Sweet Poison

by Douglas Clark

  ‘I began to concentrate on Compton a little more closely. The perfume strips, I discovered, had come from an American called Sprott who, according to his entry in the visitors’ book, was due to call at Throscum again. I asked Cathy York when he was to be expected. She phoned the office and was asked who wanted to know. She gave my name. It became fairly clear to me that if the mention of perfume strips had disconcerted Compton, my question about Sprott had caused him to try to avoid me at all costs. He went out last night, even though we had a verbal agreement to meet, and though Friday is not his night off duty. He left his office this morning—an unheard-of event on a Saturday. I asked the sergeants to locate him at that time and I insisted on interviewing him as soon as he was found. His attitude warranted my insistence.

  ‘It became absolutely clear from our conversation that Compton was a frustrated man. He lives for this place. But since Mrs P. took over everything he has tried to do has been—as he put it—hamstrung: decisions countermanded, ideas sneered at, suggestions ignored—by a woman whom he despised as a common prostitute. Motive enough? I think so. But other things became clear, too. Compton had idolized the first Mrs Partridge and her daughters—particularly the elder one, Lorna. I got the impression that Compton was regarded as one of the family—one that in the Table of Affinities is not allowed to marry any other member. But I am sure that is what he wanted to do—marry Lorna. He is a good deal older than she is, and when he first came here she was a schoolgirl, who looked on him as an uncle. I think he was biding his time, waiting for her to mature so that the disparity in ages wouldn’t appear so marked. Then he hoped for marriage. But Thoresby—another whom he despises—beat him to it: plucked his flower while he was waiting for it to bloom fully. More frustration. And finally Claud Partridge’s will which deprived the girls of everything they and he had worked so hard for. I think Compton must have been outraged to find the business he and Mrs Molly Partridge had built up going to keep Mrs Fay in luxury. My belief is that he wanted her out of the way so that he could run the show; and when that happened, Lorna could come back. Thoresby could be got rid of in some way—probably by divorce. That last is speculation, but my sergeants report that they witnessed Compton and Mrs Thoresby together this morning, and his attitude Was apparently more like that of a lover than an uncle.’

  ‘Are you telling us that Compton is the murderer?’ Mundy asked.

  ‘By this time I was convinced of it. But I didn’t know the poison used. Think back on what I’ve said. Mrs P. was fed poison in sweets. Compton is adept at sweet-making, and as the manager here has the free run of all departments and the keys to them all. He, and he alone, could go to the confectionery kitchen unnoticed whenever he wanted. He was the one who designated the dance prizes and labelled the one that was to go to his employer each night. He, more than anybody, was frustrated by Mrs P’s presence and incensed over the injustice of the will because of his affection for Lorna. O.K. so far?’

  ‘Not forgetting that he’s been trying to avoid you. That fact put you on his trail. But why was he stupid enough to draw attention to himself in that way?’

  ‘That’s my next point. The mention of perfume strips upset him, and the name of Sprott caused the reaction I’ve told you of. Cathy York is a pleasant little girl, and like most pleasant little girls, is a bit of a chatterbox. I like to find it—ingenuous friendliness—it helps keep life cheerful. She told me Sprott had given her five dollars at the time he gave Mrs Partridge the perfume strips. Although Cathy didn’t know the nature of the gift, she said that Sprott had also presented Compton with something. When I questioned Compton about it, he at first pretended he couldn’t recall the name Sprott. Despite the fact that he’d shown interest when I’d enquired about the American only yesterday. Then he pretended he’d forgotten about the gift having been given him. I joshed him by suggesting I thought he’d been given a fifty-dollar tip. Actually I realized that it was most unlikely that anybody would offer the manager a tip. A gift, yes. But poor Compton didn’t quite know what to do. He was outraged at the suggestion that anybody had tipped him, but he daren’t deny it otherwise he would have been obliged to tell me what the gift was. And, although I didn’t know it at the time, this was what he had, at all costs, to avoid telling me. Hence his dilemma.’

  ‘Why? What was so important about Sprott’s gift?’

  ‘As far as I was concerned at that time, nothing. But it amused me to try to guess what Sprott had given him that caused him so much embarrassment. If Sprott had given Mrs P. perfume strips, he’d probably given Compton cosmetics, too. Or so I thought. But remember, while I was trying to guess what the gift had been, I was also trying to guess what the poison had been and where it had come from. I suppose it was some form of mental osmosis . . .’

  ‘Mental what?’ asked Green.

  ‘Transference: cross-over. Call it what you like. What was Compton’s gift? Where had the poison he used come from? The two seemed to cancel each other out like the two sides of an equation. Gift came to equal poison. But please remember that this thought transference only took place this evening. This afternoon I spoke to Sprott. At that time I had no idea he was involved in any way in this crime. I called on him as a private citizen anxious only to discover where I might obtain some of the perfume strips he had given Mrs Partridge. And so our conversation was just a general chat. Sprott very kindly gave me a carton of the strips.

  ‘But later, after realizing what dessert meant in Throscum, I had another think. Mrs Sprott had not been present at my meeting with her husband because she had a sun headache. Sprott said it would soon be cured by some of his firm’s headache powder, and added the words “which is easy to take”. When I recalled this, I also remembered that Compton was given to headaches. Twice in two days he had pleaded a bad head as an excuse for not talking to me. If Sprott gave perfume strips to a highly perfumed lady, why not give headache powder to a headache sufferer?

  ‘By the time I’d got this far I began to think about what we’d first decided about the poison. Remember I said it had to be tasteless and invisible. If it had been incorporated in peppermint creams it might be invisible. But tasteless? Even when overwhelmed by peppermint? What I mean is, that if the first sweet had tasted the slightest bit out of the ordinary, Fay Partridge might not have continued eating them and might, therefore, have escaped her fate. And to complicate matters, the Meeths had said that a tasteless substance would, more than likely, be insoluble.

  ‘Headache remedies—like aspirin or Panadol—taste ghastly if they break up in your mouth. They’re carefully tableted so that you can swallow them whole, without getting the taste. But Sprott’s headache remedy was a powder—absolutely the worst form in which to take any strong-tasting medicine. And yet he had said it was easy to take.

  ‘I remembered the perfume strips he had given me. He’d said he was using them as an advertising gimmick to show that his firm had the know-how of micro-encapsulation. Perhaps the answer lay in this process. I opened the carton and found Sprott’s blurb telling customers of the many uses of his process.’

  Masters paused for a moment. He said to Hill: ‘Mr Sprott has promised to put himself at our disposal. Would you please step across to his bungalow and invite him over. And tell him I have provided Scotch for his entertainment, so he needn’t bring the remains of his own bottle.’

  Hill went. Green, invited by Masters, started pouring drinks. Masters said to Mundy: ‘I hope you don’t mind this break, sir, but I think you’d better hear what Sprott has to say.’

  When he arrived, Masters introduced Sprott all round and gave him a drink. Then he said: ‘Mr Sprott, so far you have been given no inkling of the reason for this conference, and I hope you won’t speculate too much although you undoubtedly realize that we have reason to believe that your process and products are of interest to us in solving this case. What I’d like you to do—if you’re agreeable—is to give Superintendent Mundy a layman’s description of your process and its capabilities.�
��

  Sprott was solemn. ‘Willingly, gentlemen. Though how I come into this has me guessing. Shall I start my spiel now?’

  ‘If you please.’

  ‘Well, gentlemen, my firm isn’t the pioneer in the micro-encapsulation process, but we jumped on the band-wagon mighty quick, because we think there’s big business in it.

  ‘Take those perfume strips I gave Mrs Partridge and Mr Masters. They may be a commercially viable proposition, but as yet we’re only using them as a simple and pleasant way of demonstrating that we do have this know-how. I’m over here selling to you Britishers the opportunity of having many items micro-encapsulated.

  ‘I saw in your newspapers when I first came over here an article announcing you could now buy gasoline in the form of a dry brick.’

  ‘I saw that myself,’ Mundy agreed. ‘When you want the petrol you just squeeze the brick and out it comes.’

  ‘That, sir, is micro-encapsulation. One form of it. So you can see that as a process it has a great future. Just great.’

  ‘Exactly what can you encapsulate?’

  ‘Well, sir, that’s a tough question to answer in just a few words, but roughly speaking, you could say any droplet liquid and any powdered solid. Of course, the technical processes involve solvent exchange, phase separation and meltable dispersion, but I don’t suppose you’re interested right now in techniques. But I’ll tell you that there are a number of coatings ranging from cellulose, through waxes, to butyl rubber. And on average we reckon to get twelve parts of the substance to be encapsulated to one part of the encapsulating material—by bulk.

  ‘I’ve said that this process has a great future, gentlemen—not only for the dry storage and easier handling of materials, but also for control of release in aqueous or other media.’

  ‘I don’t understand that last bit, Mr Sprott,’ Green objected.

  ‘Control of release? O.K., Inspector, just what was it about those perfume strips that interested you? The fact that they can be made to release their perfume at will? Am I right?’

  Green nodded.

  ‘That’s one form of control of release. There are others, depending on what release mechanisms are used. With the perfume it’s pressure rupture—manual pressure or friction. But there can be heat rupture—either melting or cracking, solubility rupture in water or other liquids, and various other forms of release now under research.’

  Masters said: ‘Mr Sprott, I want to read you a quotation from your sales pamphlet, so that everybody can hear it.’

  ‘Sure. Go ahead.’

  ‘“The bitter taste of any drug so encapsulated is completely masked. Particles can be chewed without the taste becoming apparent because the particles can be made at below sixty mesh, at which size they will not break on chewing.” Would you like to explain that, Mr Sprott, please?’

  ‘Certainly. The coatings themselves are tasteless, so the coated particles become tasteless, no matter how bitter the taste of whatever the substance they come from. But just in case somebody might want to chew the particles, they can be made so small—like wheat flour or dried milk—that they are too fine for the teeth to rupture.’

  Masters said: ‘In other words, Mr Sprott, it is possible, using your process, to make a soluble, bitter substance, absolutely tasteless, without endangering its solubility characteristics?’

  ‘Quite correct, sir. When immersed in liquid the substance would be released as I’ve described.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Sprott.’ Masters turned to Mundy. ‘So now we have what the Meeths said was virtually impossible. A tasteless but easily soluble drug. We have the means of making it invisible, the means of administering it unbeknown to the victim, the time and opportunity and the motive. The only thing outstanding is the type of drug. And here, no doubt, Mr Sprott will help us again by confirming whether or not his headache powder—Sprotamol—is, in fact, micro-encapsulated paracetamol. A very ordinary and widely used mild analgesic.’

  ‘That’s quite right, Mr Masters. Paracetamol is reckoned to be the safest mild analgesic known to man at this moment.’

  ‘In small, therapeutic doses, Mr Sprott.’

  ‘Sure, Chief Inspector. Like all drugs, if taken to excess it becomes dangerous.’

  ‘And did you, Mr Sprott, in fact, give a sample of Sprotamol to Mr Compton?’

  ‘Sure, I did. The poor guy was always suffering from headaches.’

  ‘How much was there in the sample?’

  ‘Twenty-seven and a half grams.’

  ‘How much would that be in normal tablets?’

  ‘Just fifty. It was done up in fifty separate little folds of paper. Ordinary paracetamol tablets contain half a gram. The extra two and a half grams in my sample are accounted for by the encapsulating material.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Sprott.’

  ‘Wait a bit, Chief Inspector. Do you mean to tell me that my Sprotamol killed that lady?’

  ‘Please don’t distress or blame yourself, Mr Sprott. You made a generous gesture by giving to a man who suffers from headaches a much smaller amount of paracetamol than he could go and buy openly at any chemist’s shop. Sales are unlimited, you know. Your generosity was sparked by the knowledge that what you were giving to this man was pleasant to take and—one thing you forgot to mention—likely to be more efficacious because, due to the coating on the grains, the release is slower and the beneficial effect, therefore, prolonged. You were not to know that your gift would be used for murder.’

  ‘I guess not. But how the hell did Compton know it could be used as a weapon?’

  ‘It is common knowledge these days that all drugs, as you so rightly said, are dangerous.’ Masters looked across at Hill. ‘Can I have the box you found in his flat?’

  Sprott said: ‘Surely he wasn’t damn fool enough to keep the box?’

  ‘Why not? You’d given it to him. He didn’t expect us to stumble on to the method.’

  Hill handed over a small white plastic carton. Masters said: ‘By law you were forced to print certain details on the wrapping. To say that the contents were paracetamol: instructions for use: and the dosage equivalent to normal tablets. So Compton knew you had given him fifty tablets. A week or two ago there was a report of a suicide with thirty-two tablets of paracetamol—in the local paper. Dr Thurso attended the case, but he doesn’t read the local paper and so had no knowledge of the report. But the Meeths remembered it when given the hint. I believe Compton read it, too. And he seized his opportunity. Your gift had probably been left untouched. Probably he thought he wouldn’t get on as well with powders as he did with conventional tablets. Whatever happened, he had in his possession a white, tasteless drug, in a lethal amount, capable of being incorporated into peppermint creams which his intended victim doted on . . .’

  ‘Peppermint creams? Candy?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Sprott. Made on the premises. What are peppermint creams? Little more than icing sugar and flavouring. What is twenty-seven and a half grams in ounces? Less than an ounce by my reckoning. So for a pound of lethal peppermint creams take fifteen ounces of icing sugar, one ounce of tasteless paracetamol powder, a dash of flavouring, bind with the white of an egg or what-have you, mix, shape up and then insert into new cardboard carton labelled “Devonshire Peppermint Dessert Creams. All our products are guaranteed to be manufactured from the finest ingredients available”. Carry it safely away. Put the victim’s name on it. At the right time call for any lady wearing . . .’

  ‘Steady on, there,’ Green said gruffly. ‘Steady. Here, have a drink. You take these things too personal.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Masters answered wearily. ‘Please forgive me. I hate murder.’

  ‘And yet you’re a cop?’

  ‘That’s why he’s a cop,’ Green said.

  Masters said to the American: ‘The Sprotamol wouldn’t be detectable by the eater in those circumstances, would it?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘So she ate them. And bit off pieces and threw them to her dogs
. There were, incidentally, no signs of chocolate drops for the dogs, but Syme says she was always feeding them, so I feel it safe to presume she shared her own sweets with them. And her fate. She guzzled all Friday morning. Soon after lunch she vomited. For the next three days there were no recognizable signs of toxicity. On the fourth day she became comatose and died. When I told the Meeths I suspected the headache powders they did a lot of digging into reports of analgesic overdoses. Up till then everybody had been thinking of toxic substances, not relatively safe, mild, family medicines. But given the hint, and the vet’s findings of renal distal tubular necrosis and cerebral oedema besides massive liver necrosis, they were eventually able to work out the classic pattern of death from a paracetamol overdose. Anything over thirty tablets can produce the results we’ve become familiar with. Sickness to begin with. Then the drug is eliminated from the body, leaving behind the lethal symptons which doctors find some difficulty in diagnosing just off the cuff.’

  There was a long silence. Then Mundy said quietly: ‘It’s nearly one o’clock. The revelries will soon be over in Throscum House. I’ll be able to take him then without any fuss.’

  Masters said: ‘If you please, sir. You’ll find Sergeant Brant keeping an eye on him.’

  *

  After arranging to meet Masters later in the day, Mundy left them. Sprott said to Masters: ‘I really can’t tell you how sorry I am to have been the instrument . . .’

  Masters said: ‘Forget it, Cyrus. And don’t tell Emmy. You don’t want to spoil her holiday at Throscum, do you?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t.’

  ‘Then stay and help those of us who are left to see this drink off. Brant will be along shortly so it shouldn’t be a hard job.’

  *

  Masters met the Thoresbys and Honinghams by appointment the next day at eleven o’clock. He said: ‘You’ve got to forget what’s happened. It shouldn’t really touch you in the long run, even though it’s a bit of a shock just now. Fay was nothing to you, and although Henry Compton was a sort of adopted uncle he wasn’t your flesh and blood.’