Not to Be Taken

by Anthony Berkeley

  ‘Things have gone too far now,’ I told her. ‘We must hand that infernal bottle over to the police.’

  ‘I suppose we must,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘Oh, Douglas, I wish we needn’t. I wish I hadn’t taken it. At first I wanted to have it analysed, but now…’

  ‘If the arsenic was in that,’ I said gloomily, ‘it’ll break Glen. A mistake in diagnosis is one thing, but a mistake in a prescription is serious. I should think they could have him for manslaughter if they wanted. Glen is so confoundedly careless, too. It really was the devil’s own luck that he should have been doing the dispensing on that day of all days. Rona would never make a mistake like that.’

  ‘You feel sure that’s where the arsenic was, then?’ Frances asked almost fearfully.

  ‘Where else could it have been?’

  ‘That wretched man Cyril Waterhouse seems to think Angela…’

  ‘Absolute nonsense,’ I snapped. ‘Can you see Angela poisoning anyone? He dislikes her and he seems to have some sort of grudge against her, and he’s taking this dirty way of paying it off.’

  ‘I think he really believes it. Oh dear,’ Frances wailed suddenly, ‘life’s going to be simply beastly for the next few months, with everyone suspecting everyone else and all of us suspecting each other. If the arsenic isn’t in the medicine, I mean. But of course it is.’

  ‘I wish to goodness you’d left the bottle where it was,’ I could not help saying.

  ‘Oh, darling, so do I. But I was sorry for John. He looked so ill and awful. I was sure Glen had made a mistake in the medicine, and I meant to show him up.’ Frances burst suddenly into tears. She is not a woman who cries easily. ‘Oh, poor, poor John! We all liked him so much. What a dreadful way to have to die…and so unnecessary. Who could ever have –’

  She stopped crying and looked at me fixedly.

  ‘Douglas,’ she said, ‘how did Cyril Waterhouse know that there was anything wrong at all? How did he know there was anything worth having a post-mortem and an analysis for?’

  ‘I don’t think he did know,’ I said a little awkwardly. ‘I think he was only being vindictive and troublesome at first, and just carried the thing through to the end. I’ve no doubt he was as surprised by the result of the analysis as we were.’

  Frances shook her head. ‘He acted as if he knew,’ she said obstinately. ‘I believe he did know.’

  3

  I don’t know why I did not hand the bottle of medicine over to the police first thing the next morning.

  That is not true, I do know. It was the instinctive wish to put off a distasteful task, when any excuse can be found for doing so. My excuses were fairly good ones, as it happened. For one thing I took it for granted that a journey into Torminster would be necessary, for I did not fancy entrusting the thing to our own local and somewhat bucolic constable; and that would take up a lot of time. For another I had been much worried during the night over Angela and the extremely awkward position in which she must now be finding herself.

  I had said nothing to Frances about the letter of which Angela had told me. That was Angela’s secret – or should have been. Besides, I saw no reason why Frances should be involved any further in the affair. Nevertheless I felt that someone else, possibly wiser than myself, ought to be consulted; and having meditated over a plan for approaching Angela’s solicitor in confidence, and rejecting it for a number of excellent reasons, I had decided before morning came to lay the trouble at the feet of the two most level-headed persons I knew, Glen and Rona, and let them see what they could make of it. Immediately after breakfast, therefore, I gave a few hurried directions to my men for the morning’s work and then set out for the Broughams’ house, hoping to catch them before Glen’s surgery.

  I caught Glen actually before he had begun his breakfast. Ten minutes was the time he allowed for that meal, and I arrived one minute early. While he despatched eggs and bacon with professional skill, and Rona plied him with coffee, I told the two of them what I had to say.

  They received it in their respective ways.

  ‘The confounded young ass,’ remarked Glen benevolently.

  ‘You’re right, my friend,’ said Rona seriously. ‘This makes things look unnecessarily bad. What do you want us to do?’

  That was characteristic of Rona, I thought. She took it for granted that Angela’s indiscretions had no bearing upon John’s death, she took it for granted that she and Glen would do what they could to help, and she knew that I had some sort of a scheme in mind. Rona certainly made things easy for one.

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ I said gratefully. ‘You know what Angela is. There may be nothing organically wrong with her, as Glen told us the other day; but she’s pretty spineless. That fellow Cyril Waterhouse, to whom, by the way, I’ve taken a strong dislike, is going to do what he likes with her unless we interfere. I think he’s made up his mind that she poisoned her husband. We know that’s absurd, but that’s the bee he’s got in his bonnet. We’ve got to put a buffer between him and Angela, or he’ll probably drive her right off her head. There’s only one person who can act as a buffer, and that’s you, Rona. My idea is that you should go up there (at once: there’s no time to lose), see Angela, and get her to let you install yourself in the house again as nurse – her nurse this time. And tell her why, if you like. She’ll be delighted to have you. In fact she’ll clutch at you. And no one could keep Cyril at bay better than you. I would ask Frances, but…’

  Rona nodded quickly. ‘No, no. It’s my job, of course. Admirable. I’ll go and get my hat on at once.’

  Glen gulped down the end of his last cup of coffee. ‘Some hustler, aren’t you?’ he asked ironically.

  ‘You’re in on this too,’ I retorted. ‘Surely you can fake up some medical excuse to prevent Angela from being badgered.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll have a shot, of course,’ Glen answered casually. ‘Though I’ve an idea that my stock isn’t too high with friend Cyril just at present.’

  ‘Look here,’ I said awkwardly. ‘Harold came round to us last night. Is it true that they’ve discovered arsenic?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ Glen said with complete equanimity.

  ‘But – but how the devil did he come to take it?’

  Glen shrugged his shoulders as he rose from the breakfast table. ‘How is a victim usually persuaded to take it? Disguised in something else, I suppose.’

  ‘A – a victim?’ I stammered. ‘You don’t mean John was murdered?’

  ‘Of course he was murdered,’ Glen retorted with complete calm. ‘And damn cleverly too. I’ll admit I was taken in, properly.’

  ‘But it’s out of the question,’ I felt compelled to expostulate. ‘My dear chap…oh no, it can’t be murder.’

  ‘Murder – or criminal carelessness,’ came Rona’s voice from the doorway, so bitterly that I looked round at her in surprise. ‘It’s the same thing… Are you ready Douglas? Then let’s go.’

  4

  ‘Mrs Waterhouse can’t see you,’ said the parlourmaid with lofty contempt. ‘She’s engaged.’ The swelling importance of her information made her suddenly human. ‘It’s the p’leece,’ she added with undisguised gratification.

  ‘Oh, damn the police,’ said Rona, and walked in.

  I followed.

  ‘Oh, miss,’ twittered the now alarmed parlourmaid as Rona made straight for the stairs. ‘Miss, you’re not going up, are you?’

  ‘Naturally,’ Rona answered her. ‘Is Mrs Waterhouse in her room?’

  ‘Yes, miss. She’s in bed.’

  ‘Are the police in there too?… In the bedroom, girl?’ Rona added sharply as the maid hesitated.

  ‘Yes, miss. Some of them. The others are still searching the house.’

  ‘What are they searching for?’ I asked.

  ‘For the rest of the arsenic, sir. We’ve all been looking for it.’

 
‘They haven’t found anything?’

  ‘Not yet they haven’t. But if she didn’t use it all they’ll find what’s left. Trust the p’leece.’

  I felt myself go quite cold with anger inside my clothes. I took a step or two toward the girl.

  ‘You’re the woman who betrayed her trust and handed a private letter of your employer’s to another person, aren’t you?’ I said; and I know I spoke quietly, for I forced myself to do so.

  The girl, a tall, handsome creature in her way, fell back a step or two. Then she looked defiant.

  ‘And a good thing I did, too. We don’t all want to be murdered in our beds.’

  I felt at a loss in spite of my anger. I am not used to bandying words with maids (especially other people’s maids), and it was disconcerting to see the training peel away from this one like a shell from an egg, to show the spiteful, vindictive human being beneath it.

  It was Rona who finished off the encounter.

  Coming down the stairs she had mounted, she spoke very quietly and gently.

  ‘Listen… Pritchard, I think your name is. I heard you assert just now, in the presence of two witnesses, that Mrs Waterhouse poisoned her husband with arsenic. I shall report that statement to Mrs Waterhouse in accordance with my duty as her friend; and if she sues you later for criminal libel, and you spend six months in prison, you will have only yourself to blame. In a situation like this, Pritchard, we all have to be very, very careful what we say. We may think any foolish thoughts we like, but we would be advised not to speak them out loud – especially to those who may repeat them to others. I think you will be more careful in future. Very well, that will do. You need not show us up.’

  The girl withdrew without another word, looking a little frightened.

  ‘The servants have made up their minds,’ I said, not without bitterness.

  ‘Oh, I think it’s only excitement,’ Rona said wearily. ‘And hope. She probably didn’t really mean it; though that kind is always the first to turn on the hand that feeds, clothes and pays it.’

  We began to ascend the stairs again.

  ‘The police here already,’ I said uneasily. ‘Somehow I hadn’t thought of that. They don’t waste much time.’

  ‘From their point of view they haven’t much time to waste,’ Rona pointed out. ‘But I’m afraid there may be trouble.’

  ‘Trouble!’

  ‘I mean, we know what the police are. That silly letter – they’ll take it as a motive, of course. And with the police, motive often simply spells fact.’

  ‘You mean they’ll take Angela’s guilt for granted?’

  ‘Not if I can stop them, they won’t,’ Rona returned grimly. And with a quick ‘Wait for me here’ over her shoulder to me, she walked without knocking into Angela’s bedroom.

  As the door opened I could hear the rumble of male voices. Rona left it open behind her, and what followed was clearly audible to me as I lingered, somewhat uneasily, in the passage outside.

  ‘Good morning, Angela,’ came Rona’s voice. ‘I’ve just come round to see if there’s anything I can do for you.’ Her voice was as calm and ordinary as ever. I judged that she had simply disregarded the presence of the two policemen.

  ‘Oh, Rona!’ I heard Angela exclaim with a kind of sob in her voice. ‘Thank heaven you’ve come. Awful things are happening. You must help me. I –’

  ‘Pardon me, madam,’ a male voice interrupted, respectful but firm. ‘I’m afraid I must ask you to withdraw. We are police officers, and Mrs Waterhouse is being good enough to answer a few questions which it is our duty to put to her.’

  ‘Police officers?’ repeated Rona thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I think I’ve seen you before. You are…?’

  ‘I am Superintendent Timms, from Torminster, Miss Brougham. This is Detective Inspector Carson. Your brother will know us.’ He waited evidently for Rona to withdraw.

  ‘And you are questioning Mrs Waterhouse?’ Rona asked coolly. ‘About her husband’s death, I take it. Have you given her an opportunity to send for her solicitor?’

  ‘No, they didn’t, Rona,’ Angela moaned. ‘They never even suggested it.’

  ‘Mrs Waterhouse could have had every opportunity, if she had expressed any wish to have her solicitor present,’ returned the superintendent austerely.

  ‘Then I strongly advise you to send for him, Angela, my dear,’ counselled Rona cheerfully, ‘and not answer any more questions until he’s here.’

  ‘But they wouldn’t let me have him. Cyril wouldn’t let me. I know he wouldn’t.’

  ‘I’ll settle with Cyril,’ said Rona. She appeared at the door and spoke to me. ‘Douglas, see if you can find Mr Waterhouse and ask him to come up here at once.’

  I was about to do so, not without joy in the forthcoming battle, when quick steps sounded on the stairs behind me, and the next moment Glen brushed past, bestowing an irreverent wink on me as he disappeared into the bedroom. Instead of going on my errand I waited to hear what would happen.

  ‘Good morning, Angela. Hullo, Rona, you here already? Why, Timms, what are you doing here? And Carson?’

  ‘You must know what we’re doing here, Doctor,’ came the superintendent’s voice, now distinctly huffy. ‘In view of the information known, I make no doubt, to you as well as us, it’s our duty to ask Mrs Waterhouse what information she can give us that may throw any light on the matter.’

  ‘All right, all right, you needn’t work your set speeches off on me,’ Glen returned easily. ‘In other words, you thought you might be able to twist something damaging out of her before anyone could get in and warn her.’

  ‘You’ve no right to say anything of the kind, Doctor,’ retorted the superintendent angrily – and, indeed, with perfect justice. ‘The questions I’ve been putting to Mrs Waterhouse are pure matters of routine, as you know perfectly well. And you know, too, they have to be answered.’

  ‘Not at present, they don’t,’ replied Glen equably. ‘Because it’s my duty to warn you that Mrs Waterhouse, who is my patient, is in a dangerous condition and on the verge of a nervous collapse, and she’s certainly in no fit state to answer any questions of yours. If you persist in worrying her after my warning you do so on your own responsibility.’

  The superintendent admitted defeat.

  ‘I’m obliged to you, Doctor. In that case, of course, we’ll defer our interrogation…it can wait,’ he added with bitter ominousness, ‘until after Mrs Waterhouse has had an opportunity to consult with her solicitor.’

  ‘Quite so, my dear chap. Then if you’ll be good enough to make yourself scarce, I’ll examine my patient.’

  The sound of heavy, sulky footsteps suggested to me that it might be more tactful if I were to make myself scarce too. I hurried down the stairs and paused, not knowing quite what to do next, in the hall. It was possible that Glen or Rona might want me again, and I did not like to go home and leave them to fight alone. After a moment’s thought I turned into the library.

  The next instant I regretted my choice, for as I closed the door behind me Cyril Waterhouse rose from a chair by the fire, The Times in his hand, and looked at me enquiringly.

  ‘Yes?’ he said politely. ‘Oh, it’s you, Sewell. You wanted to see me?’

  5

  It is difficult to tell a man to his face that he is the last person one wanted to see.

  ‘Actually,’ I said stiffly enough, ‘I came round to see if there was anything I could do for Angela.’

  ‘Ah, Angela, yes. I’m afraid she’s engaged at the moment. In fact the police are interviewing her.’

  ‘Not at the moment, no,’ I retorted crudely. ‘Brougham’s just turned them out of her room. Angela’s in no fit state for the police interviews, as anyone might have known.’

  The man’s face flushed faintly. ‘You appear to concern yourself very closely with my sister-in-law and her a
ffairs.’

  ‘Naturally. We are her friends here, as your brother was when he was alive.’ Some extraordinary impulse drove me on to add: ‘To us the idea that she could have poisoned John seems nothing short of fantastic’

  ‘As it would, of course, to anyone,’ replied Cyril smoothly.

  ‘I should have imagined,’ I told him, ‘that nothing short of a suspicion just as grave as that could possibly excuse the intercepting and opening of her private letters: a thing which in the ordinary way could only be regarded as the act of an unspeakable cad.’

  Waterhouse regarded me thoughtfully. He did not appear angry. I had never met a man with more complete control over himself.

  ‘You speak very bluntly, Sewell,’ he said at last, in the mildest way.

  ‘Sometimes blunt speaking clears the air.’

  ‘I think it does. Well, I’ll be equally blunt. I did suspect my sister-in-law of poisoning her husband, and I do still so suspect her. And I believe that any measures which may bring her guilt home if she is guilty – or equally, establish her innocence, if she is innocent – are defensible. I’m telling you no secret, by the way. Both Angela and the police are fully acquainted with my belief.’

  ‘And you had formed this idea almost before you even knew your brother was dead?’ It was remarkable how calm we both were considering the extraordinary nature of the conversation. We might have been discussing the weather for all the outward show we made of it.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Why, you seem to have left London with this idée fixe.’

  Waterhouse appeared to reflect. ‘Not exactly left London, nor arrived here. But I must admit that, as soon as I heard the circumstances, the conviction jumped into my mind that my brother’s death, so unexpected and so inexplicable, had not been a natural one. I could never have rested until I had proved or disproved my suspicions. The fact has justified me.’

  ‘And you’re convinced that it was murder?’

  ‘I’m convinced.’

  ‘And not only that, but that Angela is the guilty person.’

  ‘Candidly, I have the gravest doubts of Angela’s innocence. Let us put it that way.’