She was interrupted by the arrival of the doctor.
The doctor was looking worried. He replied to Susan’s inquiry by saying that Miss Gilchrist was much better.
“She’ll be out and around in a couple of days,” he said. “But it was lucky I got called in so promptly. Otherwise—it might have been a near thing.”
Susan stared. “Was she really so bad?”
“Mrs. Banks, will you tell me again exactly what Miss Gilchrist had to eat and drink yesterday. Everything.”
Susan reflected and gave a meticulous account. The doctor shook his head in a dissatisfied manner.
“There must have been something she had and you didn’t?”
“I don’t think so… Cakes, scones, jam, tea—and then supper. No, I can’t remember anything.”
The doctor rubbed his nose. He walked up and down the room.
“Was it definitely something she ate? Definitely food poisoning?”
The doctor threw her a sharp glance. Then he seemed to come to a decision.
“It was arsenic,” he said.
“Arsenic?” Susan started. “You mean somebody gave her arsenic?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Could she have taken it herself? Deliberately, I mean?”
“Suicide? She says not and she should know. Besides, if she wanted to commit suicide she wouldn’t be likely to choose arsenic. There are sleeping pills in this house. She could have taken an overdose of them.”
“Could the arsenic have got into something by accident?”
“That’s what I’m wondering. It seems very unlikely, but such things have been known. But if you and she ate the same things—”
Susan nodded. She said, “It all seems impossible—” then she gave a sudden gasp. “Why, of course, the wedding cake!”
“What’s that? Wedding cake?”
Susan explained. The doctor listened with close attention.
“Odd. And you say she wasn’t sure who sent it? Any of it left? Or is the box it came in lying around?”
“I don’t know. I’ll look.”
They searched together and finally found the white cardboard box with a few crumbs of cake still in it lying on the kitchen dresser. The doctor packed it away with some care.
“I’ll take charge of this. Any idea where the wrapping paper it came in might be?”
Here they were not successful and Susan said that it had probably gone into the Ideal boiler.
“You won’t be leaving here just yet, Mrs. Banks?”
His tone was genial, but it made Susan feel a little uncomfortable.
“No, I have to go through my aunt’s things. I shall be here for a few days.”
“Good. You understand the police will probably want to ask some questions. You don’t know of anyone who—well, might have had it in for Miss Gilchrist?”
Susan shook her head.
“I don’t really know much about her. She was with my aunt for some years—that’s all I know.”
“Quite, quite. Always seemed a pleasant unassuming woman—quite ordinary. Not the kind, you’d say, to have enemies or anything melodramatic of that kind. Wedding cake through the post. Sounds like some jealous woman—but who’d be jealous of Miss Gilchrist? Doesn’t seem to fit.”
“No.”
“Well, I must be on my way. I don’t know what’s happening to us in quiet little Lytchett St. Mary. First a brutal murder and now attempted poisoning through the post. Odd, the one following the other.”
He went down the path to his car. The cottage felt stuffy and Susan left the door standing open as she went slowly upstairs to resume her task.
Cora Lansquenet had not been a tidy or methodical woman. Her drawers held a miscellaneous assortment of things. There were toilet accessories and letters and old handkerchiefs and paint brushes mixed up together in one drawer. There were a few old letters and bills thrust in amongst a bulging drawer of underclothes. In another drawer under some woollen jumpers was a cardboard box holding two false fringes. There was another drawer full of old photographs and sketching books. Susan lingered over a group taken evidently at some French place many years ago and which showed a younger, thinner Cora clinging to the arm of a tall lanky man with a straggling beard dressed in what seemed to be a velveteen coat and whom Susan took to be the late Pierre Lansquenet.
The photographs interested Susan, but she laid them aside, sorted all the papers she had found into a heap and began to go through them methodically. About a quarter way through she came to a letter. She read it through twice and was still staring at it when a voice speaking behind her caused her to give a cry of alarm.
“And what may you have got hold of there, Susan? Hallo, what’s the matter?”
Susan reddened with annoyance. Her cry of alarm had been quite involuntary and she felt ashamed and anxious to explain.
“George? How you startled me!”
Her cousin smiled lazily.
“So it seems.”
“How did you get here?”
“Well, the door downstairs was open, so I walked in. There seemed to be nobody about on the ground floor, so I came up here. If you mean how did I get to this part of the world, I started down this morning to come to the funeral.”
“I didn’t see you there?”
“The old bus played me up. The petrol feed seemed choked. I tinkered with it for some time and finally it seemed to clear itself. I was too late for the funeral by then, but I thought I might as well come on down. I knew you were here.”
He paused, and then went on:
“I rang you up, as a matter of fact, and Greg told me you’d come down to take possession, as it were. I thought I might give you a hand.”
Susan said, “Aren’t you needed in the office? Or can you take days off whenever you like?”
“A funeral has always been a recognized excuse for absenteeism. And this funeral is indubitably genuine. Besides, a murder always fascinates people. Anyway, I shan’t be going much to the office in future—not now that I’m a man of means. I shall have better things to do.”
He paused and grinned, “Same as Greg,” he said.
Susan looked at George thoughtfully. She had never seen much of this cousin of hers and when they did meet she had always found him rather difficult to make out.
She asked, “Why did you really come down here, George?”
“I’m not sure it wasn’t to do a little detective work. I’ve been thinking a good deal about the last funeral we attended. Aunt Cora certainly threw a spanner into the works that day. I’ve wondered whether it was sheer irresponsibility and auntly joie de vivre that prompted her words, or whether she really had something to go upon. What actually is in that letter that you were reading so attentively when I came in?”
Susan said slowly, “It’s a letter that Uncle Richard wrote to Cora after he’d been down here to see her.”
How very black George’s eyes were. She’d thought of them as brown but they were black, and there was something curiously impenetrable about black eyes. They concealed the thoughts that lay behind them.
George drawled slowly. “Anything interesting in it?”
“No, not exactly….”
“Can I see?”
She hesitated for a moment, then put the letter into his outstretched hand.
He read it, skimming over the contents in a low monotone.
“Glad to have seen you again after all these years…looking very well…had a good journey home and arrived back not too tired….”
His voice changed suddenly, sharpened:
“Please don’t say anything to anyone about what I told you. It may be a mistake. Your loving brother, Richard.”
He looked up at Susan. “What does that mean?”
“It might mean anything… It might be just about his health. Or it might be some gossip about a mutual friend.”
“Oh yes, it might be a lot of things. It isn’t conclusive—but it’s suggestive… What did he
tell Cora? Does anyone know what he told her?”
“Miss Gilchrist might know,” said Susan thoughtfully. “I think she listened.”
“Oh, yes, the companion help. Where is she, by the way?”
“In hospital, suffering from arsenic poisoning.”
George stared.
“You don’t mean it?”
“I do. Someone sent her some poisoned wedding cake.”
George sat down on one of the bedroom chairs and whistled.
“It looks,” he said, “as though Uncle Richard was not mistaken.”
III
On the following morning Inspector Morton called at the cottage.
He was a quiet middle-aged man with a soft country burr in his voice. His manner was quiet and unhurried, but his eyes were shrewd.
“You realize what this is about, Mrs. Banks?” he said. “Dr. Proctor has already told you about Miss Gilchrist. The few crumbs of wedding cake that he took from here have been analysed to show traces of arsenic.”
“So someone deliberately wanted to poison her?”
“That’s what it looks like. Miss Gilchrist herself doesn’t seem able to help us. She keeps repeating that it’s impossible—that nobody would do such a thing. But somebody did. You can’t throw any light on the matter?”
Susan shook her head.
“I’m simply dumbfounded,” she said. “Can’t you find out anything from the postmark? Or the handwriting?”
“You’ve forgotten—the wrapping paper was presumably burnt. And there’s a little doubt whether it came through the post at all. Young Andrews, the driver of the postal van, doesn’t seem able to remember delivering it. He’s got a big round, and he can’t be sure—but there it is—there’s a doubt about it.”
“But—what’s the alternative?”
“The alternative, Mrs. Banks, is that an old piece of brown paper was used that already had Miss Gilchrist’s name and address on it and a cancelled stamp, and that the package was pushed through the letter box or deposited inside the door by hand to create the impression that it had come by post.”
He added dispassionately:
“It’s quite a clever idea, you know, to choose wedding cake. Lonely middle-aged women are sentimental about wedding cake, pleased at having been remembered. A box of sweets, or something of that kind might have awakened suspicion.”
Susan said slowly:
“Miss Gilchrist speculated a good deal about who could have sent it, but she wasn’t at all suspicious—as you say, she was pleased and yes—flattered.”
She added: “Was there enough poison in it to—kill?”
“That’s difficult to say until we get the quantitative analysis. It rather depends on whether Miss Gilchrist ate the whole of the wedge. She seems to think that she didn’t. Can you remember?”
“No—no, I’m not sure. She offered me some and I refused and then she ate some and said it was a very good cake, but I don’t remember if she finished it or not.”
“I’d like to go upstairs if you don’t mind, Mrs. Banks.”
“Of course.”
She followed him up to Miss Gilchrist’s room. She said apologetically:
“I’m afraid it’s in a rather disgusting state. But I didn’t have time to do anything about it with my aunt’s funeral and everything, and then after Dr. Proctor came I thought perhaps I ought to leave it as it was.”
“That was very intelligent of you, Mrs. Banks. It’s not everyone who would have been so intelligent.”
He went to the bed and slipping his hand under the pillow raised it carefully. A slow smile spread over his face.
“There you are,” he said.
A piece of wedding cake lay on the sheet looking somewhat the worse for wear.
“How extraordinary,” said Susan.
“Oh no, it’s not. Perhaps your generation doesn’t do it. Young ladies nowadays mayn’t set so much store on getting married. But it’s an old custom. Put a piece of wedding cake under your pillow and you’ll dream of your future husband.”
“But surely Miss Gilchrist—”
“She didn’t want to tell us about it because she felt foolish doing such a thing at her age. But I had a notion that’s what it might be.” His face sobered. “And if it hadn’t been for an old maid’s foolishness, Miss Gilchrist mightn’t be alive today.”
“But who could have possibly wanted to kill her?”
His eyes met hers, a curious speculative look in them that made Susan feel uncomfortable.
“You don’t know?” he asked.
“No—of course I don’t.”
“It seems then as though we shall have to find out,” said Inspector Morton.
Twelve
Two elderly men sat together in a room whose furnishings were of the most modern kind. There were no curves in the room. Everything was square. Almost the only exception was Hercule Poirot himself who was full of curves. His stomach was pleasantly rounded, his head resembled an egg in shape, and his moustaches curved upwards in a flamboyant flourish.
He was sipping a glass of sirop and looking thoughtfully at Mr. Goby.
Mr. Goby was small and spare and shrunken. He had always been refreshingly nondescript in appearance and he was now so nondescript as practically not to be there at all. He was not looking at Poirot because Mr. Goby never looked at anybody.
Such remarks as he was now making seemed to be addressed to the left-hand corner of the chromium-plated fireplace curb.
Mr. Goby was famous for the acquiring of information. Very few people knew about him and very few employed his services—but those few were usually extremely rich. They had to be, for Mr. Goby was very expensive. His speciality was the acquiring of information quickly. At the flick of Mr. Goby’s double-jointed thumb, hundreds of patient questioning plodding men and women, old and young, of all apparent stations in life, were despatched to question, and probe, and achieve results.
Mr. Goby had now practically retired from business. But he occasionally “obliged” a few old patrons. Hercule Poirot was one of these.
“I’ve got what I could for you,” Mr. Goby told the fire curb in a soft confidential whisper. “I sent the boys out. They do what they can—good lads—good lads all of them, but not what they used to be in the old days. They don’t come that way nowadays. Not willing to learn, that’s what it is. Think they know everything after they’ve only been a couple of years on the job. And they work to time. Shocking the way they work to time.”
He shook his head sadly and shifted his gaze to an electric plug socket.
“It’s the Government,” he told it. “And all this education racket. It gives them ideas. They come back and tell us what they think. They can’t think, most of them, anyway. All they know is things out of books. That’s no good in our business. Bring in the answers—that’s all that’s needed—no thinking.”
Mr. Goby flung himself back in his chair and winked at a lampshade.
“Mustn’t crab the Government, though! Don’t know really what we’d do without it. I can tell you that nowadays you can walk in most anywhere with a notebook and pencil, dressed right, and speaking B.B.C., and ask people all the most intimate details of their daily lives and all their back history, and what they had for dinner on November 23rd because that was a test day for middleclass incomes—or whatever it happens to be (making it a grade above to butter them up!)—ask ’em any mortal thing you can; and nine times out of ten they’ll come across pat, and even the tenth time though they may cut up rough, they won’t doubt for a minute that you’re what you say you are—and that the Government really wants to know—for some completely unfathomable reason! I can tell you, M. Poirot,” said Mr. Goby, still talking to the lampshade, “that it’s the best line we’ve ever had; much better than reading the electric meter or tracing a fault in the telephone—yes, or than calling as nuns, or the Girl Guides or Boy Scouts asking for subscriptions—though we use all those too. Yes, Government snooping is God’s gift to investigators
and long may it continue!”
Poirot did not speak. Mr. Goby had grown a little garrulous with advancing years, but he would come to the point in his own good time.
“Ar,” said Mr. Goby, and took out a very scrubby little notebook. He licked his finger and flicked over the pages. “Here we are. Mr. George Crossfield. We’ll take him first. Just the plain facts. You won’t want to know how I got them. He’s been in Queer Street for quite a while now. Horses, mostly, and gambling—he’s not a great one for women. Goes over to France now and then, and Monte too. Spends a lot of time at the Casino. Too downy to cash cheques there, but gets hold of a lot more money than his travelling allowance would account for. I didn’t go into that, because it wasn’t what you want to know. But he’s not scrupulous about evading the law—and being a lawyer he knows how to do it. Some reason to believe he’s been using trust funds entrusted to him to invest. Plunging pretty wildly of late—on the Stock Exchange and on the gee-gees! Bad judgement and bad luck. Been off his feed badly for three months. Worried, bad-tempered and irritable in the office. But since his uncle’s death that’s all changed. He’s like the breakfast eggs (if we had ’em). Sunny side up!
“Now, as to particular information asked for. Statement that he was at Hurst Park races on the day in question almost certainly untrue. Almost invariably places bets with one or other of two bookies on the course. They didn’t see him that day. Possible that he left Paddington by train for destination unknown. Taxi driver who took fare to Paddington made doubtful identification of his photograph. But I wouldn’t bank on it. He’s a very common type—nothing outstanding about him. No success with porters, etc., at Paddington. Certainly didn’t arrive at Cholsey station—which is nearest for Lytchett St. Mary. Small station, strangers noticeable. Could have got out at Reading and taken bus. Buses there crowded, frequent and several routes go within a mile or so of Lytchett St. Mary as well as the bus service that goes right into the village. He wouldn’t take that—not if he meant business. All in all, he’s a downy card. Wasn’t seen in Lytchett St. Mary but he needn’t have been. Other ways of approach than through the village. Was in the OUDS at Oxford, by the way. If he went to the cottage that day he mayn’t have looked quite like the usual George Crossfield. I’ll keep him in my book, shall I? There’s a black market angle I’d like to play up.”