A Broken Vessel (12 page)

“Once in a month of Sundays, yes. But they do it by adding opium to the victim’s food or drink by stealth. In this case, an empty laudanum bottle was left by Mary’s bed. That’s a funny thing for a poisoner to do.”

“It’s a very natural thing, if the poisoner wants the death to look like a suicide.”

‘But wouldn’t it be much simpler if Mary drank the laudanum herself?”

“No, Doctor, it would be much more complicated. For one thing, what happened to the cordial?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The dose of cordial Mrs. Fiske gave her before she went to bed.”

“She drank it, I suppose, then used the empty glass to take the laudanum, just as the coroner said.”

“But, my dear fellow, think how preposterous that is! Why would anyone take a strengthening cordial just before committing suicide?”

“Well—she probably wasn’t thinking clearly. When a despairing young girl sets out to end her life, you can’t expect her to go about it rationally.”

“Nobody who saw her that evening thinks she looked despairing or irrational. Even Mrs. Fiske said she seemed more or less as usual. Anyway, this isn’t a question of rationality—it’s intuition.” He pressed a hand to his heart “You don’t take a medicine to fortify your body just before taking a poison to destroy it. Nobody would do such a thing. No, the natural thing would have been for her to pour out the cordial into the washbasin by her bed. But that was found clean and dry. And apparently the cordial wasn’t poured out anywhere else. I’ve seen Summerson’s Strengthening Elixir—it’s a gruesome-looking, purplish-brown syrup. It would have left a devil of a stain.”

“Why should she have had to take them one right after the other? Maybe she drank the cordial at bedtime, then later felt despondent and turned to the laudanum.”

Julian shook his head. “That cock won’t fight. The doctor testified that she’d been dead for at least six hours when he examined her at ten in the morning. That means four in the morning is the latest she could have died, and she might well have died much earlier. Laudanum poisoning wouldn’t have killed her immediately, would it?”

“No, it would probably have taken several hours.”

“Well, there you are. If she took an overdose of laudanum, it must have been at or very shortly after ten in the evening, when she went to bed.”

“I don’t know how you do it!” MacGregor started pacing again. “There’s nothing under the sun so straightforward that you can’t tease enigmas out of it. If you found a chimney-sweep up a chimney, you’d think of a dozen ingenious theories about what he was doing there. All right: if Mary didn’t commit suicide, how did she die? A very reputable physician testified that her death was caused by opium poisoning. You can’t think he was wrong about a thing like that?”

“I’m not expert enough to say. But let’s suppose he was right. Isn’t opium sold in all sorts of forms, some of them much stronger than laudanum?”

“Yes. There’s Kendal Black Drop, for instance—that’s about four times stronger than the average laudanum preparation. And you can get opium pills and lozenges from apothecaries, grocers’ shops—public houses, even.”

Julian considered. “Mrs. Fiske says the inmates finished supper at half past eight last night, then had prayers and Bible readings until nearly ten. Suppose a fatal dose of opium had been put into Mary’s food at supper: would she have shown the effects of it by the time she went to bed?”

“An hour and a half later? No doubt about it, yes.”

“Then, assuming she was poisoned with opium—or some other drug with a like effect—the only other possibility is that it was put into that cordial she took to bed with her. It was Mrs. Fiske who gave her the cordial, and Mrs. Fiske didn’t like her—hated her, even. That was clear from her testimony at the inquest.”

“If Mrs. Fiske killed her, wouldn’t she have taken care to hide the way she felt about her?”

“I don’t think she was capable of hiding it. She tried to testify calmly and succinctly, but her bitterness and anger kept breaking out. She’s a very angry woman. It’s my impression she hates all the inmates.”

“Then why is she working so hard for their salvation?”

“I don’t believe she cares a damn about their salvation. She works with them, first, because she’s infatuated with Harcourt, like the rest of that little coven he gathers around him. And second, she enjoys lording it over the inmates, crushing their spirit, flaunting her own respectability in front of them. There’s no charity in her—only hatred and fanaticism and resentment. Hers is the kind of spirit that drove the Inquisition.”

“None of that explains why she would go so far as to kill an inmate.”

“No. But I think she had a peculiar hatred for Mary, perhaps because she was young and pretty and genteel. And, of course, Harcourt took a particular interest in her. He’d become quite obsessed with breaking through her silence, and finding out who she was.”

“You’re not suggesting there’s anything between Harcourt and Mrs. Fiske?”

“What, in the way of a love affair? Good God, no. If you’d seen her, you wouldn’t ask. But she could still have been jealous on his account. A woman doesn’t have to possess a man to be possessive of him. If Mary’s dose of cordial was poisoned, it was most likely Mrs. Fiske who poisoned it, since she gave it to her. But there’s another possibility.”

“I might have known there would be.”

“I’ll overlook that rather unencouraging response. Mrs. Fiske said Mary was the only person at the refuge taking the cordial. A really bold murderer might have poisoned the entire bottle, so that Mrs. Fiske poured out a fatal dose without knowing it.”

“But the murderer couldn’t have known for sure nobody else would take it.”

“No. That’s why he or she would have had to be exceptionally daring and cold-blooded. Now, Mr. Harcourt is both those things.”

“Harcourt? Why would
he
have wanted Mary dead?”

Julian made a rueful face. “Frankly—I have no idea. He seems to have had every reason to want her alive. Florrie said he hoped to ingratiate himself with Mary’s family by restoring her to them. He must also have thought it would add lustre to his name to rescue and reform a well-bred young woman. All the same, his handling of her death is devilish odd. Why did it take him three hours to bring in a doctor to examine her body? And why was he in such a rush to have the inquest over?”

“That’s only to be expected. The death of an inmate under circumstances like that can’t do his refuge any good.”

“No, that’s true. But why not air the matter thoroughly, and prove there was nothing amiss about her death? To shroud it in mystery only invites puzzlement and suspicion. Here’s one more curious fact: Harcourt’s home parish is in Norfolk. You know, opium use is rampant in the Fen Country there. Families grow poppies in their gardens, and make their own concoctions of the thing.”

“And you think Harcourt’s an amateur distiller? Even if he is, that doesn’t explain why he’d want to kill Mary.”

“No. I’m afraid I’m awash in theories, with very few facts to support them.”

“Look here: are you going to fret yourself into a fever about this business, burn your fingers meddling in what’s not your concern, and get yourself and everybody around you into a parcel of trouble?”

“Those were more or less my plans.”

“Oh, well—I know better than to try and hold you back, once you’ve got the bit between your teeth. I just have one thing to say to you: if you want to get to the bottom of what happened to Mary out of curiosity, or a regard for truth, or a sense of justice— well and good. But don’t do it out of guilt. Whatever happened to her, you’re not to blame. You did as much as could have been expected of you, and a dashed sight more than most people would have done.”

“But if I hadn’t been so concerned to respect her privacy—if I’d come right out and shown her letter to Mrs. Fiske yesterday, instead of trying to be clever and communicate with her through Sally—”

“Then you might have made things worse instead of better. There’s no second-guessing what’s past, or knowing what might have made a difference. It’s arrogant, it’s a waste of time, and there’s an end of it.”

Julian smiled and said quietly, “My dear fellow, thank you for that lecture. You’ve proved that not all strengthening elixirs come out of bottles.”

“Hmph—well—what are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to call on Samuel Digby. He’s a magistrate, he seems interested in this affair, and his attitude toward Harcourt is something less than reverent. If he seems disposed to be fair and openminded, I’ll show him Mary’s letter and ask him how he thinks I ought to proceed.”

He rose to depart. Then he paused and glanced around at the bookshelves lining the walls. “Do you have a Bible ready to hand?”

“A Bible?”

“Yes. I just remembered one more thing I wanted to tell you.”

MacGregor found a Bible and handed it to him. Julian leafed through it. “Do you remember, Mary said in her letter that if the person she wrote to never answered, she would be forgotten as one dead, like the broken vessel in the Psalm? I’ve found that Psalm—it’s Number 31. Listen:

I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbours, and a fear to mine acquaintance: they that did see me without fled from me.

I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.

For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: while they took counsel against me, they devised to take away my life.
”

MacGregor stared. “But—but that doesn’t prove anything.”

“No. But it sent a chill through my blood all the same.”

CHAPTER
9

S
amuel Digby lived in a stately red-brick house on Highgate Hill. There was a big brass knocker on the front door: the head of a smiling, satisfied lion. Julian knocked, and gave his card to a stooped old retainer. The man withdrew, then returned and said Mr. Digby would see him.

He led Julian to a cosy back parlour, with a cherry-coloured carpet and fine old mahogany furnishings. Digby sat in an easy chair by the fire, his gouty foot propped on an ottoman, and a table piled with books, newspapers, and medicines close by. Across from him sat a rosy old lady, with a work-table at her elbow, and her hands clasped expectantly in her lap.

“My dear,” said Digby, eyes twinkling, “this is Mr. Julian Kestrel, the famous man of fashion. Mr. Kestrel, it’s an honour to have you under our roof. I hear you have only to visit a house once, to make it the pink of fashion. I’ll be much disappointed if dukes and duchesses don’t throng our gates after this. You’ll forgive my not rising.”

“Of course.” Julian turned to the lady and bowed over her hand. “How do you do, Mrs. Digby?”

“It’s lovely to meet you, Mr. Kestrel. Heavens, you look so like that engraving we saw in the stationer’s shop—oh, dear, perhaps that wasn’t a tactful thing to say.”

“You mean Mr. Cruikshank’s caricature?” Julian smiled. “It’s very good, isn’t it? I had it framed.”

“It doesn’t half do you justice.” Her voice was warm with relief at not having given offence.

“Thank you, Mrs. Digby. You’re very kind.” He turned to Digby and shook hands. “How do you do, sir?”

“How d’ye do? It’s a pleasure. I’ve been wanting to meet you for some months.”

“I’m flattered,” said Julian. But he was more surprised.

Digby nodded. “I’ve taken an interest in you ever since I heard how you solved the Bellegarde murder. A very pretty piece of unriddling, that. When I saw you at the inquest yesterday, I thought: He’s on the scent again. He thinks there’s something wrong about this business, and knows I do, too. In short, Mr. Kestrel, I’ve been expecting you. Sit down.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Julian, more surprised than ever, and now much impressed.

“Take my chair,” proposed Mrs. Digby. “No, please, I shan’t stay. I never intrude on Sam when he’s talking business.”

She took her workbox and bustled off. Julian opened the door for her, then returned and sat down. Digby offered him some first-rate Madeira, which he accepted. “Now then,” the old man said, “what is there about that fine and upright man, Mr. Harcourt, to set your teeth on edge?”

“Perhaps it’s the same thing that brought you to town for the inquest—ordeal though that must have been.” He glanced at Digby’s bandaged foot.

“Perhaps. But we’re not talking about me just yet. Be plain with me, and I’ll return the favour. What is it about this young woman’s death that’s troubling you?”

Julian told him. He did not mention Mary’s letter yet, but he explained his other grounds for suspicion: the lack of a suicide note, the mystery of where Mary had gotten the laudanum, her inexplicable drinking of the cordial just before her apparent suicide, and Harcourt’s efforts to hush up her death. He pointed out that she had been the only inmate who had a room to herself, that Harcourt had been strangely obsessed with her, and that Mrs. Fiske could barely conceal her rancour toward her even now.

Digby listened attentively, asking a trenchant question now and then. “Well,” he said at last, “you’ve posed some ticklish questions. But there’s not one shred of proof that any crime’s been committed. Without that, what do you expect me or anyone else to do for you?”