The Simple Way of Poison (16 page)

“We were just looking for you, Wilkins,” Colonel Primrose said pleasantly.

“I stepped out to post a letter, sir. Mr. Nash gave it to me last night, with express instructions that it must be posted at all costs.”

He cast an almost imperceptible glance at Iris. It was just the sort of thing that Colonel Primrose would catch without looking.

“Without anyone knowing about it, sir.”

“I see.—Who was the letter addressed to, please?”

“I couldn’t say, sir. I am not in the habit of prying into my employer’s affairs.”

I heard a subdued snarl from the doorway, and Colonel Primrose cleared his throat again, hastily. Not until Wilkins had moved at least a foot nearer Captain Lamb.

“Very proper,” Colonel Primrose said politely. “Now, there are one or two little questions… You say in your evidence, which I have been reading, that you left the house with Mr. Nash at four o’clock yesterday afternoon.”

My head whirled a little. It seemed so infinitely longer ago than yesterday that all this had begun to happen that I thought at first he must be talking about something else.

“Yes, sir. I left the house about four. Mr. Nash didn’t keep a regular driver, as Madame and Miss Nash both preferred to drive their own cars.”

“And you went…”

“We went at once to Mrs. Lowell Nash’s house on Massachusetts Avenue, sir. I waited in the car while Mr. Nash went in. He was gone twenty-five minutes, and when he came out he got in the car without telling me where to go- I waited a few moments, and asked him. He looked startled and said to drive through the park. I did so. We had just crossed the ford on the other side when he leaned forward and said to go to 2491 P Street.”

I stared open-mouthed at Colonel Primrose—for that’s his address. His face was inscrutable. The police may have known this, of course, but it was a surprise to me.

“He was there for ten minutes, I should say, sir. He came out and told me to go home. He had one more call to make, but he’d walk.”

“That would be when he went to your house, Grace?” Iris said.

I nodded. “Lilac said he came a little after five.”

“And waited twenty minutes, pacing up and down the floor, telephoning his former wife’s house three times while he was there,” Colonel Primrose said, with a smile at me. I’d forgot he’d been alone with Lilac that noon while I was with Angie and Lowell. I wondered what other information he’d got that she hadn’t considered it worthwhile to tell me.

“And yesterday evening?”

“He sent for the car shortly after half-past nine, sir,” Wilkins went on. “We went again to Mrs. Lowell Nash’s. He was in there fifteen minutes or so. When he came out he said to go to the nearest drug store. I went up Massachusetts Avenue to Wisconsin and waited at the corner while he went in.”

He turned quietly to Captain Lamb. “I believe I forgot to mention that in my statement before, sir. It… simply escaped my mind.”

I had already noticed the quickening interest in both then-faces, and wondered about it. Colonel Primrose cocked his head down and shot a glance at Sergeant Buck. They must have had an extraordinary set of signals, for the Sergeant, not actually giving a smart salute but giving every impression of doing so, made an about-face and disappeared instantly. I wondered idly if Colonel Primrose kept him about to be constantly reminded of the evils of military regimentation and so not to regret his retirement into genial civil life… or if the Sergeant, as was equally tenable, kept Colonel Primrose about as a horrible example of sloth and indolence, to keep himself on his square-booted military toes. Perhaps neither was true… but there ought to be some explanation for two such opposite poles living in close harmony without the slightest effect on each other.

Captain Lamb followed the Sergeant out. I could hear their low voices—what I once heard Marie Nash coyly describe as “male tones”, only she was speaking about a bishop—in the hall. Then the front door closed, and I could hear Captain Lamb rumbling by himself back somewhere toward the pantry.

“How long was Mr. Nash in the drug store?”

“About ten minutes, sir.”

I glanced at Iris. Her face was pale, with a strange almost mother-of-pearl opacity to it, her eyes green again, her slim lithe body curiously quiescent. And we were all thinking the same thing, I suppose… except, as I learned later, Colonel Primrose, who had not forgotten at that moment that Senator McGilvray was already dead when Randall Nash went into that drugstore—and had been dead for four days.

“Yes. What did you do then?”

“We started home. Mr. Nash said he thought he would go to the Assembly with madame. He asked me if I knew Madame’s plans. I said I understood Madame had planned to meet some friends at Mrs. Latham’s and go with them. He wanted to know who the friends were. I was unable to give him that information.”

“You mean,” Iris said coolly, “you didn’t want to give it to him. I had told you myself, just in case he should ask you.”

There was an instant’s sharp silence. Colonel Primrose glanced from one of them to the other. I thought his face was almost as granite, for a moment, as his familiar’s… using the word in its purely medieval sense. In its modern meaning it would be a gross calumny.

“I didn’t consider it my duty to discuss your arrangements with anyone else, madame,” Wilkins said.

Her cheeks flushed, her eyes were as green as a cat’s. I looked again at Colonel Primrose, and saw that Wilkins had made a terrible mistake… for up to that time I’m sure Colonel Primrose had not believed a word of Iris Nash’s story. I tried to keep the pleased smile off my face. Nothing could have been more obvious than that whatever Wilkins may have said or not said to Randall Nash, he had implied that Iris was meeting her friends away from home to avoid her husband, and he had deliberately refrained from telling Randall that Colonel Primrose was one of those friends. I thought suddenly that by not telling Randall Nash that, Wilkins had possibly sealed his death as effectively as if he had then and there put a knife between his shoulders.

“What happened then?” Colonel Primrose asked quietly.

“We came as far down Wisconsin Avenue as Reservoir Road. Mr. Nash tapped on the window and said he had decided to go to Mr. McClean’s house in Foxhall Road. We went there. He didn’t go in at once, he stayed in the car. Then he changed his mind and told me to drive to Mrs. St. Martin’s house, just off Massachusetts Avenue. I took him there. He went in, and came out about twenty minutes past ten. He said to take him back to Foxall Road. We got there at ten-thirty or so, sir. I waited outside in the car as usual. He came out at possibly a quarter of twelve, with Mr. McClean. I drove them to Linthicum Hall. Mr. McClean got out, but Mr. Nash refused to do so, and came home.”

Colonel Primrose took out his notebook.

“All right. Now let’s have the rest of it.”

Wilkins nodded respectfully.

“Yes, sir. I came in with Mr. Nash and turned on the light in the library. I was surprised to see a tray on the desk with a glass, syphon and decanter. I have always been given explicit directions to keep liquor away from Mr. Nash as much as possible. I took Mr. Nash’s overcoat. He took the stopper out of the decanter. Perhaps I should say that at some place—or places—he had already had considerable to drink. Then he put the stopper back and told me to take it out. I took the tray out to the pantry, went out and took the car back to the garage. When I came in to put out the pantry light, I saw he had changed his mind and got the liquor himself.”

“The tray was gone?”

“Yes sir.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing, sir.—I had expected it. He couldn’t resist drink, sir.”

Colonel Primrose consulted his notebook again. “What is this about
two
decanters, Wilkins.”

I pricked up my ears instantly. I think both Iris and I stirred uneasily.

“It was merely a suggestion of mine, sir, when Captain Lamb told me the whiskey in the decanter on the tray was not poisoned. I am very certain there was nothing in the glass when I took it out. Captain Lamb said cyanide is a rapid poison, that he must have died within a few moments of taking it. The only explanation I could think of is that the decanters were changed.”

He studiously avoided meeting Iris’s eye.

“You know decanters come in pairs, sir. That on the tray was one of a Waterford pair that is usually in the cellaret in the dining room. They were both full in the evening. I saw Madame fill them… when she explained to me she would be bringing guests back after the ball.”

Something in Colonel Primrose’s eyes flickered as if it were alive.

“I noticed this morning that the mate to it—the one that I had put in the cellaret—was empty. I assumed the possibility of someone exchanging them, so that no poison would be present in the one on the table… as soon as the glass from which it had been drunk was washed out.”

His bland expressionless face, the blankly innocent look in his pale blue eyes, made what he was saying seem incredibly awful, like a child describing some terrible occurrence that had no meaning for it.

“And of course whoever changed them would empty out the poisoned one and put it back in the cellaret.”

Colonel Primrose nodded curtly. “Bring them both in,” he said.

“The police have taken both of them, sir.”

The cigarette in Iris’s hand trembled, the ash fell unnoticed in a little grey cylinder on her dark dress.

Colonel Primrose looked at her, waiting, I think, for some simple explanation of the empty decanter in the cellaret, which she had filled before she had gone out.

“Wilkins is quite right,” she said. “I did fill both of them, and gave him one to put in the chest. Nobody told me it was empty. I don’t—”

Colonel Primrose cut her off. “That’s all, Wilkins.”

The butler bowed. “May I take these now, sir?”

He indicated the clothes on the chair. Colonel Primrose nodded. Wilkins picked them up and went out.

He had no sooner closed the door than Iris stood up suddenly, all color gone from her face. I thought for a moment she was going to faint.

“What… if I’d poisoned all of you!”

Her voice was a strangled whisper.

“I’ve thought of that several times, my dear lady,” Colonel Primrose said pleasantly.

She stood there for a moment looking at him. “I think I’ll go lie down—if you don’t mind,” she said then. “Will you ring for anything you want, Grace. No—don’t come. I’ll be all right.”

She went quickly out.

“That seems to have gone home,” Colonel Primrose said, more to himself than me. He shook his head a little. I didn’t say anything.

“Randall’s itinerary last night was interesting,” he went on placidly.

I happened to glance up then. He was looking intently at me.

“What did he go to your house for, Mrs. Latham?”

I looked perfectly blank.

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” I said. “I wasn’t home.”

“Sure?”

“Of course.—And for that matter what did he go to your house for? You were in, weren’t you?”

He nodded slowly. Then he looked at me, hesitating a little.

“Have you got a hat you can keep this under for a while?” he asked.

“Oh dear!” I said. “I’m not good at it.”

He chuckled.

“You’d think I was old enough to know better than give secret information to a woman, wouldn’t you?”

, “That’s what
I’d
think,” I said. “But do go on.”

He hesitated again, and did go on, very deliberately.

“I thought at first—as you may have noticed—that this was all too simple,” he said placidly. “It appears to me now, Mrs. Latham, that possibly there’s more in it than meets the eye. I’m going to tell you this—if you’ll promise definitely, for your own safety, not to mention it to a soul.—Three years ago, just after he married Iris, Randall Nash came to see me one night with something on his mind. I thought for a while he was going to go away without getting it out. But just as he was leaving he took an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to me. He said ‘I’d like you to keep this for me, until I collect it. If I should die before I come for it, give it to my daughter. Not to anybody else under any circumstances. Will you do that for me?’… And by the way, Mrs. Latham, didn’t I hear Iris ask the Sergeant if I wouldn’t like a drink?”

I nodded and rang the bell. “You don’t miss much, do you.”

“Nothing important,” he agreed modestly.

“Wilkins,” I said, “please bring Scotch and soda.”

And when he did I said, “If it poisons you don’t blame Iris—or me.”

He shot a stream of soda into the tall glass. I noticed that they had the old-fashioned type of syphon with the metal fishnet all over it, now that the police had taken the new-fangled one that Lowell had given her father for Christmas.

“I only wanted to know how far away our bland friend was,” he said with a chuckle. “You know, of course, how I disapprove of strong waters. Well, to go on.—I knew he’d just married, naturally. I didn’t know what might be in his mind. So I took the letter and put it away. I never thought of it again, except when I was with him, and I finally quit even then—until yesterday afternoon. He came in then and asked for it.”

Colonel Primrose put down his empty glass.

“I got it for him. He put it in his pocket, and left… and went to your house. Now—what for?”

His sparkling black eyes surveyed me intently.

“I wouldn’t know,” I said.

“He didn’t leave it there?”

“Not that I know of.”

“I couldn’t find it, in the short time I had to examine your premises this noon,” he said with a smile.

Then the smile faded, and he leaned forward.

“That letter is the real clue to Randall Nash’s murder, Mrs. Latham,” he said very seriously.

“Well,” I said philosophically, “your sergeant told me once, I remember, that you’ve never made a mistake.—And you don’t know what was in it?”

“I have no idea at all. Except, of course, that it vitally concerns Lowell. Perhaps other people as well, but certainly Lowell.”

“Why not ask her? Hasn’t she come home yet?”

He shook his head.

“She and Angus are coming in time for dinner. Captain Lamb has talked to her. She doesn’t know what it could be, or so she says. Her story is that since his marriage Randall Nash quit confiding in her. Days went by without her seeing him at all except at the dinner table.”