With All My Worldly Goods (13 page)

He smiled faintly then.

“I’m not your guardian any more. To-day you become your own mistress.”

“Why, so I did.” Leonora felt very gay and high-spirited about it. “Now
I
can order
you
about. Eat up your supper,” and she held out the plate of sandwiches to him.

He shook his head.

“No. Those were specially for you, I think. I don’t like that sort of thing.”

But she noticed that he didn’t seem to like anything else specially, either. At any rate, he ate scarcely anything, and just sat there looking very serious. She wondered a little whether it were because he was no longer her guardian, or whether he had really taken her absurd remarks about dying very much to heart.

In any case, she couldn’t bear that he should look so grave about anything, so she kissed him and thanked him very earnestly for “a lovely birthday”. And then they went to bed.

The next day, Leonora had another spell of feeling very unwell. The same queer sensation of being chilled and lifeless. “As though I can’t quite decide to be a corpse,” Leonora reflected.

Again she said nothing, even to Agatha, because she didn’t like to make a fuss. “But, really I don’t know what is the
matter
with me,” she thought—half worried and half impatient “It isn’t as thought I’m a delicate sort of person. I’m never ill in the ordinary way.”

Later in the week she went with Bruce to see Mr. Meerwell, and to have the various documents connected with her inheritance handed over to her.

It was all rather absurd and formal, really, she thought It didn’t amount to much more than having the papers shown to her, and then solemnly deposited in a shiny black deed box marked “Leonora Mickleham” in white letters.

Afterwards she noticed that Bruce was signing one paper that was not put in her box.

“Isn’t that mine too?” she asked interestedly.

“No,” he told her, smiling. “That is very much mine.”

“What is it?”

He pinched her cheek rather hard—because of her curiosity, she supposed.

“That is my will.”

“Oh,” She looked serious.

“I’ll just call my senior clerk as the other witness,” Mr. Meerwell said.

“Couldn’t I witness it?” Leonora wanted to know.

“No, you couldn’t,” Bruce told her.

“Certainly not,” Mr. Meerwell said, rather scandalized. “If a beneficiary witnesses a will it automatically invalidates whatever bequest has been made to him or her.”

“Oh.” Leonora felt rather small, but Bruce smiled at her. “Am I a beneficiary then?” she whispered rather flippantly, but she squeezed his hand very hard.

“Of course. The only one, you little goose.”

“You mean you’ve left me—”

“Everything I have,” he said simply.

“
Bruce
!” She was terribly impressed. And she stood by in awed silence while the signature was witnessed.

Then she suddenly said:

“Can I make a will, too, please?”

Bruce frowned.

“It isn’t necessary,” he said quickly, though she saw he was faintly amused at her way of broaching the subject.

“It is always wiser for any person of property to make a will,” Mr. Meerwell said.

“Always,” murmured the senior clerk, like an echo.

“Then I’ll make one please,” she said.

“Perhaps you would like to make an appointment to see me one afternoon, and we could draw it up,” Mr. Meerwell suggested.

Leonora looked surprised.

“Oh, but that won’t be necessary, will it? I just want to leave everything to my husband.”

“Lora—” Bruce looked rather distressed.

But Mr. Meerwell said: “Then that could be very easily managed. If you like to call in any time tomorrow afternoon, we will have it ready and it can be signed and witnessed then.”

Mr. Meerwell, she noticed, made no reference whatever to her previous talk about buying an estate. Probably he thought with satisfaction that the sensible husband had scotched that.

Martin, however, proved less tactful than Mr. Meerwell when she next saw him.

They met quite by accident when she was sauntering up Regent Street one morning, savouring the still unfamiliar pleasure of knowing that she could afford to buy more or less whatever she fancied.

“Lora dear! This is luck!”

Martin was standing before her, and when he begged her to come and have coffee with him, she agreed at once.

“Well”—he looked at her with a great deal of pleasure, when he had her sitting opposite him—“you decided not to be a landed proprietor after all?”

“Oh—” Leonora colored rather. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t know for certain, of course,” Martin told her with a smile. “I only know that you didn’t buy Farron.”

“Oh yes, of course. You’d be bound to know that.” Leonora hesitated. “Has—has anyone else bought it, Martin?”

Martin shook his head.

“No. It’s not specially likely to go by private treaty, and the auction won’t come off until some time in the spring. You don’t get many of the big sales round about this time of year.”

“I see.”

Martin looked at her thoughtful face.

“Why? You’re not still hankering after it, are you?” he said, but his smile was a little anxious.

“Oh no. You see—you see, Bruce wasn’t at all keen on the idea of my buying it.”

“No?” Martin hesitated. Then he said: “Well, Lora, as I’ve said some hard things on impulse about your Bruce in the past, let me say in all fairness now that I respect him for that.”

Leonora smiled. And then quite suddenly she put up her hand to her head.

“Isn’t it rather hot in here?” she exclaimed.

“No—not very.” Martin looked at her sharply. “Lora dear, aren’t you well?”

“Oh yes—quite. Only—”

“Only what?”

“Sometimes I have felt very queer in the last few months,” she admitted suddenly.

“My dear girl”—he was most concerned—“why don’t you go to a doctor? Or have you been?”

“No. I haven’t been. It seems—oh, rather a fuss about nothing, you know.”

“No, it doesn’t”, Martin assured her earnestly. “It’s always silly to go on feeling ill without doing anything about it. When did you first notice this?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Leonora was slightly amused at his seriousness. “At least—yes, I do. About a week or ten days before my wedding.”

“So long ago? Lora, do go to a doctor.”

“I don’t know of one,” Leonora protested.

“Well, come with me now to my friend, Meredith Brindbent. He‘s a frightfully clever chap and very nice. Martin was tremendously in earnest.

“All right.” Leonora gave in, and allowed Martin to summon a taxi and take her to his friend Meredith Brindbent.

On the way, Martin chatted with a determined cheerfulness that half amused and half touched her.

“He’s really frightened about me, poor Martin,” she thought. “I believe he imagines there is something quite seriously wrong. How funny men are.”

Dr. Brindbent was a rather grave man, with a very pleasant smile. He greeted them both very cordially, and after a few minutes’ conversation, he took Leonora away with him into his consulting-room.

He appeared to question her quite casually, but she found she had told him every detail by the end. And then he made her go over the symptoms again with extreme exactness.

At the end he said:

“Had you any special reason for coming to me personally, Mrs. Mickleham?”

Leonora looked surprised.

“No, none. Except that you were a friend of Martin’s and he wanted me to come to you.”

“I see. It had nothing to do with the fact that I have had special experience abroad?”

“Why no. I didn’t know you had,” she said with a smile. He didn’t answer her smile, but perhaps he believed in perfect seriousness in the consulting-room.

“Have you ever lived abroad yourself?” he wanted to know.

“No.” Leonora began to think he was asking some very queer questions.

“Never visited any of the tropical or sub-tropical countries?”

“No.”

“Have any of the people in your house?”

“Well—my husband lived in Mexico for many years. Does that count?”

“It most certainly does,” the doctor assured her. There was a slight pause, during which Leonora wondered if it would be rude to suggest that these questions hadn’t much to do with her being run down.

“Is your husband at all a careless man, Mrs. Mickleham?” Dr. Brindbent said unexpectedly.

Leonora could not conceal her surprise.

“No,” she said at last. “I don’t think I should call him at all a careless man. Rather the reverse.”

“Hm. Has he any special hobby? Does he carry out anything like—botanical experiments, for instance?”

“Good heavens no.”

“Does any one in your house?”

“No. Really, Dr. Brindbent, surely these are rather queer questions to ask in order to settle a simple ailment.”

“You are not suffering from a simple ailment, Mrs. Mickleham,” the doctor said gravely.

Leonora caught her breath.

“Do you mean I have something seriously wrong?” The doctor was silent for a moment.

“I am very reluctant to speak candidly to you, but I think I must,” he said at last. “There are one or two simple ailments which could account for
some
of your symptoms, but none which will account for
all.
The only thing I know that will cover all the facts which you have given me is that—accidentally or otherwise—you are being slowly poisoned.”

Leonora stared at him in speechless amazement. And then—“Poisoned,” she repeated shakily, unable to believe that she had heard the word aright.

The doctor bowed his head.

“The extraordinary thing is,” he went on very gravely, “that there is no suggestion of the use of any common, well-known poison. If I had not worked abroad so much I could not identify it so positively. But, as it is, every symptom you have described to me points to the use of a poison almost unknown in this country.” He paused again, and then added almost apologetically it seemed: “I myself have never come across it but in one place—and that is Central America.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Very slowly
Leonora drew away from the doctor, as far as the back of her chair would permit. She never took her eyes off his face, and her own cheeks were deathly pale.

At last she found her voice, though it was not very much like her own voice when it came.

“Dr. Brindbent, are you suggesting—”

The doctor immediately put up his hand and stopped her.

“I am not suggesting anything at all, Mrs. Mickleham. It would be exceedingly improper of me to do so with my partial knowledge of the situation. All I am doing is to give you the medical interpretation of the symptoms you have described.”

“But—what you said just now—about this—this poison being known only in Central America—” Leonora found it impossible to go on.

The doctor shrugged deprecatingly.

“There again I am merely stating something as seen through my own experience.”

“You mean you might be wrong?” Leonora snatched at that, but she saw it was not an explanation which appealed to the doctor.

“Nobody but a fool insists that a mistake is impossible in
anything
,” he said. “But, so far as it is humanly possible, to be so, I am certain that you—”

“Yes, yes. Don’t say it again,” Leonora exclaimed sharply, and the doctor was silent.

There was a big clock in the room, and its solemn, monotonous tick sounded immense in the silence. She stared at the large, white face of the clock, and she thought: “It is ticking my life away.”

Presently the figures and hands seemed to blur and run together. She heard Dr. Brindbent’s voice again without being able to distinguish the words.

Then, after an indistinct moment or two, she felt the rim of a glass against her lips, and Dr. Brindbent was saying encouragingly: “Come along now. Drink this.”

She drank obediently, and the mists began to clear from her mind.

“Feeling better?” He took her wrist lightly in his hand. “Yes, thank you.”

“That’s right. Don’t bother about anything just now. Simply lie quiet for a bit.”

“But I’m all right again, really. And I think—we must talk.” She pushed back her hair and sat up. “You see—you see, we can’t exactly leave things as they are, can we?”

“No,” the doctor agreed. “We can’t leave things just as they are, if you feel able to discuss them.”

He sat down again opposite her, but he still held her wrist.

I am very sorry you should have had to have this nasty shock, but there was really no way of telling you which would not have had the same effect.”

“No, I know. That part doesn’t matter now.” Leonora brushed it aside. “The thing is—you say you are certain I am being poisoned.” She got it out without a tremor now. “It must, of course, be something quite accidental.” She looked challengingly at the doctor.

“That is the explanation which we should most earnestly hope to find,” he agreed. “On the other hand”—he paused—“it is a little difficult to know how the accident could go on repeating itself.”

“You mean it happened more than once?”

Oh yes. One dose of any poison could scarcely go on having those effects over so long a period, you know.” She was silent, and then said reluctantly:

“No, of course not. I see that.”

“And it isn’t,” the doctor pointed out deprecatingly, “as though it is slow food poisoning or verdigris poisoning, or anything which could be traced to a—so to speak—natural cause.”

“You mean I’ve got to face the fact that probably someone is—deliberately poisoning me?”

The doctor didn’t answer that directly, and just for a moment the whole thing became so fantastic that she wanted to laugh hysterically and say:

“Isn’t this all perfectly idiotic?”

But nothing in the doctor’s face encouraged laughter, and after a moment or two he asked:

“Have you any very good friend outside your own immediate household? Anyone in whom you have complete confidence, I mean?”

“Oh yes—Martin.” There was no hesitation in Leonora’s manner.

“Have I your permission to call him in? You see, I don’t think you ought to stand entirely alone in this, and—”

“But it’s like being disloyal. I couldn’t possibly suggest—that is—” Leonora broke off helplessly.

Dr. Brindbent patted her hand.

“I know this is a horrible business for you, but it would be absurd for us to pretend that you are in anything but a most serious position. And, as things are, it is worse than useless to consult
anyone
actually in your house. If you have a woman friend in whom you would rather confide, I quite appreciate your feelings, but, frankly, a man would be much better in the circumstances.”

There was a heavy silence, and then she said:

“You had better call in Martin.”

Something in Dr. Brindbent’s face must have conveyed the gravity of the position to Martin, for he looked a little pale and very anxious when he came in.

“Lora dear, what is it? Is something seriously wrong?”

“No, no I’m not seriously ill. Don’t look like that.” And then, after a moment: “Will you please—explain, Dr. Brindbent.”

“It’s a curious and very distressing business,” the doctor told Martin gravely, “but it seems practically certain to me that Mrs. Mickleham is being poisoned—”

“Poisoned!” The dark color flooded into Martin’s face and then away again, leaving it whiter than before.

“And, unfortunately, there seems very little possibility of accident,” the doctor finished.

Leonora expected some sort of violent outburst of anger from Martin, perhaps even accusations against Bruce. But there was nothing of that, and she got the impression that in the utter seriousness of the situation he had managed to put aside personal feeling.

“I thought it best that, as a trusted friend of Mrs. Mickleham, you should be present while we discuss things.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you, Lora, for your confidence.” He touched her hand for a moment, and at that she clutched his fingers, as though she must have some sort of support.

“All right, my dear,” he said reassuringly, and let her keep his hand at once.

Then Dr. Brindbent took up the questioning once more.

“I’m extremely sorry to have to make such personal inquiries,” he told Leonora earnestly, “but we can scarcely arrive at any conclusion without them. Is there anyone who would benefit materially from your death?”

Leonora felt terribly sick.

“My money is all willed to my husband,” she said stonily.

“And it amounts to a good deal?”

“Seventy thousand pounds.” Leonora hated the sound of that phrase by now. It seemed like an evil spell.

“He knows this of course?”

“Yes.”

She glanced at Martin, but he was keeping his face carefully expressionless, which helped a good deal.

“Do you mind telling me who else is living in the house?” Dr. Brindbent said.

“Apart from the servants, just my sister-in-law and, at the moment, a Mrs. Dymster is staying with us.”

“Is it at all possible that one of the servants has a grudge against you? We have to take into account the fact that we are dealing with some abnormal person, so that even, say, a small jealousy might be sufficient cause.”

Leonora though carefully, almost hoping to recall some friction somewhere. But there was none, and after a moment she shook her head.

“No. I get on perfectly well with all of them, and as they are not directly under me—they are my sister-in-law’s servants you see—they don’t have very much to do with me, really.”

“I see. And this Mrs.—what is it?—Dymster. Are you on good terms with her?”

“Oh certainly. In any case, she’s so meek and unobtrusive that you couldn’t imagine—”

“I’m afraid that hasn’t very much to do with it, Mrs. Mickleham,” Dr. Brindbent said with a slight smile. “Poisoning is not a thing that advertises itself in the person’s manner.”

Something about that turned Leonora very cold again. There was nothing in Bruce’s manner, of course, to support—Nothing, nothing, nothing—But they were talking about Millicent Dymster. She was the one virtually on trial in their minds at the moment, and it was necessary to remember every detail about her.

“No. It’s quite impossible,” Leonora said after a moment. “You see, the—the symptoms started long before she was staying in our house.”

That did seem to rule out Millicent—which brought them to Agatha.

“What are your relations with your sister-in-law, Mrs. Mickleham? Do you get on quite well with her?”

“I get on very well with my sister-in-law,” she said tonelessly. “We’re really very fond of each other.”

“Yes—I see.” Dr. Brindbent sounded soothing. “Is your husband her only brother?”

“Yes.”

“And she is devoted to him?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“There has never been any suspicion of jealousy of you?”

“No. Really—really, it’s quite a preposterous idea. If you only knew—nobody could have been nicer or—or more delighted when I married him—” Leonora broke off in great distress. It was unthinkable that what she was doing was defending Agatha from a charge of trying to kill her. Only, if it were not Agatha—

“It’s no good,” she cried almost hysterically. “It must be a mistake. Some dreadful, incredible mistake. Don’t you see that what you’re asking me to say is that either my husband or my sister-in-law has been trying to murder me? Oh, it’s like a nightmare. It
must
be a mistake!”

“I only wish I could think so,” the doctor said, and there was an uncomfortable silence.

Then Martin cleared his throat and asked the doctor: “Do you know what—what poison it is that has been used?”

The doctor said: “Yes. I can identify it positively, but it is almost unknown in England.”

Martin whitened again.

“Where
is
it known?”

“Central America,” the doctor replied curtly.

“God!” said Martin rather hoarsely.

“I know what you’re both thinking,” Leonora cried wildly. “But it isn’t true! It couldn’t possibly be true! My husband loves me. He loves me, I tell you. He does love me!”

“Hush!” Dr. Brindbent said sharply, and the hysteria died down again. “You must not suppose that we are trying to fasten this horrible thing on anyone. We can only follow where the facts point. And, for your own sake, we must do that.”

“Only, you’re getting suspicious—quite unfair suspicions—and it’s so dangerous. People get arrested for that sort of thing—” She stopped and put the back of her hand against her mouth. Another dreadful stage of the proceedings had been put into words.

But Dr. Brindbent answered that a trifle curtly.

“My dear Mrs. Mickleham, I am not a police officer. I am a medical man. My business is to find out why my patients are ill, and to prevent the cause. Perhaps it will reassure you a little if you keep that in mind.”

“I’m sorry,” Leonora said much more quietly, and she was relieved to feel Martin squeeze her fingers. Then, after a minute: “Was there anything else you wanted to ask?” she said a little timidly to the doctor.

He looked at her very kindly then.

“You poor girl, this must be a dreadful ordeal for you. But if we could get at
all
the facts we might come on something entirely reassuring, you know.”

“Yes. That’s true” A faint—a very faint—hope struggled in Leonora’s heart.

“Can you recall any distinct occasion on which you felt genuinely ill, apart from this general lassitude?” Dr. Brindbent asked thoughtfully.

“Yes,” Leonora said, thinking back carefully. “Yes. There were three occasions at least.”

“Ah!” The doctor looked interested. “Now just think very carefully. Were these occasions preceded by anything—anything at all—which was common to all three of them?”

Leonora thought obediently.

On two of the occasions there had been a terrible emotional upset beforehand of course but that scarcely counted Then the first time—the first time he had brought her hot milk in bed, and she had said it had a funny taste.

And the second time? The second time, too, he had brought her something—soup, wasn’t it?

Then the third time? What had she to remember about the third time? It was that night they had come home from the opera.

Quite clearly there rose before her a picture of her self laughing and holding out a plate of sandwiches to Bruce. And he had shaken his head and said. “No. Those are specially for you.”

For a moment she thought she was going to faint again. But she must not do that. They were watching her so closely, those two.

They didn’t appear to her as friends any longer. They were just there to trap Bruce, and she must outwit them. She must be very wary.

“No,” she said quite clearly. “No. I can’t think of anything at all which happened on all three occasions.”

“Are you sure?” Martin sounded terribly worried. “I thought just now, from your expression—”

“No.” Leonora spoke almost coldly. “I thought at first that I had remembered something, but I was wrong.” She was surprised at the calm with which she said that.