by Francis Iles
Dr. Bickleigh was sorry, and he did miss her, but he was pleased that such a piece of luck had befallen her, and there was always the autumn, and a rest never did anyone any harm.
He turned the Jowett back from Merchester, and headed for The Hall.
During the last year he had scarcely seen Madeleine at all. They had passed once or twice on the roads, but always contrived not to see each other; and people had had the tact not to ask them to the same gatherings. It was with a curious sense of re-entering the past that he drove up the gravel sweep to the house.
Mr. and Mrs. Bourne were at home. The parlourmaid (the same parlourmaid) hardly knew whether to look welcoming or embarrassed, but succumbed to Dr. Bickleigh’s infectious smile. She kept him waiting in the hall for a few minutes before summoning him to the drawing-room.
Madeleine and Denny were at tea. Denny was the only one who showed awkwardness. His face expressed plain hostility. Madeleine, on the other hand, looked merely as if this of all moments was the one she had been awaiting for the last twelve months. Even Dr. Bickleigh, who thought he knew the depths of her duplicity, was surprised. He followed her cue and tried to look the same.
Sitting between them, he hinted delicately at the object of his visit. Without exactly naming it, he suggested that there had been a silly feud, that Wyvern’s Cross was too tiny to hold feuds, and that he had come, in frank and manly manner, to insinuate an apology for anything he had done which might not have been approved, and hope that the hatchet might now be considered buried. As he had shrewdly guessed, this situation appealed to Madeleine. She threw herself into it heart and eyes. The two vied with each other in noble exchanges and generous hints. Denny, puzzled and earthily suspicious, might not have been there at all.
Dr. Bickleigh came away with a greater contempt for his hostess than before; if he had cared to take the trouble, he was convinced he could make Madeleine his mistress within a week; he did not care. For he came away also with Madeleine’s promise to come, with her husband, to tea the next day.
When he got in, Dr. Bickleigh ran straight upstairs to the attic where, among a litter of oddments, he kept the incubator. He stayed there some time, regarding the happy family inside with a loving eye.
2
BOTULISM IS caused chiefly by contaminated sausages. It may (argued Dr. Bickleigh) be caused just as readily by contaminated potted meat. There were to be potted meat sandwiches for tea.
By Dr. Bickleigh’s orders, tea was ready in good time. But the food was not taken into the drawing-room. Nobody should have a chance afterwards to say that he had been left alone with it. Instead, Mrs. Holne’s attention in the kitchen was directed for just two seconds elsewhere, and two of the sandwiches were whisked into Dr. Bickleigh’s ready handkerchief. Subsequently Mrs. Holne would be able to swear that she had had them all under her direct observation from the time when she cut them to the time when they were carried into the drawing-room under the noses of the visitors. Not, of course, that there would ever be occasion to swear any such thing; but Dr. Bickleigh could not forget now that he was an artist.
As he spread his bacilli on the potted meat upstairs in the attic two minutes later, his only conscious thought was that he must not forget to put them back on the plate with their distinguishing marks (a tiny pink smear of potted meat on a corner of the white bread) uppermost. Of Madeleine and Chatford he did not think at all. Now that the affair had gone into action, those two had almost ceased to be human beings to him at all. They had become symbols.
It was going to be a neat business.
Only a tiny smear of the culture was used. The rest was kept in case, improbably, of a second administration becoming necessary. And a minute bit was to be added that night to the jar of potted meat before it was thrown away next day when the news of the two illnesses came through. It is the little points that count.
As before, the thing would be utterly detection-proof. How simple murder was, in the right hands.
Murder—well, yes, in a way it was murder. . . . How odd.
3
THE ADMINISTRATION was mere child’s-play. Dr. Bickleigh kept the plate of sandwiches on the cake-stand beside him. The two contaminated ones were on the extreme side of the plate. He offered it first to Madeleine and then to Chatford. Both took the sandwich nearest to them. It was as easy as a conjurer forcing a card on a yokel. Dr. Bickleigh could have laughed out loud at their simplicity.
While they all engaged in rather stilted conversation, he covertly watched Madeleine and Chatford eating death. Chatford rushed upon his, caught napping this time for all his dry caution; Madeleine toyed delicately with hers, pretending, of course (the fool!), that her soul was above such earthly things as food and drink. Denny, obviously dragged at her heels, ate in morose silence, looking suspiciously at the food, for all the world as if he thought it might be poisoned. What an idea!
Dr. Bickleigh felt less pity for them than he had felt for Julia. In a way she had not deserved to die; and these two did. In a way, too, it was Madeleine who had really murdered Julia. At any rate, far more so than himself. Well, Julia was getting her vengeance. As Dr. Bickleigh watched the last morsel of sandwich disappear into her rat-trap of a mouth (yes, positively, in these days Madeleine’s mouth was a veritable rat-trap), he experienced a strange sensation: he wanted to roar with laughter, shout, sing, snap his fingers, howl aloud; his chest seemed to be swelling so that he had to keep drawing great breaths to fill it. It was a strange sensation, yet in a way familiar. Suddenly he remembered. It had been just the same when he was driving away from the little wood a year ago, after he had hit Ivy in the face.
He had to talk, chatter nonsense, crack silly jokes. So bubbling was his merriment that the others were infected too. Even Denny laughed. The stiltedness disappeared completely. Dr. Bickleigh, hugging his joy, saw the whole thing amusedly in newspaper headlines. “Laughter at Death-Feast”; “Doomed Guests Joke after Fatal Sandwiches”; “Microbes and Mirth.”
As her restraint lessened, Dr. Bickleigh watched too the real Madeleine appear. Her egoism was incredible. It was impossible to keep any topic for more than an initial moment on the impersonal plane; Madeleine could only view it as it affected herself. If cars came up for discussion, with an incipient argument between Denny and Chatford as to the merits of two different makes, Madeleine would intervene with reminiscences of her own surprising skill in driving, and the astonishing accidents which only her own coolness and composure had enabled her to avoid. If the latest play in London was mentioned, Madeleine was led without hesitation to give them anecdotes of the famous actors she had met, and how they had one and all told her that the stage was simply waiting for her to conquer it, offered her immediate engagements as their leading lady, and almost burst into tears on her noble refusal to take the bread out of hardworking (but inferior) actresses’ mouths. If anyone anywhere had done anything, Madeleine had done the same thing better. Denny said, more than once, in a weary tone: “Yes, dear. You’re wonderful.” Dr. Bickleigh was delighted.
But he was careful not to make the mistake of keeping the thing going too long. As soon as reasonably possible, he made the excuse of a couple of urgent visits before surgery to ensure his guests’ departure. Bacillus botulinus is a tricky fellow, and Dr. Bickleigh did not wish to run the risk of having anyone taken ill before reaching home. To Chatford on the doorstep he made perfunctory excuses. It was a nuisance; Mr. and Mrs. Bourne’s unexpected arrival had made it impossible for him to discuss his business that day; Chatford must come out some other afternoon, and they could go into it properly. Chatford quite understood.
Having thus arranged for a second administration in the unlikely event of Chatford being alive to require it, Dr. Bickleigh methodically set about perfecting perfection. It was with an air of slight amusement at himself that he went into the kitchen to interview Mrs. Holne. These details were unnecessary really, of course; but they were half the fun. They made all the difference between a slipshod and a finis
hed piece of work. Dr. Bickleigh knew he was not taking a sordid joy in murder for murder’s sake; but he did think that he might allow himself a cynical appreciation of a work of fine art.
Mrs. Holne was a thin, melancholy woman, quite ready at all times to anticipate the worst.
“Oh, Mrs. Holne,” Dr. Bickleigh said, with his usual deprecatory smile on invading the kitchen, “are you sure that potted meat was quite all right? The sandwiches tasted just a little bit funny to me.”
“Well, it was only opened this afternoon, sir, and it looked fresh enough; but it’s bin hot enough to-day to turn anything,” Mrs. Holne sighed, “and that’s a fact.”
“Well, have you got the jar handy? I’d like to have a sniff at it.”
Mrs. Holne brought the jar, sniffing at it herself. “It does smell a bit queer, sir, now you come to mention it.” Great is the power of suggestion.
Dr. Bickleigh sniffed too. “Very queer. You’re quite right, Mrs. Holne. It had better be thrown away. We don’t want to run any risks, after that poor Sampford child. I’ll drop it in the dust-bin myself.” Yes, on the whole it seemed to come better to-day than deferring it till to-morrow.
He went out through the back kitchen and did so, smearing the fragment of infected jelly from his culture on it as he went. That fragment would soon infect the whole contents of the pot. What was to happen to the latter after its disposal in the dustbin Dr. Bickleigh did not know, or care. That could be left to look after itself. Meanwhile, there was the sheer artistry of the action.
And that was all there was to be done. How simple it was.
Dr. Bickleigh strolled back to the drawing-room, humming an air from The Marriage of Figaro, and strummed on the piano till it was time for surgery. He was self-taught, but he did not play too badly; and it afforded him a good deal of satisfaction.
4
NEWS CAME the next morning, from Mrs. Holne. In a village an event has only to take place for everyone in the neighbourhood to know it, apparently almost simultaneously and without visible communication.
“Have you heard the noos, sir?”
Dr. Bickleigh laid his knife and fork across his breakfast bacon and braced himself for the best. “No? What?”
“Mrs. Bourne, sir. Up to The ’All. Took very bad in the night, they say. Had to have Dr. Lydston out from Merchester, an’ all.”
“Dear me,” Dr. Bickleigh clucked, looking properly solemn. “How very dreadful. I hope it isn’t serious?”
“Accordin’ to what they say, sir, it’s about as serious as it could be,” returned Mrs. Holne, with mournful relish.
“Now, that’s very queer. I was taken quite bad myself last night. Nothing serious, of course, but . . . No, I think you’d better take this bacon away, Mrs. Holne. I don’t feel up to it, really. I’ll just have a bit of dry toast, and some coffee. Well, really, what a curious coincidence.”
Mrs. Holne grasped her cue. “Why, sir, you—you don’t think it could ’a’ bin that potted meat, do you?”
“Good gracious me, I’d never thought any more about that. I wonder . . . It’s quite possible, Mrs. Holne. Dear me, how dreadful.”
“Well, it did smell queer, sir, and that’s a fact. They didn’t say anything about Mr. Dennis being took bad, but what about the other gentleman? Mr. Chatford, sir?”
“I haven’t heard anything,” Dr. Bickleigh said doubtfully. “And, in any case, we can’t be sure, you know, Mrs. Holne. We mustn’t jump to conclusions. Of course, if Mr. Chatford is . . . But there; we must wait and see.”
“Well, glad I am that I didn’t touch the stuff, sir,” observed Mrs. Holne, taking a reluctant departure. “It’s not often I’m spared anything, but at any rate I didn’t ’ave any of that.”
She went out, a firmly established witness.
Dr. Bickleigh smiled gently as he helped himself to toast. He missed his bacon, but one must be prepared for some discomfort in a good cause.
The annoying thing was that no news came through about Chatford. Most annoying. Twice during his morning’s work Dr. Bickleigh called in at Fairlawn to see if any sort of message had arrived, but there was nothing. His suspense grew. It was even more tantalising than, in his pre-marital betting days, waiting for the result of the three-thirty.
After lunch he could stand it no longer. He took up the telephone receiver and gave Chatford’s private number.
“I’m sorry,” came a female voice over the wire. “Mr. Chatford’s ill in bed.”
Dr. Bickleigh’s heart executed a little triumphant leap. “Ill, is he? I’m very sorry to hear that. This is Dr. Bickleigh speaking, from Wyvern’s Cross. I hope it’s nothing serious?”
The maid at the other end hesitated obviously. “I—I don’t know, sir.” There reached Dr. Bickleigh’s eager ears the sounds of a whispered colloquy. Asking the cook how much she ought to tell me, he thought.
“Well, what are the symptoms?” he asked impatiently.
Again there was a long pause before the answer was given, but this time Dr. Bickleigh could detect no whispering. “We think he must have eaten something that’s disagreed with him, sir.”
“Indeed? Now that’s very curious. I don’t know if you know, but Mr. Chatford was here to tea yesterday, and I was taken bad myself last night; and so, I hear, was Mrs. Bourne, who was here too.” No echo of all Julia’s attempts at training him reminded Dr. Bickleigh of the reprehensibility of entering into details with servants. “I’m beginning to fear that it must have been something we had here. Will you run up and give Mr. Chatford my compliments and tell him that I shall be in Merchester this afternoon and would like to call in and see him? Not in a professional capacity, of course; but if he wouldn’t mind my examining him, really for my own peace of mind . . . Will you tell him that?”
“Yes, sir. Hold on, please?”
As he waited, Dr. Bickleigh congratulated himself on the inspiration. That he was committing a heinous breach of professional etiquette worried him not at all. As weighed against the tremendous advantage of insinuating himself as secondary medical adviser to Chatford, that meant nothing at all. Why, the man would be completely in his hands. If he did not die of this first administration, a second would be even easier; and a third, if necessary, and a fourth. Not, of course, that a third would be necessary.
And besides, he would be able to diagnose botulism at once, and get that fact established from the beginning. That he came straight from a similar case of his own would make such a startling diagnosis perfectly feasible (Lydston would miss such an unusual possibility almost certainly). Everything fitted in. Dr. Bickleigh felt no more emotion over Chatford than he had yesterday; the man had got to be put out of the way, and the more simply the better.
But the return of the maid brought a check to his plans. “Mr. Chatford’s compliments, sir, but Dr. Lydston’s got his case in hand, and he’s afraid he’s too ill to see anyone else.”
“I see,” said Dr. Bickleigh smoothly. “Then just give him my condolences.” But his hand was shaking with anger as he hung up the receiver. That had been a snub direct. Damn the fellow! Of all the infernal impudence. . . .
Dr. Bickleigh felt it to be sheer presumption on Chatford’s part to refuse opportunities in this way of being neatly polished off.
He went along to his consulting-room and sat down to think the situation over. The more he pondered it, the more desirable did it seem that he should gain access to Chatford’s bedside. Not merely desirable: imperative. Why, the fellow might recover otherwise, and then the whole business would have to be begun again from the beginning. He would hardly be able to use the same plan twice, too, and he could never find another so perfect as this one. It was inconceivable that Chatford should be allowed to recover.
As for Madeleine, Dr. Bickleigh was by now not nearly so emphatic. It would be nice if the creature were to die, and he would be doing the world a service (and, incidentally, Denny) by ridding it of her; but if the improbable happened and she did nothing of the sort—well,
let her live. She should have her chance. But Chatford . . . he was impossible. Dr. Bickleigh was overcome for a moment with a sense of awe as he sat at his table in judgment: awe of himself and this tremendous power that he had grasped. He saw himself from the outside, a small, grim figure, meting out life or death. . . . Had he once really accepted himself as insignificant? Really?
His plan formed itself. A natural anxiety possessed him to find out exactly how bad Madeleine was. That could be fitted in. He would go up to The Hall that afternoon and see her. There should be no difficulty about that. He was sure he could rely on his standing with the parlourmaid to induce her so far to forget her training as to show him straight into Madeleine’s bedroom. After all, he was a doctor. Then he would go boldly to Chatford’s house in Merchester the next morning, armed with the authority of Madeleine’s reception of him, and . . .
The small, grim figure stiffened; the mild blue eyes glinted stonily. Once inside Chatford’s house . . .
5
THAT EVENING Dr. Bickleigh received a most unexpected visitor.