A Detective at Death's Door

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘I hope he’s a good driver to take you back, that’s all. Any sudden emergency might have you suffering a cardiac arrest.’

  ‘Well, we got here.’

  ‘You were lucky. I mean that. I’ve half a mind to order an ambulance to take you back to St Oswald’s. Heaven knows what Emlyn Hume Jones would say if he heard you’d been gallivanting all over the city.’

  ‘Oh, come. I’ve not exactly been gallivanting. And this morning I was feeling almost back to normal.’

  All right, I’m lying. But surely he’s making too much of it all, the old fool.

  ‘Well, you’re in nothing like your normal state now, I can tell you that.’

  ‘Oh, you’re right, I know, Doctor. The trip across the city did take more out of me than I expected. And, if you think I should, I will go back to bed again. For a day or two.’

  ‘My dear lady, you must have complete bed-rest for much longer than that. I don’t think you can have the least idea what a major trauma such as you have suffered does to the body. It’s going to be three months at least before you’re completely right. Three months.’

  Chapter Seven

  At home, defeated, Harriet was glad to tumble into bed and, with the words three months echoing and echoing in her head, to fall into a deep sleep. She was woken by the shrilling of the phone at her side.

  Muzzy-headed, she eventually got the handset the right way round and muttered, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Harriet?’ It was Pat Murphy’s Irish-laced voice.

  ‘Yes? Yes, it’s me, Pat.’

  ‘You sounded three parts asleep.’

  ‘I was. I am. What time is it, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Let me — Yes, half eight. I couldn’t find a minute to ring before. Harriet, there’s been another one.’

  ‘Aconitine? Another aconitine poisoning?’

  ‘Just that. This afternoon. At a place out in Boreham, a tea shop, I suppose you’d call it. Mary’s Pantry. And the lady who’s dead fits the place to a nicety. A fifty-year-old widow, Mrs Sylvia Smythe, Smythe with an e.’

  Harriet’s head was clearing.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘as different as can be from Robbie Norman down in dirty Moorfields. And from snoozing-in-the-sunshine Tommy O’Brien. Or, come to that, from Detective Superintendent Martens, asleep in the sun too, if in rather more classy circumstances.’

  ‘Ah, you’re right so. And, besides adding a dozen or more witnesses to be questioned to the hundreds we’ve already got, it confirms, if confirmation’s needed, that our poisoner is altogether roaming round seeking like a roaring lion whom he may devour.’

  ‘True, Pat. And you’re right to be quoting the Good Book. This is not far short of evil, pure evil.’

  And you know what the public of Birchester is going to make of it, aided by the TV and the Evening Star. There’ll be panic, fearsome panic from one end of the city to the other. We’ve got to catch this maniac before it gets even worse that that. So, listen, Harriet, I know it’s too soon for you to take any active part, but will you think about it all? Think as hard as you can, and come up with something. Because I’m damned if I know what more I can do. I’m down in the incident room seventeen or eighteen hours at a time, the Chief calling every five minutes to tell me the citizens of Birchester are wrapped in fear, his words. And so far I’ve got nowhere, nowhere at all.’

  ‘Pat, I’ll do my best. I really will.’

  And what good will my best be, she thought, dropping the phone on its rest. Wasn’t I told just this morning that I’ll have to wait three months before I’m fit to go back to work? Three months. Three months when I won’t be able properly to get my head round any problem at all, least of all the problem of finding who, among the half-million inhabitants of Birchester, is seeking to administer aconitine to as many individuals as they take it into their head to do.

  Bloody Dr Dalrymple was right about one thing. I really should stay in bed a little longer. God, that trip across the city really took it out of me, and the trip back was nearly as bad. But that means I’ll be here, stuck here, and not even really able to find out what’s going on. Yes, there’s Radio Birchester. Must start listening to the news every time it comes on. And the Evening Star, that rag; I suppose I’d better order that, too. Me, with the Evening Star.

  And then what? Sit here, or lie here rather, and hear about murders number five, six, seven, eight, right up to infinity?

  *

  It was in the middle of a restless night, wild with frightening dreams — too much daytime sleep — that Harriet abruptly thought how after all she might play a part in tracking down the poisoner. But it was not until early in the morning that she was able to look properly at the idea and decide whether or not it was some small-hours fantasy.

  What had come into her head then was the recollection of a lady with the unusual name of Earwaker.

  Miss Earwaker had, years ago, been a teacher at the twins’ primary school, where, of course, she had been known to the kids as Miss Earwigger. Can it be, Harriet asked herself now, that she actually was in those days a Botany teacher? Surely not. Even twenty years ago teachers in primary schools were class teachers, Year One, Year Two, whatever. No, a Botany teacher is a throwback to my own eight-year-old self, sent away to boarding school.

  But whatever had been Miss Earwaker’s actual designation, she had been an expert on wild flowers. They had been her hobby, even her main interest in life. She used, yes, to take parties of the children off on expeditions into the countryside to identify and collect wild flowers. Even now I can see the exercise books the twins had, with alternate blank and lined pages and the pressed flowers they had stuck on the plain sides, with often only a yellowing inch of sticky tape still in place.

  So, isn’t it likely, more than likely, that Miss Earwaker will know everywhere round Birchester where monkshood grows? And didn’t Pat mention to me — don’t know when — that the forensic lab had reported that the aconitine they had subjected to analysis, perhaps even some of what came from my own body, had been from poorly processed Aconitum napellus? Yes, and Pat had added, characteristically, ‘Monkshood, if you speak God’s English.’

  So is it possible — yes, Miss Earwaker’s still about, I’ve seen her in Sainsbury’s — that she could tell me where to find the monkshood plants from which the poisoner may have obtained new supplies? Supplies to add to what, according to Agatha Christie, they may have been carrying about, like that lump of curare she was once shown, to fondle in pocket or purse.

  Miss Earwaker. Yes, Miss Earwaker. And she could well be at the end of the telephone.

  What’s the time?

  Christ, only six thirty. I can’t call an old lady at half-past six in the morning. But I could ring at — what? — nine. No, she’ll be up early; she was the sort of person who started her day promptly, if I’m right in what I remember of her. Chirpy. Always busy. No, I could ring her at eight, even at a quarter to.

  *

  It was just a few minutes after half-past seven that Harriet, hearing John’s car drive away, went cautiously downstairs to consult the telephone directory. She was relieved to find she was better now at getting about. The groping, blind beggar banished? Three months, she thought with a dart of contempt for puffy Dr Dalrymple’s warning. I’ll be a hundred per cent fit long before that.

  By the time she had riffled back and forth through the E section of the big, floppy directory she was not feeling quite so pleased with herself. However, she managed at last to focus enough on the small print to find Miss Earwaker’s number. Glancing at the clock on the wall, she saw it was still only twenty to eight.

  Patience, she said to herself. Patience. It’ll be a test of how much in control of myself I am to wait till exactly seven forty-five before I tap out the number. No, till seven forty-six.

  She succeeded, even if her finger had stayed poised over the first digit for almost two minutes before she let it jab down.

  The distant ringing. Once, twice, three times. />
  God, have I woken her up after all? She won’t be any too pleased.

  ‘Hello?’

  The hesitant voice. Hesitant and distinctly elderly.

  Is she going to turn out to be too old for any trip to whatever part of the countryside where she remembers monkshood growing? Will she even remember anything about it now?

  ‘Miss Earwaker?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I don’t know if you’ll remember me, but I’m Harriet Piddock, the mother of a pair of twins you used to teach.’

  ‘Graham and Malcolm. Nice boys, though naughty at times of course.’

  ‘And on the point of leaving university now and going out into the world, still nice, I hope, and still occasionally naughty. But how are you, Miss Earwaker? I caught a glimpse of you in the supermarket the other day and you were looking well.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not so bad, though I am in my eightieth year, of course.’

  Her eightieth year. That’s seventy-nine. Seventy-nine but jumping the gun a little. And game. Game. Nothing wrong with her memory, too. Instant recall of Graham and Malcolm. Yes, I can put my request to her. Though, if she says yes to hunting for monkshood all over the countryside, will it be me who turns out not to be up to it?

  ‘Miss Earwaker, there’s something I want to ask you. You’ve heard about this maniac who’s roaming the city looking for people to poison?’

  ‘Ah, now I know what it was I was trying to think of. You must forgive an old lady’s memory. As well as being Mrs Piddock, mother of those two boys, you’re Detective Inspector Martens as well, aren’t you? So important to have ladies in the police, I always say.’

  ‘Yes, though I’m actually a detective superintendent now.’

  ‘Oh dear, I am sorry. I find I don’t keep up with things nowadays, not the way I used to.’

  ‘But you remembered the twins, and got their names right in a moment.’

  ‘Well, you know, the past is often more vivid to me than what happened just yesterday. But — but didn’t I read in the Birchester Chronicle that it was you who was the first person to be poisoned? Before that girl lying sunbathing in City Hall Square? And there’s been a young man as well. But you? How did you manage to survive? Did you reject whatever had been put in what you were drinking?’

  ‘Yes, I was the first victim, or so we suppose. But I survived because my husband, sitting beside me by the pool at the Majestic Insurance Club, was actually reading the Agatha Christie murder mystery that describes the poisoning symptoms. And he acted with wonderful quickness.’

  Once more she felt, almost as if it was happening at that very instant, John’s fingers pushing and pushing down the sides of her throat.

  ‘Twisted Wolfsbane,’ Miss Earwaker jumped in. ‘So that’s what the poison is. Aconitine. The paper has never said, you know, or I don’t think so. The poison from monkshood. Dear John Keats’ wolfsbane. The “Ode on Melancholy”. So beautiful. So sad. If, I always think, a little difficult properly to understand. “No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist wolfsbane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine.” Though, of course, the poison is chiefly in the tuber, not the root. But the poet must be allowed his licence, mustn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Earwaker, you’re quite right. And this brings me to what I want to ask you. You see, we in the police are inclined to believe that the poisoner used to carry about with them some aconitine, probably obtained from monkshood, in a small container of some sort. It was to give themselves a feeling of power, the power over life or death.’

  ‘Oh dear me. Not a very pleasant person, not a pleasant person at all. And you in the police believe, is it, that once this person had fallen into temptation and used their long-kept supply, they must have taken it into their head to do it again and again? And so they’ve dug up tubers from monkshood plants somewhere and made more of the poison?’

  ‘Yes. Or at least we think that’s possible. But is it? The plant physiologists at the university tell us that monkshood is over by September.’

  ‘Oh, yes, it is. It will be. But, you know, even when the plant has finished flowering — such beautiful flowers, deep blue usually, even purple, and standing up so proudly — the tubers will still be there, just under the ground. Like potatoes, if it isn’t awful to say so.’

  ‘So then, Miss Earwaker, do you know anywhere round the city where monkshood is likely to be found?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course I do. You see, once it’s established anywhere it will come up year after year. And monkshood in flower was one of the things I often took my children on an expedition to find. So nice and easy for them to spot. The littler ones always like that, to be the first to point it out. But, of course, I had to warn them never to touch even the leaves. They’re poisonous, too, you know, though nothing like as poisonous as the tubers.’

  Harriet took a deep breath.

  ‘Miss Earwaker, could you take me on ... on an expedition?’

  ‘Do you mean ... ? I’m not quite sure what you’re suggesting, Mrs Piddock.’

  The puzzlement came down the line as strongly as if it was making an electronic buzz.

  Harriet nerved herself up to give Miss Earwaker an explanation that would convince her.

  ‘It’s like this,’ she said. ‘The police are absolutely at full stretch trying to trace the poisoner, as you can imagine. And they are checking gardens inside the city to see if they have monkshood growing. But they won’t have any officers to spare to go hunting for monkshood plants all over the countryside. But you, Miss Earwaker, are perhaps the person in all the city with the best credentials for locating it. So if you and I could find where this poisoner dug up their source of supply, then we might just possibly be able to tell my colleagues how to track them down.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Yes, I see now. And I believe I could lead you to some of the places within reach of the city itself — well, perhaps really to all of them — where you could find monkshood. If it helps to catch this dreadful murderer before they ... well, before they pounce again, then I must do it. Certainly I must do it.’

  Chapter Eight

  The monkshood search did not take place as soon as Harriet might have liked. Miss Earwaker, with a flurry of apologies, had produced a long catalogue of distress about her ‘dear little Honda’ being in the garage for ‘some repairs they said the poor thing must have’. So it was not until the following Friday that she arrived at the house, at exactly the agreed time of two o’clock. Harriet had been pleased in the end to have had the extra days to regain more physical strength. But, even after the lapse of time, getting dressed in denim jacket and jeans had been a much more laborious business than she had counted on. Nevertheless, well before the appointed time she was on the watch at the narrow window beside the front door.

  But when she saw the battered little car draw up in the road outside she felt at once a lurch of dismay.

  Am I going to be able to cope, she thought, with another journey through the rackety, oppressive streets of the city? Was John right, when I told him about Miss Earwaker, to oppose the outing so strongly? And was I right, was I sensible, to say that I really did feel much better?

  And did he realize I was lying? He almost certainly did, knowing me as he does. So was he right, guessing I’d had to kid myself into feeling just fit enough, to give his reluctant agreement?

  From outside there came a single little discreet toot of a horn.

  God, right or wrong, I’ve got to go now. I mustn’t keep the old dear waiting so long that she feels obliged to come and ring the bell.

  She swept the front door open, strode out.

  ‘Good afternoon, good afternoon.’ Miss Earwaker, tiny, bespectacled, her much wrinkled face pink-cheeked with enthusiasm under a stiff blue cotton sun-hat, poked her head through the car’s lowered window.

  Harriet advanced.

  ‘My dear,’ Miss Earwaker continued, ‘I cannot tell you how much I’m looking forward to our little trip. I haven’t been out flower-hunting for ... well, it m
ust be two or even three years. I’m getting on, you know. In my eightieth year. And I know we shan’t be able to find monkshood in bloom, those wonderful spikes of deep, deep blue. But I’m sure we’ll spot lots of other things. We may even find the sweetest of all autumn flowers, Bouncing Bet. Or soapwort as it’s more often called. Not at all a pretty name for a pretty little pink flower.’

  Harriet felt a jab of dismay.

  Christ, am I going to go all through this and end up looking at some wretched pink flower? And be expected to enthuse about it? Can I ... ? Yes, even now I could say I’m actually feeling worse. As I am. I could postpone the trip. Cancel the whole idea.

  No. No, I won’t. There’s little enough I can do. But what I can do, I must

  She walked round to the far side of the car, opened the door — she found it tended to stick — and manoeuvred herself into the passenger seat.

  With a horrendous jerk, Miss Earwaker put the little Honda into motion.

  ‘My dear,’ she said, almost immediately, ‘I’ve just realized you haven’t brought a hat. In this sun, you know, it’s really quite a mistake to be out of doors without one.’

  God, Harriet thought, are we going to have to turn back? I couldn’t bear it, not after I’ve managed to take the plunge and set off.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, a liar once again, ‘the sun never seems to bother me. I haven’t worn a hat for years, except when I’m in uniform of course.’

  She gave a little hysterical laugh.

  But, as they travelled on, she found the traffic was less oppressive than on her trip with John across to Dr Dalrymple’s surgery. Mercifully, too, Miss Earwaker, crouching over her steering wheel, was soon too rigid with concentration to be able to chatter.

  For twenty minutes and more while they negotiated the crowded inner-city streets, not without causing some furious hooting from drivers who felt put in peril by Miss Earwaker’s unorthodox choice of direction, Harriet contrived to fight off the pounding noise that, out with John, had seemed to pierce right to her inner self. Now the tangle of blazing advertisement hoardings and the multiple rattle and roar of the traffic did seem to strike her less forcibly.