As a change of subject it was masterly. The young man addressed seemed thoroughly startled, while little Mr James’s watch shot out as though by reflex action.
‘I thought that was to be a treat for next week,’ he said quickly. ‘I’d rather hoped so because I really must not stay today. Good heavens! I had no idea how late it was. You’re too perfect a hostess, Miss Palinode. A most enjoyable evening. You’re going to drop in to see me tomorrow, are you, or shall I call here?’
‘Oh, please come here. I’m a lazy woman,’ she said, and waved her hand to him with peculiarly charming and feminine grace, as, after nodding and twinkling at the others, he hurried off through the throng.
‘A thoroughly good creature,’ remarked the old lady as if she were throwing a careless rose after him. ‘You won’t, of course, be put off by that, Adrian. He’s hardly a mind. What do you think? Shall we or not? It’s a little crowded for Ibsen, perhaps, but there’s always Mercutio. Unless you feel we should be modern?’
Mr Campion, glancing round for escape, was surprised to find the doctor at his elbow.
‘I understand it was you who discovered my correspondent,’ he was beginning in an earnest undertone, his eyes fixed firmly on Campion’s spectacles. ‘I want to discuss that with you. You see, she was not a patient. That is, I didn’t treat her. She wasn’t ill – except mentally – as I may have told her.’
The murmur buzzed on, betraying the strained nerves of a much persecuted man. Campion was extricating himself gently, when Lugg appeared at their side. He said nothing, but a raising of the brows and two infinitesimal jerks of the heavy chins invited both men to follow him. They obeyed at once, escaping from the room with as little fuss as possible, and came out at last on to the landing, to find Renee waiting for them. She was very white and as soon as they appeared she came over and slid an arm through each man’s own, leading them towards the stairs.
‘Look,’ she said, striving to sound matter-of-fact and achieving breathlessness. ‘It’s Lawrence. He’s had something in there. I don’t know what it is or who gave it to him, or even if they’ve all had it, which would be frightful, but you’d better come at once. I – think he’s dying, Albert.’
24. Through the Net
THE FIRST WILD rumour, which had hinted that refreshment at a Borgia house-warming was very small beer when compared with the Palinode counterpart, had soon been superseded by something nearer the truth. Still, no one had been allowed to leave and tension was running very high.
In the wet garden the Press had decided to swarm. They were kept out of the house and had reached a stage when they buzzed together, damp and irritable and full of unprofitable ideas.
Inside the house the excitement was even more intense. In Miss Evadne’s room the party continued grimly. So far, there had been no more casualties. Names and addresses and an occasional short statement were still being taken by Inspector Porky Bowden, Luke’s right-hand man from the station, and all refreshment and the vessels thereof had been removed by Dice and his poker-face assistants.
In the intervals Adrian Siddons recited.
Downstairs the drawing-room and its adjacent cloakroom had become an improvised hospital ward for Lawrence. Clarrie had taken the shades off the light bulbs at the doctor’s request and the neglected apartment, which was not considered habitable by anyone in the household, had now taken on a bald sordidness of dusty boards, cruel lighting, and chipped enamel toilet-ware.
Doctor Smith was pulling down his shirt-sleeves when Renee came rustling in with a pile of fresh towels. She wore a cooking pinafore over her black finery and, now that the tragedy was averted, was inclined to be exuberant with relief.
She smiled at Lawrence, who lay on the worn Empire sofa looking dreadfully like some half-plucked black bird. His skin was wet and livid and covered with goose-pimples, but he was out of misery and an aggrieved and astonished anger had begun to possess him.
The D.D.I. and Campion were comparing their sheets of notes. They were both tired, but Luke had got his second wind.
‘You see? It was quite different muck.’ His murmur vibrated in Campion’s ear and he ringed an item on both lists. ‘This chap was handed something quite different from everybody else – different colour, different stink. We shan’t get the analyst’s report until tomorrow. Can’t. Have to get on as far as we can without.’
His pencil point ran on down the page and stopped at a query:
‘Says did not notice who gave him glass.’
‘What about that?’
‘It’s feasible. He’d help if he could,’ said Campion. ‘He takes a dim view of the entire proceedings.’
‘I thought that.’ His effort to be quiet made him sound like a gigantic bumble-bee. ‘Everybody who knew the family at all well seems to have been helping. Miss Jessica, Lugg, Clytie even, for a time, the Doc here, Mr James, Mr Drudge the lawyer chap. Renee came in, the actors, everybody.’
Mr Campion turned to confront the doctor.
‘I don’t want to commit myself, Luke,’ he began, ‘and no one can be sure without the analysis, but I think he had something more than a purely herbal poison, don’t you know.’
Luke was puzzled. ‘It was different stuff,’ he said. ‘Different colour . . .’
‘Oh yes. I think the vegetable tisane was toxic, whatever it was. It probably saved his life by making him vomit. But I think he had something more.’ He hesitated, his wretched eyes glancing from one man to the other. ‘Something more orthodox, if that’s the word. He was both stiff and drowsy – peculiar. The reaction came so quickly, too. It might have been chloral in an enormous dose. I don’t know. We shall find out, of course. I’ve taken specimens. Where’s his glass, by the way; he had it with him?’
‘Oh, Dice took that. He’s got all the exhibits.’ Luke brushed the question aside. He had fastened on to the new idea like a terrier. ‘Hyoscine again, Doc?’
‘Oh no, I don’t think so. It occurred to me at once and I was looking out for the symptoms, but I don’t think so. If it was I shall be astounded.’
‘Someone is trying to make it look like Jessica.’
The pronouncement uttered in a voice which retching had destroyed until it was no more than a rasp of dry sticks startled everybody. They moved over towards the couch in a body and Lawrence lay looking up at them, a living gargoyle, his damp hair on end and his face glistening, but his eyes intelligent as ever.
‘Trying to throw suspicion on my sister.’ The words were enunciated with extreme care, as if he suspected them all of being half-witted, or at best deaf. ‘The intention was to make her a scapegoat.’
‘What makes you think so?’ Luke’s interest was alive and eager and the sick man responded to it, forcing his broken voice and trying to raise himself on his pillows.
‘There was a scrap of leaf in my glass. I got it out after my first mouthful – I drank half of it at one draught; only thing to do with that sort of thing. All taste unpleasant.’ He was so earnest that no one smiled. ‘Leaf was hemlock. Classic poison. That was how I knew. I came out at once.’
‘Why did that make you sure it wasn’t Miss Jessica?’ The doctor put the question before either man could intervene. He spoke very simply, as if Lawrence’s mind was in the same shape as his body, and the patient closed his eyes in pure exasperation.
‘She wouldn’t have been so crude,’ he whispered, ‘even if she’d been so uncharitable. Even the Greeks found hemlock difficult stuff to administer satisfactorily. She’d have known that. Someone ignorant of that is trying to suggest that she poisoned Ruth. Ridiculous, and wicked.’
Doctor Smith jerked his chin up.
‘I think Mr Lawrence is right,’ he said. ‘It’s a thing that’s been bothering me without my being able to pin it down. Someone rather clever but not quite clever enough is doing this, Luke.’ He paused abruptly. ‘I don’t quite understand the attack on that young Dunning, though.’
‘But I thought you knew who it was? I thought the police
had put out a net.’
They had forgotten Renee. Her invitation was as surprising as it was embarrassing.
‘D’you mean to tell me you don’t know yet?’ she demanded. ‘Aren’t you really going to make an arrest? How long is this going on?’
The doctor coughed. ‘I understood there was a certain police activity,’ he began. ‘The general idea seemed to be some sort of sudden swoop . . .?’
The question trailed away. Charlie Luke’s attitude had become withdrawn.
‘We are anxious to interview a man called Joseph Congreve,’ he said a little stiffly. ‘Our search for him may have started a hare or so. Will you come along now, Mr Campion? Miss Jessica’s waiting for us in the other room. You’ve got a midder, you say, doctor? Well, come back as soon as you can, won’t you? Look after Lawrence, Renee.’
They entered the dining-room and the first person he saw, standing on the hearthrug under the portrait of Professor Palinode, was Superintendent Yeo. He was taking no part in the proceedings. He stood squarely, his hands folded under the tail of his jacket, and he glanced at them both as they appeared but did not smile.
The significance of his arrival was not lost upon anybody. Here was an ultimatum from HQ. An arrest, in fact, would oblige.
Luke went over to him at once and Campion would have followed had not a gentle hand detained him. Miss Jessica greeted him as a deliverer. She had discarded the cardboard from her hat, but still wore the motoring veil knotted carelessly behind her head in the manner of the Victorian romantic painters. Her bag was missing, too, and her gown, which as usual was muslin over wool, had achieved some interesting drapery effects. Altogether she looked, curiously enough, rather decorative and a hundred per cent feminine.
‘Something has disagreed with Lawrence,’ she said superbly. ‘Did you know?’
‘Yes,’ he said gravely, ‘it might have been very serious.’
‘I know. They told me.’ She indicated Dice and his colleagues with a wave of her hand. Her nice voice was as intelligent as ever, but it had lost its authority, and he saw with dismay that she was desperately afraid.
‘I did not make a mistake,’ she went on with the dreadful earnestness of one not absolutely sure. ‘You’ll have to help me convince them of that. I followed Boon’s recipes very carefully, except where I had to make omissions. It was a party, you see, and one does like to give one’s guests one’s best.’
Her little face was very serious, her nice eyes deeply troubled.
‘I am fond of Lawrence,’ she said, as if the admission was one of weakness. ‘He is more near to me in age than any of the others. I wouldn’t hurt him. But then I wouldn’t hurt anybody, if I knew.’
‘Look here,’ said Mr Campion, ‘what did you actually do?’ She was only too anxious to tell him.
‘I brewed two tisanes, nettle and a tansy. Evadne purchased the yerba maté and made it herself. That was a lightish brown. It’s nearly tea, you know. The nettle drink I made was grey, and the tansy was yellow. But they tell me the stuff that Lawrence drank was a deep bottle-green.’
‘With leaves in it,’ murmured Campion involuntarily.
‘Had it?’ She picked him up at once. ‘Then it couldn’t have been anything I made. I always strain everything very carefully through old linen – clean, of course.’ She regarded him inquisitively. ‘Don’t you remember what Boon says? “The residue constitutes a valuable vegetable addition to the diet.”’
‘Oh dear,’ said Mr Campion, peering at her through his spectacles. ‘Yes, I suppose he does. Tell me, have you got these – er – residual vegetables downstairs?’
Her reply was lost to him, for at that moment the door was opened abruptly and Clarrie Grace, looking flushed and harassed, swept in with a tray on which was an unopened bottle of Irish whisky, a siphon and half a dozen glasses.
‘Miss Roper’s compliments,’ he announced, addressing the room as if it were an audience. ‘Everything’s sealed, so no cold feet, anybody.’
He planted the tray on the desk end of the dining table, flashed his stage smile at them, and rushed out again very quickly to show he did not want to overhear any secrets.
The police ignored the entire incident and continued their muttered consultations, but Miss Jessica turned to her champion.
‘A silly woman but so kind,’ she observed.
‘Perhaps so,’ he agreed absently, and his glance strayed to the portrait over the mantel. To his amazement, for he had forgotten her gift, she behaved as if he had spoken his thought aloud. She coloured slightly.
‘Oh, you know, do you?’ she said softly. ‘The likeness is so very marked, isn’t it? Her mother danced, I believe.’
He stared at her and she hurried on, still speaking very softly but greatly enjoying the sensation she was making.
‘She was also an excellent business woman, I believe. My mother, the poetess, whom I resemble, never knew of her existence, nor of the daughter, of course, but my father was a just man and he provided very handsomely for them. I think he must have known that Renee had inherited his practical ability, whereas none of the rest of us had, for he made certain that all the house property, for which he had a sentimental regard, went to her. That is why we accept so much from her.’
While he was still digesting this information she leaned close to him to whisper something which made him believe her utterly just as surely as it took his breath away.
‘Please be very discreet. You see, she does not know we know. That way there is no embarrassment on either side.’
Her gentle voice was touched with complacency as she folded her hands on the matter, very much as the poetess must have done in the grimly practical days when Victoria was queen. Even Luke, who came striding over with a flea in his ear, did not shake her equanimity. She sat down where he told her to and answered his opening questions with complete assurance.
From the beginning, Campion found the ordeal a good deal more nerve-racking than she did. It was the old nightmare situation dreaded by all good policemen; in this case doubly unsatisfactory since it soon became obvious that she might easily have made any sort of silly mistake in her potion-brewing, while no man in the room believed for a moment that she was guilty of the premeditated crimes which had occurred.
He was on the point of turning away from the unbearable interview when Miss Jessica’s voice cut across his milling thoughts.
‘Oh, is that the glass Lawrence drank from? Do be careful of it. It’s one of Evadne’s sherries. She’s only got two left. They’re old Bristol.’
The words detached themselves from the immediate present and hung in front of him, very small and clear, as if they were printed in hard black type across a picture of the room.
Immediately two major problems became urgent.
Luke, who was holding the small green glass in a folded handkerchief, happened to look at him, his bright odd-shaped eyes questioning. Campion bent over Miss Jessica, surprised to find his voice shaking.
‘I’ve seen flowers in those glasses,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t your sister use them for flowers sometimes? Everlasting flowers?’
‘Flowers?’ She was horrified. ‘Oh, no. They’re the last of my father’s sherry glasses. Evadne would never use them for anything else. They’re very precious. I didn’t realize she had put them out today. They are usually kept on the mantelshelf. There was no sherry. That was why we had to make something else.’
Campion had ceased to listen to her. With a word of apology he turned on his heel and went out of the room, crossed to the drawing-room where Lawrence lay and asked him a single, and, as it seemed to the sick man, utterly absurd and irrelevant question.
‘Well, yes,’ said Lawrence Palinode in reply. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact we did. Always. It was a custom left from happier days. All of us. Yes. On every occasion. Good heavens! You’re not suggesting . . .’
Campion left him. He was moving very quickly and he put his head into the dining-room looking like a bleached edition of himself i
n youth.
‘Come on,’ he said to Luke with brisk authority. ‘Proof first, I suppose, and then, my lad, that net of yours had better close if we haven’t left it too late.’
25. Up Apron Street
THE CROWD BEFORE Portminster Lodge had shrunk like a flannel patch in the wet. Five minutes earlier Dice had opened the front door and invited the Press inside for what he was pleased to call ‘a bit of a chat with Inspector Bowden’, and as the last soaked overcoat passed gratefully within, the four men, who did not wish to be observed, came quietly up the area steps and disappeared ostensibly in different directions.
They met in the mouth of the mews. Lugg and Charlie Luke went round to the front entrance of the bank and Yeo and Campion stood on the stone step of the small side door, dark and grimy under the archway. To their right was Apron Street, with the gleam of the Palinode windows making glittering pathways in the streaming roadway; to their left was the chasm of the mews, its ancient cobbles and old stable bricks catching what light there was and producing an interesting woodcut effect.
Yeo moved closer to his companion. His murmur was puzzled and a thought aggrieved.
‘Why does Luke keep calling the chap “Bloblip”?’
‘It will emerge, I hope.’ Campion bent his head to listen at the door.
Already the shrill clamour of the bell, whose push Lugg was leaning against on the other side of the house, stole out to them through the wood. It went on steadily without pause, like the rain.
Yeo was restive. In his late middle-age he had become a heavy breather and now his whisper crept gustily through the sighing of the rain.
‘Funny. Must be someone there. I’m not breaking in without a warrant, Campion, I warn you. I’m trusting you. We’re all trusting and depending on you, but there are limits.’
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