by Issy Brookw
“They had, indeed. I shall look into it further. Mind you, though, I could suspect him of murdering anyone. There is no one that he likes.”
“If the coroner admitted it was poison,” she went on, as Constable Evans made a note in his small pocketbook, “did he happen to reveal what sort of poison it is? For that will show us the route to the investigation.”
“He did not, and he dismissed me quite rudely,” the policeman said.
“How inconvenient. I wonder if he would dismiss me quite so rudely?”
“You are a lady and I am nothing but a policeman,” Constable Evans said. “Nor am I on the council. But you? He would not dare to.”
She smiled. “I shall ask Mrs Jones to bring us both some breakfast, and you can tell me all I need to know about this coroner, and where he might be found.”
“I cannot sit and eat with you,” the policeman pointed out. “You are a lady.”
“I am on holiday,” Cordelia said. “And we are professional partners in business.”
“Business?”
“The business of detection! Mrs Jones? Eggs, if you will.”
“And laverbread?” Constable Evans added hopefully.
She smiled. “Any bread that you like.”
Although laverbread, when it came, turned out not to be bread at all.
“Seaweed?”
“Fried,” Constable Evans said, as if that made it all right, and he tucked in heartily.
Cordelia thought about the coroner, and the council, and poison.
Chapter Ten
Coroners, in her previous experience, had tended to be loud, respectable, well-to-do men with confidence and pomp. They were drawn from the better classes, and had all seemed to like big dinners and explaining things to make themselves sound important.
But Mr Cecil Rhys-Potter was not loud, nor pompous, and he gave the strong impression that he had not enjoyed a big dinner in his entire life. He looked much more like the corpses that he naturally dealt with every day. He was slender, and pale, with lank short hair and a patchy set of sideburns that were the curious nothing-colour halfway between blond and grey. He spoke in a hissing whisper.
But like all the other coroners she had met, he was confident and had a tendency to explain things to her as if she was a child.
Except, of course, that one didn’t commonly explain poisoning to children.
His sibilant speech was not enough to mask his unshakeable self-belief. “My lady,” he whispered. “While I applaud your interest in matters of justice, it is not seemly, and not at all right, for a lady, such as yourself, to be even contemplating the details of such events.”
They were in a private room upstairs in the Gogerddan Arms Hotel in the nearby village of Llanbadarn Fawr. Geoffrey was sitting in a corner as chaperone. He had driven her out to the inn in a light gig, and now hulked most obtrusively on a wooden chair.
“My dear Mr Potter,” she said.
“Rhys-Potter,” he corrected her.
She had a good stab at rolling her r but missed out on the aspirated h. “Mr Rees-Potter,” she said, as close as she could get it, “I would urge you to look past the mere trappings and fripperies of my sex. Let us acknowledge that the world is changing. We have a young female monarch, for example. Women everywhere are demonstrating that if they are taught correctly, they can achieve things that would have been impossible for their mothers and grandmothers, and I would argue that our increasing intellect only serves to expand on our feminine charms.” Cordelia heard herself speaking as if from a distance, and she was impressed. It was almost plausible. She’d been reading a lot of rather shocking literature lately from the likes of George Eliot and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and even the scandalous Mary Wollstonecraft.
Mr Rhys-Potter reached over the table and was about to pat her hand. She kept her hand deliberately where it rested, but shot him such a stern glare that his own hand stopped a few inches from her own. He paused, and then withdrew.
He did not beg forgiveness, but he said, with a sigh, “Let me indulge you, as far as I may, then. But please be aware that I shall not speak of anything that would injure you as a woman, nor will I be held in any way responsible for any effect our conversation might have on you.”
“I assure you that my feminine person will prove quite able to withstand the hearing of words such as ‘death’ and furthermore I am deeply unlikely to suffer a fit of the vapours the moment that we part.”
His face remained utterly passive but she suspected he did not like her flippant tone. There was something in the way that he took his time in constructing his reply. Eventually he said, “The two ladies had unfortunately consumed something that was injurious to their health. Tragically, one lady has died, but I expect that the other will make a full recovery. I have written a report, and the case has been closed.”
That was simply not enough. “What exactly had they consumed that was so injurious?” she demanded, fed up now of being polite and hedging around the questions. “And do not tell me it was anything in their food, for I saw their table laid out for tea, and none of the food had been touched.”
He smiled thinly. “Goodness, how perceptive of you. Yet that does not preclude the fact that one, or either, or both of them might have eaten something that was not on the tea table? They might have eaten something earlier which only revealed itself that evening.”
“This is true,” she said. “But surely your tests and analysis will have revealed exactly what it was.”
He was still smiling and she found it patronising. “Oh yes, they did, but I hardly see how that can add to the discussion. The ladies were, sadly, of some limited means, in spite of appearances. They had to cut corners wherever they could. This is a fact that, out of respect to them both, we have sought to obscure.”
Who was ‘we’? The council, she thought. She said, “What killed them, sir?” She had half a mind to ask Geoffrey to bar the door while she threatened him until he finally told her. If that was what it was going to take…
“Lead acetate,” he said, catching her off guard.
“What is that?”
“Sugar of lead is the more common name,” the coroner said. “It was in the sugar they were adding to their tea. Actually, what they were using was almost all sugar of lead, and not real sugar at all. And there you have it.”
He got to his feet and she followed suit. A million questions now bubbled in her mind. “But, sir, how did it get there? And why? Who put it there? Can’t you see that this is foul play?”
“Sadly, it is not foul play. It is a terrible accident, and I would urge you, if you wish to spare the poor surviving Miss Scott any further distress, I would ask you to leave this matter well alone.”
His soft speech had hardened as he spoke. He put his hat on, and took her hand very lightly in his.
“Thank you for your time, sir,” she said. “If I have any further questions, might—”
“I very much doubt that you will have any further questions. Certainly, none that I might be able to help you with, alas,” he said, with not a shade of regret in his voice. “Good day.”
He left the door open and she peeped out to watch him go down the corridor and turn the corner to the stairs.
“My lady,” said Geoffrey, who was now standing behind her. “Shall I follow him?”
“And do what?” she asked in horror, imagining the headlines in the press. ‘Local coroner beaten for information.’
“See where he goes and who he speaks to,” Geoffrey said, acting affronted.
“Oh. Oh! No, no need. He will speak to the council that controls this area, and I don’t imagine it will tell us anything. They have closed the case, and that is that.”
“But it isn’t the end, is it?” Geoffrey said. “My lady, I’ll gladly go after him and … see to him … for no more reason than I didn’t like him. If you wish it.”
“That is a kind offer, but no thank you. Geoffrey, what is sugar of lead?”
“I onl
y know it as something they add to wine to make it sweeter,” he said. “I don’t think it’s very good for you, if you take in too much of it, over a period of time, like anything to do with lead. They were adding it to some cheese once, red lead for colour, and that poisoned a few folks.”
“So it is sweet? The ladies could have been economising? Sugar is so dreadfully expensive, after all.”
“Yes, I believe that it does taste very sweet, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone adding it to sugar to make that go further. It’s underhand, anyway. People don’t do it to things they themselves know that they are going to eat … it’s something someone would do without someone else’s knowledge. Someone does it to sell it secretly. No one would willingly eat it.”
“That is very odd. You’re saying this had to be deliberate by someone else, and the ladies would not have known?”
“Indeed, my lady.”
“Then why did one die, and the other did not?”
“Does one takes more sugar in their tea?”
“Perhaps.”
“I need to make two lists,” she said, pulling out her notebook from her bag. “One of everyone that we know who disliked the ladies, and one that details everyone in this town who might have access to sugar of lead.”
Geoffrey nodded, and went to fetch her a drink from the bar.
***
By the time that Geoffrey returned, she had already decided what her next move had to be.
“Look,” she said, tapping the notebook. On the left, she had written ‘enemies’. At the top was Davies the Scavenger. Also there was ‘The Druggist.’
On the right was a list of people who had access to the poisonous chemical. And at the top of that — in fact, currently the only person on the list — was, again, ‘The Druggist.”
“That is where we must go,” she said. “Right now.”
Chapter Eleven
“Right now” happened after they had had a drink, and then Geoffrey had to see to the horse, and there was some delay in repairing some leather, and then Cordelia was hungry, so it was early afternoon before she reached the chemist’s shop.
She was pleased to find it was empty of customers. The bell above the door jangled as she pushed it open. She left Geoffrey outside with the gig, and stepped into the cool interior. The heat was rising outside once more, and it was a calming sanctuary — or would have been, were it not for the smell. Some people claimed that they liked the mingled odours of camphor and eucalyptus and things that were unidentifiable to her nose. She did not like it at all; the mixtures clamoured at her. She preferred her perfumes to be clear and sharp and simple.
Plus there was always the association with sickness.
The bell had brought the pharmacist out from the room at the back. He was wiping his hands on a cloth, and he looked at her with a professional, open smile.
“Good afternoon, madam,” he said, followed by something in Welsh. She assumed it was ‘good afternoon.’
“Good afternoon,” she replied.
“Ah!” he said, suddenly. “I recollect you now. Have you quite recovered from your headache?”
She was impressed. “It has, indeed, and I thank you for your care,” she said. She glanced around.
He immediately picked up on her movements, and said, “If you need some discretion and privacy, let me lock the street door. I can assure you of my utmost delicacy in all matters, especially those of a certain womanly nature.”
“Ah. Well, no, but thank you. I am here to satisfy my curiosity. I read an article in a journal lately that was detailing the latest advancements in the natural sciences, and the explorations of chemicals and so forth. And I wondered, well, do you sell such a thing as sugar of lead?”
“I could sell it,” he said, looking puzzled. “I certainly have some, I am sure of it. But who would buy it?”
“Has anyone bought any?”
“Not to my knowledge. I can ask Iestyn when he returns from his errands. But I have to ask why you are interested, out of all the possible chemicals and compounds, in that one especially?”
“Oh, as I say, merely an interest. I believe it is used for sweetening wine?”
“It should not be,” the pharmacist said. “Though historically, it has been. It is toxic, however. Most lead compounds are.”
“Goodness! No wonder it is no longer used,” she said. “What would be the antidote, if indeed there is one?”
“Anything that could coat the lining of the stomach and neutralise its acidity,” he said. “Epsom Salts, milk, cream, cheese, those sorts of things. Morphine, perhaps. Potassium iodide, if one had it to hand. The usual things against such poisons. There is no guarantee, of course.”
“How frightfully interesting,” she said. She thought she probably ought to ask about other poisons so that if he were, indeed, the culprit, she did not arouse his suspicions. “And arsenic?”
“Oh, the most commonly misused of our chemicals,” he replied. “I can sell you some for rats and the like, but I wouldn’t recommend that you put that in your wine!”
“Naturally not,” she said. “Thank you, you have answered some of the questions that were raised by the article that I read.”
He was still looking at her with slight suspicion so she had to fall back into pretending to be a silly and innocent woman once more. It always seemed to work. She managed a light giggle, and said, “I didn’t understand most of it, of course. I became side-tracked almost immediately with the notion that poisons weren’t immediately detectable by a foul taste. I had always assumed that they would be, you know.”
It seemed to satisfy him, and he smiled. “Oh, that is a common misconception,” he said. “And how easy it would be if that were the case!”
While he was relaxed and chatty, she had to strike with her next line of questioning. “When I was in here before, purchasing that excellent headache remedy, there were some other people here as well. I was most curious about those two ladies. They were dressed in an extraordinary fashion though they seemed to be well-bred. And I do believe that I have heard some rumours … I am only a holidaymaker, as you know, but one still hears things … that they were the victims of a tragedy lately.”
His relaxed smile had disappeared almost the instant she mentioned “the ladies.”
“Miss Walker and Miss … Scott,” he said stiffly. “A tragedy indeed.”
She attempted a smile which she hoped was winsome, though she suspected it might prompt him to offer her a remedy for biliousness. “I wonder,” she said, “about those ladies. Most people in this town have spoken of them most fondly as they have been tireless in their good works. Yet here… forgive me, but you…”
He drummed his fingers on the counter and stared past her at the door, clearly willing a new customer to enter and distract him. No one came. It was the dead time after the lunch time rush.
“Yet here,” he said at last. “Yet here, you wonder why her own brother does not wish to speak well of her?”
“Oh!” Cordelia said, feeling a hot sweat rush down her spine. She cursed her big mouth and blundering questions. All she could fall back upon were the common platitudes reserved for such circumstances. “I am so sorry for your loss and I must apologise profusely for intruding at such a difficult time…”
He slammed his hand flat, ceasing the drumming of his fingers instantly. “No, I am not Miss Walker’s brother. I am Leopold Scott.”
“Oh. Oh!” Cordelia heard her inane repetition and took a moment to organise her thoughts. “I see. And your sister, Miss Edith Scott, is she recovering well?”
“I do not know. She is in the sanatorium where I suppose that she will receive the best of care.”
“You are both quite estranged, then?”
“Of course we are! What a woman to have as a sister, what a burden she has been! She wilfully refuses, refuses to marry! She has had offers, you know. Both of them had. She refused them all. No man was good enough. There was always some excuse. We have had
to watch her become an old maid, and for no real reason but pig-headedness! So, with our parents dead, I am to support her, am I? If she had been ill or infirm then I would shoulder my duty well enough. She had no excuse, however. None whatsoever.”
“She is not old. There is still time. Some women do leave it to their later years…”
“If widowed, perhaps, but she has quite run out of time! Who will ask her now? I had thought she was going to settle down, you know. We all did. Miss Walker had a suitor, for a time, and I assumed that when she wed, so would Edith.” For a fleeting moment he looked almost sad but his face hardened quickly. “And there it is, and now you know why she was not welcome here. We had not spoken properly for many a month. Perhaps a year or more. I lose track. I am a busy man.”
She knew that last sentence was a heavy hint for her to leave. An unseen door at the rear of the shop banged closed, and he half-turned his head to call, “Iestyn! Yw eich bod?”
“Ydw,” said the muscular young man who had served her on her first visit as he came into the shop. “Ah! Hello. Are you recovered, madam?”
“I am, thank you. Thank you, also, for your care, both of you.”
She retreated, and went out into the street thoughtfully. Geoffrey helped her into the gig though it was only a short journey back to the inn.
“Take the long way,” she instructed him. “Find a diversion. I need to think.”
He did so, and by the time they had reached the inn, she had one small solution to the problem.
She knew why only one of the women had died.
For Edith Scott had been buying Epsom Salts that day in the pharmacist’s shop, and Edith Scott had taken milk in her tea.
Edith Scott had been ill, but had survived.
Both women were targets.
And Edith Scott still was.
Chapter Twelve
The following day, Tuesday, Cordelia asked Stanley to drive her in a hired carriage out to the sanatorium. Mrs Jones had told her where to find it. Cordelia left Ruby attacking some sewing, though she suspected the maid would be out through the door and into the town as soon as the horse’s hoof beats had faded.
