Cyanide With Compliments

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  His thanks cut short, Toye found himself outside in the corridor, with a feeling of having been catapulted into space. With some difficulty he found his way to the ground floor, noticing en route a number of isolated telephone boxes. Leading off the entrance hall was a row of half a dozen of them.

  Deciding that the City Library would be a convenient place for writing up his notes, he made his way there, and settled down in a quiet corner of the reference section. The gist of what he had to report was complete confirmation of the Langs’ statements. There were two small points of interest, though. The pair had been up very late on Wednesday night, disturbing the Porters. If cyanide had been brought back from the College, this would have been the time when the chocolates were doctored. And when Lang went to London on Thursday morning, he took a case which could have contained the parcel for posting. Neither of these things was evidence. Just pointers, Toye thought.

  He sat on, meditating. Means and opportunity, he thought, but so far the money motive, the only convincing one, wasn’t anything like established. The fact that Mrs Vickers had tried to contact her solicitor as soon as she got home was a point in Mrs Lang’s favour. It certainly looked as though she had good reason to believe that her aunt was taking immediate steps to cut her out. But did a bright young woman like Mrs Lang think that solicitors drew up wills involving quite a bit of money just on demand, so to speak? Of course it could be done, but she’d met Mr Partridge, and must have known that he was the cautious type, not a bit likely to let himself be stampeded into action.

  As he meditated, the telephone boxes at the Technical College returned to Toye’s mind. Suppose Mrs Lang had rung the solicitor’s office sometime on Wednesday, to ask him if he could do anything about her being cut out of the will? They’d have told her he was away, and not available until Friday, and this meant a couple of days’ delay. Of course there was the possibility of her aunt having seen one of the partners, but perhaps this would have been so out of character that Mrs Lang felt it could safely be discounted? Or her husband could have rung from a call box somewhere. STD call probably, making it harder, but not impossible to trace.

  Toye made a few more notes before leaving the library. In his careful thorough way he inspected a telephone directory in a kiosk, and found that an STD call could be put through to Highcastle from Fulminster. This done, he decided that there was plenty of time for a look round before Pollard could possibly arrive to pick him up, and set off in the direction of the Cathedral. Strains of organ music were seeping through the north door. He went quietly inside, and slipped into a chair by a pillar.

  The remote singing and chanting in the choir and the vast tranquil spaces of the nave were soothing… He came to with a start as the tail of the robed procession was disappearing, and scrambled hastily to his feet, alarmed to find that it was a quarter past four. Leaving the Cathedral he set off briskly for the police station. Not far short of it there was a toot in his ear, and Pollard drew up with a grin. Toye got in beside him hastily.

  ‘You must’ve stepped on it, sir,’ he said.

  ‘The inquest proceedings were an all-time speed record. I did scorch a bit, though. Where do we park?’

  ‘Turn in and bear right, round the buildings.’

  A few minutes later they drew up. Pollard switched off the engine, and stretched himself.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it looks as though we may have had a break. If Audrey Vickers didn’t collide head on with her husband and his bigamous bride on the Acropolis, I’ll go back to pounding a beat.’

  Toye stared at him incredulously. ‘I’m dead serious,’ Pollard assured him. ‘Listen to what I got from Mrs Strode this morning…’

  He produced almost verbatim Olivia Strode’s description of the party of Americans blocking her exit from the Processional Way on to the Acropolis.

  ‘If,’ he concluded, ‘the chap who was advised to take American citizenship by his unsuspecting bride is Donald Vickers, and Audrey Vickers took the situation in, no wonder she was blown clean off course, took it out on the Langs that night, and started looking for an enquiry agent as soon as she got home. It makes sense, Toye, you’ve got to admit.’

  7

  At ten o’clock that same evening Pollard finished a late supper with a contented sigh, pushed away his empty plate, and looked across the kitchen at his wife who was busy with preparations for the next morning.

  ‘Can’t think how you manage it,’ he said. ‘Hot meals like this at all hours.’

  ‘Elementary, my dear Watson,’ Jane replied. ‘An oil-fired Aga, and a kitchen big enough for civilized eating as well as cooking.’

  ‘You’re tired, though. Natural smudges under the eyes.’

  ‘It’s only lack of sleep. Andrew’s first molar’s coming through. I was up with him quite a bit last night.’

  ‘If he starts yelling tonight, I’m taking over, then. I was jolly good when they were both cutting their first teeth at the same time. Remember?’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ Jane replied noncommittally, beginning to clear the table. ‘You’ve got your own job to cope with. Just bung all this into the dishwasher, will you, while I go and take up the twins? Then we can relax in peace in the sitting-room. I’m dying to hear about The Case of the Poisoned Chocolates.’

  ‘Wouldn’t some sleep be better for you?’

  ‘Definitely not. My tiredness is mainly psychosomatic, due to lack of social intercourse. Assunta’s shaping well, but her English is still about as basic as my Italian. Still, we’re luckier than most to get two good au pairs in a row.’

  Stretched out in his favourite armchair Pollard watched her come in ten minutes later, curl up on the settee, and arrange a dark green cushion behind her head.

  ‘That colour’s the perfect background for red-gold hair,’ he remarked.

  ‘Naturally I work out that sort of thing. Wasn’t I a lecturer in a college of art until maternity clamped down on me? Pray proceed, Detective-Superintendent Pollard.’

  She wriggled into a still more comfortable position, and looked at him enquiringly.

  ‘In October 1939,’ Pollard began, ‘at a London registry office, Audrey Joan Hurst, spinster, aged twenty-four, married Donald James Vickers, bachelor, aged twenty-eight, serving in HM armed forces. They spent a short honeymoon at Redbay — at least, that’s what she told the vicar. I had a natter with him before the inquest this afternoon. After the war she reappeared in Redbay as a widow, and settled down there. But there’s no record of her husband’s death, either on active service or in this country. Neither was he a POW or reported missing. He was demobbed, and the rest seems to have been silence.’

  ‘This,’ Jane said happily, ‘is super…’

  Pollard’s closely reasoned narrative took some time.

  ‘You know, you do have luck,’ Jane said, when it came to an end. ‘This Mrs Strode turning up again, for instance. It simply isn’t true.’

  ‘Of course, we don’t know yet that it is true — that Donald Vickers was in that party of Americans on the Acropolis.’

  ‘I realize that. But it does seem to fit, doesn’t it? I mean, it makes some sense of the way Audrey Vickers behaved afterwards. A jolt like that would be more than enough to send anyone of her type over the edge, and the Langs walking out on her would have been the end. She’d have to take it out on somebody, and they were the obvious people.’

  ‘Always assuming that one of the chaps was Vickers, I agree that it all goes a long way to explain the bust-up, which otherwise seems to have come out of the blue. Her asking Partridge to lay on an enquiry agent could fit in, too.’

  ‘How are you finding out if Donald Vickers did take American nationality after the war?’ Jane asked.

  ‘The Yard’s contacted the British Embassy in Washington, and they’ll get on to whatever department of the Federal Government it is. Ministry of the Interior, I should think. With luck we might hear something tomorrow.’

  Jane rolled over on to her back, clasped her
hands behind her head, and stared at the ceiling. ‘Mightn’t Donald Vickers have got hold of a faked passport after he was demobbed, and taken out naturalization papers under an assumed name?’

  ‘There,’ Pollard replied, ‘you’ve put your finger through one of the gaping holes in the potential case against him, as it stands at present. But if he was a carefree sort of bloke he mightn’t have thought it necessary to cover his tracks to that extent. There was a good old churn-up going on just then. And the States must have seemed much more remote before regular supersonic air services.’

  ‘Audrey Vickers must have had money,’ Jane said reflectively. ‘I suppose Donald felt he couldn’t face life with her, all the same.’

  ‘She may have come in for it later, of course. What’s all this clicking of the gate?’

  ‘Assunta and her boyfriend saying goodnight. Eleven’s her deadline. Not to worry. They’re both most devout, and she’s taken him to see the Sisters at the convent on the Downs. There’s a Mother Francis there who speaks Italian. Here she comes. I’ll just let her in, and see if she wants a snack before she goes to bed.’

  While waiting for Jane to come back, Pollard lit a cigarette, and subsided into his chair once more, a slight frown on his face.

  ‘We’ve got the name of the American cruise ship from the port authorities at Piraeus,’ he resumed, when she was settled to listen again. ‘But I don’t think the Vickers pair — again, assuming we’re really concerned with them — could have been passengers. It sailed for Istanbul on the Friday afternoon. If Vickers sent those chocolates, he’d got to get hold of them in the first place. Honeydew is a very small concern, and although we’ll be checking up on it tomorrow, I’m sure their stuff wouldn’t be on sale in Greece. Much more likely that the Vickers were on some other tour, or even travelling independently, and flew back to London. We’re trying Athens airport, and the hotels.’

  ‘When you think of the resources of the Yard, it’s amazing that anybody manages to slip through the net,’ Jane observed.

  ‘Unfortunately the world’s quite a place, relative to the size of a wanted chap,’ Pollard replied rather gloomily.

  Silence descended. Turning her head slightly, Jane contemplated her husband with interest.

  ‘Even allowing that we’re on to Vickers, there are terrific hurdles ahead,’ he said at last. ‘For one thing, how does an American tourist get hold of cyanide at short notice? It isn’t the sort of simple remedy you carry around with you.’

  ‘Are you hot on his trail because you think he did send the chocolates,’ Jane said slowly, ‘or because you’re convinced the Langs didn’t, and no other likely candidate has turned up?’

  Pollard suddenly grinned. ‘What a one you are for hitting the nail on the head! See what comes of marrying an intelligent woman with a trained mind. If Donald recognized Audrey, and realized that she’d recognized him, he’d have the whale of a motive for liquidating her, of course. And a reasonable opportunity, provided that he could get himself back to London in the ordinary course of events. The stumbling-block where he’s concerned is the means of cooking the chocolates. On the other hand, the Langs had means and opportunity beyond doubt, and it’s quite possible that Drusilla found out that the will hadn’t been altered as soon as she expected, and so the money motive still stood. But I just can’t see those two sticking out their necks in that utterly obvious way. They’re too intelligent. And unless I’ve completely lost my eye, too fundamentally decent to have engineered a death like that. Cyanide poisoning is pretty foul.’

  ‘People who are highly intelligent academically can be complete fools in other spheres.’

  ‘That’s true, and it’s what’s really biting me. Hell! I hate this case. I can’t see my way ahead, and I know perfectly well that pressure’s building up to make me pull in the Langs. I’ve got to report to the AC tomorrow.’

  ‘What you need is a good night’s sleep,’ Jane remarked. ‘I can do with one, too. Let’s go up.’

  In the first faint morning greyness Pollard was roused by a pathetic wail. Jane was already half out of bed, but he pulled her back.

  ‘Lie down, and go to sleep again,’ he said firmly.

  She subsided with some inarticulate words, and he grabbed a dressing-gown and made for the twins’ room. Scooping up Andrew, he was relieved to find him dry: somehow the intricacies of nappy-changing were more difficult to carry through by artificial light. He wrapped the cot blanket round the small form, and hurried out before Rose woke up too. The wail stopped, and Andrew showed signs of interest in his unexpected rescuer.

  ‘Your toothache,’ Pollard informed him as they went downstairs, ‘is mainly psychosomatic, due to lack of social intercourse…’

  He settled his son comfortably in the crook of his left arm, cradled against him, and paced slowly up and down the sitting-room, patting him gently on the back. Andrew began to respond with small contented sounds.

  Amid the blurred shapes of the pre-dawn world Pollard suddenly felt his thinking about his case clarify. The whole Acropolis business could so well turn out to be a mare’s nest, in spite of Olivia Strode’s possibly relevant recollections. And Audrey Vickers had been quite unbalanced enough to give way to a sadistic impulse to spoil the Langs’ enjoyment. Then, when they hit back, all her built-up resentment against Drusilla could very well have boiled over. Wasn’t all this a much more convincing explanation of the row than dragging in a fantastic coincidence? And re the Langs, he reminded himself, what a policeman thinks isn’t evidence, unless supported by hard facts… Unless it was established quickly and beyond doubt that the two Vickers had met that day, the lead had better be shelved and the case against the Langs pursued. A visit to the Honeydew shop with that recent photograph of Drusilla brought from Lauriston was obviously a priority. Realizing that Andrew was completely inert and deep in sleep, Pollard carried him carefully upstairs and returned him to his cot without rousing him.

  On his arrival at the Yard six hours later, Pollard learnt that no information had come in from Washington overnight. After dealing with some urgent matters connected with other cases, he asked his secretary to send in Toye, and began to draw up a provisional programme for the morning.

  ‘We can’t afford the time to hang around waiting for Washington,’ he said, when Toye put in an appearance. ‘We’re seeing the Odyssey Tours people at twelve. You’ve read Longman’s report, I take it? Of course they never sent ex-passengers chocolates or anything else, as we knew all along, but it’s another point officially cleared up. I want to ask them about their compliments slips. We’ll go along to Honeydew in the meantime. Just match up that recent photograph of Mrs Lang with a few others like it, will you? And we’ll want the chocolates and the packaging, too.’

  ‘Are we going to the Honeydew factory as well, sir?’

  ‘You can tackle that while I’m with the Odyssey lot. It could be that the postal orders go direct from it.’

  Pollard did not miss a look of satisfaction on Toye’s face, and the implication that he, for one, considered the Langs a much better bet than the still hypothetical Donald Vickers.

  Honeydew Ltd occupied the ground floor of a house in Market Court, a cul-de-sac off West Audley Street. Toye manoeuvred the car into a vacant parking-space, and they proceeded on foot. The little street had been rebuilt about a hundred years earlier, and its tall single-fronted houses were now given over to offices and recherche business establishments. Pollard and Toye paused on the pavement outside Honeydew, at Number Seven, to study the window display. The limited space available was draped in golden velvet. A large bowl of crimson peonies set off an austerely plain box bearing the inscription HONEYDEW’S ASSORTMENT SUPREME. In the background a straw skep was perched on a wooden stool.

  Toye asked how much that little lot would set you back.

  ‘You wouldn’t even ask in a joint like this,’ Pollard told him. ‘Just shove a fiver across the counter. Let’s go in.’

  HONEYDEW: PLEASE ENTER, they rea
d on the door to the right of the narrow entrance hall. Painted below the words was a straw skep, similar to the one in the window. Pollard opened the door, and they walked into a room with no resemblance to the popular image of a sweet-shop. It was carpeted to the walls in golden brown, and furnished with elegant tables which functioned as display stands for Honeydew products. There was an unobtrusive counter in a corner. At the back of the room an open door appeared to lead into a store-room, from which a woman came hurrying.

  ‘I’m so sorry, sir,’ she said anxiously. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

  ‘We’ve only just this moment arrived,’ he assured her. ‘This room is arranged in a very attractive way,’ he added, glancing around him.

  She was a small woman, little over five feet in height, with a sallow complexion, dark eyes, and hair streaked with grey which she wore in an old-fashioned style with a fringe. As Pollard studied her he saw her beginning to look at him doubtfully. Shrewd, if diffident, he thought. She realizes we aren’t the sort to buy chocolates in a place like this.

  ‘I had better explain at once that we aren’t customers,’ he said. ‘We’re police officers from New Scotland Yard, engaged on an enquiry in which you may be able to help us. Here’s my card. I’m Detective-Superintendent Pollard, and this is Sergeant Toye, my assistant.’

  He watched her nervously moisten her lips, as she took the card he held out, but made no attempt to read it.

  ‘There’s absolutely nothing for you to be alarmed about, Mrs — er?’

  ‘Willis,’ she said faintly.

  ‘Mrs Willis, I assure you. Perhaps we could sit down somewhere?’

  With obvious reluctance she moved in the direction of the counter, and indicated the two gilt chairs drawn up to it.

  Pollard and Toye lowered themselves gingerly on to these, and she sat on the edge of a stool facing them.

  ‘I expect you’ve read in the papers about the death of a Mrs Audrey Vickers who ate some chocolates containing a poison called cyanide, haven’t you?’ Pollard asked her.