by Henry Wade
After that, for a time, it had almost been a case of sitting back and waiting for Eustace to do his work for him. A word to Blanche had been enough to get her to persuade David to ask Eustace up to Scotland, and if Eustace really meant business that would give him his chance; Eustace, a doctor, with all the poisons in the pharmacopœia at his disposal. The actual event had raised Eustace a hundred per cent. in Henry’s respect; that stalking accident! Superb!
Then arose the problem of Desmond. As he had anticipated, there was pow-wow in the family about the settled estate passing to someone who was no longer a Hendel. Blanche had told him all about it. Old Barradys was actually contemplating Eustace as the object of a re-settlement, to be carried out, of course, by Desmond on his advice. That would have ended Julia’s chances of succeeding. Well, Eustace must see about that; he himself must put Desmond out of the way before he could bar the entail.
So had come that conversation in Regent’s Park and the further conversation at his Club. Hardly a lie was necessary; Eustace was gently led to deceive himself. By that time, of course, Barradys had decided that George Hendel should be the heir, but Eustace was left to believe that he himself, not Julia, was to be supplanted. Again Henry had seen murder raising its head in Eustace’s expressive eyes.
Unfortunately, the police had warned Mrs. Toumlin about Eustace; she had, in spite of their veto, confided in Blanche, and Blanche, unconvinced, had told Henry. It soon became clear to him that Eustace would be allowed no chance to kill Desmond. Very well, he, Henry, must kill him himself and Eustace must take the blame.
For this occasion palpable murder was preferable to either ‘accident’ or ‘suicide’; murder, with Eustace as the suspected murderer, two birds with one stone. Eustace would be better out of the way, because there was no knowing what he might not say or do when he found out how he had been deceived; he could hardly be able to appreciate that he had only been allowed to deceive himself.
Murder of Desmond, then, ostensibly by Eustace. And then—trial and execution of Eustace? No, too slow, too uncertain, too risky. Suicide of Eustace; that was the way. And so it had come about, that very afternoon. There had been a moment of intense danger, when Christendome had explained the entail to the Coroner’s jury and Eustace had begun to realize that he had been deceived. Would he give the show away at once? Even if he did not do that, was there now any hope that he would give the man who had deceived him a chance to poison him? His firm handling of that situation appeared to Henry Carr the best thing he had done in the whole complicated scheme. The rapidity and decision with which he had carried the weaker Eustace away from the inquest and up to his flat, refusing to discuss the situation till they got there, had enabled him, not only to keep the fellow quiet but actually to ‘force’ a glass of doctored whiskey on a man who was already beginning to suspect him of being a poisoner.
And so Eustace’s dead body would be found, to-night or to-morrow. Suicide to escape arrest was the obvious explanation. There would be one more inquest, which would practically clear up all that was left uncertain by the adjourned inquest to-day. Then gradually the excitement would die down and in a short time the whole story would be forgotten. Old Lord Barradys would live on for another year or two, perhaps, in the grim loneliness of his northern kingdom; then he would die and the great estates would pass to Julia—dear Julia, who had been so brave and patient through all the troubles and privations of their married life.
With a warmth of feeling that only touched him where his wife and family were concerned, Henry Carr left the train at his suburban station. It was easier to bear the hateful smugness and smallness of this suburb now that one knew it was only for a short time more. As he walked the half-mile to his semi-detached villa, Henry’s thoughts cast themselves once more back into the recent past, to that aspect of it which pleased him least—the killing of poor Desmond. He had been fond of Desmond, genuinely fond of him—the only human being besides Julia, Helen and Dick—oh, yes, and perhaps Blanche—for whom he cared one tinker’s curse.
There had been no great difficulty about the killing. The stuff he had had by him for a year; the ‘vehicle’ was obvious—the strong flavour of peppermint was exactly what was wanted to hide the bitter taste of the hyoscine. He had had the scheme in his mind long before Eustace came upon the scene; his frequent visits to Desmond, over a long period, had not been without their object; he had been studying the boy’s habits. It had soon become clear that they were very precise; Desmond ate a chocolate after every meal; he offered them to no one else, except to Julia, Blanche and himself. That was the one risk, that by some appalling mischance the poisoned chocolate should be eaten by one of those two women. But on the day when he had planted the chocolate that risk was nil; Blanche was away in the west of England and Julia in bed nursing a cold. Anyone else might take their outside chance.
The day itself was chosen partly for those reasons and partly because Eustace, who was to be incriminated, was just then behaving in a red-hot suspicious manner that would inevitably attract the attention of the police, who had already allotted him the bad name which would take him half-way to the gallows. It was not till he got to the flat that Tuesday that he had learnt that Eustace had actually been there that very morning, doing his utmost to thrust his neck into the noose! The news that William and George were coming to luncheon had been rather disconcerting, but from what he knew of wine-merchants Henry had thought that the risk of their eating peppermint-chocolates was practically nil; at any rate, it was a risk that he was prepared to let them take. Going in to see Desmond he had openly asked for a chocolate and while taking it had slipped in the one he had prepared, placing it second from the end of the half-eaten row. The end one Desmond would eat after luncheon, the poisoned one after dinner; he had selected that time, thinking that the sleeping draught which would soon follow might mask for a time the actual cause of death and so give no chance for drastic treatment to be applied. So had ended poor Desmond, mercifully, before the worst agonies of his terrible disease came upon him. Still, Henry would have been glad if some other hand could have administered that particular dose of poison.
Here he was at ‘Rosemount’. Julia had wanted to change the name to something less revolting, but he had said that to see it on his door, night and morning, would act as a spur, goading him on to ever greater effort to fight his way back to a decent sphere of life. So it had been. ‘Rosemount’! That word had been on the death-warrant of five Hendels: Howard, Harold, David, Eustace, and, alas, poor Desmond too.
Henry Carr let himself in with his latch-key and called to his wife. Her voice sounded from the drawing-room; good, she was down, her cold was better. He opened the door and saw her snugly curled on the sofa in front of a glowing fire. Delicious homecoming.
“Darling, how late you are! Have you had a horrible day?”
Henry kissed her and laughed.
“Not seen an evening paper?”
“You know I never do unless you bring one.”
Oddly enough he had not bought one that evening.
“I’m the newspaper”, he said. “I’ve got all the news that matters. As a matter of fact I’ve known it ever since poor Desmond died, but it’s been announced officially to-day. Who do you think is heir to the Barradys estates?”
Julia stared at him.
“Why Eustace, of course. There’s no one else now.”
Again Henry laughed.
“I thought you’d got that idea in your head”, he said. “Do you remember that morning when we saw Eustace off at the junction, after Howard’s funeral? You said then you hoped he wouldn’t succeed.”
“I remember. We talked about poor David marrying Joan Hope-Fording. But, Henry, it is Eustace, isn’t it? Who else could it be?”
Henry Carr knelt down and put his arms round his wife.
“Where would you like to live when we leave Rosemount?”
Julia bent back her head and stared at him.
“How you do jump about. What’
s that got to do with what you were saying before?”
“Everything, my darling. When old Barradys dies, his . . .”
The door opened and a small maidservant came in.
“There’s someone asking for you, sir, please”, she said breathlessly.
Something in the girl’s face caught Henry’s attention.
“I’ll come”, he said.
He bent down and kissed his wife, pressing her close to him. Then he got up and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him. In the little hall stood Chief-Inspector Darnell, accompanied by a uniformed police-officer.
Endnotes
1. See genealogical table in front matter.
2. See map in front matter.
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By Henry Wade
Inspector Poole series
The Missing Partners (1928)
The Duke of York’s Steps (1929)
No Friendly Drop (1931)
Mist on the Saltings (1933)
Constable Guard Thyself! (1934)
Heir Presumptive (1935)
The High Sheriff (1937)
Other novels
The Verdict of You All (1926)
The Dying Alderman (1930)
The Hanging Captain (1932)
Bury Him Darkly (1936)
Released for Death (1938)
New Graves at Great Norne (1947)
Diplomat’s Folly (1951)
Be Kind to the Killer (1952)
Too Soon to Die (1953)
Gold was Our Grave (1954)
A Dying Fall (1955)
The Litmore Snatch (1957)
Short Story Collections
Policeman’s Lot (1933)
Here Comes the Copper (1938)
Henry Wade (1887–1969)
Henry Wade was the pen name of Major Sir Henry Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher, CVO DSO, 6th Baronet and Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire (1954 to 1961). Aubrey-Fletcher was the only son and second child of Sir Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher, 5th Baronet, and Emily Harriet Wade. He was educated at Eton College and New College, Oxford, and fought in both the First World War and Second World War with the Grenadier Guards, and in 1917 was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and French Croix de guerre. He married Mary Augusta Chilton in 1911 and they had five children. He was a member of Buckinghamshire County Council and was appointed High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 1925. He played Minor counties cricket between 1921 and 1928 for Buckinghamshire. A noted mystery writer, his stories were published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and he was a founding member of the Detection Club.
An Orion ebook
Copyright © Henry Aubrey-Fletcher 1935
The right of Henry Wade to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook first published in Great Britain in 2016
by Orion
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 4719 1842 1
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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