by Richard Hull
“Gent been taken ill.” The guard put his head out of the window of the carriage.
“What with? Look of Hardy’s face or what?”
“Shut up, Jim. If he should hear you—we’re likely to get enough trouble from him as it is. And he said he had a bad heart. Is that it?”
“Very likely.” The guard’s voice came from inside the carriage; “and if you ask me you aren’t to get any more trouble, because I think he’s dead.”
“Crikey! He can’t be. Why, he only just got into the train.”
“It was taking the snuff what killed him—if he is dead.” Hardy put his head out of the next window.
“Well, what are we going to do about it? Take him out and put him by the side and send for a doctor? We can’t keep the train standing here all day. There’s two in the front coach as it is and they’ll be getting excited; if we don’t get on to Great Barwick soon, we’ll miss the connection at Luke’s Tey.”
“Going to be a job getting him out and lowering him down. And if he is a bit dicky it might finish him off.”
Benson viewed the practical difficulties. He was less interested than the guard in such matters as connections with the remote outer world.
“And if he is dead,” Hardy put in, “it don’t somehow seem right to take him all the way to Great Barwick. Even if he isn’t a proper Scotney End man, or even a Larkingfield one, he does sort of belong here and he ought to stay here.”
“I could lock up the coach, but it wouldn’t help much to take it on if nobody’s going to be allowed to get into it. ’Twouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t a corridor train. No, he’ll have to be taken out here. Three of us had better do it while one rings up Great Barwick and tells them what’s happened and then perhaps gets on to a doctor. Though if he is dead—”
“’Ere,” a fresh voice broke in, “are you going to talk all day? ’Cause I want to get on.”
Looking out from the window Hardy saw the grimy face of the engine driver below. Instantly all four of those present started to explain to him what the trouble was so that it could not have been easy for him to understand what had happened. But the engine driver was a man of action. He swung himself nimbly up into the train, took one look at Cargate and pronounced a decided, if unscientific opinion that he was entirely dead. Moreover he was quite clear what in his opinion was the right course of action, and having got a definite programme in view, he carried it out regardless of whether it was right or wrong, simply because it was definite.
Carriages, he maintained, containing what he persisted in referring to as “stiffs”, ought not to be touched. There had to be an enquiry. Doctors and police and all that sort of thing; “Just in case,” he added vaguely.
“You aren’t implying, are you,” Jim mischievously suggested, “that ’Ardy murdered ’im?”
“Maybe I am and maybe I’m not. Any’ow we drops the coach ’ere in the siding by the station and while we’re doing it, you report to Great Barwick what’s ’appened. Then you can settle things up ’ere nice and comfortable at your leisure and the train goes on. Somebody makes a note of this gentleman’s address—”
“Mr. Benson and Jim know me,” Hardy put in, rather taken aback.
“So much the better. You get in the other coach, then, and there we all are, all serene. Except perhaps the gent what’s dead, and even there you can’t be sure. Now while I and this young fellow-me-lad with the bright ideas does the shunting, perhaps the stationmaster will do the telephoning.”
Chance and the decision of the engine driver had seen to it that some of the evidence as to how Henry Cargate died had not been destroyed, and after an interval, the shortness of which was mainly to the credit of the engine driver, peace once more reigned in Larkingfield Station where nothing moved except the butterflies passing from rose to rose in the beds that flanked the notice-board giving the name of the station. They were very fine roses that Benson grew on the heavy clay soil and they were the pride of his life.
Normally he liked to linger in the complete calm of the platform, for Larkingfield Station lay up a side turning half a mile from the village, and there was nothing to disturb it in between the infrequent trains. But to-day it did not seem to Benson to be at all the same thing. Supposing that man wasn’t dead? Supposing he revived and needed attention? He would have no idea of what to do. It would be a great relief when Dr. Gardiner came. If only there was something to do! Jim, unconcernedly, was preparing some food for his dog, but then Jim, apart from the fact that he cared more for his dog than for any human being, was neither in a position of any responsibility nor particularly given to introspection as to sickness or corpses.
Suddenly it had occurred to Benson that he had not done one very obvious thing. He could only imagine that he had forgotten it because the engine driver’s ideas—he refused to admit them to be orders—had been otherwise so clear. He had not rung up Scotney End Hall, and he immediately decided to remedy the defect.
The voice of Raikes, the butler, was clear and unruffled and not particularly surprised. He was sorry to hear that Mr. Cargate had been taken unwell. His heart was at all times weak. The doctors had been sent for? That was good. No doubt if it proved to be anything serious Mr. Cargate’s own heart specialist would supplement the efforts of the local practitioner who possibly was not aware of the best treatment. What was that? It was suggested that Mr. Cargate was dead? That would indeed be (Raikes had paused as if he found the words difficult to say) very distressing. He would acquaint Miss Knox Forster, Mr. Cargate’s secretary, at once. Unfortunately the car being out of action, they had no means of transport, but very likely Miss Knox Forster would decide to make arrangements to come down at once herself. In fact Mr. Benson might assume that that would be so unless he heard to the contrary. Mr. Benson did assume it and it gave him some comfort.
“… These facts, then, will be told to you by the officials of the London and North Eastern Railway Company.” Mr. Blayton was now fully in his stride, so much so that Mr. Justice Smith, although he quite agreed that the case ought to be opened very fully indeed, was wondering if he could hint that more matter with less art would be an advantage. But much though he disliked being bored, he disliked even more interrupting counsel who appeared before him.
“Whilst,” Mr. Blayton went on serenely unaware of what was passing in his lordship’s mind, and indeed intent only upon the jury, “you will of course consider carefully all the evidence which is put before you by myself or by my learned friends who appear for the defence, and only that evidence—for it is my duty to warn you to dismiss from your minds any rumours or previous information which may have reached your ears—you will, I think, concentrate mainly on three points.” He breathed a sigh of relief at having successfully reached the conclusion of a sentence which had at one time appeared hopelessly involved and then, raising his fat, podgy fingers successively to enumerate each point in turn, he went on:
“First of all, did Launc—did Henry Cargate die of poison administered to him by means of the snuff? If to that question you return an affirmative answer, the second question which you will have to ask yourself is: ‘Was that poison taken voluntarily’—in other words, ‘Did the deceased commit suicide, or was it taken accidentally, or was it deliberately placed in the snuff by some person in order to encompass his death?’ If in answer to that you reach the conclusion that it was placed there deliberately, then you will have to answer my third point, namely: ‘Was that poison placed there by the accused or by some other person?’”
Once more Blayton hitched his gown up on to his shoulders. He was doing, he knew from the faces of the jury, very well. He was getting them interested. He was inducing them to follow him by easy steps so that he was gradually building up in their minds a picture of himself as a reasonable, straightforward, logical man who was trying to help them to arrive at an answer to a difficult problem.
Of the twelve men whom h
e was addressing—there happened not to be a woman juror—eleven were in fact deeply impressed. Only John Ellis the foreman was a little doubtful whether there was not too much art for the amount of matter, but then, as a Civil Servant, he was rather used to viewing from the other side the particular type of verbiage in which Blayton indulged. Moreover he felt it his duty to be a little more clever than anyone else.
“Of my three points I believe that my first two will not cause you very much difficulty.” It was said confidently, but nevertheless Blayton shot a sidelong glance at Vernon and his junior. Surely they were not going to contest the point that Cargate had been murdered by means of the snuff! But not a muscle of Vernon’s face moved. It was not until the cross-examination of Hardy was being carried out that he would begin to disclose his defence; perhaps not then, for as yet neither Vernon nor Oliver had seen Hardy and so had not formed any conclusion as to whether it would be worth while trying to shake his evidence.
“Very little difficulty, to my mind.” Blayton, having failed to elicit anything from the first statement, repeated it with increased emphasis. It was not very important to know in advance whether the point would be contested, but somehow he felt curious about it. “Very little difficulty, for the medical evidence which will be put before you will be of remarkable clarity. I shall not at this moment worry you with the technical details. Those you will get from Dr. Gardiner, who arrived very soon after the tragedy had occurred and very properly refused to certify the cause of death without a more detailed examination, and from the pathologist and analyst who were subsequently called upon to give the police the benefit of their expert knowledge. Their evidence must of necessity be in some respects technical, but I think that with a little care, you and I, members of the jury, will be able to understand it. At any rate we will try to do so—together.”
Ellis looked up at the Judge and wondered whether behind that learned and inscrutable face with its aquiline nose, lurked a brain which resented Mr. Blayton’s oratorical arts as deeply as he did.
“But before I say more I will call to your attention the correctness of the behaviour of Dr. Gardiner. One accident alone was responsible for the death of Henry Cargate and two pieces of care alone have made it possible for any enquiry into his death to be carried out. I have already referred to the action of the London and North Eastern Railway Company—that was one of the pieces of care. The accident was simply that there happened to be a wasps’ nest near to Scotney End Hall, the residence of the deceased; a simple but annoying wasps’ nest which Henry Cargate had instructed his gardener to destroy, and for which purpose he had himself made a purchase of a quantity, an unnecessarily large quantity, for he was rather ignorant of what was required, of a suitable substance. That, as you will see, was the accident which caused his death. But the second piece of care was the thoroughness with which Dr. Gardiner acted, and that for a patient whom he had not attended before and whom he could never attend again.”
He paused dramatically and Mr. Justice Smith took the opportunity to sneeze, thus rather spoiling the effect. Unfortunately, too, for Anstruther Blayton, although the majority of the witnesses had been excluded in the normal manner from the Court, there still remained the Inspector in charge of the case and the medical witnesses. Therefore, as he listened to the opening speech for the Crown, Inspector Fenby imperceptibly shrugged his shoulders and good humouredly thought that there were other people concerned. “In any case,” his reflections went on, “it was the engine driver, not the railway company, who was responsible, and even in his case his principal motive was to get his train on to Great Barwick and ultimately finish his day’s work.”
But Dr. Gardiner, also listening by the courtesy of the Court to what Blayton had to say, blushed more with shame than with pleasure, for he was an honest man who had no desire to receive credit that was not his due, and he had to admit to himself that when he gave the account on which Blayton was basing his speech, he had left out what nearly happened. He might so easily have slipped up in the sunlit station yard at Larkingfield with the deep red and orange roses flanked with mignonette scenting the whole air. It had not been very easy to notice any other smell.
At first it had seemed perfectly simple. He was busy at the time. One of Hardy’s cousins, a numerous tribe, had succeeded in jabbing the fork with which he was cleaning out a pigsty into his foot, and the resultant wound was none too clean. After dressing that, Gardiner had hurried back to his own surgery in Larkingfield, expecting to find that before he could deal with those of his patients who had come round to him there, he would be called away to a confinement at Hinstead, seven miles away on the opposite side of Larkingfield to Scotney End. Consequently he was not pleased when he was summoned to the station.
Moreover, Cargate was a man for whom he had no reason to go out of his way. Like Hardy he resented the way in which the owner of Scotney End Hall got everything he could from London, only that in his case the cause of friction was not bread, but medical advice. Then, too, the way in which Cargate had let the latter fact be known was not exactly tactful according to the account given by the vicar of Scotney End who had rather needlessly retailed it to Gardiner. For Cargate was not only rich, he was purse proud, and he let everybody know that economy was unnecessary to him, so that when the vicar, intending to do a good turn to both Cargate and Gardiner had commented on how fortunate it was, in view of Cargate’s weak heart, that the local practitioner was an excellent up-to-date man, Cargate had cut him short at once.
“I should never go to any one like that, I believe in getting the best advice. Even if I couldn’t afford it, I should never dream of practising economy in that kind of way. No, I’m quite prepared to pay my own doctor to come down from London when I need him and bring a decent heart specialist with him if he thinks it advisable.”
The poor vicar had felt rather snubbed, unnecessarily snubbed, and perhaps it was in a spirit not quite up to the level of his usually high Christian principles that he let Gardiner know that he need expect no addition to his practice so far as the owner of Scotney End Hall was concerned. “Though of course there might be the staff,” he had added, “and Miss Knox Forster, but she, I understand, is never ill.”
“Plenty to do already,” Gardiner had growled, “though I freely admit that I like having the rich patients to help pay for the poor and Cargate, if he has as weak a heart as you say he has, might have been a very useful annuity.”
“Well, as to his health, I’m only repeating what he says. Don’t take it from me.” The vicar was always a lover of accuracy.
At the time Gardiner had only smiled. He was not in the habit of accepting any diagnosis at second-hand in that way. But as he hurried to Larkingfield Station, it whimsically occurred to him that now he might take it from the vicar. For if, as Benson seemed to think, Cargate was dead already, it would save a great deal of trouble if he could sign a certificate that death was due to heart failure.
“Where have you got him, Benson?” he asked. “Not still in the carriage over there? My good man! With the sun blazing on him! Didn’t you do anything to make him comfortable?” Gardiner remembered his feelings rather grimly when subsequently he read Blayton’s comments on the courtesy and acumen of the London and North Eastern Railway.
But after all it was a little harsh to blame Benson for not knowing exactly what to do. Besides he had, in fact, done what he could. The blinds of the compartment were drawn, Cargate’s collar had been loosened and he had been laid down full length on the seat with an improvised cushion under his head.
It did not take Gardiner very long to see that it was of no real importance what the stationmaster had or had not done. There was no question but that Cargate was dead, and from what he could understand of the story which Benson had told him of what Hardy had seen and done he had probably died instantaneously.
There was, too, in Gardiner’s mind, very little doubt about the cause of death. There must, he presum
ed, be a more detailed examination by himself or by someone else, but it was fairly clear what the result would be. A weak heart, an outburst of bad temper, perhaps a slight jerk as the train started. It might have happened at any time and the pinch of snuff was probably nothing but a coincidence. It was another of those very frequent cases when the lay mind would fasten on the non-essential but very visible detail that was really irrelevant. So far as he could see, too, the signs were all those that should accompany heart failure. Yes, no doubt that was the cause. He would quite cheerfully at that moment have signed a certificate of death by natural causes owing to heart failure, only he was not Cargate’s doctor and he had not attended on him recently or at any time, and therefore he could do nothing so simple. He was just going to get out of the carriage when his eye by chance fell on the snuffbox.
Cargate had apparently been sitting in the corner on the left facing the engine, the corridor being on his right-hand side. The snuffbox had apparently been in his right hand and as he fell back it had fallen from his grasp. In fact it must have been almost thrown forward, for it now lay partly under the seat on the other side, a yard to the right of where Cargate had been sitting. Whether it had been open or not when it fell of course Gardiner did not know, but anyhow it had flown open when it fell and it was now upside down. Gardiner could see a little pile of light brown powder on the floor underneath it.
It looked rather an interesting box, made undoubtedly of gold, and on the lid was some design in emeralds and rubies but with, or so it appeared, a large gap where the central stone should have been. It was an attractive piece of workmanship. Gardiner wondered whether he ought to touch it. At any rate he might stoop down to examine it better without committing any impropriety. The result was, as he might have expected, a violent sneeze that disturbed the brown powder. Gardiner straightened himself up. His nose seemed to be tingling almost painfully and the smell of the mignonette from outside seemed stronger than ever. He put a handkerchief to his nose and rubbed it in a manner reminiscent, had he but known it, of Jim’s dog when he too had encountered some of the contents of the same box.
