by Issy Brooke
“She went to a druggist, or so she said … why do you cast doubt on it? Is there enmity between these women?”
“Considerable amounts, yes.”
“And the content of the pills was not explained?”
“No.”
“But if there was no love lost between these women, then why would Miss Johnson accept them from Mrs Spenning?”
“She was unwell,” Theodore explained. “She took hold of them automatically. She is sometimes not in her right mind…”
“Clearly so. And the pills…”
“I have left them on the chair there, and touched nothing, except one which I picked up to sniff and taste. I am afraid, however, I cannot identify it without access to a laboratory.”
“And as a medical man, what do you make of her symptoms?”
“Poisoned, clearly, but she is not declining. I believe she has been drugged but it is not enough to kill her. The intention, however, was obvious.”
“Attempted murder,” said the inspector slowly.
“Yes. Undoubtedly.”
There was a long pause. The inspector took in everything without moving from his place by the bed. He let his gaze linger for long moments on each aspect of the room, and finally, picked up the loose pills and wrapped them in a pocket-handkerchief.
“Thank you for your assistance,” the inspector said.
“May I ask what you are going to do now?”
“You already know.” The inspector smiled for the first time. “I will arrest Mrs Spenning without delay. Please do inform me if the patient’s condition changes, for good or for ill.”
He left, and Theodore exhaled slowly.
Adelia bent over Emily and patted her forehead. “She is less clammy,” she said.
“That’s a good sign.” He folded his arms and stared down at the prone form. “Why would Mrs Spenning try to kill Miss Johnson?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Since we came here, we have been asking questions. We have cast our suspicions on many people, not least Mrs Spenning herself. She knows that. And perhaps, then, she is indeed guilty, and our Miss Johnson here knows something that could seal her fate.”
“If Miss Johnson knew anything, she would have already said so. She has made it quite plain that she thinks Mrs Spenning is guilty,” Anne said fiercely.
Adelia nodded. “Which leads me to think that Miss Johnson isn’t aware of what she does know. She has knowledge that will incriminate Mrs Spenning but perhaps she simply doesn’t realise it. She has a secret, but there must be more to it. She has to get better, Theodore, and we have to find out what she knows!”
“Or rather,” he said, “What she does not know that she knows.”
They stood for a long while opposite one another, Emily Johnson silently lying in between them, and considered the implications of what had happened.
If Mrs Spenning was found guilty of this count of attempted murder, did it matter if she were brought to justice for what she did to her husband?
For Theodore, yes, it mattered quite a lot.
And he knew it mattered to Adelia, too.
15
To everyone’s delight, Emily came back to consciousness by midday. Theodore had not left her side and nor had Anne. Mrs Macauley had called in the morning. Adelia had met her in the hallway and prevaricated somewhat. She wasn’t sure what information ought to be allowed to get out. Could it prejudice the enquiry – in fact, both enquiries, their own and that of the police – if it were known that Miss Johnson had suffered such a calamity?
In the end, she said that Miss Johnson had caught a chill and was still a little too poorly to receive visitors. She made a mental note to let Emily know what had been said. She didn’t want a chance remark later to trip her up and paint her as a liar.
Mrs Macauley seemed to think Adelia was suspicious already. She narrowed her eyes and looked as if she were going to argue her case or challenge Adelia, but then she pressed her mouth closed and stalked off in that particular way that women have when they are displeased. There was a certain force to her steps, a definite slam to the door. A wordless disapproval.
Theodore had pointed out how empty Emily’s desk was and Adelia had noticed it too. What was passing between Mrs Macauley and Miss Johnson? Did it account for the rather shabby state of financial affairs in the house? Adelia shook her head. Surely Anne was not so blind to allow such misconduct to go on right under her nose.
But then, Anne was so very determined to see the very best in the poor old maid.
A cry from upstairs alerted Adelia to Emily’s reawakening, and she ran back up to see what was going on, collecting Bernard and Bamfylde on the way. Both men were somewhat reluctant to enter the lady’s chamber but she was decently bundled up and anyway, Theodore was there at the head of the bed.
Emily was as white as the linen sheets upon which she reclined. She was propped up on pillows, and her eyes had dark circles around them. A maid bustled in and out, swapping jugs of water and bringing things for the fire, and generally tidying up as she went, an invisibly constant presence.
Anne sat on the opposite side to Theodore, and had hold of Emily’s hand, stroking it mindlessly. She beamed as the others came in, though a slight line of worry remained on her forehead. Then she looked past them all to the valet-cum-general-man-about-the-place who was hovering in the corridor.
“Yes?”
“Begging pardon, my ladies, my lords, and so on,” he said. “This has just come for you.” He wasn’t the most well-spoken of manservants, being rather more suited to polishing boots than answering doors. He handed over a piece of paper to the nearest person, which was Bamfylde, and fled.
Bamfylde read it. “It is from an Inspector Menzies. He wishes to inform us that Mrs Spenning has been arrested and charged with attempted murder of Miss Johnson. He begs us to inform him if the charge is to be changed to murder.”
He handed the note over to Bernard and went off after the manservant to organise a reply.
Emily had pulled her hand free from Anne’s grasp, and clasped her neck. “She is guilty!”
“So it seems. Did she ever say what was in the pills that she gave you?”
“No, I mean, this also proves she is guilty of killing her husband.”
“It makes it look possible. Although,” Theodore said, calmly, “the means in both cases are so very different we must not jump to conclusions.”
“At this rate you won’t even stagger to a conclusion!” Emily rasped out in anger.
Adelia stepped in. “Miss Johnson. We are all delighted to see you recovering. But I must ask this: why do you think that she attacked you in this way, and did so now?”
“I don’t know. She is insane,” she replied.
“What is between you and Mrs Spenning? What is at the root of your enmity?”
“Nothing!”
“And what of Mrs Pickworth?”
“Who?”
Adelia frowned. “She said that you had been of help in the past.”
“She was not speaking to me.”
“I believe that she was.”
“It is all a blur to me. Ignore Mrs Pickworth. Mrs Spenning has done this, and she has done this to me.”
Adelia said, “And yet, it was not premediated. Mrs Spenning merely reacted by chance when she saw us. She had not planned on giving you those pills or anything in that vein.”
“No,” said Emily. “She took her chance but I would argue that it had been long plotted, I am sure of it.”
“Are you saying that she has long plotted to kill you?”
“Yes, probably. And anyway, why would she not want to kill me? Maybe she wants to kill us all. Maybe it is because we are looking into the death of her husband. Maybe she wanted to kill you, or him, or her, and just took the chance to get to the first one of us. That’s what insane persons do, you know.”
Theodore shook his head. “No. Generally, they don’t.”
Emily took the only other option left to her, which
was to burst into tears, sobbing loudly and in some distress. Anne patted her hands again, murmuring to her, but Adelia could not stand to watch it. The manipulation was crass and so obvious and it turned her stomach. She left the room, and quickly found that she was not alone. Bernard’s face was sad and Theodore was frowning. They went to the library, and Bamfylde joined them.
Adelia sighed. “I am sorry, Bernard. I respect you and love you as a son-in-law, but I do not care for Miss Johnson, though she has been through so very much.” Adelia had to speak her mind. There was no help for it. “I have tried to like her. She has exhibited some good and admirable traits. But … no. I simply cannot abide her.”
He nodded. “I am constantly in conflict in my own mind as regards her and her character,” he confessed. “But Anne sets a charitable example in her forbearance and so I follow it.”
Theodore snorted. “It is easier to meekly follow the wife’s example in the house, I find. Otherwise one gets fed the most awful things at dinner.”
“Theodore!” Adelia snapped.
“Anyway,” he said. “To business. What do we all think about this motive that Miss Johnson suggests? Is it remotely plausible?” He addressed that to Bernard.
Bernard huffed and chewed at his beard. “I am inclined to agree with you,” he muttered in the end. “Why would Miss Johnson be targeted in this way simply out of spite?”
“It does not make sense at all,” Adelia said firmly. “Unless Miss Johnson is up to something else, something quite underhand, which has drawn the wrath of Mrs Spenning in some way.”
“Up to what?” cried Bernard.
“Something with Mrs Macauley.”
“And is this to do with the death of Mr Spenning?”
“I don’t know. But I doubt it.”
“This is all very confusing,” said Bernard. “What? What is it?”
The maid who had been engaged in her duties in the sick-room was now hovering in the open library doorway, clutching her apron. She was bright red and very nervous.
“Sirs, sirs, I need to tell you something,” she said in a broad local drawl.
“Speak.”
“Only it don’t make Miss Johnson look very good and I am sorry for it.”
Aha, thought Adelia. Now we are about to have the truth. I should have got Smith on the case with the servants here long ago – I’ll see to it this very day.
“I heard you say as how Miss Johnson took the pills what she was given,” the maid went on, staring at the floor. “But she did not. As soon as she come home that night when you had all been out, she came into her room and I came in too, to see if she needed anything.”
“Are you her usual maid?”
“I do whatever for anyone but yes, I often see to her. And she was throwing them all out, this little packet of pills. She asked me to lay a small fire which is an extravagance in a bedroom, I know, sir, that you don’t like but she was so pale that I did so.”
“You are not to blame for that,” Bernard assured her.
“And once there was a little fire going, she threw them onto the fire, and they went hiss and melted, and she burned the packet they came in, too, and I didn’t know where they came from or what had happened that night, so I didn’t think anything of it. But then you were all talking of pills she was given and I thought, no, she didn’t take what she was given, not one.”
“Then what of the pills on the chair by her bed?” Theodore demanded.
The maid twisted her hands unhappily. “They were her usual ones, sir. The ones she takes to help her sleep though they don’t seem to work, or at least, she has to take more and more. She gets them from Weatherall’s in town.”
“Thank you. You have done well bringing this to us.”
The maid scurried away before she could be interrogated any further.
Theodore was grey in the face.
Adelia could see his mind working. She felt for him. She said, “Before we do anything else, we must check with Weatherall’s.”
Theodore grimaced. “First, let us check with Miss Johnson herself.”
“Be careful,” Adelia pleaded as she rushed after Theodore.
He was bearing down on Emily Johnson with an unstoppable force to his stride. He grunted in reply at Adelia, and knocked at the door of Emily’s bedroom very loudly.
“Come in,” said Anne.
Theodore burst the door open and went to stand at the foot of Emily’s bed, staring directly at her.
Emily knew, then, that something was afoot. Tears sprang to her eyes immediately. Adelia pursed her lips in annoyance.
Theodore said, “What did you do with the pills that Mrs Spenning gave to you?”
“The pills?”
“As God is my witness – and is yours, too – I would like to hear the truth from you, Miss Johnson. The literal and actual truth. In plain words. If you care nothing for Mrs Spenning and her fate, so be it. But your own soul is at stake here too. Can you tell me the truth, Miss Johnson?”
Adelia wondered if it was the right approach. She would have gone in more calmly, tried to establish a rapport again first.
But perhaps Theodore was right, this time.
At first Emily did try to evade the question. “Mrs Spenning has been arrested. It’s down to the police to discover the truth now.”
“Yes,” said Theodore. “All I am asking you, right now, is what did you do with the pills that Mrs Spenning gave to you?”
“I had all sorts of pills,” she said, weakly. “Weatherall’s, you know, in town. They supply them to help me calm down at night.”
“Yes. You took those pills from Weatherall’s. I think you took too many. Far too many. But did you also take the pills that Mrs Spenning gave to you?”
He was relentless in his return to the same question. He posed it clearly and precisely every time so that there was no way to wriggle out of it without making it look obvious that evasion was being attempted.
She broke. “I threw them on the fire.” She said it quietly, then suddenly threw up her chin and said, more firmly, “That blasted maid! The weasel! She cannot be trusted – she should be dismissed.”
Bernard had appeared. “No. I rather think that maid has saved a life.”
“Saved who?”
“Mrs Spenning from the gallows.”
That set Emily off, as was inevitable. “But she deserves to hang! She is a murderess!”
Adelia and Theodore had seen and heard enough. They left.
Out in the corridor, Adelia put a hand on Theodore’s arm. The door to the chamber was closed now but they could still hear Bernard and Anne trying to reassure Emily that everything was all right.
“Goodness. She is exhausting,” Adelia said. “She seems to recreate drama and drama and drama, on and on. I suppose she must get something from it, or she would not do it.”
Theodore nodded. “People follow patterns. We’re too lazy to change, most of the time, and anyway, her dramas are familiar to her. And familiarity is a comfort, is it not?”
“She finds comfort in being distressed?”
“She finds comfort in the familiar process and pattern of being distressed, yes,” Theodore said.
“And then she is comforted, too, which makes her feel like she is worthy of attention,” Adelia added with a sigh. “But I maintain my point. It is utterly exhausting. Oh, Theodore, what about Mrs Spenning?”
He twisted his mouth as if he was tasting something foul. “Oh, may the Lord forgive me. I have caused an innocent woman to be arrested on the suspicion of attempted murder. I must go, right away, to the police station and beg them to listen to me.”
“Surely they will!”
“It will depend on the police. For if they, too, had any suspicion that Mrs Spenning was behind the murder of her husband, but could not find the evidence for it, at last they have a reason to bring her to some kind of justice. They might see only what they want to see.”
“Are you taking Bamfylde with you?”
&nb
sp; “I do not want him to see me eat so much humble pie. This is not going to be dignified,” he said with distaste.
She squeezed his arm. “But it is necessary. And it is honourable. Go, you must act immediately. Justice is on your side.”
He laughed in a hollow fashion and tossed his head. “We will see about that.”
16
Inspector Menzies made Theodore eat a lot of humble pie indeed.
When Theodore finally burst into the police station in the nearby town, he was very nearly not received at all until he threatened to start flinging open doors to find the inspector himself. When Inspector Menzies emerged to see who was making all the fuss, he merely said, “Oh, Lord Calaway. There was no need for you to come. We have already received the note about the recovery of Miss Johnson. We still have Mrs Spenning held here on attempted murder, of course.”
“No, you don’t.”
Menzies cocked one orange eyebrow. “I think you’ll find that we do.”
“Miss Johnson has, this day, confirmed that she threw all of the pills from Mrs Spenning away, and did not take any of them.”
“And what was in those pills? This could still be attempted murder, sir.”
“No, no it isn’t. I am afraid that I have led you astray and I can only humbly beg your forgiveness for my error. We don’t know what was in the pills but all we need to do is ask Mrs Spenning where she obtained them in Great Yarmouth, and then check with the druggist.”
“And what of the unfortunate victim’s paralytic stupor?”
“She is only a victim of herself. Miss Johnson has sleeping pills regularly got from Weatherall’s in this town, and she took far too many. She has confessed as much, I am afraid.”