by Anne Morice
‘In that case, why not stay here and help Toby hustle them out and let me do the telephoning?’
‘Because I’ve another job for you, Tess. Come on, and I’ll explain as we go.’
I hurried after him, but as soon as we were outside the marquee he stood still and said:
‘Listen, I’ve only dragged you out here to make certain we aren’t overheard, and I want you to go straight back in again and grab Ellen and Jeremy. Push them out as unobtrusively as you can and see they get changed as fast as possible. And remind Simon to have their car at the gate with the keys inside. He was going to do that anyway, but it might slip his mind with all this bother going on.’
‘What’s the hurry?’ I asked. ‘Wouldn’t it be more sensible for them to leave quietly, when the crowd has thinned out?’
‘No, it wouldn’t. To put it mildly, it’s going to be unpleasant for them if they’re still here when the ambulance arrives. Not a particularly auspicious start to married life and the less they get mixed up in it the fewer disagreeable memories they’ll be stuck with.’
He had started to walk away, but I caught up with him, saying,
‘I’ve a feeling there’s more to it than that. Are you hinting that it wasn’t a straightforward heart attack, after all?’
Reluctantly stopping again, he replied:
‘Honestly, Tess, there’s no time to go into it now, but you must see that whether she died from natural causes or not is beside the point at the moment. Macintosh never clapped eyes on her, in the medical sense, until a few moments ago. He can’t possibly sign a certificate in the circumstances. All I want is to ensure that Ellen and Jeremy are far away when the questions start. Just tell her that her mother’s had a heart attack, not necessarily fatal, and that we’ll keep her informed by cable.’
6
People had been walking past us in increasing numbers during this interlude and I saw why as soon as I re-entered the marquee. Stella had taken over Toby’s function of herding the guests to their cars and was making a much more competent job of it than he would have done. There was a combination of poise and imperiousness in her manner, which conveyed that all was for the best in the best of all possible weddings, while at the same time effectively quelling any inclination to remain a single moment longer to enjoy it.
Moreover, she had already set some of my own wheels in motion and broke off the gracious handshakes to inform me in an aside that Ellen and Jeremy had left by the back entrance. Simon had his brother in charge and Ellen was waiting for me in her room.
It was doubtless also thanks to her efficiency that a screen had been brought over from the house and was now being placed around Dr Macintosh and his patient. It was one which Ellen and I had decorated with a montage of animal pictures from colour magazines during her measles convalescence, and the pandas and Shetland ponies and kittens peeping out of baskets certainly looked rather incongruous but, since for the past four hours we all seemed to have been treading the razor’s edge between tragedy and farce, I regarded this as quite an appropriate coup de grâce.
I could hear Simon’s high-pitched voice burbling away as I arrived on the upstairs landing, and he stuck his head round the door in answer to my knock.
‘Managing all right?’ I enquired.
‘A good question! Basically, the situation could be described as fluid. However, one presses on.’
‘Anything I can do to help?’
‘No, thanks ever so much. Normally, one would cry for a double scotch as the answer to this crisis, but our recent experience rather seems to rule that out. However, be of good cheer and we shall all win through.’
I passed on Robin’s reminder about the car and proceeded to Ellen’s room.
She had removed her veil and head-dress, but had made no further attempt to change and was sitting on her bed, pale and rigid as a pillar of salt.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. ‘Can’t you get your dress undone? Come on! Stand up and I’ll do it for you.’
‘She’s dead, isn’t she, Tessa?’
‘Oh, goodness, no,’ I replied with barely a falter. ‘Whatever gave you that idea? It’s only a little heart attack and she’ll probably be all right in a day or two. She’ll have to go to hospital, though, and Robin thinks you and Jeremy should aim to leave before the ambulance arrives.’
‘What’s the point of sending for an ambulance when she’s dead? You know jolly well she’s dead, so why pretend?’
‘All right, then, I’ll admit her condition is said to be serious, but even so you can’t spend the rest of your life in a wedding dress. Come on, now! Jeremy’s almost ready to leave.’
‘I’m not sure that I want to go, though. I’ve a feeling that I ought to stay here.’
She spoke in a flat, almost childlike voice which foxed me completely and this, on top of all the trials that had gone before, tempted me to throw in the sponge. However, I struggled to keep my patience for she was obviously in a state of mild shock, although it was hard to see why. It was less than twenty-four hours since she had re-met her mother, after a separation of fifteen years and I had certainly not detected any signs of affection on either side when communications were resumed. All the same, Ellen was devoid of affectation and it was even less credible that she could be putting on an act. I was left with the conclusion that the passive rebellion arose from a reluctance to go away with Jeremy, rather than from grief on Irene’s account and in a strange roundabout way this was true, although the full explanation still lay some way ahead.
‘What do you want to do, then?’ I asked, striving to sound as though this were the most normal conversation in the world. ‘Stay here until we get some news of Irene and perhaps take the night ferry instead? Or spend the night here and see how you feel about things in the morning? If so, I expect Jeremy will understand and not mind too much, but you’d better decide, so that I know what to tell him. We can’t just sit here and let it rip.’
‘What I’d really like to do,’ Ellen said, quietly tossing another little bombshell into my lap, ‘if you wouldn’t mind awfully arranging it for me, is to talk to Robin.’
‘Oh really? Well, I don’t see why not. Very sound idea, in fact; but I tell you what: why not get the finery off and step into a dressing gown? You’ll be much more comfortable. Then I’ll go and find him.’
‘Okay,’ she agreed and to my great relief stood up at last, raising her hands behind her head to start on the back fastenings.
‘Perhaps he won’t be able to come, though,’ she added as I attacked the lower hooks for her. ‘Then what’ll I do?’
‘No reason why he shouldn’t. Perhaps not right away, but very soon, I expect. On the other hand, if you don’t feel like waiting, why don’t I take a message to him and bring back the answer?’
‘Well yes, I suppose that might do,’ she replied, stepping out of the dress which she left in a heap on the floor, while she wrapped herself in the white candlewick robe. She sounded more alive and composed now, as though a decision had been taken and some of the burden eased.
‘Right, so what am I to ask him?’
‘Two things. First of all, was Irene murdered?’ Considering Robin’s advice and instructions on how to handle the situation, I did not envisage any particularly fervent congratulations when I passed on this simple question and, in hopes of toning it down a little, I said: ‘I’m perfectly certain such an idea hasn’t entered his head and I can’t imagine where you got it from. Admittedly, she had a certain faculty for rubbing people up the wrong way, but that didn’t make her immune to all the usual physical weaknesses. In fact, Robin says that everything points to its being a heart attack. And why not? She’d had a particularly gruelling forty-eight hours and it will probably turn out that she had a weak heart, anyway.’
‘The second thing I want you to ask him,’ Ellen said, having waited with the utmost civility for me to finish speaking and then continuing as though I had not done so at all, ‘is whether the poison, or whatever it wa
s that killed her, was in the drink. That’s the really important bit.’
I waited for her to expand on this but she was sitting on the bed again, regarding me with an impassive expression. evidently under the impression that further explanation would be superfluous.
‘Oh, all right, if you insist, but don’t be surprised if he takes the attitude that you’re being thoroughly childish. I mean, just supposing for the sake of argument that she died from unnatural causes and, if she is dead, I suppose no one could say categorically at this point that it wasn’t so, how in the world could you expect Robin or anyone else to tell you what caused it? All that kind of thing has to be decided by pathologists and so on.’
This line of reasoning appeared to impress her more than any I had tried before and she nodded approvingly, as though relieved to hear me talking sense at last.
‘Yes, I hadn’t thought of that; so tell me, Tessa, how long does all that usually take?’
Before I could answer we were interrupted by a sharp rap on the door, which was just a trifle too much for my frayed nerves to take in their stride, and it was Ellen who called out:
‘Yes? Who is it?’
‘Me. Simon. Just to let you know that we’re all set and I’ll be revving up the engine in a couple of mins.’
Bouncing back to mobility again, I flung myself at the door and caught up with him as he reached the staircase. Then, having made sure the spare-room door was closed, I said:
‘Hold it, will you, Simon? We need another ten or fifteen minutes minimum.’
‘Oh really? Well, just as you say, old lady, but I understood the idea was to move fast? Weren’t they supposed to make a dash for it?’
‘Yes, but we’ve run into a snag. Can’t explain now, but I’m working on it. Tell Jeremy she can’t find her shoes, any old thing that comes into your head, but for God’s sake see there’s no panic. We’re in enough trouble already.’
I retreated to Ellen’s room before he could give utterance to even one of the questions I could see bursting up in him, and she said, once more as though there had been no interruption,
‘How long would all that take, then, Tessa?’
‘Post mortem and analysts’ reports and so on? It varies, I believe, but not less than twenty-four hours. It might be longer in this case because all her previous medical history is tucked away in some filing cabinet in Winnipeg. So, you see, Robin is as much in the dark as the rest of us and there’d be no point in hanging around on that account. You can telephone me every evening from France and I promise faithfully to let you know the results the minute we hear them. Does that make you feel any better?’
As I finished speaking I heard a bell clanging far away in the distance, but growing louder every instant and a dismal reminder, had I needed one, of how badly I had mismanaged Robin’s scheme to get Ellen and Jeremy off the premises before this distressing event occurred. I walked over to the window and looked out across the common, where, apart from Jeremy’s red sports number, only two cars now remained, and watched the white ambulance come into view and then trundle along the track towards us. When I turned round I saw that Ellen had gone tense again and was huddled into the white robe as though chilled to the bone, so I said,
‘I’m so sorry, darling. It would be stupid to pretend that your wedding has been a very happy occasion and I do understand how you feel.’
‘No, you don’t,’ she replied flatly. ‘You couldn’t possibly understand, because what I feel is that it should have been Jeremy they were carting away in that thing and perhaps next time it will be.’
‘Are you mad? What possible reason can you have for saying such a thing?’
‘The best. That is, if she was poisoned and if the poison was in her glass, as I feel it must have been.’
‘Could you explain, perhaps?’
‘Well, you see, Tess, there was a bit of a mix-up.’
‘You could describe it like that, I suppose.’
‘And poor old Irene got the wrong glass. I suppose she was a bit pie-eyed, for a start, and obviously she couldn’t see much through those glasses. Anyway, that’s what must have happened and I can’t pretend to be truly sorry because, if she hadn’t snapped it up, the chances are that I should now be a widow.’
‘How did you work all that out?’
‘It didn’t take genius. You see, when Simon gave the toast, Jeremy and I were the only two who didn’t pick up our glasses, right?’
‘I’m with you, so far.’
‘Everyone else did, including Irene, and the very next thing that happened was that she keeled over and passed out. You remember that all right?’
‘Yes, clearly.’
‘So everyone started jumping about and crowding round her. Everyone except me, that is.’
‘And why not you?’
‘Because, God forgive me, I thought it was just one more little gimmick to draw attention to herself. I thought she so hated anyone else having the limelight that she’d even go to those lengths to grab it back. I was so furious that I couldn’t even bring myself to look at her, and do you know what I did instead?’
‘No.’
‘I thought to myself that while we were waiting for the latest little drama to play itself out, I’d drink a private toast all to myself: “Here’s to my long lost unlamented mother and may she never cross my path again!” That’s what I said to myself and I picked up my glass to drink to it. Only I don’t think it was my glass, actually. We’d all shifted around a bit by then and I’m almost sure it was the one which had been nearest to Jeremy. Naturally that didn’t bother me because they all had champagne in them, except that . . .’
‘This one didn’t?’
‘You’ve caught on at last, have you? No, this one had whisky in it. I could tell by the smell, without even tasting it. So it must have been poured out for Irene and either the waiter made a mistake, or else the glasses got moved around when Phil brought the chair over. That part doesn’t matter. The important thing is that someone must have meant to poison Jeremy. Irene yelled out something about having champagne in her whisky, but it wasn’t that at all. Someone had put poison in Jeremy’s champagne, and how am I to know they won’t try again?’
PART TWO
CHAPTER ONE
The Times, Monday, 28th May.
MR J. ROXBURGH AND MISS E.S.R. CRICHTON.
The marriage between Mr Jeremy Roxburgh, elder son of Mr and Mrs Arnold Roxburgh and Miss Ellen Crichton, daughter of Mr Toby Crichton and the late Mrs O.E. Lewis, took place at St Mary’s Parish Church, Roakes, Oxfordshire, on Saturday, 26th May. The bride was given in marriage by her father and Mr Simon Roxburgh, brother of the bridegroom, was best man. The honeymoon will be spent motoring in France and Italy.
LEWIS, Irene Margaret. On 26th May of a heart attack while holidaying in England. Funeral private. Memorial service in Winnipeg to be announced later.
Both these proclamations were the work of Stella Roxburgh, who presumably operated on the principle that anything printed in The Times was bound to come true, although, in fact, by the time they appeared it had been established beyond doubt that Irene had died of paraquat poisoning and Ellen and Jeremy were still firmly entrenched on their own side of the Channel, having journeyed no further than London and intending, so far as anyone could tell, to spend their honeymoon in Jeremy’s flat in Hans Crescent.
‘Wouldn’t you have thought,’ Robin asked me, as we drove back to London ourselves on Monday morning, ‘if she genuinely believes someone is out to murder Jeremy, that her instinct would be to get him to the Continent and out of harm’s way and to stay there until all this is cleared up?’
‘Not necessarily. She may feel he is less vulnerable at the flat than trotting around foreign hotels, possibly with the murderer on their trail. There was no secret about their route, so it wouldn’t be too hard for him to bob up with another dose of paraquat along the way.’
We were approaching the airport intersection of the M4 by this time and a stre
am of traffic was racing up to join us. Robin switched over to the outside lane to give them a clear field and it was several minutes before he spoke again. Then he said:
‘Keeping an eye on Jeremy could have two interpretations.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘And, on the face of it, don’t you find her behaviour more consistent with the second?’
‘Meaning that her motive is not to protect him, but herself?’
‘Right.’
‘But that implies that it was untrue that she picked up his glass instead of her own and found it contained whisky. I’ve had the feeling all along that she was holding something back, but why lie about a thing like that? If it was really her own glass and not his that Irene drank from, why not have said so?’
‘Presumably because if the poison was intended for herself the only person who is likely to have put it there is Jeremy. If you recall the scene you’ll remember that he was standing between Ellen and his brother, but Irene was round the corner, so to speak; and, placed like that, it would have been understandable if Irene had mistaken Ellen’s glass for her own. On the other hand, Jeremy’s would have been several inches away and to pick it up would have necessitated stretching her arm across the table. It would have been such an awkward movement that I’m sure we should have noticed.’
‘Ellen’s story is that all three glasses got shifted around during the fuss of Phil bringing the chair over.’
‘Nevertheless, I can’t see why Jeremy’s glass should have been moved. Irene’s perhaps, to save it from being knocked off the table, but surely Jeremy’s would only have been shifted further forward, away from the edge, not down towards Irene’s corner?’
‘Are you seriously suggesting that Jeremy could have set out to murder Ellen within two hours of marrying her? She’s not an heiress, you know. The rich boot is on the other foot.’
‘I’m not suggesting anything; only that there’s a remote possibility that she may have taken it into account.’