The Painted Cage (40 page)

Bertha sucked in her breath unsteadily.

‘Well, what else can I say,’ whispered Jessie, ‘except you know how sick the master is and no one attends him but her. She gives him all his medicines. She sent me up to him with something in a glass – cocaine, she said it was. I gave it to him but he refused, he shouted at me horribly. He said he had taken a whole chemist’s shop already that day, he wanted only brandy and not
whatever
else was in the glass. I took it back down and told her and then she went up and forced him to take it. I followed, I watched from the door. She told him Dr Charles had prescribed it and at last he drank it down.’

Jessie closed her eyes, for suddenly as she talked the sight of Mr Redmore’s suffering face came vividly before her. The memory of that terrible night thrust through her. She drew her breath in a sob. Bertha patted her arm, innocent of the reason for such emotion. Jessie had not told Bertha, and could not have told her if she had wished, of that night a week ago. The experience was
embedded in her like a barb that if pulled free would bring with it a part of her flesh.

In the bandstand the monkeys were walking a tightrope whilst eating cake from blue plates. Jessie and Bertha sat in silence before either of them spoke again.

‘All these, they are very serious things you are saying,’ said Bertha at last.

‘Oh yes, indeed,’ agreed Jessie, her voice still thick with memory.

‘And nobody knows why he is so ill?’ Bertha reaffirmed.

Jessie shook her head. ‘The doctors are mystified; none of their prescriptions help.’

‘How could they, if she is giving him secretly all that stuff?’

‘I reckon she thinks she’ll be free of him and marry that Mr Huckle,’ Jessie whispered.

‘If you are knowing these things, then before God, it is your duty to tell the doctor. Otherwise he cannot know. And if your master dies and you have said nothing and it is known you went to buy the poison, even if she sent you, or that you had given him the stuff, even if she asked you, who can say what will happen or how it will look for you?’ Bertha said.

‘Yes, she might turn it all about. Otherwise why should she send me to buy the stuff? She’s trying to trap me,’ Jessie burst out in panic, the whole evil plan clear to her. She saw Mrs Redmore like a spider constructing a web for an innocent victim. ‘Oh God, please help me!’ She began to sob. Bertha put a hand upon her. Jessie had looked ill all the week, preoccupied in an agitated way. Now Bertha understood; it was enough to frighten anyone.

‘God helps those who help themselves,’ Bertha reminded her. ‘I think there is no time to waste. We must inform my master. All the men will soon go to Mr Boag’s funeral. If we hurry we will catch him. He can tell the doctor when he meets him there. We have our evidence, those letters prove what Mrs Redmore is. This is the time to use them. We shall hand them now to Mr Phelps, then
he will believe us. We must hurry.’ Bertha stood up, Jessie followed, pulling nervously at her bonnet.

‘The Dawsons’ amah can bring our children home. She will not mind, they live next door,’ Bertha decided before they left. They turned out of the gate and hailed a
rikisha.
Behind them the monkeys scratched their chests beneath the ridiculous clothing and bared yellow teeth while swinging upon trapezes. The children clapped and screamed.

Things happened quickly once they handed the letters to Mr Phelps. A number of expressions passed through his face as he read what he could of the patchwork sheets and listened to their story. Mrs Phelps was also in the room. Jessie began to sob with anticipation and importance.

‘You must both wait here until I come back. I’ll bring the doctor with me,’ Mr Phelps instructed. He was a bald man with thick-fingered hands, he spoke in a tired, bare manner.

He returned an hour later with Dr Charles, who looked at Jessie in a hard, strange way and asked abruptly, ‘What is this I hear about arsenic?’

‘Oh,’ she sobbed, the strain overcoming her so that she had to sit down. ‘Oh, doctor, what do you suspect about that?’

‘I suspected last night and again this morning, but I didn’t know where he was getting it from,’ Dr Charles replied. She did not believe him. It was only because she had pointed it out that he now suddenly understood. She gave him a sullen look.

‘I would like you to put your suspicion in writing and send it to me at my house. I shall act now as I feel best. We must remove him to the hospital; we must get him away from that house. Only then will he be safe,’ Dr Charles declared. He left the room with a curt nod, but lingered outside with Mr Phelps for a further while.

At first Jessie refused to write a thing. A sudden terror filled her at all she was precipitating. Mr Phelps stood over her, but her hand still shook too much. In the end it was Bertha who wrote on the paper, ‘Three bottles of
arsenic in one week from Maruya’s.’ She did not wish to sign her name and Mr Phelps agreed she need not, just the evidence at this point was enough. He sealed the note in an envelope and sent it to the doctor. Before tiffin Jessie went home with the children as if nothing had happened.

Dr Charles returned before Jessie to the Redmores’. He walked into the house authoritatively, his voice had a ring that had been absent in the early morning. Amy supposed he was upset by her questioning of his competence, but it seemed to have determined him to take some positive steps.

‘I am removing him to the hospital,’ Dr Charles said. A smell of stale cigars hung about him, some crumbs were caught in his whiskers. ‘He is only going from bad to worse.’

Amy was surpised by the sudden change in his opinion. Before he left Mr Cooper-Hewitt arrived, they exchanged a look that annoyed her. Mr Cooper-Hewitt announced he would stay with Reggie until Dr Charles returned with a stretcher. She left them together and went downstairs to instruct the cook about some tiffin for Mr
Cooper-Hewitt.
When it was served he refused to eat.

Dr Charles arrived again at the Redmores’ by two o’clock with an ambulance and a stretcher. Jessie bobbed a curtsey but he took no notice of her. She watched from inside the nursery door as they carried Mr Redmore out, groaning on the stretcher, Mr Cooper-Hewitt was still there. Her heart beat with excitement. She did not care if Mr Redmore lived or died, she had not spoken out to rescue him. Whatever must happen could now rightly happen. She was free of Mrs Redmore’s evil plan.

Reggie gasped for breath. He tried to raise himself on an elbow as Dr Charles bent over him but fell back, convulsed by pain. Dr Charles injected him with a
stimulant.
The room was full of ambulance men, they clustered around the bed. Amy hovered in the background as the men heaved Reggie upon the stretcher. She came forward with an extra blanket to wrap about his feet.

The Naval Hospital was a few hundred yards away along the Bluff. Amy walked silently with Mr
Cooper-Hewitt
behind the horse-drawn ambulance. At the gates of the hospital, although she pleaded, she was not admitted. Mr Cooper-Hewitt offered no help. Women could not enter the hospital, but she had heard of numerous exceptions in extenuating circumstances.

‘Those is my instructions,’ argued the gatekeeper. ‘You’ll have to speak to the doctor.’ She looked to Mr Cooper-Hewitt for an explanation, but he had already slipped inside the gates and walked behind the stretcher up the drive. As she watched, the hospital doors opened, then closed upon them. The gatekeeper eyed her
curiously.
She was too tired to fight. The tall, faceless walls of the hospital filled her with a sudden feeling that made her turn away.

It was Mr Cooper-Hewitt who returned at four o’clock with the news of Reggie’s death. Jessie Flack was not surprised. She had already confirmed that God was on her side. It was nothing more than retribution. The news filled her with exhilaration. Now at last she could leave the Redmores’ without fear of recrimination. She would give Mrs Redmore her notice. She was now living with a murderess; the thought alone pole-axed her.

There were people coming and going in commiseration for hours. Jessie had to wait until the evening. Mrs Redmore sat with her feet on the couch. She leaned back upon the cushions, her face destroyed by strain.

‘I wish to give you my notice, ma’am.’ Jessie pulled at a pleat of her skirt as she entered the room to stand before Amy.

Amy started, a look of alarm crossed her face. ‘But why, Jessie? Why now, when I need you most? I could understand if you had left last week after … after … But now Mr Redmore is ….’ She broke off in confusion. ‘I don’t know what my plans are. Probably I’ll return to England as soon as I can settle my affairs. I can take you back with me then.’

‘I want to leave your service, ma’am,’ Jessie said, taking a breath. ‘Certain things have come to my notice, I can no longer remain.’

‘Things? What things?’ Amy swung her legs off the couch, her voice gaining strength. She did not like Jessie’s manner.

‘Jessie?’ Amy demanded.

‘I have reason to believe Mr Redmore is dead from arsenic poisoning. I have told Dr Charles and he agreed,’ Jessie said in a rush, her voice uneven. ‘I believe you have poisoned him. Believing that, I cannot stay.’

‘Jessie!’ Amy jumped to her feet. ‘For what reason should I poison him? What nonsense all this is!’

Jessie’s voice rose, all the stress of the days before releasing suddenly now. ‘You poisoned him to marry Mr Huckle, ma’am.’ She felt the warmth of satisfaction as she saw the shock in Mrs Redmore’s face.

‘Mr Huckle? Jessie, are you mad? This is too absurd.’ Amy gave an anxious laugh.

‘I have proof, ma’am, in Mr Huckle’s letters to you, plain for anyone to see. You tore them up, but I sewed them together. This is an evil house, I will not stay another day!’ Jessie’s voice filled the room hysterically. ‘Mr and Mrs Phelps and my friend Bertha have seen the letters and their proof of your wickedness, ma’am. And I have told Dr Charles of all the arsenic you made me buy, and that you bought yourself.’

Amy sat down suddenly. The room reeled about her. Jessie’s thin face swung and then steadied. She held her head in her hands until she felt better before looking at the woman again.

‘You little ….’ All the breath had left Amy. ‘You have given the letters to Mr Phelps? Dr Charles you have told of the arsenic? What a thorough job you’ve done.’

‘I am going now. I have already packed. I am going to stay with Miss Brittain.’ Jessie turned on her heel and left the room.

Amy had written already to Dr Charles, asking him to visit, thinking it strange he had not come to give her the facts of Reggie’s death. And, apart from telling her tersely of that news, Mr Cooper-Hewitt too had stayed away. Now she understood. Things were maturing suddenly with uncomfortable clarity. All day she had been tossed
from one emotion to another; the stress of the night and Reggie’s torture, the shock of his death and the terrible guilty relief that had flooded her at the news. God had heard her wish to be free and released her at last. Nobody had guessed her relief. Except maybe Mabel who, subdued and strangely useless in a crisis, had sat with her for hours.

‘How odd to think that only the other day we even talked of killing him. And now it has really happened. You’re free,’ Mabel had said faintly, again and again.

‘You said so, not I,’ Amy reminded her.

‘I’m sorry. Truly, I’m sorry,’ Mabel apologized, her voice unsteady with emotion.

It was late when Dr Charles arrived, almost eleven o’clock. Amy sat in an unlit room, staring from the window at the silhouette of the Naval Hospital, visible over the loquat trees. It seemed already, even in death, as if Reggie’s grip on her life continued in a sullen way.

Rachel let in Dr Charles; she showed him into the drawing room. Amy left the darkness and went across the hall to meet him. The lights in the house seemed to blind her. His manner was impatient, he hovered near the door, his sympathy strained in the way Mr
Cooper-Hewitt’s
had been.

‘We’ll have the results of the autopsy tomorrow. It’s possible there will be an inquest. You must be prepared,’ he said. He observed her curiously, as if he might locate within her things to disinter. She looked away.

‘There is one thing, doctor, I ought to have told you before. Reggie suffered from stricture and he was in the habit of taking arsenic to relieve it.’ She saw a muscle move beneath the thick flesh of his jaw; his eyes showed no expression.

‘It is a pity you did not mention it before,’ he said.

‘Reggie would not have it. He did not wish you to know. He was a man who believed he could treat himself. He had taken arsenic for many years.’ She heard the unevenness in her voice. Dr Charles looked at her coldly. She did not sound convincing even to herself.

‘I knew nothing of a stricture, he never complained of
symptoms. He gave no indication of the debility nor that he had any disregard for my opinion.’ He clipped his words and moved towards the door.

Panic filled her. ‘A few days ago Reggie asked me to get him a bottle of Fowler’s Solution of Arsenic and a bottle of sugar of lead that he used as a liniment when his pain was bad,’ she said, holding down her
desperation.
Dr Charles turned back from the door to look silently at her.

‘I don’t know where these things are. I can’t find them. I’ll look again tomorrow,’ she added. Dr Charles raised an eyebrow and turned into the hall. She watched the front door close behind him.

It was true. She had searched that evening and found not a single bottle of Fowler’s. Reggie had finished the stuff, and after he was admitted to the hospital she had ordered Rachel and Asa to clean and disinfect the room in readiness for his return. They had thrown out the empty bottles, tomorrow she would tell them to search the rubbish pile. Dr Charles did not believe her; she wondered if he ever would. And she sensed the
conjecture
that must already be growing from Mr
Cooper-Hewitt’s
tongue. Yokohama, ever restless for diversity would turn without conscience to a cannabilistic meal. Dicky would be back tomorrow from Kobe; he would tell her what to do.