by Ngaio Marsh
‘We hope there’s no trouble,’ he said. ‘Would you mind if I asked you to clear up a few points about Sir Henry Ancred’s death?’
The mechanical attentiveness of Dr Withers’s glance sharpened. He made an abrupt movement and looked from Alleyn to Fox.
‘Certainly,’ he said, ‘if there’s any necessity. But why?’ He still held Alleyn’s card in his hand and he glanced at it again. ‘You don’t mean to say—’ he began, and stopped short. ‘Well, what are these few points?’
‘I think I’d better tell you exactly what’s happened,’ Alleyn said. He took a copy of the anonymous letter from his pocket and handed it to Dr Withers. ‘Mr Thomas Ancred brought eight of these to us this morning,’ he said.
‘Damn disgusting piffle,’ said Dr Withers and handed it back.
‘I hope so. But when we’re shown these wretched things we have to do something about them.’
‘Well?’
‘You signed the death certificate, Dr Withers, and—’
‘And I shouldn’t have done so if I hadn’t been perfectly satisfied as to the cause.’
‘Exactly. Now will you, like a good chap, help us to dispose of these letters by giving us, in non-scientific words, the cause of Sir Henry’s death?’
Dr Withers fretted a little, but at last went to his files and pulled out a card.
‘There you are,’ he said. ‘That’s the last of his cards. I made routine calls at Ancreton. It covers about six weeks.’
Alleyn looked at it. It bore the usual list of dates with appropriate notes. Much of it was illegible and almost all obscure to the lay mind. The final note, however, was flatly lucid. It read: ‘Deceased. Between twelve-thirty and two a.m., Nov. 25th.’
‘Yes,’ said Alleyn. ‘Thank you. Now will you translate some of this?’
‘He suffered,’ said Dr Withers angrily, ‘from gastric ulcers and degeneration of the heart. He was exceedingly indiscriminate in his diet. He’d eaten a disastrous meal, had drunk champagne, and had flown into one of his rages. From the look of the room, I diagnosed a severe gastric attack followed by heart failure. I may add that if I had heard about the manner in which he’d spent the evening I should have expected some such development.’
‘You’d have expected him to die?’
‘That would be an extremely unprofessional prognostication. I would have anticipated grave trouble,’ said Dr Withers stuffily.
‘Was he in the habit of playing up with his diet?’
‘He was. Not continuously, but in bouts.’
‘Yet survived?’
‘The not unusual tale of “once too often”.’
‘Yes,’ said Alleyn, looking down at the card. ‘Would you mind describing the room and the body?’
‘Would you, in your turn, Chief Inspector, mind telling me if you have any reason for this interview beyond these utterly preposterous anonymous letters?’
‘Some of the family suspect arsenical poisoning.’
‘Oh, my God and the little starfish!’ Dr Withers shouted and shook his fists above his head. ‘That bloody family!’
He appeared to wrestle obscurely with his feelings. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said at last, ‘inexcusable outburst. I’ve been busy lately and worried, and there you are. The Ancreds, collectively, have tried me rather high. Why, may one ask, do they suspect arsenical poisoning?’
‘It’s a long story,’ said Alleyn carefully, ‘and it involves a tin of rat poison. May I add also, very unprofessionally, that I shall be enormously glad if you can tell me that the condition of the room and the body precludes the smallest likelihood of arsenical poisoning?’
‘I can’t tell you anything of the sort. Why? (a) Because the room had been cleaned up when I got there. And (b) because the evidence as described to me, and the appearance of the body were entirely consistent with a severe gastric attack, and therefore not inconsistent with arsenical poisoning.’
‘Damn!’ Alleyn grunted. ‘I thought it’d be like that.’
‘How the hell could the old fool have got at any rat poison? Will you tell me that?’ He jabbed his finger at Alleyn.
‘They don’t think,’ Alleyn explained, ‘that he got at it. They think it was introduced to him.’
The well-kept hand closed so strongly that the knuckles whitened. For a moment he held it clenched, and then, as if to cancel this gesture, opened the palm and examined his fingernails.
‘That,’ he said, ‘is implicit in the letter, of course. Even that I can believe of the Ancreds. Who is supposed to have murdered Sir Henry? Am I, by any pleasant chance?’
‘Not that I know,’ said Alleyn comfortably. Fox cleared his throat and added primly: ‘What an idea!’
‘Are they going to press for an exhumation? Or are you?’
‘Not without more reason than we’ve got at the moment,’ Alleyn said. ‘You didn’t hold a post-mortem?’
‘One doesn’t hold a PM on a patient who was liable to go off in precisely this fashion at any moment.’
‘True enough. Dr Withers, may I make our position quite clear? We’ve had a queer set of circumstances placed before us and we’ve got to take stock of them. Contrary to popular belief, the police do not, in such cases, burn to get a pile of evidence that points unavoidably to exhumation. If the whole thing turns out to be so much nonsense they are, as a general rule, delighted to write it off. Give us a sound argument against arsenical poisoning and we’ll be extremely grateful to you.’
Dr Withers waved his hands. ‘I can’t give you, at a moment’s notice, absolute proof that he didn’t get arsenic. You couldn’t do it for ninety-nine deaths out of a hundred, when there was gastric trouble with vomiting and purging and no analysis was taken of anything. As a matter of fact—’
‘Yes?’ Alleyn prompted as he paused.
‘As a matter of fact, I dare say if there’d been anything left I might have done an analysis simply as a routine measure and to satisfy a somewhat pedantic medical conscience. But the whole place had been washed up.’
‘By whose orders?’
‘My dear man, by Barker’s orders or Mrs Kentish’s, or Mrs Henry Ancred’s, or whoever happened to think of it. They didn’t like to move him. Couldn’t very well. Rigor was pretty well established, which gave me, by the way, a lead about the time of his death. When I saw him later in the day they’d fixed him up, of course, and a nice time Mrs Ancred must have had of it with all of them milling about the house in an advanced condition of hysteria and Mrs Kentish “insisting on taking a hand in the laying-out”.’
‘Good Lord!’
‘Oh, they’re like that. Well, as I was saying, there he was when they found him, hunched up on the bed, and the room in a pretty nauseating state. When I got there, two of those old housemaids were waddling off with their buckets and the whole place stank of carbolic. They’d even managed to change the bedclothes. I didn’t get there, by the way, for an hour after they telephoned. Confinement.’
‘About the children’s ringworm—’ Alleyn began.
‘You know about them, do you? Yes. Worrying business. Glad to say young Panty’s cleared up at last.’
‘I understand,’ Alleyn said pleasantly, ‘that you are bold in your use of drugs.’
There was a long silence. ‘And how, may I ask,’ said Dr Withers very quietly, ‘did you hear details of my treatment?’
‘Why, from Thomas Ancred,’ said Alleyn, and watched the colour return to Dr Withers’s face. ‘Why not?’
‘I dislike gossip about my patients. As a matter of fact I wondered if you’d been talking to our local pharmacist. I’m not at all pleased with him at the moment, however.’
‘Do you remember the evening the children were dosed—Monday, the nineteenth, I think it was?’
Dr Withers stared at him. ‘Now, why—?’ he began, and seemed to change his mind. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Simply because that evening a practical joke was played on Sir Henry and the child Panty has been
accused of it. It’s too elaborate a story to bother you about, but I’d like to know if she was capable of it. In the physical sense. Mentally, it seems, she certainly is.’
‘What time?’
‘During dinner. She would have visited the drawing-room.’
‘Out of the question. I arrived at seven-thirty—Wait a moment.’ He searched his filing cabinet and pulled out another card. ‘Here! I superintended the weighing and dosing of these kids and noted the time. Panty got her quota at eight and was put to bed. I stayed on in the ante-room to their dormitory during the rest of the business and talked to Miss Able. I left her my visiting list for the next twenty-four hours so that she could get me quickly if anything cropped up. It was after nine when I left and this wretched kid certainly hadn’t budged. I had a look at the lot of them. She was asleep with a normal pulse and so on.’
‘That settles Panty, then,’ Alleyn muttered.
‘Look here, has this any bearing on the other business?’
‘I’m not sure. It’s a preposterous story. If you’ve the time and inclination to listen I’ll tell it to you.’
‘I’ve got,’ said Dr Withers, glancing at his watch, ‘twenty-three minutes. Case in half an hour, and I want to hear the racing results before I go out.’
‘I shan’t be more than ten minutes.’
‘Go ahead, then. I should be glad to hear any story, however fantastic, that can connect a practical joke on Monday the nineteenth with the death of Sir Henry Ancred from gastro-enteritis after midnight on Saturday the twenty-fourth.’
Alleyn related all the stories of the practical jokes. Dr Withers punctuated this recital with occasional sounds of incredulity or irritation. When Alleyn reached the incident of the flying cow he interrupted him.
‘The child Panty,’ he said, ‘is capable of every iniquity, but, as I have pointed out, she could not have perpetrated this offence with the blown-up bladder, nor could she have painted the flying cow on Mrs—’ He stopped short. ‘Is this lady—?’ he began.
‘My wife, as it happens,’ said Alleyn, ‘but let it pass.’
‘Good Lord! Unusual that, isn’t it?’
‘Both unusual and bothering in this context. You were saying?’
‘That the child was too seedy that night for it to be conceivable. And you tell me Miss Able (sensible girl that) vouches for her anyway.’
‘Yes.’
‘All right. Well, some other fool, the egregious Cedric in all likelihood, performed these idiocies. I fail to see how they can possibly be linked up with Sir Henry’s death.’
‘You have not,’ Alleyn said, ‘heard of the incident of the book on embalming in the cheese-dish.’
Dr Withers’s mouth opened slightly, but he made no comment, and Alleyn continued his narrative. ‘You see,’ he added, ‘this final trick does bear a sort of family likeness to the others, and, considering the subject matter of the book, and the fact that Sir Henry was embalmed—’
‘Quite so. Because the damned book talks about arsenic they jump to this imbecile conclusion—’
‘Fortified, we must remember, by the discovery of a tin of arsenical rat poison in Miss Orrincourt’s luggage.’
‘Planted there by the practical joker,’ cried Dr Withers. ‘I bet you. Planted!’
‘That’s a possibility,’ Alleyn agreed, ‘that we can’t overlook.’
Fox suddenly said: ‘Quite so.’
‘Well,’ said Dr Withers, ‘I’m damned if I know what to say. No medical man enjoys the suggestion that he’s been careless or made a mistake, and this would be a very awkward mistake. Mind, I don’t for a split second believe there’s a fragment of truth in the tale, but if the whole boiling of Ancreds are going to talk arsenic—Here! Have you seen the embalmers?’
‘Not yet. We shall do so, of course.’
‘I don’t know anything about embalming,’ Dr Withers muttered. ‘This fossil book may not amount to a row of beans.’
‘Taylor,’ said Alleyn, ‘has a note on it. He says that in such manipulations of a body, antiseptic substances are used (commonly arsenic), and might prevent detection of poison as the cause of death.’
‘So, if we have an exhumation, where are we? Precisely nowhere.’
‘I’m not sure of my ground,’ said Alleyn, ‘but I fancy that an exhumation should definitely show whether or not Sir Henry Ancred was poisoned. I’ll explain.’
Fox and Alleyn lunched at the Ancreton Arms, on jugged hare, well cooked, and a tankard each of the local draught beer. It was a pleasant enough little pub, and the landlady, on Alleyn’s inquiry, said she could, if requested, put them up for the night.
‘I’m not at all sure we shan’t be taking her at her word,’ said Alleyn as they walked out into the village street. It was thinly bright with winter sunshine, and contained, beside the pub and Dr Withers’s house, a post office shop, a chapel, a draper’s, a stationer’s, a meeting-hall, a chemist-cum-fancy-goods shop, and a row of cottages. Over the brow of intervening hills, the gothic windows, multiple towers and indefatigably varied chimney-pots of Ancreton Manor glinted against their background of conifers, and brooded, with an air of grand seigneury, faintly bogus, over the little village.
‘And here,’ said Alleyn, pausing at the chemist’s window, ‘is Mr Juniper’s pharmacy. That’s a pleasant name, Fox. E.M. Juniper. This is where Troy and Miss Orrincourt came in their governess-cart on a nasty evening. Let’s call on Mr Juniper, shall we?’
But he seemed to be in no hurry to go in, and began to mutter to himself before the side window. ‘A tidy window, Fox. I like the old-fashioned coloured bottles, don’t you? Writing paper, you see, and combs and ink (that brand went off the market in the war) cheek-by-jowel with cough-lozenges and trusses in their modest boxes. Even some children’s card games. Happy Families. That’s how Troy drew the Ancreds. Let’s give them a pack. Mr Juniper the chemist’s window. Come on.’
He led the way in. The shop was divided into two sections. One counter was devoted to fancy goods, and one, severe and isolated, to Mr Juniper’s professional activities. Alleyn rang a little bell, a door opened, and Mr Juniper, fresh and rosy in his white coat, came out, together with the cleanly smell of drugs.
‘Yes, sir?’ Mr Juniper inquired, placing himself behind his professional counter.
‘Good morning,’ said Alleyn. ‘I wonder if by any chance you’ve got anything to amuse a small girl who’s on the sick list?’
Mr Juniper removed to the fancy-goods department. ‘Happy Families? Bubble-blowing?’ he suggested.
‘Actually,’ Alleyn lied pleasantly. ‘I’ve been told I must bring back some form of practical joke. Designed, I’m afraid, for Dr Withers.’
‘Really? T’t. Ha-ha!’ said Mr Juniper. ‘Well, now. I’m afraid we haven’t anything much in that line. There were some dummy ink-spots, but I’m afraid—No. I know exactly the type of thing you mean, mind, but I’m just afraid—’
‘Somebody said something about a thing you blow up and sit on,’ Alleyn murmured vaguely. ‘It sounded disgusting.’
‘Ah! The Raspberry?’
‘That’s it.’
Mr Juniper shook his head sadly and made a gesture of resignation.
‘I thought,’ said Alleyn, ‘I saw a box in your window that looked—’
‘Empty!’ Mr Juniper sighed. ‘The customer didn’t require the box, so I’m afraid I’ve just left it there. Now isn’t that a pity,’ Mr Juniper lamented. ‘Only last week, or would it be a fortnight ago, I sold the last of that little line to a customer for exactly the same purpose. A sick little girl. Yes. One would almost think,’ he hazarded, ‘that the same little lady—’
‘I expect so. Patricia Kentish,’ said Alleyn.
‘Ah, quite so. So the customer said! Up at the Manor. Quite a little tinker,’ said Mr Juniper. ‘Well, sir, I think you’ll find that Miss Pant—Miss Pat—has already got a Raspberry.’
‘In that case,’ said Alleyn, ‘I’ll take a Happy Families. You
want some toothpaste, don’t you, Fox?’
‘Happy Families,’ said Mr Juniper, snatching a packet from the shelf. ‘Dentifrice? Any particular make, sir?’
‘For a plate,’ said Fox stolidly.
‘For the denture. Quite,’ said Mr Juniper, and darted into the professional side of his shop.
‘I wouldn’t mind betting,’ said Alleyn cheerfully to Fox, ‘that it was Sonia Orrincourt who got in first with that thing.’
‘Ah,’ said Fox. Mr Juniper smiled archly. ‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘I oughtn’t to give the young lady away, ought I? Professional secrets. Ha-ha!’
‘Ha-ha!’ Alleyn agreed, putting Happy Families in his pocket. ‘Thank you, Mr Juniper.’
‘Thank you, sir. All well up at the Manor, I hope? Great loss, that. Loss to the Nation, you might say. Little trouble with the children clearing up, I hope?’
‘On its way. Lovely afternoon, isn’t it? Goodbye.’
‘I didn’t want any toothpaste,’ said Fox, as they continued up the street.
‘I didn’t see why I should make all the purchases and you were looking rather too portentous. Put it down to expenses. It was worth it.’
‘I don’t say it wasn’t that,’ Fox agreed. ‘Now, sir, if this woman Orrincourt took the Raspberry, I suppose we look to her for all the other pranks, don’t we?’
‘I hardly think so, Fox. Not all. We know, at least, that this ghastly kid tied a notice to the tail of her Aunt Millamant’s coat. She’s got a reputation for practical jokes. On the other hand, she definitely, it seems, did not perpetrate the Raspberry and the flying cow, and my wife is convinced she’s innocent of the spectacles, the painted stair rail and the rude writing on Sir Henry’s looking-glass. As for the book in the cheese-dish, I don’t think either Panty or Miss Orrincourt is guilty of that flight of fancy.’
‘So that if you count out the little girl for anything that matters, we’ve got Miss Orrincourt and another.’
‘That’s the cry.’
‘And this other is trying to fix something on Miss Orrincourt in the way of arsenic and the old gentleman?’
‘It’s a reasonable thesis, but Lord knows.’