by Peter King
It was very satisfying meal, even though I could not concentrate on it as it deserved. I am skeptical of coincidences so I found it hard to accept that the doctor's death did not fit somehow into the bizarre events at the castle. I had seen her here twice. Each time, she had been with Sir Gerald.
The fact that Sir Gerald's wife was in a nursing home and incurably insane was impossible to ignore. He was still an active and good-looking man, despite his years. Could there be a liaison between the doctor and Sir Gerald? But what might that have to do with the doctor's death?
I recalled Francis Somerville, Knight Pursuivant at the London Heralds' Society, who had told me that Sir Gerald had only months to live. Might that not make him all the more determined to enjoy the remainder of his life? Could the attractive doctor have been the way to do that?
A number of other lines of inquiry began to pop into my mind. How to get answers to them? Sergeant Winnie Fletcher was the one to provide those, and I also needed to talk to her about her investigations to see if anything new had come up on the poisoning of the visitors to the castle.
I left the dining room and went to one of the public phones. I left a message for her to call me the next morning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
When I was called to the phone, I hoped it would be my favorite detective sergeant from Scotland Yard, Winnie Fletcher. It was.
She said it was a Circle of Careme matter and hung up. That identified her-it was our prearranged code that came from the first time we had worked together. It also meant that I should call her back on a public phone on the chance that this line was tapped.
I went to a phone and called her. When she asked me if there was anything new, I said, "That depends on whether you keep up with suspicious deaths in surrounding villages."
"I don't like that condition," she said. "Tell me about it."
When I had finished telling her about Dr. Wyatt, she was silent for a moment. "But you never met her?" she said at length.
"No, I merely saw her."
"Do you think the same poison was the cause of death?"
"Superficially, yes, but I had no opportunity to make any kind of examination."
"In the light of other events surrounding the castle, an accident seems improbable."
I agreed.
"So, if it wasn't an accident, it sounds as if the doctor was murdered and someone wants you to appear guilty."
"It looks that way," I said.
"They must keep close tabs on your movements."
"That wouldn't be difficult here."
"Stony Stratton, you say?"
"That's right."
"I suppose Inspector Devlin was called in because she's so close?"
"She was-and she's very doubtful about me. It may be that only whatever good word Inspector Hemingway has been able to put in for me is all that has kept me out of the Bastille."
"H'mm." Winnie was weighing up police procedural considerations. "She will probably be given the case, with this connection of the poison. I'll call up the report after we've finished."
"I can't imagine what the connection means," I said, "but I'm inclined to think there is one. Meanwhile, did you have some news on your earlier poisoning reports?"
"Forensics have done more digging into boro-amine. They have reaffirmed its high content of vitamin K but don't yet know the significance. Inspector Devlin is looking into the habits of both Kenny Bryce and Richard Harlington-specifically whether they were, or are, vitamin consumers."
"An overdose?" I asked.
"Or a mistake? No, I don't think it was either one, but it's a point for you to be aware of."
"All right, I'll keep that in mind."
"Inspector Devlin hasn't made any suggestions about bringing charges against you yet, has she?"
"I don't like that `yet,' " I objected. "No, she hasn't. I'm hoping I can continue to shelter under the umbrella of Inspector Hemingway. He'll protect me, won't he?"
"Coward. Inspector Devlin will probably keep this as an accidental death, just as she did with Kenny Bryce, until she accumulates more evidence. So she won't bring charges against you or anyone until then."
"It's really not cowardice," I told her. "It's complete innocence."
"The prisons are full of people who-"
"People who say that. You're a heartless sergeant," I told her. "It's a good thing you know me."
"If only we didn't need help so badly on this case," she said with an exaggerated sigh.
After I hung up, I headed for the library. I was almost there when I was intercepted by one of the young constables who were beginning to seem like permanent fixtures at the castle. He conducted me to a room I hadn't seen before. It had two constables, one male, one female, sitting at telephones. Inspector Devlin was at a desk across the room, which was large enough that we could not hear their conversations.
She invited me to sit, although the way she put it, it was more of an order. First of all, she went through the routine of my connection with Dr. Wyatt. I repeated what I had already told her four times at Seventeen, Laurel Cottages-that I did not know her, had never met her, had never spoken to her.
She went over all the other questions again. I gave her all the same answers as before. When she paused for a further barrage, I slipped in a question of my own.
"Was Kenny Bryce a patient of Dr. Wyatt?"
"What makes you ask that?" she rapped back.
"Seems reasonable," I said. "Likewise, Richard Harlington- was he a patient of hers too?"
She had undoubtedly considered those possibilities herself, and even if she had already found the answers, I knew she was not going to pass them on to me. Nor was she the kind of character to be sidetracked easily.
"For the time being, Dr. Wyatt's death is being handled as accidental," she told me in that raspy voice. "The facts that you were the one to find the doctor's body and you claim to have been there in response to a phone call from her are clouding issues. Which we will resolve very soon."
I nodded agreeably. She gave me a penetrating look.
"You can go."
I went.
I resumed my visit to the library. Lisa was there and she greeted me amiably. We chatted for a while about her duties and she told me how widely used the facilities here were.
"City libraries and historical societies all over call us for information," she said. "Especially about the earlier Middle Ages, which are not very well documented."
"You have books on a remarkable range of topics," I said, easing my way over to a set of shelves that I had already targeted. "These for instance"-I motioned-"books on plants and vegetables." I gave the impression of having been struck by a sudden thought. "These must have been a big help to Felicity with her Plantation."
"Oh, yes," Lisa said. "She spent a lot of time here. Still comes in often."
"You lend books out, I take it?"
Lisa shook her head. "No, we have people come here if they want to do research. If they know what they want, they write or fax or e-mail and we send back answers the same way."
"I noticed the empty space here," I told her with a smile.
She looked where I was pointing, then frowned. "That's strange. I hadn't noticed that. I wonder what book that is."
My experience of librarians was that the dedicated ones considered all their books as children and didn't like the idea of one of them straying from home. Librarians were also sticklers for detail and wanted to know where all their charges were at any time. Lisa seemed like such a person. She scanned the volumes on either side of the space.
"Hard to tell which one that is, I suppose." My words were hardly necessary to prod her into action. Her lips moved as she read the numbers on the spines of the books adjoining.
"I have my own system of numbering," she said. "I can tell very quickly which book is missing. I know it's not out on a table-I cleaned them all off this morning." She looked at me apologetically. "Oh, I'm sorry-can I help you with something first?"
/> "No, go ahead. This is fascinating."
She was clearly enjoying the demonstration of her system's efficiency. She twinkled fingers over her computer keyboard, went back to the shelves to check, twinkled again. She frowned, checked again, then came back to the keyboard and a title came up:
Poisonous Herbs and Plants.
We both looked at it. I felt a quickening of interest. I hadn't expected this. I looked at the name of the author: Clement Snodgrass.
"I know the name. Books by him are hard to find."
"He was well known in the eighteenth century," Lisa said. "He was an astrologer-physician. He set up an apothecary shop in Bishopsgate and wrote a book on the healing properties of plants. He had a huge collection of herbal remedies. The medical profession condemned him, of course, but he had a large following and helped a great many people. Then he felt it important to identify dangerous plants and herbs as well. That's why he wrote this book." She frowned again. "Now where on earth can that book be?"
I browsed a few more minutes to move the focus away from that particular book, then left. This was an unforeseen bonus. I had hoped at the most to get some generalities and here I had a specific.
I headed for the Plantation. A gardener was at work, pruning and weeding. He gave me a nod and I returned it.
I could hardly expect to uncover knowledge that dozens of police, backed up by immense technical resources, could not. The most I could do was to employ my expertise in a way that might not occur to them, to find some slender thread that the monolith of officialdom might overlook. It had been Winnie's reference to vitamin K that initiated my line of thought.
It was not rare for an amino acid to contain vitamin K, but it was certainly not common. An overdose of a vitamin supplement had seemed, at first, to be one idea to pursue, but the Plantation flashed through my mind because of vitamin K's association with plants. Leafy green vegetables all contain high amounts of that vitamin. The Plantation contained edible plants, herbs, and vegetables in abundance.
One other fragment of information surfaced at the same time. Richard was in the habit of eating a salad before he went out into the arena as Sir Harry Mountmarchant. On the day of Kenny's death, he had not done so. But any attempt at killing Richard by poisoning could not have killed Kenny as it would also have affected everyone else who took that same item from the salad buffet. Still, a large number of the ingredients of salads came from the Plantation. Did that mean something? In the case of Dr. Wyatt, all that had been on the kitchen table were a cup and saucer and a teapot.
I wandered through the Plantation. Among the leafy green vegetables were cabbages, lettuce, celery, leeks, spinach. I was looking for more when the gardener approached, hoe in hand.
"You keep all these looking remarkably healthy," I told him. He accepted the compliment with a nod. He was probably near seventy, lean and active, with a weathered, outdoor face.
"Lot of work," he said. "The healthier the plants, the more the birds, the insects, and the weeds like 'em."
"I'm sure. Have to use a lot of weedkiller, do you?"
He shook his head. "Do all weeding by hand. Miss Felicity don't believe in taking a chance with all them chemicals."
"That must make it very hard to keep the weeds under control."
"It does that."
"The same with the herbs, I suppose?" I said as we strolled to the herb and spice sector of the garden.
"Harder with them. Know anything about herbs?"
"A bit," I conceded.
"Soil that's been cultivated as long as this has here at the castle-well, it likes to come up with its own different varieties."
"Herbs from the past?"
"Aye, some of them. Betony, Solomon's seal, bloodroot, Jacob's ladder, owlsfoot-we've had 'em all."
I thanked him and wished him luck in his battle against garden intruders. I headed back to the library. Lisa was on the phone and I indicated by sign language that I was going to look at a book in the plant and herb section. She waved for me to help myself. I went to the shelf with the missing book and roamed along the titles. Another contemporary of Clement Snodgrass and Nicholas Culpeper was present: Luke Astridge. All three had been active at the time when earnest researchers were trying to merge-or separate-medicine, herbalism, physics, chemistry, and astrology.
I leafed through Astridge's book with its closely spaced lines and the occasional curlicued letters. I came to a section which dealt with poisonous plants. Owlsfoot, one of the dangerous plants that the gardener had mentioned, was listed. I suspected that in the missing book it had received more attention, but the paragraphs here were enough to give me a chill.
"Owlsfoot (Allocca velenosa)," I read.
Grows about two feet tall. Has a spike of blue flowers. Roots, stem, flowers and leaves are all extremely poisonous.
Symptoms. Dryness of the throat followed by tingling and numbness of the limbs, tongue, and throat. Loss of sensibility ensues swiftly along with dimming vision, muscular pains, slowed pulse, and violent convulsions.
Postmortem Appearances. No characteristics are evident. Death may be within one or two hours. One fiftieth of a grain can be fatal.
Treatment. No known treatment.
Toxicological Examination. Indeterminate. Edible members of the aconite family such as horseradish are often confused with owlsfoot.
Other Characteristics. The plant is susceptible to variations in temperature and humidity. It may die and remain that way for years or even decades and then revive.
I finished reading and replaced the book. Here was the culprit. More modern books might have more up-to-date information, but owlsfoot had been deadly in the past and no doubt continued to be.
I headed for the kitchen and a further chat with Chef Victor Gontier.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
He was up to his elbows in chicken chopping. He was not doing it himself, of course, but supervising a young woman who was evidently a novice.
"That's right," he was saying. "First, remove the right leg, then the right wing ... turn it on its right side and remove the left leg. Now remove the left wing ... that's it, now cut away the fillets on either side. Now cut the carcass in half. Good. Remember that the carcass, the neck, the head, and the feet all go into the stock."
He turned to me. "We have to train our own staff," he said, "it's so difficult to find good people."
"I hear the same complaint everywhere," I told him. "Still, you shouldn't have trouble finding young people who want to work here. It's a great opportunity for them to learn their trade under a chef of your renown."
He gave a Gallic shrug but the compliment registered.
"Madeleine was telling me you've been looking at the serving of eels," I said.
"That's right. I think we can make good use of them. The idea of cooking them in the fireplace where the guests can see them being prepared is a good one."
"That was Madeleine's suggestion," I told him. "Maybe it could be extended to other dishes. Guests would enjoy seeing haunches of meat and gamebirds roasting before the fire." It would cut down on the work in the kitchen too, I thought, but I left it to him to make that inference.
He nodded. "In the old stables buildings, we have a lot of stuff in storage. Iron pots, large and small, ladles, skimmers, tongs, forks, hooks, and andirons. They are wrought iron and very decorative; they only need cleaning up a little."
"Perfect," I said. "I had a further notion for your consideration. I know you must be familiar with a Salomongundy. I believe it was originally French."
"I know of it," he admitted cautiously. He broke off to correct the trainee, "No, no, Edna, when it cuts like that, the knife needs sharpening. Always use sharp knives."
He apologized for the interruption. "They have to be watched every minute. Yes, the Salomongundy, a sort of hors d'oeuvre with contrasting sharp and bland ingredients. I believe they used all kinds of meat, fish, and chicken, with cheese and vegetables, as the bland items, and anchovies, onions, and pickl
es as the sharp."
"Absolutely right. It's an excellent way to use remains from other dishes. Decorated with fresh herbs on a large platter, I'm told it can look spectacular. I don't think I have ever seen it. In fact, I'm surprised that no one has revived it," I said, "though I suppose some modern hors d'oeuvres trays owe something to it."
"We are going to make that Quaking Pudding you mentioned," he told me. "Madeleine has some ideas on it. She'll be here any minute, she can tell you what she has in mind."
"Good. There's another pudding, even older, back to AngloSaxon times, that you might consider. Steamed Carrot and Barley Pudding."
"I don't think I know that one."
"Barley was the main cereal crop in those days, so it appeared in a lot of dishes. It's quite simple. You just simmer barley, carrots, honey, and apple till the barley has absorbed most of the water. You puree it, adding mint and beat in an egg for each person. You put this in a pudding basin, steam till it rises and is firm. When it was served, quince jelly or redcurrant jelly would be spread on top."
The door banged as Madeleine came in, arms full of produce. She dropped it all on a convenient countertop. "I love to use quince," she said. "What was that recipe again?"
I told her.
"That should be popular," she said. "The English taste still runs to puddings and people don't make them at home any more so they enjoy them when they go out. Tourists from other countries think of puddings as typically English, so they would want them too."
"I don't know if he mentioned it to you," I said, "but Victor and I were discussing berries earlier. We could make jellies and jams from them. And they would be good for putting on top of the puddings."
They both agreed. "Miss Felicity had us making jams for sale in the gift shop," said Madeleine, "using berries from the Plantation. But then the demand got too great and we couldn't grow enough. But making jellies from them to put on puddings would be perfect."