Hobby of Murder

by E. X. Ferrars

  A burst of clapping followed the end of the speech. Sam Waldron bowed, then disappeared as suddenly as he had come. Anna remained to usher the guests into the dining-room, then disappeared also.

  They filed from one room into the other, finding that they were expected to choose seats for themselves. The room was a long one, with a long, narrow table down the middle of it, and a magnificent arrangement of flowers down its centre. It was set with fine silver, probably Georgian, and glittering glass and was covered with a delicately embroidered cloth which had surely been preserved with loving care in some chest or cupboard for all of two hundred years and was probably a thing of great value. To Andrew, the scene seemed so perfect in its way that it was a pity that anything should be done to disturb it.

  Brian Singleton guided his brother to a seat about half way down the table and he himself took one opposite him on the other side of it. Andrew found himself somehow near one end, with the vicar on one side of him and a small dumpling of a woman on the other, who introduced herself as Mrs Delano and who had a rosy, wrinkled face and very short grey hair. He guessed that she was well over eighty, but to judge by all that she told him about herself as they sat side by side, she was involved in all the activities of the village, more often than not as chairman and was taking all those accumulated years in her stride. The vicar startled a good many people by loudly clearing his throat to catch their attention, then saying grace, a ritual to which many of them were not accustomed. But all that he wanted to talk about to Andrew was cricket, about which Andrew happened to know even less than he did about the church, which he had seldom attended except for the marriages or funerals of friends. However, the vicar was a friendly, good-humoured man who found Andrew’s ignorance amusing but forgivable.

  The Davidges had separated. Ian was at the far end of the table, Mollie about half way down it, sitting next to Brian Singleton. Inspector Roland had managed to secure a place on the left hand of Luke Singleton. Felicity Mace was on his right. Eleanor Clancy was beside the Inspector. When Andrew first glanced round the table he thought that Ernest Audley after all had decided not to attend the dinner, but then he saw him only a few places from himself, but with a singularly massive man between them, who nearly concealed him. There was no one else at the table whom Andrew had met before, but he noticed that almost everyone was middle-aged to elderly. It was clear that the Waldrons had felt that the kind of entertainment that they were offering would not appeal to the young.

  Andrew found the entertainment, when it came, formidable. Served with skill and efficiency by two women, one of whom had met them when they arrived and both of whom wore long aprons, starched cuffs and mob caps, it was still extremely solid and as course followed course he found himself leaving at least half of each untouched. For a few years now he had almost given up eating a heavy meal in the evening. A sandwich, some fruit and a cup of coffee was what suited him best. Yet he found the tench excellent, the venison, not one of his favourite dishes, more appetizing than he had expected, and a minute portion of partridge just manageable. He skipped the raspberry tarts and waited for the fruit, the fine selection of which looked very tempting. He drank Madeira, something he seldom did, but which he found that in the circumstances he quite enjoyed, and with some curiosity he watched the other people at the table to see how they were faring. Most of them were managing rather better than he was, the vicar, in fact, made a very hearty meal of it, and perhaps, Andrew thought, might have been happier in the eighteenth century than most of the other people there.

  He saw that Luke Singleton was very quiet. He talked only a little to either of his neighbours. Yet when he talked to Felicity a sudden smile of great charm would light up his pale, stern face. Talking to the Inspector it was more likely to remain tight and expressionless. Andrew recognized that when he chose, he could become surprisingly handsome. His features, in their sharp way, were good and all that they needed was some animation to make him no doubt attractive to women. He had at least been able to take Ernest Audley’s wife away from him. As far as Andrew had seen, neither he nor Audley had taken any notice of one another. He had either recognized Eleanor Clancy or had been introduced to her, for occasionally he responded when she talked to him with determination across the Inspector, nodding at what she said if he did not go quite so far as to answer it, and once or twice giving her the benefit of his charming smile.

  Brian Singleton appeared to be in extremely good spirits, chatting mostly to Mollie and ignoring a small, fidgety man who was on the other side of him. It was as he watched Brian and Mollie that what was surely an absurd yet still a disturbing thought came into Andrew’s mind. It was simply that they always seemed so relaxed, so contented, one might almost say so happy in one another’s company. Thinking back, he realized that it had always been so when he had seen them together, though at the time he had paid it no attention. And probably there was no reason why he should do so now. Yet all of a sudden he remembered with a slight shock how strangely Mollie had blushed when he had praised her embroidery.

  He had taken it at the time as merely a sign that perhaps she did not get as much praise for her work as was due to her from Ian, whose interests were all outdoor ones, and who perhaps thought embroidery an uninteresting, female sort of occupation. But later Andrew had heard that all Mollie’s designs had been supplied by Brian, taken from photographs from the electron microscope at the Institute. It had not meant anything to Andrew at the time, but now the memory of the strange brightness of her face when he spoke of her designs thrust itself into his mind and in spite of himself took on a possibly distressing meaning. For it would distress him if it should turn out that her marriage to Ian was not a satisfactory one. Andrew liked people to be happily married.

  But how stupid he was being, perhaps just because of the Madeira and the heavy food and the noise that engulfed him in the room, and a story that Mrs Delano was telling him about the pregnancy of her cleaning woman, such a nice, quiet respectable young woman, who would shortly have to give up her work, leaving Mrs Delano with no help in the house.

  ‘And that, at my age, is a serious matter,’ she said. ‘I’ve very kind neighbours who I’m sure will help me, but I don’t like to impose on people, just because I’m old. Already my shopping is often done for me. Do you know Mr Singleton? Brian Singleton, the brother of the author. He generally drives me once a week into Rockford to the supermarket and pushes my trolley round for me inside and brings me home again. He’s so kind and good-natured. I often wonder why he’s never got married. But for all one knows these days he’s got a girlfriend, who’s got a job of her own, and they just don’t bother about marriage. I sometimes wonder what I’d have done myself if things had been different when I was young. I married at nineteen. My husband was a young surgeon, who became very successful and who was ten years older than me. I had a voice, you know, I might have done something with it. But during the war years we saw so little of one another that I sometimes wondered if being married was really such an advantage. He died of a stroke, poor man, fifteen years ago, working to the end …’

  Her talk drifted away from the subject of marriage to the activities of an amateur operatic society in the village and Andrew stopped worrying about Mollie and Brian, except to wonder a little at himself for ever asking himself the question he had about their relationship.

  Coffee came at last. A good deal of the food that had been brought into the dining-room had been taken back to the kitchen, but still it had been an outstanding meal, one to remember. When the remnants of it had been cleared away the Bartlett sisters came round with coffee cups, and with the coffee which they poured into them. Cream and sugar were put on the table.

  In a low tone, the vicar said to Andrew, ‘When Sam and Anna appear, one of us ought to give a vote of thanks. If no one else has been appointed to do it, I’ll take it on myself. Do you think that would be appropriate?’

  ‘I’m sure it would,’ Andrew replied. ‘And I quite agree with you that someone s
hould do it.’

  ‘They must have worked for days, you know, to give us this extraordinary feast. Not that I’m not certain they’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I know that Sam was planning something of the sort at some time and only delayed it as long as he did because he didn’t feel sure of the reception of something which, of course, is a little eccentric. But I wouldn’t have missed it for worlds—’

  He broke off as an extraordinary noise came from further down the table. It began as a kind of cry, then came a choking sound, then a coffee cup fell on the table and coffee splashed over the beautifully embroidered cloth. Then a chair fell over backwards with someone in it who went into violent convulsive seizures. It was Luke Singleton.

  Nearly everyone at the table pushed their chairs back, standing up to try to discover what was happening, but Inspector Roland and Felicity Mace had immediately knelt down on either side of the fallen man, who appeared to be unconscious, whose jaws were clenched and who had some fine foam coming out from between his lips.

  ‘A fit,’ the vicar murmured in Andrew’s ear. ‘Poor chap. I’d never heard he was epileptic.’

  Felicity was feeling Luke Singleton’s pulse, the Inspector was lifting one of his eyelids; Eleanor Clancy reached out to set the spilled coffee cup the right way up.

  Seeing what she was about to do, Roland shouted at her, ‘Don’t touch it!’

  She drew her hand sharply back, frightened at his tone.

  Brian Singleton had raced round the table and stooped, white-faced, over his brother, but most people drew a little back, making a circle round the group on the floor. The Bartlett sisters fled together to the kitchen, to tell Sam and Anna how their party had ended.

  The Inspector gave a deep sigh and stood up. He bent over the table where the coffee had been spilled and sniffed it.

  ‘Cyanide, Doctor, you agree?’ he said to Felicity.

  ‘No doubt of it at all,’ she answered.

  At that moment Sam Waldron came running into the room. He looked wild with anxiety. Anna was a little way behind him. She looked strangely calm, which might be how she would always react to disaster, but was very pale.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Sam cried out. ‘Those Bartlett women talked about someone being taken ill—oh God!’ He had seen Luke Singleton on the floor, still now, the seizures having come to an end. ‘What’s the matter with him, Roland?’

  ‘Death,’ the Inspector said. ‘That’s what’s the matter with him.’

  Sam strode forward. ‘You don’t mean it!’ But he stood still a yard or two away from the terribly still figure and drew a few deep breaths, trying to gain control of himself. ‘But how? When?’

  ‘I’m not making any official statement,’ the Inspector said, ‘but my guess is that he was poisoned a few minutes ago with cyanide, which somehow got into the coffee he drank. You can smell the bitter almond smell, and his symptoms are typical, rapid loss of consciousness, dilated pupils non-reactive to light, an irregular pulse, jaws tightly clenched and froth at the mouth, convulsive seizures, and death following almost immediately.’

  ‘He’s dead. You’re really sure he’s dead?’ Sam demanded.

  Roland gave a grave glance at Felicity, who nodded.

  ‘Here—poisoned—after my dinner!’

  The habit of quotation that had such power over Andrew’s consciousness asserted itself now, bringing to his mind the reaction of Lady Macbeth, when she hears from Macduff that Duncan has been murdered, and cries out, ‘What, in our house!’

  But Sam seemed to recognize immediately how inappropriate his cry had been, for he laid a hand on Brian’s shoulder and said, ‘Brian, I’m sorry—damnably sorry! I don’t begin to understand what can have happened. No one else has suffered. But that this should have happened to your brother, of all people, your gifted brother … Roland, what do you want us to do? You’re in charge here.’

  ‘I think it would help if everyone would go into the other room, where we were before coming in here for dinner,’ Roland replied. ‘And then I would like the use of a telephone.’

  ‘Certainly, certainly!’ Sam said. He turned to the people grouped near the dead man and those still at the table. ‘Did you all hear that? Inspector Roland would like us all to go into the room across the hall.’

  ‘And I would be grateful if no one leaves the house for the moment,’ Roland added. ‘I’m sorry if it’s an inconvenience for you.’

  ‘No one could think it an inconvenience at such a time,’ the vicar said. ‘We’ll of course do what you ask.’

  Sam seemed suddenly to lose his self-control again. ‘But it isn’t possible, it simply isn’t possible! How could he be given cyanide at my table?’

  No one tried to answer him, and the move towards the other room began. People trod slowly and quietly on the soft, deep carpet, as if they felt that unless they took due care they could disturb the man they had left behind them. Mostly they avoided meeting each other’s eyes, looking down at the floor. But for a moment Andrew met the eyes of Ernest Audley. It was only for a moment, and afterwards Andrew would not have been ready to swear that he had seen what he thought that he had, but very briefly it seemed to him that there was a smile on the man’s face.

  CHAPTER 4

  It was half past one before the Davidges and Andrew got home. A lot had happened in the Waldrons’ house before, one by one, having been briefly questioned by Inspector Roland, with a young sergeant present in the room, the guests had been allowed to leave. The questioning took place in a small room beside the dining-room. It had little in it but a big desk, a table, some bookcases and a few chairs. Andrew supposed, when he saw it, that Sam Waldron must use it as a study. But before Andrew’s turn there came, the house seemed to have filled with busy, often loud-voiced men, tramping about, some with cameras, some presently with a stretcher, and it sounded as if there was a frequent coming and going of cars in the courtyard in front of the house.

  As they waited in the room where they had had drinks before the dinner, Sam pressed his guests to have brandy, but very few accepted the offer. Perhaps there was something not very inviting about the thought of drinking in a house where poisoning by cyanide had just taken place. Sam himself, divested of his apron and hat, was the first to be called to his study. He was gone some time, and while he was gone there was almost silence in the room that he had left. Then, when he returned, there was a long pause before anyone else was asked to follow him.

  He explained it. ‘They’re questioning the Bartlett sisters. That seems crazy, doesn’t it, two innocent souls like them, but really it makes quite good sense. They were serving the coffee. If anyone had a chance of seeing how this impossible thing was done, it might be them. It is just possible, I suppose, that they could have seen something that didn’t strike them as meaning anything at the time, but which will mean something to that policeman. No, I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it really happened at all, unless, of course, it was suicide. That’s the only explanation that makes sense.’

  No one made any response to this suggestion, and after a while Brian Singleton was called out of the room.

  He did not return to it, so it seemed likely that he had either been allowed to return to his home, or perhaps had left in the ambulance that had taken away his brother’s body, though there would have been nothing that he could have done for him, and seeing him settled into the morgue would not have been anything but a very distressing experience.

  After him, Felicity Mace had been questioned. She had come into the room where all the other guests were waiting some time later than any of them, for she had been kept in the dining-room until the police surgeon from Rockford had arrived. Then it was Eleanor Clancy’s turn. Then, strangely enough, it was Mollie’s. But the reason for this was quite simple. She had been sitting almost opposite Luke Singleton and although the elaborate flower arrangement with which the table was decorated had been between them, she was one of the people who might have seen anything strange that had happened abo
ut the way that the coffee was served to him, or that had been done to it immediately afterwards. When she came back and sat down beside Ian she was very white and as he was the next to be called away she turned to Andrew.

  ‘I didn’t see anything,’ she murmured. ‘I wasn’t even looking at him. Brian had just picked a carnation out of those flowers on the table and given it to me, and I was telling him he ought not to have done such a thing, but he insisted on my slipping it in behind this brooch I’m wearing, and then that awful noise began …’ She gave a gulp to stop herself sobbing.

  Andrew noticed that the carnation was gone.

  ‘What have you done with the flower?’ he asked.

  ‘The police kept it,’ she answered, ‘I don’t know why. And they kept on and on asking me if I hadn’t seen anything that could explain how the cyanide got into the coffee, but I hadn’t, I really hadn’t. Oh, Andrew, how awful to have brought you down here for this.’