Requiem for a Mezzo

by Carola Dunn

  “Oh no, Alec! It must have been someone who couldn’t get close to Bettina in private. Why should Muriel murder her sister at the Albert Hall when she could have done it much more easily at home?”

  “Ernie?”

  “Because this way gives us lots more suspects, Chief?”

  “Exactly.”

  “If she was clever enough to think of that,” Daisy protested, “she’d be clever enough not to leave all those fingerprints on the decanter. And by the way, what was all that fuss about a cup of tea? The poison was in the ratafia, not tea, wasn’t it?”

  “Abernathy took a cup to Bettina but she didn’t want it,” Alec explained.

  “Oh, that’s happened to me at formal tea-parties. One stands there with the wretched cup and saucer in one’s hands, wondering what to do with it, before one finally decides to abandon it. Alec, listen. The Reverend Westlea poured the sherry before dinner, and guess what he did? He took the top off the decanter like this.” She held out her right hand palm up, a gap between forefinger and the other three. “You see? With the neck of the stopper between his fingers he wouldn’t have left any prints.”

  “That’s what Gower did! Something caught my attention but I wasn’t sure what.”

  “Which means Muriel didn’t do it.”

  “It means nothing of the sort,” Alec said dampingly, “but I admit it does open other possibilities. Definitely worth keeping Ernie and me up late for.”

  “It’s not very late.”

  “Not now, but while you’re dropping off to sleep, Ernie will be typing and I’ll be studying chemical lab reports and autopsy reports.”

  “Ugh.” She screwed up her nose.

  “You may hear them yourself. You’ll be at the inquest, I take it?”

  “No,” said Daisy regretfully. “I have some work I simply must finish tomorrow morning. Too, too tiresome!”

  The reams of obscure medical terminology of the autopsy report boiled down to no more than that the symptoms observed were consistent with death by cyanide poisoning. Alec had an uneasy feeling about it. He reread the statements taken from the three doctors who had offered their services at the Albert Hall. Dr. Woodward had suggested Bettina might have had a seizure, and now she turned out to be his patient, and there was this odd business of his wanting her prescription returned.

  Woodward would probably clear it all up in the morning. All the same, Alec wished Dr. Renfrew had not gone off to the Italian Riviera.

  Rubbing his tired eyes, he turned to the report from the forensic laboratory. The carpet and the slivers of broken glass had provided too little material to be tested. The dregs in the decanter were scarcely better. A trace of cyanide was detected, but not enough to tell if the concentration was strong enough to kill.

  Hydrocyanic acid, also known as prussic acid, was a natural constituent of almonds, and of the peach, apricot, or cherry stones often used to make almond-flavored liqueurs. Another of these, noyau, had caused at least one accidental death when the oil of bitter almonds, risen to the top of a bottle left sitting for years, had been poured out in the first glassful. Though the present case was different, as the ratafia had been decanted, it all went to show that the trace of cyanide found meant precisely nothing.

  Alec groaned. The almond smell from the decanter could have been just the liqueur. Therefore the poison might have been put in Bettina’s glass. If so, did it make any difference to anything? Did the almond smell from the broken glass and spilled liquid mean equally little? No, with his own eyes he had seen Bettina drink from that glass and drop dead.

  “Mr. Fletcher?” The Inspector from Fingerprints put his head round the door. “I’m glad to see you’re keeping yourself up late, sir, as well as me.”

  “You’ve compared the dabs?” Alec asked eagerly.

  “Here’s the darkroom prints, and here’s the Albert Hall lot. All checked against the ones you brought in, sir, and I’ve labelled ’em, like so.”

  Everyone’s fingerprints were precisely where Alec expected them to be—and nowhere else. He sighed. “Thanks. Can you tell whether someone took out the stopper of the decanter this way?” He demonstrated Daisy’s discovery.

  “I might be able to tell if it’s been done, but there’s no way to identify who did it.”

  “Right. Try it for me, please, but it can wait till morning. I’m off home to bed.”

  Too tired to drink the cocoa his mother had left him in a Thermos flask, Alec was up in the morning in time to have breakfast with his mother and Belinda before she went to school. At nine, his daughter was putting on a spurt of growth, and he worried about how skinny she looked in her navy blue uniform tunic and black stockings. Her reddish-blond hair—Joan’s hair—was thick and glossy, though, exuberantly trying to escape its pigtails, and she ate voraciously. Like Daisy, but less restrained.

  “Daddy,” she said, swallowing a last morsel of heavily buttered toast with a quarter inch of strawberry jam on top, “I know I’m not to ask about your case and I won’t, I promise, but are you working with Miss Dalrymple again?”

  “You could put it that way,” Alec said cautiously.

  “I do so want to meet her. Will you ask her to tea?”

  He glanced at his mother, caught her look of dismay. “That’s up to your Gran,” he said.

  “Please, Granny. On Saturday, when I’m not in a rush, and I’ll bake rock-cakes. Golly, I must fly or I’ll miss the ’bus. Please may I be excused, Gran, and where’s my satchel?”

  “I must be off too. I’ll drive you to school, Bel.”

  “Oh, topping!”

  “We’ll talk later about inviting Miss Dalrymple, Mother.” He bent to kiss her soft, lined cheek. “I’m afraid I may not get home for dinner again. I’ll telephone later and let you know.”

  He delivered Belinda to the Victorian Gothic red brick pile of her school and watched her disappear among a swarm of navy coats and hats. Then he drove on to meet Tom Tring at Dr. Woodward’s.

  The door was opened by a plump child a year or two younger than Belinda, blond-pigtailed and red-nosed.

  “I’ve got a cold so I can’t go to school,” she announced. “And I can’t play with the baby ’case he gets it, too. And Tommy’s a boy.” This in a tone of ineffable scorn. “Do you want to see my daddy? Dr. Woodward, I mean. It’s too early for the surgery.”

  “He’s expecting us.”

  The doctor looked tired, edgy, far from well. “Come into my office, gentlemen,” he invited. “I can spare you a little time before my surgery hours. What can I do for you?” Sitting down behind his desk, he took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and polished them on his handkerchief. Without them he seemed younger, with an uncertain, vulnerable air.

  “Just a few questions, sir.” Alec glanced around the room. The usual medical references, neatly shelved; a glass-fronted cabinet full of case-books; his gaze fixed on a door in the corner with a sign which read Dispensary. “You won’t mind if I ask, Doctor—it’s a subject on my mind at present—you do keep that door locked, I hope?”

  “Always, Chief Inspector. I have small children.”

  “You make up all your own prescriptions, do you?”

  Woodward’s pale cheeks paled further and he fumbled with his spectacles as he put them on. “Just a few of the simpler remedies,” he said. “I got into the habit in my first practice. It was in the country, rather remote, and I dispensed medicines as a useful service to my patients.”

  “Quite, sir. Now Mrs. Abernathy’s cough remedy, that would be one you put up yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were her doctor? Why did you ask her maid for the remains of the medicine? What was in it?”

  “I should have known you’d find out.” He buried his haggard face in his hands. “The prescription contains prussic acid. In an extremely dilute solution, it’s an excellent specific for a dry, scratchy cough, the kind Mrs. Abernathy occasionally suffered from. I’ve been having nightmares.”
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  “You’re afraid you didn’t dilute it enough.”

  “I can’t believe it!” He looked up, earnest now. “I’m always careful, of course, but I was especially careful in this case.”

  “Why?”

  “I knew Mrs. Abernathy often took the mixture with that damned liqueur she was so fond of, and the effect of both prussic acid and alcohol is depressant. I advised her not to. She wasn’t the sort to take advice, and the stuff worked, so she refused to take something else instead. I can’t believe it, I tell you! I feel as if I’m living in a nightmare. This could ruin me, and my family.”

  “So that’s why you argued that Mrs. Abernathy might have had a seizure.”

  “Partly wishful thinking,” Woodward admitted. “And partly, I suppose, because I can’t smell cyanide. I’ve been thinking of nothing else ever since, as you can imagine, and naturally my mind’s been running on poisons. Do you know, an overdose of trinitrin would produce much the same symptoms?”

  “Trinitrin, Doctor?” Suddenly alert, Alec heard Tring’s abrupt intake of breath. Ye gods, had they been barking up the wrong tree? Had the bitter almond smell come solely from the ratafia?

  Had Dr. Renfrew’s assistant found evidence of cyanide only because that was what he was asked to look for?

  “It’s a heart medicine,” the doctor explained. “Combined with alcohol it can cause a disastrous fall in blood pressure, as well as asphyxia, cyanosis, convulsions, and all the rest.” His shoulders slumped again. “But Mrs. Abernathy’s heart was perfectly healthy. I certainly never prescribed trinitrin.”

  Bettina’s heart was healthy. Her husband’s was not. What were those pills he kept always to hand? Alec had to talk to his doctor, to the pathologist, to Daisy … but first, before the inquest, he had to talk to the Coroner.

  “Thank you for your frankness, sir, though I wish you might have spoken up sooner.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.” Dr. Woodward’s face was a mask of despair.

  “I’m not saying you’re in the clear, Doctor, but I can tell you that no cough medicine bottle was found at the Albert Hall, and Mrs. Abernathy had already consumed a good deal of ratafia before the glass which killed her. So unless a cumulative dose …”

  “No,” said Woodward eagerly, “cyanide doesn’t work that way. If she’d taken a dangerous dose, it would affect her at once.”

  “I’ll have to take independent advice on that, sir. I’ll let you know as soon as possible.”

  “Thank you, Chief Inspector. Anything I can do to help, anything at all, call on me day or night.” Much cheered, Woodward showed them out.

  “Damn! Damn! Damn!” Alec thumped the steering wheel in time with the expletives. “I’ll have to ask Sir Bernard Spilsbury to redo the post-mortem exam, and he’s going to want to know why the devil I didn’t call him in in the first place!”

  14

  “And I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, miss,” said Mrs. Potter, obviously about to do just that, “but me friend Mrs. Wick, which obliges next door, she says Mrs. Abernathy weren’t no better than she should be, and a nasty piece of work as they’re well shot of. Not but what I wouldn’t wish such an ’orrid end on me worst … . Ah, there’s the doorbell. Your young man, I ’spect?”

  “My young man?” Daisy tried to assume an innocent expression.

  “That copper what’s after Mrs. Abernathy’s murderer. Mrs. Wick says he’s a real good-looker and a proper gentleman, too.”

  “Oh, Mr. Fletcher.” Gulping down the last of her tea, Daisy pushed back her chair and started for the kitchen door. “No, I shouldn’t think it’s him. He’ll still be at the inquest.”

  All the same, on the way to the front door she paused to glance in the hall looking-glass and dab powder on her freckles. Her shingled head still gave her a shock every time she saw her own reflection. She opened the door.

  “What-ho, Daisy.” On the doorstep, hat in hand, stood Phillip Petrie, tall and loose-limbed, fair hair sleeked back above a face which was handsome in an indeterminate sort of way. “My sainted aunt, what have you done to your hair?”

  “Hallo, Phillip. Don’t be an ass, I had it cut, of course. Come in. I haven’t seen you in ages. What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

  “I was down in Dorset for the weekend. Just got back. What’s all this about a singer being murdered next door?”

  “Not next door, Phil. At the Albert Hall.”

  “Oh, then you’re not mixed up in it,” he said, relieved.

  “As a matter of fact, I was at the concert.”

  “You would be!”

  “Along with several thousand other people. Including Alec Fletcher, who’s investigating the case.”

  The doorbell rang again. It was Muriel, looking flustered. “Oh, Daisy, you have a visitor? I’m so sorry, I …”

  “It’s all right, Muriel, come in. This is Phillip Petrie, an old friend of the family. Phillip, Miss Westlea, my next-door neighbour.”

  “Westlea? Next door!” But Phillip was equal to any social occasion. He said all the proper things to Muriel, then turned to Daisy and went on with a touch of grimness, “I’ll take you out to dinner tonight.”

  “Not tonight, old dear. I just popped home to do a bit of work, but I’m staying next door with Muriel until this ghastly business is over.” From the corner of her eye, Daisy saw Muriel’s mouth open. She silenced her with a glare. “Not that I wouldn’t love to go out to dinner with you one day, Phil. I’ll telephone when I’m free again, so start saving up your pennies. I expect you’re due back at the office, aren’t you?”

  It was his turn to wilt before her speaking gaze. “Yes, I’d better get back,” he said lamely, then he rallied, “but I’ll be in touch.”

  “You can always telephone Daisy at our house, Mr. Petrie,” Muriel said hesitantly, and told him the number.

  “Thank you, Miss Westlea.” He looked upon her with approval. “Cheerio then, Daisy.”

  “Cheerio, old bean. See you soon, and don’t worry.” Closing the door behind him, Daisy brushed aside Muriel’s mumbled apologies for intruding. “You’ve saved me from a ragging,” she said cheerfully. “Phillip doesn’t approve of Alec Fletcher, and since he was my brother’s best friend, he feels not merely entitled but obliged to try to make me see the error of my ways. I didn’t expect you home yet. Is the inquest over already?”

  “Yes, it was very short. I thought there would be lots of evidence given, everything Mr. Fletcher has found out so far, but he just asked for an adjournment to allow the police to pursue enquiries. All I had to say was that it really was Betsy—they let me do it instead of poor Roger—and a doctor confirmed that

  … that she really was dead. Father’s absolutely furious because the Coroner wouldn’t release her … her body for burial.”

  “How odd,” Daisy mused. “Does it mean the funeral can’t be held tomorrow?”

  “Father decided to have a memorial service at the parish church here tomorrow, as Mrs. Cochran has so kindly made all the arrangements for afterwards. He and Mother will go home then as planned, thank heaven, and he’ll have poor Betsy shipped home to be buried in his churchyard. Imagine being stuck for all eternity in the place she was so glad to leave!”

  “At least her ghost is more likely to haunt the Albert Hall. Oh Muriel, I am sorry!”

  But her tactless remark had surprised her friend into a smile. “Oh dear, I hope she doesn’t start interrupting concerts with snatches of Verdi’s Requiem. I must be going. Will you be long?”

  “I’ve another hour or so’s work I really must get done. I’ll be over by lunchtime.”

  “You can’t possibly realize what a comfort it is to have you there. If Mr. Fletcher arrives before you come, I’ll send him here, shall I? He stopped me after the inquest and asked me to tell you he must see you. And Roger wants to see him. He’s in a state over something, he wouldn’t say what.” Muriel sighed. “See you at lunch.”

  Daisy retreated to the tiny back pa
rlour where her massive, aged second-hand Underwood typewriter reposed in state on an elegant Georgian writing-table from Fairacres. She had all but finished transforming her notes on the V and A into an article when once again the doorbell shrilled.

  Her mind on her article, this time she forgot to glance in the hall mirror. Of course this time it was Alec on the doorstep, but if her freckles had emerged through the powder he didn’t seem to care.

  “Miss Westlea says you’re working. Can you spare me a moment?”

  “Yes, but just let me finish off the last paragraph before I forget how I was going to put it. Come on back to my den.”

  Alec stood at the window, gazing out at the narrow strip of garden and the forsythia blooming on the studio wall, while Daisy finished the last few lines. “There,” she said, straightening the pile of paper, “all done. What’s up?”

  Turning, he grinned. “I expect your friend Miss Fotheringay will be happy to hear that it may not have been cyanide after all.”

  “No?” said Daisy, astonished. “But the doctors said the symptoms … and the almond odour?”

  “I’m an absolute idiot, as Sir Bernard Spilsbury hasn’t hesitated to tell me.”

  “The Home Office Pathologist? How dare he!”

  “He has every right. I’ve had to ask him to redo a botched autopsy and he says it’s far too late to find the proof he’ll be looking for. Something called methemoglobin, which disappears from a cadaver within a few hours. You see, I assumed the murderer had relied on the almond smell of the ratafia to cover the cyanide smell, but it may have been irrelevant. The smell was there whether there was cyanide or not.”

  “But the doctors said it was cyanide!”

  “They jumped to the same conclusion as I did. At least, two of them did. Dr. Woodward has drawn to my attention that the symptoms of an overdose of a certain heart medicine are very similar to those of cyanide poisoning. Daisy, do you know what’s in those pills of Abernathy’s? I can’t get hold of his doctor.”