Mingled With Venom mb-54

by Gladys Mitchell

  Maria seated the visitor and rang for refreshment. She then sat down and said: ‘Life at the moment is inexpressibly tiresome. Until this hateful trial is over and a verdict given, we’re stuck here literally like birds in the wilderness.’

  ‘But surely,’ said Dame Beatrice, glancing out of the window at grass and rocks and headlands, at sunlight, sea and sky, ‘the wilderness is paradise now?’

  ‘We want to go away,’ said Fiona, ‘to somewhere where the grass, metaphorically, is greener, although, in prosaic and actual terms, it may be scorched and brown. We are for sunny Spain and on to Sicily and Greece as soon as it’s possible to leave.’

  ‘Surely the police would not prevent your going?’

  ‘Oh, no. It’s just that, well—’ she glanced at Maria, who nodded and looked sombre again—‘well, naturally we’ve talked and talked about madre’s death, and we simply can’t believe that that poor wretched girl is guilty.’

  ‘You see,’ said Maria, ‘we argue that, if Margaret wanted to be revenged on anybody, it would have been on young Pabbay—I mean young Aysgarth. She was the one who complained and got the girl dismissed.’

  ‘Besides,’ said Fiona, ‘it all seems so elaborate and, well, really, rather deviously clever. The method chosen, I mean. Perhaps you don’t know this, Dame Beatrice, but madre used to take chances on cliff-paths and the sort of scrambling about that wasn’t at all the kind of thing one would advise a woman of seventy-five to do. What is more, she claimed that, not so long ago, somebody gave her a push over the edge of the cliff.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Maria. ‘Anybody who really meant business would have pushed a lot harder. I don’t think she really believed it herself, because she didn’t give up the walks. Still, even if she only stumbled and lost her footing, it proved that the walks weren’t suitable for her.’

  ‘The point is,’ said Fiona, ‘that, to our way of thinking, the vile plan which was used to kill madre was too subtle and elaborate for the girl to have thought up. It was also a plan no kitchenmaid would have dared to carry out.’

  ‘Because of your cook?’

  ‘Exactly. Mrs Plack can be quite kindhearted, but she can also be a dragon to her kitchenmaids, and if she thought one of them had monkeyed about with her sacred horseradish sauce the girl’s life wouldn’t have been worth living.’

  ‘Of course, the girl was not actually under Mrs Plack’s domination at the time, but it is a point which ought to be considered,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘By the way, I notice that you, Miss Bute, always refer to Mrs Leyden as madre. She wasn’t a Spaniard, was she?’

  ‘Oh, no. You see, I was very fond of her because she had always been so good to me, but I didn’t feel I could call her mother, as Maria, of course, was entitled to do, so I chose the Spanish equivalent. She was so pleased with it that when Antonia was given what one might call family status, Mrs Leyden liked to be called the abuela, the grandmother. Her Christian name actually was Romula. Her father had wanted a boy to be called Romulus, after the founder of Rome, so when a daughter turned up he altered the name as little as he could.’

  ‘That is most interesting,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘So many of your family’s names are both interesting and picturesque.’ She tried them over, as though to herself. ‘Romula, Maria, Fiona, Diana, Rupert, Bluebell, Parsifal, Antonia, Gamaliel and, last but also charming, Quentin and Millament.’

  ‘You have them all off pat,’ said Fiona, laughing.

  ‘Yes, indeed. I have heard them at various times from Mrs Leek.’

  ‘There is one you left out,’ said Maria.

  ‘Ah, yes, your son Garnet.’

  ‘Do you not like the name? Neither do I. It was his father’s choice, not mine, but Garnet and Bluebell are twins, as are Quentin and Millament, and it was agreed that my husband, who had adopted the name of Vannion in place of his own, which was Enoch, should name the boy and I the girl. He chose Garnet Wolseley for my son; I decided upon Bluebell Wendy for my daughter. My husband was on the stage, by the way, this to my mother’s disapproval.’

  ‘I think I agree that Vannion Porthcawl has a better ring to it than Enoch Porthcawl. Miss Aysgarth, I believe, had a similar notion to adopt a name she deemed more suitable for her public appearances.’

  ‘Well, it is not surprising,’ said Maria bitterly. ‘Like father like daughter, I suppose, although I do not believe they ever met.’

  ‘You say you find it hard to believe that Margaret Denham is a criminal,’ said Dame Beatrice after what she felt was a suitable pause, ‘but, if not Margaret, what are the alternatives?’

  ‘Well, we’re loth to suspect the Lunns,’ said Maria, ‘although Mattie had a grievance. Mrs Plack, of course, is out of the question. She would never—how shall I put it?’

  ‘Prostitute one of her own condiments by poisoning it,’ said Fiona. ‘She would regard that as a most immoral and sacrilegious act.’

  ‘The other possibility which I think ought to be considered,’ said Maria, who did not think the situation called for humour, ‘is a genuine mistake on the part of the greengrocer or a wicked practical joke on the part of his assistant.’

  ‘Neither seems very likely,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Did you, by any chance, have callers, especially unexpected callers, on the Friday or Saturday?’

  ‘You think a complete outsider could have done that terrible thing?’ asked Maria. ‘I don’t see how that would be possible. It certainly would be most unlikely. I know of nobody who would have disliked or feared my mother to that extent. She had very little contact with the outside world. She went for her lonely walks and she went out for drives in the car, but that was all. As a matter of fact, she and I were out all the Friday afternoon, so, if anybody came to the house then, we would not have been aware of it and the maids said nothing about callers when we got home at teatime.’

  ‘I was out, too,’ said Fiona, ‘so the same thing applies to me.’

  Dame Beatrice concluded that Fiona had gone out to meet Rupert so she did not trouble to ask any questions. She rose to take her leave, having learnt one tiny fact which had turned her suspicions into near certainty.

  Mattie and her brother were still at their task, but there was no sign of Laura.

  ‘No need for you to hang about,’ said Mattie. ‘Her went off on Emperor like a queen. I’ll have her ride him to the Smugglers’ and I’ll ride with her and bring both horses back. Arranged it all with her, I have, so nothing for you to worry about.’

  ‘I am infinitely obliged to you,’ said Dame Beatrice. She was about to get into her car when she heard hoof-beats, strong and rhythmic, and Laura came trotting up, dismounted, exchanged a few words with Mattie and then came over to the car.

  ‘Great ride!’ she said. ‘How did you get on? Did you manage to knock anybody else off your list of suspects?’

  ‘So far, no. Mrs Porthcawl and Miss Bute claim to have been out on what may have been the important Friday afternoon. I did not enquire where they went, either on the Friday or the Saturday. They volunteered the information about Friday and I have no doubt that the police will have checked their story of how they spent both afternoons.’

  ‘The trouble about them—Mrs Porthcawl anyway—is that the change-over of the jars of horseradish could have been done at night when everybody else was asleep. Seems to me she had the best opportunity of anybody to make the switch.’

  ‘That isn’t really important.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘Their family names. I mean their first names. I forgot to include, in my recital of these, the bachelor brother Garnet.’

  ‘Forgot, or didn’t intend to mention it?’

  ‘You are much too intelligent.’

  ‘So what was your object?’

  ‘To find out whether one of them would supply the missing item.’

  ‘And did it work?’

  ‘Yes. It showed me that whatever suspicions they entertain, these do not include Mr Garnet Porthcawl.’


  ‘But they couldn’t. He was either in London or Exeter at the time.’

  ‘There are such things as private hire cars, and Garnet, I daresay, earns enough to pay for one.’

  Chapter 16

  What’s in a Name?

  « ^ »

  When Dame Beatrice gave voice to what appeared to be a controversial remark, Laura knew that somewhere behind it there was something to be puzzled over and sorted out. It was of no use to ask for an explanation, so she put her mind to work but could not believe that Dame Beatrice thought Garnet guilty.

  She was so silent at breakfast on the following morning that Dame Beatrice asked her how she had slept. Laura replied that she supposed she had enjoyed her usual four hours, which, indeed, was her average period of sleep and all that she appeared to need, and then said plaintively: ‘Won’t you at least give me a clue?’

  ‘To what, dear child?’

  ‘To the identity of our murderer, of course.’

  ‘But I am not able to prove anything. I know who the murderer must be, but that, as you know, is not enough. Of course I can tell you what is in my mind, but I don’t know whether it will convey anything to yours. I learnt, when I visited Mrs Porthcawl and Miss Bute yesterday, that Mrs Leyden’s first name was Romula.’

  ‘How does that help?’

  ‘I think it may account for the method which was used to murder her. It appears that her father would have preferred a son and would have named him Romulus. Earlier I had learned from Mrs Bosse-Leyden that Mrs Leyden was less generous in helping her blood-relations than in giving financial aid and sometimes her affection to what one may call the co-opted members of her family.’

  ‘So that looks as though one of the real family was the murderer.’

  ‘Except that sometimes people are less grateful for benefits received than the donors think they should be.’

  ‘In other words, it is more satisfying to give than to receive, leaving blessedness out of it for the moment.

  ‘But wouldn’t a divorce have cut him straight out of the whatever?’

  ‘I have thought all along that the method used to kill Mrs Leyden was unnecessarily elaborate. Why, I asked myself, go to all the trouble and take all the risk of preparing a poisoned condiment, digging up, for the purpose, roots from somebody else’s garden, invading Mrs Plack’s kitchen in order to substitute a jar of poison for a similar but innocuous jar—all this when a simple, determined push in the back when she was on one of her cliff walks would have settled the outcome in a matter of seconds?’

  ‘But somebody did try that, I thought, and it didn’t work.’

  ‘It didn’t work because it was not, in my opinion, a murderous attempt, but I shall know more about that when I have questioned the person concerned.’

  ‘And the person concerned was not the person who provided the jar of poison?’

  ‘I think not, for the simple reason that a similar slight but not really dangerous push seems to have been given to Mrs Bosse-Leyden when she was out with her dogs.’

  ‘The same person could have it in for both of them.’

  ‘True. You refer, no doubt, to—’

  ‘Rupert Bosse-Leyden. According to the gossip we’ve heard, and what with one thing and another, he would have been glad to get rid of Diana and marry Fiona Bute, and he can’t have loved the old lady very much if she threw his illegitimate birth in his face.’

  ‘He had only to divorce Diana. There was no need to kill her.’

  ‘But wouldn’t a divorce have cut him straight out of the old lady’s Will?’

  ‘He had no expectations there, and (mark this, for it is very important) neither had his wife.’

  ‘But his children were included.’

  ‘It seems that nobody in the family had ever thought they would be. That may have been the one big surprise contained in the Will.’

  ‘What about the inclusion of young Gamaliel?’

  ‘That seems to have surprised nobody. It appears that the old lady had taken a great fancy to the lad. Besides, he is on my list of those who had been co-opted into the family. Included are Fiona Bute, Antonia Aysgarth, Parsifal Leek and Diana Bosse-Leyden. Each of them, in one way or another, seems to have received generous treatment, apart from what was left to any of them in the Will.’

  ‘Yes, they didn’t come off too well in that, did they? Do you mean that one of them murdered her out of pique?’

  ‘Not altogether, and certainly not because he or she was not mentioned in the Will. We have it from reliable sources that nobody really knew what the terms of the Will would be, although there seems to have been a considerable amount of guesswork. All the same, pique (or, as I would put it, bitter resentment) did come into the matter.’

  ‘How are you going to get the proof you need?’

  ‘Ultimately by the murderer’s own confession, but to extort that confession there are one or two facts we need to know, and here your acquaintanceship with Mattie Lunn may be of help. I would like you to get her to confirm that her brother took Mrs Leyden and Mrs Porthcawl out in the car on the Friday, ask her what he did on the Saturday and whether, on either afternoon, she saw any visitors come to the house, and particularly anybody who slipped in by the side door.’

  ‘Can do. Maybe she’ll hire me out another horse. That was a fine animal I rode yesterday and down here you don’t need to dress the part, so jeans and a sweater will fill the bill.’

  ‘One more thing: I want you to find out from Mattie Lunn the name of the person who supplies dairy produce, including the fresh cream for the horseradish sauce, to Headlands and whether he also supplies Campions and Seawards.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Laura, looking thoughtful. ‘Clotted cream not suitable for Mrs Plack’s recipe, eh? So the murderer had to get—’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I had never thought about the murder from that angle. Of course there had to be fresh, unwhipped cream for the killer to use and, unless Mrs Plack or the kitchenmaid Sonia or Mrs Porthcawl or Miss Bute is the guilty party, the fresh cream which was used for the poisoned horseradish sauce was never delivered at Headlands.’

  ‘I have written off the four people you mention, so give some attention to the delivery of fresh cream to the other two houses.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Rupert to his wife, ‘you know it was I who pushed you over the clifff?’

  ‘I could hardly help knowing. Nobody else had any reason to do a thing like that. I don’t hold it against you. It was not a very vicious attack and it was done only because I happened to be there on the spot while you were doing the field-work for your book. I think it was done on impulse, wasn’t it? Besides, I had just given your grandmother a similar push. I did not intend to kill her, any more than I believe you intended to kill me.’

  ‘I don’t think I did intend it. I had a sudden fit of exasperation, I suppose. Did you really give Grandma Romula a shove?’

  ‘She has always exasperated me, the same way you and I always seem to exasperate one another. Why should you be blamed for your illegitimate birth? It has happened to the best of people, and you told me about it before we married.’

  ‘All the same, Diana, I did not kill her, and I didn’t intend to kill you.’

  ‘We both know who did kill her, don’t we?’

  ‘That’s only speculation, isn’t it?’

  ‘What can we do but speculate? I wish they had not arrested that wretched girl. She didn’t do it.’

  ‘It is not up to us to say anything of our suspicions. We haven’t a shred of proof.’

  ‘I know, but that terrifying old lady who is staying at The Smugglers’ Inn knows something, I think. I shall speak to her.’

  ‘Look, the family is the family, isn’t it? Do you want a convicted murderer as a member of it? Think of our children!’

  ‘I have thought of them. They are the only reason that we are remaining together.’

  ‘So we say nothing of our suspicions—for they are nothing more than that
. Agreed?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Well, ask yourself what proof anybody can have. Unless the guilty party chooses to confess, nobody is ever going to know the truth.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure of that. The truth has a diabolical way of coming to the surface. Drowned bodies do, sooner or later, and the truth has the same disconcerting habit.’

  ‘Well, let us help it by confessing our misdeeds, if you think fit. If we confess to pushing people over cliffs it may save us from the major charge of murder by poison.’

  ‘I don’t see why. How do you make that out?’

  ‘Well, people who would do the one would not be likely to do the other. Dame Beatrice is a psychiatrist. She will understand that.’

  ‘Confession is supposed to be good for the soul, so let us clear our consciences, then, if you think fit.’

  When Laura reached the Lunn’s cottage, Mattie was hanging out the washing on a line rigged up behind the stables so that it could not be seen from the windows of the big house. She greeted Laura warmly and in her own fashion.

  ‘My, my! Look who’s here!’ she said. ‘Come for a gallop, have we? You can have what you fancy this morning, so long as it’s Emperor.’

  ‘You can have any colour you like, so long as it’s black,’ countered Laura in happy quotation. ‘Later on, Mattie, if I may, but first to business of another kind. I am on an errand for Dame Beatrice. She wants to know whether you spotted any visitors who came to the house, particularly to the side door, on either the Friday or the Saturday before Mrs Leyden died on the Sunday.’

  ‘I been asked that, time and again.’

  ‘So what’s the answer?’

  Mattie delivered a forceful unladylike expectoration into a small gorse bush.

  ‘Search me,’ she said. ‘So far as I’m concerned, there ent one. I could do you Thursday, but not Friday or Saturday, the reason being that I wasn’t here neither of them days. The Friday I was in the pub from twelve till closing time and stopped on until four to give a hand with the chores, that being my way of a Friday while the landlord’s wife be carrying their first, and on the Saturday, being as I was no longer in Mrs Leyden’s service, her having sacked me because she said as Redruth could do all that needed to be done in the stables, which, of course, he can’t and never will, I took myself off to the races at Brighton. Me and my darts mates hired a couple of cars and off us went and had a good day of it out on Brighton Downs. Great it was, and I come back with a profit of six pounds fifty in me kick.’