Dead In The Morning

by Margaret Yorke

  “How’s Mrs Ludlow now?” asked Jane. She bent to poke the fire, and a splutter of flames crackled. A rich fragrance came from the old wood as it burned.

  “Not too good,” said Phyllis.

  No one else spoke. All knew it was for the best, but they could not say so. Mrs Ludlow had been taken back to her own bed, and a nurse had arrived. Outside the door of her room sat the same policewoman who had come to the Stable House only that morning to arrest Helen.

  “I just can’t believe it,” Cathy said at last. “For Gran to think up such a thing – it was mad!”

  “She was power-mad, Cathy,” said Patrick. To him, one of the strangest features of the case was the way in which Mrs Ludlow had cold-bloodedly accepted that some of her family might wish for her death. “For years she had controlled you all - or she thought so. She could cut off funds at source, or deprive you of your expectations. When the happiness of her favourite child was threatened by a fantastic coincidence, she would not let things rest. She took upon herself the mantle of fate.”

  “I wanted to talk to Joyce,” Helen said, in her soft voice. “After all, it was her secret too. But Mrs Ludlow said Sunday would be soon enough.”

  “Poor Gran. She must have been all mixed up,” said Cathy. “I suppose, when you’ve been ill for years—” Her voice trailed off. Invalids did not always develop megalomania. “She could be nice. We had our laughs,” she said. But they were very few; Gran had been cruel, especially to Aunt Phyl. She realised that already she was speaking of her grandmother in the past tense, and shivered.

  “I don’t understand how you discovered what happened, Dr Grant,” said Phyllis.

  “Something in Cathy’s description of what happened on Sunday morning kept nagging at me,” Patrick said. “I didn’t at first realise its significance. You asked Cathy to wake Mrs Mackenzie, and Mrs Ludlow tried to prevent her from going. She wanted to spare her from a terrible experience. And on Saturday afternoon, your grandmother sent you to the vicarage with a letter, didn’t she, Cathy?

  “I think there were two reasons for this errand. The first was to get you, Cathy, out of the house because she wanted time to fetch the capsules from the hall without fear of interruption.”

  “If only I’d put them away,” said Phyllis.

  “She would have got them even more easily, for they would have been in her room. It wouldn’t have made any difference,” Patrick said. It would have made Phyllis prime suspect of the supposed attempt to kill Mrs Ludlow; otherwise Mrs Ludlow’s plans would not have been affected.

  “But mother couldn’t have fetched the pills from the hall,” said Gerald. “She couldn’t move.”

  “She could. I wasn’t sure about this,” said Patrick. “But this afternoon, don’t you remember, she dropped her stick and she moved her chair forward to reach it. If she had plenty of time, she could have done it.”

  “I’ve seen her move,” Phyllis said. “She used to get about quite well on her own, but her arms have got very weak now.”

  “And also she wanted you to push her about,” said Patrick. “Remember that. She wanted you at her beck and call. She probably propelled herself about quite often, if no one was there to see. Anyway, with Cathy out at the vicarage, would she have known when you or Mrs Mackenzie were likely to interrupt her?”

  “Yes. I always go out for half an hour’s walk after I’ve brought her down from her rest, and Mrs Mackenzie usually spent the afternoon in her room. She used to take mother round the garden just before tea if I was out, otherwise I did that.”

  “Like clockwork?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. So there was half an hour in which Mrs Ludlow could go to the hall, fetch the pills, hide them in her stick, and be found calmly playing patience as expected by whoever came home first?”

  “I suppose so. It could have been like that,” Phyllis said.

  “When Mrs Ludlow moved so instinctively to collect her stick it answered another question,” Patrick said. “I never saw her without it; she must have been greatly attached to it.”

  “It was my father’s,” Gerald said. “She used it as a reinforcement to her bell.”

  “The gelatine capsules must have been emptied before the powder was administered,” said Patrick. “To an able-bodied person, disposing of them would have been no problem, but Mrs Ludlow would have found this difficult, dependent as she was on help throughout the day. If she swallowed them, she probably managed only one or two at a time. I reasoned that some might still be left. As it turned out, she had kept some whole capsules too, for herself, I imagine, if things went wrong. And she also took out another form of insurance. Do you know what was in the letter to the vicar, Mrs Medhurst?”

  “No. But he spoke to me after the service on Sunday. He seemed overcome with gratitude about something and said he’d be coming to see Mother. She made me ring up and tell him not to. She wouldn’t even let him come to talk about Mrs Mackenzie, or arrange about the funeral.”

  “I think you’ll find she sent him a substantial cheque,” said Patrick. “Doubtless your church needs funds.”

  There was a silence.

  “She was neat with her hands, in spite of being so crippled,” Patrick said. “I noticed that she could use a knife and fork, and so on, without any difficulty. Undoing the capsules and collecting up the powder, in an envelope, perhaps, would not have been a problem.”

  “If only I hadn’t come,” Helen cried. “None of this need have happened.” “Life can’t be lived like that, Mrs Ludlow,” said Patrick gently.

  “It’s happened,” Phyllis said. “Nothing can be undone. You mustn’t look back, Helen. You and Gerald can have a happy life. After all, that’s what poor Mother was trying to make sure of.”

  “What will happen now?” Cathy asked.

  As she said this, the telephone rang.

  “That may be your answer,” Patrick said. He stood up as Jane went out of the room to see who it was. They heard her voice, murmuring, in the hall, and then she came back. She looked at Phyllis.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Mrs Ludlow’s dead. She never woke at all.”

  VI

  After the Ludlows had all gone away, Jane and Patrick sat on by the dying embers of the fire. They were silent for a long time.

  “I feel as if I’d swum the channel,” Jane said at last. “Limp, and wrung out.”

  “Poor old thing. You had to bear the brunt, today,” said Patrick.

  “That wasn’t so bad. I like Helen, and golly, am I sorry for her! What a life she’s had. She adores Gerald, too. Funny, isn’t it? He seems rather dull to me. Andrew liked her. Maybe she’ll have another infant herself, when this blows over.”

  “Maybe she will,” said Patrick. “I wonder how they’ll all make out. We shan’t lose touch, if Tim stays up and Cathy comes up later.”

  “Will Tim stay? What if his father goes to gaol?”

  “I don’t suppose it will come to that in the end. And it will do Tim good to get illicit jobs in term, like driving grocery vans, and spend his vacation working on building sites. Cathy may change her mind, though. Something else may crop up for her before the summer.”

  “I think she’ll persevere,” said Jane. “She’d be a plus influence, too, among the dollies.”

  Patrick wondered to himself if Oxford would make Cathy, or if it would break her heart.

  “What about the bank manager?” Jane added. “Will he come up to scratch? What’s he like?”

  “Solid and reliable, as you might expect. Just what Phyllis needs. He’s got a grown-up family and several grandchildren.”

  “You’ve been to see him, I suppose? That’s how you know all this?”

  “Naturally. What do you expect?” said Patrick. In fact Maurice had boldly telephoned Pantons, demanding to speak to Phyllis, just as she was busy with the nurse getting her unconscious mother into bed. Patrick had thought it wiser not to say too much over the telephone; he had instead visited Maurice Richards and t
old him just a few of the facts, so that he might appreciate how serious things were, and understand that Phyllis’s own distress might inhibit her from getting in touch. What she chose to tell him in the end was up to her.

  “Dr Cupid Grant, eh?” said Jane. “A man of parts.”

  “Do you still think I interfered too much?” he asked.

  Jane pondered, wrinkling up her nose.

  “I don’t know,” she said at last. “As it happens, things seem to have worked out for the best in a case of terrible alternatives. But the police would have got there in the end, wouldn’t they? Or the old girl would have confessed after Helen was arrested?”

  “Who’s to know?” said Patrick.

  “What will happen now? Will the story all come out?”

  “I doubt it,” said Patrick. “The police are satisfied. I expect the verdict on Mrs Mackenzie will be death by misadventure,”

  “There won’t be an inquest on Mrs Ludlow?”

  “No. At her age, anything could happen, and the doctor saw her regularly.”

  “It’s so sad,” said Jane. “Poor old woman, she kept them all on the hop, all her life, and yet she died alone, with only a strange nurse and a policewoman there.”

  “I hope they sell that house,” said Patrick, getting up. He knocked his pipe out into the ashes of the fire. “It’s packed with grim associations for them now.”

  “What about Alec Mackenzie?”

  “He’s going back to Canada. It seems he’s wanted to for years, but his mother was against it. I suppose she thought her past would find her out if she did. He thinks his kids will have more opportunity over there, and there’s his sister, too.”

  “Canada’s large enough. I’d have thought Mrs Mackenzie could have started again in another part of it,” said Jane.

  “She would have, if she’d known what lay in store for her, no doubt,” said Patrick dryly. “Come on, Jane, time for bed. That nephew of mine will have you up at dawn, if I know him. I don’t want Michael hounding me for letting you get exhausted in his absence.”

  “He’ll be back next week,” Jane said. She stood up and stretched, and her eyes darkened as she thought about her husband. Patrick regarded her affectionately. Michael was very nearly worthy of her, in his view, and that was praise indeed.

  “Well, it hasn’t been too dull for you, having me to stay, has it?” he said. He plumped up the cushion in his chair, put the guard in front of the fire, and waited for her to leave the room ahead of him.

  “Oh no, brother dear,” said Jane. “It has not been dull.”

  ‘Dr. Patrick Grant’ Titles

  (in order of first publication)

  These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

  1. Dead In The Morning 1970

  2. Silent Witness 1972

  3. Grave Matters 1973

  4. Mortal Remains 1974

  5. Cast For Death 1976

  Other Margaret Yorke Novels

  Published by House of Stratus

  1. Devil’s Work 1982

  2. The Hand Of Death 1981

  3. Pieces Of Justice (Short Story Collection) 1994

  4. Safely To The Grave 1986

  5. Serious Intent 1995

  6. A Small Deceit 1991

  Synopses of ‘Grant’ Titles

  Published by House of Stratus

  Cast For Death

  Sam Irwin, actor, is found dead in the River Thames. It appears to be suicide. But why should he have taken his own life shortly before opening in a new play at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon? Dr. Patrick Grant, a friend of Irwin, manages to link the seemingly unconnected occurrences of the death of a dog, a further suicide, and a series of art robberies in coming to an conclusion. That, however, is not what is seems, being only the prelude to a massive deception. Grant himself is threatened, and unless he can escape unscathed from a concert at the Festival Hall, the secret of Irwin’s death will die with him.

  Dead In The Morning

  Imagine an old lady who was hated because of her arrogance and cruelty towards her children, and whose lives she dominated, becoming a murder victim. But it is the housekeeper who is found dead. Had a mistake been made and the wrong woman killed? Dr. Patrick Grant uses his powers of logic and deduction to determine this is not the case, but he can only prove it at the expense of incriminating an innocent person. How does he solve this particular conundrum?

  Grave Matters

  Amelia Brinton, a retired headmistress of a top girl’s school, appears to have accidently fallen to her death in Greece. Her friend, a Miss Forest, also meets her death having been pushed down stairs in the British Museum. Dr. Patrick Grant connects the two events and his investigations lead him to a quiet backwater village in Hampshire. Yet more mysteries unfold; a dog drowns in shallow water, there is a case of food poisoning, and finally a house appears to be haunted. There is then another murder. What connects these events and why was Amelia Brinton killed. It takes Grant’s full powers of logic and deduction, with a little help from the police, to get to the bottom of what is a spine tingling mystery and ultimate crime story.

  Mortal Remains

  Dr. Patrick Grant does not believe that Felix Lomax died accidentally. The unfortunate Lomax was thought to be lecturing on a luxury cruise liner, but is found washed ashore on a lonely beach in Crete. Grant’s investigations take him upon a trail which eventually leads to the tombs of Mycenae, where he ends up risking his own life in an effort to determine the truth.

  Silent Witness

  The Austrian Alpine ski resort of Greutz is the scene of rivalry between an English party and some new arrivals. The tension mounts with the weather closing in, when blizzards envelope the resort and avalanches threaten. Dr. Patrick Grant’s particular powers of logic and reasoning are needed, however, when a member of the party is discovered murdered. Why should a seemingly insignificant individual become a victim?

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