‘I have no reason to suppose there was anything to cause her not to, Mr Syme. But I’d like the key. You should have given it to Superintendent Mundy.’
‘He didn’t ask for it.’
‘Can I have it now, please?’
Syme took a ring from his pocket, slipped off a key and presented it to Masters like a girl in a lovers’ tiff handing back a gew-gaw.
‘Thank you. Now to get back to last Friday. You let yourself in and found Mrs Partridge prostrate. Where? In bed?’
‘No. On the divan in her lounge.’
Masters interpreted this as meaning the settee in the sitting-room.
‘What was the matter with her exactly? Did she say?’
‘She said she’d been ill.’
‘Sick, you mean? She’d vomited?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anything else?’
‘A slight headache.’
‘What did you do for her?’
‘I felt her forehead and fetched her a pill and a glass of water.’
‘What sort of a pill?’
‘From a new bottle. Called Non . . . non . . .’
‘Nonavom?’
‘That’s it. She asked me to get it.’
‘Where was the bottle?’
‘In her handbag.’
‘I see. You didn’t think of calling a doctor?’
‘I wanted to call Dr Meeth, but she wouldn’t hear of it.’
‘Wouldn’t hear of it? What exactly does that mean? That she didn’t think she was ill enough to trouble the doctor?’
‘She was in agony, but she was very brave about it. No. I knew she didn’t want that Dr Meeth or his wife near the house after all the unpleasantness.’
‘What unpleasantness, Mr Syme?’
‘Dr Meeth was beastly to her when she had flu, so she withdrew their camp contract. Money for nothing they were getting out of her and they didn’t like it when it was stopped.’
‘I see. What next?’
‘Well, when dear Fay said she wouldn’t have the doctor at any price I suggested I should put on some soothing music. Ballet music—Coppelia. We both loved that. Or La Boutique Fantasque. Marvellous. So satisfying. It transports one. Not fussy, you know, like Ravel.’
‘Quite, Mr Syme. What did she say?’
‘I thought it would ease her headache—you know, the caress of music, with power to soothe the troubled . . .’
‘What did she say, Mr Syme?’
Ernie looked sulky at being interrupted in full flow.
‘That the mere sight of the record player would make her worse. She must have been feeling really terrible, poor dear, and it made her a little rude. She told me to . . . well, I thought if she felt like that about it I’d better remove it, so I carried it and the records and put them in the library. I felt I hated them myself at that moment for upsetting her so much. I was quite glad to shut the door on them.’
‘Did you leave then?’
‘After a few minutes. I had to, you see. I have to M.C. all our dances and balls. And I have to partner ladies who appear alone. You’ve no idea, Mr Masters, how terribly exhausting it all is. But my visits to Fay used to make it all so worthwhile, and restore me in mind and body, ready to carry on.’
‘I’m sure. When had you last seen her before the Friday afternoon?’
‘On the Thursday evening, or I suppose you, being a policeman, would call it Friday morning. As Charles Lamb said, Mr Masters, to be up late is to be up early. And that’s so true in my profession. I’m so accustomed to being up in the wee small hours I hardly notice it any more.’
‘Mrs Partridge left the ballroom at the end of the dance?’
‘She loved it so much she always waited for the last waltz and Auld Lang Syne. Then I used to escort her up. And she always said, she didn’t mind living alone, but she was terrified of going into an empty flat so late. So I used to see her in.’
‘And then leave?’
‘No. We always had our night-cap together. I used to make our coffee while she slipped into something light . . .’
‘Such as a nightdress?’
‘I really don’t know what you’re suggesting, but there was nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing.’
‘And I’m suggesting nothing. But you were the one who made the coffee, were you?’
‘Yes. I loved doing little things for her.’
‘And she was in good health at the time? Not sick or headachy?’
‘Not in the least. She loved her coffee. And she loved dessert. She always took them together, and she had them just as usual.’
‘Dessert at that time? What was it? Two o’clock in the morning?’
‘About then. I must say I couldn’t eat dessert myself. I always had a liqueur. Just a thimbleful of peach brandy, you know, to be sociable.’
Masters shuddered inwardly at the thought, but made no comment. Syme was a talker, and talkers helped. He mustn’t show disapproval to stop the flow. He said: ‘So she went to bed quite happily. Did she say when she had started to feel sick?’
‘I think it was after lunch on Friday. There’s always fish on the menu, you know, on Fridays. Fay liked her fish and chips.’
Masters thought she sounded the sort who would—preferably out of a paper. But he said: ‘So she was able to enjoy lunch.’
‘That’s right. And brought it all up again straight afterwards, she told me. There must have been something very wrong with the fish.’
‘Maybe. But nobody else was ill after eating it, apparently.’
‘No? Funny, isn’t it? But then darling Fay had such a delicate stomach, you know.’
‘Did she? How soon did she recover?’
‘Wonderful recuperative powers, she had too, luckily. And she was brave with it. She fought it off quite quickly. I popped in after the thé dansant, round about seven o’clock, just to see how she was, and she’d managed to have a little something for tea. It had done her good to get something inside her. A little more dessert, you know. So clean and refreshing for the mouth after nausea. And so good for one. The doctors say it is excellent for an upset stomach.’
‘Maybe. I’m pleased Mrs Partridge recovered so quickly. Did she return fully to normal?’
‘Not really. Never again, poor dear Fay. She did so love to be out and about, but I couldn’t persuade her to go in those last few days. I tried, on Saturday and Sunday, to persuade her to go for a drive, but she said she felt quite weak and debilitated after her attack and would stay at home. On Monday she said she felt much better, so she walked as far as the swimming-pool in the afternoon and came to Olde Tyme Night on Monday. She had to sit out most of the dances, but she enjoyed sitting there, I’m sure.’
‘What about the poodles?’
‘Oh, those!’ It was obvious that Syme had little time for the late dogs. ‘If dear Fay had one tiny fault it was her preoccupation with her poodles. Made real fools of them. I told her often enough that she would make them fat and lazy always feeding them titbits and sweets as she did. It isn’t good for them, you know. And they snapped at people. I give you my word that if I as much as went near Fay they menaced me.’
‘Were they ill at all?’
‘They died, didn’t they?’
‘I meant last Friday.’
‘They were always so lackadaisical it would be difficult to say.’
‘But you went close to Mrs Partridge. Felt her forehead, gave her a pill—didn’t they try to stop you?’
‘No. No, they didn’t. I’d forgotten that. How very odd.’
‘They were there?’
‘Oh, yes. I suppose the little fellows had some feeling after all. They probably realized their mistress was in distress and I was helping her.’
Masters was privately a little sceptical of this. But he said nothing, and rose to go. As he stood up, he said: ‘I see you have some perfume strips.’
‘The rose in aromatic pain! So much visual beauty brought to this lowly state to give us lasting perfume.�
� He ran his finger-nail along it. ‘But it’s nearly finished now. Such a pity. It quite transforms this room.’
‘I’d like some. Could you tell me where you got it?’
‘From Fay, of course.’
‘And where did she get them from?’
‘An American guest.’
‘I see. He was here some time ago?’
‘In May, I think. Yes, it must have been May.’
Masters left the tiny office and made his way back to the hall of the house. He’d spent longer than he’d expected with Syme, and wondered where the rest of the team might be. There was no sign of them. Cathy York assured him that she had seen none of them, and added that she rarely missed seeing anybody who came within sight of her glass box—particularly important detectives from London.
Masters decided to wait. He wandered around, slowly, examining the chiselled stonework of the fireplace and identifying what he supposed was the crest of the former owners. A dog—he expected it must be a hound—with a heavy collar. Faint blobs on its coat in bas-relief. A spotted dog? Houndsby! Stipple-Houndsby! Stippling—that meant painting or drawing in dots. That would be it. The boys at the College of Heralds had enjoyed a bit of fun there. A coat of arms for the Spotted-Dogs. Pleased with this bit of deduction, he turned to the table. A thick, leather-bound volume, heavily tooled with the same coat of arms, and the edges of the leaves watered in red and blue. He could remember this treatment had been a fairly common practice in his early youth, but it was rare now. A pleasing conceit that had almost disappeared under the wheels of the juggernaut of rising costs. He opened the book idly. It was, as he thought, a visitors’ book. There for anybody who wished to sign his name and—because the publicity value might be enormous—to make such complimentary remarks about Throscum Holiday Camp as he saw fit. He leafed through it, noting what people had said. If all the comments were true, Throscum certainly gave its patrons good value. He was nearly up to date, when he noted one entry with an American address spelt out in full. He read the entry: ‘I left here last, in May 1944. I went reluctantly, never expecting to return to anywhere on God’s good earth. Now, exactly 25 years later, I leave here again. Again I go reluctantly, but only because of the excellent reception given me by my good British friends, and because this time (D.V.) I can be sure of returning in a few short weeks. Cyrus R. Sprott, Late U.S.A. Rangers.’
Masters read it through twice. He thought he could interpret the story. Cyrus R. Sprott was an American citizen, obviously based at Throscum during the war. He had left the camp in May 1944, to go to a staging area en route for embarkation in a vessel that would land him in Normandy early in June. Sprott had been a United States Ranger—the equivalent of a British Commando—and, therefore, likely to be one of the first few to storm ashore on D-day on Omaha, Utah or some other fire-ripped stretch of coastline. Hence his expectancy of death in action. He had left Throscum without hope of survival. The beautiful Devonshire countryside must have seemed like Elysium to him that springtime. No wonder nostalgia had brought him back to this spot. What had he expected to find? Masters guessed it must have come as a surprise to a man who had lived, not only through the hell of war but also through the accelerated life of the age of the fastest advances of mankind in the country of greatest technological progress of all time, to find this spot virtually the same as when he left it a quarter of a century before. And to find that here, where he had once been billeted and trained to razor-edged killing sharpness, he could once again live for a spell, but this time with no impending holocaust to spoil the tranquillity of his stay.
As Masters mused his way through this little cameo—a slice of life which, if true as he envisaged it, must be as happy a little story as he had met for years—he remembered something Syme had told him. The perfume strips had been given to Mrs Partridge by an American visitor in May. He wondered how many American visitors there were to out-of-the-way Throscum each year. How many in one month—particularly in May, which is a little early for the general run of holidaymakers. Not many on either count, he decided. He glanced again through the last few pages of the book. If there had been other United States citizens here in May they hadn’t bothered to say whether they had been satisfied with the Throscum hospitality or not.
He walked over to Cathy York. She smiled at him. An ingenuous, happy smile. He liked it. He liked the smooth skin of her face and the way the natural redness of her lips was well defined without need for too much lipstick. She radiated helpfulness. A rare commodity. She said: ‘Reading the blurb? I often do. It’s nice to know what they think of us—that’s if they tell the truth.’
‘I think you can take it they do, otherwise they wouldn’t bother. They probably see things a bit rosier than they are, particularly if the weather’s been good during their holiday. But by and large I’d say it was a fair record.’
‘That’s nice to know. Is there something I can do for you, Mr Masters?’
‘Yes, please. Can you tell me whether there were any Americans other than Mr Cyrus R. Sprott staying here in May?’
‘Goodness, you don’t think that nice Mr Sprott killed Mrs Partridge?’
He grinned. ‘Hardly. It’s weeks since he left here.’
‘What a relief. He was so friendly. They always are, you know, the Americans. When they come abroad they’re out to enjoy themselves. They treat everybody like friends.’
‘So I believe. Can you tell me what I want to know?’
‘Yes. I don’t have to look at the register. The answer is no. Mr Sprott said when he was here that it was a great treat for him to be where there were absolutely no other countrymen of his own to bump into.’
‘Thank you. Now in the book Mr Sprott said he would be coming back again shortly. Can you tell me when?’
Cathy grinned at him. ‘I’ll ring Mr Compton’s secretary. She does advance bookings.’ She picked up the internal phone and dialled with the end of her pencil. She said: ‘Val, can you tell me when that American, Mr Sprott, is coming again?’
There was a short pause, then Val obviously asked who wanted to know.
‘Mr Masters—the detective.’
Cathy listened for another moment then put the phone down. ‘He’s coming tomorrow—with his wife.’
‘Thank you.’
He sauntered away to the open front door and filled his pipe. As he was lighting it, Hill and Brant came down the stairs and joined him. He asked laconically: ‘Anything?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What about fruit?’
‘What about it?’
‘Any apple cores, nut shells, bunches of grapes? That sort of thing?’
‘No fruit in the bowls, and not so much as an orange pip in the waste bin or ash-trays. Any special reason for asking?’
‘Yes. The dancing queen said she was fond of dessert. I was wondering if our elusive poison could have come from fruit sprays.’
Hill said: ‘That’s a brainwave, Chief.’
‘You think so?’
Brant said: ‘Sounds the likeliest yet, to me.’
‘It offers a chance, I suppose. I’d like you two to follow it up. Get some fruit from the kitchens or stores, have it tested. Find out where it comes from. You know what I want without me to tell you.’
‘Leave it to us,’ Hill said. ‘We’ll get on to it this afternoon. We’re going to list the exhibits now. Shall we see you back here in an hour or so?’
Masters nodded, and the sergeants made off towards their bungalow. A minute or two later Green came through the magnolia bushes opposite where he was standing. Green said: ‘I cut through the churchyard. They’re burying her next to her old man. He’ll have his first missus on one side and his second on the other.’
‘That sounds cosy. What luck with your doctor friends?’
‘Can we step inside out of the sun? Into the bar?’
They were the only occupants. Garry brought them their drinks and retired discreetly. Green said: ‘Meeth swears he didn’t prescribe the Nonavo
m tablets for her.’
‘I think she got hold of them fairly recently. According to Syme they were in her handbag last Friday.’
‘He noses in women’s handbags, does he?’
Masters explained.
Green said: ‘So it seems true that Meeth made that crack about the dogs. Mrs Meeth told me their medical contract had been ended, but her version was a bit different from Syme’s. The Meeths say the contract was cancelled before that visit.’
‘I think they’re right. A place like this has its brochures printed long before Christmas, and the new arrangements were mentioned in them. Meeth’s visit took place in February.’
Green nodded and lit a Kensitas. ‘What d’you think about Meeth’s suggestion that a pal gave the Nonavom to her?’
‘It’s a possibility. And as I’d certainly like to know where they came from it’s worth while bearing it in mind.’
‘And doing what?’
Masters relit his pipe. When it was going well, he said: ‘Did you bring your prayer book with you?’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Going to church—to a funeral. Oh, I was forgetting, you’re chapel, aren’t you? So you won’t have a Book of Common Prayer; but they’ll give us them in church.’
‘This is a new idea. Since when did you start going to the funerals of murder victims?’
‘Ever since I started reading those newspaper reports about detectives mingling with the crowds at funerals.’
‘I’m doubtful if there’ll be a crowd to mingle with.’
‘I hope not. But if you know a woman well enough to give her your bottle of pills one day, you ought to know her well enough to attend her funeral a few days later. If Meeth’s suggestion is correct, there should be at least one bosom pal present . . .’
‘I get you. If we see somebody we go up to her and say: “This woman has just been murdered by poisoning, did you give her some dangerous pills last week?”’
‘Why not?’
‘You’re the boss.’
‘And as a bonus, we’ll get a view of how the stepdaughters bear up under the strain of inheriting a hundred thousand pounds apiece.’
‘That might be useful,’ Green grunted. He looked at his watch. ‘Nearly lunchtime. Where are the lads?’
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