Methylated Murder

by Methylated Murder (retail) (epub)

  “You know my feelings on that point, Henry,” said Harrison.

  “I know, sir. You don’t like people acting on their own. Your army can have only one general, and when he has worked out the plan of campaign nobody else must monkey with it.”

  “A perfect exposition, Henry.”

  “And it has worked, sir; I’ve seen that. Lord, the well-meaning amateurs who thought they could improve on your ideas, they soon knew what was what.”

  “I don’t think we need go into that, Henry,” said Harrison. “What have you been up to?”

  “When I left home this morning, sir,” said Henry, “I began to think about Mrs. Cant—you know how one muses as one walks along. And I began to get rather worried about her. I don’t even know what the woman looks like, so you can’t blame me for being impressionable about it, but I just felt worried about her and the dragon. You said I might have to work out a plan. So, without taking an actual decision, I found myself calling at the house.”

  “Very wise, Henry,” commented Harrison.

  “I’m glad you feel like that about it, sir,” said Henry, gratefully. “But I am sorry to say I am not certain whether it was very wise, as you say.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, sir, the dragon came to the door, and when she saw me she was full of smiles and invited me in. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Of course, you went in.”

  “Yes, sir, I did, but I was afraid all the time it might be some kind of a trap. I don’t know still. And I wondered all the time what you would have done in the same position.”

  “My curiosity would have forced me to find out.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “And what happened?”

  “She said she thought she could trust me, and she must speak to somebody. It was getting on her nerves. Mrs. Cant was very docile, but refused to talk at all. I asked her where Mrs. Cant was. She said she hoped she was asleep but, at any rate, she had locked her in her room for safety’s sake.”

  “What did you say to that, Henry?” asked Harrison, with a twinkling eye.

  “I gave it her good and strong,” said Henry.

  “Just what I expected you would do.”

  “But she took it, sir,” went on Henry. “Took it like a lamb. She said it was hard to make other people understand. She knew all about mental cases, and Mrs. Cant wasn’t likely to come to any harm from her. No, it wasn’t Mrs. Cant who was getting on her nerves, either, it was the people who engaged her. She was an honest woman and hoped she would continue so to her last breath. She had never been in a funny case, and she wasn’t going to start. She had a feeling that this was a funny case, though she had nothing to go on. Except, of course, that we were nosing around; she said that.”

  “She doesn’t like detectives?”

  “That’s what she said, sir; she was a respectable woman and knew her place, and it certainly wasn’t being spied on by detectives. Would I mind telling her why we were nosing around? It sounded such a simple effort to pump me that I nearly roared with laughter. I said, rather sarcastically, I am afraid, that Mr. Bonnington would be pleased to hear all about it from her. Then she said she trusted Bonnington less than she trusted me.”

  “Another favourite method, Henry,” said Harrison.

  ‘‘1 know, sir,” answered Henry. “And the obvious answer was to ask her why. Then she drew her chair up close to mine and started to explain. Mr. Bonnington had called the previous evening—”

  “She knows Bonnington, of course?”

  “Well, she said the man who had engaged her, and she assumed it was Mr. Bonnington. The same man called and had a long talk with Mrs. Cant. He sent the dragon out of the room, but that didn’t surprise her. What did surprise her was Mrs. Cant’s state after he had gone. She seemed to be getting over a great shock, and to be absolutely worn out by the interview. The dragon said it was quite uncanny. Mrs. Cant didn’t say much. She seemed terribly calm, as if she had made up her mind to do something very unpleasant. When she went to bed she said good night to the dragon and added something which sounded to her like being nearly the last time, but what a price to pay for it.”

  “Did the dragon know what she meant, Henry?” asked Harrison.

  “She said that made her very suspicious, sir,” answered Henry. “She was used to mentals, she was. And to mentals’ relations, too, for that matter. And I could call her a Dutch-man if that didn’t mean dirty work. They had threatened her with something, something she would have to do if she didn’t want to be put away. And she had agreed because she thought it was the only way out. The dragon didn’t like such goings-on and that was that. Then she asked me if Mrs. Cant had any money.”

  “Why?”

  “She leaned right on top of me and blew down my ear in explaining, sir. ‘If she has, you mark my words, that Bonnington wants to marry her,’ she said.”

  “That’s a surprise, Henry,” said Harrison.

  “I kept my face, sir,” was the reply, “and said she could set her mind at rest. Mrs. Cant hadn’t any money. Then she blew still harder, and said it was worse than she thought. She could tell, she could; she had had enough to do with men to know something about them, and when it came to women they were all alike, only she thought she preferred the mentals, because they said openly what they wanted. And Mrs. Cant was good-looking enough for any man, poor thing.”

  “Is she imaginative, Henry, or is there something in it?”

  “Well, sir, I’m inclined to think there is. The dragon is not nearly as fierce on a second impression. Quite human, in fact. I think her attitude is that she’s an honest mental nurse. She’ll watch a patient till all is blue, that’s her duty. But if there’s any hanky-panky about it she’s not going to be involved in it—again till all is blue. She said she’d talked to me for safety’s sake. If everything was all right, it wouldn’t matter, and if it wasn’t, then she’d had a witness that she didn’t stand for dirty work.”

  “She didn’t ask you any more questions?”

  “No, sir, that rather surprised me.”

  “It suggests she is honestly scared, Henry, doesn’t it?” said Harrison. “You must go on keeping an eye on her.”

  “I promised her that, sir,” said Henry. “I said I’d go in each morning, if she liked, just as I had done today. She was very grateful. Of course, sir, that is, if you agree?”

  “An excellent idea, Henry.”

  “What’s their game, sir?”

  “It will take time to fit in, Henry,” answered Harrison. “All I can see at present is that Mr. Bonnington is leaving about an embarrassing wealth of traces for us to follow up. It is most unusual to find anyone cropping up in such odd ways in an investigation as our Mr. Bonnington seems to be doing.”

  By this time they were driving down a side road which was marked as leading them to Hested. At the end of it they found an inn which seemed to stand right across the roadway. When they reached it, they found that the road went round it at a very sharp angle so as to unsight all traffic and make it an unnecessarily dangerous corner.

  “If the rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road, Henry,” said Harrison, “this was one of his exceptionally intoxicated efforts. I think we come to rest on this side and inquire about lunch.”

  The inn was a quiet one and they found the landlord, is happy-looking countryman, ready to provide luncheon and equally ready to gossip. He showed them into a pleasant-looking parlour at the back of the inn, looking on to a yard, where poultry wandered in and out of unenclosed sheds, and gladly joined them in a drink ordered by Harrison.

  “Been in these parts before, sir?” he asked.

  “No,” said Harrison, “I know Surrey pretty well.”

  “Surrey,” sniffed the landlord, “I never can understand why they praise up Surrey the way they do. Pretty in its way, I admit, but give me Kent every time.”

  “And Hested, into the bargain?” asked Harrison.

  “Well, sir,” e
xplained the landlord, “there’s not many more pretty villages in the country than Hested, I’ll take my oath. You will say so yourself when you’ve had a look at it.”

  “I may be very ignorant,” said Harrison, laughing, “but not so that I haven’t heard of Hested.”

  “I’m not surprised, sir,” said the landlord, gravely.

  “But most people who have been here talk about the caves more than anything else,” said Harrison.

  “Yes, they’re pretty famous, in their way,” said the other. “They make a fine show place, and all the week-enders and parties must go and see them. I’m not saying they’re not interesting, mark you, sir,” he broke off, and then said, “Why, what’s the matter?”

  Harrison was staring out of the window, paying no attention at all to the landlord’s last remarks. He was looking at a man of almost gigantic stature who had come into the yard. Dressed in typical farm labourer’s clothing, the man seemed to dominate the whole of his surroundings. The awkwardness of his movements emphasised the physical strength he must possess without entirely realising its extent.

  “What a huge fellow,” said Harrison.

  “Big, isn’t he?” said the landlord with pride. “You don’t see people like him walking about the streets of London, I expect? That’s Clem. Big though he is, he’s as gentle as a lamb.”

  Even as the landlord spoke, the rather ungainly Clem came nearer to the window, and Harrison was able to see him, full-faced. He had a kindly, rather simple look, stupidly placid, but with eyes which suggested continual surprise. “I shouldn’t like to get up against him, all the same,” said Harrison.

  “You couldn’t get up against our Clem,” commented the landlord, emphatically. “Of course, he doesn’t understand much. You can’t have everything. When nature does a job like that she puts more work into the body than the head, as the saying is. But Clem’s all right. You bet he’s all right.”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Harrison. “How rude of me. You were telling us about the caves.”

  “So I was, sir,” answered the landlord. “As I was saying. They’re a great show and if you pay your sixpence you can see them on a Saturday and Sunday.”

  “With a guide, I suppose?”

  “Of course. You’d lose yourself soon enough without one. Some idiots have tried exploring them, but they only did it once. Not recently either, for nowadays the entrance is kept locked, and if you go round with a guide he keeps his eye on you all right.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the landlord. “Not only because you can lose yourself quickly enough, but there’s water in them besides. They say there’s a river in them, and that it runs underground right to the sea.”

  “Have you seen it yourself?” asked Harrison.

  “No.”

  “Has anyone?”

  “Not that I know.”

  “Maybe it’s only a local legend,” said Harrison.

  “It’s more than that,” indignantly cried the landlord. “My grandfather saw it. He never said it in so many words, but I’m ready to swear he did. This place was very popular in his time for its brandy—and no duty paid on it either. Putting two and two together, sir, I tell you that brandy never came over the land.”

  “You mean it came here by the underground river?”

  “That’s just what I do mean,” said the landlord. “You’d be surprised what those old smugglers got up to. And they knew their caves, too. They didn’t need a guide to show them in and see them out again. Why, my old grandfather used to say that he could give us children the shock of our lives by disappearing into the earth all round Hested.”

  “By which he meant there was more than one way into the caves, I suppose?” said Harrison.

  “That’s it, sir,” was the reply. “He used to frighten us at the time, but now I see he meant just what you say.”

  “But nobody knows where they are now?” asked Harrison.

  “Bless you no, sir,” said the landlord. “I expect I’m the only person who has ever heard tell about it.”

  The landlord retired to see to the arrangements for their lunch, while Henry remarked that his last statement showed a lack of humour. His willingness to talk must have spread his knowledge to every part of the country from which visitors might have come to Hested and stood him a drink.

  Harrison was again very inattentive to conversation addressed to himself, and was now standing by the window, looking out with the greatest interest.

  “The gentleman named Clem seems very impressed by our visit,” he said, turning to Henry. “Out of the tail of my eye I have noticed that he has been watching us ever since he came into the yard, and now he is deep in talk with the landlord, and I think we may assume that we are the topic of conversation.”

  Within a few moments the landlord was back in great excitement.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but surely you are not Mr. Clay Harrison, the great detective?”

  Harrison nodded, although slightly annoyed at such recognition.

  “Then Hested is indeed honoured,” cried the landlord. “I’m proud to welcome you here, sir. You shall have the best lunch we can provide”; and he forthwith departed again.

  “We don’t like honouring Hested in that way, do we, Henry?” asked Harrison.

  “We certainly don’t,” was the reply. Henry was about to add to it, but his master was obviously very far away again, and so nothing was said until the appearance of food.

  The appetising smell seemed to improve the spirits of both of them, and Henry was even more cheered by the sight of two large tankards filled to overflowing.

  As they settled down, Harrison raised his tankard and said solemnly to Henry, “Bacchus first, we must never risk his jealous anger.”

  Even, however, as the tankard reached his lips, Harrison made a wry face and put it down on the table again, untouched.

  “What’s the matter, sir?” cried Henry.

  “Don’t drink it,” answered Harrison, sniffing at his own. “I have known very bitter beer, but nothing like this, Henry. There’s something queer about it.”

  “Tampered with, sir?”

  “Exactly.”

  “It does smell strange, sir,” said Henry, testing his own tankard.

  “Arsenic, Henry, if I’m not mistaken. A dose sufficient to kill about fifty people—or I should never have been able to spot it.”

  “Looks bad, sir.”

  “It looks very bad, Henry. Of course, I can’t be sure, but somebody seems rather keen on helping us out of this world in the quickest possible time?”

  “That means we were expected, sir,” said Henry.

  “And unwelcome,” added Harrison. “But we must do something about the beer. Don’t you think that aspidistra would like a little arsenic tonic?”

  “Takes a lot to poison an aspidistra, sir,” said Henry, pouring the contents of his tankard into the earth round the plant. “May give it a new lease of life, one never knows.”

  Meanwhile Harrison had taken out a handkerchief and dipped a corner of it into his own beer. “Now you can pour mine away, Henry,” he said. “I thought it best to keep a sample for analysing when we get home.”

  “How will you carry it, sir?”

  “A cigarette case would do, Henry, only I never carry one. What about yours?”

  “Well, sir,” hesitated Henry.

  “Come, come, Henry,” said Harrison, “it won’t do it any harm.”

  “It’s not that, sir,” and Henry blushed a little as he produced the object in question. It was of the type seen in most small tobacconists on the Continent, a feast to the eye in the window, but seldom a temptation to the pocket. Its main attraction was a highly-coloured picture of an unclothed and Rubensly ample-limbed maiden, the shining enamel giving the lady’s flesh tints an even more startling effect.

  “Really, Henry,” said Harrison, with a smile.

  “Moulin, the Belgian detective, insisted on giving it to me as a souvenir
of Brussels, sir, after our last case there. I couldn’t refuse it.”

  “Why apologise,” said Harrison, turning out the cigarettes and replacing them with the stained portion of the handkerchief. “It’s very artistic and very useful, at the moment.”

  When the landlord reappeared to remove the dishes, for he insisted on attending upon them himself, he made special inquiries as to their enjoyment of the beer.

  “A local brew,” he added. “Stronger than you Londoners are used to.”

  “Rather more bitter than I like,” said Harrison, eyeing the man keenly.

  “But good all the same,” said the landlord, enthusiastically. “I can see you enjoyed it, too, for neither of you has left a drop.”

  Even as he spoke, Harrison felt certain there was some person near the door of the room listening for this very news.

  Chapter XV

  Manners And Women

  “Why can’t he come here?” asked Dorice Locket, petulantly.

  “You know very well why he can’t,” answered her sister, Rose, in an even tone.

  “It’s getting on my nerves,” announced Dorice, disconsolately burrowing among the cushions of the divan.

  She was still dressed in her scanty negligée, but the effect was now the reverse of alluring. The sun was pouring into the apartment through the open windows and gave a hideously unreal air to the tawdry Oriental surroundings. The colours which might have had a certain gay attraction in the half-light which pleased Mr. Frances Manners looked unpleasantly garish when thus exposed. The divan, with its piled-up cushions, looked monstrously vulgar and almost obscene, while the very unclothed figure lying upon it was more that of a slattern than of the favourite of a pasha. Apart from her clothing, Dorice’s hair was unkempt, her make-up patchily applied, and her hands uncared-for.

  “Pretty lucky for you he isn’t coming here,” said Rose, who was herself trimly dressed in a well-fitting costume. “A nice sight you look. Why can’t you pull yourself together and try, at any rate, to look respectable.”

  “Why should I?” wailed Dorice. “I tell you, I’m going to pieces.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” was the sharp retort.