live with you, if you like, but I won’t marry you.”

Her tone was so unutterably dreary that Wimsey could feel no enthusiasm for this handsome offer.

“But that sort of thing doesn’t always work,” he expostulated. “Dash it all, you ought to know – forgive my alluding to it and all that – but it’s frightfully inconvenient, and one has just as many rows as if one was married.”

“I know that. But you could cut loose any time you wanted to.”

“But I shouldn’t want to.”

“Oh, yes, you would. You’ve got a family and traditions, you know. Caesar’s wife and that sort of thing.”

“Blast Caesar’s wife! And as for the family traditions – they’re on my side, for what they’re worth. Anything a Wimsey does is right and heaven help the person who gets in the way. We’ve even got a damned old family motto about it – ‘I hold by my Whimsy’ – quite right too. I can’t say that when I look in the glass I exactly suggest to myself the original Gerald de Wimsey, who bucked about on a cart horse at the Siege of Acre, but I do jolly well intend to do what I like about marrying. Who’s to stop me? They can’t eat me. They can’t even cut me, if it comes to that. Joke, unintentional, officers, for the use of.”

Harriet laughed.

“No, I suppose they can’t cut you. You wouldn’t have to slink abroad with your impossible wife and live at obscure continental watering-places like people in Victorian novels.”

“Certainly not.”

“People would forget I’d had a lover?“

“My dear child, they’re forgetting that kind of thing every day. They’re experts at it.”

“And was supposed to have murdered him?”

“And were triumphantly acquitted of having murdered him, however greatly provoked.”

“Well, I won’t marry you. If people can forget all that, they can forget we’re not married.”

“Oh, yes, they could. I couldn’t, that’s all. We don’t seem to be progressing very fast with this conversation. I take it the general idea of living with me does not hopelessly repel you?”

“But this is all so preposterous,” protested the girl. “How can I say what I should or shouldn’t do if I were free and certain of – surviving?”

“Why not? I can imagine what I should do even in the most unlikely circumstances, whereas this really is a dead cert, straight from the stables.”

“I can’t,” said Harriet, beginning to wilt. “Do please stop asking me. I don’t know. I can’t think. I can’t see beyond the – beyond the – beyond the next few weeks. I only want to get out of this and be left alone.”

“All right,” said Wimsey, “I won’t worry you. Not fair. Abusing my privilege and so on. You can’t say ‘Pig’ and sweep out, under the circs., so I won’t offend again. As a matter of fact I’ll sweep out myself, having an appointment – with a manicurist. Nice little girl, but a trifle refained in her vowels. Cheerio!”

The manicurist, who had been discovered by the help of Chief-Inspector Parker and his sleuths, was a kitten-faced child with an inviting manner and a shrewd eye. She made no bones about accepting her client’s invitation to dine and showed no surprise when he confidentially murmured that he had a little proposition to put before her. She put her plump elbows on the table, cocked her head at a coy angle, and prepared to sell her honour dear.

As the proposition unfolded itself, her manner underwent an alteration that was almost comical. Her eyes lost their round innocence, her very hair seemed to grow less fluffy, and her eyebrows puckered in genuine astonishment.

“Why, of course I could,” she said finally, “but whatever do you want them for? Seems funny to me.”

“Call it just a joke,” said Wimsey.

“No.” Her mouth hardened. “I wouldn’t like it. It doesn’t make sense, if you see what I mean. What I mean, it sounds a queer sort of joke and that kind of thing might get a girl into trouble. I say, it’s not one of those, what do they call ’em? – there was a bit about it in Madame Crystal’s column last week, in Susie’s Snippets – spells, you know, witchcraft – the occult, that sort of thing? I wouldn’t like it if it was to do any harm to anybody.”

“I’m not going to make a waxen image, if that’s what you mean. Look here, are you the sort of girl who can keep a secret?”

“Oh, I don’t talk. I never was one to let my tongue wag around. I’m not like ordinary girls.”

“No, I thought you weren’t. That’s why I asked you to come out with me. Well, listen, and I’ll tell you.”

He leaned forward and talked. The little painted face upturned to his grew so absorbed and so excited that a bosom friend, dining at a table some way off, grew quite peevish with envy, making sure that darling Mabel was being offered a flat in Paris, a Daimler car and a thousand-pound necklace, and quarrelled fatally with her own escort in consequence.

“So you see,” said Wimsey, “it means a lot to me.”

Darling Mabel gave an ecstatic sigh.

“Is that all true? You’re not making it up? It’s better than any of the talkies.”

“Yes, but you mustn’t say one word. You’re the only person I’ve told. You won’t give me away to him?”

“Him? He’s a stingy pig. Catch me giving him anything. I’m on. I’ll do it for you. It’ll be a bit difficult, ’cause I’ll have to use the scissors, which we don’t do as a rule. But I’ll manage. You trust me. They won’t be big ones, you know. He comes in pretty often, but I’ll give you all I get. And I’ll fix Fred. He always has Fred. Fred’ll do it if I ask him. What’ll I do with them when I get them?”

Wimsey drew an envelope from his pocket.

“Sealed up inside this,” he said, impressively, “there are two little pillboxes. You mustn’t take them out till you get the specimens, because they’ve been carefully prepared so as to be absolutely chemically clean, if you see what I mean. When you’re ready, open the envelope, take out the pill-boxes, put the parings into one and the hair into the other, shut them up at once, put them into a clean envelope and post them to this address. Get that?”

“Yes.” She stretched out an eager hand.

“Good girl. And not a word.”

“Not – one – word!” She made a gesture of exaggerated caution…

“When’s your birthday?”

“Oh, I don’t have one. I never grow up.”

“Right; then I can send you an unbirthday present any day in the year. You’d look nice in mink, I think.”

“Mink, I think,” she mocked him. “Quite a poet, aren’t you?”

“You inspire me,” said Wimsey, politely.

“I have come round,” said Mr. Urquhart, “in answer to your letter. I am greatly interested to hear that you have some fresh information about my unfortunate cousin’s death. Of course I shall be delighted to give you any assistance I can.”

“Thank you,” said Wimsey. “Do sit down. You have dined, of course? But you will have a cup of coffee. You prefer the Turkish variety, I fancy. My man brews it rather well.”

Mr. Urquhart accepted the offer, and complimented Bunter on having achieved the right method of concocting that curiously syrupy brew, so offensive to the average Occidental.

Bunter thanked him gravely for his good opinion, and proffered a box of that equally nauseating mess called Turkish Delight, which not only gluts the palate and glues the teeth, but also smothers the consumer in a floury cloud of white sugar. Mr. Urquhart immediately plugged his mouth with a large lump of it, murmuring indistinctly that it was the genuine Eastern variety. Wimsey, with an austere smile, took a few sips of strong black coffee without sugar or milk, and poured himself out a glass of old brandy. Bunter retired, and Lord Peter, laying a note-book open upon his knee, glanced at the clock and began his narrative.

He recapitulated the circumstances of Philip Boyes’ life and death at some length. Mr. Urquhart, yawning surreptitiously, ate, drank and listened.

Wimsey, still with his eye on the clock, then embarked upon the story of Mrs. Wrayburn’s will.

Mr. Urquhart, considerably astonished, set his coffee-cup aside, wiped his sticky fingers upon his handkerchief, and stared.

Presently he said:

“May I ask how you have obtained this very remarkable information?”

Wimsey waved his hand.

“The police,” he said, “wonderful thing, police organisation. Surprisin’ what they find out when they put their minds to it. You’re not denying any of it, I presume?”

“I am listening,” said Mr. Urquhart, grimly. “When you have finished this extraordinary statement, I may perhaps discover exactly what it is I have to deny.”

“Oh, yes,” said Wimsey, “I’ll try to make that clear. I’m not a lawyer, of course, but I’m tryin’ to be as lucid as I can.”

He droned remorselessly on, and the hands of the clock went round.

“So far as I make it out,” he said, when he had reviewed the whole question of motive, “it was very much to your interest to get rid of Mr. Philip Boyes. And indeed the fellow was, in my opinion, a pimple and a wart, and in your place I should have felt much the same about him.”

“And is this the whole of your fantastic accusation?” enquired the solicitor.

“By no means. I am now coming to the point. Slow but sure is the motto of yours faithfully. I notice that I have taken up seventy minutes of your valuable time, but believe me, the hour has not been unprofitably spent.”

“Allowing that all this preposterous story were true, which I most emphatically deny,” observed Mr. Urquhart, “I should be greatly interested to know how you imagine that I administered the arsenic. Have you worked out something ingenious for that? Or am I supposed to have suborned my cook and parlourmaid to be my accomplices? A little rash of me, don’t you think, and affording remarkable opportunities for blackmail?”

“So rash,” said Wimsey, “that it is quite out of the question for a man so full of forethought as yourself. The sealing-up of that bottle of burgundy, for example, argues a mind alive to possibilities – unusually so. In fact, the episode attracted my attention from the start.”

“Indeed?”

“You ask me how and when you administered the poison. It was not before dinner, I think. The thoughtfulness shown in emptying the bedroom water-bottle – oh, no! that point was not missed – the care displayed in meeting your cousin before a witness and never being left alone with him – I think that rules out the period before dinner.”

“I should think it might.”

“The sherry,” pursued Wimsey, thoughtfully. “It was a new bottle, freshly decanted. The disappearance of the remains might be commented on. I fancy we can absolve the sherry.”

Mr. Urquhart bowed ironically.

“The soup – it was shared by the cook and parlourmaid and they survived. I am inclined to pass the soup, and the same thing applies to the fish. It would be easy to poison a portion of fish, but it would involve the co-operation of Hannah Westlock, and that conflicts with my theory. A theory is a sacred thing to me, Mr. Urquhart – almost a what d’you call it – a dogma.”

“An unsafe attitude of mind,” remarked the lawyer, “but in the circumstances I will not quarrel with it.”

“Besides,” said Wimsey, “if the poison had been given in the soup or the fish, it might have started to work before Philip – I may call him so, I hope? – had left the house. We come to the casserole. Mrs. Pettican and Hannah Westlock can give the casserole a clean bill of health, I fancy. And by the way, from the description it must have been most delicious. I speak as a man with some considerable experience in gastronomic matters, Mr. Urquhart.”

“I am well aware of it,” said Mr. Urquhart, politely.

“And now there remains only the omelette. A most admirable thing when well made and eaten – that is so important – eaten immediately. A charming idea to have the eggs and sugar brought to the table and prepared and cooked on the spot. By the way, I take it there was no omelette left over for the kitchen? No, no! One does not let a good thing like that go out half-eaten. Much better that the good cook should make a fine, fresh omelette for herself and her colleague. Nobody but yourself and Philip partook of the omelette, I am sure.”

“Quite so,” said Mr. Urquhart, “I need not trouble to deny it. But you will bear in mind that I did partake of it, without ill-effects. And moreover, that my cousin made it himself.”

“So he did. Four eggs, if I remember rightly, with sugar and jam from what I may call the common stock. No – there would be nothing wrong with the sugar or the jam. Er – I believe I am right in saying that one of the eggs was cracked when it came to the table?”

“Possibly. I do not really remember.”

“No? Well, you are not on oath. But Hannah Westlock remembers that when you brought the eggs in – you purchased them yourself, you know, Mr. Urquhart – you mentioned that one was cracked and particularly desired that it should be used for the omelette. In fact, you yourself laid it in the bowl for that purpose.”

“What about it?” asked Mr. Urquhart, perhaps a trifle less easily than before.