Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 5

by R. Austin Freeman

  For some seconds after receiving this answer the coroner continued to gaze steadily at the witness. At length he observed: "This is a remarkable coincidence. Can you recall the condition of deceased when Mrs. Monkhouse went away on that occasion?"

  "Yes. I remember that he was in comparatively good health. In fact, his improved condition furnished the opportunity for Mrs. Monkhouse to make her visit to Maidstone."

  "Can you tell us how soon after her departure on that occasion the relapse occurred?"

  "I cannot say definitely, but my impression is that the change for the worse began a few days after she went away. Perhaps I might be able to judge by looking at my notes."

  The coroner handed him back the index-cards, which he looked through rapidly. "Yes," he said, at length, "here is an entry on June 11 of a bottle of tonic medicine for Mrs. Monkhouse. So she must have been at home on that date; and as it was a double-sized bottle, it was probably for her to take away with her."

  "Then," said the coroner, "it is clear that, on the last two occasions, the deceased was comparatively well when his wife left home, but had a serious relapse soon after she went away. Now, what of the previous relapses?"

  "I am afraid I cannot remember. I have an impression that Mrs. Monkhouse was away from home when some of them occurred, but at this distance of time, I cannot recollect clearly. Possibly Mrs. Monkhouse, herself, may be able to remember."

  "Possibly," the coroner agreed, rather drily, "but as the point is of considerable importance, I should be glad if you would presently look through your case cards and see if you can glean any definite information on the subject. Meanwhile we may pass on to one or two other matters. First as to the medicine which you prescribed for deceased; it contained, as you have told us, a certain amount of Fowler's Solution, and you considered deceased to be suffering from chronic gastritis. Is Fowler's Solution usually given in cases of gastritis?"

  "No. It is usually considered rather unsuitable. But deceased was very tolerant of small doses of arsenic. I had often given it to him before as a tonic and it had always seemed to agree with him. The dose was extremely small—only two minims."

  "How long have you known deceased?"

  "I have known, and attended him professionally about twenty years."

  "From your knowledge of him, should you say that he was a man who was likely to make enemies?"

  "Not at all. He was a kindly, just and generous man, amiable and even-tempered; rather reserved and aloof; not very human, perhaps, and somewhat self-contained and solitary. But I could not imagine him making an enemy and, so far as I know, he never did."

  The coroner reflected awhile after writing down this answer and then turned to the jury.

  "Are there any questions that you wish to put to the witness, gentlemen?"

  The jury consulted together for a few moments, and the foreman then replied: "We should like to know, Sir, if possible, whether Mrs. Monkhouse was or was not away from home when the previous relapses occurred."

  "I am afraid," said Dimsdale, "that I cannot be more explicit as the events occurred so long ago. The other witnesses—the members of the household—would be much more likely to remember. And I would urge you not to detain me from my professional duties longer than is absolutely necessary."

  Hereupon a brief consultation took place between the coroner and the jury, with the result that Dimsdale was allowed to go about his business and Barbara was summoned to take his place. I had awaited this stage of the proceedings with some uneasiness and was now rather surprised and greatly relieved at the coroner's manner towards her; which was courteous and even sympathetic. Having expressed his and the jury's regret at having to trouble her in the very distressing circumstances, he proceeded at once to clear off the preliminaries, eliciting the facts that she was 32 years of age and had been married a little over three years, and then said: "Dr. Dimsdale has told us that on the occasion of the attack or relapse in June last you were away from home, but he is not certain about the previous ones. Can you give us any information on the subject?"

  "Yes" she replied, in a quiet, steady voice, "I recall quite clearly at least three previous occasions on which I went away from home leaving my husband apparently well—as well as he ever was—and came back to find him quite ill. But I think there were more than three occasions on which this happened, for I remember having once accused him, facetiously, of saving up his illnesses until I was out of the house."

  "Can you remember if a serious relapse ever occurred when you were at home?"

  "Not a really serious one. My husband's health was always very unstable and he often had to rest in bed for a day or two. But the really bad attacks of illness seem always to have occurred when I was away from home."

  "Did it never strike you that this was a very remarkable fact?"

  "I am afraid I did not give the matter as much consideration as I ought to have done. Deceased was always ailing, more or less, and those about him came to accept ill-health as his normal condition."

  "But you see the significance of it now?"

  Barbara hesitated and then replied in a low voice and with evident agitation: "I see that it may have some significance, but I don't in the least understand it. I am quite overwhelmed and bewildered by the dreadful thing that has happened."

  "Naturally, you are," the coroner said in a sympathetic tone, "and I am most reluctant to trouble you with questions under circumstances that must be so terrible to you. But we must find out the truth if we can."

  "Yes, I realize that," she replied, "and thank you for your consideration."

  The coroner bowed, and after a brief pause, asked: "Did it never occur to you to engage a nurse to attend to deceased?"

  "Yes. I suggested it more than once to deceased, but he wouldn't hear of it. And I think he was right. There was nothing that a nurse could have done for him. He was not helpless and he was not continuously bed-ridden. He had a bell-push by his bedside and his secretary or the servants were always ready to do anything that he wanted done. The housemaid was most attentive to him. But he did not want much attention. He kept the books that he was reading on his bedside table and he liked to be left alone to read in peace. He felt that the presence of a nurse would have been disturbing."

  "And at night?"

  "At night his bell-push was connected with a bell in the secretary's bedroom. But he hardly ever used it. If his candle-lamp burned out he could put in a fresh candle from the box on his table; and he never seemed to want anything else."

  "Besides deceased and yourself, who were the inmates of the house?"

  "There was my husband's secretary, Mr. Wallingford, Miss Norris, the cook, Anne Baker, the housemaid, Mabel Withers, and the kitchenmaid, Doris Brown."

  "Why did deceased need a secretary? Did he transact much business?"

  "No. The secretary wrote his few business letters, kept the accounts and executed any commissions, besides doing the various things that the master of the house would ordinarily have done. He is the son of an old friend of my husband's, and he came to us when his father died."

  "And Miss Norris? What was her position in the household?"

  "She lived with us as a guest at my husband's invitation. She was the daughter of his first wife's sister, and he, more or less informally, adopted her as he had no children of his own."

  "Deceased was a widower, then, when you married him?"

  "Yes. His wife had been dead about two years."

  "What was his age when he died?"

  "He had just turned fifty-seven."

  "On what sort of terms was deceased with the members of his household?"

  "On the best of terms with them all. He was an undemonstrative man and rather cool and reserved with strangers and distinctly solitary and self-contained. But he was a kind and generous man and all the household, including the servants, were devoted to him."

  "Was deceased engaged in any business or profession?"

  "No, he had independent means, inherited from
his father."

  "Would you describe him as a wealthy man?"

  "I believe he was quite well off, but he never spoke of his financial affairs to me, or to anybody but his lawyers."

  "Do you know how his property is disposed of?"

  "I know that he made a will, but I never enquired about the terms of it and he never told me."

  "But surely you were an interested party."

  "It was understood that some provision would be made for me if I survived him. That was all that concerned me. Deceased was not a man with whom it was necessary to make conditions; and I have some small property of my own. Mr. Mayfield, who is present, of course, knows what the provisions of the will are as he is one of the executors."

  Once more the coroner paused to look over his notes. Then he glanced inquiringly at the jury, and, when the foreman shook his head, he thanked Barbara and dismissed her; and as she walked back to her chair, pale and grave but perfectly composed, I found myself admiring her calm dignity and only hoping that the other witnesses would make as good a figure. But this hope was no sooner conceived than it was shattered. The next name that was called was Madeline Norris and for a few moments there was no response. At length Madeline rose slowly, ashen and ghastly of face, and walked unsteadily to the table. Her appearance—her deathly pallor and her trembling hands—struck me with dismay; and what increased my concern for the unfortunate girl was the subtle change in manner that I detected in the jury and the coroner. The poor girl's manifest agitation might surely have bespoken their sympathy; but not a sign of sympathy was discernible in their faces—nothing but a stony curiosity.

  Having been sworn—on a testament which shook visibly in her grasp—she deposed that her name was Madeline Norris and her age twenty-seven.

  "Any occupation?" the coroner enquired drily without looking up.

  "I am a teacher at the Westminster College of Domestic Science."

  "Teacher of what?"

  "Principally of cookery and kitchen management, especially invalid cookery."

  "Are you, yourself, a skilled cook?"

  "Yes. It is my duty to demonstrate to the class."

  "Have you ever cooked or prepared food for the deceased?"

  "Yes. I usually cooked his meals when I was in the house at meal times."

  "It has been stated that you prepared the last meal that deceased took. Is that correct?"

  "Yes. I cooked an omelette for his supper."

  "Will you describe to us the way in which you prepared that omelette?"

  Madeline considered for a few moments and then replied in a low, shaky voice: "It was just a simple omelette. I first rubbed the pan with a cut clove of garlic and put in the butter to heat. Then I broke an egg into a cup, separated the yolk from the white, and, having beaten them up separately, mixed them and added a very small portion of pounded anchovy, a pinch or two of finely chopped parsley and a little salt. I cooked it in the usual way and turned it out on a hot plate which I covered at once."

  "Who took it up to deceased?"

  "I did. I ran straight up with it and sat and talked to deceased while he ate it."

  "Did you meet anyone on your way up or in the bedroom?"

  "No. There was nobody on the stairs, and, the deceased was alone."

  "Did deceased take anything to drink with his supper?"

  "Yes. He had a glass of chablis. I fetched the bottle and the glass from the dining room and poured out the wine for him."

  "Did you meet anybody in the dining room or coming or going?"

  "No, I met nobody."

  "Can you think of any way in which any poison could have got into the omelette or into the wine?"

  "No. Nothing could possibly have got into the omelette. As to the wine, I poured it from the bottle into a clean glass. But the bottle was already open and had been in the cellaret since lunch."

  "Now, with regard to the medicine. Did you give deceased any on the day before his death?"

  "Yes. I gave him a dose soon after I came in—about six o'clock. That was the last dose in the bottle."

  "Did you notice anything unusual about the medicine?"

  "No. It was similar to what he had been taking for some days past."

  "What was the medicine like?"

  "It was nearly colourless with the faintest tinge of red and smelled slightly of lavender and bitter orange."

  "Was there anything that caused you to notice particularly, on this occasion, the appearance and smell of the medicine?"

  "No. I noticed the colour and the smell when I opened the bottle on the previous morning to give deceased a dose."

  "Did you examine the new bottle which had just been sent?"

  "Yes; I looked at it and took out the cork and smelled it and tasted it."

  "What made you do that?"

  "I noticed that it seemed to contain Tincture of Cardamoms and I smelled and tasted it to find out if the other ingredients had been changed."

  "And what conclusion did you arrive at?"

  "That they had not been changed. I could taste the Nux Vomica and smell the orange and the Liquor Arsenicalis—at least the lavender"

  "Did you realize what the lavender smell was due to?"

  "Yes. I recognized it as the smell of Liquor Arsenicalis. I knew that deceased was taking Liquor Arsenicalis because I had asked Dr. Dimsdale about it when I first noticed the smell."

  The coroner wrote down this answer and then, raising his head, looked steadily at Madeline for some seconds without speaking; and the jury looked harder still. At length the former spoke, slowly, deliberately, emphatically.

  "You have told us that you examined this medicine to find out what it contained, and that you were able to recognize Tincture of Cardamoms by its colour and Liquor Arsenicalis by its smell. It would seem, then, that you know a good deal about drugs. Is that so?"

  "I know something about drugs. My father was a doctor and he taught me simple dispensing so that I could help him."

  The coroner nodded. "Was there any reason why you should have taken so much interest in the composition of deceased's medicine?"

  Madeline did not answer immediately. And as she stood trembling and hesitating in evident confusion, the coroner gazed at her stonily, and the jury craned forward to catch her reply.

  "I used to examine his medicine," she replied at length, in a low voice and a reluctant and confused manner, "because I knew that it often contained Liquor Arsenicalis and I used to wonder whether that was good for him. I understood from my father that it was a rather irritating drug, and it did not seem very suitable for a patient who suffered from gastritis."

  There was a pause after she had spoken and something in the appearance of the inquisitors almost as if they had been a little disappointed by this eminently reasonable answer. At length the coroner broke the silence by asking, with a slight softening of manner:

  "You have said that the change in colour of the last medicine led you to taste and smell it to ascertain if the other ingredients had been changed. You have said that you decided that they had not been changed. Are you sure of that? Can you swear that the smell of lavender was not stronger in this bottle than in the previous ones?"

  "It did not seem to me to be stronger."

  "Supposing the bottle had then contained as much Liquor Arsenicalis as was found in it by the analysts, would you have been able to detect it by the smell or otherwise?"

  "Yes, I feel sure that I should. The analysts found three ounces of Liquor Arsenicalis; that would be nearly half the bottle. I am sure I should have detected that amount, not only by the strong smell but by the colour, too."

  "You are sure that the colour of this medicine was due to Cardamoms only?"

  "Yes, that is to cochineal. I recognized it at once. It is perfectly unmistakable and quite different from the colour of Red Sandalwood, with which Liquor Arsenicalis is coloured. Besides, this medicine was only a deepish pink in colour. But if three ounces of Liquor Arsenicalis had been in the bottle, the
medicine would have been quite a dark red."

  "You have had some experience in dispensing. Do you consider it possible that the Liquor Arsenicalis could have been put into the medicine by mistake when it was being made up?"

  "It would be quite impossible if a minim measure-glass was used, as the glass would have had to be filled twelve times. But this is never done. One does not measure large quantities in small measures. Three ounces would be measured out in a four or five ounce measure, as a rule, or, possibly in a two ounce measure, by half refilling it."

  "Might not the wrong measure-glass have been taken up by mistake?"

  "That is, of course, just possible. But it is most unlikely; for the great disproportion between the large measure-glass and the little stock-bottle would be so striking that it could hardly fail to be noticed."

  "Then, from your own observation and from Dr. Dimsdale's evidence, you reject the idea that a mistake may have been made in dispensing this bottle of medicine?"

  "Yes, entirely. I have heard Dr. Dimsdale's evidence and I examined the medicine. I am convinced that he could not have made a mistake under the circumstances that he described and I am certain that the medicine that I saw did not contain more than a small quantity—less than a drachm—of Liquor Arsenicalis."

  "You are not forgetting that the analysts actually found the equivalent of three ounces of Liquor Arsenicalis in the bottle?"

  "No. But I am sure it was not there when I examined the bottle."

  The coroner wrote down this answer with a deliberate air, and, when he had finished, turned to the jury.

  "I think we have nothing more to ask this witness, unless there is any point that you want made more clear."

  There was a brief silence. Then the super-intelligent juryman interposed.

  "I should like to know if this witness ever had any Liquor Arsenicalis in her possession."

  The coroner held up a warning hand to Madeline, and replied:

  "That question, Sir, is not admissible. It is a principle of English law that a witness cannot be compelled to make a statement incriminating him—or herself. But an affirmative answer to this question would be an incriminating statement."