The Dead Woman Who Lived

by Endellion Palmer

  After coffee, Alistair joined Juliana and Adrien in the study and related to them his visit to Torewaith Farm that morning.

  “Mrs Black confirmed an accident to Gwenna’s wrist when she was younger,” he said. “She is grieving, but relieved to have an answer now. Her husband is torturing himself with remorse over his treatment of his daughter.”

  “I remember seeing Jago with Gwenna when she was small,” said Adrien. “He thought the sun rose and fell with his daughter.”

  Alistair left to go to the Island, invited down by Geoffrey to look at old maps of the district. Juliana was wielding the poker on the fire and turned to comment to Adrien [5]when there was a muffled scream from upstairs, then the violent ringing of a bell. Adrien shot off his seat as the noise rang out. They scrambled to find the source and arrived at the same time as Ada, who had scrambled up the back stairs, still clutching a dishtowel in one hand and a saucepan in the other. Damaris was in the doorway to Jamie’s room, her face white with shock.

  “I can’t wake him up,” she gasped as they followed her into the room. “I think he’s taken something!”

  Jamie was lying on his bed, as pale as the bed sheets around him, as lifeless as the iron of the frame. Adrien lifted one of his eyelids and looked at Damaris.

  “He’s been drugged, definitely,” he said shortly. “Ada, call Dr Cundy immediately. Tell him it’s life or death.”

  Ada was halfway down the stairs at full tilt before the final words had left his lips, the saucepan banging on the walls as she ran. With the noise echoing back up the stairwell, he turned to Damaris and shook her sharply.

  “Snap out of it, Didi!” he said roughly. “This is no time to panic. What should we do?”

  Damaris snapped back to her senses. Her face was milk-white, broken only by two spots of red high on her cheeks.

  “He can’t have taken it too long ago. I spoke to him not much more than fifteen minutes ago and he was fine then. He was carrying that.”

  She pointed to the empty cup on his bedside table.

  “I think we should try a gastric lavage. It’s the only thing I can do that might help. Get me the mustard from downstairs. Juliana, get me a basin.”

  Adrien was off as soon as she spoke, following the same route taken by Ada a minute previously. Juliana brought a deep enamel basin from the bathroom and continued to talk to Jamie, chafing his hands and shaking him. A rapidly calming Damaris called instructions from next door, returning with a piece of red rubber tubing and a jug of hot water at the same time as Adrien came back with a silver pot. He put it on the bedside table and went downstairs to wait for Bob.

  “This is not going to be pleasant,” Damaris said through gritted teeth. With shaking hands she set about vigorously mixing the mustard and water. “Julie, are you ready? Get him over the side.”

  The lavage worked well, and five minutes later Damaris repeated it. They were still holding Jamie’s prone, limp body over the basin when Bob Cundy raced through the door. He took in the situation in one practiced glance.

  “I’m here now, Juliana,” he said, shooing her out of the door. “Damaris and I can cope together. If we need anything we’ll call you.”

  He turned to Damaris and put his hand on her shoulder. The steadying influence was what she needed, and she looked gratefully up at him as she continued to support Jamie with her shoulder, and kept her fingers on his wrist.

  “Good girl, Didi,” said Bob, lifting Jamie a little as he took Juliana’s place. “Let’s try that again and then I’ll inject him. Any response at all?”

  “His pulse is a little stronger,” was the strained reply. “I’m so glad you are here, Uncle Bob. Don’t let him die, please!”

  Juliana left the room and slumped down in the corridor beside Adrien. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she buried her face in his shoulder.

  “What is happening, Adrien?” she mumbled, too shocked even to cry. Her heart was pounding beneath her ribs, and her fear was reflected back in her husband’s face. “I can’t bear it. Fancy was bad enough, but Jamie…”

  “He’s going to be all right,” he said. “Bob’s here now, and he won’t let Jamie die. Oh, Jules, what have I brought you back to? You need to leave, at least until this is sorted out.”

  She sat up at this and shook him hard.

  “Don’t say that. This is where I belong. With you, no matter what is happening.”

  They were interrupted by Alistair. They could hear him as he took the stairs two at a time and then raced along the corridor towards them.

  “Jamie? Poisoned?” he panted. “I came back up to get a book for Geoffrey and Ada told me.”

  Juliana nodded, her eyes hard and bright. Alistair saw the tension lying just under her skin, she was practically vibrating.

  “He is unconscious. Damaris found him. She and Bob are trying to revive him right now.”

  “What are they doing?” asked Alistair.

  “Gastric lavage,” said Adrien. “Bob has an injection ready too. Poor soul sounds like he’s being turned inside out.”

  A faint gurgle and splash from inside the room came at exactly the right time to emphasise Adrien’s point.

  “Good,” said Alistair. “That, unfortunately, is how it goes. His best chance.”

  “I shouldn’t think there’s much left inside him now,” Juliana said with a shudder.

  Alistair nodded and squatted down next to them. “What was it?” he asked. “What did he take?”

  Adrien looked at him over Juliana’s hair, and shook his head. His eyes were bleak and despite his assurances to his wife, he looked hopeless.

  “We don’t know. He was unconscious when we got there. Perhaps it was in his coffee. His cup was beside the bed.”

  “Was there no bottle or paper or… anything like that?”

  Juliana looked up at him, her eyes thoughtful.

  “There was nothing like that next to his bed. An empty cup. His reading lamp. Some pencils and a notebook. Nothing else.”

  They all looked at each other, and Alistair looked worried as the other two caught his meaning.

  “Nothing in his room? In the bathroom?”

  “Not that I noticed,” she replied. “It all looked much as I remembered.”

  Adrien was about to say something when Bob Cundy stepped wearily from the bedroom and leaned back against the wall. He tried several times to strike a match, finally lighting a cigarette with a shaking hand.

  “He has been extremely lucky,” he said, with a heartfelt relief. “If Damaris hadn’t started on him before I got here, I’m not sure we’d have made it. He’ll do now, with any luck. But he is not going to feel well at all for the next day or so!”

  The light-heartedness of his words was belied by the shake in his voice. He drew heavily on the smoke, while the others looked at each other, encouraged by his words.

  “Any idea as to what it was, Bob?” asked Adrien, getting to his feet and stretching himself out painfully as his bad leg throbbed underneath him.

  “Other than it was some kind of sedative, no,” was the reply.

  “Not the same as Fancy, then?” asked Juliana.

  Alistair said nothing but listened keenly to the doctor. He already knew the answer to this, but was thinking madly as they sat there.

  “Positively not. This wasn’t strychnine,” said Bob. “If it was, he’d be dead. If I had to make a guess, then chloral hydrate, perhaps?”

  He paused here and stiffened, going pale, as if what had taken place had only just hit him. He gulped audibly.

  “Dear God, the thought of having to tell Simon that Jamie had died…” His voice tailed off as the thought expressed itself, and his eyes reflected his horror.

  “Chloral?” Alistair asked, turning and looking at Dr Cundy.

  He nodded. “It’s a pretty good bet. Didi, what did he have?”

  “There’s a box of pheno in our bathroom,” said Damaris, poking her head out of the door briefly as she bundled soiled l
inen to be taken away. “He only takes one occasionally. That box has been there for ages. Nothing out of the ordinary, just the usual cachets. And there’s another bottle, that was chloral, I think. Little green one, stuck in the corner behind the pheno. Red label.”

  “Full?” asked Bob.

  “I think so. I don’t think he had used it much. He was always very wary of it. Now we know he had reason to be.”

  Juliana frowned as Damaris slipped back into Jamie’s room.

  “He had the powders you left, Bob, one each night. I gave them to him myself. But I remember, he did mention something else when I talked to him before. Something stronger, for when he really needed rest.”

  “I prescribed him some, a couple of years ago,” said Bob slowly. “Green bottle, red label. It sounds like the same bottle that it would have been dispensed in.”

  Adrien said nothing but left the room and slipped into the bathroom. Juliana could barely breathe. They all sat in silence. When he reappeared he shook his head.

  “Box of pheno, as Didi said. There’s absolutely nothing else there, either in his room or in the bathroom. But there’s a mark on the paint in the cabinet, right behind the box. Like a smallish bottle has been there for ages and never moved.”

  They all looked at each other.

  “So, chloral?” mused Alistair.

  “Isn’t that a little old-fashioned now?” asked Adrien.

  “It still works,” said Bob with a sigh. “I’d forgotten that I gave that to Jamie when he was really having trouble sleeping a couple of years ago. Although I remember now that I gave it, along with very strict instructions as to its use. Could he have taken it accidentally? There was whisky in him for sure. Had he taken much alcohol today?”

  “We had a glass of wine with lunch,” remembered Adrien. “He was looking peaky and I though he needed to relax. No one was very hungry, but we all had a glass of wine. Then coffee afterwards, and he and I had some whisky in our coffee. In fact, that cup by his bed looks like the one he had in the drawing room. He must have brought it up after lunch.”

  Juliana remembered him going back into the library after she left him in the hall. She wondered if he had been going for a refill, and said as much now.

  “Well, that would explain it,” said Bob. “Taken with alcohol, chloral is a disaster waiting to happen. He must have misjudged it, that’s all.”

  Alistair looked around the group. He didn’t want to bring it up, but they had to move quickly now.

  “Then where is the bottle?” asked Alistair. “If he had taken it himself, would it not be somewhere nearby? On the side table, on his desk, or in the bathroom? You don’t wander about the house looking for somewhere to take a dose of chloral. Either as a suicide attempt or merely as a sleeping aid. You would take it where you mean to sleep. There doesn’t seem to be a trace of a bottle of chloral in his room, or the bathroom.”

  Bob choked on the smoke from the end of his cigarette, and Juliana looked shocked.

  “You mean, it was given to him? Someone tried to poison him?”

  Juliana looked sick as she finished her questions. She already knew the answer. Someone had tried to kill Jamie.

  “I should phone the police if I were you,” Alistair said. “I don’t think this was an accident. This was deliberate. And I don’t mean suicide.”

  “I’ll call Vercoe and get him to organise what is necessary,” Adrien said. “Bob, will you check under Jamie’s bed, and the mattress, as far as you can and see if you find anything there?”

  “May I check these rooms for myself while you go to call?” Alistair asked. “Damaris’ room included.”

  Juliana opened her mouth to protest, but Adrien ignored her and nodded. Bob had already gone back into Jamie’s room.

  “Start there,” Adrien replied to Alistair’s question. “You can go anywhere you want. If anyone complains, tell them it’s under my orders. But be quick. I’m not sure how long you will have before the police get here.”

  Alistair slipped quickly into Damaris’ room. He looked around. It would not take long. The room was simply furnished and he moved methodically around, checking under the mattress and pillow, under the bed frame itself, then the bedside table, the chest of drawers and the small wardrobe tucked in the corner. He checked pockets and shoes, running his hands carefully around the perimeter of drawers and shelves. Lastly he checked the room itself, but the walls and floor seemed sound. No loose floorboards, or useful hidey-holes. He turned to the bathroom and made a quick and careful check around the room, going so far as to open the window and lean out, craning his head to see over to Jamie’s window, almost reached by the apple tree branches, and Damaris’ own. Both were open to the breeze, but he noticed something curious about the sill outside Jamie’s room.

  Minutes later, he slipped back out into the hallway. Adrien was back, looking sick and pale.

  “Vercoe nearly had a fit when I told him. I thought he was going to choke to death on the other end of the phone. He’s getting hold of the inspector and they will be here soonest.”

  “Make sure Bob forbids them to disturb Jamie,” said Alistair suddenly. “Willett’s perfectly capable of having Jamie moved so he can check under the mattress.”

  “I will do so. Bob checked under the mattress, and the rest of the room. There was nothing there. Wherever that stuff came from, it’s gone now.”

  ***

  With the arrival of the police, any pretence at normality vanished. Joe Vercoe arrived first, looking appalled as he raced up the drive again on his bicycle, dismounting at speed and throwing the bike against the wall in his haste to get inside. Joe turned to Juliana and gave a half-bow before speaking.

  “Mr Jamie? Is he still…?”

  His voice broke before he could end the sentence, and Juliana took his big hand in her own. His obvious distress made her like him even more. She was reassuring, finding strength within her that she had not suspected she owned.

  “He is out of danger, we think. Dr Cundy is with him, and his sister too.”

  Joe looked relieved as a rash of sweat broke out on his brow. Adrien quickly outlined what they thought had happened, including the fact that there was no definable method of transporting the drug to be found.

  “You’ve looked, have you?”

  Alistair had spent the intervening half hour going through the house and came upon the group in the hall in time to hear this.

  “I’ve had as thorough a look as I could,” he replied, “although I wouldn’t tell Inspector Willett that.”

  Joe gave a half-smile.

  “I can’t find the bottle that Damaris told us about,” Alistair continued. “She says it has been in the cabinet there for ages, but she says she really cannot remember the last time she definitely saw it. Now, this is a large house, and an old one. I’m sure there are hiding places that few people know about. But I couldn’t find the thing.”

  “Miss Damaris knew about it?” Joe asked.

  “Dr Cundy prescribed chloral a couple of years ago. Damaris says that the bottle has been in their bathroom cabinet since then, and hasn’t moved. There is a mark where such a bottle has definitely spent a lot of time, but the bottle itself has gone.”

  Adrien was precise and clear in his speech, although his face was anxious.

  “I think there is every chance that just about everyone involved in this entire circus knew about it,” he said. “I remember Bob prescribing him something myself. Jamie was having terrible insomnia and he went to consult Bob. It wasn’t a secret. Everyone knew he was having problems.”

  “If I might suggest something, Sergeant Vercoe,” said Alistair. Joe turned to him eagerly. “No one has searched the gardens yet. It is entirely possible that the bottle was thrown out of the window in order to be rid of it.”

  Joe nodded, frowning.

  “I’ll get on to it as soon as Inspector Willett arrives,” he said. “He’ll no doubt order a thorough search.”

  “Dr Cundy has forbidd
en any disturbance of Jamie, at all,” added Adrien. “I can assure you that his room has been thoroughly searched, both by myself and Dr Cundy. There is no trace of a bottle anywhere in there. As far as the rest of the house goes, you may search where you like.”

  At that moment Inspector Willett’s car drew up on the gravel, and he was followed into the house by three uniformed officers. For the next two hours, nowhere in the house was sacred, apart from Jamie’s bedroom, where Bob Cundy stood guard, refusing point-blank to let anyone in where the sick man lay. The inspector was annoyed, but softened upon Bob’s swearing to have searched the room himself. Juliana, overhearing the exchange as she brought fresh towels up for Damaris, only just managed to avoid a smirk as the inspector backed down and took himself off instead to direct operations elsewhere.

  Afterwards, Willett had a long talk with Alistair, oddly subdued for once, and together they constructed a timeline for the day. Alistair told him everything he knew about the provision of chloral in the house, and for once the inspector simply listened. Adrien was called in and added what he knew, and between them they had a good idea of the movements of everyone in the house. With that, Willett collected two of his men and retreated, bidding the speedy communication of any deterioration in Jamie’s condition. He left the third constable on guard at the front door.

  Once Constable Frederick had been installed in the hall, Bob sent Damaris downstairs with Juliana.

  “Go and get a cup of tea, Didi. You need a break. I’ll stay with him for another half hour and then you can take over while I get back to the surgery.”

  Juliana insisted that Damaris come downstairs with her, recognising that Bob was right, and that the girl needed to sit down for a while. Adrien and Alistair were in the library with Helena, who brought Damaris a cup of tea, the colour returning faintly to her cheeks as the hot drink and a piece of bread and butter insisted upon by Helena did their work. Finally Alistair sat opposite her.