Spotted Hemlock mb-31

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘It coincides with yours. I certainly do not believe that Mr Basil went to Northern Ireland to study pig-marketing. What he did go for we have yet to discover, although that aspect of the matter becomes clearer.’

  ‘Exactly, madam. Right. Well, it won’t be much trouble to get hold of him, now that we know where he is, and I’ll let you know how we get on.’

  The extradition (if that sinister phrase may be used to describe the transference of a suspect from one part of Great Britain to another) of Piggy Basil was accomplished, as the inspector had prophesied, without difficulty or loss of time. The next interview with him took place at the Garchester police station, whose hospitality Basil had grudgingly consented to accept.

  ‘It seems pretty irregular to me,’ he had grumbled. “You haven’t got me here on a charge. You’ve nothing on earth against me except that I knew this missing girl.’

  ‘All right, sir,’ the inspector had replied. ‘You don’t have to spend the night here against your wishes, but we understood you to say that you had got through your money, lost your job and had nowhere to go.’

  ‘It’s blinking coercion,’ said Piggy, next morning, continuing his overnight grouse. ‘You fish a chap back from Ireland where he’s harmlessly learning a bit more about his job, get him the perishing sack, shove him in the lock-up as though he’s a damned drunk and then haul him up for your blistering third-degree stuff before he’s hardly finished his breakfast.’

  The time was nine o’clock, the breakfast, served at eight in the inspector’s own quarters, had consisted of porridge, eggs and bacon, toast, marmalade and coffee. Moreover, the third-degree was not part of the inspector’s method. He pointed out this last fact, and suggested that the sooner they got down to brass-tacks the sooner Mr Basil could follow his own devices.

  ‘Now, sir,’ he said, ‘we have it on reliable information— from an eye-witness, I may say, who knows her well by sight —that Mrs Coles was actually here in Garchester a few days ago and that she bolted as soon as she realised that she had been recognised. What have you to say about that, sir?’

  ‘Nothing. I didn’t know she was in Garchester. If what you say is true, your flat-footed gangsters couldn’t have been doing their job. How come they didn’t spot her?’

  ‘That’s neither here nor there, sir, and no business of yours, if I may say so. And it wouldn’t be against your interests to give us a little help. Now, sir, what about it?’

  ‘I don’t like it. I know you busies. Well, what do you want to know?’

  ‘What did take you to Northern Ireland, sir?’

  ‘Oh, hang it all! Well, if you must know, I was on a toot.’

  ‘You went there with Mrs Coles, sir?’

  ‘Confound you, yes!’

  ‘Why did you stay there after she had returned to college?’

  ‘Because we’d fixed it up that she was to rejoin me there as soon as she could.’

  ‘So that accounts for her disappearance from college, does it?’

  ‘It does. I knew what I was doing, all right. I knew it was a mad thing to do; I knew it was wrong, if you like. But I did it, and we’ve been together in Ireland ever since. Well, not quite ever since, but up to a week or so ago. Then Mrs Coles got cold feet, I think. She said she was going back home.’

  ‘Not “going back to college?” She didn’t say that?’

  ‘Can’t see what difference it makes, but she said she was going back home.’

  ‘Did you understand her to mean she was going to her mother’s home, or did she intend to live with Mr Coles?’

  ‘Why, her mother’s home, of course. So far as I’ve gathered, Coles hasn’t a home. He lives in cheap digs in London.’

  ‘Did you and Mrs Coles quarrel, sir, may I ask?’

  ‘Not that I remember.’

  ‘Was Mrs Coles still in Ireland when her sister died?’

  ‘As I’ve never been told when her sister died, I can’t tell you, but if it was…’

  ‘Never mind, sir. Guessing won’t help us.’

  ‘Date of murder a deep, dark secret, eh? Well, when you’ve found Mrs Coles, you can ask her herself where she was when her sister died. I couldn’t care less, but I think the chances are she was with me.’

  ‘What do you mean? You couldn’t care less, sir? I should have thought her whereabouts would concern you?’

  ‘I mean that you’re trying to trap me. Well, I’m not going to be trapped. If I say any more, it will be in the presence of my lawyer.’

  ‘Very good, sir. You are quite within your rights there. But I hope you will soon get in contact with him. Keeping back information which might assist the police in the execution of their duty can be a serious matter, you know.’

  ‘What’s Piggy up to?’ asked Laura, when Dame Beatrice had been given a report of the conversation and had detailed it to her secretary.

  ‘Trying to cover his tracks,’ said Carey. ‘Fancy the chump trying to get away with that hospital alibi, though! You’d think he’d have had the sense to realise that it was bound to blow up on him sooner or later.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ argued Laura. ‘Given a staunch chap in the hospital bed and no snoopers, I don’t see why he shouldn’t have pulled it off. It was just his rotten luck that Dame B. and I should have rumbled.’

  ‘What did give you the clue?’

  ‘The description the matron gave of his character,’ said Dame Beatrice, to whom the question was addressed. ‘Once our suspicions were aroused, the rest was simple.’

  ‘What’s the next move?’ asked Laura.

  ‘I think we must track down the ghost-horse. It we can identify him and his owner we may be able to find out who hired him.’

  ‘And for what purpose?’

  ‘If my suspicions are leading us to the truth, we shall not be told for what purpose he was hired. We must imagine it for ourselves. Once we have a correct picture, we may know who murdered Carrie Palliser and the reason for her death.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ asked Carey.

  ‘I really think so,’ said Laura. ‘To go further, I would say that some person or persons stood to gain by her death; but whether they stood to gain in money, in kind or in personal safety is something I cannot postulate, although my feeling is for the last-named.’

  Her employer cackled harshly, but Carey asked:

  ‘You mean that the dead woman had the goods on them? Knew some secret or other?’

  ‘And what secret or other isn’t difficult to determine,’ said Laura, with a haughty glance at Dame Beatrice. ‘After all, Mrs Coles was married and she did choose to leave her new-wedded lord and go off with Piggy Basil, didn’t she? In other words, she was making the best of two worlds and she was being blackmailed for it, and you can’t wonder at it. She was an absolute gift to anybody unscrupulous enough to accept her.’

  ‘Is that your theory?’ Carey demanded of his aunt. She pursed her lips into a little beak and shrugged her thin shoulders.

  ‘It was one of my theories, but there is one circumstance in particular which hardly makes it the most likely. Well, we need not find ourselves at a standstill. There are various courses open to us.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as probing further into the dead girl’s past,’ said Laura. ‘It certainly seems to have been a bit murky. I suppose that involves another visit to the Biancinis.’

  ‘First, I think, to Mr Coles,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘Who’s going to talk to him this time?’ demanded Laura.

  ‘I have some definite questions to put to him, so I think I will talk to him myself. Ring him up and find out when it will be convenient for me to visit him.’

  When she turned up on the appointed day, Coles presented himself in a new suit, new shoes and with his hair cut. He referred obliquely but intelligibly to these splendours by telling Dame Beatrice that he had an evening job teaching pottery in a youth club and had done some interior decorating. She congratulated him and asked wheth
er his course at the art school would last very much longer.

  ‘I’d thought of carrying on until June,’ he replied, ‘but now this business of Norah has turned up, I’m thinking of emigrating and taking a job in Australia.’

  ‘What kind of job?’

  ‘Anything I can get.’

  ‘Rather a waste of your training.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. If Norah had lived, and we’d had that smallholding, I don’t suppose I’d have had much time for painting except painting our humble shack. Anyway, I’ll be glad to get out of the country as soon as those blistering lawyers will let me have my money.’

  ‘I see. What I really wanted from you, Mr Coles, is further information about your wife’s past life.’

  ‘She was scarcely old enough to have a past life. Of course, she was a pretty fast worker, I know, but she couldn’t have collected any vast number of purple patches. She wouldn’t have had the time, especially once she’d gone to college, would she?’

  ‘You did know she had an older sister?’

  ‘An older sister? Yes, I did, but I never met her. I don’t think the two of them got on. Anyway, the sister didn’t live at home much. I gathered—yes, I remember now—that she was some sort of a bad hat.’

  ‘Yes, she was a thief.’

  ‘Oh, Lord! Norah never mentioned anything definite, I’m certain. Just gave the impression that she was generally unsatisfactory.’

  ‘I see. Now, please think back, Mr Coles, and tell me of anything or anybody in Mrs Coles’ life that could account in any way for what has happened.’

  Coles shook his head.

  ‘Complete blank,’ he said, ‘unless this chap Basil got fed up and made away with her. Such things do happen. I mean, it’s more than likely he didn’t know she was married. If he found out—supposing he was fond of her—don’t you think he might have seen red?’

  ‘Ah, of course, you know she deceived you with this Basil. Even so, the means by which her death was accomplished seem to rule him out. He isn’t that sort of man—or so I am told.’

  ‘I should have thought, being at an agricultural college, he’d have known all about vegetable poisons.’

  ‘Yes, there’s that, I suppose, although I don’t know that there is any real connection between spotted hemlock and pigs. Besides, when would he have had an opportunity to administer the poison? It couldn’t have been during the holiday they spent together, because she arrived back home safe and well. Never mind. Let us change the subject. If anything useful to the enquiry occurs to you, perhaps you will let me know.’

  ‘It wasn’t like Norah to let herself be bumped off. She was a downy bird, you know, with a very strong instinct for self-preservation,’ said Coles. He hesitated, looked very thoughtful, and added, ‘Besides, she hated celery, she wouldn’t eat parsnips, and she always said anything with parsley in it or on it made her sick. So that would leave the spotted hemlock merchant rather at a loss, I should have thought.’

  ‘How do you know so much about the various flavours which are attributed to the stem and root of spotted hemlock, Mr Coles? Are you a botanist in disguise?’

  ‘Oh, no. It’s what I heard said at the inquest, that’s all. I’ve a pretty good verbal memory. I don’t suppose I’d ever heard of spotted hemlock before that.’

  ‘Well, at any rate, what you have just said is certainly very valuable.’

  ‘Only in a negative sense, I’m afraid.’

  ‘By no means. It strengthens very considerably my belief that I know the identity of the murderer.’

  ‘Really? I say, that’s good going. Well, thank you again for coming. When I visited you I so much enjoyed your hospitality and the use of your car. We, the impoverished, do appreciate a touch of luxury now and again. Must you go? Good-bye, then, for now.’

  The car drove off, and Laura, who had waited impatiently at the Stone House to obtain a report of the conversation, said, as she returned to the warmth and comfort of the library and its fire, taking Dame Beatrice with her:

  ‘A bit imaginative, that young man, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘No, I should not say so, child. If he had more imagination, he wouldn’t be nearly so talkative.’

  ‘Oh, I see what you mean. What are you going to do next?’

  ‘I am going to ask to be allowed to overhear the next police interrogation of Mr Basil. There is a point I wish to establish, and Mr Basil, if he will, can prove it for me.’

  ‘And if he won’t?’

  ‘I have a scheme for persuading him.’

  ‘Oh? May I ask what it is?’

  ‘As I might need your co-operation, you may, but I shall try him with a straightforward appeal first. So let us relax until tomorrow, when we return to Garchester. Before we relax, though, perhaps you would be good enough to ring up the police station there and obtain the required permission.’

  Laura did this, and returned with the news that the police were not satisfied with Basil, and that Dame Beatrice would be welcome to listen to his evidence.

  ‘If any,’ Laura added. ‘The inspector thinks he may turn very obstinate. If he does, I suppose he could be charged with being an accessory to the crime.’

  ‘He is an accessory to the crime,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I am perfectly certain of that. The only thing is, I am not sure that he knows the identity of the criminal.’

  Laura gazed at her in a silence pregnant with suspicion.

  ‘Is this a leg-pull?’ she enquired at last. Dame Beatrice cackled.

  ‘Your legs are long enough already,’ she replied, inspecting those handsome appendages, which were encased in tapering trousers of the Menzies hunting tartan. ‘I should not dream of pulling either of them. How near to the Arthurian ideal of knighthood do you suppose Mr Basil to be?’

  ‘Miles and miles and miles away from it. He’s the bounder complete, I should say.’

  ‘I am not so sure.’ She did not enlarge upon this, but sent to order the car for nine o’clock on the following morning. They drove to Calladale College, where Dame Beatrice had a conversation with Miss McKay in which she recounted the talk she had had with Coles.

  ‘Of course, he still doesn’t know that the dead girl was the sister, and not his wife,’ said Miss McKay. ‘Didn’t you think you ought to tell him? He’s got to know, sooner or later, and you would break the news more gently than most people. Is it right to keep from him what will give him almost unbearable relief and pleasure?’

  ‘At the present stage of the enquiry it would not be at all a good idea to enlighten him,’ said Dame Beatrice, very decidedly.

  ‘Oh, well, I suppose you know best. The only thing is, where is the wretched Coles girl?’

  On the following morning Dame Beatrice went to Garchester police station.

  ‘He’s staying as my guest,’ said the inspector. ‘We’ve nothing on him, you see, and he seems prepared now to co-operate. He’ll be here at any moment. What have you got to tell us before he comes?’

  ‘Nothing, but when the interview is over, if we’re not completely satisfied, I want you to witness an experiment.’

  ‘Not a reconstruction of the crime, madam? I don’t go for that kind of thing very much. Too French, in my opinion, to suit our English ideas.’

  ‘Not a reconstruction of the crime—by which, I imagine, you mean the murder of Carrie Palliser—but a reconstruction of a crime, yes. That is to say, a reconstruction of what, I suppose, the law would consider was a crime. To my mind, however—but we won’t anticipate.’

  ‘As Henry V did not say when he tried on his father’s crown,’ suggested Laura. A constable came in at this moment to announce that Mr Basil was at the inspector’s disposal.

  Piggy was looking the worse for wear. His heavy face was so pale that it gave the impression that he had not shaved, for the dark hair-roots pigmented the skin on his cheeks and chin. He bowed to Dame Beatrice and seated himself on the chair which the inspector indicated. He placed pudgy, large hands on his knees and leaned
back.

  ‘What is it this time?’ he asked; but his tone indicated weariness, not curiosity and certainly not belligerence.

  ‘Just another word or two, Mr Basil.’ The inspector was brisk. ‘We’d appreciate a little co-operation on a certain matter.’

  ‘Yes? Oh, well, fire away.’

  ‘Where is Mrs Coles?’

  Piggy stared at him witn the eyes of a defunct fish. There was a pause.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine, Inspector. I haven’t a clue.’

  ‘She has been seen and recognised here in Garchester, as I have already told you, and that quite recently. Now, Mr Basil, we want Mrs Coles and we want her badly, and we are pretty sure you know where she is.’

  ‘I don’t, I tell you. I haven’t set eyes on her since we parted in Northern Ireland.’

  ‘Well, sir, if that’s your story, and you intend to stick to it, I have to warn you that you are placing yourself in a very dangerous position.’

  ‘That’s as may be. I’ve done nothing against the law.’

  ‘You failed to report a death, Mr Basil,’ said Dame Beatrice. Piggy shrugged his fleshy shoulders.

  ‘You can’t prove that,’ he said. ‘In any case, it was not my business to report it.’

  ‘You admit that you knew of a death which nobody reported?’

  ‘I admit nothing. My conscience is quite clear. What is the charge you are bringing? My failure to report Whose death?’

  ‘That of Mrs Coles’ sister, Miss Carrie Palliser.’

  ‘But why should I report her death? It had nothing to do with me.’

  ‘I propose to take you up on that last statement, Mr Basil. I will undertake to prove to you that I know it had something to do with you. I will show what it had to do with you, and I will tell you why you acted as you did, and how mistaken you were.’

  ‘Mistaken? Are you sure?’ Colour came into his face. ‘If you can prove that—or don’t you mean what I think you mean?’

  ‘I shall leave that question unanswered. It will answer itself in time. Thank you, Inspector. I do not need to stay any longer.’