A Detective at Death's Door

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘A tuber,’ Miss Earwaker said. ‘Someone has wrenched off the better part of one of the tubers here. I do hope they took care to wear gloves. What’s inside is really a very dangerous poison.’

  ‘I know,’ Harriet answered, with a laugh that had a trickle of hysteria in it. ‘I swallowed some not so very long ago.’

  Miss Earwaker looked at her.

  ‘And do you think, Harriet,’ she asked almost tremulously, ‘that it was from here, from this place exactly, that the poisoner got the material for aconitine?’

  ‘I can’t be certain, of course,’ Harriet replied, calmer now, the police officer coming back. ‘But it’s a possibility. It must be. The thing is, though, could anybody have seen who was digging here?’

  ‘Yes, well, someone might have done. There are some cottages just down there. You can’t quite see them because they’re in a little dip where there’s a stream. I seem to remember that they’re no longer inhabited, because they’re so out of the way. People nowadays, you know, like to be where they can see other people, get to the shops and the cinema. But that smoke we saw. It just might be coming from there. The best thing would be to go back up the ridge for a little and look.’

  Harriet did not wait for more.

  ‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘And you stay here, Miss Earwaker, if you will.’

  ‘Yes, yes. On guard.’

  Harriet found that to get a proper view she had to go further up the ridge than Miss Earwaker had indicated. But in four or five minutes, reinvigorated by what they had discovered, she reached as far as the top. The first thing she actually saw, however, was down on the opposite side. A group of youths on cycles were clustered round Miss Earwaker’s battered little car. She could hear, faintly, shouting and laughter.

  Up to some mischief, she briefly wondered.

  But she had more urgent business. She wheeled round and looked to see if the smoke was still there. And, yes, from the chimney of one of three ruined cottages she could see now a rope of dull grey smoke was lazily rising.

  She hurried back down and then, barely stopping to tell Miss Earwaker that there was a sign of life, she plunged onwards.

  It did not take her long, with Miss Earwaker eagerly coming along behind, to reach the little row of cottages overlooking a tiny stream. She could see no sign of there being anybody inside the one, a little less dilapidated than the other two, from which the smoke was coming. But without hesitation she lifted its rusty iron door-knocker and gave it two or three vigorous bangs.

  There was a long silence. A bird was singing somewhere.

  Could it be a lark? Would I know if it is?

  Then at last came the thump of heavy footsteps from inside.

  The door was pulled open. The man standing at it looked to be about seventy or even eighty, though by no means stringy with age. But his eyes were a bleary blue and the close-cropped hair on his head and bristling at his cheeks was washed-out to the palest of greys.

  ‘What you want? Can’t a man get his sleep of a Sunday afternoon?’

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you,’ Harriet answered quickly, doing what she could to infuse her voice with friendliness. ‘But we’re wondering about the place just over there where there’s been some digging.’

  ‘Wolfsbane,’ the old man grunted.

  ‘Yes, yes. You’re quite right. Someone’s been digging at the wolfsbane there, the monkshood.’

  ‘What if there was?’

  And then Miss Earwaker, hovering in the background, broke in.

  ‘But it’s poisonous, you know. Deadly poisonous really. It isn’t safe to touch, not unless you’re very careful.’

  ‘Know that, don’t I?’

  Oh God, Harriet thought, don’t let him lose whatever sympathy he has for us.

  ‘What we were really wondering,’ she said, ‘is whether you happened to see who it was who was digging there?’

  ‘Saw him, didn’t I? Told you that.’

  He had not. But Harriet answered as if she believed his every word.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ With a pulse of effort, she made herself sound enthusiastic, even admiring. ‘Was it someone you knew? Or was it a stranger? Can you tell us?’

  ‘Can’t.’

  A sulky silence.

  ‘But you did see them. Can you describe them at all? What sort of age were they?’

  ‘How’d I be able to tell that? Only saw him through the window. Had on a grey suit and a weskit. And he had a tie. A tie.’

  ‘And what sort of height was he?’

  ‘Saw him through the window, didn’t I? How d’you expect me to know that?’

  Harriet felt misery creeping up through her veins. All right, if she had been thoroughly fit, she would have known how to wheedle, and if need be bully, out of an obstinate witness like this what she wanted to discover. But now it seemed as if the old man was a mountain blocking her way, there and unclimbable.

  She looked at him, fighting to push down her rising blackness. In the doorway he stood, simply looking back.

  But then, for no reason, he spoke, or growled, again.

  ‘Little feller. Like one o’ they pet rabbits, the white ‘uns.’

  Then a new silence.

  The bird, lark or not, had stopped singing.

  Harriet puzzled over the curious description the old man had at last produced.

  Like one of those pet white rabbits? What could he mean? No doubt the man digging had reminded him of a rabbit, for some reason. But it seemed impossible to fathom his train of thought.

  What on earth could she ask that might lead him to expand on that description?

  She glanced quickly at Miss Earwaker in the hope that the words had meant something to her. Plainly they had not. She seemed as baffled as she had been when the young man at the coffee shop had poured out his stream of Italian information.

  But then, from far away on the other side of the ridge behind them, there came, suddenly distinct in a puff of breeze, the sound of voices raised to a peak of noisy excitement.

  Miss Earwaker’s car, Harriet thought. Won’t it, somehow comical as it is, have roused the nastiest instincts in a group of feckless youngsters? Which was what I thought of them, without much taking it in, when I looked down the far side of the ridge not a few minutes ago.

  And does Miss Earwaker, so willing to put herself out for me, deserve to get back to her beloved little Honda to find ... what? The tyres let down? Paintwork scratched or scrawled over with obscenities? Perhaps that sticking passenger-door forced and things taken?

  No. No choice.

  If I leave the two old people confronting each other here, will Miss Earwaker learn something more? But, whether it’s yes or no, I must go. At once.

  She whirled round and set off at a loping run up the ridge. But now, knowing she was leaving that tiny spring of hope behind, each stride took more and more out of her. A fierce stitch soon made itself felt. She gritted her teeth, fought her way onwards.

  At last, the top. She stood for an instant, sucking in air, feeling the sweat suddenly burst out. And, yes, there, as she had feared, was the cluster of youths, banging now on the Honda’s top like so many demented drummers.

  The booming sound, distorted and ugly.

  One last strangled breath, and she set off again towards the white-surfaced track Miss Earwaker had driven her along. Leaping bounds, careless of roots that might trip, holes that lay in wait.

  Uncannily soon, she was within shouting distance of the drummers on their bikes.

  ‘Stop that. Stop it.’

  Her voice, she could not think how, had penetrated the cracked thunder from the car’s roof. It tapered away into silence.

  She took a step or two further forward.

  ‘Get away from that car,’ she barked, sucking in a breath.

  ‘Go and stuff yourself, old bag.’

  She wasn’t able to see which of them had shouted. But it hardly mattered. The same look of ruffled hostility was on each face.
/>
  Stiffening every sinew, she marched forward down the gentle, tussocky slope.

  ‘Police officer,’ she snapped.

  I’ve handled worse. I’ve handled worse. The phrase repeated itself in her head, mantra-like, struggling against the jelly feebleness she felt within.

  ‘Oh, Miss Plod, we been naughty.’

  She singled out the jeering speaker leaning on his racing bike as the likely ringleader. Short, dark-haired, muscular, a bright red jersey, smooth-shining grey trousers tight to the leg, taut over the buttocks.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Martens.’ She sent the name and rank, a pistol shot, out towards him.

  ‘Oooh, oooh, it’s the big boss.’

  Red Jersey unimpressed. As yet.

  ‘Right, names,’ she snarled, thrusting a hand into the top pocket of her denim jacket.

  Only to realize that, being Mrs Piddock setting out with her sons’ former teacher to look for wild flowers, rather than being Detective Superintendent Martens always on duty, she had neither warrant card nor notebook with her.

  Then her scrabbling fingers touched in the pocket something smoother than a notebook. And, yes, she remembered. A slim tin of waterproof plasters. I put it there one day when we were going to the beach somewhere. Years ago.

  She pulled it out, cupping her hand round it. At this distance, would any of them see it was not a notebook and that she had nothing to write on it with?

  ‘I said names,’ she barked again, raising the thin tin to a point where she would have written on it, had it been a pad, and shaping her other hand as if it were holding a ballpoint.

  ‘Oh, piss off,’ Red Jersey shouted.

  But he had wheeled his bike round and he set out now with the stones from the white track spurting under his back wheel.

  And the whole little mob of them followed.

  Harriet stood where she was until they were out of sight. Then she lunged out towards the car, reached it still on her feet, sank to the ground and sat there, head bowed.

  After a long while, it seemed, she heard Miss Earwaker’s chirpy voice, and looked up.

  ‘My dear, I couldn’t at all make out where you had got to. Are you all right? Not another of those nasty mental attacks?’

  ‘No, no,’ she managed to say. I’m perfectly all right actually. It was just ... well, when I was up on the ridge the time before, I saw a group of youngsters surrounding your car, and then while we were talking to that old man I heard a lot of noise and shouting. So, I thought I’d better just go and take a look. And actually I saw the boys drumming on the car roof. So I went down and shooed them off.’

  ‘That was very good of you. I’m afraid, though, you tried to do too much. In your state of health, I mean.’

  Harriet was about to deny this. But then she realized she had in fact done too much. It would be all she could do to get to her feet again.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think perhaps you’re right. John warned me about over-exerting myself, but I rather ignored it. He’s really a bit of a fuss-pot. So, yes, I think I’d like to go back home now.’

  ‘And so you shall,’ Miss Earwaker said, extending a frail hand. ‘Ups-a-daisy.’

  Harriet did, however, manage to push herself to her feet unaided, and then made her way, step by step, to the far side of the car. Miss Earwaker, she found, had failed to lock the sticking door.

  If those louts had only known ...

  But, once sitting inside, a small rash of doubts invaded her.

  ‘Miss Earwaker, did that old man say anything more to you after I’d left? We ... we didn’t get very much out of him.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think he would have told us any more however long we’d stayed there. The disagreeable old fellow just stepped back when you went, and, well, he slammed the door in my face.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Earwaker.’

  ‘But we did learn something, you know. He did tell us that the person who was digging there wore a suit, with a waistcoat. A grey suit, and a tie. And you know what that means, don’t you?’

  Harriet did. She had stored away the implication in her mind the moment the old man had mentioned the suit and tie. But she thought she ought to let Miss Earwaker have a little triumph.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘It means, my dear, that the digging man came from the city. By the bus, I expect. A grey suit with a tie. It can hardly mean anything else. But ... I’m not sure what we can learn from what he said about one of those pet rabbits. Did it mean something to you?’

  ‘No, it hardly did. But I’ll remember it.’

  Chapter Ten

  When Miss Earwaker had seen her indoors — she had managed not to ask her to fetch Mrs Pickstock — once again it was all Harriet could do to climb step by step up the stairs and at last to fling herself down on the bed, still in jacket and jeans. She had just a moment before sleep overtook her, deep as if drugged, to think what luck it was that John, safely at the Club prize-giving, was not there to see his warning to her justified.

  At least, she had thought leadenly, I got a description, of sorts, of the poisoner.

  Or of someone else altogether ... ?

  *

  The ringing of the phone woke her.

  God, what time is it? It’s dark. Where’s John? Why doesn’t he answer it? Still at the Club? A few drinks?

  She heaved herself into a sitting position.

  ‘Hello. Hello.’

  ‘Harriet?’

  Pat Murphy’s voice.

  She tried, with blinking, sticky eyes to see the figures on the bedside clock.

  ‘Pat. What time is it? I’ve been asleep, and I’ve no idea.’

  But she did not wait for Pat’s answer. Her head had been clearing, and she abruptly realized she had been so stupefied when she’d got home that she had failed altogether to pass on to Pat that she and Miss Earwaker had discovered the dug-at monkshood, and to give him her description of the digging man.

  ‘Listen, Pat, I’ve got something to tell you.’

  ‘No, it’s me that’s got something to tell you, Harriet. Harriet, there’s been another one. Another poisoning. And it was the Big Fella, Sir Billy Bell himself. Over at the Majestic Club.’

  Harriet sat, holding the handset, dumbstruck.

  ‘Harriet?’

  ‘Yes, yes, Pat, I’m here. But John? John must have been there. On the spot. Is he all right?’

  ‘He is so. He was the first man among them all with the sense to ring and report it.’

  ‘Oh yes, he would be. But ... but tell me what happened. When was it?’

  ‘No more than fifteen or twenty minutes ago. It seems they were having some drinks after the prize-giving, whatever, had finished. There was quite a crowd of them. And, well, you can guess what happened. Suddenly Sir Billy was violently sick, and then ... well, then he was dead. I’m going now to catch up with the team I’ve sent. Should have left already. But I thought you ought to know, specially if your John doesn’t get back till God knows when.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you, Pat. Thank you.’

  She felt incapable of any coherent thought, and, after sitting hunched-up there for three or four minutes, she decided the only thing to do was to take off her clothes and put herself properly to bed.

  *

  When John had come in, much later, he had woken her. But, even more muzzy-headed than when Pat had rung, she had just muttered, ‘Tell me in the morning,’ before thrusting herself once more into the pit of sleep. So it was not until nearly nine o’clock, over a late breakfast, that she heard his full account.

  ‘It was all a bit odd somehow,’ he said. ‘I mean, there we all were on the platform in the Club hall and there were people who had come to watch the ceremony still milling about down below. Up at our end there was champagne, courtesy of the Majestic Insurance Company, needless to say. I imagine one or two of the more fly among the spectators may have seen the chance of getting a free drink and had come up for a crafty mingle. It’s easy enough to reach the
platform, just a couple of steps at each side. And then ... well, then there was the unpleasant sound of somebody coughing and spluttering and then being comprehensively sick.’

  ‘Sir Billy?’

  ‘Yes, Sir Billy. He’d been swigging away at the champagne, hard as he could go. Typically, from what I know of him. A reputation for enjoying life to the full, or, depending how you look at it, for making a pig of himself.’

  ‘I get the picture.’

  John was silent for a second or two.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I wonder if I’ve given you the right impression. I said the whole scene was a bit odd, but I rather doubt if I’ve managed to make it clear why I felt that.’

  ‘Odd?’ Harriet repeated, with a prickle of curiosity.

  John shook his head in some bewilderment.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I shouldn’t really have mentioned it. It was just that ... no, I don’t know. I just felt it all was somehow not quite as I’d have expected. It was ... well, I’ll tell you one thing. It wasn’t like it was with you at the pool. I don’t know. If he hadn’t vomited in that way, I’d have thought he’d just died of a heart attack. But it was only a momentary uneasiness I felt. Take no notice of it.’

  But Harriet had taken notice. Her mind in a whirl. A hundred and one notions of what could have been odd about Sir Billy’s death surfaced and sank again.

  With an effort she pulled herself together.

  No. I’m letting my uncontrolled mind get out of hand once more. It’s the John was my murderer nonsense all over again. The MNO conspiracy. All those idiot ideas good old Pat’s shot down for me.

  ‘Look, the real point,’ she said, ‘is that Sir Billy was poisoned, suddenly. That’s why the poisoner is so terrible. What was it you said to me when I was still in St Oswald’s? I’ve remembered it off and on ever since. Shakespeare, “Upon my secure hour”. And, you know, that somehow makes a difference, death coming at a time you feel everything’s going right. An enormous difference really. I mean, if Sir Billy had died of natural causes one day, after years of self-indulgence, you wouldn’t feel it was particularly awful. Or those of us who know him only by reputation wouldn’t. I suppose it’d be different for, say, his wife. If there is a Lady Bell.’