Behold Here's Poison Read online

  Contrary to the expectations of his relatives he did not put in an appearance at the Inquest next morning, a circumstance which caused his three aunts to form a whole-hearted if brief alliance. Mrs Lupton supposed him to be ashamed to look her in the face, but considered that decency should have compelled him to be present; Miss Matthews read in his absence a deliberate slight to his uncle’s memory; and Mrs Matthews, more charitable, feared that there was a callous streak in his nature, due, no doubt, to his youth.

  The other members of the family all attended the Inquest. Even Owen Crewe came, though reluctantly. Agnes, looking brightly cheerful, but speaking in the hushed tones she considered suitable to the occasion, explained audibly to her mother that she had had quite a fight with Owen to get him to come, but had felt that he really ought to, if only to support her.

  ‘I cannot see what the affair has to do with either of us,’ said Owen in the disagreeable voice of one dragged unwillingly from his work.

  ‘I suppose you will permit Agnes to feel some concern in her uncle’s death?’ said Mrs Lupton austerely.

  Owen, who never embarked on an argument with his mother-in-law, merely replied: ‘I can see no reason why I should be called upon to waste an entire morning over it,’ and moved away to a seat as far removed from her as possible. When he discovered that Randall was not present he gave a short laugh, and said: ‘Wise man!’ the only effect of which was to make his wife say with unimpaired jollity that Owen was always cross in the mornings.

  Mrs Rumbold, beside whom Owen had seated himself, said in a confidential voice: ‘It is kind of horrid, isn’t it? I mean, knowing poor Mr Matthews, and all.’

  Owen looked round at her with the instinctive distrust of a shy man accosted by a stranger, and said: ‘Quite,’ in a stiff voice.

  Mrs Rumbold smiled dazzlingly. ‘You don’t remember me, do you? Well, I’m sure I don’t know why you should! My name’s Rumbold. We knew poor Mr Matthews very well. We live next door, you know.’

  Owen blushed, and half rose from his seat to shake hands. ‘Oh, of course! I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m very bad at remembering faces. How do you do? Er – very nice of you to come.’

  ‘Well, we sort of felt we had to,’ whispered Mrs Rumbold. ‘I must say I’m not one for this sort of thing myself, but those two poor old dears wanted Ned – that’s my husband – to come, so here we are. Ned doesn’t think anything much will happen, though.’

  ‘Nothing at all, I should imagine,’ replied Owen, dwelling fondly on the thought of Mrs Matthews’ emotions could she but have heard herself described as a poor old dear.

  ‘We’re not the only people outside the family here, that’s one thing,’ remarked Mrs Rumbold. ‘Half Grinley seems to have turned up. Just curiosity, if you ask me. Oh, there’s Dr Fielding come in! Well, he doesn’t look as if he was worrying much, I must say.’

  ‘No reason why he should,’ said Owen.

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Mrs Rumbold doubtfully. ‘I mean, he didn’t seem to know Mr Matthews had been poisoned, and him a doctor! Ned keeps on telling me no one can blame him, but what I say is, if he’s a doctor he ought to have known. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Really, I don’t understand these matters,’ replied Owen, who, though not particularly observant, had by this time taken in not only Mrs Rumbold’s blue eyelashes, but also her arresting picture-hat, with its trail of huge pink roses, and was in consequence feeling acutely self-conscious at being seen with anyone so spectacular. He said something about wanting to have a word with his father-in-law, and retreated to a place beside Henry Lupton just as the Coroner came into court.

  The Inquest, in the opinions of those people who had come to it in the hopes of witnessing a thrilling drama, was most disappointing. Beecher was called first, and described how he had found his master’s body on the morning of the 15th May. Very few questions were asked him, and he soon stood down to give place to Dr Fielding.

  It was generally felt that the proceedings were now going to become more interesting, and a little stir ran through the court-room as the doctor got up. Several ladies thought that he looked very handsome, and one or two people confided to their neighbours, very much as Mrs Rumbold had done, that he looked as cool as a cucumber.

  He was indeed perfectly self-possessed, and gave his evidence with easy assurance, and no waste of words. Questioned, he admitted that he had not discovered, upon a cursory examination, anything about the body incompatible with his first verdict of death from syncope. He became rather technical, and one half of his audience thought: Well, even doctors can’t know everything; while the other half adhered to its belief that doctors ought to know everything. Questioned further, Fielding gave a still more technical description of the cardiac trouble for which he had been treating the deceased. When asked what circumstances had led him to communicate his patient’s death to the Coroner he said at once: ‘The dissatisfaction expressed by a member of the family with my diagnosis.’

  This reply, delivered though it was in a calm voice, caused another stir to run through the court-room. It was felt that the details of some shocking family scandal were at any moment going to come to light, and when Mrs Lupton got up to give her evidence everyone stared at her hopefully, and waited in pent silence to hear what she was going to divulge.

  But Mrs Lupton, who made nearly as good a witness as the doctor, divulged nothing. She knew of no reason why her brother should have been poisoned; simply she had felt that his death had not been due to natural causes. No, she did not think she could explain why she had had this feeling. It had attacked her forcibly on her first sight of the corpse. Her instinct was seldom at fault.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ whispered Sergeant Hemingway to the Superintendent.

  Mrs Lupton sat down amid a general feeling of disappointment. People eyed the rest of the Matthews family, wondering which of them would next be called. The Coroner said something to the Clerk, and Superintendent Hannasyde finally annihilated all hope in the breasts of the curious by getting up and asking for an adjournment pending police inquiries. This was granted, and there was nothing left for the disgusted spectators to do except go home, and indulge their imaginations in a good deal of fruitless surmise.

  Owen Crewe, threading his way out of the court-room in the wake of his wife, said into her ear: ‘I told you you were wasting your time,’ and began to feel much more amiable, and forbore to snub Janet when she squeezed her way up to him and announced that she was so thankful nothing more had happened. Once outside the building he firmly declined an invitation to lunch with his mother-in-law, told his wife that while she might do as she pleased he had every intention of returning to town, and walked off purposefully to where he had parked his car. Agnes would have liked to have talked it all over with her mother, but as her ideal of matrimony was founded largely on the theory that wives should whenever possible accompany their husbands, she bade her family a regretful farewell and went dutifully away with Owen.

  Miss Matthews, who had attended the Inquest armed with a shopping-basket and a list of groceries, darted off in the direction of the High Street; and Mrs Matthews, leaning slightly on her son’s arm, smiled wanly on those of her acquaintance whom she happened to notice, and proclaimed her utter spiritual exhaustion. ‘I feel,’ she said in a solemn voice, ‘that I must have just a little interval of quiet. Stella dear, I wonder if you can see Pullen anywhere?’

  ‘Yes, he’s waiting on the other side of the square,’ said Stella.

  ‘Tell him to bring the car here, dearest. Oh, he has seen us!’ She turned to bestow one expensively gloved hand on Edward Rumbold. ‘I haven’t thanked you for coming,’ she said deeply. ‘I think you know what we feel. To know that one had a friend at one’s side during that terrible ordeal – ! Is it foolish of me to be so sensitive? To me it was an agony of the spirit. All those hundreds of eyes, fixed on one!’ She shuddered, held Mr Rumbold’s hand an instant longer, and then released it. ‘If only one could feel that one