Mingled With Venom mb-54

by Gladys Mitchell

‘I have never noticed it.’

  ‘And, of course,’ went on the newly-named Antonia, ‘Mr Rupert Bosse-Leyden is as illegitimate as I am. These things run in families. So do twins. You are a twin and Rupert and Diana have twin children, haven’t they? and Blue and Garnet are twins also.’

  ‘There is one thing I can tell you,’ said Maria, regaining control over her voice and her facial expression. ‘To begin with, how old are you?’

  ‘I think you know that I am twenty.’

  ‘Quite so. Well, Maybury has been employed here for the past eleven years. My father has been dead for twenty-four.’

  ‘I’m sorry for my thoughts and hopes, Maria.’

  ‘Accept what you have been given and are to go on being given, and abstain from wild speculation. It does no good and may create a great deal of mischief.’

  ‘I’ll remember that, Maria. When you come to London to hear me sing in public, you will notice what a good stage-presence I have. Other things run in families besides twins and illegitimacy.’

  Her listener walked out of the room.

  ‘I shall buy Antonia the flat she wants,’ said Maria to Fiona.

  ‘Really? But I thought the terms of madre’s Will—’

  ‘I don’t want Antonia in this house.’

  ‘You must have a reason for saying so, I suppose.’

  ‘Certainly I have, but I shall not disclose it, even to you. Sufficient to say that I do not want her here now my mother has gone. You and I are sufficient company for one another.’

  ‘It will be nice to have the house to ourselves; not that she comes all that often.’

  ‘No, but she comes when she thinks she will and without giving previous notice. My mother put up with it, but I shall not. Fiona, I think I will tell you the truth, after all. I can trust you not to pass it on.’

  ‘Don’t say something you may regret later on, Maria.’

  ‘It is better that someone else should know. I shrank at first from telling you because I suppose I have old-fashioned ideas about these things, but nobody thinks anything of them nowadays. In fact, I sometimes wonder whether it isn’t rather a mark of distinction to be the result of an illicit love-affair.’

  ‘If it is a love-affair.’

  ‘Oh, well, an outsider can hardly know about that. Antonia began by pretending that she thought herself to be my father’s child. That notion I disposed of very easily, but it did not represent her true thoughts.’

  ‘I suppose it’s terribly frustrating to be brought up in an orphanage and not know anything about your origins,’ said Fiona, envisaging what she would feel in such a case.

  ‘I make all allowance for that. What I don’t understand is how Antonia knows she is my husband’s daughter. In fact, she cannot know. It was just a wild shot in the dark.’

  ‘But is she?—how can you be sure that she is right?’

  ‘I am not sure, but it is possible.’

  ‘Well, anything is possible; not so many things are likely. I would put this one clean out of your mind, if I were you, but I think you are right to close your doors to her if she has made that kind of allegation.’

  ‘My late husband was on the stage, you know, and, as the wretched girl says, some things do run in families.’

  ‘I see that poor Margaret Denham is to be sent for trial,’ said Fiona, thinking it best to change the subject.

  ‘Do you think they will find her guilty?’

  ‘Well, anything would be better than having the crime brought home to one of your family.’

  ‘Whatever can you mean?’

  ‘I am naming no names.’ The women eyed one another. Fiona was the first to drop her eyes. ‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought perhaps your mind marched with mine. There are cuckoos in the nest, more than one of them.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Maria, her face clearing. ‘So that is what you think! It is more than likely, but, for the sake of all of us, the name must not be breathed.’

  ‘So what can be done?’ asked Bluebell. ‘Of course, Margaret Denham may be guilty, but I think the police have gone too far in arresting her so soon. As it’s a charge of murder, the poor thing can’t even get bail.’

  She was speaking to Dame Beatrice, having walked down to the hotel immediately after breakfast to seek an interview. She was accompanied by Gamaliel, who had his own views and expressed them freely.

  ‘They have arrested this girl because she is poor and obscure and frightened. The person to arrest is this girl we have to call Antonia. It was easy to see that she was more upset than anybody over my great grandmother’s Will. The one most upset is the guilty party. That is my opinion.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Gammy,’ said Bluebell. ‘You are putting the cart before the horse and talking from hindsight. Antonia did not know the contents of the Will before your great grandmother died. Nobody did. Somebody may have thought she did, but even if she had been right (and we know now that she was not right) she had nothing to gain by the death. She would get her training whether she was to be left the money for it or whether one of us legatees was to pay for it, as has turned out to be the case. You must not talk so wildly and unfairly.’

  ‘He is right about one thing,’ said Dame Beatrice, gazing with benign admiration at the beautiful youth. ‘If Margaret Denham is to be exonerated, another culprit must be found, for of one other thing we can be sure; Mrs Leyden undoubtedly was poisoned and, on the face of it, by somebody’s wilful act. The charge, however, may turn out to be one of manslaughter.’

  ‘Not murder?’ asked Gamaliel, not at all put out of countenance by Bluebell’s censure. ‘But that is not so interesting, is it?’

  ‘No, it is not,’ Dame Beatrice agreed. ‘Nevertheless, the accused person may well prefer it.’

  ‘Would it help this girl if I went to the police and confessed to a practical joke?’

  Bluebell gazed at him with horror and told him, with some abruptness, not to show off. Dame Beatrice surveyed him with kindly interest.

  ‘I hardly think it would help matters at all,’ she said. ‘You base your suggestion, no doubt, on the theory that, at your age, not only could you plead that a practical joke went wrong and was followed by circumstances which you did not intend, but also that you would get off far more lightly if you were convicted than this unfortunate girl may find is the case.’

  ‘You are talking sense, my dear old lady,’ said Gamaliel cordially. ‘That is the way I see it.’

  ‘If you followed out your idiotic suggestion,’ said Bluebell, recovering herself, ‘you would fail to qualify for election as head boy next term. The school would hardly choose one who was a candidate for a reformatory. I think you had better return home and leave me to consult Dame Beatrice in private.’

  ‘Is that your opinion, too, dear old lady?’ asked Gamaliel, favouring Dame Beatrice with his wide smile.

  ‘Yes, dear young man, I rather think it is,’ she replied, ‘so off you go.’

  Gamaliel took himself off quite cheerfully and Dame Beatrice led the way through the empty bar to its narrow balcony, where she and Bluebell seated themselves. For some moments they gazed out over the beautiful little cove in silence.

  Then Bluebell said: ‘If this girl didn’t do it, then one of us did, and although I rebuked Gamaliel for suggesting it, Antonia is as good a candidate as any other except that, as I pointed out, even if she did think she had seen a draft which left her money, it made no essential difference to her future. Even five thousand pounds would not be too much to pay for another few years’ training, keep her in rent, food and clothes and maintain her until she could get a sufficient number of engagements to allow her to fend for herself. The path of the artist is hard and stony.’

  ‘Is there any chance whatever that the police would take your son’s suggestion seriously, were he rash enough to go to them with it?’

  ‘I suppose they would consider it. Gamaliel, like all the rest of us, is perfectly capable of murder if the motive were strong enough. However, he wo
uld not have committed this particular murder. It would have been much more effective, from his point of view, to have followed my grandmother on one of her cliff walks and pushed her over the edge, and that is what he would have done.’

  ‘There is much in what you say. You feel sure that this particular murder was committed by a woman, I think.’

  ‘I cannot be sure, but it seems likely because of the means employed.’

  ‘It could be a crime committed by a man astute enough to make it look like the action of a woman, don’t you think?’

  ‘I had not thought of that. But, you know, Dame Beatrice, if Margaret Denham is not the guilty party, then, as I said, one of us must be, and that is a thought I find hard to face.’

  ‘There are the Lunns, of course.’

  ‘Mattie and Redruth? Oh, but they have been in my grandmother’s service for years and years.’

  ‘That is hardly a valid defence. Circumstances change. Grievances arise, and so on.’

  ‘I suppose so. Now that I come to remember, I was told that Mattie’s employment as groom had been terminated,’ said Bluebell thoughtfully, ‘and she did not know that she was to be given the horses. But, is summary dismissal an adequate motive for so serious a crime as murder?’

  ‘As I always contend, who can say what is or is not an adequate motive?’

  ‘You have seen Margaret Denham and heard her speak. Do you think she is guilty? As a psychiatrist you must have formed an opinion.’

  ‘The only opinion I have formed is too trite to be worth repeating. However, here it is, and it coincides with your own, so we are going round in circles. If Margaret Denham did not do it, somebody else did, but to take the matter a little further, as the police have arrested the girl they will not look for that somebody until or unless the magistrates dismiss the charge.’

  ‘They are not likely to do that, unless something more comes to light than is known at present. Failing a more obvious suspect, there is a prima facie case against Margaret, as any unbiased person is bound to admit.’

  ‘But you are not unbiased,’ said Garnet, when Bluebell reported the conversation to him.

  ‘No. I am prejudiced in the girl’s favour. I don’t believe she has the intelligence to think of such a method of murder, let alone the wickedness to carry it out.’

  ‘Is there anything in Gamaliel’s suggestion that a malicious practical joke misfired? Not his own practical joke, I hasten to add.’

  ‘Not the sort of joke which would be played in these parts. Country people have a wide knowledge of poisonous plants and the monkshood is notorious. If it were not, it would hardly be known also as the wolfsbane.’

  ‘I suppose the roots did come from a plant of the cultivated variety? I believe it is also found growing wild in south-western districts, and this part of England is the most south-western of all.’

  ‘I believe there is a wild species. You would need to ask Rupert. I believe he is writing a book on Cornish flora. Of course, the most damaging evidence against the girl is that the plant in question seems to have been dug up in her sister’s garden while she was staying in the cottage.’

  ‘To be fair, the police ought to inspect all the gardens in the neighbourhood. Perhaps a murderer clever enough to have thought of this way of killing would also be far-sighted enough to attempt to throw suspicion on this girl, knowing her to have a grievance about her dismissal from the Headlands kitchen and also knowing that, because of her service there, she would have known exactly how the cook prepared the horseradish sauce and exactly what kind of jar she put it in. That is the trouble unless the cook herself did it, or the present kitchenmaid.’

  ‘Oh, I am sure we can exonerate the present girl, Sonia. What reason could she have had? She knew nothing of the tiny legacy which she is to receive and there is no story of her having fallen foul of her mistress. As for Mrs Plack, I would as soon suspect myself!’

  ‘That is no proof of her innocence, but, however illogically, I agree with you.’

  ‘There is one other person who could have known all about the preparation of the horseradish sauce,’ said Bluebell.

  ‘I am at a loss to think of anybody, unless you mean Fiona,’ said her brother.

  ‘Or my mother, come to that. It is just as unlikely. No, I had not, for one moment, thought of either.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Garnet, as her meaning dawned on him. ‘But I would have thought that particular person had a perfect alibi. Wouldn’t she have been in London? In any case, what had she to gain?’

  ‘Absolutely nothing. So far as we know, she also had no grievance against my grandmother, far from it. She has received nothing but kindness in that house. In any case, it is not in her nature to think of such a method of killing. I can envisage Antonia picking up a dagger and doing the thing in grand style and with a histrionic flourish, but I don’t believe she would kill in this cowardly hole-and-corner manner. She is going to be a success on the concert platform, you know. She would never mortgage her chances by committing this loathsome crime, even were she capable of committing it, and I repeat that I am perfectly convinced she is not. Gamaliel put forth the suggestion and I repudiated it.’

  ‘Well, I did not commit it and neither did you,’ said Garnet. ‘Is Dame Beatrice interested?’

  Chapter 13

  Monkshood

  « ^ »

  ‘But why are you bothering?’ asked Laura on her first evening back at The Smugglers’ Inn. ‘I mean, from what you tell me, the girl had a genuine grievance, she knew all about this horseradish stuff, how it was prepared, what kind of jar was used and all the rest of it, and she had gone to live in a cottage where this poison plant was not only growing in the garden but a root or two of it, easily mistaken for horseradish, had been dug up.’

  ‘I know,’ said Dame Beatrice mildly.

  ‘Well, then, why are you bothering? Don’t you think the girl is guilty?’

  ‘I have no idea whether she is guilty or not, but I find the case interesting. The people concerned are fascinating in their own way, and (what perhaps is more to the point), some of them had far more to gain from the death than Margaret Denham had, for, in her case, the motive could only have been to avenge herself on one who had dismissed her from her position as kitchenmaid for what the girl may have thought to be an insufficient reason.’

  ‘But insolence in a servant is not an insufficient reason. The only reason I ever belted a kid in school was for beastly back-answering. You know—“I can connive at immorality, but I can’t stand impudence”.’

  ‘What you say is very just.’

  ‘Anyway, what had others to gain that she had not? Money?’

  ‘A great deal of it. The deceased left a valuable property, four hundred thousand pounds, and a number of more or less indigent relations.’

  ‘Oh, I see. But you are always arguing that the strength of a motive for murder is so variable that you can’t really go by it. Have you changed your ground?’

  ‘By no means, so let us go back to the beginning and say that I find the case interesting.’

  ‘Shall you go and see the girl?’

  ‘Later on. My commitments to the Home Office will provide ample opportunity for that.’

  ‘But you’re going to do a bit of ferreting round first.’

  ‘As often, I deplore the metaphors you use, but this one covers the facts.’

  ‘Do I come with you?’

  ‘I shall value, as always, your company.’

  ‘Where do we start? Do we sniff out all the gardens where the monkshood might have been dug up, but wasn’t?’

  ‘We also survey the shadows and windy places which have lisp of leaves and rustle of rain.’

  ‘You’re thinking of the wild variety. Does it grow in these parts?’

  ‘We shall enjoy some pleasant rambles to find that out, but the cultivated variety must come first. We shall begin by paying a visit to that Mrs Antrobus with whom Margaret Denham was staying when, apparently, the murder was conc
eived and carried out.’

  Mrs Antrobus was doubtful and suspicious of the visitors. ‘You’re not the police,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps we are ancillary to them,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Nevertheless, we have our part to play. I represent the Home Office.’ She produced her official card.

  Mrs Antrobus wiped her fingers on her apron and accepted it gingerly. ‘Well, I’d sooner my husband was at home,’ she said, as she handed it back, ‘but I suppose you’d better come in, ma’am.’

  ‘I would prefer to look at your bed of monkshood plants.’

  ‘The police have done that. Nothing to see there, except their great boots trampling all over the place. Photographed it and everything, they have, though what it proves except nasty vandals, I can’t see.’

  ‘So you think the digging up of your flowers was just an act of hooliganism, do you?’

  ‘What else could it be? My young sister never did it, and that I’ll swear, and did so to that detective fellow, not that he believed me, else why is Mags in prison and her good name blackened for all time?’

  ‘When did you discover that your garden had been desecrated? asked Dame Beatrice, surveying the trampled flowerbeds.

  ‘On the Saturday morning as the old lady died at the Sunday dinner table. I reckon the damage was done any time after Wednesday. That was the last time, till the Saturday, as I had occasion to throw out any rubbish. We grows the tall things, sunflowers, hollyhocks, monkshood and a little pergola of rambling roses to screen the bumby-hole, you see, and as it’s right at the bottom of the garden, I don’t traipse down there more often than I need. Trouble is, it’s easy enough to get at it from outside. You’d only have to step over the wall, and that’s no more than four foot high. Any boy or man could do it. Only thing is, nobody in the village wouldn’t.’

  ‘But somebody did. Have you any suspicions of who that somebody could be?’

  ‘It’s not for me to name names, not having names to name, but the poor old lady wasn’t one of Mag’s relations, was she?’

  ‘If we’re going to inspect every local garden and ask questions,’ said Laura, as they left the cottage, ‘we’ve got a long, long trail ahead of us.’