‘But …’ Howkins’ spoon was suspended over the last of his raisin sponge.
‘It would be something very simple, of course. Probably a word like “scram” or “flee” or even,’ he added unkindly, ‘seeing that it’s a French restaurant, “cochons” …’
‘And no one except the waiter would see it,’ said the Commander, slapping his thigh. ‘I’ve got you. Nouvelle, indeed! I’ll make mincemeat of him next time. That’s not French, is it, Tyler?’
CAUSE AND EFFECTS
‘Of course you must come with us, Henry, dear. I insist. Besides, Margot will be so pleased.’
‘I really don’t see why any hostess should be pleased to see a total stranger arrive at her dinner party.’ Henry Tyler had had an unexpected few days’ leave and had descended on his married sister and her husband in the small market town of Berebury in Calleshire without a great deal of warning.
‘You’re not a total stranger …’
‘To my certain knowledge, Wendy, I have never set eyes on anyone called Margot Iverson in my life before.’
‘I know that,’ said Wendy Witherington placidly, ‘but you’re my brother and that’s the same as my knowing her or her knowing me.’ Logic had never been Wendy’s strong suit.
‘I still don’t see why she should be pleased to see me on Saturday evening,’ said Henry mildly.
‘Because you’re a man, that’s why.’
‘And may I ask why she will be so delighted to see me because I happen to be a male member of the human race …?’ There was nothing in his face to show how much he enjoyed teasing his only sister. ‘Or is it only that I don’t understand why as a consequence of being a mere male?’
Henry worked at the Foreign Office in London where ambiguity had been raised to an art form. Wendy’s mind was a much more literal one.
‘Because you’re an extra man, dear,’ she said.
‘Ah.’
‘And because of Arthur’s Cousin Amy,’ went on his sister. ‘She always upsets the table.’
‘Dipsomania?’ enquired Henry Tyler with interest. ‘Or is she just a clairvoyant?’
‘Don’t be unkind,’ said Wendy severely. ‘Cousin Amy can’t help being there. She hasn’t anywhere else to go but The Hollies.’
‘She doesn’t always have to upset the table, though, when she is there, does she?’ remarked Henry Tyler in a tone that at least one ambassador had been known to call ‘eminently reasonable’.
‘Arthur’s Cousin Amy,’ responded his sister firmly, ‘works as a secretary at a girls’ boarding school. She’s as poor as a church mouse, that’s why she has to come to Arthur and Margot’s in the holidays.’
‘And what happens,’ asked Henry mischievously, ‘when Cousin Amy isn’t there and your friends have an extra man?’
‘Oh, that’s no problem,’ said Wendy at once. ‘Margot just asks Miss Chalder to stay on. She’s Arthur’s dispenser and receptionist. Young but quite presentable.’
‘So Arthur’s a doctor …’ divined Henry without too much difficulty.
‘Oh, didn’t I say? He’s our general practitioner.’ Wendy giggled. ‘Actually when she’s not there Margot calls Miss Chalder their deceptionist.’
‘Always saying the doctor’s out when he’s in?’ Deception was another of the subjects that they knew rather a lot about at the Foreign Office. ‘That sort of thing?’
‘And saying,’ said Wendy, ‘that he’s been held up at a confinement when he’s forgotten all about somebody.’
‘Is he a good doctor?’ asked Henry. It wasn’t entirely an idle question since Wendy and Tom Witherington had two young children upon whom their bachelor uncle doted.
‘How does one ever know that, Henry?’ Wendy had more intelligence than her pleasant calm looks might have led the casual observer to suspect. She wrinkled her brow. ‘There was some trouble at the end of last year about a little gypsy child who died from a burst appendix. Arthur said he’d never had their second message and the fuss all died down but he’s always come when we’ve sent for him.’
‘Quite so,’ said Henry Tyler. ‘I shall look forward to Saturday evening, then.’
‘And I shall telephone Margot,’ said his sister.
Later that evening Henry, who was a firm believer that time spent in reconnaissance was seldom wasted, raised the matter of the dinner party with his brother-in-law. ‘Don’t worry, old chap.’ Tom Witherington was reassuring. ‘They do you very well at The Hollies. Very well indeed.’
‘So Dr Iverson is a successful doctor,’ murmured Henry Tyler (which he knew was not the same as being a good one).
Tom Witherington frowned. ‘Couldn’t say, but he is sound on food and drink.’
‘How is it that their entertaining is so—er—reliable, then?’
‘Oh, you mean how is it that they can afford the pukka style if he isn’t successful?’ His brother-in-law’s brow cleared. ‘That’s easily explained. W. H. M.’
Henry Tyler thought for a moment. ‘That’s an acronym I haven’t come across.’
Tom Witherington grinned. ‘I don’t suppose it matters in the Foreign Office as much as it does in some other spheres. W. H. M. stands for “Wife Has Means” … Margot has the money and Arthur has the ideas for using it. You’ll see on Saturday.’
‘I can hardly wait,’ said Henry Tyler politely.
As dinner parties went, noted Henry on the night, it was neither large nor particularly intimate. Ten people sat down in the dining-room at The Hollies after partaking of a well-chosen sherry—a good Macharnudo, Henry thought—in the drawing-room.
Margot Iverson had welcomed him most hospitably. ‘How nice to have someone here from the Foreign Office. You can tell us what they think of Il Duce.’ She was a plain woman with the apparent placidity of the overweight but she didn’t look as if she missed much. Like those of all good hostesses, her eyes were everywhere.
‘I’m afraid,’ said Henry Tyler with every appearance of regret, ‘that’s not my department.’
Dr Iverson was equally welcoming. ‘What a pity it’s dark. Otherwise you could have seen the garden, although there’s not much to look at at this time of the year.’
‘Arthur’s garden is a delight,’ said Wendy at his elbow. ‘In the summer his vegetable garden is as neat and attractive as the one at Villandry.’
‘It’s mostly my gardener I have to thank for that,’ said the doctor modestly, ‘but, yes, I do take an interest. Now, let me introduce you to Major Anderson. He’s the Chairman of our local Bench …’
The announcement about dinner being served, Henry observed with approval, had come at just the right length of time after the sherry had been drunk. It followed a brief absence from the room of the doctor.
‘Just checking on the claret,’ he boomed as he came back. ‘Edith’s very good but there are some things that need watching.’
‘My cousin is something of a wine connoisseur, Mr Tyler,’ said Miss Amy Hall as he escorted her in to dinner. The doctor’s cousin was a thin, anxious woman with her hair drawn down in two neat earphones. ‘Now, tell me what you think of Haile Selassie …’
The first course had been awaiting them on the dining-room table. Potted shrimps in attractive little ramekins, and prettily adorned with watercress, stood on plates at each place. It was clear that the Major’s wife was the chief lady guest as she was seated on Dr Iverson’s right, the Major sitting on Margot Iverson’s right.
A Mr and Mrs Locombe-Stableford made up the party. Henry had already discovered that he was a solicitor and his wife a power in the Red Cross. Henry found himself next to the Major’s wife.
‘I hope you enjoy your visit to Calleshire,’ she said. ‘A very fine county.’
‘Indeed.’ Henry passed her some thin, crustless brown bread and butter and listened to a long story about foxhunting. Across the table he could hear Mrs Locombe-Stableford talking to the doctor about someone’s gallstones (‘Seven as big as marbles, the surgeon said’).
Ed
ith, the parlour-maid, cleared away the first course.
‘Jolly good tiger-frighteners, what?’ said the Major to Margot Iverson.
‘He usually calls them “horses’ doovers”,’ sighed the Major’s wife to Henry, ‘which is worse.’
‘Strange how we have taken to some French words and not others, isn’t it?’ remarked Henry diplomatically as the parlour-maid came into the room with a pile of dinner-plates and the vegetable dishes.
‘I hope you’ll take to a good French claret,’ chimed in Arthur Iverson jovially. ‘One of the St Émilion hill wines. Château Balestard la Tonnelle and just about ready for drinking … Ah, thank you, Edith. Put it down here. Carefully, now …’
Obediently the parlour-maid lowered a serving dish bearing a large fillet of beef on the table in front of the doctor. He put his hands out to take up the carving knife and fork and Amy Hall murmured something to her neighbour about Arthur always having wanted to be a surgeon really.
‘My dear,’ he said to his wife, ‘aren’t you going to tell our guests about our new addition to the dining-room?’
All eyes turned towards Margot Iverson at the other end of the dining table. She almost pouted. ‘I wasn’t going to tell them, Arthur. I was going to show them later.’
‘Very well, my dear.’ The doctor turned his attention back to the carving. He was indeed good at it. After having carefully removed the browned edge of the fillet he sliced the meat quickly and evenly. Edith took the plates to Margot Iverson’s end of the table where the vegetables were served and then handed them in turn to the guests.
Henry passed the horseradish sauce and then the gravy to the Major’s wife. ‘And salt?’ he enquired. The career of one of his Foreign Office contemporaries had been said to have foundered after he had said ‘Pepper and salt’ to the wife of a diplomat with uncertainly coloured hair and a poor command of the English language.
‘Now you really must tell us what you think of the Abyssinian question, Mr Tyler,’ Brenda Anderson said as soon as Edith had withdrawn.
‘Dear lady, I am but an errand boy in the Foreign Service …’ At the other end of the table he could hear Margot Iverson exchanging stately platitudes with Mr Locombe-Stableford. Henry Tyler would not have described her as a happy woman but afterwards he could not say that she had seemed at all unwell. She certainly complained of nothing in his hearing.
Her moment came at the end of the first course when, without any apparent signal, the parlour-maid came back into the room.
‘There,’ challenged Arthur. ‘How did Margot summon up reinforcements? Tell me that if you can.’
‘Perhaps,’ suggested Tom Witherington slyly, ‘Edith was listening at the door …’
‘Did you hear that, Edith?’ said Arthur Iverson. ‘Well, were you?’
‘No, doctor.’
‘Bush telegraph?’ The Major had served in Africa. ‘Oh, do tell us,’ pleaded Wendy Witherington. ‘We’ll never guess.’
‘A bell-push under the carpet by my foot,’ said Margot Iverson calmly. ‘Arthur got an electrician to do it during the week.’
‘Clever stuff,’ exclaimed Tom as Edith bought in the puddings.
She placed a hot Normandy pudding for the doctor to serve and a crème brûlée for her mistress to offer to those who preferred it.
‘A great nation, the French,’ said Mrs Locombe-Stableford, eyeing the puddings.
‘In some ways, yes,’ said Henry, a Foreign Office man to his fingertips even on Saturday evenings. ‘But not all.’
‘You mustn’t forget Cook’s special wine sauce with the Normandy pudding,’ said Margot Iverson. ‘She’s very proud of it.’
‘Or the Barsac,’ said Dr Iverson. ‘I think the ladies will like it …’
It was late by the time the meal was done and later still when the company rose from the coffee cups in the drawing-room.
It was early, though, the next morning when Wendy Witherington came back from the telephone. ‘That was Brenda Anderson,’ she said, looking shocked. ‘You won’t believe this but Margot Iverson died in the night …’
‘No! Surely not …’ exclaimed Tom.
‘What on earth from?’ asked Henry.
‘Brenda doesn’t know,’ said Wendy, ‘but apparently poor Margot started being sick about one o’clock in the morning and then had a most frightful pain in her tummy.’
‘At least Arthur would have been there,’ said her husband. ‘Nothing like having a doctor in the house.’
‘He got very worried and immediately sent for one of the consultants from the hospital.’
‘I should think so …’ murmured Henry.
‘And the consultant wanted to know what she’d had to eat, of course …’
‘Of course.’ Tom Witherington looked very solemn.
‘And whether anyone else had been taken ill.’
‘Naturally,’ said Henry.
‘They were just going to check that we were all right when Margot suddenly got quite excitable and delirious—so unlike her.’
Henry nodded. Margot Iverson had struck him as a very controlled woman.
‘And then’—Wendy’s voice began to quaver—‘her breathing got very slow. Brenda says she was in a coma by the time they got her into the hospital. And then she just died … Oh, isn’t it too awful?’
Both men nodded.
Wendy sniffed. ‘I think I’ll just ring Phyllis Locombe-Stableford …’
‘No,’ said Tom Witherington quietly. ‘I don’t think I would if I were you, Wendy.’
‘Why ever not?’ Wendy stared at her husband. ‘She was there too last night.’
‘That’s why,’ said Tom. ‘And she may not want to talk about it. Or have been asked not to by her husband …’ He put his arm round his wife. ‘I think you’re forgetting something about old Locombe-Stableford.’
She was close to tears now. ‘What’s that?’
‘That he isn’t only a solicitor.’ Tom went on steadily: ‘He’s the Coroner as well.’
Beyond speech now, she nodded her comprehension. ‘Brenda said they were doing a post-mortem examination this morning. Oh, poor, poor Margot …’
Henry Tyler said: ‘I have to be back in Whitehall tomorrow, Wen. I must be with my Minister at ten but I’ll come back for the funeral … or if anyone else wants to talk to me …’
In the event the persons who wanted to talk to Henry Tyler went to the Foreign Office to see him—where they found his rank to be rather higher than that of errand-boy. In fact he had his own office and a considerably larger area of carpet than anyone in Berebury suspected.
The two policemen who were shown into his room did not appear to be daunted by this. ‘Detective Inspector Milsom,’ said the senior of the pair, ‘and my assistant, Detective Constable Bewman. We are making enquiries into the sudden death of Mrs Margot Iverson.’
Henry Tyler bowed his head. ‘Anything I can tell you, Inspector, I will, but my acquaintanceship with Mrs Iverson in the event was brief.’
‘It is the event,’ said Milsom drily, ‘which interests us. You were, I understand, one of the guests on the fatal night …’
‘Indeed,’ said Henry, noting with the appreciation of an expert the Inspector’s choice of words.
‘And partook of the complete meal?’
‘Oh, yes, Inspector. And very good it was, too.’
‘Save for Mrs Iverson, sir. It didn’t do her any good at all. Quite the reverse, you might say.’
‘Are you telling me,’ said Henry cautiously, ‘that Mrs Iverson—er—consumed …’
‘Ingested was the word the Home Office pathologist used, sir.’
‘Ingested that from which she died at that meal?’
‘It would seem so, sir. And we want you to tell us everything you remember about it.’
Henry cast his mind back over the evening. ‘I think we all ate the same …’
‘That is one of the things that is making our enquiries difficult.’ Detective Inspector Milsom had
his notebook at the ready.
‘And from the same dishes … no, I forgot. The first course was on the table when we went into the dining-room. Potted shrimps.’ He looked sharply at the policeman. ‘Shell-fish can be dangerous in their own right.’
‘The potted shrimps were put on the table by the parlourmaid immediately before the guests entered the dining-room,’ said Milsom.
Henry hesitated but not for long. ‘Our host did slip out to attend to the claret …’
‘That was before the shrimp dish reached the dining-room,’ said Milsom, revealing that he already knew a great deal about the evening. ‘It was—er—safely in the kitchen at that stage.’
‘And,’ said Henry as lightly as he felt the conversation warranted, ‘I suppose you are sure that Edith wasn’t harbouring a grudge against her mistress.’
‘As sure as we can be,’ said Milsom.
Detective Constable Bewman stirred. ‘Besides, if you remember, sir, the potted shrimps had a solidified butter glaze on top.’
‘So it had,’ said Henry appreciatively. The constabulary had certainly done its homework. ‘And Mrs Iverson would certainly have noticed if that had been disturbed.’
‘I think we can go a little further than that, sir.’ Milsom gave a faint smile. ‘Human nature being what it is my guess is that any maid worth her salt would have put a slightly imperfect dish in front of anyone but her master or mistress for the cook’s sake.’
‘Quite so,’ said Henry gravely. He had forgotten the old joke about a policeman being the best kitchen range-finder in the world. ‘Well, apart from the potted shrimps I think I can assure you, Inspector, that one way and another all the other dishes were shared.’
‘This is what all the other guests say, sir, and that is what is puzzling us.’
‘What about after we all left?’ said Henry.
‘The experts assure us that symptoms occur between one and four hours after this particular substance has been ingested.’ The Detective Inspector went on in tones totally devoid of emphasis: ‘Unfortunately Dr Iverson went out after the dinner-party to pay a late visit to a man with pneumonia about whom he was worried and so cannot tell us anything about the time immediately after the guests had left. By the time he got home his wife was already beginning to be unwell.’
Injury Time Page 7
