Death in the Stars

by Frances Brody

  Alex cleaned the small dish, rinsed the remains of the tablet down the sink and wiped it down. ‘Now for the cigar. I have an idea that this isn’t just tobacco. I’m going to do a hydrosulphate test.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s a test for metals. I create a little concoction and add iron sulphate. You can watch if you like.’

  ‘No, you do it. I don’t want to put you off.’ This no longer seemed like a good idea. I blamed my sudden feeling of exhaustion. I had not slept for almost thirty hours.

  I sat down on one of the benches while he gathered up a dish and bottles from one of the cupboards. ‘I’ll do the sodium fusion test first.’ He had his back to me as he worked but gave a commentary. ‘I’ve added ferrous sulphate and now…’ He picked up a bottle. ‘I shall add hydrochloric acid and that should…’ He stared at his concoction, and then raised his arms like a champion boxer and leapt in the air. ‘I’m right! Look!’

  I stared into the flask. ‘What am I looking at?’

  ‘The colour!’

  ‘It’s blue.’

  ‘It’s Prussian blue. That’s a positive result for cyanide.’

  ‘But how did you know what to look for?’

  ‘The smell, when I said the cigar had an odd smell, it was bitter almonds.’

  ‘So Billy smoked a cigar laced with cyanide?’

  It was too much to take in. Billy had been poisoned. I walked to the window and looked across at the house opposite, but then stepped back in case someone across the way had the same idea and saw me. What on earth must I do now? After the initial elation of his discovery, Alex was also nonplussed. ‘No civilised cigar maker would create something like this. He’d kill all his customers.’ He stared at me. ‘Someone has been reading William Le Queux.’

  ‘Not I.’

  ‘Mr Moffatt himself? Is that why he wanted to be alone?’

  ‘Alex, you’re not having me on, are you? This seems absurd.’

  ‘Yes, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure?’

  ‘Completely sure. The fact that cyanide was in the cigar means that the heat will have made it work rapidly. Mr Moffatt didn’t have a chance. He must be strong, and have flung it down quickly, to live for as long as he did.’

  ‘Then I’ll need to take this cigar to the authorities, and soon. I’d have to give reasons for my suspicions.’

  ‘It’s a simple enough test. Do you want me to repeat it, step by step?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’ I did not want to waste time. This made no sense. If Billy had intended to kill himself, why do it so publicly? It was hard to believe that no thought of Selina and her reaction had crossed his mind. He was so fond of her, anyone could see that. It was horrible to think of his doing something that would distress if not destroy those left behind. If someone else had tampered with his cigar, surely they would have left some mark or indication that Billy may have seen before he put the cigar to his lips. Of course it was still dark and he would have lit up without paying too much attention. If it had been given to him, he might have decided against smoking, passed it on and killed someone else. The thought horrified me. Billy would have had no compunction about giving a cigar to a boy if he didn’t fancy smoking it.

  ‘What are you thinking, Mrs Shackleton?’

  ‘I’m thinking someone else must have given him the cigar, because where would Billy get hold of cyanide?’

  ‘It’s alarmingly easy to produce if you know how.’

  ‘Wouldn’t Billy have tasted something odd, or smelled something, as you did?’

  ‘He may have had a cold, or a poor sense of smell. And there is one thing that puzzles me, if he was responsible for his own death.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘If he knew enough to be able to create cyanide, he would have known that cyanide salts react at a higher level with stomach acidity. He wouldn’t have bothered to bring his antacid tablets if he planned to light up that cigar.’

  Late afternoon sun streamed through the lab windows. The vertical mullions cast stripes of shadows across the room. Patches of sunshine made visible motes of dust in the air. My boy genius companion stood by the sink, pouring away the solution he had created. He turned on the tap. ‘What do you want to do, Mrs Shackleton?’

  I was finding it difficult to gather my thoughts. What did I want to do? If the headmaster’s wife was so protective of the school’s reputation that she worried about a pillbox of tablets and a sprinkling of cocaine, then what might lie in store for the head boy if he was found to have brought me into the laboratory and conducted a test for cyanide?

  To whom should I hand the evidence – if evidence it was – the local police, the hospital? And evidence of what, that was the difficulty. Was it suicide, or murder?

  Alex was waiting for me to answer.

  Footsteps once more sounded along the corridor. This time, they began to slow and came to a stop by the door.

  Alex’s eyes opened wide in alarm. He pulled the key from his pocket and indicated a door at the end of the room. In his haste to reach the connecting door, he was speeding off without the vital evidence. I rewrapped the cigar and quickly followed him into the next classroom just as the door to the lab opened. We tiptoed from an adjoining laboratory and in a moment, after he unlocked and relocked another door, we were back in the corridor.

  ‘It’s all the same key,’ he whispered. ‘The masters are terribly strict with us and awfully lax generally.’

  ‘Alex, let’s get out of here. I don’t want to land you in trouble.’

  We made our way to the front door without being seen.

  ‘I’ll catch you up on the path, Mrs Shackleton. I must just cancel a game of chess.’

  As I walked back through the school grounds in the direction of the village, I thought about what to do. Having given the pillbox of antacid tablets to the doctor, I ought immediately to take the remains of the cigar straight to the hospital. Alex had used the lab unauthorised, but that paled into insignificance beside the need to establish the true cause of death. Establishing the cause would not help in finding out whether Billy’s act was self-inflicted. It might have been, or some malevolent person had given him the poisoned cigar.

  As far as I knew, people intent on self-destruction would think not only about the means but time and place. Had Billy really boarded the aeroplane this morning intending to take his life? Surely not.

  Given the bond between Billy and Selina, it seemed impossible that he would simply have walked away, without a kiss on the cheek, without a goodbye.

  Twelve

  The Long Way Home

  I walked slowly back towards the village, needing a plan. Taking the partly smoked and distinctly chewed poisoned cigar to the hospital would be one course of action. It would involve explaining that I picked up the cigar from the ground. I might deliver it into the hospital sister’s hands and ask that it be passed to the doctor for analysis. Soon. I could not rely on the evidence of a schoolboy. There needed to be an expert scientific analysis.

  Another course of action would be to follow my original idea of going to my friendly chemist and asking him to analyse it. His report, and a statement from Alex, could be presented to the coroner’s officer.

  There was no time to lose.

  Perhaps I would be able to find out whether Billy was in the habit of smoking cigars and, if so, where he got them. Somehow I doubted that he knew much about chemistry, or creating cyanide. Selina had remarked that Billy attended a ragged school. Ragged schools, while keen on the three Rs of reading, writing and ’rithmetic, were not renowned for teaching urchins chemistry, or any other subjects that would unsettle them, make them ambitious beyond their station and critical of a world that kept them firmly in their allotted place. Of course Billy could have picked up knowledge of cyanide while in the army. Men returned from war with a vast array of murderous skills.

  By the time I had obtained a second, and professional, analysis of the cigar, a post
mortem may have taken place. Perhaps something significant would come from that.

  Alex had been longer in catching me up than I expected. I looked round to see if he was in sight. Not yet.

  The walk gave me time to think. This was what I must do. Go straight from the train to my chemist friend. If the analysis revealed poison, I must report the findings to the coroner’s officer. The chemist would do that in any case. By acting in that way, there would be no need to bring Alex McGregor into the picture, except to say that I had asked him to show me where Billy was found. I would explain that because Alex and his friends saw Billy smoking a cigar, I picked up what remained of that cigar, which was rather a lot, just out of interest.

  All Alex would need to do was confirm that he took me to the spot where Billy was found. I now regretted that dash to the lab. It could be thought that the cigar had been exposed to some other chemical while in my and Alex’s possession.

  It also raised the question about where the cigar came from. Would I act differently if I knew for certain Billy had intended suicide? Perhaps before taking the evidence to a chemist, I might find out whether Billy had left a note somewhere.

  It seemed to me unlikely that he would have gone to Giggleswick, taking his first ride in a plane, acting jolly, with the thought in the back of his mind that Wednesday, 29 June, day of the eclipse, would be the last day of his life. On the other hand, what a way and what a day to die, an extraordinary day and a dreadful death.

  ‘Mrs Shackleton!’ Alex caught up with me. He had been running. ‘I thought you must have come this way when I didn’t see you on the hill.’

  ‘This is the road to Giggleswick station, isn’t it?’

  ‘To Giggleswick station, yes. You’ll be better going from Settle. There’s a sooner train and it’s a pleasant walk.’

  ‘Then lead on, Alex.’

  He gave a rueful smile. ‘This way you won’t need to pass Castleberg and the infirmary.’

  We turned back. At that moment, I did not care whether the walk was pleasant or otherwise, but he was right in thinking that I would prefer not to see Castleberg again.

  We walked in silence as far as a beck, colonised by a flock of sedate ducks. There we paused. There is something soothing about gently flowing water. Alex quoted Spenser. ‘Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.’

  ‘What a peaceful little stretch of water.’

  ‘It’s called Tems Beck,’ Alex explained, ‘spelled T.e.m.s, pronounced Thames. When first years write home, they like to say they have walked by the Tems. A correction of their geography and spelling comes back pretty quickly, and then they explain. I meant to tell that to Mr Moffatt, in case he fancied the idea for his routine.’

  ‘Yes, he might have.’

  ‘It’s probably not funny. I’m hopeless at jokes.’

  One of the ducks suddenly executed a graceful dive towards something we could not see. Sunlight created sparkling dots of light on the water, adding to the sense of unreality, yet the world about us appeared oddly normal. We passed a big house, where someone was cleaning the windows, a national school where children played in the yard, laughing and calling to each other.

  Alex had gone to some trouble to take me the scenic way to the station and so I commented on the fine church.

  ‘It’s St Alkelda’s. No one outside a few square miles of Yorkshire has heard of her. Do you want to go in?’

  ‘No. I best get on, what with my little cargo of cigar, and that people will have questions for me.’

  He nodded. ‘Only I don’t suppose you will ever want to come back here, after today.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’

  Outside the Black Horse, a drayman, helped by a barman, manoeuvred a barrel of beer from the cart while the horse waited patiently. On Belle Hill, a woman came from her house carrying a shopping basket. She wished us good morning.

  Was it still morning? I felt as if a century flew by since the aeroplane landed on the cricket pitch, and that nothing would ever again be real.

  *

  We arrived at the station with half an hour to spare before the Leeds train arrived.

  ‘Alex, we’re going into the buffet, and this will be my treat. It’s been a terrible day for all of us, after starting out so well.’

  The poor boy was rather subdued. He had been so good and helpful, and for all I knew was missing a meal because of me.

  There was a single waitress behind the counter. An elderly couple sat by the window.

  ‘What will you have, Alex?’

  The woman behind the counter wiped her hands on the teacloth. ‘I’ve run out of just about everything. They came in like locusts this morning. I baked more scones but they’ve all gone as well. Had to send out for more milk, cheese and eggs.’

  I felt the need to eat something. ‘Will there be time for me to have a cup of tea and a bite of anything at all before the Leeds train arrives? And whatever this young man would like to order.’

  ‘Oh aye, there’s time. I’ll fry you an egg, madam. Won’t be a jiffy.’ She looked at Alex.

  ‘I’ll have welsh rarebit and a pot of tea, please.’

  ‘You’re Giggleswick School head boy, aren’t you?’

  Alex came to life, remembering his exalted position. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You must all be very pleased with yourselves up at the school.’

  He nodded. ‘We are. Thank you.’

  Five minutes later, we had a pot of tea on the table, and two cups. I stirred, poured, and explained my plan to Alex, finishing with the words, ‘So you see, I shall keep you out of it entirely, except as the person who showed me where Billy died and walked me to the railway station. I’ll present the evidence to the chemist without saying the cigar has already been tested for…’ Not wanting to say the word cyanide in public, I lowered my voice. ‘Tested and found positive. There’ll be a post mortem and that will reveal the cause of death.’

  Alex ran his hands through his hair. ‘Not sure about that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He raised his cup and spoke to it rather than to me. ‘It would have taken one tiny whiff to kill Mr Moffatt. In the William Le Queux story the substance was discovered because the cigar was examined quickly. That’s how it works in the stories. It’s found in the tea, or the stout, or the champagne. Cyanide disappears from the body after a very short time and it might already have done so.’

  ‘I’ll have to take a chance on that, Alex. Writers take liberties. Poetic licence. William Le Queux and his fellow scribblers may not be the most reliable sources.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about that. I’ll need to read up a bit more.’ Alex sighed. ‘Not that I suppose I’ll need that kind of information when I go into practice in Dundee, but you never know.’

  ‘How true.’

  ‘Mrs Shackleton, if I don’t hear from any other quarter, may I get in touch with you to ask what happened? I’d like to know how this business turns out, and I’ll be very discreet.’

  I smiled. ‘I’m sure that coming from a family of doctors, discretion is bred in the bone. Thank you for your help.’ I gave him my card.

  *

  Just half a dozen of us stood on the platform waiting for the train, but only one of us carried an item that may have been laced with a lethal poison.

  My earlier concerns about crowds and the difficulty of a return journey were unfounded. It was one o’clock and people had departed Giggleswick quickly, anxious to be home and catch some sleep. Given how early the sun and moon had put on their performance, it was likely that many people had already returned to work in shops and offices. It would have been possible after all for Selina to have let the plane go without her. She would have made it back on time before the performance. But all in all I was glad that she had not waited, given how ghastly she looked earlier. At least now she would have rested before Beryl Lister broke the news of Billy’s death.

  The station master came from his office and stepped onto the platform, flag and whistle in hand, a
sign that our train was due.

  Moments later, in a swirl of smoke and steam, slowing as it neared the station, the train trundled into view and shuddered to a halt.

  Although I felt tired and my brain fit to burst, I was glad to have just two silent fellow travellers in the compartment as I tried to think about everything that had happened and make some sense of the day’s events.

  But I couldn’t think clearly, my brain being too scrambled for anything but that swirling indefinite mishmash of uncertainty. It was now that I remembered something Billy had said during the party. It was the kind of ridiculous remark one did not take notice of at the time. Billy was telling everyone what a flop the eclipse would be and that if by some remote chance the clouds parted and the sun came out, he would have to change his routine and it was such a good routine that he would rather top himself. The memory of his words made me shudder.