Death of a Delft Blue (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Dame Beatrice,” said Bernardo, “is a specialist, and a world-famous one, my love. Specialists expect to be paid for their professional services. Don’t cadge!”

  “And in name of friendship?”

  “Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend,” quoted Bernardo.

  “And friend you are not!” shouted Rebekah. “What way should be your friendship, when you don’t let me ask one small little simple question about broken hearts?”

  “Broken hearts can cost quite big money, my love.”

  “Is a breach of promise case you are meaning?”

  “You are so right, but you’re getting away from the point. I suggest that you stop bothering Dame Beatrice and that we take ourselves off. I’m certain we’re wasting her time. Besides, hotels don’t keep their dinners on all night.”

  “You should get yourself out of here, yes, and before I can say sixty-seven pesetas,” said Rebekah.

  “Well, can you?” enquired her grandson. “Thixty-theven pethetath doesn’t sound exactly right to me.”

  “Oh, you are English public school,” yelled his relative. “How comes this Florian with all that poison? That is what I ask.”

  “The answer isn’t a lemon, you know,” said Bernardo, coolly. “Bend the brain, dear. You know as well as I do where the poison came from. So does Dame Beatrice, I think. The only problem is to find out which of them actually sent it, and also why. I think I know, but I hesitate to commit myself. Rash statements have an awkward way, like those problem chickens one hears mentioned, of coming home to roost.”

  “When I am a girl,” said Rebekah, “we are finding the hens’ eggs in a silly hedge.”

  “You are not referring to a cuckoo in the nest, by any chance?”

  “If there are cuckoos, they are Derde and Sweyn. What do they make, passing up on their father’s money, the way it is?” Her tone changed. She turned to Dame Beatrice. “You are not letting my Bernie be hanged, you say?”

  Dame Beatrice reassured her.

  “A neck God made for other use than strangling in a string,” quoted Bernardo, to the fury of his grandmother.

  “Ingrateful! Here I am saving you from the hanging.”

  “Ungrateful. Ingratitude. How you can have lived in England all these years and still haven’t managed to absorb the very rudiments of the language, I shall never understand.”

  “I think,” said Dame Beatrice, “that the time has come for us to put our cards on the table.”

  “A show-down, yes,” said Rebekah, emphatically. “Then we all know where we are, and I go to a grand slam.”

  “I doubt it,” said her grandson, “but it may clear the air a bit. Dame Beatrice, will you take first innings?”

  “So she shall give us ideas we do not have,” objected Rebekah.

  “You may well be right, Mrs. Rose,” agreed Dame Beatrice. “Why should we not write down what we believe to be the truth and so compare notes? As I see it, there are four basic questions to be answered. Where did the poison come from in the first place? Who impregnated the chocolate-cream with it? Did Mr. Florian Colwyn-Welch know or guess that the chocolate-cream was poisoned? If he did know this, or guess it, why did he give it to Effie the barmaid? Why not have thrown it away?”

  “Yes, I write my answers to all that,” said Rebekah, “but I am not carrying pencils and paper.”

  Bernardo took out a fountain pen and a used envelope. His grandmother twitched away the envelope, read the superscription on it and the date on the postmark, sniffed and handed it back. She gestured at his pen.

  “Fountain pen is old-fashioned,” she sneered. “So you are not with it. Should be ball-point.”

  “This pen was a present from the family, darling, and, by the way, Dame Beatrice is trying to hand you a scribbling block and a silver pencil.”

  “Hall-marked?”

  “Hall-marked,” Dame Beatrice assured her.

  “At trade price, with diamond in the top, I get you a gold pencil, if you save my Bernie’s life.”

  Dame Beatrice did not commit herself to purchasing a diamond-topped gold pencil, even at trade price. She picked up the house telephone and made contact with Laura, who appeared in the doorway.

  “We are going to do a little writing,” Dame Beatrice explained. “When we have answered the questions, I shall require you to help me to scrutinise the answers.”

  “Well!” exclaimed Laura, when Rebekah and her grandson had gone. “So that’s what you were aiming at when you asked all those questions about where the various people spent the war! I suppose Bernardo is as innocent as he seems? The old lady was in a bit of a state when she got here.”

  “She has a persecution complex,” said Dame Beatrice, “and, of course, the strongest affection for her grandson.”

  “Yes, you were right about that,” said Laura. “Well, now, what about this analysis?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Analysis of Three Reactions

  “. . .for the honour of human nature, we should be glad to find the shocking tale not true.”

  James Boswell

  Dame Beatrice took up the papers and studied them. She had written her own answers for purposes of comparison with those of Rebekah and Bernardo and she found comparison illuminating. Summarised, to some extent, the papers read:

  Question 1

  DAME BEATRICE: Likely, but not absolutely certain, that the hydrocyanic acid came from the Colwyn-Welch apartment in Amsterdam, for Binnen had been a member of the Dutch Resistance.

  BERNARDO: No doubt prussic acid could have been obtained by my great-aunt Binnen, who was an undercover agent of some sort during the war.

  REBEKAH: Binnen may have been given means of suicide in case of being captured by (unprintable) pigs of Gestapo. She was helping escapes.

  Question 2

  DAME BEATRICE: Granted that the chocolate-cream was doctored at, and sent from, Binnen’s home, I doubt very much whether she herself had any hand in, or knowledge of, the matter.

  BERNARDO: Unless Great-aunt turned the poison in when war ended, Opal or Ruby or both could have got at it. Great-aunt would not use it for murder.

  REBEKAH: Binnen is not poisoning the sweets. That will be Opal or Ruby. I think it is Ruby. She is more wicked.

  Question 3

  DAME BEATRICE: So far as I know at present, there is nothing definitive to show that Mr. Colwyn-Welch knew or guessed that the chocolate-cream had been poisoned. (She had underlined the first seven words of this answer).

  BERNARDO: I think Florian may have had some suspicion of hanky-panky, but, of course, I don’t know, and would rather not guess.

  REBEKAH: Florian is liking all sweets, whatever he now tells people. Phooey he did not guess this poison! He is not giving away good sweets to barmaids without a reason. Who would? He should be trying them on the rats, not on girls, if he suspects doctored sweets.

  Question 4

  DAME BEATRICE: No answer possible at present.

  BERNARDO: I should say it was pretty obvious, but no names, no pack-drill.

  REBEKAH: He is guessing Opal. Always very unhealthy her attitude. Such devotion! Phooey! No flies on Florian.

  “And, of course,” said Laura, when she also had studied the papers, “there aren’t any flies on Florian. She’s right enough, at that! So where do we go from here?”

  “I shall send these papers, my own included, to our dear Robert, and then I think we shall do well to await his instructions.”

  Gavin telephoned that he would like to talk to Dame Beatrice, and asked her to arrange a time. He arrived, looking, as Laura ungracefully expressed it, “like a well-dressed monkey on a stick.”

  “Who does your laundry?” she demanded. Gavin smirked.

  “One of the sergeants’ wives, I believe,” he replied.

  “One of the sergeants’ wives? How many sergeants do you have?—or how many wives have they got?”

  “I
don’t know, at present. I’ve only been given me raise this week, you see.”

  Laura was speechless. Her husband laughed and addressed himself to Dame Beatrice.

  “I enjoyed your dossier, Dame B. How far do you trust the intuition of the Rose family?”

  “No farther than I must, of course, but they are an intelligent couple.”

  “The lad, of course, is cagey, as lads are apt to be—”

  “You cheer a sergeant’s laundry-wife. Thank goodness I ain’t she!” capped Laura, rather neatly. Gavin blew her a kiss and shot the cuff of an obviously impeccable shirt.

  “Passing lightly on,” he said, “I should be inclined to think that dear old Rebekah has clouted the nail on the head. What on earth to do about it—since there’s nobbut her hunch to go on—I can’t conceive.”

  “You’d better let Mrs. Croc sort out the Amsterdam household,” said Laura crisply. “And stop trying to look like Perry Mason!” she added. Gavin grinned.

  “I thought I was more like Doctor Kildare,” he said, “although, of course, younger and better-looking, if you know what I mean. But, to the work in hand. Would you brave those fearful females in their noisome den, Dame B? If so, I’m prepared to stick my neck out with regard to Florian (my God!) Colwyn-Welch, and pull him in on suspicion of having poisoned those two girls. But I can’t do that until I’ve a lot more evidence.”

  “You’ll get it,” said Laura. “I don’t think old Rebekah is right. It isn’t Ruby, it’s Opal, but her reason is a bit far-fetched.”

  “So you know the motive?”

  “Mrs. Croc does, and, knowing Opal’s peculiar mental make-up, I’d say she’s just about right.”

  “Then I’ll leave it to her to sort everything out. How do you feel, Dame B?”

  “Like the Spartans before Thermopylae,” Dame Beatrice replied. “And, although I lack the sea-wet rocks, I may well find time to sit down and comb my hair, if that is permitted. In other words, time, at present, is not of the essence, as Laura would probably put it.”

  She and Laura left for Holland two days later and put up at an hotel in Haarlem, so that they were within easy reach of Binnen and her daughters without actually staying in Amsterdam.

  “About that Thermopylae business,” said Laura, at breakfast on the first morning of their stay, “how, exactly, did you mean?”

  “Thermopylae?” Dame Beatrice helped herself to the thinly-sliced cheese which, with a platter of cold meat, took the place of the inevitable English bacon and fried egg.

  “Yes, Thermopylae,” repeated Laura firmly. “You know—tell Sparta we lie here obeying her orders, (or something of that sort). Are we proposing to put on an act of Daniel in the lions’ den? Are the Colwyn-Welch mob really dangerous?”

  “Dear me, I hope not!” said Dame Beatrice. “I confess, though, to a certain uneasiness. I am determined not to meet them under false pretences, and yet it is a little difficult to see . . .”

  “How to break the news to them that we think they poisoned that chocolate-cream (loathsome muck!) and sent it to Florian with the express intention of laying him out? Yes, I take your point. Well, what shall we do?”

  “You will make a tour of the town. I am told that the church of St. Bavo and the Meat Hall are well worth seeing.”

  “And you?”

  “I shall go to see Mrs. Colwyn-Welch.”

  “Don’t you think I’d better come with you?”

  “I would prefer that you did not. If one of us is to be poisoned, I feel that your expectation of life should be considerably greater than my own.”

  “Sez you!” retorted Laura morosely. “Well,” she added, in a different tone, “at what time shall I come and collect you?”

  “I have no idea. You might like to purchase the Franz Hals guide book, if you decide to visit the Oude Mannenhuis, but you may prefer to spend the day at your favourite resort of Zandvoort,” said Dame Beatrice equably.

  “I could do both, if you think you’ll be all day with the Colwyn-Welch poisoners. Don’t drink their coffee, will you?”

  On this note they parted. Dame Beatrice was received with reticence by Binnen and her daughters, an attitude which caused her no surprise, since she had hardly anticipated that she would be welcomed with open arms.

  “You have come about Florian and those two girls,” said Binnen, without beating about the bush. “We know nothing about the circumstances and cannot help you.”

  Dame Beatrice was equally forthright.

  “Would you rather deal with me or with the Interpol people?” she demanded. Binnen looked at her. Opal rose from her chair, a majestic figure.

  “You are not to threaten my mother,” she said. “Why are you here to harass us?”

  “Not, I hope, to harass you, but I should like to ask one question,” Dame Beatrice replied. She addressed herself again to Binnen. “I do not know how much you have gathered of what has occurred in England,” she said, “but you probably know that the two girls you mentioned were poisoned by some chocolate-cream.”

  “So?”

  “That is all, unless you would like to tell me whether it is possible that the poison came from this house. I am making no accusation, you understand, but your grandson does appear to be involved.”

  “There is no poison in this house,” said Binnen.

  “You were a member of the Netherlands Resistance, were you not?”

  “Unlike ourselves, who were interned,” said the hitherto silent Ruby, with a certain amount of venom.

  “I was helping airmen to escape,” said Binnen apologetically to her daughter. “Was that not a good thing?”

  “Yes,” said Dame Beatrice, before Ruby could reply. She rose to take her leave.

  “Wait!” said Ruby, springing to her feet from the sofa on which she had been seated. “Florian did get the poison from here. It was belonging to my mother. We did not know he had taken it. None of us knew.”

  “Be silent, Ruby!” said Binnen, in dangerously quiet tones. “Nothing is to be gained by hysterical behaviour, or by telling such obvious lies. Control yourself, I beg of you. Nothing can be proved against anyone, because nothing exists which is wrong.”

  “Except the deaths of two harmless young women,” Dame Beatrice pointed out. “Their deaths are a fact, and a fact which will need to be explained.”

  “But how should it concern you?” asked Opal. “You are not the police.”

  “I am accredited to the Home Office,” Dame Beatrice replied, “and the Home Office takes an interest in murder, you know.”

  “Murder?” screamed Ruby.

  “You can’t prove anything,” said Opal, calmly.

  “I may be able to prove that Mr. Florian suspected that the chocolate was poisoned,” retorted Dame Beatrice, looking firmly at her. Ruby, who had subsided again, leapt to her feet once more.

  “I shall kill you,” she said firmly. Dame Beatrice was unmoved. “I shall kill you—now!” said Ruby. Binnen got up and pushed her daughter back on to the sofa.

  “Do not be so silly to give yourself away. It is not fair or decent,” she said sternly. Ruby began to cry. “So stop!” said Binnen. She caught Dame Beatrice’s eye. “Think well before you take action. My daughters did not have an easy time during the war. Opal, you understand, is obstinate, but Ruby, you will agree, has not recovered from her experiences.”

  “Yes,” agreed Opal, raising her head, “I am obstinate, and I do not give civil replies.”

  “I can understand that. Tell me more.”

  “Why should I?” demanded Opal. “I can’t help it if Florian murders people. It’s nothing to do with me.”

  “So go, please,” said Binnen, getting up. “We have had enough. You were right to come, and now you are right (and merciful) to leave.”

  “Seems to have been an odd sort of conversation,” said Laura, when Dame Beatrice reported it to her that evening. “What did you make of it, if anything? Ruby must be mad, of course. That’s evident. Equally evident tha
t Opal is, too.”

  “Is it? Ruby is slightly unhinged, no doubt, but I think that Opal is like Hamlet, in one respect.”

  “I see what you mean. All that north-by-west stuff. I suppose it couldn’t have been much fun for them, being interned, you know.”

  “We don’t know that Opal was interned.”

  “What?”

  “It seems to me most unlikely.”

  “But why?”

  “Well, to begin with, she seems to know a good deal about Derbyshire.”

  “You mean she spent the war years in England?”

  “Ask yourself, child. The Netherlander have lived too long on the borders of Germany not to know what the Nazis were up to. I don’t know whether they expected their country to be overrun, but I should think children of English parentage were sent out of the country as soon as there seemed any doubt.”

  “Well, where do we go from here? In other words, Binnen is sticking up for her daughters for all she’s worth, I take it—making excuses for their mental state and all that.”

  “Well, what else can she do?” argued Dame Beatrice reasonably. “I have no daughters, but, if I had had them, I would have stood up for them through thick and thin.”

  “To change the subject, that last expression reminds me of the professors,” said Laura. “What does through thick and thin really mean?”

  “According to an authority I trust, which is the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, written by the Reverend E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D., the expression originated with Dryden, and it means through good report; through soggy mud and stones only thinly covered with dust. Butler, according to the same authority, records in Hudibras, that

  Through perils both of wind and limb

  She followed him through thick and thin.”

  “I haven’t read Hudibras,” said Laura, “but that doesn’t rhyme.”

  “Again we are at one. I have not read it, either, and I agree that it does not rhyme.”

  “So back we go, and to Derbyshire. To do what, exactly?”

  “I hardly think that to go into Derbyshire would be helpful at the moment. North Norfolk would be my goal.”