“Oh no! Was it—?”
“I believe so. So does Dr. Melchett, although I have a hunch he wouldn’t have refused to sign a death certificate if I hadn’t forced his hand. My personal guess is taxine poisoning.”
“Taxine? That’s from yew, isn’t it?” Helen instinctively drew the skirt of her light blue coat away from the shrubs that flanked the path. “How does it work?”
“Ben would think he was coming down with an intestinal bug. He might have to go to the men’s room and vomit. Then, being Ben, he’d crawl back to clean up his desk before he went home. By the time he realized how sick he was, he’d be too weak and short of breath to call for help. Then he’d go into coma and that would be that.”
“You do have a tidy way of putting things.” She shivered and tried to bundle the thin coat more closely around her body. “What’s happening now?”
“They’ve got the state police in, thank God. They’re taking pictures. Hannah Cadwall’s off shopping or something. At least, I hope to God she is. We haven’t been able to reach her.”
“I shouldn’t worry. She’s probably doing the after-Christmas sales. You’d better go have some hot soup or something.” Helen hesitated. “Peter, would you know the taste of taxine?”
“In case somebody laced my soup with it, you mean?” He tried to smile. “Oh yes, I think so. It’s very bitter, I believe. Not the sort of thing you or I would swallow willingly.”
“Then how did this Cadwall man get it?”
“Ben was a dedicated hypochondriac. He was always dosing himself with one thing or another. He’d assume that if something tasted ghastly, it must be good for him.”
“I suppose everybody around here knew that.”
“Oh yes. The neighborly aspect does rather intrude itself.”
Shandy rubbed at his eyes. Helen put a hand on his coat sleeve.
“Go get some food now, Peter. Come over and have some of your sherry after I get through work, if you feel like it.”
“I shall feel like it. How are you getting on?”
“Awful. He’s got two kids slamming things around in the Buggins Room and me lashed to the reference desk copying out statistics on hog production. I’m so frustrated I could spit.”
“Make sure you spit in Porble’s direction, then. Will you be out by five, do you think?”
“Make it a quarter past. I’d hate to have you standing out in the cold, after all you’ve been through.”
Feeling somewhat better than he had a few minutes ago, Shandy went in to lunch. It was late for Balaclava faculty people to be lunching. Hardly anybody was in the dining room except Professor Stott, the pig expert for whom Helen must be performing her distasteful task, and a somewhat boisterous gathering at one of the big round tables in the center of the room, made up of engineering teachers and aides from the power plant. Dysart was among them and, as usual, was doing most of the talking in a technical jargon that might as well have been Choctaw as far as anybody outside the group was concerned, and gave Shandy a legitimate excuse not to join them.
Stott was no threat to anybody’s privacy. He was an agreeable man in his way, but wrapped heart, soul, and mind in swine culture. He even looked like a pig, with a large, pale face, turned-up snout, and small eyes set in deep circles of firm, healthy fat. He was eating a great deal, slowly and with concentration, and was doubtless unaware that a colleague had entered the room. Shandy was about to slide gratefully into a chair near him when Dysart happened to notice a chance to increase his audience.
“Hey, Pete, why so unsociable? Come over here and park the carcass. What’s new among the rutabagas?”
“I haven’t had time to notice.”
Perforce, the agrologist jointed the engineers. He debated whether to refrain from mentioning Cadwall’s death, then decided there was no use in trying to keep it quiet. Dysart would be mortally offended, for one thing, and he’d already done enough to antagonize his neighbors.
“Actually, Bob,” he began, “I’ve had quite a morning. I dropped in to see Ben Cadwall and found him sitting at his desk, stiff as a poker.”
Dysart was startled, but not silenced. “Jesus, Pete, what are you, some kind of Typhoid Mary?”
“I’m beginning to wonder.”
“You mean Dr. Cadwall’s dead?” exclaimed one of the teaching fellows. “What happened to him?”
“That I’m afraid I can’t tell you. Nothing—er—spectacular, at any rate. He was just sitting there.”
“Didn’t you call the doctor or something?”
“Oh yes. I called Dr. Melchett, who in turn called the county coroner, who sent over a delegation from the state police.”
“The police? What for?”
“I suppose because that’s the way it’s done. I’ll have the soup, miss.”
“Tomato bisque or corn chowder?”
“Er—chowder.”
“And something to drink? Coffee?”
“Tea,” said Shandy firmly.
“Hey, coffee.” Dysart slammed down his own almost-empty cup with a strange expression on his face. “That reminds me. Ned, you were here this morning, when Cadwall spilled his coffee.”
“Was I?”
“Sure, you were.”
“If you say so. Why, do you think he’d begun to feel faint or something?”
“Faint, hell! He was strong as a horse. You know what a health freak he was. Took better care of himself than Sieglinde does of Thorkjeld.”
At this lèse-majésti, some of the younger men looked alarmed, but nobody contradicted Professor Dysart.
“Exactly what happened, Bob?” Shandy prodded.
“Well, Pete, you know what it’s like around here in the mornings. People wait on themselves cafeteria-style, and there’s apt to be a lot of confusion. Tom stops to talk with Dick while Harry’s trying to get at the cheese buns or whatever. It’s a nuisance, but they will do it.”
Shandy nodded. The one who did it most often was Dysart.
“Anyway,” the engineer went on, “I was at my usual table here with a few of the guys. Ned here needed a second cup of coffee to wake him up, obviously since he can’t even remember what happened, so he took his mug and went back to the counter. I decided maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea, so I yelled after him, ‘Get me one, too.’ Got that? In the meantime, Cadwall had collected his All-bran and prune juice or whatever he was currently poisoning his guts with, and headed for a table. Somebody joggled his elbow, and his coffee went flying. Ben was plenty teed off, as you might expect. So to make a long story tedious, I told Ned to give him mine. Had to keep in with the bloke who signs the checks, you know.”
“Sure, Bob, we know all about it,” said one of his satellites. “Did you get those cuff links in a Cracker Jack box?”
Dysart flashed the massive new gold jewelry with more than a touch of smugness. “Adele gave them to me for Christmas.”
“Nice of her,” snapped Professor Shandy. “So what it boils down to is that Cadwall drank a cup of coffee meant for you.”
“That’s the kernel in the filbert, Pete. Does it make you wonder a bit?”
“Yes.” Shandy took a spoonful of chowder and chewed thoughtfully. “Yes, it does.”
“Say, Ned,” Dysart went on with a half-laugh to demonstrate that he wasn’t really taking the matter seriously, “I suppose it’s useless to ask if you remember who was standing next to you when you poured the coffee?”
“Oddly enough, I do, now that you mention it. It was Shirley Wrenne. I was trying to decide whether to be a gentleman and let her go first, thus risking a poke in the eye for sexist discrimination, or stay where I was and be a chauvinist pig. I opted for piggery, with all due respect to our learned colleague,” he added with a dutiful bow toward the oblivious Professor Stott.
“Anybody else?”
“Professor Feldster annoyed me by grabbing over my shoulder for the cream. You know that boardinghouse reach of his. I’m sure there were others close by, because there alway
s are, but I couldn’t tell you who.”
“Did anybody say anything to you, distract your attention in any way?”
“I suppose so. Somebody always does. Asks for the sugar or whatever. Honestly, Bob, I just can’t remember. You know I’m never what you’d call brisk first thing in the morning.”
“Yes, I know it, and I shouldn’t be surprised if other people did, too. Pete, am I making something of nothing?”
The young assistant broke in. “Bob, you can’t think there was something in that coffee I poured for you?”
“I’m not thinking anything, Ned. I’m only stating certain facts. Cadwall’s dead all of a sudden for no apparent reason. I gave him my coffee. Or rather, you did.”
“Are you accusing me?”
“God, no! That’s the last thing I’d ever think. If you’d meant to kill me, thus scuttling your chances for promotion as well you know, you sure as hell would have managed to drop that cup rather than give it to Cadwall. And you couldn’t have intended it for him because you didn’t know you were going to be asked to leave it at his table until you were heading back here with both hands full. But think it out, Ned. There was a crush at the coffee urn. People were reaching for things. Everybody was either half asleep or talking to his neighbor. Who the hell would notice if something was dropped into a cup? I’m not saying it happened. I’m just saying it’s possible.”
“But what if they got the wrong cup? My God, I could have drunk the stuff myself!”
“Use your head. Yours was stained around the rim. Naturally the clean one had to be for me. It was foolproof, and damned clever.” Dysart scribbled on the check, threw money on the table, and stood up. “Only of course it’s all damned nonsense. See you, Pete.”
Left alone, Shandy went on eating chowder for which he had no appetite. Was there any validity to Dysart’s theory? It was typical of the man to grab any chance of putting himself in the limelight. Nevertheless, it was not an impossible supposition.
Most of the college people, even those like Jackman who made a point of breakfasting with their families, were in the habit of dropping in at the faculty dining room on their way to work. From half past seven until almost nine, the place was sure to be crowded, especially during this holiday season when those who might otherwise be rushing to early classes had a chance to linger and chat. This was where all the news and much of the gossip got circulated. Cadwall the busybody and Dysart the social lion never missed a morning. If somebody wanted to feed either one of them a slow-acting poison, this was as likely a place as any.
Shandy didn’t know whether strong black coffee could mask the bitter taste of taxine. It might, he supposed, if the coffee was worse than usual, and that also could have happened with waitresses doing double duty as cooks during the Illumination. If he hadn’t breakfasted with Helen, he’d know. A conscientious investigator ought, perhaps, to feel regret.
Had somebody in fact gone to the dining room with poison in his or her pocket, spilled Cadwall’s coffee on purpose, and snatched at a fortuitous chance to dose the cup Ned had poured for Dysart after it had been rerouted to the comptroller? Preposterous as it sounded, the scenario was yet less inconceivable than that somebody had meant to poison Dysart, then sat and watched another man drink the lethal potion. Could any of their colleagues be so inhuman?
Possibly, Shandy supposed, if the murderer could see no way to take the substitute cup from Cadwall without attracting undue notice to himself. If he’d already killed Mrs. Ames, he might have suffered a dulling of the moral sensibilities, to the point where one corpse more or less wouldn’t seem to matter.
On what grounds could Dysart be associated with Jemima’s death? She’d been at his party and he’d watched her leave. Was that all? There was still the unexplained circumstance of her going into the shrubbery and not being seen to come out. Might Bob in fact have noticed something odd about her departure, and kept quiet about it?
Shandy couldn’t imagine the engineer’s ever keeping quiet about anything. It must be borne in mind, however, that none of the Crescent folk except himself and Timothy Ames and now Helen Marsh knew Jemima had died by design instead of accident. Maybe Bob wasn’t talking simply because he didn’t yet realize he had something to tell. That, from the murderer’s point of view, would make him a walking time bomb.
By Professor Dysart’s own account, though, he’d been too drunk to make a reliable witness by the time Jemima started her fatal walk. Ben Cadwall, who’d boycotted the Dysart punch bowl and was probably snooping as usual, would be far more apt to observe and remember.
Hannah wasn’t at the party either. She was making her rounds of the Crescent. What if Ben had caught her where she wasn’t supposed to be, doing something not even the most devoted husband could condone?
Hannah knew, of course, that her husband always got something to eat at the dining room on his way to the office. If she were to feed him a slow-acting poison before he left the house, show reasonable intelligence about getting rid of the evidence, and stick to her guns on questioning that she’d done nothing of the sort, attention would have to focus on the possibility that he’d got it here. By the time he died, whatever dishes he’d used must have been passed through the kitchen’s efficient sterilizers and stacked with dozens just like them. Dysart’s grandstand play would be an extra stroke of luck for her, but she really wouldn’t need it. Any good lawyer could get her off on the ground of legitimate doubt, assuming she was ever brought to trial.
Did Hannah really have the brains or the enterprise to commit a double murder and not get caught? People tended to write her off as negligible because she was always in the shadow of two domineering personalities. Yet Jemima and Ben were both dead now, and Hannah had at least shown no lack of confidence stepping into Mrs. Ames’s shoes.
Thinking of the Buggins Collection and the house Helen was still trying to make habitable, Shandy wondered. Could a woman who left her private affairs in total chaos have been, in fact, the great organizer she was cracked up to be? Might not the faithful henchwoman have done most of the real work on those many public projects for which Jemima snatched credit?
Ben couldn’t have been any picnic to live with either, with his complaints and crotchets and his personal vendettas and his smarmy, know-it-all air. Maybe Hannah was plain sick and tired of being bullied.
Still, it did seem that an apparently sane and sensible woman could find some way of getting her friend and her husband off her back without having to kill them both.
Chapter 17
SHANDY WAS STILL BROODING over half a bowlful of corn chowder when, to his intense astonishment, Hannah Cadwall entered the dining room alone and looking frazzled but not upset.
“Hannah, what are you doing here? Didn’t Mary Enderble find you?”
“She was yoo-hooing to me across the Crescent, but I just waved and came on. I’m famished. Jackie, bring me a bowl of whatever Professor Shandy’s eating and make it snappy, will you? If I don’t get something inside me pronto, I’m going to faint.”
She plumped herself down opposite Peter, snatched a stick of celery from his untouched hors d’oeuvre tray, and began to chomp. “Been over to the shopping mall,” she told him with her mouth full. “What a madhouse! Had to fight my way every step. Thanks, Jackie. That was quick.”
She picked up the spoon and began to bail chowder into her mouth at an incredible rate. Shandy watched, stupefied. Obviously Mrs. Cadwall still didn’t know she was a widow, but how was a man to tell her while she was stuffing herself like a starved wolverine? When she paused to slap butter on a roll, he plucked up his nerve.
“Er—Hannah?”
“What, Peter? Why are you goggling at me like a fish out of water? Honestly, you’re getting more peculiar every day of your life. What did Mary Enderble want?”
“To tell you that the police are looking for you.”
“About that stupid permit for the extra parking facilities, I suppose. Why I ever let myself get sucked into taking
over Jemima’s job—”
“It’s about Ben,” Shandy fairly shouted.
“Well, what about him?” She took a giant bite of her roll. “Has he robbed a bank, or kidnaped the president?”
“He’s dead, Hannah.”
Incredibly, she kept on eating her roll. Then the impact of his words reached her. She gulped and shoved her plate away.
“Peter, is this another of your little games?”
“It’s the truth, Hannah. I found him myself. I went over to see him a while back and found him sitting at his desk. He was just—gone. It must have happened quite suddenly, with no pain.”
“But Ben wouldn’t die! He’s so darned careful of himself, hell—I always thought he’d live to be a hundred.”
“Hadn’t you better drink your tea?”
“I don’t want tea! I want my husband.” Burying her face in a paper napkin, Hannah began to sob.
The young waitress ran over to the table. “What’s the matter? Did you choke? Mrs. Cadwall, are you all right?”
“My husband’s dead!”
“I’m sorry,” Shandy told the bewildered girl. “The comptroller died suddenly this morning in his office, while Mrs. Cadwall was out shopping. This is the first chance anyone’s had to tell her. I ought to have managed it more tactfully.”
“How could you be tactful about a thing like that? My gosh, Dr. Cadwall, of all people! Shall I bring some more hot tea?”
“I don’t know.”
Shandy was experiencing the normal discomfiture of a man in the company of a hysterical woman. “Hannah, would you like more tea?”
“No.”
“Shall I take you home?”
The widow blew her nose into the soggy napkin. “I suppose so.”
“I’ll get her coat,” offered the waitress.
“You’d better give me the check first,” said Shandy.
“Oh no! I couldn’t make you pay, at a time like this.”
“My dear young woman, you’re going to make a fine wife and mother.”
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