“Medical men have certain problems. If you are puzzled over the cause of a patient’s death there is only one sure way to tell. By a postmortem. Postmortems are not appreciated by relatives of the deceased, but if a doctor demands a postmortem and the result is, as it perfectly well may be, a case of natural causes, or some disease or malady which does not always give outward signs or symptoms, then the doctor’s career can be quite seriously affected by his having made a questionable diagnosis—”
“I can see that it must have been difficult.”
“The relatives in question are distant cousins. So I took it upon myself to get their consent as it was a matter of medical interest to know the cause of death. When a patient dies in her sleep it is advisable to add to one’s medical knowledge. I wrapped it up a good bit, mind you, didn’t make it too formal. Luckily they couldn’t care less. I felt very relieved in mind. Once the autopsy had been performed and if all was well, I could give a death certificate without a qualm. Anyone can die of what is amateurishly called heart failure, from one of several different causes. Actually Mrs. Moody’s heart was in really very good shape for her age. She suffered from arthritis and rheumatism and occasional trouble with her liver, but none of these things seemed to accord with her passing away in her sleep.”
Dr. Murray came to a stop. Tommy opened his lips and then shut them again. The doctor nodded.
“Yes, Mr. Beresford. You can see where I am tending. Death has resulted from an overdose of morphine.”
“Good Lord!” Tommy stared and the ejaculation escaped him.
“Yes. It seemed quite incredible, but there was no getting away from the analysis. The question was: How was that morphia administered? She was not on morphia. She was not a patient who suffered pain. There were three possibilities, of course. She might have taken it by accident. Unlikely. She might have got hold of some other patient’s medicine by mistake but that again is not particularly likely. Patients are not entrusted with supplies of morphia, and we do not accept drug addicts who might have a supply of such things in their possession. It could have been deliberate suicide but I should be very slow to accept that. Mrs. Moody, though a worrier, was of a perfectly cheerful disposition and I am quite sure had never thought of ending her life. The third possibility is that a fatal overdose was deliberately administered to her. But by whom, and why? Naturally, there are supplies of morphia and other drugs which Miss Packard as a registered hospital nurse and matron, is perfectly entitled to have in her possession and which she keeps in a locked cupboard. In such cases as sciatica or rheumatoid arthritis there can be such severe and desperate pain that morphia is occasionally administered. We have hoped that we may come across some circumstance in which Mrs. Moody had a dangerous amount of morphia administered to her by mistake or which she herself took under the delusion that it was a cure for indigestion or insomnia. We have not been able to find any such circumstances possible. The next thing we have done, at Miss Packard’s suggestion and I agreed with her, is to look carefully into the records of such deaths as have taken place at Sunny Ridge in the last two years. There have not been many of them, I am glad to say. I think seven in all, which is a pretty fair average for people of that age group. Two deaths of bronchitis, perfectly straightforward, two of flu, always a possible killer during the winter months owing to the slight resistance offered by frail, elderly women. And three others.”
He paused and said, “Mr. Beresford, I am not satisfied about those three others, certainly not about two of them. They were perfectly probable, they were not unexpected, but I will go as far as saying that they were unlikely. They are not cases that on reflection and research I am entirely satisfied about. One has to accept the possibility that, unlikely as it seems, there is someone at Sunny Ridge who is, possibly for mental reasons, a killer. An entirely unsuspected killer.”
There was silence for some moments. Tommy gave a sigh.
“I don’t doubt what you’ve told me,” he said, “but all the same, frankly, it seems unbelievable. These things—surely, they can’t happen.”
“Oh yes,” said Dr. Murray grimly, “they happen all right. You go over some of the pathological cases. A woman who took on domestic service. She worked as a cook in various households. She was a nice, kind, pleasant-seeming woman, gave her employers faithful service, cooked well, enjoyed being with them. Yet, sooner or later, things happened. Usually a plate of sandwiches. Sometimes picnic food. For no apparent motive arsenic was added. Two or three poisoned sandwiches among the rest. Apparently sheer chance dictated who took and ate them. There seemed no personal venom. Sometimes no tragedy happened. The same woman was three or four months in a situation and there was no trace of illness. Nothing. Then she left to go to another job, and in that next job, within three weeks, two of the family died after eating bacon for breakfast. The fact that all these things happened in different parts of England and at irregular intervals made it some time before the police got on her track. She used a different name, of course, each time. But there are so many pleasant, capable, middle-aged women who can cook, it was hard to find out which particular woman it was.”
“Why did she do it?”
“I don’t think anybody has ever really known. There have been several different theories, especially of course by psychologists. She was a somewhat religious woman and it seems possible that some form of religious insanity made her feel that she had a divine command to rid the world of certain people, but it does not seem that she herself had borne them any personal animus.
“Then there was the French woman, Jeanne Gebron, who was called The Angel of Mercy. She was so upset when her neighbours had ill children, she hurried to nurse those children. Sat devotedly at their bedside. There again it was some time before people discovered that the children she nursed never recovered. Instead they all died. And why? It is true that when she was young her own child died. She appeared to be prostrated with grief. Perhaps that was the cause of her career of crime. If her child died so should the children of other women. Or it may be, as some thought, that her own child was also one of the victims.”
“You’re giving me chills down my spine,” said Tommy.
“I’m taking the most melodramatic examples,” said the doctor. “It may be something much simpler than that. You remember in the case of Armstrong, anyone who had in any way offended him or insulted him, or indeed, if he even thought anyone had insulted him, that person was quickly asked to tea and given arsenic sandwiches. A sort of intensified touchiness. His first crimes were obviously mere crimes for personal advantage. Inheriting of money. The removal of a wife so that he could marry another woman.
“Then there was Nurse Warriner who kept a Home for elderly people. They made over what means they had to her, and were guaranteed a comfortable old age until death came—But death did not delay very long. There, too, it was morphia that was administered—a very kindly woman, but with no scruples—she regarded herself, I believe, as a benefactor.”
“You’ve no idea, if your surmise about these deaths is true, who it could be?”
“No. There seems no pointer of any kind. Taking the view that the killer is probably insane, insanity is a very difficult thing to recognize in some of its manifestations. Is it somebody, shall we say, who dislikes elderly people, who had been injured or has had her life ruined or so she thinks, by somebody elderly? Or is it possibly someone who has her own ideas of mercy killing and thinks that everyone over sixty years of age should be kindly exterminated. It could be anyone, of course. A patient? Or a member of the staff—a nurse or a domestic worker?
“I have discussed this at great length with Millicent Packard who runs the place. She is a highly competent woman, shrewd, businesslike, with keen supervision both of the guests there and of her own staff. She insists that she has no suspicion and no clue whatever and I am sure that is perfectly true.”
“But why come to me? What can I do?”
“Your aunt, Miss Fanshawe, was a resident there for som
e years—she was a woman of very considerable mental capacity, though she often pretended otherwise. She had unconventional ways of amusing herself by putting on an appearance of senility. But she was actually very much all there—What I want you to try and do, Mr. Beresford, is to think hard—you and your wife, too—Is there anything you can remember that Miss Fanshawe ever said or hinted, that might give us a clue—Something she had seen or noticed, something that someone had told her, something that she herself had thought peculiar. Old ladies see and notice a lot, and a really shrewd one like Miss Fanshawe would know a surprising amount of what went on in a place like Sunny Ridge. These old ladies are not busy, you see, they have all the time in the world to look around them and make deductions—and even jump to conclusions—that may seem fantastic, but are sometimes, surprisingly, entirely correct.”
Tommy shook his head.
“I know what you mean—But I can’t remember anything of that kind.”
“Your wife’s away from home, I gather. You don’t think she might remember something that hadn’t struck you?”
“I’ll ask her—but I doubt it.” He hesitated, then made up his mind. “Look here, there was something that worried my wife—about one of the old ladies, a Mrs. Lancaster.”
“Mrs. Lancaster? Yes?”
“My wife’s got it into her head that Mrs. Lancaster has been taken away by some so-called relations very suddenly. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Lancaster gave a picture to my aunt as a present, and my wife felt that she ought to offer to return the picture to Mrs. Lancaster, so she tried to get in touch with her to know if Mrs. Lancaster would like the picture returned to her.”
“Well, that was very thoughtful of Mrs. Beresford, I’m sure.”
“Only she found it very hard to get in touch with her. She got the address of the hotel where they were supposed to be staying—Mrs. Lancaster and her relations—but nobody of that name had been staying there or had booked rooms there.”
“Oh? That was rather odd.”
“Yes. Tuppence thought it was rather odd, too. They had left no other forwarding address at Sunny Ridge. In fact, we have made several attempts to get in touch with Mrs. Lancaster, or with this Mrs.—Johnson I think the name was—but have been quite unable to get in touch with them. There was a solicitor who I believe paid all the bills—and made all the arrangements with Miss Packard and we got into communication with him. But he could only give me the address of a bank. Banks,” said Tommy drily, “don’t give you any information.”
“Not if they’ve been told not to by their clients, I agree.”
“My wife wrote to Mrs. Lancaster care of the bank, and also to Mrs. Johnson, but she’s never had any reply.”
“That seems a little unusual. Still, people don’t always answer letters. They may have gone abroad.”
“Quite so—it didn’t worry me. But it has worried my wife. She seems convinced that something has happened to Mrs. Lancaster. In fact, during the time I was away from home, she said she was going to investigate further—I don’t know what exactly she meant to do, perhaps see the hotel personally, or the bank, or try the solicitor. Anyway, she was going to try and get a little more information.”
Dr. Murray looked at him politely, but with a trace of patient boredom in his manner.
“What did she think exactly—?”
“She thinks that Mrs. Lancaster is in danger of some kind—even that something may have happened to her.”
The doctor raised his eyebrows.
“Oh! really, I should hardly think—”
“This may seem quite idiotic to you,” said Tommy, “but you see, my wife rang up saying she would be back yesterday evening—and—she didn’t arrive.”
“She said definitely that she was coming back?”
“Yes. She knew I was coming home, you see, from this conference business. So she rang up to let our man, Albert, know that she’d be back to dinner.”
“And that seems to you an unlikely thing for her to do?” said Murray. He was now looking at Tommy with some interest.
“Yes,” said Tommy. “It’s very unlike Tuppence. If she’d been delayed or changed her plans she would have rung up again or sent a telegram.”
“And you’re worried about her?”
“Yes, I am,” said Tommy.
“H’m! Have you consulted the police?”
“No,” said Tommy. “What’d the police think? It’s not as though I had any reason to believe that she is in trouble or danger or anything of that kind. I mean, if she’d had an accident or was in a hospital, anything like that, somebody would communicate with me soon enough, wouldn’t they?”
“I should say so—yes—if she had some means of identification on her.”
“She’d have her driving licence on her. Probably letters and various other things.”
Dr. Murray frowned.
Tommy went on in a rush:
“And now you come along—And bring up all this business of Sunny Ridge—People who’ve died when they oughtn’t to have died. Supposing this old bean got on to something—saw something, or suspected something—and began chattering about it—She’d have to be silenced in some way, so she was whisked out of it quickly, and taken off to some place or other where she wouldn’t be traced. I can’t help feeling that the whole thing ties up somehow—”
“It’s odd—it’s certainly odd—What do you propose to do next?”
“I’m going to do a bit of searching myself—Try these solicitors first—They may be quite all right, but I’d like to have a look at them, and draw my own conclusions.”
Twelve
TOMMY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND
From the opposite side of the road, Tommy surveyed the premises of Messrs. Partingdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Partingdale.
They looked eminently respectable and old-fashioned. The brass plate was well worn but nicely polished. He crossed the street and passed through swing doors to be greeted by the muted note of typewriters at full speed.
He addressed himself to an open mahogany window on his right which bore the legend INQUIRIES—
Inside was a small room where three women were typing and two male clerks were bending over desks copying documents.
There was a faint, musty atmosphere with a decidedly legal flavour.
A woman of thirty-five odd, with a severe air, faded blonde hair, and pince-nez rose from her typewriter and came to the window.
“Can I help you?”
“I would like to see Mr. Eccles.”
The woman’s air of severity redoubled.
“Have you an appointment?”
“I’m afraid not. I’m just passing through London today.”
“I’m afraid Mr. Eccles is rather busy this morning. Perhaps another member of the firm—”
“It was Mr. Eccles I particularly wanted to see. I have already had some correspondence with him.”
“Oh I see. Perhaps you’ll give me your name.”
Tommy gave his name and address and the blonde woman retired to confer with the telephone on her desk. After a murmured conversation she returned.
“The clerk will show you into the waiting room. Mr. Eccles will be able to see you in about ten minutes’ time.”
Tommy was ushered into a waiting room which had a bookcase of rather ancient and ponderous-looking law tomes and a round table covered with various financial papers. Tommy sat there and went over in his own mind his planned methods of approach. He wondered what Mr. Eccles would be like. When he was shown in at last and Mr. Eccles rose from a desk to receive him, he decided for no particular reason that he could name to himself that he did not like Mr. Eccles. He also wondered why he did not like Mr. Eccles. There seemed no valid reason for dislike. Mr. Eccles was a man of between forty and fifty with greyish hair thinning a little at the temples. He had a long rather sad-looking face with a particularly wooden expression, shrewd eyes, and quite a pleasant smile which from time to time rather unexpectedly broke up the natural melancholy of hi
s countenance.
“Mr. Beresford?”
“Yes. It is really rather a trifling matter, but my wife has been worried about it. She wrote to you, I believe, or possibly she may have rung you up, to know if you could give her the address of a Mrs. Lancaster.”
“Mrs. Lancaster,” said Mr. Eccles, retaining a perfect poker face. It was not even a question. He just left the name hanging in the air.
“A cautious man,” thought Tommy, “but then it’s second nature for lawyers to be cautious. In fact, if they were one’s own lawyers one would prefer them to be cautious.”
He went on:
“Until lately living at a place called Sunny Ridge, an establishment—and a very good one—for elderly ladies. In fact, an aunt of my own was there and was extremely happy and comfortable.”
“Oh yes, of course, of course. I remember now. Mrs. Lancaster. She is, I think, no longer living there? That is right, is it not?”
“Yes,” said Tommy.
“At the moment I do not exactly recall—” he stretched out a hand towards the telephone—“I will just refresh my memory—”
“I can tell you quite simply,” said Tommy. “My wife wanted Mrs. Lancaster’s address because she happens to be in possession of a piece of property which originally belonged to Mrs. Lancaster. A picture, in fact. It was given by Mrs. Lancaster as a present to my aunt, Miss Fanshawe. My aunt died recently, and her few possessions have come into our keeping. This included the picture which was given her by Mrs. Lancaster. My wife likes it very much but she feels rather guilty about it. She thinks that it may be a picture Mrs. Lancaster values and in that case she feels she ought to offer to return it to Mrs. Lancaster.”
“Ah, I see,” said Mr. Eccles. “It is very conscientious of your wife, I am sure.”
“One never knows,” said Tommy, smiling pleasantly, “what elderly people may feel about their possessions. She may have been glad for my aunt to have it since my aunt admired it, but as my aunt died very soon after having received this gift, it seems, perhaps, a little unfair that it should pass into the possession of strangers. There is no particular title on the picture. It represents a house somewhere in the country. For all I know it may be some family house associated with Mrs. Lancaster.”
The Complete Tommy & Tuppence Collection Page 81