“Good Lord!” exclaimed Gavin. “That might account for something that’s been nagging at me ever since I came down here.”
“Yes, Mr. Gavin?”
“If the poison was conveyed in some form of sweetstuff—in fact, however it was conveyed—we ought to be able to trace the vehicle, you know. Most of the sweets that adults buy for themselves are wrapped. In fact, lots of things are packaged nowadays which used not to be. Of course, we don’t know yet what the vehicle was which contained the poison, but, if you don’t mind—I mean, you’re certain to have covered the ground and all that—but I wouldn’t mind having a go at Mabel’s mother myself.”
“I’ll get Constable Mead to drive you there at once.”
The house was an unpretentious, semi-detached affair on the Glossop-Sheffield road, some distance away from the village. Gavin introduced himself as a police officer and was invited in. The room was tidy but needed dusting. The woman was grey-haired and untidy and her apron could have been cleaner. She appeared conscious of these minor defects, swept the hem of her apron over the wooden arms of a grandfather Windsor chair and said:
“The place is rare and mucky, but I’ve lost my prop and stay, as you might put it.”
“I’m very sorry indeed. And you’ve lost your dog, too, so I hear,” said Gavin. The soiled hem of the apron was applied to the woman’s eyes.
“He laid down and died next to Mabel,” she said. “Died of grief, poor old Toby did. That’s what he done—died of grief.”
“Yes. Where did you bury him?”
“Out the back. My neighbour came and done it after he’d gone for the doctor to see after Mabel.”
“Whereabouts was the dog buried? You see, Mrs. Sims, I don’t think the dog died of grief. I think he ate something your daughter ate, and died of poisoning, just as she did. Can you think of anything they might have shared? That particular poison acts very quickly. Were you at home at the time?”
“Which I was not. I got a little job to go to—oh, not enough to upset my pension nor nothing like that, but you know how it is with widows with an only daughter. There don’t be much coming in, and what with the rent and one thing and another, well, you see how it would be, and I would never be one to break the law or take a chance, or nothing like that . . .”
“No, no, I’m sure not. Look, Mrs. Sims, we must have your dog dug up again. It may be very important. I want you to stay indoors and not to worry, and as soon as we’ve finished with Toby we’ll bury him again in the same spot, and you’ll never know he’s been disturbed.”
“If you say so, sir,” agreed Mrs. Sims, on whom Gavin’s charm and good looks had made an extremely favourable impression.
“And you have no idea what your daughter and Toby may both have eaten which proved fatal to them?”
“I haven’t no idea in this world. Of course Toby—I’m not saying he was a greedy dog, mind you; he was too well fed for that—but he tended to gollop.”
“Gollop?”
“Yes. you know—gollop. Swallered things wholesale. He golloped a lump of steak once as I’d got special of a Saturday to go with fried onions. I must say I did pay ’im for that. Well, I mean, you must learn ’ em right from wrong, mustn’t you? Paper and all he golloped that steak, and when I went to look for it to fry it, there was me lord on his belly underneath the kitchen table. ‘Oh, so that’s where it is!’ I says, and he couldn’t deny it. Yes, a golloper, poor old Toby was—a real golloper.”
The unpleasant business of disinterring Toby was accomplished on the following day and his pathetic but by no means antiseptic remains were committed to the care of the district pathologist, the result of whose labours was interesting and instructive. Toby yielded an appreciable dosage of hydrocyanic acid, some undigested chocolate cream and enough silver foil for the forensic laboratory to decipher the letters RDAM on it.
“Clear enough,” said the superintendent, apprised at (to his relief) fairly long range of these findings. “Came from Holland, Mr. Gavin, and I somehow fancy—you having sketched in Mr. Colwyn-Welch’s background for us—that you surmised it. Amsterdam, Rotterdam— what other Dutch dams are there?”
“Well,” said Gavin, who had taken more interest in his wife’s visit to the Netherlands than she would have thought probable, “there are Schiedam, Volendam, Monnickendam, Edam (where the cheese comes from), Zaandam and the miniature city—a show piece—of Madurodam, but these, you will note, lack the necessary R in the oyster months. No, Amsterdam or Rotterdam it is, so I’m off to Norfolk, as I said.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A Delft Blue at Bay
“Whatever he relates, whether true or not, is at least probable; and he who tells nothing exceeding the bounds of probability, has a right to demand that they should believe him who cannot contradict him.”
Dr. Johnson
Gavin was indeed thorough. Before he went to Norfolk to interview a household which, by reason of family connections, might reasonably be supposed to obtain and consume Dutch confectionery, he investigated sweet-shops in the village and in Glossop and even in Sheffield and Buxton. Police were alerted in other towns and villages and were asked to make similar enquiries. There was evidence of the stockage and sale of Dutch plain chocolate and chocolate liqueurs, but Dutch chocolate-cream had not found its way into the neighbourhood.
“It was only to carry out my wife’s rule-of-thumb,” said Gavin to the superintendent. “She believes in exploring all avenues and leaving no stone unturned. I didn’t expect to get anything around these parts. No, that poisoned stuff came from young Colwyn-Welch all right, and he’ll have to come clean about it. I’m quite prepared to believe that he gave it to the barmaid in all innocence. She must have passed on the major portion of it to Mabel Sims, whose dog, I make no doubt, wolfed up what remained of it after she dropped dead,”
“Unless it came in the first place from Mabel Sims and she passed on a bit to Effie,” the superintendent suggested. “You see,” he added, observing Gavin’s look of surprise, “I don’t suppose your good lady eats many sweets, Mr. Gavin?”
“No, she likes whisky and fruit—not both together, of course. Why?”
“Well, in my experience, a woman will put aside a box of chocolates, we’ll say, and not touch it for, perhaps, quite a few days. Then she’ll eat the whole lot at one go.”
“Where’s this getting us?”
“Well, we’ve all taken it for granted that because Effie died first it was her bit of sweet-stuff that killed them both, but the chocolate-cream could just as easily have come from Mabel, who didn’t eat hers quite so soon. See what I mean?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Moreover,” pursued the superintendent, “it does seem as if Mabel had the bigger portion, if there was enough to poison her and the dog. Well, now, Mr. Gavin, you know what people are like. We’re all like it, I dare say. Take cigarettes, for example. You might offer a cigarette, but you don’t offer half the packet.”
“I take your point,” said Gavin. “I’d better go and have another talk with Mrs. Sims.”
Mrs. Sims, however, banged the new theory very effectively on the head.
“Mabel did show me a biggish bit of chocolate-cream, but it wasn’t the whole bar. You could see where it had been broke off. She offered me a bit, but I find it sickly, so I wouldn’t have any. I ask her where she got it—I see it was some foreign make—and she said as how her friend Effie, the other one as died—had give it to her, ‘She’s give you the biggest half, then,’ I said. ‘Don’t she like it?’ So Mabel says as how Effie broke off a bit and took a smell of it and says, ‘It smells of almonds, and I don’t like almond flavouring all that much, I only likes peppermint in chocolate-cream. ’Ere you are,’ she says, ‘you ’ave the big bit what I was going to keep for meself. This bit’ll do me fine.’ That’s what she said, so Mabel told me, sir.”
“Not that it seems to me that it makes much difference which of them died first,
” said Gavin, upon returning to the superintendent, “but it’s interesting they noticed the smell of almonds. I’ll just have another word with the landlady who keeps the pub where Effie worked.”
The landlady, it seemed, was on the local grapevine.
“So it was that young fellow’s chocolate-cream,” she said. “I never did care much about foreign sweets. Unwholesome, if you ask me. Give me good old English mint humbugs, or something of that! It was terrible, going into Effie’s room and finding her dead in bed. The light was on and her magazine had dropped on the floor, as she must have let go of it as she died.”
“You say it was a young man’s gift to Effie, this chocolate-cream?”
“Of course it was! Where else could it have come from? Of course he give it to her—oh, not meaning no harm, of course! I’m perfectly certain of that! Such a handsome young chap as he was!”
So Gavin went off to North Norfolk. He did not announce his coming, feeling that an element of surprise might well attend upon his arrival at Leyden Hall, and so it proved. He went by way of Buxton, Bakewell, and Nottingham and then across to Grantham, Holbeach, and King’s Lynn, and arrived at Leyden Hall at six in the evening, a time at which he judged most, if not all, of the household would be at home.
His judgment was justified. He was shown up to the enormous drawing-room where Binnie was reading aloud to Bernard van Zestien and Florian was playing a complicated game of Patience at a small table on the opposite side of the hearth. He must have heard Gavin announced, but went on with his occupation without so much as raising his eyes. His granduncle called him to order.
“Florian! Here is Detective Chief-Inspector Gavin!”
Florian pushed the Patience cards aside and stood up.
“Hullo, Mr. Gavin,” he said ungraciously. “How do you do?”
“How do you do?” said Gavin. “I’m here in my official capacity, I’m afraid.” He addressed the remark more to Bernard van Zestien than to Florian. The old man nodded.
“Are you any nearer to solving the mystery of the deaths of those unfortunate young women?” he asked.
“Well, we are and we’re not,” Gavin replied. “I wondered whether perhaps Mr. Colwyn-Welch could give us a little more help,”
“I’ve told you all I know,” said Florian sullenly. “I don’t see what else you can ask me. I did know Effie, but, to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never spoken to, or set eyes on, the other girl.”
“Maybe not,” said Gavin, “but that makes no difference to my present errand.” He turned to van Zestien. “I wonder whether you’d permit me to have a word in private, sir?”
“With Florian? By all means.”
“Later, if you will, sir. I really meant, at the moment, with yourself.”
“With me? I shall be at a loss. I do not see what I can tell you. I was never in Derbyshire in my life.”
“If you will allow me, that is beside the point, Mr. van Zestien.”
Binnie got up and put down the book from which she had been reading aloud.
“Come on, Florian,” she said. “We’re in the way. We’ll be in the library, Granduncle, if you want to send for us.” She led the way out by the doorway which opened on to the staircase. With a very bad grace and a subdued muttering, her brother followed her, slamming the door behind him.
“Please be seated, Mr. Gavin,” said the old Netherlander. “Now, what can I tell you?”
“I’d like to tell you something first,” said Gavin. “It may make my questions seem less impertinent. We have discovered the vehicle by which the poison was conveyed to the two young women.” He gave an account of the exhumation of Toby, and added, at the end of the recital, “Of course, the chocolate-cream may have been purchased in England, but, if it was, it seems unlikely that it was bought by these girls. We’ve done everything we can to trace a sale.”
The old man studied him. Then he said quietly:
“My grandnephew is a foolish, weak, headstrong boy, Mr. Gavin. I shall never believe he is a murderer.”
“I agree, Mr. van Zestien. Of course he is not a murderer. I am inclined to think, however, that he may have been a murderer’s intended victim.”
“So! But who would want to kill Florian? With all his faults, he is harmless.”
“So I firmly believe. Having admitted that, you must forgive me for asking my next question. I have reason to think, from what my wife has told me from time to time, that there have been occasions on which you have found it proper to alter your will.”
“There have. I have never made much of a secret about that.”
“Quite so. May I ask—would you very much mind telling me—”
“I have no objection at all to telling you how my Will stands at present. It can do no harm, so far as I can see.”
“Thank you very much, sir. You are very good.”
“My fortune and properties are now to be divided in equal parts between my grandnephew Florian Colwyn-Welch and Bernardo Rose. In the event (which Heaven forbid!) of one of them pre-deceasing me, his share will be divided in equal parts among my elder son Derde (on the understanding that he will share it, as I know he will, with his brother Sweyn), my daughter Maarte Rose and my sister, Binnen Colwyn-Welch (who will leave all she has, I suppose, to her daughters). This will is to be, I trust, my last.’
“I see, sir. And do the beneficiaries and the possible beneficiaries know of these provisions?”
“Yes, they do. At one time Florian, and at another time Bernardo, was to have been my sole legatee, but Florian was led into temptation. I need not particularise. It seemed reasonable, therefore, to exercise a little—how do you call it in English?—to give him a hope for the future provided that he behaved himself and gave me no more distress of mind.”
“Benevolent blackmail, in fact.”
“Those are the words I wished to use. But where is all this tending?”
“I don’t know yet,” said Gavin, untruthfully, thankful that the old man had not, so far, seen the point of the conversation. “And now I wonder whether I might have a word with Mr. Colwyn-Welch?”
“Certainly, if you will kindly ring the bell. I find that even a slight exertion makes me breathless, so, if you would not mind going down to the library and sending my grandniece to me—Oh, Carrie, take Mr. Gavin to the library and ask Miss Binnie to join me here.”
Left alone with Florian, Gavin took out a notebook and seated himself at the library table.
“Now, then, young man,” he said, in business-like tones, “I want some different answers from the ones you gave me last time.”
“There aren’t any different answers,” Florian protested. Gavin tapped on the table with the top of a silver pencil.
“No?” he said pleasantly. “Well, we can but try. You do realise, don’t you, that the poisoned chocolate-cream was intended to kill you, and not those unfortunate girls?”
Florian went white. His lip quivered.
“Poisoned chocolate-cream?” he said huskily.
“Poisoned chocolate-cream. Dutch chocolate-cream. Chocolate-cream either from Amsterdam or Rotterdam, probably purchased out there and subsequently impregnated with hydrocyanic acid. Let me tell you a story. It is called, The Dog It Was That Died.” Without a glance at the young man, who, with shaking hands, was attempting to light a cigarette, he unfolded the saga of Toby the Golloper. There was a long silence when he had finished, except that Florian, having succeeded at last in lighting the cigarette, inhaled unwisely and was subjected to a fit of coughing, Gavin waited. The paroxysm over, Florian stared into the fire, his shoulder turned away so that Gavin could not see his face.
The battle of nerves came to a sudden end.
“All right, then,” said Florian, turning round. “I did have some Dutch chocolate-cream. I did give it to the barmaid because I hate the muck and she was always eating sweets. But I didn’t give anything to the other girl—I didn’t even know the other girl—and I swear to you I had no idea the filthy stuff had poi
son in it!”
“That I’m prepared to accept, and there’s no doubt that the poison was intended for you.”
Florian flung his cigarette into the fire and put his head in his hands. Gavin waited again, but this time there was no tension in the silence. Florian raised his head.
“How much trouble is there in it for me?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Gavin briskly, unwilling to let him off the hook until he had obtained from him what he wanted. “Not a lot, I daresay, if you’ll co-operate with us instead of treating us to another spate of lying and Artful Dodging. Where did the chocolate-cream come from?”
“I don’t know, except from Holland. It came by post, with some Dutch cigars.”
“Any letter with it?”
“No, nothing except the parcel.”
“I suppose you didn’t keep the wrappings?”
“No, of course not. It was only brown paper and so on.”
“Postmark?”
“I don’t remember. It was put by my plate at lunch-time by my landlady, and I just tore it open to see what it was. I only had an hour between leaving the garage and getting back there, and I always liked to drop in for a beer on my way back. My landlady’s only idea was a cup of tea, and I loathe tea, but one must drink something. Water isn’t interesting, and nobody over here makes decent coffee.”
“Then did you hand over the chocolate-cream almost as soon as you received it?”
“Yes. I shoved it and the small box of cigars—there were only five of them—in my overalls pocket and when I got to the pub I handed the chocolate-cream to Effie. She said, ‘Oh, ta, ducks, but I won’t eat it now, if you don’t mind. Got to have my dinner in a minute. Sure you wouldn’t like to keep a bit of it for yourself? I’m not all that keen on chocolate-cream. It’s apt to give me the bile.’ ”
Death of a Delft Blue (Mrs. Bradley) Page 17