“They were sent to her,” Madeline said. “I don’t know who else they would have been meant for.”
“But she said she was trying to reduce. Perhaps someone knew that and meant them for someone else.”
“But not for Peter . . .” Madeline put both hands to her mouth. “It couldn’t have been.”
“No, no, darling. I do think that was just an accident. The candies were put up on a shelf he shouldn’t have been able to reach, in a room he was never supposed to enter. And it was well known that Mrs. Landis didn’t like to share with him.”
“Or anyone else,” Madeline added.
“So very like her.” Drew’s expression grew grim. “Thank God Miss Winston recognized the symptoms of cyanide poisoning right away.”
“That was awfully quick thinking on her part,” Madeline said. “Not normally the first thing you think when you see a little boy gasping for breath.”
“No,” Drew said. “I don’t suppose it is. But she was trained to recognize the stuff, and there is that smell.”
Madeline smiled slightly. “Yes, that famous almond smell. It’s supposed to be very faint, though.”
“So I hear. You know, there’s always a whiff of it in the murder mysteries. Perhaps our Miss Winston is a reader.”
Madeline took his arm. “Drew, you don’t think she could be trying to kill Fleur, do you?”
“It’s possible. I can’t be the only one who’s noticed how she is about Landis. Much as she tries to hide it.”
“No.” Madeline sighed. “I feel rather sorry for her about that. I’d think she was a sight better for him and for Peter than Fleur.”
“Not if she’s a murderess.”
Madeline wrinkled her nose at him. “No, not if she’s a murderess. And, all right, let’s suppose she is. It would be easy enough, with her nursing knowledge, and especially what she has freely admitted she knows about cyanide, for her to poison those chocolates. I would think she’d know how to use a syringe to inject them, too. Maybe she wants to be the next Mrs. Landis.”
“Women have killed for less.”
“Definitely. But that wouldn’t explain why she would kill Ravenswood or Tess Davidson or Zuraw.”
“Hmmm.” Drew thought for a moment. “Someone was apparently trying to implicate Mrs. Landis in those murders. Maybe our Miss Winston figured that having Mrs. Landis tried, if not hanged, for murder would be enough to end her marriage to Landis.”
He slowed the car to a stop along the side of the road.
“What are you doing?” Madeline asked. “There’s not something wrong with the car, is there?”
“The Rolls?” he said, feigning outrage. “Don’t be daft. I merely thought, unless you have some pressing engagement, that we might make a brief detour to the chief inspector’s office.”
“What for this time?”
“I’d like to ask him what he’s found out about those chocolates and if he knows where the poison may have come from. What do you say?”
“I say that, if you mean to go to the chief inspector’s office, you’re headed the wrong way.”
“Perceptive as always, darling.”
Sixteen
Drew put the car back into gear and turned the Rolls northward once again. He and Madeline had gotten only as far as asking the desk sergeant if Chief Inspector Birdsong was in when the man himself appeared.
“Ah, Detective Farthering. Just the man I was hoping to see.”
Drew beamed at him. “Really?”
“No, but come in anyway.” Birdsong nodded at Madeline and then escorted her and Drew into his office, where they sat in the chairs he offered. “How can I help the two of you?”
“We’ve just been to see Peter Landis.”
The chief inspector’s expression hardened. “Nasty business, that. A sure miracle the boy’s still with us.”
“True,” Drew said. “Cyanide is nothing to play with. Any idea where it came from?”
Birdsong opened up a file folder and shuffled through its contents. “We checked out all the chemists within twenty miles of the Landis residence. According to the poison books, four of them sold cyanide in the past two weeks. One of the buyers was a jeweler and one was a photographer, both of them regular customers using the cyanide for their work. The other two wanted the cyanide for pesticide, ants in one case and wasps in the other.”
“And your men checked all of them out?”
“The jeweler and the photographer, yes. As I said, they were regular customers where they bought the stuff, and neither of them has any connection to the Landises or to the theater.”
Drew nodded. “And the others?”
“The man who bought the cyanide for ants was also well known at the chemist’s. He has no connection, either to the Landises or to the Tivoli, and does have a rather impressive anthill in his back garden.”
“That leaves the one with the wasps.”
“Ah. That one is our puzzler. The shop itself is not very close to the Landis home, though it’s still in Winchester. One of the less fashionable quarters of the city, in fact. Of course, one would be mad to waltz into the local chemist’s and buy something as deadly as cyanide and not expect to be remembered.”
“Did the chemist remember?” Drew asked.
“Not all that much, I’m afraid,” Birdsong said. “He said the lady wasn’t in the shop very long at all.”
“Lady?” Madeline glanced at Drew. “Did he get a name?”
“Oh, yes, miss.” Birdsong set aside one of the imposing stacks of documents piled on his desk and took out a worn-looking ledger book, red and gray. “Anyone purchasing this sort of thing must sign the poison book.” He flipped a few pages and then turned the book around for them to see. “Last entry there.”
Drew squinted at the spidery writing. “On the seventeenth. Thursday. Do we know what time?”
Birdsong glanced at his report. “Midafternoon was all the chemist remembered. He put it between three and four when pressed, but he couldn’t be sure.”
“Anne Winchester,” Drew said, scanning the register again. “Not all that original. And this address?”
The chief inspector pursed his lips. “A rooming house near the train station. The proprietress there says she never had an Anne Winchester to stay. Not recently. Not ever. She checked her records to be certain.”
“I don’t suppose the chemist had a description of this Anne Winchester, did he?”
Birdsong shrugged. “Woman, of course. Wearing a coat and hat. Very ordinary, he says. Brownish hair. A bit dowdy. Glasses. Not a lot to go on.”
“That could fit just about anyone. Did he say if the woman was young? Old? Heavyset? Thin?”
“Average, to hear him tell it,” the chief inspector replied, looking as if he had the beginnings of a headache. “Not fat. Not thin. Not at all old. Perhaps thirtyish. Hard to say. He said it was a busy afternoon.”
“Thirtyish?” Drew looked at Madeline. “Sound like anyone we know?”
“Miss Winston,” Madeline said, eyes wide.
Drew nodded. “And what’s her first name? Adele? Adele Winston. Anne Winchester.” He gave her a grim smile. “Of Winchester. It’s not all that original.”
“Clever, the two of you,” Birdsong said. “But we’re rather ahead of you on that one, I’m afraid. She was practically in hysterics when she told us about the boy nearly dying and that. Oh, we think, it’s obvious—she tried to poison Mrs. Landis and almost killed the child in the process. It’s plain she’s fond of him, as if he were her own, so naturally she’d be terrified at the idea of accidentally killing him.”
“I did wonder about that when we talked to her,” Drew said.
“But . . . ?” Madeline narrowed her eyes at the chief inspector. “You’ve clearly changed your mind about that theory.”
“We showed Miss Winston’s photograph to the chemist, along with a few others of women approximately her age and description. He couldn’t pick her out. So we brought her down to the
police station and lined her up with four others, again roughly her age and description. The chemist said he couldn’t say for sure that any of the women was the one he saw, though he did pick out one he thought was the most likely.”
“Miss Winston?” Drew ventured.
The chief inspector snorted. “Kitty Blakeley from our typing pool. He said he picked her because she was the tallest of the lot.”
Drew frowned, thinking. “So the woman who bought the cyanide was tall?”
“Evidently. Not extremely tall, mind you, the chemist said. But taller, he thinks, than our Miss Winston.”
“Could she have been wearing heels that day?” Madeline asked. “Many women do, you know.”
The chief inspector nodded. “Possibly. She doesn’t have much of an alibi for that afternoon. It was her half day off, and she went to do errands.”
Drew lifted one eyebrow. “That’s rather unhelpful, isn’t it?”
“Rather,” Birdsong agreed. “She had been in the places she mentioned. Mostly where she’s a regular customer.”
“Seems all right, for now,” Drew said. “Suppose we leave off considering Miss Winston just for the moment. Who else might have bought the poison?”
“Mr. Landis sent her the chocolates, didn’t he?” Madeline began.
“Yes, but they came straight from the shop, and he wasn’t home from the time they were delivered until just before Peter ate some,” Drew said. “Besides, I don’t think, even with glasses, Mr. Landis could convince anyone he was a woman.”
“Don’t be silly,” Madeline said. “Still, wouldn’t he be the obvious suspect in this instance?”
“A bit too obvious, if you ask me. He’d have to know he would be the first one the police would suspect.”
“So, he makes it so obvious that no one even considers it.” Madeline looked at him, both eyebrows raised. “Why not?”
“All right, but why?” Drew countered. “He poisons the candy to kill his wife. Why would he want to kill his wife? He loves her. He’s mad about her, it seems to me. Why would he kill her?”
“Perhaps he’s tired of her. You said it yourself—it’s impossible to get close to her. Perhaps Mr. Landis found someone he could really love, and he and this woman decided to get rid of Fleur so they could get married.”
“Divorce might be a bit less complicated,” Drew observed.
Birdsong looked at Madeline. “And you think this would be the woman who bought the cyanide?”
“It could be,” Madeline said. “Why not?”
Drew didn’t say anything for a moment. Landis? Sweet heavens, not Landis . . .
“So this mystery woman,” he said at last, “she might have been the one Benton saw after Ravenswood was killed.”
“And the one I saw after Zuraw was murdered,” Madeline said. “It makes perfect sense.”
Drew shook his head. “No. I don’t believe it of him. I’ve never heard a whiff of rumor about him. These things usually get out, don’t they? If there were such a woman, who would she be? I mean, Landis doesn’t do much of anything. He works and then goes home to his family. If Miss Winston were the mystery woman, then it would fall together rather nicely. Someone in house, as it were. But if she’s not the one—”
“So then it’s one of the others.”
Drew chuckled. “No doubt there’s a cook and a scullery girl, maybe one or two more. Who’s your money on?”
“That parlormaid who took our things and went to find out if we could go up to see Peter? Sullivan, wasn’t it?”
Drew shook his head. “I would never have thought that one in particular. Not any of them really. Not every household features a torrid affair between the master and one of the staff, darling.”
Her mouth turned down. “I realize that. I just don’t know who it could be. Have your men been watching him, Chief Inspector?”
“They have, miss,” Birdsong said. “He does just as Mr. Farthering here says. He goes to his office, works, and then comes home to his family. Regular as clockwork.”
“All right,” Drew said, “let’s put him aside for the moment, too. What other questions do we have unanswered? Who do we yet have unaccounted?”
Madeline leaned forward in her chair. “Did you ever find out what happened to that lady reporter, Chief Inspector? Jo Tracy? Or what those papers were?”
Birdsong scowled. “I’m afraid not. We have bulletins out to police stations all over the country, but they haven’t turned up anything as yet. We’ve spoken to her landlady and to her secretary twice, but neither of them could tell us anything. It may have nothing to do with the case at all, but it would be very strange if she just happened to disappear after finding out about Ravenswood.”
“You don’t suppose the killer has gotten to her too, do you?”
“It’s possible she’s still alive, miss. Somewhere.”
The chief inspector didn’t look hopeful. Perhaps, Drew thought, they were looking at this Tracy woman the wrong way round.
“Did she have any reason to put Ravenswood out of the way, Chief Inspector? Perhaps something to do with these papers of hers? Something he wouldn’t let her print?”
Birdsong considered that. “I would certainly like to know where she’s been all this time and what those papers were. Ravenswood did seem more the type to enjoy shocking the public with his exploits rather than trying to hush them up.”
“And you say Miss Tracy has no family?”
“None to speak of,” said Birdsong. “Some cousins in York. A great-aunt in Newcastle. They’ve all been checked out.”
“Friends?” Drew asked.
“Several, but none of them has seen her, either. Women matching her description have been spotted everywhere from Land’s End to Inverness, but none of those has come to anything.”
“Any more clues about what those papers might have been, Chief Inspector?”
Birdsong let out a sigh. “None at all. The Sherman girl, her secretary, says she believes they were notes for a novel or some such she was writing. All very hush-hush. This Jo Tracy would never tell her what the book was about.”
“I feel rather sorry for our chief inspector,” Drew mentioned once he and Madeline were back at Farthering Place.
She gave him an odd look. “You do?”
“We have only one thorny puzzle to solve. He has to look into all of them.” Drew sighed. “A policeman’s lot, as they say, is not a happy one.”
She smiled, but the smile was faint and distracted. “Drew?”
He sat on the parlor sofa, pulling her down beside him, and kissed her cheek. “What is it, darling?”
She lowered her eyes for a moment, then looked up at him. “I want you to let the police solve this case.”
He wrinkled his forehead. “Why?”
“We’re about to get married, Drew. I want you to help me plan everything. I want you to be thinking about us and not about . . . about anything else.”
“But, darling,” he said with a laugh, “you and Aunt Ruth have had everything planned for weeks now. What you have already decided will be glorious. And I am thinking about us. I think about us all the time, about how I don’t deserve to be as deliriously happy as I am.”
“Please, just this once. For me. Don’t have anything more to do with this case.”
“What’s wrong? I thought we were going to make a career of solving cases together. Are you tired of it already?”
“No.” She shook her head. “No, I do think this is something we can do for people who need our help. But not this time, Drew, please.”
“Why, love?”
“I’m afraid something’s going to happen. Something awful.” She looked away. “I’m afraid I’m going to lose you.”
He held her close. “You don’t have to worry about this being like the last time. Whoever our killer is, he’s not after me.”
Again she shook her head, but she didn’t say anything. He merely held her there, but soon she sat up and moved away from him.
>
“Do you really have to keep on with this investigation, Drew?”
“I did promise Landis and Miss Winston. You wouldn’t want me to break my word to them, would you?”
“No,” she said, standing.
“Madeline?”
She blinked hard, and her eyes were bright with tears. “I’m not saying you’re in love with Mrs. Landis. I’m just saying . . . oh, I don’t know what I’m saying. I just don’t want you to be around her or her family.”
“I thought you liked Landis. Surely you can’t dislike Peter.”
“No, of course not. He’s a precious little boy. I’ve enjoyed having him here. And I do like Mr. Landis. But Fleur . . .” She exhaled, looking frustrated with Drew and with herself. “Fleur will use you until there’s nothing else she wants from you, and then she’ll kick you aside.”
He could only shrug. “I’ve known more admirable women. That doesn’t mean she’s a murderess.”
“I suppose not.” She gave him a wounded look. “Couldn’t you just drop the thing, just because I’m asking you to? Isn’t that enough?”
He let his expression soften. “I suppose I could ask to be let off, if it means that much to you. But I don’t know if I much care for going back on my word.”
“It wouldn’t be going back on your word if they agree to release you. Please, Drew. For me.”
“All right then. For you, sweet.”
“Promise?”
“I promise. I’ll speak to Landis and Miss Winston tomorrow.” He rose to stand next to her and kissed her cheek again. “Now come along. It’s about time we dressed for dinner.”
The next morning, Drew had an early breakfast before Madeline and her aunt came downstairs. Afterward he climbed into the Rolls and headed up to Winchester. He’d just as well get this over and done, starting with Landis. He didn’t like begging off, but this case really wasn’t his problem to solve. He regretted Landis and especially Peter having to go through such a difficult time. It couldn’t be easy for the boy, not with a mother like Fleur, but Drew couldn’t exactly help that.
Had his own mother been like Fleur? Surely not. Then again, he had fallen for Fleur himself. Why shouldn’t his father have been equally susceptible to someone like her? He slapped one hand against the steering wheel. It was utterly maddening not knowing who he was. What he was.
Murder at the Mikado Page 20