Behold, Here's Poison

by Georgette Heyer

  ‘That you are wasting your time, my dear Superintendent.’

  ‘And when I tell you that John Hyde has not been seen at his office since Tuesday, May 14th?’

  Randall had wandered over to where his cigarette-box stood, and his back was momentarily turned to Hannasyde. ‘Who says that he has not been seen since May 14th?’ he asked.

  ‘The man who runs the shop – and I don’t think he was lying.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to me a very valuable piece of information,’ Randall remarked, coming back to his chair. ‘He may conceivably be ill, or away.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Hannasyde. ‘But there is an elusive quality to Mr John Hyde which needs explaining. There is something more than a little odd about a man who has no home address, Mr Matthews.’ He got up. ‘I’m sorry you can’t help me.’

  ‘Looking for mares’ nests has never been one of my pastimes, Superintendent. May I know whether you have been favoured with a description of your quarry?’

  ‘A very vague one, which might possibly be false.’

  ‘How useful! And what was it?’

  ‘A middle-aged man, with an ordinary face. That’s all so far.’

  ‘I should give it up, if I were you,’ said Randall.

  ‘You can hardly expect me to follow that advice,’ said Hannasyde rather shortly, and took his leave.

  But the quest of John Hyde proved to be a singularly thankless task. No one knew him; nor, when Hannasyde and Sergeant Hemingway, armed with a search warrant, visited his office, could any clue to his identity be discovered. The office, a dingy room above the shop, contained nothing but a table, a chair, a typewriter, and a safe.

  ‘If this bird’s an agent, what’s become of his sample-goods?’ demanded Sergeant Hemingway.

  Mr Brown, still in his shirt-sleeves, looked round the bare apartment with vague disquiet. ‘I never known him go off like this before, and no word said,’ he muttered. ‘I seen him Tuesday before last, and I’ll take my dying oath he ain’t been near the place since.’

  This oft-reiterated statement was borne out to a certain extent by Foster’s Bank. On the 14th May a cheque of Hyde’s for £25 had been presented, made out to Bearer. Questioned, the cashier faithfully described Mr Brown, and added that he had been in the habit of cashing cheques made out by Hyde to Bearer. Mr Brown did not deny it. He stated that Mr Hyde had always employed him to cash his cheques for him, and that he had merely collected the money, and handed it over to Hyde. As it further transpired that he had very often paid in moneys for Hyde there seemed to be no reason for doubting this statement, but why he had been so employed or what his connection with Hyde was there was no getting out of him. He persisted in saying that he didn’t know, he was sure; and that Mr Hyde never told him nothing. When asked whether Hyde ever had visitors he replied sulkily that Hyde did sometimes see people in the way of business, but who they were or where they came from he couldn’t say.

  The safe, when opened, disclosed nothing but a half-used cheque-book, with every counterfoil blank, and a bundle of share-certificates.

  ‘Well, this is the queerest turn I ever saw in my life!’ said the Sergeant. ‘I’ve heard of people doing a bunk, but I never knew them leave their cheque-books and a tidy Bank balance behind till now. Looks almost as though this bloke had to clear out in the devil’s own hurry, Chief. Something happened after he left this place on the 14th which made him scared stiff to come back.’

  ‘But why did he keep his cheque-book in the safe?’ demanded Hannasyde. ‘We know from the Bank that it was the only one he possessed. Most men would carry it about with them, if they’d only got one. Or they’d keep it in a desk at home – not in an office they visit at irregular intervals!’

  ‘You can search me,’ said the Sergeant. ‘The point is, where is his home?’

  But this was something that the most rigorous inquiry failed to discover. An advertisement inserted in the papers asking for any information concerning Hyde produced no results, and an attempt to discover documents at his Bank which might give some clue to his identity also failed. He kept no documents at the Bank.

  Sergeant Hemingway, who had a genius for making his fellows confide in him, produced in triumph the châtelaine of No. 11 Gadsby Row, a corpulent lady with a slight beard, who remembered having seen Mr Hyde once when she had popped into Mr Brown’s to buy a paper. She hadn’t happened to look at him particular, for she was passing the time of day with Mr Brown, like anyone might, when in he walked, and without a word to no one went straight through the shop into the back-parlour. Well, that had struck her as being a funny thing to do, and she had said to Mr Brown, not thinking: ‘Who’s that?’ And she remembered as well as if it had been yesterday him saying: ‘Oh, that’s only Mr Hyde, that is!’ It was a bit hard to say what he’d looked like, because he’d had his hat on, and a pair of them dark spectacles, but he was dressed very gentlemanly, that she would say.

  It was not very helpful, but it was the best Sergeant Hemingway could do. No one else in the Row seemed ever to have noticed Hyde, and no shop in the vicinity had been patronised by him.

  A watch was set on No. 17 Gadsby Row, and an inquiry made into Mr Brown’s past history. It did not surprise either Hannasyde or the Sergeant to discover that Mr Brown was known to the police, and had done time for fraud seven years previously, but it did surprise them to find that since the date of his release from prison he seemed to have kept out of trouble. Mr Brown, searchingly interrogated by the sceptical Sergeant, assumed an air of outraged virtue, and said bitterly that he supposed the police had never heard of a man turning over a new leaf, and running straight.

  The plain-clothes detectives on the look-out for a middle-aged gentleman in dark spectacles found their task peculiarly dull, and although several middle-aged men visited the shop none of them wore spectacles, and none of them stayed longer than the time it took them to purchase their morning papers, or their packets of cigarettes. The shop was not patronised by men who dressed ‘very gentlemanly,’ a circumstance which made Mr Peel, the younger of the two detectives, take a good deal of interest in one of its customers, a young man whose attire was very gentlemanly indeed, and who came strolling down the street one early afternoon, and went into Mr Brown’s shop.

  Mr Brown, who was serving a navvy with a couple of ounces of shag, took a fleeting glance at the newcomer but paid no further heed to him until his first customer had pocketed his change, and was about to leave the shop. Then he leaned his hands on the counter, and asked what he might have the pleasure of doing for the foppish young gentleman.

  Mr Randall Matthews watched the navvy go out, and produced a shilling from his pocket. ‘Twenty Players, please,’ he said.

  Mr Brown pushed a packet across the counter, and picked up the shilling.

  Randall opened the packet, and drew out one of the cigarettes and lit it. Over the flame of his lighter his eyes sought Mr Brown’s. ‘Hyde in?’ he asked softly.

  The guarded look descended like a curtain over Mr Brown’s face. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Nor I don’t know when he will be.’

  Randall put his lighter away, and drew out an elegant notecase, and in a leisurely fashion extracted a Bank note that rustled agreeably. ‘That is a pity,’ he remarked. ‘It is important that I should see him.’

  ‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know,’ said Mr Brown, impelled by curiosity to try to see whether the note between Randall’s long fingers was for ten pounds or only five.

  ‘Perhaps I ought to tell you that I am not a policeman,’ sighed Randall. ‘Though I believe one of the plain-clothes fraternity is wandering about outside.’

  ‘Think I don’t know?’ said Mr Brown scornfully. ‘I could tell a busy half a mile off.’ It dawned on him that his visitor also appeared to possess this useful faculty, and he added with more respect in his voice: ‘You’d better clear off out of this. I don’t want no more trouble than what I’ve got already, and I tell you straight Mr Hyde ain’t here, nor he hasn�
��t been near the place for ten days.’

  ‘In view of the gentleman outside that hardly surprises me,’ said Randall. ‘But I feel sure you could direct me to him – for a consideration.’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t,’ said Mr Brown curtly. ‘What do you want with him?’

  Randall’s slow smile curled his lips. ‘Do Hyde’s visitors usually confide in you?’ he asked.

  There was a slight pause. Mr Brown stared frowningly at him, and after a moment said: ‘Look here, I don’t know no more than you do where Mr Hyde is, and what’s more I’ve had enough of him and his games! You clear off out of this before that busy outside starts smelling round after you, that’s my advice!’

  Randall regarded him thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘if I were to leave a letter for him in your charge it would be delivered? Oh, for a consideration, of course!’

  Mr Brown cast a hasty glance towards the door of the shop, and said loudly: ‘Well, it wouldn’t then, because I don’t know where to deliver it! What do you want? What’s your blooming hurry to get hold of Mr Hyde?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think it’s necessary for you to know that,’ said Randall. ‘I just have business with him – ah, somewhat, important business. I wonder if you could use ten pounds?’

  ‘It’s no good, I tell you!’ said Mr Brown roughly. ‘He’s gone – vanished!’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I had grasped that,’ said Randall. ‘But you might still be able to use ten pounds.’

  ‘How?’ demanded Mr Brown involuntarily.

  ‘Oh, quite easily!’ said Randall in his nonchalant way. ‘You can tell me where Hyde keeps his papers.’

  Mr Brown shook his head with some vigour. ‘Not me. Besides I don’t know.’

  Randall dropped his half-smoked cigarette on the floor, and set his heel on it. ‘How disappointing!’ he remarked. ‘The information would have been worth quite a lot – in hard cash, you understand. While if you happened to be holding any correspondence addressed to Hyde that too would be worth ten pounds, or even more.’

  ‘I ain’t got no correspondence,’ muttered Mr Brown. ‘You don’t think I’d keep any letters here with them busies nosing around, do you? Any letters that came – and I don’t say any did, mind you – I burned, and that’s Gospel-truth. I tell you, I’ve had enough of the whole business.’ He watched Randall restore the Bank-note to his case. The faint crackle of it caused a regretful, covetous gleam to shine in his eyes. He passed his tongue between his lips, and said angrily: ‘How do I know you wouldn’t set the cops on to it, supposing there was anything I could tell you?’

  ‘You don’t,’ said Randall amiably. ‘But as you can’t tell me anything that I want to know, that needn’t worry you.’

  The notecase was shut, and the hand that held it in the act of sliding it back into an inner pocket. Mr Brown cast another glance towards the door, and after a moment’s hesitation leaned slightly forward across the counter, and said in a quick undertone: ‘I could tell you something about his papers, but it won’t help you. That’s fair warning, ain’t it?’

  Randall drew out his notecase once more. ‘Where are they?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re where no one can’t get at them. Nor I don’t know exactly myself, and he may have taken them away with him.’

  ‘I’ll risk that,’ said Randall.

  ‘Well, he kept them in one of them safe-deposits,’ said Mr Brown reluctantly.

  ‘Of course!’ said Randall softly. ‘Which one?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that. He never said, nor I didn’t ask. I said it wouldn’t do you no good.’

  ‘Where did he keep the key?’

  ‘On his watch-chain. Never off it, it wasn’t. I seen it often. That’s all I know, and if it ain’t enough you can’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  ‘On his watch-chain,’ repeated Randall, the smile fading from his lips.

  Mr Brown, watching him, thought the look on his face downright ugly, and said uneasily: ‘It ain’t my fault if you don’t like it. I told you the truth, so help me, and that’s more nor what I ought to have done. What’s it worth – to stop me telling the same to the police?’

  ‘I hardly think that you are anxious to confide in the police,’ said Randall, ‘but it is worth – to me – exactly what I said I would pay for it.’

  Mr Brown held out an eager hand for the note. A smile stole over his unprepossessing countenance. ‘You wanted to know mighty bad, didn’t you? I hope you’re satisfied, that’s all.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Randall, and flicked the note into his hand.

  After a swift glance at it to make sure that it was correct, Mr Brown thrust it into his pocket and cast another of his puzzled looks at Randall. He watched him put his notecase away and draw on one of his gloves, and suddenly said: ‘I ain’t seen you before, have I?’

  ‘I should think it very unlikely,’ said Randall.

  Mr Brown stroked his chin. ‘Funny thing, but the minute you come into the shop I got a feeling I had seen you somewhere.’

  Randall paused with his hand stretched out to pick up his malacca cane from the counter, and let Mr Brown see his eyes. ‘Look again,’ he said smoothly. ‘Have you seen me before?’

  Mr Brown’s gaze shifted under that curiously vivid, intent stare. ‘No, I don’t know as how I have,’ he said uncertainly. ‘Not to be sure, anyway. Just something in the cut of your jib seemed to strike me as being a bit familiar, that’s all. No offence!’

  Randall picked up his cane. ‘None at all,’ he replied. ‘But you have not seen me before, Mr Brown, I can assure you. Nor are you very likely to see me again.’

  Mr Brown gave him a knowing leer. ‘I can keep my mouth shut, don’t you worry!’ he said.

  A smile which Mr Brown liked even less than the expression he had found ugly a few minutes before flitted across Randall’s face. ‘No, I shan’t worry,’ he said, and walked with his graceful, untroubled gait out of the shop.

  Detective Peel, observing him from the opposite side of the road, thought it worth his while to follow him at a discreet distance.

  His report, made to Superintendent Hannasyde later in the day, interested the Superintendent considerably.

  ‘Mr Randall Matthews,’ he said slowly. ‘Yes, you did quite right to follow him. How long was he in the shop?’

  ‘Matter of twenty-five minutes,’ replied Peel. ‘Came walking down the street as though he didn’t give a damn for anyone.’

  ‘Yes, I think he would do that,’ said Hannasyde. ‘It may, of course, have failed to dawn on him that the place was being watched.’ He tapped the pencil he was holding on his desk. ‘I think we might keep Mr Randall Matthews under observation,’ he said. ‘You couldn’t hear what was said in the shop, I suppose?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t, Superintendent. It’s a bit difficult, hanging round the entrance with so many people about,’ replied Peel apologetically.

  Hannasyde nodded. ‘Yes, I know. It doesn’t matter. But I shall be interested to see what Mr Randall Matthews’ next move is.’

  However, Randall Matthews’ next move was an unexceptionable one. On the following afternoon, arrayed in all the sombre elegance of a morning-coat, with a sleek top-hat set at an unsuitably rakish angle on his still sleeker black head, he motored down to Grinley Heath in a hired limousine to attend his uncle’s funeral.

  The service was held at the Parish Church, and there were very few mourners. Apart from the dead man’s relatives, only the Rumbolds, Dr Fielding, and Mr Nigel Brooke, who was Guy’s partner, attended it. Nigel Brooke, a tall young man with curly yellow hair and a profile which, because some misguided person had once told him it was Grecian, he was rather too much inclined to present to the world, explained confidentially to Dr Fielding that he had only put in an appearance because one liked to do the proper thing. ‘Speaking for myself,’ said Mr Brooke, ‘I regard funerals as pure relics of barbarism. I daresay you feel the same.’

  ‘I have never thought it worth while to consider the matte
r,’ replied Fielding.

  This was not encouraging, but Mr Brooke said in a thoughtful voice: ‘I am inclined to think that that point of view is extraordinarily indicative of the spirit of the age.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be at all surprised,’ said Fielding.

  ‘I am afraid,’ said Mr Brooke, starting a fresh topic, ‘that dear old Guy feels all this very much.’

  ‘It is hardly surprising that he should.’

  Mr Brooke put his head on one side. ‘One is inclined to ascribe it more to an inherently artistic temperament though, than to any profound feeling of sorrow in his uncle’s death.’

  ‘I daresay.’

  ‘After all, old Matthews was a pretty good stinker, wasn’t he?’ said Mr Brooke, momentarily abandoning his affectations.

  The doctor made no reply to this, and after a slight pause, Mr Brooke suddenly remarked: ‘There is a woman here whose setting should be a mixture of horsehair and tubular steel.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ah, you think that a little too daring, I expect,’ said Mr Brooke with a smile of superiority. ‘One ought never to be afraid of contrasts, however. I learned that lesson very early in my career, and believe me, I have often used the most startling anachronisms to obtain amazingly successful results.’

  ‘I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about,’ said Fielding.

  Mr Brooke’s gaze rested dreamily on Mrs Lupton, who was just about to enter her car. ‘That woman,’ he said simply. ‘Don’t you feel it? One would resist the obvious temptation of red plush, of course.’

  The doctor gave him a look of contemptuous dislike, and moved away.

  The Matthews family were drifting out of the Churchyard to seek their various cars by this time, and Owen Crewe was anxiously trying to convey to his wife through the medium of silent grimace that he did not desire to accompany her to her father’s house for tea. Unfortunately Agnes was not very susceptible to messages thus conveyed, and instead of discovering an urgent need for their immediate return to town, she accepted Mrs Lupton’s invitation, and said that she knew Owen would love to come. The scowl with which Owen greeted this interpretation of his wishes could not have been misread by the blindest wife, and Agnes at once said: ‘You don’t mind, do you, darling? You did say you were going to take the rest of the day off, didn’t you?’