I Saw Him Die

by Andrew Wilson

  I took a sip of soda water and told her and the other guests something of how I had met Max Mallowan in Ur, in southern Iraq, and my first impressions of him. I related how we became friends and how the romance blossomed. I talked a little about Max’s work as an archaeologist and his fascination for ancient Mesopotamia. I did not, of course, mention anything about my earlier trip to Ur in 1928, when a murderer had stalked the camp.

  A glint of mischief sparkled in Mrs. Buchanan’s eyes. “I hope you don’t mind me asking: Are you and your future husband the same age?”

  How on earth had she picked up on my anxiety about the age difference? “Well, there is something of a gap between us.”

  “How many years?” asked May Frith-Stratton, in a tone of voice that sounded as though she were reading the question from a book.

  I could not bear to tell the truth: that the gap was more of a gulf, one of fourteen years. “I think Max is just a little over ten years younger,” I lied.

  Isabella Frith-Stratton appeared to nearly choke on her water biscuit. “I’ve known such marriages,” she spluttered, “and I’m afraid none of them—no, not one—have lasted very long.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” said Mrs. Buchanan. “I’m friends with some women who have enjoyed very satisfactory partnerships with much, much younger men.”

  At this she seemed to beam, as if she was talking from personal experience. I thought again of the damaged photograph showing Mrs. Buchanan and the shoulder of an unidentifiable man.

  “Women need to find love where they can, and sometimes that can come from the most surprising places,” she said, addressing the Frith-Strattons now. “I would have thought, as writers of romance novels, you would understand that better than most.”

  There was a certain tension in the air. Mrs. Buchanan was clearly in the mood for a fight. And although I was not well-disposed towards the Frith-Strattons, I did not want the dinner to end in a nasty dispute.

  “I’m sure the gentlemen don’t want to hear us ladies discussing the finer points of romance,” I said, standing up. “So I think we should continue in the other room and leave the men to their port and cigars.”

  Mrs. Buchanan smiled gracefully and smoothed out her napkin. The Frith-Stratton sisters nodded in sour acquiescence and stood up, shortly followed by Vivienne Passerini. Davison cast a look of admiration in my direction for the way I had defused the delicate situation as Mr. Peterson came back into the room and began to pour out glasses of port for the men.

  “I think we all need an extra drink or two if we’re going to get to sleep tonight,” he said. Before I left the room he glanced over at me, again in that knowing manner. “Are you sure you won’t take a glass? After all, Mrs. Christie, tomorrow is judgment day.”

  Later on, when I was tucked up in bed, Mr. Peterson’s words began to trouble me. This continued through the night, and I must have enjoyed only one or two hours’ sleep. However, enjoyed was not the right word; endured would be more accurate. When I wasn’t tossing and turning, thinking over the queer looks Mr. Peterson had cast my way, and the manner in which he had turned to me and made that comment about judgment day, I was haunted by visions from the book of Revelation. The pale horse whose rider was Death. An earthquake after which the sun became as black as sackcloth made of hair and the moon like blood. A great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns…

  I woke up covered in sweat. As I put on my dressing gown I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. What an absolute fright I looked! I washed my face at the basin in the room and then took myself off to bathe. I had always adored the feeling of submersion in water. Lying in water, I felt free, released from the thoughts of work, liberated from regrets surrounding the past and from worries about the future. But as I bathed that morning the memory of Mr. Peterson’s words continued to disturb me. Could I risk asking him outright? After all, what would I say to him? That he had looked at me oddly and that I was sure I had picked up an underlying implication in the sentences he had addressed to me? No, that would not do. The evidence was as light and insubstantial as gossamer. Another image came to mind: that of a spider and its web. We all knew the identity of the prey—the victim had been Robin Kinmuir—but which of the guests at Dallach Lodge was the spider? At the moment the supporting structure of the web seemed invisible and unknowable.

  However, I too could cast myself in the role of the arachnid, quietly weaving its dangerous latticework in a far corner of the room. I would watch, observe, and wait until my prey was in sight.

  FIFTEEN

  The atmosphere at breakfast was strained. Each scrape of a butter knife across a piece of toast or the cutting of a crispy strip of bacon on a plate seemed to reverberate around the room. There were the usual requests for the salt or pepper and polite interchanges between the guests and Simkins, but for the most part we remained quiet. Even the normally chatty Frith-Stratton sisters were reserved.

  As I quietly ate my poached eggs, I felt the eyes of Mr. Peterson on me. But when I looked up to catch his gaze, he diverted his attention to a coffeepot sitting on the starched white linen tablecloth or looked out of the window at a distant spot across the loch.

  Finally, Miss Passerini broke the silence when she turned to me and said, “I have a feeling that you more than any of us might have an idea of what we might learn today.”

  “In what way, my dear?” I asked.

  She glanced at Mr. Peterson, who gave her an encouraging look. “Just that… with the knowledge that you must have picked up from writing your detective stories, you might be in a better position to know what to expect,” she said.

  “Oh, I’m not so sure about that,” I said, trying to make light of the matter.

  “Come, now, Agatha,” said Davison. “You shouldn’t be so modest. Your novels read like an encyclopedia of unusual deaths.”

  What was he up to?

  “I wouldn’t quite say that,” I said, feeling all eyes on me. A blush began to burn its way through to my cheeks.

  “As her cousin, I know how modest she is,” Davison continued, addressing the rest of the group. “For instance, when her first novel was published, under the title of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, she received a wonderful notice from—what was it? Oh, yes, the Pharmaceutical Journal, praising the book for the accuracy with which she wrote about poisons. I think she was more proud of that review than any mention of the book in the newspapers or high-circulation magazines!”

  A light ripple of laughter echoed around the breakfast table.

  “How do you know so much about the subject?” asked Mr. Peterson, looking up from his copy of the Times. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “Well, I suppose it all goes back to the war,” I said. “I was a VAD, you see. After training as a nurse, I spent time in the dispensary in Torquay. I sat my apothecary examinations and served under a couple of dispensers and picked up some knowledge along the way.”

  “How fascinating,” said Mr. Peterson, with the trace of a faint smile. “Yes, I can see how you would be good at it.” There was an air of something left unsaid in his statement.

  Again all eyes turned to me for a reaction, but I was at a loss to know how to respond. My mother had always told me that it was bad manners to boast about one’s achievements, and neither was it in my nature to do so.

  “Please tell us more about your time there—at the dispensary,” said Miss Passerini. “Unless you’d rather not, of course. I find it so terribly interesting. As you know, I’m a botanist, and no doubt we’ve read many of the same books. It always strikes me as so fascinating how many plants have the ability both to heal and to harm.”

  “Indeed,” I said. As I chatted about aconite and belladonna, Miss Passerini nodded along in an encouraging manner. Finally, I became so bored of the sound of my own voice that I brought my monologue to a close. “But you must be the real expert,” I said to her. “Not on poisons, obviously, but on the world of flora and fauna.”

  I listened as
she talked of her fascination with plants. “I don’t know where my interest came from,” she said. “All I know is I was a very lonely girl. I grew up without a mother or father, you see. I’m an orphan and I was brought up by a guardian. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters to play with, and so I spent hours in the garden outside.”

  “I adored the garden of my childhood home,” I said. I was aware that my experience must have been very different from Miss Passerini’s isolated existence, so I was careful not to overwhelm her with talk of Ashfield, which had been so full of life with my mother, father, brother, and sister, servants, guests, and frequent visitors. I wondered what had happened to her parents. I couldn’t imagine a childhood without my mother or father. Even though they had both died—my father when I was eleven and my mother only four years ago—I still felt their presence. I was certain that a part of my mother still lived inside me; again I didn’t voice this, but just kept the conversation on a friendly level. “In fact, I’m sure I had actual conversations with some of the trees in the garden. I was a very odd little girl.”

  The people around the table, no doubt relieved to think of something other than murder, laughed at this.

  “I can’t wait to get away from this house,” said Miss Passerini. “Out of Britain altogether. I’ve had enough of this country for a while.”

  “Where will you go next?” asked Davison.

  She addressed her reply not to him but to me. “Perhaps I will visit South America after all,” she said. Her lightness of tone disguised a certain mocking quality, as though she were teasing me. “That’s where Mrs. Christie urges me to go, isn’t it?”

  I remembered the stamps in Miss Passerini’s passport. Did she know somehow that I had searched her room?

  “As I said, I’ve heard so many interesting things about that continent,” I replied. “I’ve never had the opportunity or the time to—”

  Before I could finish the sentence, there was a knock at the door. Simkins was standing there with Dr. Fitzpatrick and Inspector Hawkins; all three wore somber expressions that made them look like the male equivalent of the Three Fates.

  Hawkins cleared his throat and stepped into the room. “I’m sorry to disturb your breakfast, but we have the results that we were waiting for,” he said. “About the postmortem of Mr. Kinmuir.”

  The reminder of death at close quarters forced everyone to stop eating and place their knives and forks down on their plates. Mrs. Buchanan took out a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. James Kinmuir looked a little green around the gills. Rufus Phillips fiddled with a small sketchbook that he had by his plate. The Frith-Stratton sisters’ eyes shone with a queer excitement. Miss Passerini gazed down into her lap, her thoughts unknowable. Davison’s gaze remain fixed on the inspector and doctor standing at the door. And Mr. Peterson studied me once more as if he wanted to gauge my reaction to the news.

  “Why don’t you finish and join us in the library when you’re ready?” said Hawkins, retreating with the doctor.

  I placed my napkin on the table and felt a sense of excitement building inside of me, quickly followed by a pang of guilt. This was not the murder of a character in a novel but of a real person, someone who had lived and loved. He had clearly not been an easy, straightforward man—no doubt he had had his fair share of people who did not care for him—but Robin Kinmuir had not deserved to be murdered. I was about to find out the method used to kill him. That knowledge would prove significant, I was sure, as it would give me a clue to the identity of the killer.

  The library was a large room painted a light shade of green, with French doors that led out onto the terrace. Ranged around the walls were a number of alcoves in which were set bookcases filled with volumes that looked as though they had not been opened in years. As I took a seat I felt the eyes of Mr. Peterson and Miss Passerini on me. I pretended not to notice and unzipped my handbag to look for a handkerchief, but the strength of their gaze was unmistakable. Each of the guests, some still with coffee cups, took their seats in the room, while Hawkins and the doctor remained standing in front of the marble fireplace. Morning sun streamed through the east-facing windows, casting the room in a delicious golden glow. It was the kind of day that should have warmed the body and the spirit. I suspected, however, that the news the inspector and the doctor would soon impart would not be bright or sunny.

  “Thank you for your patience over the last few days,” said Hawkins. “I’m sure it cannot have been easy for you to remain here. But, as I said, it was essential to the investigation—an investigation that has not been without its difficulties. As you know, six days ago, on the twelfth of August, Robin Kinmuir, owner of Dallach Lodge, died while walking his dogs.”

  At this point the two black Labradors trotted into the room almost on cue, an appearance that was greeted by a ripple of light laughter, the kind often used to dispel tension.

  “As I was saying,” said Hawkins, “on the twelfth of August, Robin Kinmuir died while taking his customary morning walk. At first it was suspected that Mr. Kinmuir was killed as a result of a shot fired by his nephew, James Kinmuir. Yet it was subsequently discovered that that injury was merely a surface wound. It produced a great deal of blood, but it was certainly not serious enough to kill him.”

  He looked around the room, studying each of our faces. “So, what did kill Mr. Kinmuir? At this point I will pass you over to Dr. Fitzpatrick, who can tell you a little more about the details of the death.”

  The doctor looked pale, his eyes puffy as though he had not slept. “You know that in addition to acting in a professional capacity as Robin’s doctor, I was also his good friend. Although some may think that I was therefore not able to carry out the solemn task of examining his body, in fact the opposite was the case. The knowledge that I had known this man who lay before me gave me an added incentive to do the very best for him.”

  He took a piece of paper from his inside jacket pocket and glanced down at it with an air of disbelief. He cleared his throat, and his thumb and forefinger rested on his chin for a moment as he gathered his thoughts and controlled his emotions.

  “I have here the postmortem report I have prepared into the death of Robin Kinmuir. I won’t read it to you verbatim—there is a great deal of technical vocabulary and certain details which, well, which you probably don’t need to know—but I will give you a summary of my findings. As the inspector said, the shot that hit Kinmuir’s right leg resulted in a certain loss of blood, but that was not what killed him.”

  The tension in the room was palpable now. Each of us was transfixed on Dr. Fitzpatrick and what he was about to reveal. All I could hear was the sound of my own breathing and the chatter of birdsong outside.

  “Robin Kinmuir was poisoned—a poison that—”

  Dr. Fitzpatrick was forced to break off due to the gasps and cries in the room. Both Mrs. Buchanan and James Kinmuir looked distraught and broken by the news. I noticed how the inspector was studying each of our reactions in turn. So that was why he had taken this highly unusual step of revealing the details of the postmortem to us: he wanted to see if he could discern traces of guilt on our faces.

  After the group settled back down, Dr. Fitzpatrick resumed his statement. “A poison that, after a number of tests, has turned out to be… curare.”

  The name of the poison was met by blank stares and the odd shake of the head. But I knew my poisons. In particular, I knew curare. It originated in South America, a continent that Vivienne Passerini said she was ignorant of but one which, according to her passport, she had recently visited. I looked over to her, and the young, beautiful woman returned my gaze with a proud, almost accusatory expression in her green eyes.

  “It’s a poison that originates in South America,” said Dr. Fitzpatrick, as if reading my thoughts. “And one that was traditionally used in… well, the tribes there used it in poison arrows and darts.” As he said this, the doctor realized that the words seemed far-fetched and ridiculous. “It sounds like the stuff from a novel,�
�� he said, a comment which caused more heads to turn towards me, “but I am afraid this is all too true.”

  “It can’t be,” said James Kinmuir.

  “I don’t understand,” said Mrs. Buchanan, wiping a tear from her eye. “Robin was a very well-traveled man, but as far as I know he never set foot in South America.”

  “It seems as though someone must have brought it back with them,” said the inspector. “Apparently curare is a dark paste, and so it could easily be smuggled into the country wrapped in a handkerchief or concealed in a vanity case.”

  “Was it in something that he ate?” asked Miss Passerini.

  I knew the answer to this, as did the doctor, who went on to explain how a person would suffer no ill effects from ingesting curare; it was only when the poison entered the bloodstream that it caused devastating results.

  “A person dies from asphyxiation due to the inability of his respiratory muscles to contract,” said Dr. Fitzpatrick.

  “So it would have been a painful death?” asked Mrs. Buchanan.

  Dr. Fitzpatrick nodded silently but, quite rightly, refused to go into any more details.

  I remembered the horrible grimace on Robin Kinmuir’s face and the way his right hand had been grasping at that sprig of heather. Yes, it must have been very painful indeed. At least the death was not a long and lingering one. My guess was that he had suffered for only a few minutes, but in that time he must have realized that his life was coming to an end. What terror he must have felt. There was something I wanted to know.

  “The gunshot wound?” I asked. “Did that serve as some kind of catalyst to bring about Mr. Kinmuir’s death? The shock of that impact, being hit in the leg—could that have hastened his demise?”

  “It’s difficult to say; all we know is that Mr. Kinmuir was alive when he was shot.”