Carter proceeded to tell everyone that the police had been notified of the outbreak and warned them against consuming anything except for sealed containers of drink. No one was to be unduly alarmed, he assured his listeners. The symptoms of the three victims who had succumbed to food poisoning were undoubtedly treatable. He trailed off by saying he hoped there would be no further occurrences.
“So the cops are coming to investigate food poisoning?” Reggie asked. “Someone said something about arsenic.”
“Arsenic is naturally occurring in shellfish,” Rex interjected truthfully but disingenuously before anyone could react. He did not add that arsenic in its organic form would likely not occur in dangerous doses at one sitting. “But whatever it was, the symptoms are severe. It might behoove us in the meantime to see if we can isolate the source of contamination. I, for instance, had a second helping of prawns without any ill effects—so far.”
Most of the fourteen guests in the hall had partaken of the prawns, it transpired. All had eaten the roast beef with the exception of Jeremy, who was a vegetarian. Everyone present, between them, had eaten everything. An informal survey conducted on the drinks resulted in the same findings. No one acted guilty to Rex’s alert eye, although many of those present appeared understandably nervous. Few at most could have imagined that the wedding reception would end in disaster.
“Polly mentioned something about potions when she was being wheeled out to the ambulance,” Reggie recalled. “She drank champagne.”
“Respectful of her condition, Polly drank only a small amount of champagne,” Rex elaborated. This had been served to the guests upon arrival, randomly. The bottles served at the toasting had been popped open in front of everyone, which precluded anyone from spiking them. “It appears everyone had champagne,” he concluded. “Does anybody have any other ideas?”
“Could Victoria, Polly, and the vicar have consumed anything different?” Tom Willington, Timmy’s boss at the accounting firm, asked Stella Pembleton. A tall, handsome man in his mid forties with silver-threaded sideburns, he was dressed in an impeccable pinstripe suit that could have been tailor made for his athletic physique.
The caterer shook her head resolutely, setting in motion her short gray frizz. “Not unless Mrs. Newcombe offered them something from the family kitchen in the other wing. And I don’t know why she would. Everyone started with a glass of champagne and cheese hors-d’oeuvres. Then it was on to the buffet and cake.”
The cake, Rex mused. Victoria, Polly, and the vicar had eaten the cake, as had Timmy, who was also taken ill. “Who had cake from the top tier?” he asked.
Mrs. Thorpe raised her hand. “I did,” she said, clasping at the fake pearls at her throat.
“If you are feeling okay, don’t worry unduly.”
“I have been feeling a bit wobbly, but my first concern was for Timmy. We’re both fine now.”
“Dudley, did you have cake?” Rex asked.
“Not me.”
“Mr. Carter?”
“I didn’t touch it, as it so happens. Are you suggesting …?”
Rex pensively raised a finger, forestalling the question while he pursued his train of thought. “And Aunt Gwen said something about having sworn off sweets in anticipation of her fiftieth birthday. Who else was served from the top tier?” he asked the guests.
No hands went up. Amber, the maid of honor, said she received the first slice from the second tier, followed by her parents. “The top heart was all gone,” she explained.
“I had seconds,” Reggie told Rex. “Jeremy did too, didn’t you, mate? We were served from the bottom tier.”
“There was loads left,” Jeremy said apologetically.
“Ms. Pembleton, did you have some cake?” Rex inquired.
“Yes. So did Lydia and Rachel. After everyone was served, Mrs. Newcombe offered the staff and DJ a slice.”
Rex turned to Bobby Carter. “Quod erat demonstrandum.”
“The top layer of cake, hmm? You may have something there.”
Especially since the miniature bride and groom seem to have vanished, Rex thought. “Where is Aunt Gwen?” he asked Carter.
Nonplussed, Carter shrugged his shoulders. “Haven’t seen her since … I don’t rightly recall, but I think it was at the cake-cutting. She wasn’t in the tower when I went up to see where the ambulance had got to. Too wet for a stroll in the garden …” He turned to the group in the hall. “Mrs. Gwendolyn Jones from Wales. Short, plumpish woman in a mauve dress. Anyone seen her?”
Nobody had, and the solicitor took off to look for her.
“What do we do now?” a shrill voice demanded from the crowd.
Rex saw the voice belonged to Amber’s mother, the shrewish blonde in the sage green suit. “I suggest we make ourselves as comfortable as possible while we wait for the police.”
“I don’t want to wait,” the woman objected. “Why can’t we leave our names and phone numbers? The police can then contact us at their leisure.”
Murmurs of agreement arose from the guests.
“I don’t think the police will be treating the poisoning in a leisurely manner, Mrs …?”
“Jocelyn Willington. My husband is Timmy Thorpe’s boss.”
“So we’re saying someone deliberately poisoned the cake?” DJ Smoothie spoke for the first time, sitting forward in his seat, gym-sculpted biceps bulging from black T-shirt holes as he rested his elbows on the knees of frayed jeans. “I mean, you don’t usually get that sick from eating cake, not from just one slice. Usually it’s chicken or eggs or summat like that.” Rex noted the DJ’s broad Derbyshire dialect, acutely at odds with the Elvis Presley hair.
“Nothing has been confirmed yet, but process of elimination points to the cake.” And, Rex thought, the onset of symptoms occurred within half an hour of its consumption, which would be about right for acute arsenic poisoning.
The DJ tugged at his dark locks. “Just my bleeding luck. We’ll be here all day and I have another gig later.”
Rex turned his attention back to Mrs. Willington. “It will make their job harder if we all take off home and the police have to track us down individually. And I’m sure we all feel we owe it to our hostess, who invited us here to celebrate her daughter’s wedding, to get to the bottom of this.” Ms. Willington’s sourly pursed lips conveyed she did not feel she owed Victoria Newcombe this huge imposition on her time, though she said nothing. “So perhaps we could confine ourselves to the hall and continue to keep calm,” he suggested.
Any possibility of calm was shattered when Bobby Carter burst into the hall from the door to the caterers’ wing. “Mr. Graves,” he declared. “We need to get the police here at once! Victoria’s collection of antique snuff boxes has gone missing from the upstairs study and Aunt Gwen is nowhere to be found in the house.”
What else could possibly go wrong at a wedding, Rex wondered?
Evil Tidings
Rex wasn’t too concerned about missing snuff boxes at this point. However, upon reflection, it might conceivably shed light on the poisoning. He asked Carter to explain about the alleged theft, and was informed that an assortment of valuable Georgian and early Victorian snuff boxes, many of them exquisite and in some cases unique, had simply vanished.
“Gentlemen in the nineteenth century were fond of snuffing tobacco after dinner with their port and brandy, and liked to show off their boxes,” the solicitor recounted. “Cornelius Newcombe, the founder of Newcombe Court, started the collection. It was added to by Thomas Newcombe. What a damned thing to have happen when poor Victoria and her daughter are laid up in hospital! Perhaps I should try calling again.”
Just then Rex heard the crunch of tires on gravel outside on the driveway. Stella Pembleton opened the door to admit a young constable, who took off his hat and hesitated in front of the expectant gathering.
“Are you by yourself ?” Carter demanded, peering around the policeman.
“Just until reinforcements arrive,” the copper answer
ed gamely, extracting a notepad and pencil from the breast pocket of his uniform. He was a fresh-faced lump of a lad, and Rex thought at first someone might be playing a practical joke, especially when he introduced himself as PC Dimley. In addition, he spoke with braying Midland vowels that made him sound like a yokel. “So what have we here?” he asked.
“We now have a theft of family heirlooms on top of a case of poisoning of some description,” Carter informed him. “The snuff boxes were here this morning. We need a detective.”
“All in good time. Are you Mr. Newcombe?”
“No, I am not, but I feel responsible. I am the Newcombes’ solicitor. The lady of the house is in hospital, along with her daughter and Reverend Snood of All Saints’ Church in Aston. They were taken ill at the wedding reception. Besides which, we have a missing guest—one Gwendolyn Jones—who arrived from Wales this morning.” Carter was practically hyperventilating by now, the quills on his scalp all a-quiver.
“Quite a lot going on then, sir,” PC Dimley agreed, scribbling away on his pad. “Anything else?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“I would say so, sir. If I could just have your name.”
Bobby Carter provided him with that information.
“And this gentleman next to you?” the constable inquired.
“Reginald Graves, QC,” Rex answered. “I came as a wedding guest with my fiancée, Helen d’Arcy, from Derby.”
“Thank you, sir. If we could continue around the room so I can get everyone’s name, home address, and car registration …”
Jocelyn Willington let out an exasperated sigh. “How long is this going to take, Constable?”
“It might be awhile, ma’am. Why don’t you all take a seat?”
The younger guests gravitated toward the massive fireplace on the right and settled around the broad stone lintel propped up by a pair of spiral columns. The older generation gathered around the hearth across the hall. The catering staff huddled farther back, near where the DJ’s equipment stood silent.
While the constable was busy with the staff from Helen’s school, Rex pulled Bobby Carter aside. “How much would the entire collection of snuff boxes fetch?” he asked.
“It’s insured for half a million pounds. There are forty snuff boxes in all. A gold case similar to one in Victoria’s collection, dating back to the 1830s, went to auction at Bonhams in Knightsbridge for forty thousand pounds. When opened, it displayed a rather saucy scene of two couples misbehaving in a garden.” Carter helped himself to a cup of coffee from a large urn on the refreshment table. “It’s uncontaminated,” he assured Rex. “I watched the man open a new tin of Maxwell House and use water from a sealed bottle.” He took a sip and nodded. “Tastes all right.”
“Forty thousand pounds,” Rex mused aloud.
“Another snuff box, engraved in silver, fetched upward of thirty grand. A private investor from Holland acquired that one. Victoria owned several boxes in silver and a painted enamel one that played ‘Greensleeves.’ That’s her favourite.” Carter seemed to recollect himself and frowned. “I suppose the poisoning was planned to create a diversion while the collection was stolen from upstairs.”
“Why not just sneak into the house at night or when the occupants were out?”
“Burglar system. Victoria is paranoid about break-ins. And no one would expect close friends and family to abscond with the family jewels, as it were. Dreadful business.” Carter chugged down more coffee.
“Is it possible Aunt Gwen decided to take what she thought was rightfully hers? She is Tom Newcombe’s sister, after all.”
“She’s never shown any interest in Newcombe Court or its contents. Her late husband left her quite well off. I wonder,” Carter said, knitting his furry brows. “Do you think she was kidnapped?”
“By whom? An intruder would likely have been noticed carting off the antiques, let alone Aunt Gwen. If we are to dismiss her as a suspect, that leaves the other guests and the catering staff.”
“The Pembleton sisters have their reputation to think of.”
“Half a million pounds might compensate for the loss of their reputation,” Rex pointed out. “However, arsenic would be a bit of overkill just to create a diversion. Why not just some defensible bacteria?”
“The waitress and the other people hired for the occasion would be less concerned about a scandal,” Carter reasoned.
“The waitress is Lydia Pembleton’s daughter. Were the snuff boxes kept under lock and key?”
“Many were on display around the living room where the buffet and bar were set up. The most expensive ones were locked in the glass cabinet in the study upstairs. But Victoria put them all in the study last night.”
“I see.” The thief had to have known that some of the boxes had been moved from their original place in the living room, Rex surmised. No one would risk lifting them under the noses of the owner, guests, and catering staff.
Deep in thought, he wandered across the flagstone floor to where the caterers sat awaiting their turn to be questioned by the constable. He pulled a vacant chair next to Stella Pembleton’s. “I’ve been talking to Mr. Carter about the missing snuff box collection.”
Ms. Pembleton sighed in desolation. “I can’t help you any more with that than with the poisoning.”
“I wanted to ask you a few things, to help speed the investigation along.”
“I heard you’re a private detective of sorts. Is that why you’re involved?”
“I developed an interest in this family before anyone was taken ill and long before the snuff boxes disappeared.”
Stella Pembleton contemplated the unadorned hands in her lap. “The family history is rather interesting,” she agreed. “I realized Mrs. Newcombe’s husband wasn’t in the picture when I first came to Newcombe Court a few months ago to discuss preparations for the reception. It was a bit awkward because I didn’t want to ask if he had passed away. I’ve since learned that nobody actually knows for sure what happened to him.”
“Who else among your staff was at Newcombe Court when you came to discuss the reception?”
“My sister. Lydia is responsible for the flowers, so she sees what might be available in the garden and where the floral arrangements should go. She’s the artistic one. I mainly deal with the food and drink and other logistics. We were here again the day before yesterday to finalize the details.”
“What I’m driving at, Ms. Pembleton, is who might have visited the premises ahead of time and seen the contents of the house—most notably, the snuff boxes?”
“Only Lydia and myself. My sister did remark on one of the boxes, a musical one in enamel that was on the mantelpiece, and Mrs. Newcombe obligingly told us about the collection and, rather indiscreetly, I suppose, let slip how valuable it was. I suggested she move all the valuables from the room to avoid damage. I’ve seen it happen before where a drunk guest knocks over a vase or spills red wine on the carpet. Better safe than sorry, I always tell my clients.”
Rex reflected that her client in this case was less than safe and no doubt more than a little sorry. “Anyone else on the outside who might have known about the snuff boxes?”
“I may have mentioned the fact to one of my team.”
“Which one?”
Stella Pembleton shook her head in frustration. “I don’t mean anyone in particular. I just mean that when you are putting an event together, things get said in passing. When we arrived early this morning, the valuables had been moved from the living room per my suggestion. The bartender and buffet attendant set up their stations. Lydia did the flowers while I oversaw the kitchen preparations. Rachel rolled the napkins containing the silverware. I can vouch for Rachel. She’s a hard-working girl who wouldn’t do anything to disgrace her mother.”
“When did the DJ arrive?”
“Just before the guests. He’s often late, but he’s a great success at these events. If we can’t get him, we use another DJ. We carefully vetted DJ Smoothie, the bartender
, and the carver before we employed them. Each came highly recommended.” Stella Pembleton folded her arms tightly across the front of her blouse. “I can’t believe it’s any of them.”
At that juncture, Bobby Carter came up to Rex, his ruddy face two shades paler than when Rex had first met him. “A word in your ear, Mr. Graves,” he murmured. “Bad news, I’m afraid.”
“You mean, more bad news,” Rex corrected him. What, he wondered, could have happened now?
Snuffed Out
Rex thanked Stella pembleton for her time and followed Carter into the cozy living room in the caterers’ wing, out of earshot of the rest of the wedding party.
“PC Dimley got an update from the hospital,” the solicitor said gravely. “Reverend Snood was dead on arrival. It’s touch and go for Victoria. They’ve got her on dimercaprol and are treating her for dehydration. Polly is undergoing an emergency C-section to save the baby. That’s all the constable could tell me, but it’s more than I managed to get from the hospital myself.”
News of the elderly vicar’s death came as a sad shock to Rex, but no great surprise. “Was arsenic poisoning confirmed?”
The solicitor nodded. “The fatal stuff. Fast acting. Arsenic trioxide.”
Rex nodded, troubled to have been proved right. He wondered how much of it had passed through the mother’s placenta into the unborn child. “I am so very sorry.” He placed a hand on Carter’s shoulder. “The child won’t be very premature, though.”
“No, that much is fortunate. Polly was eight months along.” Carter roused himself. “What do you know about arsenic trioxide?”
“That it comes in a white powder, and is odorless and tasteless, so would have been a piece of cake to put in the cake—if you’ll forgive the pun.”
Carter regarded him as though he might be a little mad, but stress sometimes made Rex veer into levity, and gallows humor when the occasion prompted. “Where can you get it?” the solicitor asked.
Murder of the Bride Page 6