Picket tried to glare at him for his indiscretion, but he was too intent on his own satisfaction.
‘I knew it,’ he said simply. ‘The only question is, when should we strike?’
His face took on a calculating look, which was reflected, as in a distorting mirror, in Rab’s brainless beauty. But they were not left long to reflect. Boxie shoved his chair back with a crash. He was across the room before they knew it. He stood, staring at them. He swallowed hard several times, as if he was trying not to vomit.
‘You did do it,’ he gasped at last. ‘You gave it to her.’
‘Of course we did, Boxie dear,’ said Picket coolly. ‘You came up with such a delicious idea, and we simply had to use it.’
‘But not on her!’ cried Boxie.
‘Who else would be so deserving?’
‘She – she does not deserve something like that!’ Boxie was almost hysterical. ‘You have – she – how could – ‘
‘Oh, come, Boxie: surely some oratorical style has rubbed off on you from all those grubby old Romans! How will you take your place as an advocate if you cannot construct a simple sentence?’
Boxie, unable to say another word, lunged at Picket. Rab sprang up. Picket’s chair toppled backwards. Boxie caught his balance on the table and tipped it, and though Charles tried to save it the ham and beef slid on to the floor in a clatter of cutlery. Rab snatched at Boxie’s collar and dragged him back, punching him hard on the jaw. Boxie shot backwards, sprawling on the floor. Rab helped Picket up: Picket was breathing hard, but he managed to make Charles a little bow.
‘You see us at our best, of course, this morning,’ he explained with a tight smile. ‘Rab, see to Boxie.’
‘He’s only had the wind knocked out of him,’ said Rab sulkily, but he went and knelt by Boxie, helping him into a sitting position.
‘May I ask,’ Charles said at last, ‘just what Miss Keith is supposed to have eaten?’
Rab and Boxie both looked at Picket. Picket glanced back, and then turned to Charles.
‘Spanish fly, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Charles. He had heard of it, but only vaguely: he tried to remember where.
‘Excellent stuff, according to Boxie here,’ said Picket. He stood up, a little weakly, but trying hard not to show it. One bony hand clutched at the back of his chair. ‘It was Boxie that recommended its use.’
‘But not on Miss Keith,’ Boxie insisted indistinctly. There was blood on his lips, possibly from loose teeth. ‘I thought you were going to use it on the maid.’
‘On Barbara? What possible use could that be? Keith would simply sack her, and anyway, there’s no need to use Spanish fly to make old Barbara rumpish – one look at Rab here usually does the trick.’
Of course, Charles remembered now: Spanish fly, the legendary aphrodisiac. Schoolboy stories of unlikely conquests and nights of wild passion came flooding back, told in hushed voices in the schoolyard or on the long walk home. But good heavens, to give it to Professor Keith’s daughter!
‘No: we had to give it to Miss Alison,’ Picket was continuing, half to Boxie, half to Charles himself. ‘We wanted ructions in the Keith household: all our tricks were simply making them huddle together like rabbits in a hole. We needed to put a terrier down there, and shake them up a bit!’
‘What … what happened?’ Boxie asked. He sounded as if he no longer had control over his own voice. His face was the colour of ash. Picket pushed away the chair he had been holding, and stamped on the floorboards.
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out!’ he snapped, a nasty fire in his eye. ‘Murray here has come to bring us news, news of our success, and have we even paid him the least attention? No! Right, let’s hear it.’
Every eye was on Charles. He sat back from the table.
‘Miss Keith is gravely ill,’ said Charles.
‘What?’ cried Boxie. He pushed Rab away and staggered to his feet, spitting blood on the floor.
‘Ill? You didn’t tell us that might happen,’ said Picket, but he did not seem particularly distressed. ‘She’s not much use to us in that state, is she?’
‘There is – worse,’ Charles went on.
‘Worse? What worse? The silly girl didn’t go and tell, did she?’
‘I think she is too ill, but it was generally known that the sweetmeats came from you,’ Charles said, distracted again from his principal news. Picket swore, and kicked the table. The mustard, which had been saved when the table tipped, fell off and spattered the carpet.
‘Professor Keith –‘
‘Is furious, no doubt,’ Picket finished for him. ‘We may as well start packing our things, lads: we’ll be off sooner than we can think. Why is he not round here already?’
He turned on Charles with a suspicious look. Charles sighed: Cicero would never have allowed them to get a word in sideways.
‘Because he’s dead.’
The silence, at last, was gratifying. He let it lie.
‘So she did it,’ said Boxie suddenly, and then shut his bruised mouth so sharply he made a grunt of pain.
‘How, dead?’ asked Picket at last. ‘Rab, wipe the smile off your face: we may have hated the ground he walked on but we could be in serious trouble now.’
‘Poisoned, I hear,’ said Charles. ‘He was found in his study this morning. And Miss Keith is assumed to have taken the same thing. The sweetmeats you gave her’ - he saw no need to mention George’s fruits – ‘were on his desk.’
Picket swore again, an oath that made them all turn in shock. He paid them no attention.
‘What did you mean, ‘She did it’?’ Charles asked Boxie, but Boxie, standing bolt upright against the window, would not meet his eye.
‘Boxie, is this possible?’ Picket asked sharply. ‘Could the stuff have killed him?’
Boxie glanced at him and looked away.
‘I don’t know. I told you all I knew about it.’
‘I thought you’d read a book!’
‘No! Someone I knew at school told me about it.’
‘Devil take it,’ muttered Picket. ‘So for all we know it’s possible. We could have killed him.’
‘Excellent!’ said Rab, rubbing his hands together. ‘Best joke ever!’
‘Rab!’ Picket took two strides across the room, and slapped Rab across the face. Rab sat hard down on one of the chairs, less injured than shocked. ‘Listen: we could be hanged for this. Hanged, do you hear?’
‘But your guardian …’ said Rab slowly, as the words sank in. ‘He can pay them, can’t he?’
‘Pay? Whom should he pay?’ Picket’s voice was acid, searing through the room. ‘You can’t buy yourself off a murder charge – particularly when the victim is a university professor! It’s not as if we can keep it quiet, is it? Oh, why do I even bother? You might have been in the front of the queue for the looks, Rab Fisher, but when the sense was handed out you were away eating parritch.’
‘Look, I’d better go,’ Charles said. ‘I should –‘
‘Go! Yes, so should we. Let’s get packing, lads,’ said Picket. ‘We can hide out in the usual place for a few days, see what’s happening. Murray, you’ll have to send us word –‘
‘Don’t you think if you run people will think you guilty?’ Charles asked. Picket swore again.
‘They’ll think us guilty enough as it is,’ he said, ‘and we are. How in the devil’s name could this have happened? The damn’ man wasn’t supposed to touch the stuff. What would he have to do with it? It was only for her.’
‘Aye, and she’s gravely ill,’ Boxie broke in. ‘It doesn’t seem to have worked on either of them, does it? Are you sure you bought the right thing?’
‘Do you think my mammy knitted me? Of course I bought the right thing,’ Picket was furious. ‘If you were so convinced I’d get it wrong maybe you should have come into the apothecary’s, too, instead of wandering off on mysterious errands of your own!’
Suddenly Charles was back in Edinburgh,
on the South Bridge Street, seeing Picket and Rab come out of the apothecary’s next to the jeweller’s with a white packet, and seeing Boxie join them. It must have been then.
‘Do you have any of it left?’ he asked. ‘You should probably get rid of it, in case it hurts someone else.’
Picket looked at Boxie, and Boxie gave a half-nod. He left the room by one of the doors at the far end: Charles could just see that it led into a small bedchamber. After a moment he was back with, as far as Charles could tell, the same white packet.
‘That’s the stuff,’ he said, as Charles pulled back the wrappings carefully to see. The paper was folded around a little mound of sticky black balls, like miniature fish roe. Charles sniffed it cautiously. ‘That’s Spanish fly. You’re sure –‘ he turned back to Picket.
‘I’m dead sure. I didn’t ask for Spanish fly, just as you told me. I asked for cantharides.’
‘What!’ cried Charles.
‘Cantharides. That’s it’s other name – what’s the matter?’
But Charles was already gone.
His long legs carried him down the short stairway in two strides, and out into the lane. It was empty, and another three strides brought him into Market Street. By now the street was busy, with housewives making their last provisions for the Sabbath and students enjoying a day of comparative freedom. He slowed down, suddenly realising that it might not be a good idea to attract attention to himself. His agitation must have been clear, though: people ducked out of his way, glancing back at him, every eye burning into him: he could feel it, he was sure. He darted across the street, and down Logie’s Lane, skipping around playing children and lazy dogs. Out into South Street, he tried to limit himself to a brisk stride, but it seemed that his bunk was teasing him, as far away as ever every time he looked up. At last he was there. He fumbled the door open, and ran upstairs. George had not been back: the rooms were the way they had left them that morning, except that Mrs. Walker had made the bed and tidied George’s clothes. There was no sign of Daniel. Charles dived across the room to his desk, and snatched a drawer open. Inside, the white package lay, innocent and bland. He took it to the table where the light was better. It had clearly been disturbed. The outer layers came off quickly, like old onion skin. Inside was a closely wrapped little parcel, with part broken off one end. Black sticky balls like miniature fish roe spilled out into the outer wrapping. He pulled off his gloves, and used only the tips of his long fingers, delicately undoing the apothecary’s work. He lifted back the final layer, and the black heap stood revealed.
‘George!’ He could have wept. What was he going to do? He turned to the little fireplace: Mrs. Walker had laid a fire there already. He struck a light from the tinder box on the mantelpiece, and crouched by the hearth, coaxing the flames into life, trying not to hurry them. It seemed an age, but he finally had enough of a fire going, and fed it another few sticks from the basket nearby. Then he slid the whole package from the table, outer wrappings as well as inner, and tucked them into the fire.
He sat motionless, watching it burn, making sure that the whole thing was completely destroyed, hoping that no noxious airs would escape into the room. When it was all gone, gone without a shadow of a doubt, he took the poker and riddled at the fire until it was out, then poked amongst the ashes, searching for any possible trace of the packet or its contents. There was none, though it took him long enough to convince himself. He rubbed the soot from his hands, and stood up, pulling his gloves back on.
He was half-surprised to find that it was still daylight outside, and when he pulled out his watch he saw that it was only half an hour since he had left the Sporting Set. He wondered if they had decided what to do. As for him, he should go back to the Keiths’ house, and see if Professor Shaw needed him.
He trod lightly down the stairs, but Mrs. Walker heard him. She shot out of the kitchen door.
‘Have you heard the news?’ she gasped. ‘Do you want breakfast?’
Suddenly, the smell of bannocks assailed him, and even more potently, the scent of bacon and onions. His stomach seemed to melt within him.
‘I’ll take a bit of breakfast, Mrs. Walker, but I must be quick. What news?’ he added cautiously.
‘About Professor Keith? Whose very house we were in last night?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Charles. ‘I’ve been over there. It’s all very bad.’
‘It’s terrible, the poor man. And his daughter so ill! It could have been any of us!’
The truth of this struck Charles suddenly: Alison could easily have taken a sweetmeat and passed the rest round. Picket was – well, not an idiot, but thoughtless to the point of evil.
‘Who do you think did it?’ Mrs. Walker was asking.
‘Aye, that’s a good question,’ said Patience Walker, who was standing guard over the frying pan. She lifted out six bacon slices and a whole onion, and passed the plate to her mother to add the bannocks from the girdle. ‘Who indeed? If the circumstances had been otherwise …’
‘What do you mean?’ Charles asked, filling his fork with bannock and bacon.
‘Hush, dear: it’s not a nice thing to repeat,’ said Mrs. Walker, but Patience shrugged.
‘It’s only that Alison herself hated him as much as any,’ she said. ‘The way she was watching him last night, even when she was turning the pages for me: I thought he would burn up on the spot.’
‘Well, it can’t have been Alison, dear,’ said Mrs. Walker definitely, ‘with her so ill herself, so don’t go saying that any more. It’s not nice for her mother.’
‘It’s not nice for her mother anyway,’ Patience retorted, but she said no more on the subject.
Charles ate quickly, and was soon finished, ready to return to the Keiths’ house. Mrs. Walker gave him a basket as he was going out the door.
‘Bannocks, my dear,’ she explained. ‘A death in the house does nothing for the cooking, as I know to my own cost!’
‘You’re very kind,’ said Charles sincerely, and took the basket with him.
He flew back to the Keiths’ house and knocked on the door. The whole place looked exactly as he had left it: he was not sure why he should have expected it to be otherwise. He was shown back into the parlour. He was about to greet Professor Shaw when the doorbell rang again and the maid gave a little ‘Oh!’ of surprise and disappeared.
‘What success, Charles, what success?’ asked Professor Shaw, anxiously twisting his hands around themselves. George was slumped on the sofa, wordless.
‘Limited, I think,’ said Charles, trying not to look at his brother. ‘They say they put something in the sweetmeats that was intended for Miss Alison alone, but was certainly not meant to kill her. When I left them they were contemplating flight.’
George twitched and looked up at Alison’s name.
‘What did they put in them?’
Charles turned to look fully at him.
‘Cantharides,’ he said clearly. ‘Spanish fly.’
The blood drained from George’s face, and his mouth dropped open.
‘Spanish fly, eh?’ said Professor Shaw sadly. ‘I might have guessed they would do something like that.’
‘They are not all equally guilty, I think, though they were all involved,’ Charles went on. ‘It was Boxie’s idea, but he had no notion they were going to give it to Alison. Rab is, of course, not very bright.’
‘Well, Charles, I think Boxie is probably just as guilty as Picket if he thought they were going to give it to anyone at all,’ Professor Shaw said kindly, and Charles blushed.
‘You’re right, of course, sir. Picket told Boxie that they were going to give it to the maid.’
At that very moment, Barbara herself entered, to announce the physician and Professor Urquhart.
‘Ah, at last!’ cried Professor Shaw in relief.
‘Dr. Pagan here,’ said Professor Urquhart languidly, ‘had some important details of attire to attend to before we could set out.’
Dr. Pagan, so neat and cl
ean he looked like something done up for sale, nodded in satisfaction. He gave the impression of being hung up by the ears: his features were drawn higher than normal on his face, and the corners of his mouth stretched unprofessionally up to his tight cheekbones.
‘I like to make my patients feel I have made the effort,’ he added.
‘No doubt Miss Keith will appreciate it, through the pain,’ said Urquhart blandly. ‘I take it her mother is still up there?’ he asked Professor Shaw.
‘Oh, yes, I think so: maybe Barbara will know,’ Professor Shaw answered. ‘Certainly she has not been down here.’
‘We should go upstairs, then,’ Urquhart said. ‘There is no point in delaying any further. Where is Peter?’
‘With his mother, I believe,’ said Shaw. ‘She needs someone with her to comfort her at the moment.’
‘Indeed,’ said Urquhart, with a strange little smile. ‘And perhaps it is as well that there is someone with him, too. Come along, then: you and I, Shaw, shall stand outside the door in moral support.’
George stood up, and Charles said quickly,
‘George and I shall stay down here, then, for the moment.’
‘I’m sure you can come up if you want to,’ said Shaw, anxious not to lose part of his web of support.
‘In a moment, then, sir,’ said Charles with a smile, trying not to make much of it. The two professors and the neat doctor left the room with Barbara, and Charles took a deep breath.
‘Well, George,’ he said. ‘What have you been up to this time?’
Chapter Fourteen
At that precise moment, the door slammed open, and Peter Keith ran in.
The hooded look on George’s face vanished in an instant, and he turned in relief. Peter staggered to a halt and stared at them.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, less in hostility than in bewilderment. His hands scrabbled at the back of the sofa, as if he was clutching at it for protection.
‘We came to help Professor Shaw, and to be of any service we can,’ said George eagerly. ‘I am very sorry for your loss.’
‘Indeed,’ added Charles. ‘If we can be of any help …’
Death in a Scarlet Gown (Murray of Letho Book 1) Page 17