Sweet Poison

by David Roberts

  ‘And I’ll have the minestrone and the scaloppine al marsala,’ said Edward, ‘and a bottle of Orvieto.’

  ‘I hope you don’t mean to get me drunk and then seduce me,’ said Verity, smiling as if she now rather regretted having been sharp with him.

  ‘No,’ said Edward, ‘I merely wanted to talk to you about the General’s death. By the way, you never did write for Country Life, did you?’

  ‘No. I am afraid I lied and I will write to the Duchess and apologize. I suppose there is no point in writing to the Duke, is there?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not.’

  ‘My original idea was to write a series of articles for the DW on how the rich live. That was why I wanted to see round the castle, but of course the General dying like that – well, you see, it was an opportunity I could not possibly miss. I did not feel I owed anyone silence. No one had asked me to keep it quiet and if they had I would not have agreed.’

  ‘Have the police been to see you yet?’

  ‘No, do you think they will want to?’

  ‘I expect so. You were a witness.’

  ‘Mm – I suppose I was, though I did not really see anything you didn’t see.’

  ‘You know he was murdered?’ said Edward. He had no idea that he was going to say what he said until he said it, but having said it he realized it was something he had known since he first knelt awkwardly beside the dying man trying to loosen his tie. He had known it when he was telling himself that it was all a terrible accident and he had known that Gerald had known it and that was one of the reasons he was so upset by Verity’s story in the Daily Worker.

  ‘I wondered if you thought so too,’ said Verity calmly. ‘I don’t know that there is any evidence but I am sure you are right. I was certain, from the word go, that the warmongering old man would not have committed suicide. If he ever did, he would never kill himself in front of a load of bigwigs.’

  Edward said, ‘Well, I thought it might have been an accident. He might have considered killing himself because, according to his man Jeffries, he was ill, and Dr Best confirmed it. He was dying of stomach cancer and he had only a very few months to live. He might perhaps have preferred to choose his own day for dying.’

  ‘I see,’ said Verity thoughtfully. ‘He certainly looked unwell. He was very thin and there was, unless I am imagining it, a feverishness about him. I mean, there was something almost like hysteria in the way he was talking about the war. Or is that nonsense?’

  ‘No, I don’t think it is nonsense. I tried to persuade myself that, if he was carrying a cyanide capsule and it got in the silver snuff box he was using to keep his painkillers in, he could have taken the cyanide capsule and put it in his glass instead of the painkiller. He was ill, he may have been in pain, he was tired and maybe a little drunk. He could have made a mistake.’

  ‘But you don’t think he did?’

  ‘No. He wasn’t the sort of man to make mistakes. He was, according to Jeffries, a very tidy man. I looked in his room before I left the castle and before Jeffries had packed away his things. It was almost as though he had not been there. The bed was unslept in, of course. There was his watch and a tiny clock on the bedside table. The only book he had with him was the Bible. There was a photograph of his wife – on the dressing-table; nothing much else. A lifetime soldiering means he was used to travelling light. Each item of clothing or shaving tackle would have its very particular place in his one small suitcase.’

  ‘His wife was dead?’

  ‘Yes, Jeffries said he was quite alone in the world except for some cousin.’ He hesitated. ‘Tell me, why should you care if the old boy was murdered? Surely he was just the sort of . . . what did you call him – warmonger? – you must really dislike.’

  ‘I don’t deny it. In theory,’ said Verity seriously, ‘if I had read about his death in the paper I would not have cared. I might have said, “Oh well, one less warmonger,” but it is different if you have been there. And he died so horribly. I keep on thinking it might have been my father. My father is –’

  ‘Yes, Tommie told me.’

  ‘Well, he’s had death threats, you know. He – the General, I mean – had no one to care if he lived or died, and if I believe in anything I believe in justice. That’s what being a Communist means. If he was killed we ought to see the murderer brought to justice.’

  She stopped, quite breathless with passion. Edward was impressed. She looked like a little firebrand, her bosom heaving and her cheeks red, her eyes bright as fireworks. ‘So you think a Communist Party member and a scion of the aristocracy ought to combine forces to bring a murderer to book?’

  ‘Don’t scoff,’ Verity said angrily. ‘And don’t be bloody patronizing.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Edward, a little shocked by her swearing at him. ‘I did not mean to scoff. I just wondered what on earth we could do.’

  ‘Don’t be feeble,’ she answered, still on her high horse. ‘To begin with, how easy would it be for the General to have mistaken one of his painkillers for a cyanide capsule?’

  ‘Yes, I asked Dr Best that. He said it was possible – anything is possible – but the pills were a very different shape from the capsule which was probably not round but like a tiny tube. What’s more, it was probably made of a kind of glass – though they haven’t found any fragment of it yet – and would have to be broken into the wine or bitten in the mouth.’

  ‘We are sure it was in the port then?’

  ‘Yes. Apparently if he had bitten on it there would have been clear burn marks in the mouth and on the teeth but if he swallowed the poison in the port it would not have started . . . you know, killing him . . . until it was in his stomach.’

  ‘Ugh! How horrible!’ Verity exclaimed and Edward was surprised how tough she could be in some ways and how sensitive in others.

  ‘It definitely was in the port then,’ Verity said, forking up a mouthful of fried squid.

  ‘Cyanide evaporates in the air, so if it wasn’t in his mouth it had to have been in liquid and you saw him take a sip of port just before he started choking.’

  ‘Right, so if he was poisoned . . .’

  ‘It had to have been by someone round that dining-room table,’ said Edward finishing her thought. ‘A distinctly unpleasant conclusion.’

  Edward leaned back in his chair and the hovering waiter refilled his champagne glass. ‘We really have no evidence that it was murder. What could any of the people at dinner have against him, and if one of them had a secret reason for killing him why would they do it in so public a place when they might so easily be seen?’

  Verity leaned forward eagerly. ‘No, don’t you see? I agree it must have been an opportunistic killing but what safer place to murder a man than at a semi-official dinner surrounded by guests all with important positions in society. The murderer would be able to count on the police being under pressure to find it all to have been a terrible accident.’

  ‘You really think the police would hush up . . . murder?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Can you imagine Colonel Philips, the Chief Constable, realizing he had to find a cabinet minister or a bishop a murderer? He would run a mile.’

  ‘Of course, the irony is that the murderer obviously did not know the General was dying anyway,’ Edward said.

  ‘So we can assume then that the murderer did not know the General well enough to know that he was very ill?’

  ‘That’s right. According to Jeffries he had no close friends and he had told no no one, not even Jeffries, how ill he was.’

  ‘But the murderer might have known him well years ago.’

  ‘He was a sort of family friend. We had known him for ages. He was a friend of my father’s but we certainly did not know him intimately. I don’t suppose anyone did.’ Edward bit his lip thoughtfully. ‘So you think if we were looking for a motive for murder we might have to look back in the General’s career? Let’s see, what do we think happened on Saturday night?’

  ‘I think,’ said Verity, p
ushing away her empty plate, ‘that the murderer had been waiting all through dinner for an opportunity to poison General Craig’s wine but no opportunity arose. Then just as the murderer was giving up hope, we arrived. Everyone crowded into the hall to see us. The murderer lingered behind and broke the capsule in the General’s port and pop goes the weasel.’

  ‘But how could he – the murderer, I mean – be sure that the General would sit down in the same place he had been sitting in?’

  ‘I suppose he risked it. Did everyone leave their port on the table or were some people holding their glass in the hall?’

  ‘I don’t know, Verity, but we could find out. We would have to go very carefully because we haven’t a shred of evidence for thinking that the General really was murdered. We just have our hunches and they carry no weight with anyone, least of all, I suspect, with Inspector Pride. Still, I can see it might make a great story for you if we can prove something – another scoop in fact.’

  ‘That’s not my motive,’ said Verity stiffly. ‘I told you, I believe in justice and I don’t see why he should die unavenged.’

  ‘Golly, you sound like one of the Furies. You remember, they were –’

  ‘I know who the Furies were,’ said Verity icily. ‘I think I can live with you being an aristocratic ass but if you’re going to “little woman” me through all this I shall throw something at you.’

  ‘“Through all this”?’ said Edward, suddenly feeling rather pleased. ‘Are we a team then? Holmes and Watson?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Verity said, grinning, ‘but don’t try and tell me I’m Watson. Anyway, aren’t you worried about annoying your brother even more?’

  ‘I think the worst has happened as far as Gerald is concerned. Anyway, if we are discreet enough in our Sherlock Holmesing he will never know.’

  ‘You will keep me quiet?’

  ‘I don’t think anyone could do that. I just meant it might look pretty absurd for us to look as though we were trying to do the police’s job. Our qualifications for sleuthing are precisely zero.’

  Verity said, not looking up from her fish, ‘I think I did you an injustice. Gosh, this sole is good!’

  ‘How do you mean – “an injustice”?’

  ‘Well, to be honest, I didn’t think you had it in you. I took you for a typical wet fish of decayed aristocracy,’ – she indicated her half-eaten sole – ‘brainless, useless and asking to be guillotined as soon as we come to power. You don’t mind me speaking frankly?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Edward. ‘And I thought you were just a typical talentless would-be artist or writer or something with a rich father prepared to subsidize absurd political opinions which you did not begin to understand and a liar to boot.’

  They stared at each other, surprised by the venom of their remarks. Edward was the first to recover. ‘I apologize. I didn’t think anything of the sort. I think I liked you from the moment you hooted your horn at me on the haywain.’

  ‘Well, let’s get one thing straight,’ said Verity, only partly mollified, ‘I don’t particularly like you and Max doesn’t like you at all and he’s a good judge of men, but I am willing to suspend judgment on the wet fish issue.’

  ‘Right,’ said Edward. ‘I don’t like Max much either but I’m quite prepared to be partners in crime detection on that basis if you are.’ He got up from his chair and put out his hand, attracting some curious glances from other diners. Verity also stood up and they solemnly shook hands.

  When they had sat down again, Verity said, ‘I expect it does seem rather ridiculous, me and Daddy being Communists when he drives a Rolls-Royce and I have a generous allowance. My excuse is the money allows me to spend my time working for the cause instead of working just to have enough to eat, like some of us. I know the comrades think we . . . Daddy and me . . . are not . . . are not serious, but so what?’ She shrugged. ‘Daddy and I are quite sincere. Of course, we could give away all our money and be poor but it is much more sensible to use the money and our brains to further the cause. It is not as if we believe that everyone has to be poor. We believe that everyone ought to have a good standard of living – that’s what we have to work for. In any case, the really important thing is to unite to destroy the Fascists. No one seems to realize that the Fascists are going to make a war, if they don’t kill us all first using Oswald Mosley’s crew to do it. Have you read Marx and Lenin?’ Before he could answer, she said hurriedly, ‘Still, don’t let’s get into politics now.’

  ‘I would just say,’ said Edward, ‘that I heartily agree with you – about the Fascists being a threat to peace, I mean – but I vigorously rebut the idea that you have to join the Communist Party to oppose Fascism. The old warmonger as you call him – unkindly, I think – hated Fascists as much as you, even if he also hated Communists. Like you, Verity, I believe in justice and I think that is what gives us common ground. Now, let’s work out a plan of campaign. I think the first thing that Sherlock Holmes might have done is to make a list of suspects.’

  Verity looked at him with something like respect. By the time they were served coffee, the champagne and the Orvieto had been finished and Edward was making notes on the back of the menu.

  Verity had insisted he list everyone who had been at the dinner, ‘that subservient butler, of course, and the footman and ourselves’.

  ‘Did you murder the General?’

  ‘No, and I don’t suppose you did either,’ she allowed, ‘but we must not start assuming things. I know: allow space beside each name for opportunity and motive.’

  ‘We all had opportunity,’ Edward objected, ‘that’s why we put their names on the list in the first place. And no one has a motive.’

  ‘No,’ said Verity, ‘be accurate. We do not know if anyone had a motive, which is quite different.’

  ‘All right, let’s go through the list,’ said Edward. ‘I can’t see what possible motive Bates or John would have. They have both been at Mersham for years – Bates has been there for ever – and it is quite inconceivable that they would murder one of the Duke’s guests.’

  ‘Does Bates have a first name?’

  ‘Presumably,’ said Edward, ‘but it would be more than my life was worth to use it. And before you ask, I do know John’s surname. It’s Cross.’

  ‘We can assume Jeffries is in the clear?’

  ‘You mean he might have put the cyanide capsule in the General’s pill box and hoped he would take it sometime in mistake for his painkillers?’

  ‘Yes, but I agree, he has no possible motive unless it turns out he inherits a large sum of money from his master. You can check that,’ said Verity bossily. ‘I suppose the Duke doesn’t have a motive?’ she added, a little embarrassed.

  ‘No, of course not. Wait a moment though, Frank – that’s our older brother who died in the war – he was under General Craig’s command. The fact he died so uselessly could be said to be a motive.’

  ‘Oh, I –’

  Edward steam-rollered on, determined to bring the case against his brother out in the open so it could be considered and dismissed once and for all. ‘Gerald might have been waiting all these years to take his revenge on the man who ordered his brother to his death.’ He paused and looked Verity in the eye. ‘You’ll say I am prejudiced but I don’t believe it for a moment. For one thing, the dinner was just too important to him to muck it up; for another thing – you saw his face when he saw Craig dying. I just could not begin to suspect him.’ Edward had tried to be objective but suddenly his voice broke. ‘I’m afraid this has hit him very hard. The one thing he lives for is to use his influence to make peace between Germany and England. Now that work cannot go ahead – at least, not until this is all cleared up.’

  Verity was silent for a moment or two, wanting to comfort him but not sure what to say. Finally, deciding he would hate her to go all gooey, she said, ‘I agree, I don’t suspect the Duke even though I think he is mistaken in thinking he can achieve anything with these dinners. There is nothing to b
e gained by talking to Fascists. They just think you are weak. Our only hope is in the leadership of the Soviet Union.’ She was very earnest. ‘Only in Russia is there true freedom.’

  ‘Have you been to the Soviet Union?’ Edward asked mildly.

  ‘No, but I hope to go at the end of the year. There’s a conference in Moscow and I may be chosen as a delegate.’

  ‘So you don’t know for sure that the Soviet Union is the paradise on earth you think it is?’

  ‘Plenty of people I trust have been. I have been to Germany and I can tell you that enough terrible things are happening there to convince you that I am telling the truth. We are going to have to stop the Fascists by force one day; it’s the only thing they understand.’

  ‘That’s a depressing thought but I don’t disagree.’

  ‘Maybe, but it is better to face reality even if it is depressing than hide your head in the sand.’

  ‘Why try and convince me; aren’t I the class enemy? Anyway, I told you, I think you are right.’

  ‘It is very disconcerting when you agree with me,’ said Verity, laughing.

  ‘It won’t happen again,’ said Edward, with his rather crooked smile. ‘But let’s get back to our murderer, if there is one.’

  ‘I feel sure there is. All my female intuition is screaming warnings.’

  ‘Golly, do CP members have such bourgeois things as female intuition?’

  ‘Very funny. I think Larmore is my chief suspect. He’s rotten to the core – a typical right-wing, corrupt capitalist.’

  ‘Wait a minute, Verity, if we are going to sleuth together you are going to have to put your political prejudices aside. The moment you start stereotyping people you cease to see them as human beings.’

  ‘Touché!’ Verity said. ‘All right then, I think Larmore needs investigation.’

  ‘The German – what’s his name? Friedberg – he needs looking at too, but to be honest, I can’t see him murdering a distinguished British general within days of being here on government business.’