Death of the Toad

by William McMurray

The next morning was gusty with spatterings of rain-clouds. As Janet pumped her bicycle up the University hill she wondered if she had been too hasty in declining the offer of a drive to work. It was truly remarkable how often Kay McKay had an excuse to travel in the direction of the University on inclement mornings. However, as Janet had explained, she hoped to arrange to see Hilda Pinkney some time during the day, and she would need a means of transport on hand in order to fit in her visit with work in the lab. She chained her bike to the rack near the rear-door of the Sciences Building and mounted the stairway to the Biology Department on the fourth floor, shaking raindrops: from her clothes and hair as she went.

  Janet was generally the first to arrive in the Department and, with the exception of one or two of the graduate students, she was also often the last to leave at night. She liked the privacy of these occasions when she could work alone, uninterrupted. By the time that her research assistant, Julia, usually arrived Janet would have a list of reagents to be prepared, incubations to be set up, and samples to be analysed. Her graduate student, Doug, kept irregular hours and pursued his work in bursts of supreme industry interspersed with long visitations to the library, or more probably, the rathskellar of the Student Union Building. Julia, who prided herself on punctilious attendance and attention to her responsibilities, referred to Doug as the 'sub-graduate' student in fits of pique. On this particular morning Doug was in one of his more manic phases of activity, and was already hard at work in the middle of one of his ambitious experimental protocols. He looked up from the mammoth array of test-tubes before him.

  "The Professor was in looking for you. Asked to have you drop in his office when you got in."

  Janet removed her jacket and looked at her watch. It was a little after eight a.m. Professor Antwhistle was not noted for early arrivals in the Department, although he could often be seen roaming the corridor in the evenings. Janet set her books down, quickly checked the cell cultures in the incubator and walked down the hall to the office of her Department Head.

  "I see you survived the grisly entertainment yesterday,” he observed. The Professor was also in shirt-sleeves in anticipation of another warm day. "One of Pinkney's better-parties in my opinion." The Professor lit his favourite pipe, a vile-smelling calabash, and became rather more sober as he continued. "You had quite a chat with young Pinkney I noticed. I always found him a somewhat unstable fellow, do you agree?"

  Janet nodded with some discomfort. Her previous relations with Jerry had also been duly noticed by the Professor no doubt.

  "Mrs. Pinkney seems concerned about the effects of his father's sudden death," he went on. "Sort of delayed after-shock, I suppose. They didn't seem terribly close to me. What was your impression?"

  At first Janet had been inclined toward confiding the content of her disturbing interview with Jeremy. It would after-all be helpful to have the views of someone who knew the Pinkney family. But some- thing in his tone, the rambling nature of his questions, put her off the Professor's probing approach. How much had he actually discerned from Hilda Pinkney's comments? What was his connection with the widow? There was certainly no love lost between him and her late husband. And why indeed had he called Janet in to discuss what was surely a private matter between herself and Jerry? Possibly he had some imperfect inkling of trouble in the Pinkney household and was on an information fishing-trip. Janet, not a very good dissembler of her true feelings, simply blushed more deeply and agreed that Jerry was showing signs of emotional strain.

  "As usual Janet, the so-called weaker sex- wife and daughter- seem to be bearing the strain more 'manfully'," said the Professor restoking his calabash. "However, this wasn't my reason for wanting to see you," and he proceeded to divulge the true reason, which surprised her almost as much as the conversation with Jeremy Pinkney the day before.

  When she had returned to her lab and completed the outline of work before her, Janet paused and gazed out of the window. From her vantage-point she could see the sweep of the river down the hill and the fringe of willow-scrub and trees, but the official residence of the Principal was just out of sight around the bend. Wind was bending and swirling the willow branches and sailing occasional clouds through a dappled blue sky. Momentarily distracted by the arrival of Julia in the lab, Janet quickly went over the protocol with her, then returned to her office phone and dialed the Pinkney residence. Hilda Pinkney answered herself and informed her that Jeremy was not there at present. She seemed puzzled at first when Janet explained that it was Hilda and not Jeremy with whom she wished to talk, but graciously recovered and invited Janet to join her for morning coffee at her convenience.

  Some twenty minutes later Janet pedalled along the river-path, letting herself in the back gate by the key which she had noted hanging within a recess hidden in the gate-post when Jerry had let her out that way the preceding afternoon. She pushed her bike up the path and around the pool cabana to the front driveway. The front door was opened by Joyce Pinkney who ushered her into the sun-room where Mrs. Pinkney had already set out the tray. After a few moments of semi-polite conversation Joyce excused herself indicating that she had 'things to do'.

  "And now Janet," began Mrs. Pinkney as she poured the coffee, "I guess that we may have the same worries. Is it about Jerry?" Janet nodded and Mrs. Pinkney continued. "I'm so glad you came because you know Jerry has few real friends. Even though you may not have been in touch he always looked up to you I know." She paused for an instant, then went on choosing her words deliberately. "Jerry is more than just upset about his father. He seems to be imagining all sorts of things concerning his death."

  "Including the fact that he was poisoned," Janet interjected bluntly.

  "He told you that?" Janet nodded assent.

  "I suppose I'm to blame for putting that idea in his head. You see, Jos had reacted so strangely in several ways," and she recounted his symptoms and behaviour much as Jerry had. "I thought at one time that he might have taken some drugs; he was quite sick, very sick, at times."

  “And so Jerry assumed from your description that it was a case of poisoning.”

  "It was worse- much worse- and very distressing," Mrs. Pinkney replied. "You must realize that what I am saying is in strict confidence. Jeremy and his father have had some pretty violent disagreements. They quarrelled frequently and openly as you may have been aware."

  Janet nodded. As she sipped her coffee she was struck by something else that was not quite so obvious. Despite her outward calm and poise Hilda Pinkney might not be very far from hysteria. She had the same inherent lability of temperament as her son, but in contrast had a firm grip on its external manifestations.

  "In some ways," continued Hilda, "Jeremy believed that what happened to his father resulted from what he had wished to happen. For him it was a logical deduction that he had played some part in the events leading up to Joshua's death. And it doesn't seem to matter what anyone says to him. The more I tried to reassure him, or get him to seek some help (you knew he had been under a psychiatrist's care last year) the worse he became. I'm afraid my approach, or Joyce's, only seemed to make him more upset."

  Janet attempted in vain to obtain clarification of Jeremy's guilt feelings and their origins. She had the feeling that she was on a circular path of suspicion and doubt: suspicion of Hilda's frankness, doubt that Jeremy, for all his emotional instability could have simply imagined his mother's feelings. In the end she excused herself and returned to the lab thoroughly annoyed with herself for not having been more penetrating in her questioning of Mrs. Pinkney.

  Kay McKay had to admit that evening as they discussed the day's ‘investigation’ that they were no further forward.

  "We can believe either person's account of their conversation at our peril. I prefer to credit neither of them with complete candour."

  "And yet," Janet replied, "if either or both of them are holding back I don't really feel that it is deliberate evasion. It is as if they were protecting each other from their worst suspicions. It
is possible isn't it, that each suspects the other?"

  Kay nodded in agreement, and they sat silently for several minutes as the last red rays of the sun glinted into the sun-porch at the back of the house.

  "By the way, what was the startling true reason for the Professor’s interview with you this morning?"

  Janet laughed and raised her eyebrows in mock horror.

  "He wants me to spend a weekend of sin with him at his summer cottage!"

  CHAPTER THREE