Not to Be Taken

by Anthony Berkeley

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Does the amount of arsenic which you now have in your surgery tally with the amount shown in the book?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I seem to have half an ounce more than the book shows,’

  Glen replied with an audible chuckle.

  The Coroner did not smile. ‘How do you account for that?’

  ‘I can’t. Presumably a package of arsenic was added to the store at some time and not entered in the book, possibly by my father.’

  ‘When did you last check the arsenic entry?’

  ‘I’ve never checked it before,’ Glen replied blandly. ‘I enter in the poison book any supplies I buy, and make a note when the supply is exhausted. I’ve never bought white arsenic nor used it, so there are no entries.’

  ‘Isn’t that very haphazard?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I can hardly be expected to make an entry in the book every time I give a woman an injection of a hundredth of a grain of hyoscine, for instance. I’d be so busy making entries that I’d have no time to see any patients.’

  The friendliness of the Coroner’s attitude had noticeably lessened. ‘Doctor Brougham,’ he said stiffly, ‘I am bound to consider the possibility that the arsenic which entered Mr Waterhouse’s body might have been somehow contained in the medicine which you dispensed and sent round to him. If the arrangements governing poisons in your surgery are as haphazard as you tell us, what precautions had you against such an error occurring?’

  ‘Merely that neither my sister nor myself are congenital idiots,’ Glen replied with a slightly contemptuous smile, ‘and that it would be impossible to mistake a small jar in the poison cupboard for a large jar on the shelves at the other end of the surgery. The suggestion is absurd.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re so sure,’ the Coroner replied drily. ‘Have you, as his medical attendant, any other theory as to how the arsenic may have been introduced into the body of the deceased?’

  ‘None. That’s the business of the police, not mine,’ Glen replied with airy composure. ‘I assume, though, that he took it in mistake for something else.’

  ‘Unfortunately there is no evidence on that point. Nevertheless what I am anxious to establish is that you are perfectly satisfied in your own mind that when that bottle of medicine left your surgery it could not by any possibility have contained arsenic – put in, let us say, in mistake for some other ingredient.’

  ‘I’m perfectly certain it didn’t. It’s out of the question.’

  ‘There was nothing in any of the prescriptions you made up that morning to cause you to get anything from the poison cupboard at all?’

  ‘Nothing. I didn’t go near it. I see you have my prescription book there. You can see that the other prescriptions were just as innocuous as this one,’ Glen said with a little smile.

  ‘Yes, yes. And so far as you can recall there was nothing in the slightest degree unusual in the making up of any of these prescriptions? I am sorry if I seem to be pressing you on this point, but you will understand that it is necessary to make as certain as is humanly possible.’

  ‘I quite understand,’ Glen said with a kindly air. ‘No, so far as I can recall there was nothing in the slightest degree unusual – except,’ he added with another little smile, ‘that the mag. carb. pond. jar was nearly empty, which was not like my sister’s usual efficiency, and I had to refill it from the store cupboard.’

  ‘Ah!’ The little coroner pounced on the point. ‘But I understand it was generally Miss Brougham who kept the jars full, not yourself. There is no possibility that you may have refilled the jar incorrectly?’

  ‘From the poison cupboard instead of the store cupboard?’ said Glen with an open grin. ‘No, I think not. If I had, half Anneypenny would have been dead by now… Besides, I refilled it after I had made up this prescription, not before.’

  ‘I see. Then I think we may take it as fairly certain that when the bottle of medicine left your surgery, it contained nothing of a harmful nature. In point of fact, at what time did it leave?’

  ‘The boy takes the bottles out for delivery as soon as they have been made up. On that day he would have taken out those four by about a quarter or twenty past ten.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I think there is some evidence that he delivered it at Mr Waterhouse’s door soon after half-past ten. The bottle was sealed?’

  ‘I corked, wrapped and sealed it myself, and wrote Mr Waterhouse’s name on the wrapping paper.’

  ‘Exactly. Then if it arrived in that condition, it could obviously not have been tampered with on the way… We shall perhaps be able to find out later,’ remarked the Coroner to the jury, ‘whether it was actually put into Mr Waterhouse’s hands in the same state. Now I understand, Doctor Brougham, that since Mr Waterhouse’s death this bottle has not been seen. Have you any knowledge of what happened to it?’

  ‘None. I can only tell you that it was not in his bedroom late on the evening of the third of September, because I looked round for it to give him a dose.’

  ‘Did you ask him what had become of it?’

  ‘Yes, but only casually. He thought it was still in the room, but I couldn’t find it.’

  ‘Very curious. Perhaps even significant. And certainly unfortunate. Very well, Doctor Brougham, I think that is all. Oh no. Did you ever discuss the question of the cremation of her husband’s body with Mrs Waterhouse?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I believe she wished it to be cremated?’

  ‘I don’t think she minded either way. She asked me what I advised.’

  ‘And what did you advise?’

  ‘I advised that it should be cremated, if this had been Mr Waterhouse’s own wish. However, in the end Mrs Waterhouse decided against it.’

  ‘I see. Thank you, Doctor Brougham.’

  Glen strolled back to his seat.

  ‘Thank God that’s over,’ he muttered to me as he dropped back on to the hard bench.

  Rona followed her brother to the witness stand.

  Her evidence was on more stereotyped lines. She gave a brief account of John’s illness and death, explained how it was that she came to be nursing him, went out of her way to emphasise the loving anxiety and distress of Angela whom she was now nursing in her turn, prostrate as she was over her husband’s death (in actual fact I thought Rona rather overdid Angela’s distress, in view of the letter which we had recently heard read out), and confirmed her brother’s evidence concerning the surgery arrangements and how it had come about that he dispensed the bottle of medicine for Oswald’s Gable instead of herself. Asked if she knew what had become of the bottle, she equally had no explanation for its disappearance and said she had not noticed it in the bedroom when she took charge there. I remarked that the Coroner asked her no questions about the rather drastic treatment which she had meted out to John before Glen arrived that evening, and deduced that she had not thought it necessary to say anything about that to the police. Privately I agreed with her. The police are apt to be fussy over such matters as the administration of hypodermic injections of morphia by unqualified persons; though no doubt they would have passed the stomach pump. Personally I would have felt less qualms at taking an injection from Rona than from many doctors; but if she wanted her unorthodoxy covered, I was quite prepared to help her do so. Rona was able to assist to some extent in fixing the onset of John’s illness by describing his condition when she arrived that evening. As she had come straight from the station and the five fifty-seven train from Torminster, the moment of her arrival could be fixed within a minute or two. This evidence went some way to confirm Glen’s opinion that the fatal dose must have been swallowed in the middle of the morning. The Coroner asked her one or two questions, framed so as to convey the impression that Angela had been anxious to have the body cremated but had been dissuaded. Rona, seizing on the innuendo rath
er than the actual question asked, took the opportunity to affirm bluntly that Angela had wished nothing of the sort; the question of cremation had only come up quite casually, and it was clear that Angela had not cared either way.

  Rona had already been told she could stand down, when the Coroner called her back.

  ‘Miss Brougham, did Mr Waterhouse mention to you during the course of his illness that at some time in the middle of the morning of the third of September he swallowed, not a single dose of the medicine which your brother had sent him, but had drunk off half the contents of the bottle?’

  ‘No,’ said Rona flatly.

  She was dismissed and Glen recalled. The Coroner put exactly the same question to him.

  ‘Yes,’ said Glen.

  ‘Did he give any reason?’

  ‘He said he had had an extra sharp attack of pain, and thought the medicine might relieve it.’

  ‘The bottle was clearly labelled with the correct instructions?’

  ‘Oh yes: one tablespoonful to be taken every four hours.’

  ‘What did you say to Mr Waterhouse when you learned what he had done?’

  ‘I told him he was a darned fool and that it was lucky there was nothing in the medicine that could hurt him.’

  ‘You were not alarmed?’

  ‘Certainly not. It could not have harmed him.’

  ‘That’s all, thank you, Doctor Brougham.’

  A frightened small boy then deposed that he had delivered a wrapped bottle of medicine at Oswald’s Gable at some time before eleven o’clock on the morning of the third of September, and opined that the time must have been nearer half-past ten than eleven.

  Then came the moment to which I had not been looking forward in the least.

  ‘Let me see… Ah yes,’ said the coroner. ‘Mr Douglas Sewell, please.’

  chapter eight

  International Interlude

  My ordeal was, however, not to be just yet. Before I had reached the stand a feverish whispering had broken out among the great ones congregated round the Coroner’s table, one of them leaned forward and whispered to the Coroner, and the result was an adjournment for lunch.

  With the stiff faces of those who are unaccustomed to being stared at in public, we pushed our way through the crowd and made for home. Harold had to go the other way, but Glen and Rona walked with us as far as our turning.

  ‘Well, my friend,’ remarked Rona when we were clear of the throng, ‘that was all very instructive. What do you think of British justice now?’

  ‘British justice?’

  ‘They’re trying to pin this thing on an innocent woman.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Yes, I gather they’re trying to convey to the jury that Angela put the poison in the medicine after it arrived at the house.’

  ‘Precisely. The only question is whether they’ll succeed. What do you think of the chances, Glen?’

  ‘Personally,’ said Glen, ‘I don’t think they’ll get the verdict they want. There are some good old scouts on the jury who liked John and wouldn’t want to see his wife accused of his murder – whether they believe she did it or not. But I wouldn’t like to bet on it.’

  ‘It depends on the other evidence – yours and Frances’, for instance, Douglas.’

  ‘Rona,’ said Frances, ‘didn’t John really ever say anything to you about having drunk off half the bottle?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Rona calmly. ‘But I don’t draw the line at a bit of perjury to prevent a ghastly miscarriage of justice.’

  ‘I don’t agree,’ Glen said rather defensively. ‘Best thing is to tell the truth and let them make what they can of it.’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Frances, and I knew she was thinking of the medicine bottle.

  I said suddenly to Rona:

  ‘You’re quite certain Angela didn’t do it. Well, I suppose we all are. But if she didn’t, who did?’

  ‘That’s for the police to find out – if they can,’ said Rona. ‘Personally I’m not going to advance any theories, name any names, or indulge in any scandal. Once that sort of thing starts, there’s no saying where it won’t stop.’

  ‘My dear girl,’ said her brother, ‘do you imagine it hasn’t started already?’

  We had reached our turning, and stood for a moment at the corner.

  ‘In any case,’ said Frances, ‘it’s a question that will have to be answered. Or won’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Rona looked troubled. ‘Don’t you think the probability is that there’s a good deal behind all this that we know nothing about?’

  ‘Come on,’ said her brother. ‘I want my lunch.’

  2

  After all, my ordeal was not a bad one.

  Frances had somehow got separated from me as we reentered the court; and before the proceedings began I saw her surrounded by a group which included Superintendent Timms, the Inspector, the Coroner, a tall, soldierly-looking man whom I recognised as the Chief Constable of the county, not long appointed, and various other officials. They seemed to be talking excitedly to her, and she to them, but I had no idea what it was all about. She took her place beside me just before I was called to the stand, looking very mysterious and important, but shook her head firmly to my whispered request for information.

  Even to me, nervous as I was, the Coroner’s questioning seemed almost perfunctory. I was asked to describe John’s condition when I went to Oswald’s Gable that evening, which I did to the best of my ability; and some questions were put to me concerning the conversation in the drawing-room on the night we had all dined there. On this point I was able to confirm Glen’s evidence, but to add little to it. I also confirmed Cyril Waterhouse’s account of the finding of the will, and to this I managed to add a word or two indicating Angela’s apparent indifference to its contents. And that was all. Not a word was put to me about the medicine bottle – to my great relief.

  I returned to my seat, and Frances’ name was called. ‘Wish me luck,’ she whispered with a somewhat wry little smile as she went.

  I followed her with my eyes. She looked very pretty, I thought, in her neat tweeds and a jaunty little hat with a tiny feather in it; but I could see she was nervous.

  ‘Mrs Sewell,’ the Coroner addressed her in a tone of stern displeasure, ‘you have just made a communication of remarkable importance to the police. I must ask you to repeat it to the jury. Tell us, please, what happened before you returned home after being summoned by Mrs Waterhouse after tea on the afternoon of the third of September.’

  I held my breath.

  ‘On receiving Mrs Waterhouse’s message,’ Frances spoke out bravely, ‘my husband and I went at once to Oswald’s Gable. He joined Mr Waterhouse in the library, while I went upstairs to comfort Mrs Waterhouse, who was much upset over her husband’s sudden illness. I stayed with her till my husband sent for me to telephone to Doctor Brougham, which I did. When Miss Brougham arrived I went back to Mrs Waterhouse and stayed with her except for short intervals till we left. Just before we left I went upstairs to say good night to Mr Waterhouse and say I hoped he would soon be better. I asked him if he had no idea what had made him ill, and he said he hadn’t. He added jokingly that he thought it must have been the medicine Doctor Brougham had sent round, and said something about the remedy being worse than the disease. Mr Waterhouse only said that jokingly, but I wondered whether there might be something in it; because, although Doctor Brougham is a very clever doctor, I knew he did not usually do his own dispensing, and I thought that he might have made some mistake, or mixed up the jars or something. So just in case anything like that had happened, I thought it would be a good thing to take it away from Mr Waterhouse; and…well, I did. I didn’t say anything to Doctor Brougham about having taken it, because I thought he would be hurt at the suggestion that there could be anything wrong with the medicine.’

  Frances stopped sp
eaking, a little breathless but quite composed.

  There was dead silence in the court-room. It was one of the worst moments of my life; but there was nothing I could do.

  ‘Let us get this quite straight,’ said the Coroner. ‘You removed a bottle of medicine from Mr Waterhouse’s bedroom on the evening when he was first taken ill, the third of September, at approximately 9.10 p.m.; you kept that bottle in your possession without telling anyone that you had it, until you brought it with you here this afternoon; and you then handed it over in my presence to Superintendent Timms. Is that correct?’

  ‘Perfectly correct.’

  ‘Superintendent, just show her the bottle, please… Mrs Sewell, you identify this bottle as the one you removed from Mr Waterhouse’s bedroom?’

  ‘If it’s the one I just gave the Superintendent, I do.’

  ‘Have you tampered with it in any way while it has been in your possession?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘Not removed any of the contents? It’s in exactly the same state as when you took possession of it?’

  ‘Exactly the same.’

  The interrogation was broken off while the officials conferred again. There was some byplay with the bottle, which the Superintendent was holding very carefully in his handkerchief, and finally I could see him pouring some of its contents into a smaller bottle, which someone seemed to have brought for the purpose. This smaller bottle was then handed to Sir Francis Harbottle, who hurried out of court with it.

  ‘Good God!’ I heard Glen mutter with deep feeling while these operations were in progress. ‘She’s a nice one, your wife is.’

  I had nothing to answer.

  ‘He’s going off to analyse it straight away,’ Harold whispered excitedly to Rona as the famous chemist disappeared through the door. He leaned across me. ‘What’s the betting there’s arsenic in it, Glen?’

  ‘Ah, blah!’ said Glen.

  The Coroner was returning to business.

  ‘And now, Mrs Sewell,’ he said, ‘I must ask you to explain the reason for this extraordinary action. Withholding evidence is a serious matter. Very serious. What is your explanation?’