Lessons in Following a Poisonous Trail: A Cambridge Fellows Mystery novella (Cambridge Fellows Mysteries)

by Charlie Cochrane

  For all that Orlando had been sceptical about a theory built on so few facts, it had its merits. “I assume that you’re suggesting one of the reasons Scarrett would leave in those circumstances is to avoid being called on to treat the victim. Hence missing a vital time in the treatment process.”

  “Yes. And he’d know that he’d likely be called in to treat Threlfall when he did eventually fall ill, so he’d be able to influence the outcome at that point, too.” Jonty raised his hand. “This is all wild speculation, I know.”

  “You’re forgiven. You’ve seen Scarrett on several occasions. Have his actions been at any point those of a guilty man?”

  “Alas, no. I can offer no motive for him to hurt Threlfall, or anyone else, for that matter. Why on earth would any man kill an old friend, especially one he’s spoken of quite fondly? Unless he’s an agent of Ernest Harcourt, of course, keeping in with the victim until the opportune moment comes.” Jonty shrugged. “He’s either a total innocent or one of the cleverest murderers we’ve come across, yet I suppose that could apply to many of the men—and women—we’ve crossed swords with.”

  “It isn’t murder yet, I hasten to point out.” Orlando wondered if the nurse had been correct in worrying that this discussion might overtax the patient. Such wild speculation was uncharacteristic, even for Jonty at his most fanciful. Best, perhaps to deliver his piece of news and then depart. “Also, as you rightly point out, your theory doesn’t answer one of the key points, although—in your defence—you won’t be aware of that point yet. Why would Scarrett have poisoned the others?”

  “Eh?” Jonty sat bolt upright, winced, then lay back again. “Will you give me prior warning in future if you’re about to deliver a shock? Sudden movement does my poor leg no good at all and could set my recovery back several days. What others?”

  “The other victims. If victims they are and not just a case of folk making connections with the benefit of mistaken hindsight.” Seeing the piteously confused expression on Jonty’s face, Orlando smiled and said, “I’ll start at the beginning. You were right about the lack of algebra at my luncheon. Threlfall’s mishap was the main topic of discussion. I was going to tell you and then say, You’ll never guess why but I’ve let the cat out of the bag.”

  Jonty produced one of his most charming and sympathetic smiles. “We could pretend you hadn’t given the game away. You say, You’ll never guess why and I reply, Apart from the obvious fact that you’re all a bunch of gossips? Then I plead with you to tell me, even though you’re clearly desperate to relate the tale.”

  “Why I put up with your over dramatics is beyond me. It’s like living with a cast member from the worst sort of melodrama.” Orlando gave one of his trademark snorts and added an eye roll to express his depth of feeling.

  “Is there a good sort of melodrama? Anyway, enough of this persiflage. Other people are involved somehow. Tell Uncle Jonty all.”

  “I will, although I refuse to deliver the information in anything but a sensible fashion. It transpires that Threlfall isn’t the first person to appear to have been poisoned.”

  Jonty threw his hands up, still clearly wanting to make a pretence of shock. “Well, you astound me, truly. Yet I note the word appear. How likely is it that the events are linked?”

  Orlando had barely opened his mouth to respond when Nurse Hatfield arrived, bearing a welcome pot of tea and an unwelcome message not to overtire the patient as he’d already had two visitors today.

  “Have a heart, nurse, please.” Jonty’s smile achieved its most potent combination of charm and helplessness. “Technically Dr Coppersmith is my first proper visitor as the others were in the service of my medical and spiritual needs. And this conversation is itself mainly in the cause of the current investigation. I’d be feeling a lot worse if you don’t let me hear the rest of what my colleague has to say.”

  “I suppose I shall have to relent. But I’ll be keeping an eye on you, young man. Both of you,” she added, with a wink at Orlando which Jonty wouldn’t have been able to see.

  “It’s like a prison,” Jonty muttered, once the nurse had gone. “Let’s hope she has a new patient or seven arrive in the next half an hour. One of whom needs so much attention she forgets to come back here and chase you out. Those other cases. I’m gasping to hear about them. But I’m also gasping for a cup of that tea. Could you pour me one while you tell me about the other victims, please?”

  “Yes, oh master. Your servant lives only to oblige thee.” Orlando grinned and set about the domestic duties. “Do you recall early last term? There was an outbreak of food poisoning following a dinner at the college next door.”

  “How can I forget? We gloated about it in the Senior Common Room for weeks. Lots of jokes about how germs were taking their little lives in their hands by infiltrating the place. If germs have hands.”

  Orlando muttered something along the lines of, “They may not have hands but they’ve got more in the way of brains than you have,” only not quite so polite, then passed his lover his cup of tea. He then said aloud, “Apparently it wasn’t a case of food poisoning. Their suet pudding had been laced with a laxative.”

  Jonty, clearly trying hard not to laugh, forced himself to adopt a suitably serious expression. “Oh, dear. How did they discover that?”

  “One of those present—from St. John’s so probably a bit more acute than his host—is apparently a great aficionado of the detective novel. Not Holmes, to his credit. He’d thought the suet pudding tasted rather odd so had the foresight to retain a small portion. So that later he could have it analysed by one of his chemist pals, which he did. Hence the discovery of the unwanted purgative.”

  “Foresight indeed. Was he expecting trouble?”

  “Possibly. Dr Jones, one of the others present, had received a peculiar note a few days earlier, warning him that he’d soon be getting what he deserved. Dr Jones made light of it, but Dr Laithwaite—the one from St John’s—thought there might be more to it. He was correct.”

  “Do we know anything about this Laithwaite?”

  “I’ve run across him a few times and found him to be pleasant enough. He specialises in mathematics as applied to engineering and is a solid thinker, if a touch old-fashioned in his views. Please don’t comment on that last part.” Orlando would be the first to recognise that the description could have applied to him, especially in his pre-Jonty days.

  “To do so never crossed my mind.” Jonty took a long draught of tea. “Does it strike you as suspicious that Laithwaite should have made the leap of logic from a vague threatening note to a definitely adulterated pudding? Or is it simply that lying here with nothing to do is making me think everything over far too much, as I might have already done with regard to Scarrett?”

  “Quite likely the latter although I confess that my thoughts ran down those lines and we are not alone. When I put it to the chap who told me all this—Butler, who’s great friends with Laithwaite—he said he’d had the same concerns when he first heard the story. He asked his friend about it, but was entirely convinced by the explanation the man gave. Apparently Laithwaite had seen something similar at school.” Orlando sipped his tea, which proved to be exactly the sort of excellent brew that was conducive to rational thinking. “One of the pupils in his final term, therefore about to leave and likely to avoid any ramifications, had taken revenge on the form master, against whom he had developed a long-standing grudge. He sent the man a warning note—via the post so a pupil wouldn’t be automatically suspected—then laced the man’s cocoa with a hefty dose of senna pods. It seems the master concerned would have the kitchen staff leave his bedtime drink outside his study for him to pick up.”

  “That’s asking for trouble. I’d never risk anybody under the age of forty-seven getting their hands on my nosebag.”

  “I have to confess that such a risk hadn’t occurred to me before today.” Orlando eyed his tea suspiciously, then decided that nurse Hatfield, while she might not yet be forty-seven, was sur
ely above mistrust and that the brew was fit to drink. “The pupil left the school next day, heading off for a life at sea and sending a telegram en route claiming responsibility.”

  “Maybe my enforced inactivity has made me distrustful of everyone, but I don’t know how I feel about that story. How would Laithwaite know all the details of what had happened, for one thing?”

  “Old school and all that. Laithwaite major, Laithwaite minor—that’s the John’s man—and Laithwaite minimus.” Orlando suppressed a snort. He always felt profoundly uncomfortable about the instances of favouritism he’d come across, where men were given preference not on ability but on whom they knew or where they’d been educated. He’d had no such important connections to draw on yet had made his way in the world all on his own merit and was proud of the fact. “All the boys were in the school, the eldest being in the same year and house as the deliverer of the senna. The story of the incident got pieced together from the gossip they each picked up and became the stuff of family legend.”

  “Hmm. Well, I suppose given that’s the sort of thing that could happen among the Stewarts I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.” Jonty remained frowning. “Did he tell the police? I mean after the pudding incident?”

  “I don’t know. I will need to ask him when I see him.”

  “The other thing that strikes me as odd is this. Why didn’t the news that a laxative had been employed in this instance slip out and then spread all over Cambridge? That’s exactly the sort of thing that gets discussed in every Senior Common Room or at every high table, whereas food poisoning would be a five-minute wonder.”

  “It was kept quiet. To discourage anyone copying what had gone on. They believed the perpetrator to be one of the nasty little ticks that pass for students next door, one who never got on with Jones. Rather like the schoolboy, he was due to leave the college anyway so everything was quietly covered over. Nobody suffered any lasting harm and the incident wasn’t repeated. Until now.”

  “What’s the connection to Threlfall?” Light evidently dawned. “Was he one of those present at the dinner?”

  “No. Although he was supposed to be. Butler reckoned he pulled out because he had an infected wisdom tooth and couldn’t have eaten anything bar soup.”

  “Well, well.” Jonty beamed. “The thick plottens and all that. Did the person with the poison—that has rather a better ring to it than the lout with the laxative—not realise there’d been a last-minute change of plan? What else do we know about those who were present? Is there any connection between the student they thought employed the laxative and Threlfall? And has the former returned to Cambridge and taken to using stronger poison?”

  “That’s more questions than the average dunderhead comes up with in a year.” Orlando produced a small notebook. “To answer the first, I have no idea but I will add it to my ever-growing list of things to find out. Now, before you tell me not to overdo things, I’ll be sharing my list with both our constabulary friends and—I hope—Dr Panesar.”

  “An excellent idea. I was thinking of picking his brains, too. Answer to the second question, please?”

  “The second? Ah, how much do we know about those present at the dinner? More than I expected to find out.” Orlando sighed. “It pains me to confess how much some of my fellow dons gossip. I didn’t jot it down at the time because I felt that would look a touch obvious, but as soon as I was able to, I listed everything I could recall. I’ll be taking the information to the police as soon as I leave here, naturally. Suffice for our purposes to say that they all specialise in mathematics although there any connections seem to end. Based at different colleges now, attended different universities in the past, no membership of any clubs in common—sporting or otherwise. I doubt if they have students in common, either, not in terms of ones they supervise closely. Threlfall himself would be the one to tell us whether he had any connection to the student concerned but he isn’t in a position to do so.”

  “Victims usually aren’t, if you recall. We have to use our wits to fill in the gaps. And I’d not dismiss the disgruntled undergraduate theory just yet. We know, from experience, how somebody can take umbrage at a type—such as dons in general—and target that, rather than a particular individual.” Jonty didn’t need to elaborate: their first case had been along those lines. “Talking of which, you’re not in danger, are you? I mean, if whoever it is has decided specifically to do away with those whose minds naturally incline towards integrals and imaginary numbers?”

  “As you might say, we shouldn’t dismiss the notion.” Orlando had already considered this possibility, as the topic had been raised by one of the more nervous dons at the mathematical luncheon. “I have decided to be very careful with everything I eat and drink until the culprit is found. I plan only to consume things made at home or in the St. Bride’s kitchen and delivered to High Table. No invitation to dine elsewhere nor even a visit to the Bishop’s Cope would tempt me.”

  “Glad to hear that. I hope that your colleagues are taking an equally sensible approach.”

  Recalling the conversation at the public house, Orlando rolled his eyes. “Not all of them. A couple today were defiant that nobody would interfere with their going about their normal routine. You can imagine what was being said. They’d show the perpetrator they couldn’t be frightened, and so forth.”

  “I can imagine. While I have some sympathy with the notion of not bowing to pressure, discretion might be the key word in this instance. As we know from past experience.”

  “Indeed. And,” Orlando added with a second roll of his eyes, to indicate his depth of emotion, “one of those who refused to be cowed sneered at the whole notion. Said that the thing was merely coincidence and that the sample was too small to prove anything.”

  “Hm. Said colleague needs what my nephew would call a punch on the conk. Or, to coin a phrase, a punch on his parenthetical brackets. There’d be no argument about order of operations then.”

  “Are you delirious or was that an attempt at a mathematical joke?” Orlando sniggered. “It was almost a successful one. While I applaud your joke, I can’t extend the same to my colleague’s theory. Murder, or attempted murder, doesn’t require a large sample size to be significant. One death is of consequence. Anyway, I’m not sure the extent of the data is as small as he makes out.”

  “Ah. That’s more like it. What do you know that needs-a-punch man doesn’t?”

  “In the interests of absolute accuracy, I don’t know anything for certain, but I was scouring my brains as I walked here and I now recall one of the chaps from St John’s being ill after one of our meetings last Christmas. Might even have been the same one who was at the dinner and took the sample. Laithwaite. At the time, his illness was blamed on overindulgence, of course, that being a seasonal hazard, but I remember thinking that he’d barely had more than a couple of pints, although some folk do have a low threshold for tolerating their drink.”

  “Indeed. I shan’t point out that it was a classic case of the pot accusing the kettle of being overly black.”

  “And I shan’t rise to the bait of that remark. I’ve arranged to see Laithwaite tomorrow. I’ll report back if there’s anything to report back on.”

  “Much appreciated.” Jonty stifled a yawn. “It’s exhausting lying here. Having nothing to do is much more tiring than being on the go.”

  “I’ll remind you of that the next time you start complaining that you’re too busy.”

  A rap on the door and the appearance of the nurse threatened to bring the discussion to a halt, but after taking Jonty’s pulse, inspecting his leg and giving him a long, thoughtful look, she said, “You may continue your discussion for another five minutes. Much to my surprise it appears to be aiding Dr Stewart’s recovery, if the improved colour in his cheeks is anything to go by. Shall I top up the pot?”

  After the offer was politely declined and she departed, Jonty ran his hand across his brow. “Mercy be, a reprieve. I do feel better, by the way. Boredo
m is terribly debilitating.”

  “It leads you to repeat yourself, as well. Still, this case is sufficiently baffling to keep your brain ticking over.”

  “It is. Baffling, I mean. For a start why would anybody want deliberately to target all these folk? Assuming Laithwaite was a sole victim on this other occasion you referred to and it wasn’t somehow or other a case of aiming for Threlfall and missing. Which would appear to stretch credulity to breaking point.”

  Orlando, suddenly feeling desperately weary and stifling a yawn, said, “I confess that I dropped into the police station briefly on my way to lunch and Chief Inspector Wilson—who sends his best wishes for the recovery of your leg, by the way—is equally perplexed about a possible motive. He doesn’t yet know about the business at the college next door or your revelation about the aggrieved father. I need to inform him of that when I leave here.”

  “Do you? Couldn’t you send a note via one of the porters or one of the messenger boys they appear to produce when the occasion requires?” Jonty patted Orlando’s hand. “You look terribly weary. Dr Stewart prescribes a treatment of forty winks, rather than haring around the city.”

  “Dr Stewart could, it pains me to say, be right. As a reward I’ll ask one of our constabulary pals to drop in here so you can tell them the details yourself.

  “Excellent. Please send Mr Wilson my appreciation for the good wishes and say that if he’s not too busy I’d be more than happy to receive him in regal state. Or Sergeant Cohen. I might see if the nurse will run to a piece of cake for them.” Jonty made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “You’ve clearly been very busy. Don’t overdo it trying to complete the work of two sets of hands. I wouldn’t be offended if you asked Dr Panesar to share the leg work.”

  Orlando, who’d already been toying with that idea, gave it an enthusiastic nod. “I might do just that. And I promise I won’t overstretch myself, so long as you promise the same in return. I can’t have half my mind worrying about whether you’ll make some heroic yet misguided attempt to reach the toilet under your own steam and end up sprawled on the floor with a broken ankle.”