The Poisonous Seed (38 page)

She felt her face colouring again. ‘Please, no, my real name will be best.’

‘It is unnecessary, of course, to ask you why you believe in your father’s innocence. I can have no comment to make on the matter. But what do
you
believe to be the truth of the business?’

She hesitated, then decided that she would learn more from him if she stated what was on her mind. ‘I believe that your brother was murdered,’ she said.

‘You astound me! Why ever would anyone want to murder poor harmless Percy?’

‘But what else can it have been? Pure
strychnia
is rarely taken by accident.’

‘True,’ he conceded. ‘And I expect that those who can lay their hands on it would know its effect and would not elect to destroy themselves with it if there was anything else. Not that I believe for one moment that Percy took his own life. I saw nothing in his manner or in his personal affairs that would suggest it was possible.’

They arrived at the teashop, and were conducted to a pleasant table, where Cedric ordered tea, scones, and bread and butter. ‘I have been pummelling my brain to think of the name of even one person who might have wished Percy harm, but without a single result,’ said Cedric. ‘
Please
say you do not suspect Henrietta. The woman is distraught at his loss, and is quite genuine in my estimation. I have never seen such a devoted couple, especially after so many years of marriage. Sometimes one might almost have imagined them to be newlyweds, they were so affectionate.’ He gave a slight shudder.

‘I suspect James Keane,’ said Frances.

‘Hmm,’ said Cedric, thoughtfully. ‘Keane has been a surprise to me. He is, essentially, a stupid and unimaginative man. He cannot, in my opinion, have committed the frauds on the bank without help. Of course there is this missing artist the police are looking for, who may be the key to the whole thing. Perhaps
he
was the clever one. The only thing is, say what one will against the egregious Mr Keane, he did hold Percy in the very highest esteem. I sometimes felt Percy did not regard
him
in the same light, but he certainly tolerated him.’

‘Did they ever quarrel?’

He pursed his lips in thought. ‘Not quarrel, exactly. I did once walk in on a conversation where Percy was accusing Keane of carelessness about something or other, but I never learned what it was, and they stopped talking as soon as I came into the room. But that was the only actual dispute I ever witnessed between them. No, the main reason I think Keane cannot have killed Percy is that it seems to me that if a crime was committed, then it was a very clever one.’

‘Did your brother ever discuss Mr Meadows with you?’

‘Only a passing mention. There were some pictures of his in the house, as one might expect. They’ve all been sold, now. At least I assume so, as Keane came round just after Percy’s death and took them all away.’

The tea arrived, and for a while they sipped and ate thoughtfully.

‘What were the subjects of the pictures?’ asked Frances.

‘Oh, landscapes, houses, castles, that sort of thing. Nothing that appealed to me. I prefer – portraiture.’

‘Do you recall the locations of any of the subjects?’

‘I am afraid I did not pay a very great deal of attention to them.’

‘But that could be an important clue!’ said Frances, earnestly. ‘If we knew where Mr Meadows drew his pictures, it might tell us something of his origins, or even where he is now. Please do try to remember!’

‘You are very demanding of a fellow’s brain,’ protested Cedric. ‘I am sure it is quite unhealthy to use it too often.’ He chewed a morsel of scone and butter. ‘There was, now I think about it, one that attracted my attention – Berkeley Castle – unfortunate incident in the history of our glorious Royal family – not for a lady’s ears.’

‘Do you know where Berkeley Castle is?’ asked Frances, hopefully.

‘Yes,’ he said confidently. ‘I believe it is somewhere in England.’

Frances wrote the name in her notebook, and resolved to find the answer when she reached home. ‘Do you know how Mr Keane and your brother first became acquainted? Or indeed when or where?’

‘You are full of questions, Miss Doughty,’ said Cedric regretfully. ‘I wish I had the answers.’

‘I am sure Mrs Garton would know, but of course it would be most improper of me to enquire.’

‘Even you have your limits of daring, I see.’ He smiled. He sipped his tea. ‘But to return to the matter under discussion, this supposed murder, assuming that it was one. The last time I spoke to Inspector Sharrock I was given to understand that the police had accepted the verdict of the inquest and were making no further enquiries. To your way of thinking, not only has the murderer escaped without being suspected of the crime, the police do not even believe that a crime has been committed. That to my mind is a singular achievement. If
I
was to attempt such a thing – and I am a far cleverer man than Keane, though I try not to let it spoil my enjoyment of life – I would hardly know where to begin. And I am sure I would make many mistakes and be discovered quite easily.’

‘That is my difficulty,’ said Frances. ‘I can see that Mr Keane had a motive to commit the crime, but I am unable to prove how it was done.’

‘To begin with,’ said Cedric, ‘where would one obtain a sufficient amount of pure strychnine? Surely only a doctor or a chemist could do so easily.
I
could not walk into a chemists’ shop and ask for such a thing without it attracting
some
attention and if it was to be stolen that would surely be remarked upon. In fact, and you must forgive me for mentioning it, the only premises in the area which is missing a bottle of strychnine is Doughty’s.’

‘We have accounted for that,’ said Frances sternly.

‘Two or three grains the doctor said,’ mused Cedric. ‘But of course if the poison was in the medicine bottle, it would have to have been several times that amount, for anyone to take two or three grains in just a few teaspoonfuls.’

‘Perhaps as much as thirty,’ said Frances. ‘I agree, it would not be an amount for anyone to obtain easily, and without detection.’

‘What about those vermin killers Dr Collin mentioned at the inquest?’ asked Cedric. ‘He thought they could not have been used. Tell me about those.’

‘They can be bought by anyone,’ said Frances, ‘but the drug is dyed with Prussian blue or mixed with soot so no mistake can be made in its use. No dye of any kind was found in your brother’s stomach, so he could not have swallowed
strychnia
from that source.’

‘Is it possible to remove the pure strychnine from the dye?’

‘Yes, it can easily be done by —,’ she paused, ‘but only a chemist would know how to do it. Having said that, a person of education, able to obtain the right books, could learn what to do, but they would then need the right materials and equipment, and some private place where they would not be observed.’

‘You couldn’t just sieve it out or pick it out with a pin, or some such?’

Frances smiled. ‘I wouldn’t care to try,’ she said.

‘And then,’ said Cedric, ‘having somehow obtained the poison, it would have to be introduced into the bottle without disturbing the wrapping or the cork.’ He shook his head. ‘If Keane did all this unseen, while not even in the same house, he is a much cleverer fellow than I had imagined him. I am only surprised, Miss Doughty, that you do not suspect me.’

‘Why is that?’

‘I
had
thought that I was mentioned in my brother’s will, which gives me ample motive, and of course the fact that I was in Paris at the time of his death, is not, to your method of reasoning, an obstacle to my guilt. Then, of course, my origins must certainly enhance my status as a suspect – born in Italy, the land of the Borgias, where arsenic may be purchased on any street corner and used to dispatch your enemies with impunity.’

‘Your brother left a very great fortune. Was the amount a surprise to you?’

‘No. I knew he lived well in London, I saw that for myself when I last visited.’

‘And the source of his wealth was the business he inherited from his grandfather?’

‘Yes.’

Frances looked at him carefully but could find no indication that he was stating other than what he believed to be the truth about his brother’s fortune.

‘Did you see the business for yourself?’

‘No, I am a great deal younger than Percy, and did not start my travels until after he came to London.’

‘It must have been a very large business,’ she ventured, ‘since he seems to have lived very comfortably from the capital ever since.’

He smiled. ‘Miss Doughty, you are not a lady who asks frivolous questions, just to make a noise. You have reasons of your own, ones which can be mysterious to others.’

Frances did not feel she could suggest to Cedric that his brother might have been a part of James Keane’s fraudulent schemes. ‘I was wondering if your brother had other business interests in London, perhaps a partnership with James Keane. He may have uncovered Mr Keane’s criminal activities and tasked him about them. Then Mr Keane could have got a confederate to poison him.’

Cedric leaned back, thoughtfully. ‘Ah – I see – scandal, bribery, corruption, and the love of filthy lucre, all leading to murder most foul. What a mind you have, Miss Doughty! You’ll be suggesting next that my brother had a beautiful mistress, who tried to poison Henrietta to dispose of her rival, only to mistakenly kill the man whose heart she most desired.’ He placed the back of his hand to his forehead in a theatrical pose. ‘She is, even now, declining in an attic room somewhere, just prior to throwing herself into the Thames.’

Frances looked at him disapprovingly.

‘I know you will say these are fanciful ideas, but no less fanciful than the one you have suggested to me,’ he said, more seriously. ‘Sad to say, life is not a work of fiction. Drama is something that happens on the stage, melodrama doubly so.’ He adopted a gloomy expression. ‘How I wish that were not the case.’

‘You are mocking me,’ she said.

He threw up his hands in despair. ‘Oh, what is a fellow to do in this place?’

‘I am sure I cannot be the best entertainment London can offer.’

‘Better than Mr Marsden with whom I had an appointment half an hour ago. How I dislike the man! My solicitor; who looks upon the world as something he can suck dry. Would you believe, I am deputed by my family to try and overturn Percy’s will, and must remain here until I succeed? Please, Miss Doughty, I beg of you, save me from boredom, it is a fate that harrows my soul.’

‘I was unaware that you had pressing business and will keep you from it no longer,’ said Frances, rising. ‘Only brace yourself for the ordeal and think how much brighter the world will look when you emerge from Mr Marsden’s office.’

She thanked him politely for the tea and he thanked her warmly for the company, but before they parted she extracted a promise that he would try to arrange an interview with Henrietta Garton.

Frances returned home to find the shop once again crowded and Herbert looking at her resentfully. At the very first opportunity she consulted her Atlas, and was able to discover that Berkeley Castle was in Gloucestershire, within a very few miles of Tollington Mill.

That evening she was reading through her notes, and thinking that she would go back to the police station as early as possible the following morning, when Wilfred called. She was naturally pleased to see him and hoped, just for a moment, that Keane had at last confessed. His expression as he entered the parlour told her that the news was troubling.

‘Miss Doughty, I thought in view of your interest in the matter, you ought to be told – James Keane is dead. He was murdered earlier today.’

H
e was in the prison hospital,’ said Wilfred, quite unaware of the effect his words had had on Frances, who had just seen her hope of the reward money she needed to save the business unfold its wings and fly away. ‘The injury to his face wasn’t healing well, and he was in a lot of pain. He was resting in bed, under morphine, very drowsy, and not considered in need of constant watching as he was hardly in any position to attempt an escape. Yesterday he had a visitor, a clerk from Marsden’s solicitors, at least that was how the man represented himself, and he had all the right papers with him to prove that he was from there. And when he came to Mr Keane’s bedside it was obvious that Keane recognised him. The man had a great bundle of legal papers and he laid them over the bed and talked about them to Mr Keane. There was a warder and a nurse in the room at the time, but I suppose they were not as watchful as they might have been. They are being questioned now. When the man left Keane appeared to be sleeping, which was not, in the circumstances, very surprising, but when the nurse next checked him, he was dead. A small thin-bladed knife had been run into his heart. It would have been the work of a moment, and the papers must have hidden what was happening.’

Frances was silent for a while. ‘I disliked the man very much,’ she said at last, ‘but I would not have wanted this. Much that I needed to know will now be forever obscure. Has the murderer been identified?’

‘No, Miss. He was a tall young man, in his twenties, and appeared to be a respectable clerk of the type employed by a solicitor. He spoke well, seemed quite sane, and addressed Mr Keane by name. Naturally we spoke to Mr Marsden, who stated that he had not sent a clerk to see Mr Keane, and did not recognise in the description of the young man any employee of his.’

‘I suppose,’ said Frances, resignedly, ‘that there is no reason now why I should not tell you that I believed James Keane to be Lewis Cotter, the murderer of Mr Truin in 1869. I discovered that Mr Keane first came to London only days after the murder, and I have proof, which I obtained only today, that he was living under an assumed name.’ Frances showed the constable the information she had gleaned from Somerset House. ‘Mrs Keane will, I am sure, confirm that her husband had once told her of his humble connections, and also confided to her that James Keane was not the name he was born with. I hope now that she will be able to re-think the evidence she gave at the coroner’s court, and admit her mistake.’