Sweet Poison

by David Roberts

  ‘No, of course not,’ said the Chief Constable soothingly.

  As the two men entered the drawing-room they were met by silence. The Duke stepped forward. ‘Chief Constable, Inspector Pride, may I introduce you to my guests?’

  As Pride stood taking in the scene, Colonel Philips shook the hands of Larmore, Weaver and the Bishop and made soothing noises to the ladies. Edward was sitting in an armchair with his damaged leg propped up on a stool. ‘Forgive me if I don’t get up, Colonel,’ he said, stretching out his hand, ‘but I banged my knee earlier today when I was stupid enough to crash my motor car on my way here.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Colonel Philips. ‘I hope it is nothing serious. I am sure Dr Best will have a look at it after . . . after he is through with poor General Craig. I must explain that Inspector Pride is from Scotland Yard. By good fortune he was staying with me when the Duke telephoned me with the news of the General’s death. He has very kindly agreed to stay on a few days longer and establish exactly what happened. My men are very stretched at the moment so I accepted Inspector Pride’s offer of assistance with alacrity.’ He flashed an avuncular smile at Pride who remained stony-faced.

  ‘But was General Craig poisoned?’ asked Weaver.

  ‘It looks like it,’ said the Colonel reluctantly, ‘but we will know more after the post-mortem.’

  ‘But who . . . how could he have taken poison?’ said the Bishop weakly. ‘We all ate and drank the same food and wine and none of us –’

  ‘Please, sir,’ said Inspector Pride, speaking for the first time, ‘there is no point in speculating until we have all the facts. It is late and I know you all want to get to bed. I am going to ask each of you to give me a brief statement of what happened at dinner tonight, then you are quite free to leave.’

  ‘Look,’ broke in Larmore in an agitated voice, ‘I really have nothing to do with any of this. If my name gets into the papers in connection with this business –’

  Colonel Philips looked at him with distaste. ‘I’m sure you have no reason to be worried, Mr Larmore, but you will understand that in view of the General’s sudden death we do need to take statements from all you gentlemen – just for the record, don’t you know.’

  ‘Will there have to be an inquest?’ said the politician, sweating visibly.

  ‘There will have to be an inquest but –’

  ‘Oh God,’ exclaimed Larmore. ‘I can just see the PM’s face when he hears I’ve been mixed up in something like this.’

  ‘Something like what?’ said the Duke, going red in the face.

  ‘I’m sorry, Duke. I did not mean to be rude but you can see what I mean.’

  The Duke said firmly, ‘Inspector, we all want to help you clear up this terrible business as soon as possible and I am sure we are very grateful that you have agreed to look into this horrible accident. We are all conscious of the need for discretion. We owe it to the General that his death should be as dignified as his life. We must let no hint of this poison business get into the press.’ He was giving Inspector Pride a warning and the latter did not like it. ‘While you were in the dining-room, Colonel,’ the Duke went on, ‘we discussed how best to keep all this’ – he gestured with his hands – ‘out of the newspapers, and Lord Weaver has offered to handle all that side of things. I think we can be sure that with his assistance even the newspapers he does not control . . .’ he smiled gratefully at the tycoon, who gave him a little bow of acknowledgement, ‘. . . that even his competitors will treat the death of General Craig as the sad but natural death of a great man and make no mention of . . . of anything else.’

  Edward said, ‘Jeffries, his man, spoke to me earlier. He told me, Inspector, that the General had been unwell for some time.’

  ‘There we are then,’ said the Duke fatuously.

  Inspector Pride made no comment. Colonel Philips said, ‘Is there a room we might use, Duke, to talk to each one of you separately? It shouldn’t take very long.’

  Predictably, Colonel Philips and Inspector Pride heard the same story from the Duke and his guests: the sudden arrival of Edward and Verity, the return to the dining-room, listening to the girl’s account of Edward’s accident with the Lagonda and the Morgan’s subsequent puncture, the port being circulated, Friedberg getting up and knocking over his chair believing he was being mocked, the realization that the General was not laughing but choking to death. Only Edward had anything to add – what he had learnt from Jeffries of his master’s poor health and his own belief that the General had taken cyanide. He mentioned the pill box he had seen in the General’s hand and Colonel Philips told him that they had retrieved it and the contents would be sent for analysis to the Yard along with all the port glasses and the decanter itself.

  ‘Why do you think it was cyanide?’ said Inspector Pride coldly.

  ‘I have read about poisons,’ Edward explained. ‘When you are in Africa you are often a long way from medical help so it is sensible to have some working knowledge of remedies for snake bites and so on.’

  ‘But surely you are unlikely to be poisoned by cyanide in Africa?’ said Pride.

  ‘No, but I am a naturally curious fellow so I did not close my book when I had read all there was to read on snake bites. I read on. Is that suspicious, Inspector?’

  ‘No, the Inspector was just interested, that is all,’ said the Colonel hurriedly. ‘Now, is there anything else you can add, Lord Edward, before we let you go to your bed?’ he went on jovially.

  ‘Not really,’ said Edward, ‘but . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ prompted the Colonel.

  ‘Well, it is just that I remember reading that Frederick the Great always carried around with him cyanide pills in case he was captured by the enemy.’ Colonel Philips looked puzzled and Inspector Pride suddenly yawned. ‘Oh, sorry, I just wondered if officers during the war might also have carried around poison to use in the last resort. I cannot see the General as a man who would allow himself to be captured and imprisoned, somehow.’

  ‘An interesting idea,’ said the Colonel politely. ‘We will bear it in mind. Ah! I think I can hear Dr Best. Pride, would you ask him to step in here for a moment and look at Lord Edward’s leg?’

  Pride looked mutinous but did as he was bid. The doctor, who was himself clearly very tired, prescribed bed for Edward and for all of them and said he would come and see the patient in the morning. It was one fifteen before Edward, having splashed his face with cold water from the tin basin in the corner of his room, stumbled into bed. It had been a long day. He had played cricket like a god, survived an automobile accident, been rescued by a girl with a black Aberdeen terrier and seen a man die horribly of poisoning. The pain in his knee was acute and sleep, when it did come, was uneasy, punctuated by bad dreams.

  4

  Sunday and Monday Morning

  Sunday morning and Edward’s knee was so swollen he could not get out of bed; he had to ring the bell and ask for a cup of tea to be brought to him. John, the footman, returned with a silver tray bearing scrambled eggs and bacon, tea, toast and marmalade. Edward glanced at the newspaper but, of course, there was no mention of the General’s death. Connie came to visit him, her white silk pyjamas showing beneath her white silk dressing-gown. If he had ever thought about it, he probably would not have guessed she wore silk pyjamas in bed – it was almost racy, he considered. With her hair down she looked much younger than her thirty-seven years and Edward found himself thinking that his brother had done very well for himself. He had always liked his sister-in-law. She had stood by him when the Duke scolded him for his rackety life-style and was all in all, he thought, a thoroughly good sort. However, he now realized that she was also a woman and, as if she read his thoughts, she pulled her robe tightly about her.

  After she had commiserated with him about his leg, he asked, ‘What’s happening downstairs? Do you know?’

  ‘Bates tells me Joe Weaver is up and dressed, having breakfast. He wants to go up to London before lunch to prepare for the anno
uncement of General Craig’s death. Blanche and Hermione are going after lunch with Peter and Celia Larmore. The Bishop went to early church with Gerald and they have not come back yet. Does that answer your question?’

  ‘Very good, very clear, Connie,’ said Edward, putting his hand on hers. ‘You make a first-rate witness.’ Seeing her face cloud, he cursed himself. ‘It’s awful for you and Gerald. I’m so sorry,’ he said gently.

  ‘Yes, it is horrid. I feel so sad for that lonely old man.’

  ‘The General? How do you know he was lonely?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. There was something in his eyes and his tie was not quite straight, did you notice?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. You think a wife would not have allowed him to come downstairs with his tie crooked?’

  ‘I do. I think he was devoted to his wife and when she died – it must have been a year ago – he was beside himself with grief but in a typically English way hid it behind that terrible stiff upper lip you men seem to think necessary.’

  ‘And that was hidden behind that ridiculous little moustache,’ said Edward. ‘It reminded me of his arch-enemy’s moustache.’

  ‘Adolf Hitler’s, you mean?’ said the Duchess.

  ‘Yes,’ said Edward, ‘and that brings me to Gerald. I hope he is not too distressed by the mucking up of his little conference.’

  ‘I think he is, poor old boy,’ said the Duchess sadly. ‘He has not said anything to me yet but I know it will all come out in due course. It is so important to him, Ned, that we don’t get dragged into another war with Germany.’

  ‘It is important to all of us.’ Edward almost said something about his fears for the future but then checked himself and said instead, ‘The police? When will they invade us?’

  ‘Bates says that Inspector Pride will be here about ten o’clock and some of his people are coming down from Scotland Yard to do scientific tests of some kind. I don’t know exactly what. I suppose the wine and so on,’ she said vaguely.

  ‘And what about my little guardian angel?’

  ‘Verity Browne? Oh, she’s been sweet. She said it was quite the wrong time to go round the castle with me and she had a slice of toast and went back to London – with her dog – such a dear little thing. I think I might get myself a dog.’

  Edward was taken aback. ‘You mean she has gone back to London without saying goodbye to me? I wanted to thank her.’

  ‘Well,’ said Connie reasonably, ‘she could hardly come and see you in bed. I think it was very tactful of her. I expect she felt in the way.’

  ‘But won’t the police want to see her?’

  ‘I don’t see why. What can she tell them that you and I can’t?’

  Edward brooded. He somehow felt rather disappointed that the bright little thing and her thug of a dog had gone out of his life without his giving permission.

  The Duchess had been watching him amusedly. ‘Tut, Ned! Not used to girls running out on you? If you want a girl, then I get the feeling that Hermione Weaver was rather smitten by you last night.’

  Edward shuddered. ‘Oh God, not that little harpy, please.’

  ‘Now, don’t be unkind. That child is just very unhappy, though why I don’t know. She has a nice mother and a rich stepfather. Anyway, you be kind to her. You could do a lot worse, you know. She is going to be very rich one day.’

  ‘Oh no, Connie. You are joking, I know, but not Hermione, not in a million years. I know something about the girl and I promise you she’s mad, bad and dangerous to know. I exaggerate, but no – Hermione is not for me.’

  The Duchess was rather pleased than otherwise at her brother-in-law’s unexpected display of good sense but she tried not to show it. There was something unstable about Hermione and she sensed the girl would make serious trouble for someone, assuming she hadn’t already. ‘Well, I must go and dress. You stay where you are, at least until Dr Best has been to see you.’

  A weary Dr Best called in to look at Edward’s knee at eleven o’clock. He gave the patient some anti-inflammatory pills and told him to rest. ‘Looks like it’s you who needs the rest,’ said Edward sympathetically.

  The doctor smiled wryly. ‘Yes, you’re right. I am too old to be up all night working on dead bodies.’

  ‘What did you discover?’ said Edward eagerly. ‘Oh, I am sorry, I ought not to harass you. I expect it’s all confidential until the inquest.’

  ‘It is,’ the doctor replied, ‘but in confidence I don’t mind admitting to you that the General was definitely poisoned.’

  ‘Cyanide?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought so,’ said Edward, unable to suppress a note of triumph. ‘But how did it happen?’

  ‘God knows,’ said the doctor. ‘That’s not my problem, I am glad to say.’

  ‘Either he or someone else at the table must have broken a capsule of cyanide into his port sometime after I arrived – but how, and why? I mean, no one in their right mind would commit suicide at the end of a very good and very public dinner.’

  ‘But of course suicides are usually said to be of unsound mind,’ said the doctor.

  ‘Unsound to the point of wanting to make an exhibition of one’s own death? I can only imagine doing that if one was trying to make some point – to hurt someone or show someone up.’

  ‘And since the General did not know any of his fellow guests, that doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Edward, ‘and in any case I have never heard of anyone committing suicide at a party. You are right – it just doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘There is something else which I suppose it doesn’t matter me telling you, but please keep it to yourself until after the inquest – the General had stomach cancer. Hawthorn, who did the post-mortem, with me more or less just there as an observer, says that he can only have had a few months or even weeks left to live.’

  ‘I thought so,’ said Edward, pulling himself into a sitting position. ‘Jeffries – that’s his man, you know – Jeffries told me he had been going to the doctor and the last time he went he came away cursing all doctors and saying he was finished with the lot of them. Presumably the doctor must have told him he could do nothing more for him.’

  ‘So the pills he had in his hand . . . ?’

  ‘I bet you anything you like they will prove to be painkillers.’

  ‘So,’ said the doctor, ‘he took a cyanide pill by mistake for a painkiller?’

  ‘I think it is the most likely explanation. He may have been contemplating taking cyanide if the cancer pain became too much for him to bear, but not, one imagines, at the Duke’s table. He was a very private man and would never have exposed his bodily weakness to strangers. However, assuming he had a cyanide pill – left over from the war perhaps – he mistakenly put it in with the pain relievers. Then, while drinking the port, he felt bad pain, fumbled for his pill box and . . .’

  Edward and the doctor looked at each other in silence as they played over in their minds the awfulness of what had occurred.

  Dr Best said, ‘At the end of the meal, after too much and unaccustomed rich food and wine coupled with tiredness – that might well be the time when he would get attacks of pain if he were ill.’

  ‘Of course, I had not met General Craig for several years before last night but I was shocked at how gaunt he was when I saw him. There was something fevered about his face and his eyes were protruding, I thought. I expect I am imagining it, after the event as it were, but still it does seem plausible. Poor man – all one can say is that if he died unexpectedly he was saved some of the fear and foreboding either of dying of the cancer or committing suicide.’

  ‘But the agony of his death!’ said the old doctor, shaking his head. ‘You saw his face, Lord Edward. Cyanide poisoning is a terrible way of dying.’

  ‘Will you tell Inspector Pride our theory? I can’t,’ said Edward. ‘He has made it quite clear he doesn’t like me. I think he thinks I’m an interfering young idiot with more money than sense.’
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br />   ‘Well,’ said the doctor getting up to go, ‘if it is any comfort, I think you have a very good mind and you see a lot further than most people.’

  ‘Thank you, Dr Best. That is very kind of you. I might have to ask you to repeat your remarks to my brother, who thinks otherwise,’ he said, smiling.

  Throughout the day Edward played host to a stream of visitors. Hermione, in particular, was embarrassingly attentive and it was a relief when her mother came to say that her maid had finished packing and they were leaving. ‘Please come and see us,’ the girl begged.

  ‘Oh yes, please do,’ echoed her mother, happy that for once Hermione’s attention had been captured by a young man of whom she could approve.

  Inspector Pride did not ask to see Edward – rather to his chagrin – presumably content with the brief statement he had taken the night before. Edward spent the afternoon reading and dozing, trying not to devote too much time to futile speculation as to why General Craig chose to die when he did, in the way he did.

  The following day, Monday, Edward’s knee was less swollen and he decided he must get out of bed and go down to breakfast if he wasn’t to die of boredom. Being trapped in his bedroom for more than a day was torture to him. He had no valet to help him dress – he had given Fenton a week off to go and paddle in the sea at Bournemouth – so John the footman helped him manoeuvre himself into his trousers. As they were engaged in this tricky operation, Edward thought to ask him if, as he was helping Bates serve Verity and himself cold ham, he had seen anything which, now he looked back, might indicate that the General was contemplating suicide. It was not really the done thing to question the servants, especially in his brother’s house, but he had known John for many years – almost as long as he had known Bates – and he felt he could talk to the man informally without putting him in an awkward position.

  ‘Nothing at all, my lord,’ said the footman.

  ‘And during dinner, before we erupted on to the scene, everything was normal? I mean, I know you were concentrating on serving the food but you didn’t notice anything strange?’