Death in the House

by Anthony Berkeley

  ‘Then if you’ll excuse me…’ The Colonial Secretary rose from his chair.

  ‘Good luck, Middleton,’ muttered the President of the Board of Trade, who was given to displaying emotion at inconvenient moments.

  ‘Yes, good luck, old boy,’ echoed the First Lord, with manly sentiment.

  Middleton grinned sheepishly.

  Before he could reach the door, the bell of the telephone extension rang sharply. At a nod from the Prime Minister, Middleton went to the instrument and lifted the receiver. He listened for a moment, said ‘Hold on,’ and carried the telephone on its long flex across to the Prime Minister’s chair.

  ‘It’s Mollison, sir. He says MacFerris is on the line, with important news.’

  There was a dead and anxious silence as the Prime Minister spoke, in his usual quietly conversational tones.

  ‘Yes. Put him through. – Yes, Sir Angus? This is the Prime Minister speaking. – Indeed? That was very expeditious. – Already? Yes? – Good! Yes, tell me, please.’ There was a long silence. ‘Good heavens!’ The Prime Minister’s voice was shocked. ‘You’re absolutely certain? – Dreadful! – I see, yes, of course. Well, ring me up the instant you discover anything else. You’ve informed the Commissioner of Police, of course? – Yes, very well. Goodbye.’

  The Prime Minister hung up the receiver and handed the instrument back to the Colonial Secretary. He looked at the strained expectancy on the faces of his Cabinet.

  ‘Gentlemen, I am afraid this is more serious than we dared to fear. Sir Angus tells me that he has little doubt that Wellacombe’s death was not a natural one. Sir William Greene sent him round certain portions of the body at the earliest moment, and though, of course, he has not yet had time to make exhaustive tests he has already detected the presence of an unidentified alkaloid, which almost certainly caused death. In other words, poor Wellacombe was poisoned.’

  No one spoke.

  The Prime Minister turned a worried gaze on to the Colonial Secretary.

  ‘I can hardly take advantage of your offer, Middleton, made in ignorance of this new development.’

  ‘Naturally my offer stands, Prime Minister,’ Middleton returned, almost brusquely. ‘Unless,’ he added with malice, ‘Levering still wants to do his duty.’

  The Secretary for the Dominions gave him a ghastly smile.

  The First Lord spoke up with nautical candour, as man to man. ‘Prime Minister, shelve the Bill. I don’t say chuck it altogether, of course, but shelve it at any rate till the police have had a chance.’

  ‘That,’ said the Prime Minister, firmly, ‘is quite out of the question.’

  chapter three

  Brown Sauce

  ‘It’s worrying me, Arthur. Even apart from poor Wellacombe’s death, the whole business is most disturbing.’ The Prime Minister ran his hand through his rather long white hair and gazed anxiously into the fire. ‘We’ve had enough trouble with the Indian extremists in their own country, but they should bring their terrorisation methods over here…’

  It was the middle of the next morning, and Lord Arthur had snatched half an hour from his work of coaching Middleton in order to hurry round to Downing Street for a short and unofficial conference with the Prime Minister. The meeting was taking place in the library, where the Prime Minister, swathed in rugs but fully dressed, was ensconced by the fire. Whether in her capacity as sick nurse or as private confidante, Isabel Franklin was present too.

  ‘You think it’s the Indian extremists then, sir?’ Lord Arthur asked.

  ‘I suppose so. That’s the view Scotland Yard takes, and it’s the logical one. Dear me, dear me, why can’t these poor wretches believe that we’re all honestly trying to do what we think best for their country? But that’s always the way in politics. No party has ever deliberately and maliciously supported a policy which it knew to be unsound; but few Oppositions ever give a Government credit for purity of motive… and no Opposition newspaper. Don’t ever go in for politics, Isabel. It’s a disheartening as well as a dirty profession.’

  ‘As I’ve always told you, father, I shall offer myself as a candidate the day you retire,’ Isabel returned briskly. ‘We may as well carry on the family tradition of providing at any rate one disinterested member of the House.’

  The Prime Minister smiled at her. ‘Not if I can help it will you ever be elected, my dear. A daughter can be a terrible responsibility, Arthur. Never have one of your own.’

  ‘No, Arthur will have one of somebody else’s,’ responded Isabel tartly.

  Lord Arthur looked at her in some surprise. Cheap wit was not in Isabel’s line at all. She smiled at him, and he smiled back.

  The worried look which had for a moment left the Prime Minister’s face returned.

  ‘Well, it’s like this. After sitting up all night Sir Angus has still not succeeded in identifying the alkaloid in poor Wellacombe’s body. But from certain indications, which I’m afraid were too technical for me, and from the symptoms of his collapse, particularly the curious way his legs folded up at the knees, he tells me he’s strongly inclined to suspect curare.’

  ‘Curare!’ echoed Lord Arthur in astonishment.

  ‘There’s a precedent,’ said the Prime Minister, with a wan smile. ‘Don’t you remember the attempt to poison Lloyd George with curare during the War? They were going to introduce it by means of a nail in his shoe, weren’t they?’

  Lord Arthur was trying to remember what he had ever heard about curare. It did not seem to be very much.

  ‘I suppose it’s the sort of poison Indians would use?’ he said doubtfully. ‘I thought it was a South American one.’

  ‘I think it’s used fairly generally throughout the East too. Apparently the Malays mix it with snake venom, to quicken its action; and Sir Angus is inclined to think that may have been done in this case.’

  ‘That glass of water he had,’ Lord Arthur said suddenly. ‘Could it have been in the carafe?’

  ‘Curare kills by being introduced into the bloodstream,’ Isabel put in quietly. ‘I went round to the British Museum Reading Room and looked it up for myself, as soon as Sir Angus had rung up father. Apparently you can swallow it with impunity. It has to be introduced through an open wound.’

  ‘Exactly,’ nodded her father. ‘And I’ve already had a preliminary report from Sir William about the open wounds in the body. He’s going over it again, very carefully, because it seems that the stuff can be got into the body through quite a tiny puncture. Let me see.’ He pulled a sheaf of papers from his pocket and selected one. ‘Yes, there were three or four slight wounds. A little cut on the cheek, made no doubt when he was shaving. Apparently a tiny pimple cut off on the side of the neck, also made when shaving. A scratch on the ball of the thumb. And an abrasion on the right shin, as if he had knocked it against something. According to Sir William, none of them seem very hopeful.’

  ‘The stuff couldn’t have been smeared on his razor, I suppose?’ Lord Arthur meditated. ‘Not very likely. He’d have stropped it clean.’

  ‘In any case, the time factor wouldn’t fit,’ said Isabel. ‘It must have been administered within fifteen minutes before he collapsed, probably ten.’

  ‘But he’d been in the House at least ten minutes,’ Lord Arthur objected. ‘Let’s see, he’d been speaking for about five minutes, and I should say he’d come in about five minutes before that.’

  The Prime Minister nodded. ‘That’s been verified, as near as possible.’

  ‘But, good heavens, you surely don’t believe the stuff was actually administered in the House itself?’

  ‘It looks uncommonly like it.’

  ‘What does Scotland Yard say?’

  ‘Well, I’ve only had a word or two with Sir Hubert myself, but according to Beamish they’re completely puzzled. In fact they’re strongly disinclined to believe that the administration can possibly have been made in the House. Apparently they had Wellacombe under the strictest observation from the moment he left his own front doo
r, and they say there wasn’t a split second when anyone could have inserted the stuff into him.’

  ‘What’s the fatal dose, sir?’

  ‘Very small. Thirty milligrams, or less,’ Isabel replied.

  ‘Don’t they smear it on arrows?’ Lord Arthur asked vaguely.

  ‘I didn’t understand from Sir William that there were any signs of an arrow wound,’ said the Prime Minister, with feeble jocosity.

  ‘It doesn’t always kill, on an arrow,’ Isabel put in. ‘It just paralyses the limbs, one by one, beginning with the legs. Apparently the savages take advantage of that and torture the victim to death.’

  ‘It killed all right, in this case,’ said Lord Arthur gloomily.

  There was a pause.

  ‘Well, I suppose I must be getting back,’ Lord Arthur said.

  ‘Don’t go for a minute or two,’ Isabel answered quickly. ‘That is, of course, unless you must.’ She glanced meaningfully towards her father.

  The Prime Minister was staring into the fire. He shook his head. ‘I can’t understand it, I can’t understand it. Wellacombe was perfectly all right when he left his own house. According to the doctors he must have been. Sir Hubert tells me two of his men were on his heels all the way to the House. He spent an hour in his own room there, going over his speech.’

  Lord Arthur nodded. ‘I was with him part of the time.’

  ‘Exactly. And no one else. And there was an attendant as well as one of the Scotland Yard Special Branch men outside the door. Unless someone or something was concealed actually inside the room, no harm can have come to him there. He was under observation right till the minute he passed the Speaker’s Chair, and then he came under the observation of other men in the galleries. There was no chance. The whole thing’s incredible. There’s nothing to make a start from.’

  ‘Who was sitting beside him?’ Isabel asked. ‘Haven’t they any suggestion at all?’

  ‘Lloyd-Evans was on one side of him and Pelham on the other.’ Mr Pelham was Chancellor of the Exchequer and had been leading the House during the Prime Minister’s illness. ‘Neither of them can throw any light on the affair at all. Wellacombe spoke to both of them before he rose, and both agree that he appeared perfectly normal. They listened carefully, of course, while he was speaking, and neither heard any sound which could be regarded as in the least significant. Naturally they’ve each had long interviews with the Scotland Yard men, but frankly they can’t help us at all; Sir Hubert is entirely satisfied of that.’

  ‘Isn’t there any clue?’ asked Isabel helplessly.

  ‘So far, none. Of course the police have taken possession of a number of things with which Wellacombe came into contact towards the last: his pipe, for instance, his tobacco pouch, and so on. They’ll all be analysed. But even if traces of poison are found and we discover the vehicle, we’re still confronted by the much greater problem of how it was placed there.’

  ‘And who placed it,’ Isabel added dryly. ‘Had Lord Wellacombe any private enemies?’

  ‘A certain number, my dear, of course. That is the inevitable lot of the politician. And, of course, the fanatics on one side are apt to look on the leading men of the other as inhuman, malicious monsters, of whom the world would be much better rid than not. There have been plenty of political assassinations before now – Spencer Perceval, the Prime Minister, for instance, over a hundred years ago, and the Phoenix Park murders. But somehow I feel this is in rather a different category. If it really was carried out by the writer of those Brown Hand letters or his associates, it is a definite attempt to deter the Government from its intentions by means of terroristic methods. One cannot possibly over-estimate the gravity of such a threat.’

  ‘You must take every opportunity of making it public that no amount of threats, or even action, will have any effect on the Government,’ Isabel told her father.

  The Prime Minister smiled slightly. ‘That will be done, my dear. In the meantime the Commissioner is having a list compiled of all poor Wellacombe’s known enemies, as well as of all the people, friendly or otherwise, with whom he is known to have come into-contact for at least twenty-four hours before his death.’

  ‘That’s a big job in itself,’ commented Lord Arthur absently. His eyes were on Isabel. He was frankly surprised by the grasp and decision she had shown. His admiration was half reluctant. Lord Arthur was not the type of man who admired women easily – or willingly.

  ‘Quite big,’ agreed the Prime Minister. ‘And how are we getting on with – ’ he broke off ‘ – with Wellacombe’s successor, Arthur?’

  ‘Very well indeed, sir. He’s quite mastered all the essential points already. But I wish…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I wish you had given me the chance of introducing the Bill, as Lord Wellacombe’s understudy.’

  The Prime Minister looked at him. ‘No, Arthur. I thought of doing so, of course, and I knew you would be ready if I asked you. But in the circumstances I felt it essential that a member of the Cabinet should do it. I needn’t explain why. If no one had volunteered, I should have taken on the job myself. I’d have done so in any case but for this accursed ‘flu,’ added the Prime Minister, not without anticlimax.

  Isabel’s eyes shone. ‘That’s the way to talk,’ she approved fondly. ‘I gather, by the way, from the pause you made just now that I’m not to know the name of Lord Wellacombe’s successor.’

  ‘No one is to know it,’ her father assented. ‘We’re keeping that a close Cabinet secret. Nobody, outside the Cabinet and Arthur here, will know who is going on with Wellacombe’s speech until the man himself actually gets up to do so.’

  Isabel nodded. ‘That’s sensible. You mean, at least, they won’t be able to get at him?’

  ‘Precisely. Of course, we can’t say even yet with absolute certainty that Wellacombe’s death was caused by… come in!’

  The Prime Minister interrupted himself in response to a tap on the door.

  The butler entered with a salver on which reposed two unstamped envelopes. He tendered them to the Prime Minister.

  ‘They are both marked urgent, sir, and Mr Lloyd-Evans asked me to bring you one of them direct, so I thought perhaps in the circumstances…’

  ‘Thank you, Dean.’ The Prime Minister nodded his assent to this short-circuiting of one of his private secretaries, to whom in the normal way all communications addressed to the Prime Minister would first be taken.

  Dean approached Isabel. ‘Mr Comstock is here, miss,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I have shown him into the drawing-room.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Tell him I’ll come in a minute or two.’

  The butler left the room and the Prime Minister tore open one of the envelopes. He read the contents and frowned. Then, glancing first at his daughter and afterwards at Lord Arthur, he observed:

  ‘I’m afraid there are some cold feet in the Cabinet already.’

  ‘They want you to postpone the Bill,’ Lord Arthur said quickly.

  ‘Yes. You knew?’

  ‘Well, I was approached to sign something…’ Lord Arthur looked uncomfortable.

  ‘This letter, no doubt; it’s signed by several people. Who approached you?’ The Prime Minister spoke peremptorily.

  ‘Mr Comstock, sir.’ Lord Arthur glanced uneasily at Isabel as he mentioned the name of her fiancé. ‘Comstock’ was the name of the First Lord of the Admiralty. Isabel met his look with an expressionless face.

  ‘You should have told me. This must be stopped at once. Some of these people – ’ He glanced at the signatories to the document in his hand. ‘Some of these people may be talking. We can’t have it said that there is division in the Cabinet on such an issue. They ask me to call another meeting and put the question of postponement to a vote. It’s quite impossible. Ring the bell for Verreker, please, Arthur. I must deal with this at once.’

  Lord Arthur rose. As he crossed the room towards the bell-push the Prime Minister opened the other envelope.

  An exclamatio
n broke from him as he read.

  ‘What is it, father?’ Isabel asked anxiously.

  The Prime Minister looked at her with a face that had paled perceptibly.

  ‘This business is even more serious than we believed,’ he said, with a sigh. ‘I’m driven to fear there is a leakage in the Cabinet itself.’

  ‘In the Cabinet?’ echoed Lord Arthur, startled, his hand still outstretched towards the bell.

  ‘How else is one to account for this?’ The Prime Minister read out in a voice that was not quite steady: ‘“If Middleton attempts to make that speech this afternoon, in accordance with what was arranged at the Cabinet Meeting yesterday, he will die as surely as Wellacombe did. This is the only warning.”’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Lord Arthur, deeply shocked. ‘You’re right, sir. Somebody must have been talking.’

  ‘In the Cabinet?’ Isabel said. ‘It’s impossible.’

  ‘I don’t like to think it.’ The Prime Minister looked grave and worried. ‘Still, that certainly appears the only explanation.’

  ‘And it is Mr Middleton who…?’ Isabel hesitated.

  Her father nodded. ‘There can be no harm in your knowing now. Yes, Middleton was to take poor Wellacombe’s place. But in view of this… Arthur, go and tell Verreker to ring him up at once and ask him to come to see me, will you? Of course, he must be given every opportunity to withdraw his offer now.’

  Lord Arthur hurried to the door. ‘If I know Middleton,’ he said, ‘that’s the last thing he’ll do. And I’ll ring up Scotland Yard myself, shall I? Sir Hubert will want this new note as soon as possible. Is it signed “The Brown Hand” again?’

  ‘Yes. It’s just the same as the others. Oh, dear, I ought not to be holding it, ought I? It will have to be examined for fingerprints, of course. Oh, and Arthur! Keep this new development to yourself. I’ll tell Middleton, but none of the others. Isabel…’

  ‘Of course, father.’

  As the door closed behind Lord Arthur, the Prime Minister sighed.