The Wychford Poisoning Case

by Anthony Berkeley

‘Well, don’t put it as strongly as all that. Say that it makes me still more inclined to think she may be innocent.’

  ‘Contrary to the opinion of everyone else who is most competent to judge. Humph!’ Alec smoked in silence for a minute. ‘Roger, that Layton Court affair hasn’t gone to your head, has it?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, just because you hit on the truth there and nobody else did, you’re not looking on yourself as infallible, are you?’

  ‘Hit on the truth!’ exclaimed Roger with much pain. ‘After I’d reasoned out every single step in the case and drawn the most brilliant deductions from the most inadequate data! Hit on the truth, indeed!’

  ‘Well, arrived at the truth, then,’ Alec said patiently. ‘I’m not a word-fancier like you. Anyhow, you haven’t answered my question. You’re not beginning to look on yourself as a story-book detective, and all the rest of the world as the Scotland Yard specimen to match, are you?’

  ‘No, Alec, I am not,’ Roger replied coldly. ‘The point I made about the unnaturalness of that large quantity of arsenic was a perfectly legitimate one, and I’m only surprised that nobody else seems to have noticed it, instead of promptly drawing the diametrically opposite conclusion. As to whether I’m right or wrong in the explanation I gave you, that remains to be seen; but you’ll kindly remember that I only put it forward as an interesting possibility, not a cast-iron fact, and I merely pointed out that it was just enough to cast a small doubt on the absolute certainty of Mrs Bentley’s guilt.’

  ‘All right,’ Alec said soothingly. ‘Keep your wool on. What about all that chit-chat about mysterious unknowns?’

  Roger affected a slight re-arrangement of his ruffled plumes. ‘There I’m quite ready to admit that I was using my imagination, and plenty of it too. But it was plausible enough for all that. And if Mrs Bentley by any weird chance is innocent it must be true. In any case, isn’t that just what we’re supposed to have come down here to find out?’

  ‘I suppose it is,’ Alec admitted.

  Roger regarded his stolid companion for a moment with a lukewarm eye. Then he broke into a sudden laugh and the plumage was smoothly preened once more.

  ‘You’re really a bit of an old ass at times, you know, Alec!’

  ‘So you seem to think,’ Alec agreed, unmoved.

  ‘Well, aren’t you? Still, never mind that for the moment. The story-book detective has another point to bring forward. It occurred to me while I was thinking over things before you arrived just now. You remember that Mrs Bentley bought those fly-papers they’re making all this fuss about at a local chemist’s here?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, now, I ask you again—is that natural? Is it natural, if one wants to buy fly-papers for the purpose of extracting the arsenic in order to poison one’s husband, to walk into the local chemist’s where one is perfectly well known and ask for them there? A certain amount of fuss always follows a murder, you know; and nobody realises that better than the would-be murderer. Is it likely that she’d do that, when she could have bought them equally well in London and never have been traced?’

  ‘That’s a point, certainly. Then you think that she didn’t get them with any—what’s the phrase?—ulterior motive?’

  ‘To poison her husband with them? Naturally, if she didn’t poison him.’

  ‘Then what did she get them for?’

  ‘I don’t know—yet. Would it be too much to suggest that she got them with the idea of killing flies? Anyhow, we must leave that till we’ve discovered her own explanation.’

  ‘You’re determined to assume her innocence, then?’

  ‘That, my excellent Alexander,’ said Roger with much patience, ‘is exactly what we have to do. It’s no good even keeping an open mind. If we’re to make any real attempt to do what we’ve come down here for, we’ve got to be prejudiced in favour of Mrs Bentley’s innocence. We’ve got to work on the assumption that she’s being wrongly accused and that somebody else is guilty, and we’ve got to work to bring home the crime to that somebody else. Otherwise our efforts as detectives for the defence are bound to be only half-hearted. You’ve got to lash yourself into a fury of excitement and indignation at the idea of this poor woman, a foreigner and absolutely alone in the country, being unanimously convicted even before her trial when in reality she’s perfectly innocent. That is, if you ever could work up the faintest flicker of excitement about anything, you great fish!’

  ‘Right-ho!’ Alec returned equably. ‘I’m mad with excitement. I’m bursting with indignation. Let’s go out and kill a policeman.’

  ‘I admit that it’s a curious position in many ways,’ Roger went on more calmly, ‘but you must agree that it’s a damned interesting one.’

  ‘I do. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘Good. Then we understand each other.’

  ‘But look here, Roger, ragging aside, there’s one point about the purchase of those fly-papers that I think you’ve overlooked.’

  ‘Oh? What?’

  ‘Well—assuming for the moment that she is guilty, did she know that it was going to be recognised as murder? I seem to remember that arsenic poisoning can’t be detected as poisoning, even at a post-mortem, without analysis and all that sort of thing. Wouldn’t she be hoping that the doctors and everybody would think that it was natural death?’

  ‘Alec,’ Roger said thoughtfully, ‘that’s a jolly cute remark of yours.’

  ‘Just happened to occur to me,’ said Alec modestly.

  ‘Well, whether it just happened to occur to you or whether you thought of it, it’s still jolly cute. Yes, you’re perfectly right. Each criminal does think his or her particular crime can’t ever be found out—each deliberate criminal, I mean; and the poisoner is the deliberate criminal par excellence. It’s a very remarkable point in criminal psychology that, and I’m only sorry we haven’t got time now to go into it at the length it deserves—the real conceit (there’s no other word) of the deliberate murderer. One realises it time and time again. Other people have been found out, yes; but he—he’s far too clever! They’ll never bring it home to him. But however conceited they may be, they very seldom behave like complete lunatics before the deed; and that’s what Mrs Bentley certainly would be in this case.’

  ‘You’ve got to remember that there wasn’t any suspicion of murder raised at all till Mary Blower told Mrs Saunderson about the fly-papers.’

  ‘Alec,’ said Roger with warm approval, ‘you’re showing a most commendable grasp of this case. Yes, that is so. And what a tremendous lot depended on that chance communication! If Mary Blower had never said a word, it’s my opinion that we should never have heard of the Wychford Poisoning Case at all. Just think! Mary Blower herself wouldn’t have handed that letter to Mrs Allen and that particular complication would never have come out; brother Alfred wouldn’t have been telegraphed for and taken control of the whole business; the doctors wouldn’t have been put on the qui vive; the bottle of Bovril wouldn’t have been analysed; there would have been no search made after the death. You’re right—there wouldn’t even have been a doubt about the death at all. If Mary Blower hadn’t been smitten by fortuitous desire for self-importance, the doctors would almost certainly have given a certificate for death from gastroenteritis!’

  ‘Gastroenteritis?’

  ‘Yes, acute dyspepsia; which they’d already diagnosed, you remember.’

  ‘They might have done that even if the man had been poisoned by arsenic?’

  Roger took a pull at the tankard which, together with another for Alec, he had prudently ordered before that gentleman’s arrival.

  ‘I see,’ he said, ‘that if you’re to get a proper understanding of this case I shall have to give you a short lecture upon arsenical poisoning. What you’ve got to realise is, to put it loosely, that death from poisoning by arsenic is death by gastroenteritis. The poison arsenic kills by setting up gastroenteritis, just as any other violent irritant might—ground-glass, to ta
ke a particularly vigorous example. Without being too technical, it ploughs up the coating of the stomach. That is gastroenteritis.’

  ‘Then if they’re the same thing, arsenical poisoning and gastroenteritis can’t be told apart? At a post-mortem, I mean, and without analysing the various organs.’

  ‘Well, to a certain extent they can. It would be more true to say that arsenic sets up a special form of gastroenteritis; the symptoms are a little different from the ordinary form of it. There are distinctive ones in arsenical poisoning (I believe the number recognised is twenty), such as the violent and prolonged vomiting and the acute pains in the legs mentioned in Bentley’s case, which aren’t usually found in ordinary gastroenteritis, but the whole thing is very anomalous and the dividing line extraordinarily fine.’

  ‘Then that’s why so many poisoners use arsenic? Because unless suspicion does happen to be raised, it’s so jolly easy to get away with?’

  ‘Without a doubt. And also because it’s so easy to obtain. The ordinary doctor isn’t on the look out for arsenical poisoning, you see. Probably not one in a hundred ever meets a case in his whole life. When he has to treat a perfectly legitimate case of gastroenteritis, as he thinks, and the patient just happens to die instead of recovering, he doesn’t hesitate to give a certificate. It never occurs to him not to. Why should it? But I’d bet a very large amount of money that a positively staggering number of those cases of innocent gastroenteritis would have turned out to be arsenical poisoning if only they’d been followed up.’

  ‘Horrid thought! A staggering percentage?

  ‘Well, half of half of one per cent, would be staggering enough in the aggregate, you know. Why, just look at some of the cases that have been brought to light recently by the merest possible chance. Seddon! It was the nearest thing imaginable that he was never found out. The certificate had been given and the body even buried. Armstrong again. One could go on for hours.’

  ‘What a devil of a lot you seem to know about all this!’ Alec observed, with as near an approach to admiration as he had yet shown.

  ‘I do,’ Roger agreed. ‘Since we stayed at Layton Court together a couple of years ago, as you may remember, Alexander, what I haven’t read up on this subject hasn’t only not been worth reading, it hasn’t even been written. In fact,’ he added candidly, ‘I shouldn’t be at all surprised if I don’t know a trifle more about criminology than any man living.’

  ‘You’ll be able to write a detective story then,’ Alec suggested brightly. ‘In the meantime, what about going up and getting ready for dinner? It’s nearly seven o’clock.’

  CHAPTER VI

  INTRODUCING MISS PUREFOY

  MRS PUREFOY was a pleasant little person with hair just beginning to go grey and a jolly smile. Roger took a liking to her at first sight, while she was at no pains to hide her gratification in welcoming so distinguished a guest.

  ‘I’ve read all your books, Mr Sheringham,’ she said at once as she shook hands with him. ‘Every single one!’

  Roger was never in the least embarrassed by this sort of thing. ‘Well, I hope you enjoyed reading them more than I did the writing of them, Mrs Purefoy,’ he said easily.

  ‘Does that mean you didn’t enjoy writing them? I thought you novelists were only really happy when you’d got a pen in your hands.’

  ‘Somebody’s been misinforming you,’ Roger replied with a grave face. ‘If I can speak for the tribe, we’re only really happy when we’ve got a pen out of our hands.’ As far as Roger was concerned, this was perfectly untrue; he had to write, or explode. But he had an intense dislike for the glib talk about self-expression indulged in by so many second-rate writers who take themselves and their work a good deal too seriously, and put it down to posing of the most insufferable description. That his own anxiety not to emulate these gentry had driven him into no less of a pose of his own, in the precisely opposite direction, had curiously enough never occurred to him.

  ‘But this is most devastating! You’re shattering all my most cherished illusions. Don’t you write for the joy of writing, then?’

  ‘Alas, Mrs Purefoy, I see I can hide nothing from you. I don’t! I write for a living. There may be people who do the other thing (I have heard rumours about them), but believe me, they’re very rare and delicate birds.’

  ‘Well, you’re candid at any rate,’ Mrs Purefoy smiled.

  ‘Roger’s got a hobby all right, Molly,’ Alec put in, ‘and it’s got plenty to do with words; but it isn’t writing.’

  ‘Oh? What is it, then, Alec?’

  ‘You’ll have found out before dinner’s over,’ Alec replied cryptically.

  ‘What he means is that I won’t let him monopolise the conversation all the time, Mrs Purefoy.’

  Mrs Purefoy looked from one to the other. ‘I suppose I’m very dense, but this is beyond me.’

  ‘I think Alec is hinting that I talk too much,’ Roger explained.

  ‘Oh, is that all? Well, I’m very glad to hear it. I like listening to somebody who can talk.’

  ‘You hear that, Alec?’ Roger grinned. ‘I’m going to be appreciated at last.’

  The conversation was interrupted by the entrance of a dark, shingled maiden, in a pale green dinner-frock.

  ‘My eldest daughter,’ Mrs Purefoy announced with maternal pride. ‘Sheila, dear, this is Mr Sheringham.’

  ‘How de do?’ said the dark, shingled maiden languidly. ‘You’re the great Roger Sheringham? Read some of your books. Topping. Hallo, Alec, old hoss. Dinner nearly ready, mum?’

  ‘In a few minutes, dear. We’re waiting for father.’

  ‘Well, need we wait for him on our feet? What about sitting down to it?’ And she collapsed wearily into the largest chair in the room.

  Alec pulled one up beside it, and they embarked immediately on a discussion of the Gentlemen and Players match then in progress at Lord’s. Roger sat down beside his hostess on a chesterfield couch.

  ‘Alec didn’t mention that you have a daughter, Mrs Purefoy,’ he remarked.

  ‘Didn’t he? I have two. And a son. The other two are away from home just at present.’

  ‘I—I suppose you’re not making any mistake, are you?’ Roger asked warily. ‘The lady at present telling Alec things he doesn’t know about cricket really is your daughter?’

  ‘She is, Mr Sheringham. Why?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. I was just wondering whether you weren’t getting a little mixed in the relationship. I should have said off-hand that you were the daughter and she the mother.’

  Mrs Purefoy laughed. ‘Yes, Sheila is a little overpowering in her sophistication, isn’t she? But it’s only a pose, you know. All her friends are just the same. I’ve never seen her quite like this before though; I think this must be a pose for your special benefit. She’d do anything rather than admit to the slightest respect for any person living, you see. I’m afraid she’s dreadfully typical.’

  ‘The modern girl, vide Sunday papers passim, eh? Well, scratch her and you’ll find much the same sort of girl there always has been underneath her powder, I suppose.’

  ‘A very good idea,’ Mrs Purefoy smiled. ‘Scratch Sheila by all means, Mr Sheringham, if you want to pursue any investigations into the modern girl; it would do her all the good in the world. Aren’t I an inhuman mother? But really, I simply ache at times to turn Sheila over my knee and give her a good old-fashioned spanking! And most of her silly precocious friends as well!’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ Roger laughed. ‘That’s the only cure. There ought to be a new set of sumptuary laws passed and a public spanker appointed in every town, with a thumping salary out of the rates, to deal with the breaches of them (no joke intended). Ration ’em down to one lipstick a month, one ounce of powder ditto, twenty cigarettes a week, and four damns a day, and we might—Ah, here’s your husband.’

  Dr Purefoy, in contrast to his wife, was long and cadaverous. His face was lean, but from time to time a twinkling of almost unexpected humour lit his
eyes. He looked tired, but shook hands with Roger warmly enough.

  ‘So sorry to have kept you waiting like this,’ he said, ‘but there was a tremendously big surgery tonight. There always is when I particularly want to finish early.’

  ‘Very busy just now?’ Roger asked.

  ‘Very. Autumn just setting in, you see; that always means a busy time for us. Well, shall we go in at once? Molly, you don’t want us to form a procession and link arms, do you?’

  ‘Of course not, dear. This isn’t a dinner-party. Sheila, dear, will you show Mr Sheringham the way?’

  The little party made their way informally to the dining-room and took their seats. For a few minutes, while the maid was in the room, the conversation turned upon the usual topics; but it was a very short time before the subject cropped up which was uppermost in all their minds.

  It was Sheila Purefoy who introduced it. ‘Well, Mr Sheringham,’ she said, ‘what do you think of our local thrill?’

  ‘Meaning, of course, the Bentley case?’ said Roger, who was sitting next to her. ‘I think it’s rather a remarkable business.’

  ‘Is that all? I was hoping that you’d think something rather more original than that about it.’

  ‘I’m most stereotyped about murders,’ Roger assured her. ‘Always have been, from a child. What do you think about it?’

  ‘Oh, I d’no. I think the Bentley woman’s innocent.’

  ‘You do?’ cried Roger, genuinely startled.

  ‘Sheila, dear!’ exclaimed Mrs Purefoy. ‘Whatever makes you think that?’

  ‘Don’t get alarmed, mum. I was only trying to be original.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Roger, not a little disappointed. ‘A hint for me, eh?’

  ‘For all that, I shouldn’t be so ghastly surprised if she was,’ observed Sheila languidly. ‘Everyone’s quite made up their minds that she’s guilty, you see.’

  ‘Mass suggestion, you mean. Well, somebody’s being very cunning indeed if that is the case.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about mass suggestion, but it’s a fact that most people spend their lives being wrong about everything. Most people think she’s guilty. Therefore, she isn’t. Shove the gravy over, please, Alec. Ta.’