Keep It Quiet

by Richard Hull

  Ford sighed. It was perfectly true. At the same time it was exactly the same lack of evidence as he had received from Johnson on the smoking-room floor when he had been made to sit on the settee that Sunday afternoon so long ago now.

  ‘Well, anyhow, I think you had better bring me up the rest of that bottle of sherry just in case–’

  ‘Very well, sir.’ Hughes turned and went out in a blinding rage. There was nothing whatever wrong with any sherry he served, and he very much resented that any whipper-snapper of a doctor who ought never to have been elected to his club should say that there was, and he even more resented that the secretary should support him. He ought to know better! On the way back from his bar he made up his mind. It was not his usual habit to give the members away. ‘Loyalty all round’ was his motto, but a time did occasionally come when it was essential to speak, and, to his mind, that time had come. He returned triumphantly carrying three empty bottles and a nearly empty decanter, and placed them all on the secretary’s table.

  ‘Three?’ Ford blinked at them.

  ‘Yes, sir. One was used the night before, but I could not say which bottle was which. Yesterday one whole bottle was drunk and nearly another. The rest is in the decanter.’

  ‘But you said there was only Mr Gladwin and Judge Skinner besides Dr Anstruther.’

  ‘Yes, sir – and Mr Laming.’

  ‘But that’s only four people. I suppose Mr Gladwin must have had a second glass.’

  ‘Yes, sir, he had two, and so had the Judge. Rather unusual, but Mr Gladwin seemed very pleased about some case he had won. And Mr Laming had two, which is also unusual, sir.’

  Through Ford’s mind went a picture of the birdlike Laming nerving himself up with an extra glass. ‘But even so, that only accounts for one bottle, and apparently the second one was nearly finished.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Dr Anstruther. I am not quite sure if he had four or five glasses.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Oh, nothing unusual in that, sir. Nothing at all.’

  Ford made a slight deprecatory noise. He had a vague feeling that he ought never to discuss the characters of the members with the staff and he was quite unaware that he frequently implied more by his expression or even by his silence than he really meant. All that he intended to convey was that having unfortunately stumbled on something that it would be better that he should not know, at any rate officially, it would be wise to change the subject at once. As actually he was surprised by the revelation, having always thought Anstruther the most temperate of men, he merely succeeded in looking incredulous.

  The effect on Hughes was, not unnaturally, unfortunate. He disliked being grunted at in such a way as to imply that he was a liar, as much as any other man.

  ‘Nothing unusual at all, sir,’ he repeated. ‘And there’s another thing I should like to say, sir. I do think, sir, that it’s odd when the books are going like they are, that a member should be untying the marker from one of them – the marker with the club name on it, I mean, sir – as he goes downstairs. And doing it in a very secretive way, too. And that’s what I’ve seen Dr Anstruther’ – there was a wealth of contempt in his tone – ‘doing with my very eyes.’

  ‘Oh, surely not, Hughes, surely not.’

  ‘Yes, sir. You may not believe me, sir, but I saw him.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to doubt your word, but I’m sure there is some explanation. Do you happen to know what book it was?’

  ‘I am afraid not, sir.’

  ‘That makes it rather more awkward. I’ll turn it over in my mind, but I think I shall not mention it to Dr Anstruther on the whole. A little vague, you see, a little vague. A miss is as good as a mile in such a case.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Hughes refrained from pointing out that he meant ‘as bad as a mile’. Besides he saw now that an unsupported accusation might have unpleasant repercussions for himself. He added that he thought it was his duty to mention it.

  Ford agreed. As he sent Hughes away, he came to the conclusion that he was no further on than before; but then he was a past master at the art of failing to see the point.

  21

  A Nice Choice

  At about the same time Anstruther was trying to carry out his ordinary duties, but with a feeling hanging over him that life was very difficult.

  It was not alone the effects of the drinking of the previous day – the emetic, if it had done nothing else, had cleared off most of them; it was not at all the reaction to having killed Pargiter. That he had already been through, and by now had almost recovered from it. Pargiter had been of little use to a world to which he had given no pleasure. Pargiter was now dead, and Anstruther was at least sane enough to see that in strict fact there was no cause for tears in that. It was true, of course, that he had killed him, but he refused to regard it as wanton or cold-bloodedly deliberate. It was nothing of the sort. It was not even premeditated. In fact if Pargiter had been a perfectly fit man, Anstruther believed he would not have died under the first injection of hyoscine. There must have been something else wrong with him, or he would not have done so. In fact the doctor had a shrewd suspicion that if he could have followed the normal procedure and got someone else to hold a post-mortem as well, it would have been found that there was already a cerebral haemorrhage or something of that sort. From that it was an easy step to consider that Pargiter had no right to be unfit. Within a very short while Anstruther was regarding his victim as largely responsible for his own death.

  But the serious matter – to his way of thinking – was the possible consequences.

  However discreet Ford might be, and his fears for his own safety ought for once to make him so, it was bound to strike somebody as peculiar that two people should die in the same chair within two months of each other and that both should be patients of the same doctor whom no one should be asked to assist in examining the causes of death. It was so odd that someone might go and comment on it, and when once people started talking, there was no knowing what might happen.

  The only hope, to his mind, was that the events had occurred where they had. There is no place where people mind their own business more, where there is less vulgar curiosity, than a London club. A man may go there day by day and form quite a close friendship with another without even knowing whether his acquaintance is married with six children, or a bachelor living with a widowed mother. Nor is it regarded as being of any great importance. The facts often leaked out casually, but that again was considered as trivial – an attitude of mind which slightly annoyed and completely baffled the wives of members.

  It is true that there was gossip – there always is anywhere – but it never spread very far and was mostly confined to the particular man’s ability to play billiards or his fatal partiality (from his partner’s point of view) for declaring grand slams which could never be made, his habits of snoring every afternoon or of talking in too aggressive a voice.

  But when it came to dying in the club, it was a nice point how much notice was likely to be taken of an act so contrary to the best traditions of the place. There had been singularly little interest aroused when Morrison had died. It was passed round as a piece of news, and that was all. On the whole, so far as Anstruther had heard the matter commented upon, it was regarded as a piece of rather bad form typical of that retired nuisance.

  So then there was a sporting chance that the death of the more unpopular Pargiter would be similarly regarded. All the same, if anything did happen, what was his line of defence?

  Well, firstly, he might try to get them to exhume Morrison. They would find nothing wrong with him, even after the passing of two months or at any time. Anstruther could not help smiling as he thought of his ridiculous remarks about ‘playing for time’. As if time had anything to do with it! If there had been poison, which there never had, substantial traces would have lingered for a very much longer time than he had implied. To talk about playing for time, therefore, had been unsafe, even to so stupid a man as Ford.

  But th
ere must be other methods of defence, and if possible, better ones. He began to consider who were his chief dangers. Well, first there was Hughes. It had by now become an absolute obsession with him that the library waiter knew more than he should. Well, that must be dealt with once and for all.

  Secondly, there was a possibility of a revolt by Ford. That he considered unlikely. After the previous evening, in his opinion, the secretary was under his thumb more completely than ever.

  Thirdly, there was just general gossip. As to that, he must meet it as and when it arose. There was no good in trying to meet trouble halfway. If he did, he would probably disclose in the process that there was some trouble to be met.

  But finally and worst of all, there was Cardonnel. Despite his warnings and orders, he gathered that Ford was not only allowing but actually encouraging this most undesirable man (from Anstruther’s point of view) to continue to go on prying about the club. Had Ford forgotten the trouble Cardonnel had caused about the sherry – how difficult he had been about the tea-trays? And how always he could be relied upon to raise difficulties? He would probably start the matter by pointing out that there was no bye-law under which members were allowed to die on the club premises.

  And this was the man whom Ford, in his lamblike ignorance, was allowing to play the detective! About the books, apparently. Well, that mattered very little. He had, it is true, borrowed a book which rather interested him by describing in considerable detail the exact methods adopted by Papuan natives for torturing the wrongdoers of their tribe, partly by extremely effective and painful wood poisons, but this could be returned. That was nothing serious. But what other matters had Ford encouraged Cardonnel to investigate? Morrison’s death? Well, Anstruther smiled, there was no harm in that.

  But it would never do for so pertinacious a man to start taking an interest in the little matter of Pargiter’s hyoscine, nor in Anstruther’s own private affairs. He must never, for instance, see the old typewriter, which he kept secretly locked away and used only for his letters to Ford – and to himself! It would indeed be best if Cardonnel found himself slightly ill – if he could be induced to think that a little sea air was good for him. If only Cardonnel had been his patient, how happily and convincingly he would have recommended a very long sea voyage – right round the world – twice if possible.

  Perhaps then the best thing to do would be to see to it that Cardonnel was ill – a trifle, quite light poisoning. There must be no mistake this time. A third death would never be explained away, however ingenious he might be! No, there must be just enough to make Cardonnel feel that he was really ill, something administered quietly and unobtrusively, in small doses, repeated, if necessary, until the tiresome lawyer fled from the effects of the English winter that this year was trying him so very severely.

  Suddenly a bright idea occurred to Anstruther. Why not arrange matters so that it would look as if the poison had been administered by Hughes? An admirable thought! With a double advantage too. It should make certain, if any question arose, of Hughes’s dismissal, and if further enquiries were made about Pargiter’s death, it might even throw suspicion in the wrong place.

  On further thought, though, not even Ford, far less Scotland Yard, if they were called in, could imagine for a moment that anyone in Hughes’s position could have got hold of so much, or indeed any, hyoscine. Still it was not a bad idea. It could be used if Ford were still obdurate about dismissing the waiter.

  So then it only remained to decide on which poison to use to encourage Cardonnel to move to another continent rather than another world.

  By the time he had got thus far in his meditations, Anstruther had finished his day’s work. During all the time he had managed to conceal his often interrupted thoughts from his patients and had indeed even managed to feign an interest in their sufferings. It was difficult work. He had positively to relieve pain, when all day and every day he had but one thought, to give it! Now and then he was lucky and managed to force a particularly painful operation of doubtful necessity, but generally it was impossible. He had, after all, his reputation to consider.

  But now he could sit back in his still chilly, austere sitting room, in which he mortified even his own flesh with trivial discomforts, and could allow himself the luxury of thinking of the effects of various drugs.

  On the whole he favoured the more actively irritant poisons and the more common ones at that. Hyoscine had been almost a flight of fancy.

  Of course there was always arsenic. It had the great merit, from his point of view, of giving gradually increasing pain. But then, if you were careless, and after the recent incident he was afraid of being careless, it might be fatal. Besides, arsenic was such a platitude. Everybody knew about arsenic. There was nothing new, nothing intelligent, nothing witty about arsenic.

  Now what about oxalic acid? That was a good irritant poison. The objection was that it acted almost at once, and if everyone who sat next to him at dinner was invariably sick – well, somebody might notice it. Especially as it would always be just as he finished his own dinner or lunch as the case might be. Besides, the crystals were large, awkward, clumsy things.

  There drifted back into his mind the original trouble from which everything had started – the perchloride of mercury that Benson feared he had confused with the vanilla, a powerful emetic, even more powerful than the one he had used the night before, one which was readily obtainable in nice small crystals, a poison the use of which was not hackneyed.

  Now what was the best way to administer it, not only to Cardonnel, but to the club in general? Suddenly an idea struck him, a method so simple and so very difficult to detect. True, he could not always be present to see the effects, but no matter. He would no doubt hear of them. Oh, admirable subchloride – he meant perchloride of mercury. Subchloride! The slip of the tongue had given him another idea. Calomel, the subchloride, was not a poison, but it was also a fine white powder; a little greyish in tinge perhaps, both of them, but not noticeably. With the two of them, something should really be possible.

  Moreover, the method would once more call attention to those detestable tea-trays which he loathed so heartily, and which were still not entirely replaced. Of course there was the difficulty that any member of the club might be the victim, even Anstruther himself, and not Cardonnel in particular. But then he could probably manage somehow a little extra for that gentleman. Besides, it would not be so conspicuous if Cardonnel was only one of the crowd; and as for himself – well, if it came his way, it would add an artistic touch of innocence, and he would have to put up with it.

  For a moment, resembling Ford, he reflected that he would have to take the rough with the smooth. That he might ruin the club in the process was a matter of no consequence to him whatever.

  22

  The Wearing Of The Green

  ‘And what, young man, is the bright idea?’

  Judge Skinner was slightly out of breath. In his opinion, only the elderly or decrepit ought to use the lift. Nevertheless he considered that he had a grievance that the secretary’s office should be up so many flights of stairs and he conveniently forgot what his comments would have been if a more easily accessible part of the club had been set aside for that purpose. With a growing sense of injury, he put his left hand immediately under the secretary’s nose; three of the fingers were stained a startling shade of sap green.

  ‘I have tried, let me tell you, every kind of soap in the club, but apparently nothing will get it off. We have, by the way, no pumice stone soap. Why not? I have put a request in the suggestion book to that effect.’

  Later Ford was to become quite well aware that he had. What he had actually written was: ‘It is suggested that pummy stone soap be supplied’; and the rather harassed secretary had to hope that the Judge would not notice that some irreverent member, neglecting to sign his name, had added: ‘It is suggested that “pummy” be spelt “pumice”.’ But for the present, in happy ignorance of this slight contretemps, he hastened to assure his
visitor that the soap was usually available. It just so happened by bad luck to have been used up or lost or something of that sort when the Judge had needed it.

  His fingers still spread out in protest, the Judge puffed at him solemnly. ‘Finished, eh? Am I to understand then that this green mess has been plastered all over the hands of all the members?’

  Ford politely indicated that he hoped it was not quite as bad as that; only certain members.

  ‘Indeed! And may I ask what I have done to be so – distinguished?’ Once more the vivid green fingers were prominently displayed.

  This was getting harder and harder to explain. ‘Well, sir, I was trying – I am afraid with very unfortunate results – to see if it were possible to – to identify the man who’ – (this was getting more and more difficult) ‘who was – was borrowing occasionally the library books from the Club.’

  As an explanation it was hardly tactful. The Judge fairly snorted. ‘Do you mean to say, young man, that you have the impertinence to suggest that I, a Judge of His Majesty’s County Court, am a common thief? It’s a libel, sir, a positive libel – or a slander,’ he ended weakly. Who could say offhand whether smearing a green dye on a man’s fingers was a written accusation or a spoken one? It was a nice point, requiring consideration. He must consult the Clerk of his Court.

  Faced with the direct result of his trap, Ford ran away. The idea, when it first came to his mind, had seemed so clever, so automatic and neat, but now it hardly seemed so convincing. Long ago, in an attempt to eradicate pure absent-mindedness, the Committee had decided that in every book in the circulating library a short cord was to be tied with a running noose down the back of the binding, hanging from which was a celluloid tab with ‘Whitehall Club’ clearly stamped on it. The label would serve as a convenient marker, and unless the cord were deliberately untied, the marker would remain in the book as a reminder of where the book belonged. It had only been on that part of the cord which he had been confidently certain ought, under all normal circumstances, to be well inside the space between its back and its binding that he had put the dye.