by Ellis Peters
‘It occurs as a white powder, practically insoluble in water. There is no ordinary household use to which it can be put. But I understand that this was not exactly an ordinary household. Pottery was carried on on the premises. Antimony oxide has certain uses in colouring glazes, I believe. It would be quite usual to have it about the place in those conditions.’
‘But it does not seem to you a very likely thing to be kept near food. You would not consider it an easy thing to take by mistake for something else?’
‘It would be extremely unlikely to occur in the kitchen. If by any chance it did somehow get mixed up with sugar, or flour, or any other white solid, I would not preclude the possibility of accident.’
When he completed his evidence, the tide of invisible, inaudible but palpable excitement had risen until they felt themselves drowning in it.
Sergeant Grayne followed with the straightforward story of what had happened after his arrival at Little Worth on the morning after the death. The picture of the cold studio, with its burned-out stove and its steadily shining lights, and the crumpled body discarded carelessly in the centre, emerged with a curious icy clarity from the official phrases. The sergeant was not a typical police witness; he went rather than proceeded. His mild and mournful eyes swept gently over the array of faces turned avidly upon him, and looked longest at Suspiria, who was not looking at him at all, but fixedly ahead of her through the wall.
‘On the floor there was a tube of white oil paint, which had been dropped and trodden underfoot by the deceased. It had squashed out, and was all over the soles of both his shoes, and well trodden about the floor. The footprints were so numerous that it seemed likely the accident to the tube had happened several hours before death, and their grouping about the easel seemed to show that it happened while he was still fully capable of painting, and some time before he was taken ill. Considerably longer, I would say, than one hour. The photographs will show what I mean.’
The photographs were circulating while he spoke, the intricate patterns of Theo’s oblique passage from world to world.
‘It will be seen, sir, that none of these prints reach the door. He did not leave the room after he stepped on the tube. There is also in evidence, sir, an expert report to show that the state of tackiness of the oil paint on the shoes and on the floor can give a reasonable estimate of the time which had passed since it was exposed to the air. It tends to show that the tube got squashed and trampled probably as early as the middle of the evening, say, between seven and eight.’
‘So the effect of the evidence is to show that the deceased did not leave the studio after about that time?’
‘No, sir, unless on the assumption that he took off his shoes.’
‘It would be difficult to show any reason why he should have done that. Go on, Sergeant!’
‘On the following day, sir, Saturday, acting on the first received reports, I again went to Little Worth, to see if antimony oxide was kept in stock there in Mrs. Freeland’s workshop. She at once showed me where it was kept, in a small cupboard on the wall, and gave me every assistance with regard to her bill for the purchase, and details of the last time of using it, which was some weeks previously. She was unable, however, to say positively what weight of the powder ought to be present, or to judge from its appearance whether anything had been taken out since she last used it. It did appear from the folds of the paper that the bag had been opened at some time recently. The cupboard and the bag were tested for fingerprints, and yielded only Mrs. Freeland’s with any certainty, though there were some other, older traces, much overlaid, which could not be identified.’
‘None could be positively identified as Mr. Freeland’s?’
‘No, sir. There were also some faint traces on the paper of the bag, which did not appear to be Mrs. Freeland’s; but they were so fragmentary as to be of little use. It is a very rough-textured paper, and almost hopeless for our purposes. But no prints except Mrs. Freeland’s were found on the cupboard. The door was tight-fitting. Quite a firm grip would be needed in opening it. Had any other person so opened it recently, I think the traces would certainly be present on that knob.’
‘It is not, however, impossible that he might have helped himself at some time when the cupboard was already open? It cannot altogether be ruled out!’
‘There would be nothing against it, sir. But it is fairly conclusive that he didn’t do so after about seven or eight o’clock that evening, according to the footprints in the studio.’
‘Is there anything to indicate how the poison was taken?’
‘There was nothing eatable or drinkable in the studio, except an almost empty bottle of whisky and a siphon of soda. Both were entirely innocent, and so was the broken glass which lay beside the deceased. It showed traces of whisky and soda, but nothing else. Moreover, the oxide being insoluble, it could not have been taken by accident or unknown to the victim in a drink. No trace of antimony was found anywhere in the studio, though it was very thoroughly examined.’
‘So he did not leave the studio to get it, and there is no evidence to show that he had any access to it within the studio?’
‘No, sir.’
‘It would appear, then, that unless he had it about him, and deliberately made use of it and disposed of the traces himself, the only alternative is that it was brought to him?’
‘That seems to be the fact, sir.’
‘The jury will keep in mind,’ said the coroner, ‘the times which have been quoted as possible for the swallowing of the poison. The period is from nine to half-past eleven. I should like to recall Mrs. Freeland for a moment.’
When she obeyed the clerk’s summons, he asked her with a detached gentleness: ‘During that period, Mrs. Freeland, from nine to eleven-thirty, did you take anything to your husband? Any tray of food? Or anything for which he himself asked?’
‘No,’ said Suspiria, ‘I did not.’
‘Did you go into the studio at all during that time, or until you entered it in the morning?’
‘No.’
‘And as to the dispositions of your workshop, was your husband familiar with them? Would he know where to find anything he wanted?’
‘Yes, perfectly. He sometimes liked to work in clay himself. He was perfectly competent.’
‘Were there others who would know where all your materials were kept?’
‘Yes, several of our friends. There might be quite a list.’
‘Local people, for instance? Were there any near neighbours who were in that relationship to you?’
‘Most of the people we knew who were interested in that sort of thing lived in London, and came out only occasionally.’
‘Most?’ he prompted.
It had to come, sooner or later. ‘Mr. Forbes, who visited me that evening, was frequently at the house, and knew something of the geography of the workshop, though not very much. There might be one or two others who were about equally informed.’
‘Ah, yes, you mentioned you had a visitor for about half an hour that night. Is Mr. Forbes in the court, may I ask?’
‘Yes, he is.’
The coroner conferred with his clerk for a moment in a quick undertone. Dennis had risen, excessively pale, but almost eager now to lift the burden of the eyes, the intolerable, pleased, titillated eyes, from Suspiria; eager, too, in a despairing way, to plunge into the cold flood which in any case was going to take him in the long run. He found himself flinching from it in a way which outraged his pride so grossly that the only reaction left to him was to plunge in headlong now, and give his agonised spirit no opportunity to escape.
‘Yes, well—I think we had better call Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Mrs Freeland, that is all.’
Dennis answered to his name immediately it was called, and out of the desperate conflict of feeling within him, with almost too great alacrity, so that the faintest and most scarifying murmur of amusement, cold and a little hysterical, seemed to pass like a ripple through the watching rows of people. His face f
lamed, and then blanched to an even more painful whiteness.
He took the oath in a clear and rather stern voice, confronting himself terrifyingly with the syllables of his own undertaking. He knew he would soon be committing perjury; and in a few minutes he was pronouncing with just as much conviction:
‘We didn’t go into the studio. Mrs. Freeland said that he was working, and that … that he’d been drinking, and we … the sight of us might only have upset him.’ He had brought himself quite deliberately, if not very coolly, to this declaration, wishing to make it himself, on his own terms, rather than to have it dragged out of him, at this or a later stage, by the questions of potentially inimical people. But still it was like putting his hand into the fire. ‘It was through me,’ he said through stiff lips, ‘that their married life had broken up. Nobody had intended anything like that, but it had happened. And we didn’t want to do any more damage than we could help.’
‘I see!’ The coroner looked him over with old and disillusioned eyes, but seemed to find him no more disagreeable a sight than any of the other people in the room. ‘Well, well, we are not a court of morals. Our business is to determine how a man died. So you did not actually see or talk to the deceased that night?’
The assault of the eyes had achieved now its most pleased and greedy satisfaction, and he found himself able to sustain it. It would never again be quite so terrible as this first plunge, even if in the end he must go down far deeper. He lifted his head with a renewed pride, and said:
‘No. But I saw the light was on in the studio, and heard him moving about in there. I stayed about half an hour with Mrs. Freeland, and then left, because she said she was tired. It must have been about twenty-five or twenty minutes to ten when I left the house. I was home just before ten.’
‘You are acquainted with the house. Were you quite familiar with the materials in the workshop?’
‘I wouldn’t say familiar. I’ve helped sometimes with simple jobs there, and I know about the main processes, but I don’t know anything about the various pigments, or about formulae, or any of the chemical side of it.’
‘Would you know, for instance, where to lay your hand upon a particular ingredient? Let us say, the one in question, antimony oxide?’
‘No. I could find it by going through the cupboards, because all the things had labels. But I shouldn’t know where to look first.’
‘You had never handled it?’
‘Yes, I believe I had. Mrs. Freeland –’ he caught himself back just in time from the admission that Suspiria had informed him of the cause of death more than a week previously, and sweating and burning with horror at his own carelessness, turned it aside as well as he could ‘– once asked me to mix a coloured glaze for her, and I remember this name on a label. But I didn’t get it out of the cupboard myself. Still, anyone could find it who cared to give five minutes to looking for it. The materials were all more or less together. At least, these less bulky ones were.’
‘Did the name mean anything to you then? Would you have known from seeing “antimony oxide” on a label that you were handling a poison?’
‘No. I don’t remember that I’d ever heard of it before.’
And that was all. He was dismissed, and went back to his seat torn between extreme relief and a queer, distinct feeling of being cheated. He had made his statement, a monstrous step towards his full identity, and nobody seemed to have recognised it. Perhaps in his heart he had wanted more to be made of it, had been prepared to welcome, even to enjoy, the questions which should parade his love defiantly before all those delighted and damning eyes. They should at least have known the breadth of the gesture, and made some large acknowledgment, whether angry or admiring he did not care. But all he had precipitated had been that dry, disillusioned glance, and that cold impartial remark: ‘Well, well, we are not a court of morals.’
Because he felt young, and humiliated, and still very frightened, he sat with a rigidly erect back, and looked down the crowded room, seeking out eyes to meet, and hurting himself savagely against their oblique glances, which slid away from him even as they bruised. He had stared his way agressively almost to the back of the room when he looked full into the eyes of his sister Marjorie. Of course she would be there! The hint of an outrage which could in some degree be appropriated to herself would draw her clean across the county in midwinter, if need were. He stared bitterly into her eyes, already hearing within his mind the version of this scene with which she would fly hotly home before him.
The coroner was instructing the jury. What they had to decide was precisely this: how had Theodore Freeland met his death? No other judgment must be allowed to occupy their minds. They had to consider whether the cause of death was the consumption of a dose of antimony oxide, a point on which the medical evidence appeared to be decisive. If they decided that it was, they had then to consider how the dose was taken, and here the possibilities were three: that it had been swallowed by accident or mistake; that the deceased had taken it of his own will, with intent to end his life; or that it had been administered to him by some other person, in which case they must also consider whether it had been administered by mistake or of intent, in which latter case it would amount to murder. They should bear in mind the tendency of the evidence to show that the deceased did not leave the studio after at the latest eight o’clock, and had no access to antimony within the studio.
He told them exactly what inferences they were entitled to draw from the various testimonies they had heard, and pointed them meticulously away from conclusions not justified by the amount of the evidence. Straining his senses after the implications of that summary, Dennis found himself swinging feverishly between a hideous anxiety and a wild, laborious optimism. Were they being warned against crying murder, where there was almost nothing to support the charge except a situation, and a singular absence of evidence? Or were they being instructed that where sufficient details, even negative ones, tended all one way, they need not be afraid of acknowledging the full force of the evidence, and considering it solid enough to support a charge? From one moment to the next he could not be sure where the words were leading. He looked carefully at Suspiria, but her face told him nothing of what she was feeling. He was aware of her breathing, deep, even, and almost stealthy in its quietness, as if she held herself firmly braced against any shock.
The waiting seemed interminable, but the jury came back at last. They were a solid-looking lot, surely they wouldn’t easily believe in the most melodramatic solution? He held his breath, waiting to take the first words from the foreman’s lips, to turn them in his hands, and make them assume the shape he wanted. If only he even knew what he wanted! What could they say, that would round the obtrusive mystery away into the normal suave undulations of life in Great Leddington? Accidental death? But it so plainly wasn’t! Easier by far to commit themselves to what it wasn’t, rather than stake on what it was!
‘We find, sir, that the deceased died as the result of swallowing antimony oxide, without sufficient evidence to show how the poison was taken.’
‘That is a unanimous verdict?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The sudden, quivering, aching passion of relief was almost more than he could bear. It was so careful, so inconclusive, that he fell into the natural error of supposing it to be a complete deliverance, until he looked eagerly at Suspiria’s face, and saw that its wary stillness had not changed at all. She was looking at Sergeant Grayne, and her eyes, as they watched him, had a dark and informed expectancy. No illusion of safety had betrayed her into relief, even for an instant; she was waiting for the next move, and assembling her defences to encounter it worthily.
3
‘You should have seen her,’ said Marjorie, sweeping her long arm peremptorily about her assembled family to draw them into the net of her vision, ‘sitting there like an image, never turning a hair, when it’s as plain as your face she put him out of the way herself – and the police know it, too, only they’re not ready to s
ay so outright just yet. You’ll see! It won’t be long before we shall all be able to say in the streets what I’m saying now between you and me. She killed him, right enough! In her way, that’s what he was! She’d done with him, she was after something a bit younger and greener. And our Dennis sitting there by her, holding her hand, as brazen as her! Well, he’s done it now, the silly little fool! As good as told the court he’s been carrying on with her for weeks, right under her husband’s nose. If he’d got no shame about doing it,’ she flamed indignantly, ‘he might have had the decency not to get up and say it! There was no need. I will say she’d kept his name out of it up to then, not that that stopped anybody from knowing, mind you! Don’t you imagine there’s a soul in this town who hadn’t got a good notion of what was going on, but now he’s put it in their mouths himself. A nice thing! I have to get stopped by a whippersnapper of a newspaper man here in our own front garden! Would I care to make a statement? Could I give a few homely details about my brother? My God, he’s right, I could, too! I could give the full facts about our Dennis!’
‘I can’t believe it!’ said Mrs. Forbes, helplessly still in her chair, her hands knotted in her lap. ‘Him and that woman, mixed up together in this terrible scandal! I just can’t get it into my head. How are we ever going to look people in the face, after this? Such a disgrace!’ She was trembling even at the word, oblivious of her husband’s soothing hand upon her shoulder.
‘Don’t take on too much about it! Maybe the lad has been a bit of a fool, but nothing worse than that. He hasn’t done anything wrong!’
‘Nothing wrong? Carrying on with a married woman nearly old enough to be his mother, and you say he’s done nothing wrong! And now it’s worse than just that. Don’t you make any mistake, he isn’t out of this other wood yet, if he thinks he is. I can tell you, if I was in his shoes, after all that’s been said in that court this afternoon, I’d be feeling pretty sick. He’ll be lucky if he isn’t in it with her, up to the neck.’
