The Dead Woman Who Lived

by Endellion Palmer

  Ada beamed at her.

  “Gorgeous, Mrs Creed,” she replied. “Ronald Coleman, again.”

  Juliana smiled back. The maids had seemed much happier in the past week, and she was confident now that they would choose to remain at the house.

  “Good,” she replied, then pointed to the gauze wrapping round Ada’s hand. “What happened to your hand? Did you…”

  Whatever Juliana had been about to ask was forgotten as a shriek came from the library, an eldritch scream that rang out and out. She and Ada both jumped violently, then ran for the door. They slid through to clutch at each other in the doorway as Florence stumbled towards them, her eyes starting from her head, one hand over her mouth. Spurred by that feeling of unease again, Juliana pushed both maids out into the hall before walking cautiously into the room.

  Fancy lay by her favourite armchair next to the fire, her frock a pink splash against the dark carpet. She looked most uncomfortable, her chest and neck and head bent backwards like a taut bow, an awkward angle at any time. She lay on one side, and instinctively Juliana bent down to shake the woman awake, feeling her shoulder warm under her fingers. Then she realised that the heat was only residual, the result of the waning fire warming her frock. Under it, Fancy’s skin was cold, her pulse stilled forever.

  Juliana panicked and pulled at the pink wool. At the touch of her hand, Fancy rolled over onto her back, a ridiculously stiff movement that made her look like a painted doll. Her eyes were staring wide, vacant blue over cheeks red as cherries. The thin, bitter mouth was open in a silent scream, foam crusted at the sides. Fancy’s soft perfumed, hands were frozen into claws, and she had raked the skin of her neck with her nails. There were long red scratches running down, and several of her buttons had been wrenched off.

  Juliana backed away and was still staring in horror at the corpse when Alistair Carr appeared, just a minute or so later. The minutes had seemed like an age as she looked at the mortal remains in front of her.

  “Juliana, whatever is the matter?” he asked. “One of your maids is having hysterics in the hallway.”

  She turned to him, seeing Adrien just a step behind him. Grasping at the chair back for support, she looked from one to the other.

  “It’s Fancy,” she said. “She’s dead!”

  As Juliana broke off and shuddered, Alistair stepped forward and checked Fancy’s neck for a pulse. Then he knelt down and looked her carefully up and down, paling before he straightened up and turned to Adrien.

  “Get Juliana out of here. Get everyone out and call the police!”

  “The police?” Adrien was astounded. “What on earth do we need the police for? I’ll call Bob Cundy…”

  “Adrien, just do as I say. Call Cundy too, they are going to need him.”

  He looked over at his host, his eyes deliberate. “She’s been poisoned.”

  He stood up and Adrien clutched his wife to him as he saw the look on his friend’s face. Alistair was stern.

  “Get your wife somewhere warm, she’s had a shock. Then call the police, Adrien!”

  When Joe Vercoe pulled up on his bicycle in front of the house, he was greeted by Adrien and Alistair, who had been waiting by the front door.

  “Mr Creed, sir,” he panted. “Came as quick as I could.”

  “It’s Mrs Evans, Vercoe. She’s in the library,” replied Adrien, looking at Alistair. He had not gone into details on the phone. The news would spread like wildfire anyway, but there was no need to start it off via the operator.

  “We’ve shut off the room, Sergeant,” said Alistair. “As far as I can see, only Mrs Creed has touched the body. She thought Mrs Evans had fallen.”

  Joe Vercoe looked confused as he dismounted and leaned the bicycle against the wall. He looked from one to the other.

  “What are you saying, sir?” he asked, a trace of panic creeping into his voice. “You don’t think this was a natural death?”

  Bob Cundy’s car pulled up behind them and he leapt out. He clapped Joe on the shoulder as he walked up, and Joe looked relieved to see him there.

  “I don’t think so, Sergeant,” replied Alistair. “I think she was poisoned.”

  Both new arrivals looked thunderstruck.

  “Fancy Evans take poison? Nonsense!” rapped out Bob. “Let me take a look.”

  Alistair said nothing else, simply standing back and then following the three men into the house. He watched as Adrien unlocked the library door. The house seemed deserted. In the absence of anyone else, Juliana had gone with the maids to the kitchen. Mrs Fennell was out that afternoon, so Ada was plying both her employer and her friend with strong sugared tea.

  “You have my apologies, Mr Carr,” said Bob Cundy as he straightened up from his exam. “I should not have doubted you.”

  Adrien groaned. “What was it? Do you know?” he asked.

  “I can’t say for sure until there’s an autopsy, but I’ll be surprised if it turns out to be anything other than strychnine. I haven’t seen it many times, but it is unforgettable. Been dead for a couple of hours, I think. Rigor mortis is just setting in, a bit early perhaps, but it’s warm in here. Given the heat of the fire, I’d say death occurred between one and two p.m. Two-thirty at the very outside, although that’s just my opinion, mind.”

  “Lunch was over by one-thirty,” said Adrien. “No one has seen her since.”

  Joe was less interested in the timing of the death than what Bob Cundy had said about it definitely being poison.

  “Strychnine?” he questioned. He leant over the body and sniffed dubiously. “I can’t smell nothing.”

  “That’s cyanide you’re thinking of,” replied Bob absently. “No scent from strychnine, but a bloody awful way to go. I don’t understand it at all.”

  He looked around and spotted a glass on the carpet. He looked over to the sideboard, where the decanters sat. Joe followed his gaze, then picked the glass up carefully using his pocket handkerchief.

  “Bit early for a drink, surely?” Joe asked without thinking. He reddened as he realised what he had said, but there was no anger from anyone, just embarrassment.

  “Oh,” Joe said, understanding. “Not unusual, was it?”

  “I fancied the other day that she had been drinking in the afternoon,” said Alistair slowly. “I wondered then if it was a common thing for her.”

  Adrien coughed. “I suspected it for a while,” he said. “I didn’t know what to say, and in the end I did nothing. She was never out of control.”

  “What do you think, Carr?” asked Bob. This was clearly not news for him. “Giving herself confidence? Frankly, I can’t see Fancy taking poison at all. Why would she do it?”

  “No medical reasons?” questioned Alistair. Bob looked at him in puzzlement, then his face cleared and he shook his head.

  “As far as I know she was in excellent health. I know she thought herself delicate, but really, she was as likely as anyone else to make old bones.”

  “You think she killed herself, Alistair?” asked Adrien, bemused. “Like Bob said, I can’t see Fancy taking strychnine. I doubt she’d even be able to locate any. It’s just not … it’s just not the kind of thing she would do.”

  Alistair was already at the sideboard, looking at the various decanters there. He examined them carefully. One had the stopper lying alongside. He called Adrien over.

  “This decanter is out of place, and there’s a smudge of what smells like some kind of perfumed cream on it. She was in the habit of rubbing a heavily scented lotion into her hands at all hours of the day, wasn’t she?”

  Adrien nodded.

  “Beastly stuff. You could always tell when she’d used it.”

  “There is a faint smell of gardenia on the outside of that decanter. And what looks like a set of smeared fingerprints. Actually, there are some fingerprints on a couple of the other decanters too.”

  The men all crowded around the sideboard.

  “Why would she put lotion on her hands before she killed h
erself? That doesn’t make sense to me. And why would she poison the whole decanter?” asked Joe, looking over the sideboard carefully, making notes in his steady shorthand.

  Alistair was silent for a moment. “I don’t think she would,” he said. “If she had wanted to kill herself, she could have done it just as easily by dropping it straight into a glass. In fact, it would have been easier to judge the dose.”

  Adrien’s face paled as he took in the words and Bob chewed on the stem of his unlit pipe so hard Alistair doubted it would last the afternoon.

  “You mean that someone else put poison in the decanter, knowing that she would drink it?” asked Joe, finally breaking the appalled silence that fell.

  They all looked at each other, dismayed at the idea, but each admitting to himself that it made more sense than Fancy taking the stuff herself.

  “Bit slapdash, don’t you think?” said Bob finally. “How would that person know who would be the first to drink it? Are we dealing with a maniac?”

  He stopped and looked around, then smacked his pipe onto his hand.

  “Actually, you are all creatures of habit in this house,” he exclaimed. “Of course Fancy would be the first to take a drink from there. She’d be the only one to drink from it.”

  Joe looked at him questioningly. Adrien took up the conversation. “You’re right. I prefer whisky. So do you, Alistair. Juliana drinks amontillado, and occasionally a glass of ratafia after dinner. The twins usually mix themselves a cocktail of some kind, and Jamie will take a whisky too. None of the Clevedons take brandy, and they are really the only other people up here regularly.”

  They got no further than this. There was a noise in the hallway and when they reached the door they saw Ada, standing in front of Damaris, blocking her way.

  “You can’t go in there, Miss Damaris,” she said kindly.

  Adrien leaped forward. He pulled Damaris towards him and took her by the arms. She looked utterly bewildered.

  “You must stay out here, Didi. You can’t go in,” he said.

  “Why on earth not? Isn’t tea ready?” she asked, confused. “I don’t have much time, Adrien. I need to get back to the Home tonight.”

  Adrien took a deep breath. “It’s your mother, Didi.” His voice was gentle, but he was holding her firmly.

  She screwed up her face, her eyes cool. “What’s she done this time?” she demanded.

  Adrien swallowed first before answering. “She’s dead.”

  Damaris looked confused, then snorted in disbelief. “Don’t be silly, Adrien. How can she be dead? She was right as rain before lunch. Moaned about life in general so much we made some sandwiches and went up to see Simon instead of face her over the luncheon table. I swear, someone’s going to strangle her one day.”

  She paled as she saw the look on Adrien’s face. “My God, you’re serious, aren’t you? What happened?”

  She sounded nervous now, as if she had just realised that Adrien was not fooling around. She clutched at him, realising something else.

  “Why is Joe Vercoe’s bicycle outside?” she demanded. “What… how did she die?”

  Adrien tried to get her to sit down, but she resisted him. Juliana stepped up to help out, but Damaris stood apart from them both.

  “What happened, Adrien?” Damaris was becoming frantic. “Julie? Tell me!”

  “She took poison, Damaris,” said Alistair quietly. “We are trying to work out exactly what happened.”

  Damaris looked stunned. “She killed herself? Don’t be ridiculous!” she said. “That’s the last thing she would do, you know that!”

  “We don’t know that she did it intentionally, Didi,” replied Adrien. “But she definitely ingested poison. Strychnine, most likely.”

  Damaris looked sick, then turned to the front door, hearing gravel crunching underfoot. “Oh God, Jamie’s just behind me. This will kill him!”

  She ran out, and when Alistair followed her outside, she was standing on the gravel, holding her brother’s face in her hands. It was only now that she began to weep, slow tears that welled up and spilled in bursts down her cheeks. Simon was with them. He stepped up behind Jamie, realising that the man was about to collapse in shock.

  “Mother?” asked Jamie, leaning back against his friend. Simon looked aghast, slipping his arm around Jamie’s shoulder. “How can she be dead? She was full of beans this morning!”

  Damaris stroked his face as he paled under her hands. “She took poison, Jamie,” she said quietly, the tears glinting on her pale cheeks. Alistair wondered whom the tears were for. He was certain they were not for Fancy. “She took strychnine, apparently. We can’t go in. The police are there.”

  Jamie looked horror-struck at his sister’s words. “Strychnine!”

  He of all people would know what strychnine did to a person. He retched and stumbled; he would have fallen if not for Simon’s arm round him.

  “Why would she do that? Why would she drink…?”

  His voice grew hoarse, and tears sprang to his eyes as he pushed his sister away, then Simon. Damaris stood back and looked at Jamie as if she was turned to stone, her eyes wide and afraid. She didn’t move as he turned from one person to the next, looking for reassurance that a mistake had been made.

  The group on the gravel had been joined by Juliana and Adrien. Juliana stepped forward and took Jamie’s hand. He clutched at it and stepped into her arms, dropping his head to her shoulder. She held him rather awkwardly as he clung to her, until she saw Adrien’s face and the relief there. If she could be of comfort to Jamie, then at least she could do that, although she had no idea what to say to him. She had loathed his mother, but Fancy lying dead in the library was not how she had wanted things to be resolved.

  Opposite her, Simon reached for Damaris, who was strained and white-faced. She did not even attempt to go to Jamie again, and shoved Simon away, standing quite alone, her eyes darting oddly around the group. Jamie sobbed quietly in Juliana’s arms as everyone else looked around and realised the same thing. If Fancy had not poisoned herself, as both Damaris and Jamie were insistent that she had not, then someone close to them had. It had been intended to be murder.

  Chapter 23

  The motor ambulance came, and after a brief telephone call, Joe Vercoe advised the crew that they could take Fancy’s body just as soon as he had taken some photographs, but that meant waiting for assistance. The station at Mawnaccan were sending their photographer.

  “Inspector Willett on his way?” asked Alistair.

  Joe turned from the ambulance, where the driver and his mate were now stuffing their pipes and preparing to wait.

  “He can’t come himself,” Joe replied. “He’s over at Truro today, giving evidence at court. There’s a constable from Mawnaccan coming out to help me—he should be here soon.”

  Alistair nodded. At least this would give them some time for the household to recover a little from the enormity of what had happened that afternoon. He had little faith in the inspector’s understanding of a household rocked by what was most probably a murder.

  “I did speak to him, though. He’s given his instructions,” said Joe. “The library is to be locked when I have finished with it, and no one is to go in until he gets here tomorrow morning. I’ll have to ask everyone some questions, I’m afraid, but I’ll be as quick as I can. I need to get back and write this all up for the inspector. Frankly, I’m not sure he believes this was intentional.”

  “I don’t suppose we know how quickly the autopsy will be done?” asked Alistair.

  “He has asked for it to take priority. So by tomorrow afternoon, I expect, depending on what Dr Sinclair has in progress.”

  With that, Sergeant Vercoe went back to the house and sealed himself in the library, joined there by the young constable who turned up a short time later with a black leather bag, a camera and a very large flash. He did not look as though he had been in the job long, but Joe greeted him heartily. He told Adrien in an aside that Constable Dawlish was ve
ry new, but had already proven himself with the camera, which was a good thing as no one else had managed to get the hang of it properly. The two of them shut themselves in the library and beavered away at whatever they had been told to do, with intermittent bangs accompanied by the familiar scent of burning magnesium. Finally they withdrew from the room and Adrien locked the door.

  “Do you want the keys, Sergeant?” he asked.

  Joe took them, looking awkwardly at Adrien as he dropped the keys into his pocket, but Adrien merely clapped him on the shoulder.

  “I understand, Vercoe,” he said. “No one is above suspicion. Those are the only those two keys for this door, mine and the one that is usually kept in the scullery, so the room is safe overnight.”

  Joe gave an awkward smile. “Thank you, sir. Now, given that the death is a suspicious one, I’ve been told I need to take statements from everyone in the house. Constable Dawlish and I will both take them, get them over with quicker. May we use your study?”

  “Of course,” Adrien replied. “Use the morning room, too. That will be quiet. With whom do you want to start?”

  Joe produced a list of the house’s inhabitants and divided the names between himself and Dawlish. They began with Adrien himself, in the study with Joe, and Alistair, with Dawlish, who turned out to be a friendly lad with excellent shorthand and an easy way of asking questions.

  There was nothing particularly taxing about the taking of the statements, simple recitals of movements during the day and the discovery of Mrs Evans’ body. Even with the taking of fingerprints, the policemen were finished and departing by just past eight o’clock. Alistair found Adrien and Bob in the study, and the three drank a glass of whisky together. Alistair noticed that the bottle was a new one, freshly opened. Adrien saw him glance at it and shrugged.

  “Couldn’t bring myself to drink anything that was already opened,” he said.

  “Understandable,” Alistair said. “Although I suspect that this was not a wholesale poisoning attempt. If anything other than the brandy was doctored, I’ll be surprised.”