C S Lewis and the Country House Murders (C S Lewis Mysteries Book 2) (8 page)

With this he handed over the sheaf of papers.

As Crispin glanced at the pages he asked, ‘Was the cyanide administered in liquid or powder form?’

‘Powder . . . definitely powder.’

Inspector Crispin turned the pages of the report silently and slowly. When he had finished he puffed out his cheeks and looked puzzled.

‘It says nothing here,’ he said, tapping the pages, ‘about how such a large dose of cyanide could be in one slice of the cake without a single trace elsewhere.’

‘Yes, yes,’ burbled the local GP excitedly. ‘I noticed the same thing myself. Which does nothing to point us towards the solution to the most baffling part of the mystery: how did the cyanide get into the cake at all?’

‘Well, thank you, doctor,’ murmured the Scotland Yard man. ‘We won’t keep you any longer.’

Dr Henderson rose somewhat reluctantly, muttering about ‘getting back to my patients’, but my impression was that he would have happily stayed for the next hour talking murder with the experts from London.

Alfred Rose returned to offer us tea. The offer was accepted, then Crispin turned to me and said, ‘Now, Mr Morris, in your role as chief suspect I suppose I should begin by interviewing you.’

As I agreed wearily, Sergeant Merrivale pulled out a notebook, huffing and puffing loudly like the faithful bulldog he was.

‘Were you watching as the cake was delivered to the table, cut and served?’ asked the inspector.

I assured him that I was.

‘And during that process, what opportunity was there for someone around the table to tamper with just one slice of cake—tamper in the sense of inserting cyanide?’

None, I said, unless Lady Pamela did so as she cut and served each slice. ‘Even then,’ I said, ‘she must have been performing some sort of conjurer’s trick in which the hand is faster than the eye. But aren’t you going to ask me about my relationship with the deceased? Look for a motive for murder?’

‘If you want me to I shall,’ said Crispin with an amiable smile. ‘So tell me, Mr Morris, how did you get on with Mrs Worth?’

‘Much the same as everyone else, to be honest.’ I went on to explain that I saw very little of her, that I’d only had one clash with her—and that was over her wanting to take one of the rare and valuable books from the library to her room. But apart from that, I said, I’d had almost no dealings with her.

‘After all,’ I added, ‘I’m not a member of the family . . . just the scholar in residence.’

‘Are you satisfied now, Mr Morris? Have I asked you the questions about motive that you wanted me to ask?’

I looked at him blankly, surprised by his not taking his chief suspect more seriously.

‘And what about you, sergeant?’ Crispin continued. ‘Have I cross-examined this gentleman closely enough?’

Merrivale snapped closed his notebook and gave an unpleasant smile. ‘For the time being,’ he said. Ah, I thought to myself, he speaks! The silent sergeant has a voice after all.

‘Now,’ the inspector resumed, ‘I’ll turn my attention to the matter that really interests me—the source of the cyanide.’

It turned out that Inspector Crispin had made some preliminary inquiries before leaving London, and had decided that the local chemist’s shop was the most likely source of the poison. That was where he wanted his real investigation to begin. He even invited Jack and me to go with him. As we left the pub and started down the street, I had no idea that things were about to get much darker for me.

The village chemist shop had a large flask of coloured water and an ancient ceramic mortar and pestle in its tiny window. In an arc over the top of the window, in fading gold paint and in the style of an earlier age of lettering, was the word ‘Dispensary’.

The front door to the tiny shop opened with the tinkle of a small bell that hung from a spring on the top of the door.

Recalling that bell later made me think of a ‘Had-I-But-Known’ detective novel by Mary Roberts Rinehart I once read. The heroine kept hinting to the reader of dreadful deeds by saying ‘Had I but known what lay ahead . . .’ Well, Had-I- But-Known what was about to be revealed, I would have heard that tinkling bell as tolling my doom.

Behind the small counter, and in front of shelves displaying multi-coloured packets of patent medicines, stood a village girl.

Inspector Crispin introduced himself and produced his warrant card to establish his authority. She nodded dumbly, looking somewhat frightened by this important figure from Scotland Yard.

‘And your name is . . . ?’ asked Crispin.

‘Ruth Eggleston,’ she replied in a voice little more than a frightened whisper.

‘And your role here is . . . ?’ continued the inspector.

‘I work for Mr Williamson. This is his shop. I serve in the shop and he does the dispensing.’ As she spoke she glanced over her shoulder to the shop’s interior.

‘Now, Miss Eggleston—I’d like to see your poisons book,’ said Crispin.

The young woman froze into immobility, like a rabbit staring blankly into the headlights of an approaching motor car—a rabbit wishing it had never left the comfort of its nice, warm burrow; a rabbit wishing it had listened to its mother (‘Avoid Mr McGregor’s garden and busy roads on dark nights,’ she’d said).

‘You do keep a poisons book, don’t you?’ Crispin continued. ‘Every chemist is required by law to keep a poisons book, so I presume you have one?’

‘Oh yes, sir,’ she said quickly, suddenly finding her voice again. ‘Mr Williamson says everything must be done properly.’

‘Then please produce your poisons book, Miss Eggleston,’ Crispin said patiently.

Once again she gave her impersonation of the rabbit in the headlights—this time with eyes as wide as saucers staring at the headlights getting closer.

Suddenly Sergeant Merrivale barked, in his gruff bulldog voice, ‘The poisons book please, miss . . . now!’

She jumped, as if the rabbit had heard a blaring horn emanating from behind the headlights, then reached under the counter and extracted a large, leather-covered book. It looked very old. It was possibly the same poisons book that had been kept in that shop since the early childhood of Queen Victoria.

‘Here it is, sir,’ she said in her small, trembling voice as she laid it on the counter.

Inspector Crispin spun it around so that it was facing him and slowly turned over the pages. He kept turning until he came to the most recent entries. He stared for a moment at the small, neat writing, then turned and stared at me, and then returned his gaze to the book.

‘Your name is in the book, Mr Morris,’ Crispin said.

‘It can’t be,’ I protested.

‘But it is—see for yourself.’

Crispin stood to one side and I stepped up to the counter. There, in small, neatly curved handwriting, was a notation saying that the most recent purchase of poisons was half a gram of potassium cyanide and the purchaser was . . . ‘T. Morris’.

‘But I didn’t . . . that’s not possible . . . why would I ever . . . I didn’t . . .’

The Scotland Yard man shook his head and said quietly, ‘That’s what it says, Mr Morris.’

Sergeant Merrivale reached over and picked up the poisons book. He closely examined the page, with Jack looking on over his shoulder.

Crispin looked back at the nervous young woman behind the counter. ‘Now, Miss Eggleston,’ he said, ‘according to this book Mr Morris here purchased half a gram of potassium cyanide in this shop two weeks ago. Is that correct?’

In a voice so close to a whisper as to be almost inaudible, she said, ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Did he tell you what is was for?’

‘He said he was buying it for . . .’ and here her faint voice died away and the words became impossible to hear.

‘Speak up, girl!’ barked Sergeant Merrivale. ‘Who or what did he say he was buying it for?’

She swallowed hard and then said, ‘For Hugo Franklin . . . Mr Franklin, that is . . . the head gardener at the Hall.’

‘And why would he do that, miss?’ asked Inspector Crispin. ‘Did he say why Mr Franklin didn’t come into the shop and make the purchase for himself?’

‘He said that he was walking into the village to post a letter and Mr Franklin had asked him to . . .’ Again her voice faded away to nothing. She was like a chiming clock with a faulty mechanism—every chime becoming steadily fainter than the one before.

Crispin suddenly spun and around and confronted me. ‘Is this true, Mr Morris? Have you suddenly remembered making this purchase? Had it slipped your mind until now?’

‘Of course not!’ I protested loudly. ‘I made no such purchase. I’ve never purchased potassium cyanide in my life—not two weeks ago, not ever. And certainly not for Franklin. He has a supply of cyanide in his garden shed. He showed it to Jack and me earlier today. And anyway, the Hall is not far from the village and he’s perfectly capable of walking here himself and making his own purchases.’

‘My dear Morris,’ interrupted Jack, ‘that’s not what’s being implied here, is it? The suggestion is that any reference to Franklin was a blind, and that you were making the poison purchase for yourself for your own nefarious purposes.’

‘But . . . but . . . but . . .’ I started to splutter like a single- cylinder motorcycle trying to climb a steep hill while misfiring at every stroke.

Suddenly Sergeant Merrivale’s heavy hand was clamped on my shoulder as he said to Ruth Eggleston, ‘Is this the man, miss? Is this the man who purchased the cyanide? The man referred to in that there entry in your poisons book?’

She nodded dumbly, blinking back tears from her eyes.

Crispin pushed the book along the counter in my direction.

‘The law requires every purchaser of poisons to sign the book,’ he said. ‘Is this your signature, Mr Morris?’

I looked down at the book and felt a sudden wave of relief.

‘No,’ I announced cheerfully. ‘That’s not my signature. That’s nothing like my signature. Look at any example of my writing and you’ll see at once that this is not my signature.’

‘How do you explain that, miss?’ asked Crispin, turning back to the shop girl.

She swallowed hard three or four times and then said, ‘His hand was hurt. It was bandaged up. So he couldn’t write with it. He asked me to write his name for him.’

‘Well, Mr Morris?’ Crispin raised his eyebrows as he asked me the question.

‘I did hurt my hand a week or so back. A cricket injury. I copped young Will’s fast ball on my wrist. It was bruised and sprained, that was all.’

‘And bandaged?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you were unable to write with it for a while?’

‘For a couple of days, yes. But I still wasn’t here and I didn’t—’

Sergeant Merrivale interrupted my explanation like a bulldog lunging forward to seize a bone. ‘So that explains why it’s not your signature that’s in the book, doesn’t it, sir? This young lady says she remembers you making the purchase, so you must have done—is that correct, sir? Do you remember it now, sir?’

‘She’s lying!’ I said loudly. Ruth Eggleston started to sob, and I regretted my outburst. ‘Or . . . or mistaken . . . or she just doesn’t remember . . . or something,’ I added lamely.

‘Let’s ask the chemist himself,’ said Inspector Crispin. Without waiting for an invitation, he picked up the poisons book, lifted the flap in the counter and walked through the open doorway to the back room. The rest of us followed.

There, bending over a small, hand-operated pill making machine was a man in a white coat—a man so elderly that he would have regarded Methuselah as a noisy youngster.

He looked up from his work bench, blinking at us through thick glasses.

‘Eh?’ he grunted. ‘Hello? Who are you?’

‘You are the owner of this shop?’ asked the Scotland Yard man.

‘Indeed I am, sir. I am Arthur Williamson—and I repeat my question: who are you?’

Crispin identified himself and Sergeant Merrivale, and explained who Jack and I were. He then outlined the purpose of our visit to his shop, and produced the poisons book, saying, ‘According to this, Mr Morris here purchased a small amount of potassium cyanide a little over a week ago—which Mr Morris denies having done. Were you a witness to the transaction? Can you tell us if this record is correct?’

Mr Williamson accepted the offered book from Crispin and squinted near-sightedly at the open page.

‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘I leave the shop to Ruth. She runs the shop. I never see who comes and goes. In my experience young Ruth is a reliable girl. If she says this entry in the book is accurate then no doubt it is.’

Both Crispin and Merrivale cross-questioned the old chemist for a further five minutes, but he had nothing to add. Finally he became annoyed and insisted on getting back to his work. He turned his back on us and resumed operating his pill press—stamping some sort of white powder into small, hard tablets.

We left him to his work and walked back out into the village street, Crispin impounding the poisons book on the way.

‘Are you about to arrest me?’ I challenged Crispin.

He smiled and said, ‘I doubt that you’re a flight risk, Mr Morris. I have been in this village for less than an hour and I intend to take no precipitate action. I shall continue my investigations and consult with Inspector Hyde and you will hear from me in due course.’