The Wychford Poisoning Case

by Anthony Berkeley

  ‘Oh, you saw him, too?’ asked Alec.

  ‘Yes, I was intending to go round to see him here this evening, and then I luckily remembered what Mary Blower told us about Alfred staying in Wychford at present, so I jumped into a taxi and went off to see him. I’m now going to describe the interview as exactly as I can just as it happened, and please don’t interrupt me. Then we’ll go into the obvious points that arise.’

  He proceeded to recount the conversation which had taken place in Brother William’s office.

  ‘Alfred had telephoned to him, of course,’ Sheila remarked the moment he had finished.

  ‘Of course. But why? Just as a matter of general interest—or because he suspected that I should be calling there and wanted to put Brother William on his guard? From the particular words William used, I very much suspect it was the latter.’

  ‘Yes, I agree with you,’ Alec nodded.

  ‘Then again—why? Why had Brother William to be put on his guard? One thing seems pretty obvious to me, and that is that it was Alfred who had told him to try and find out where I’d got my information from. Was that the sole reason for ringing him up? Was William speaking the truth when he insisted on his and Alfred’s desire to protect what shreds are left of Mrs Bentley’s good name? Was that enough to put him so plainly ill-at-ease—distaste at speaking of delicate family matters with a complete stranger? Was it enough, again, to make him so very anxious that I should neither publish this information, nor communicate it to the police? It’s all possible, and as far as the last question goes, actually plausible; he was practically taking the words out of my own mouth, you remember, Alec. But I don’t know! It doesn’t seem satisfying, somehow.’

  ‘I should jolly well think not!’ Sheila interjected with much scorn. ‘Of course those two know something. It stands to reason.’

  ‘Oh, yes; there’s no doubt about that. William certainly knows something. What I can’t make out is whether it’s just private family immorality or something worse. The end of the interview showed clearly enough that he knows something. When I suggested that further inquiries might bring to light something connected with a male member of his family, he looked scared to death; when I identified the male member as Mrs Bentley’s husband, he was considerably relieved and proceeded rather hysterically to lose his temper. It’s quite plain that Master William has some naughty little secret up his sleeve that he’s terrified of anyone learning; and from Brother Alfred’s action, I should be inclined to think that he shares it.’

  ‘Well,’ Sheila remarked brightly, ‘what it all amounts to is this—do you think Brother William did it?’

  ‘Hark at the little bull charging its gate! No, Sheila, I don’t. And for why? Because I shouldn’t say that Brother William’s psychologically capable of murder. Brother Alfred, yes; a hundred times over. But William’s a weak, feckless, squashy sort of person; he might have the desire, but I’m quite sure he wouldn’t have the resolution. At any rate, that’s how he strikes me.’

  ‘They might have been in league, though,’ Alec suggested.

  ‘Yes, I’d thought of that. But that presupposes Alfred as the moving spirit taking William into his confidence, and that I can’t see for a minute. You know, there’s a pretty close parallel for that situation in Mr and Mrs Seddon. Seddon was, fundamentally, not at all unlike Brother Alfred; and Mrs Seddon and Brother William have a good deal in common. I could never see Seddon taking his wife into his confidence on a matter of such vital importance as intention to commit murder, and I can’t see Brother Alfred doing so either.’

  ‘Supposing if Alfred had planned and carried it out alone, and William had found him out?’

  ‘Ah, that is an idea, Alexander! Yes, certainly that’s feasible enough. We must bear that in mind. Well, we’ve learnt now about as much as we can of the people in our list of suspects, and I think the time’s come to sum up for and against each one separately, both psychologically and with regard to the facts. I made a list of them in the train coming down, and jotted down a few notes for each. There are seven of them, and we’ll take them in turn.’

  ‘Wait a minute, Roger!’ Sheila intervened. ‘Who are the seven? Just tell me over again?’

  ‘You ought to have all that sort of thing in your head, Detective Purefoy,’ Roger rejoined severely. ‘William, Alfred, Allen, Mrs Allen, Mary Blower, Mrs Saunderson and Mrs Bentley.’

  ‘Oh, counting her. Yes. All right; fire away.’

  ‘First, William. Behaviour decidedly suspicious, first-class motive, plenty of opportunity; on the other hand considered by our psychological expert to be doubtful as a potential poisoner. On the third hand, is he the ass he seems—or is he a very clever man indeed? Remanded for further investigation, I think.’

  ‘Audited and found correct,’ murmured Alec.

  ‘Secondly, Alfred. Very suspicious indeed. First-class motive, haste to get the new will executed, arsenic found in the thermos flask after he had visited the office (though that tells equally against Brother William, by the way), just the sort of man John would have believed about the wonderful new cure, and seems to have done his best to rub Mrs Bentley’s guilt well into everybody concerned; self-reliant, rather grim, stern, avaricious, hard as nails. Oh, very suspicious indeed. In his favour I can’t find anything except that he has an honest look about him, which means exactly nothing: he could share that with the greatest criminals.’

  ‘Guilty!’ said Sheila promptly. ‘I’m positive he did it.’

  ‘Are you, Sheila? I wish I was. Thirdly, Allen. Is he genuine, or is he uncommonly cunning? Is his story about Mrs Bentley and himself true or not? We must remember that the story does not destroy only Mrs Bentley’s motive; it destroys his own motive equally for wanting Bentley out of the way. Was I taken in by him? Further, if I was, is he capable of standing aside and letting an innocent woman take the blame and the punishment for his crime? Or again, were Allen and Mrs Bentley in collusion to murder Bentley? Ever so many questions crop up here. Personally, I’m quite convinced that he is absolutely and entirely innocent.’

  ‘Pass Allen,’ Alec agreed. ‘I think so too.’

  ‘So do I,’ put in Sheila.

  ‘Exit Allen, then. Fourthly, Mrs Allen. She’s decidedly suspicious; motive a little mixed, but understandable enough; opportunity perfect. It seems to me that everything with her hinges on the question as to how far she was disposed to condone her husband’s peccadillos. My impression of her would lead me to think that she’d be absolutely uncompromising in this respect, filled with cold disgust and fury; would feel herself insulted and humiliated beyond words. I should also say that she’d be vengeful; though to what lengths she’d be prepared to go in that respect I haven’t the least idea. On the other hand, we have Allen’s word for it that she took it all like a sportsman, and listening between the words one would gather that she had guessed at other infidelities before this and passed them over in silence. Is Allen shielding her? Supposing he knew that she was guilty (the woman he really does love, remember!) and that Mrs Bentley was innocent. His position would be an extraordinarily difficult one. Another thing—how far does that calm, collected, great-lady manner express her real character? Is that what she really is, or is it a pose? Is she actually off the top shelf, or is this super-refinement? These are a few of the questions that occur to me with reference to her. In any case, she must certainly be detained pending further inquiries.

  ‘So that brings us to, fifthly, Mary Blower. Did she intend to murder Bentley with that lemonade she was giving him? If we’re satisfied that she did, and that it was the preparation of lemon and arsenic that Mrs Bentley had made for a cosmetic (I wish I knew more about the history of that mixture, by the way, between the time Mrs Bentley brewed it and the time when it was found in her trunk)—if we’re satisfied on those two points, there’s an end of the case. Mary Blower had motive both against Bentley himself and Mrs Bentley; she hated both of them, and she’s about as low a type as one could get. But I don’t
know. She struck me, when I tackled her on that point, as a good deal more like frightened innocence than conscious guilt; and I don’t think she’d be much of an adept at concealing her real feelings either. It’s quite possible I’m mistaken, however. If she wasn’t actively trying to murder him, was Bentley’s death pure accident, resulting from Mary Blower’s mistaken administration to him of his wife’s cosmetic? That’s perfectly possible, but I don’t think it’s at all probable; as I pointed out before, it’s almost incredible carelessness to leave a tumbler of lemonade and arsenic about in an invalid’s bedroom. And we’re assuming that Mrs Bentley did not do so with deliberate intention. Lastly, about Mary Blower, a new theory’s just occurred to me—did she steal a little of the decoction of fly-papers at the time it was lying about with the intention of using it on Bentley, making good the deficiency with water (the easiest thing in the world), and did she, in fact, administer this in a preliminary small dose and a subsequent large one, just as Mrs Bentley is said to have done?’

  ‘That’s an idea!’ Alec exclaimed.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you what put it into my head, and that is the fact that it was Mary Blower herself who was the one to call the attention of the others to the fly-papers, thereby fixing the subsequent crime once and for all on Mrs Bentley’s shoulders. That’s a thing you very often get in criminals of a low type, this calling attention to the actual means of the crime in connection with some other person, with the hope of shifting suspicion from themselves. It very rarely turns out successfully, but that doesn’t say it might not have done in this case; and it wouldn’t have needed any more low cunning than Mary Blower may be reasonably said to possess to have thought of it. Anyhow, it’s yet one more interesting theory that we shall have to keep in mind.

  ‘Sixthly, Mrs Saunderson. Well, I think we might dimiss her. She had opportunity, but no conceivable motive; and nobody commits murder without a motive except a homicidal lunatic, and I think Mrs Saunderson, singularly repellant little person though she is, might be exonerated from that suspicion. Seventh and lastly, then, Mrs Bentley. Well, all I’ll say about her is that of course she remains under terrible suspicion, though we’ve already gone a long way in lessening it. And that’s the lot.’

  ‘Humph!’ observed Alec. ‘Well, we’ve got some possibilities, haven’t we?’

  ‘We have indeed!’ Roger groaned. ‘They’re absolutely endless, even with just those seven people. I’d never realised before quite how many there were. I thought that summing-up was going to clarify the case. But it seems only to have made it more impossible than ever.’

  ‘Run through the other possibilities, Roger,’ Sheila suggested, ‘while we’re about it. Outside those seven.’

  ‘Well, they seem to me to fall under three heads: (1) Any single unknown person—business rival, private enemy, and so on; (2) a combination between one of our seven and an unknown, or else a hitherto unsuspected combination between two of our seven; and (3) any two persons, as we touched on once before, both trying unknown to each other to put an end to Bentley and both using arsenic for the purpose. Also, of course, there’s always the possibility of accident, either, as we’ve already seen, through the agency of Mary Blower or else by some other train of circumstances. But what’s the good of going on? We could suggest fresh theories all night, it seems to me, without repeating ourselves, and still get no nearer the main question—Why was Bentley killed?’

  ‘Don’t despair, Roger!’ Sheila urged.

  ‘I’m not despairing exactly, my child; but I really can’t help wondering, after that review of the case as a whole, whether we haven’t bitten off rather more than we can masticate with our own amateur jaws. In other words, whether it wouldn’t really be better to lay the whole thing before Mrs Bentley’s solicitor (what we’ve actually discovered, what deductions we’ve been able to draw and what we have good reason to suspect), and let him carry on. After all, what we set out to do was to get Mrs Bentley’s innocence proved, not necessarily to do the whole thing off our own bat; and if the job’s proved too big for us, then somebody else had better take it over.’ Roger’s mercurial spirits had evidently suffered a severe fall.

  But his lieutenants were made of sterner stuff.

  ‘Superintendent Sheringham!’ exclaimed Miss Purefoy in scandalised tones. ‘I’m surprised at you. Are these the words I should expect to hear from my superior officer’s lips? Constable Grierson, I appeal to you.’

  ‘I stand by the ship, admiral, till all the rats have fled. No, seriously, Roger, we mustn’t chuck it just yet. There’s crowds of time to hand it over later if we really can’t get any further ourselves, but we must have another cut at it first.’

  ‘And you’ve done so awfully well so far, dear Roger!’ Sheila cooed.

  Roger brightened a trifle. ‘Well, that’s certainly true,’ he had to admit.

  ‘That’s right then,’ Sheila said soothingly. ‘Feeling better now? Don’t cry, and mother’ll kiss it well again. There’s a good Superintendent! Now then, tell me this, Roger—who in your heart of hearts do you really think did it?’

  ‘Well,’ Roger smiled, ‘it’s my perfectly personal, private and quite libellous opinion that it lies between Brother Alfred and Mrs Allen, with the probabilities pointing decidedly to Brother Alfred, with, possibly, but I’m not at all sure about that, Brother William as accessory after the fact.’

  ‘That’s all right, then,’ Alec took up the tale briskly. ‘In that case we’d better concentrate on those two first of all. Let’s see if we can’t hammer out some sort of a plan of campaign.’

  ‘I wonder after all if we have been devoting too much attention to the personal side and not enough to the material,’ Roger mused, prodding the fire absently with a little brass poker. ‘And yet there’s so jolly little of the material, isn’t there? All tangible clues seem to point straight to Mrs Bentley. If one could only spot something to follow up that might lead us in some other direction!’

  Three brains were duly racked.

  ‘Look here!’ Alec exclaimed suddenly. ‘What idiots we are! That packet of arsenic—what about that? If we could only find out who bought that, we’d know at once who was the criminal!’

  ‘I’d thought of that,’ Roger nodded. ‘But it seems almost impossible to do anything with that. It might have come from anywhere in the whole of England, you see—or out of it! The label’s gone, and it seems to have been wrapped in just ordinary white paper. Scotland Yard might possibly be able to trace it, but I don’t see how we could. It couldn’t have come from any chemist in this neighbourhood, by the way, or he’d certainly have reported the sale of it.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Alec, somewhat dashed.

  ‘All we know is that the label had a squiggle in one corner and the inscription “C.3.” As I said, some part of a chemical formula, no doubt.’

  He pulled his notebook out of his pocket and, opening it at the page on which Mary Blower had made her drawing, studied the latter a little absently.

  ‘There’s one thing,’ Sheila remarked. ‘The police don’t seem to think much of it, do they? At least, nobody said anything before the magistrates about finding out where it had come from. I suppose the fact that Mrs Bentley had it was good enough for them.’

  ‘Looks like it,’ Alec agreed.

  For a minute or two there was silence. Then:

  ‘Idiot!’ exclaimed Roger suddenly and with intense bitterness. ‘Oh, ass, dolt, fool, goop and mutt!’

  ‘Are you talking to me, Mr Sheringham?’ Sheila inquired carefully.

  ‘No, I was soliloquising. Oh, would you believe it? Here I’ve been carrying about with me for thirty-six hours the clue to the whole blessed business! Of course we can trace that packet of arsenic. Oh, bonehead!’

  ‘We can? How? What is it?’ exclaimed Alec.

  ‘You’ve discovered something?’ exclaimed Sheila.

  ‘Why, that “C.3” which I’ve been assuming all this time to be part of a chemical formula isn’t anything
of the sort! It’s part of “W.C.3.” or “E.C.3.” of course. Why, heaven love us this is going to be child’s play!’

  CHAPTER XXI

  DOUBLE SCOTCH

  ‘NOW then,’ said Roger Sheringham, as he and Alec stepped through the ticket-barrier at Charing Cross the following morning. ‘Where to first?’

  ‘Anywhere you like,’ responded Alec largely. ‘Right-ho! Follow me, then.’

  After his discovery on the previous evening, Sheila had plunged downstairs to interview her father and returned in triumph a few minutes later with a telephone Buff Book. Half an hour’s work had resulted in a list of all the chemists in W.C.3 and E.C.3 in their estimated order of importance, and armed with this Roger and Alec had departed for London immediately after breakfast in order to set about a little routine work.

  To describe their morning’s adventures would be to repeat the same tale two dozen times over. From shop to shop they made their way, in each of them Roger showed the man behind the counter a fair copy of the squiggle Mary Blower had depicted and asked whether they used labels with that pattern, in each the man told them that they did not and good morning. Lunch found them weary but undismayed.

  ‘I’m sick of E.C.3,’ said Roger frankly, as he set down his empty coffee cup and prepared to face another toilsome round. ‘Let’s have a shot at the other for a change.’

  ‘All right,’ Alec agreed equably. ‘Warton’s is the first on the list, isn’t it? Manufacturing chemists, or something.’

  ‘Warton’s it is,’ said Roger, and reached for his hat.

  And then their luck, in the curious way luck has after a change or a break, turned abruptly. Warton’s did use labels with a scroll in the corner. Roger gazed at a specimen with happy eyes; it was, if not the brother, at any rate, the first cousin of Mary Blower’s artistic effort.