Behold Here's Poison Read online

  ‘Yes, she’s difficult,’ agreed Hannasyde. ‘It’s always hard when dealing with that type of woman to know when they’re speaking the truth as it was, and when they’re speaking of it as they think it was … Hullo, Hemingway!’

  Sergeant Hemingway, a brisk person with a pair of bright eyes and an engaging smile, who had been waiting for his chief outside the gate, fell into step beside him, and said cheerfully: ‘I’ll tell you something, Super. We aren’t going to like this case, not by a long chalk. You know what it smelt like in the servants’ quarters? Pea-soup!’

  The Inspector, who was not acquainted with Hemingway, looked a little puzzled, and said: ‘Eh?’

  ‘Figure of speech,’ explained the Sergeant. ‘Get anything your end, Super?’

  ‘Not much,’ replied Hannasyde. ‘It’s early yet.’

  ‘Early or late I don’t like poisoning cases,’ said the Sergeant. ‘Give me a nice clean bullet-wound where I’ve got something to go on, and not too many doctors to mess the case up disagreeing with one another! Ever handled a case of nicotine-poisoning before, Inspector?’

  ‘No, I can’t say I have,’ admitted the Inspector.

  ‘If I know anything about it you won’t want to handle another by the time we’re through with this,’ prophesied the Sergeant. ‘Nor me either. The Superintendent here doesn’t believe in premonitions, but I’ve got one right now.’

  ‘You’ve had them before,’ remarked Hannasyde unkindly.

  ‘I won’t say I haven’t,’ replied the Sergeant, quite unabashed. ‘This case remind you of anything, Super?’

  ‘No,’ said Hannasyde. ‘But you’d better tell me, and get it off your chest. What does it remind you of ?’

  The Sergeant cocked an eye at him. ‘The Vereker Case,’ he said.

  ‘The Vereker Case! That was a stabbing affair!’

  ‘I’m not saying it wasn’t, but when I got the hang of the décor here, and a squint at some of the dramatis personæ that’s what flashed across my mind.’

  ‘What I don’t like about it,’ said the Inspector slowly, ‘is this nicotine. It seems to me the doctors don’t properly understand it, judging from that report you showed me, Superintendent. I mean, if there wasn’t no more than a slight trace of it in the stomach, so as to make them think he can’t have swallowed much, and yet they find by the state of the blood – and the mouth, wasn’t it? – that –’

  ‘Mucous membrane and tongue,’ interjected the Sergeant knowledgeably. ‘They tell me you always look for nicotine in the mouth. Liver and kidneys too. It’s a mystery to me why anyone wants to be a doctor.’

  ‘Well, what I’m getting at is how did he have all that poison in his innards?’ said the Inspector.

  ‘It is quite possible,’ said Hannasyde, ‘that he didn’t swallow any poison at all.’

  ‘What?’ demanded the Inspector.

  ‘Cases have been known,’ continued Hannasyde, ‘where nicotine has either been injected subcutaneously, or even absorbed through the skin, with fatal results. There was apparently an instance once, years ago, of a whole squadron of Hussars being made ill by trying to smuggle tobacco next to their skins.’

  ‘There you are! What did I tell you?’ said the Sergeant. ‘Nice, simple case we’ve got when we don’t even know whether the poor fellow drank the dope or had it poured over him! One thing, it looks as though whoever did the murder knew a bit about poisons.’

  ‘Y-es. Or had read it up,’ said Hannasyde. ‘As far as I can see it ought not to be a very difficult matter – given a little chemical knowledge – to prepare nicotine. What did you get out of the servants, Hemingway?’

  ‘Plenty,’ answered the Sergeant promptly. ‘A sight too much for my taste. According to them any one of the family would have been glad of the chance to do old Matthews in. Proper sort of tyrant he seems to have been. The cook thinks it was Mrs Matthews, on account of the old man wanting to ship his nephew off to Brazil, but what’s the use of that? I don’t say it isn’t good psychology. It is. But so far I don’t get any sort of line on the Matthews dame. No evidence. Then there’s a classy bit of goods, calling herself Rose Daventry. If you was to ask me what I think about her, Super, I’d tell you only that I wouldn’t like to use a word that might shock the Inspector.’

  Inspector Davis grinned. ‘I know her,’ he said.

  ‘Well, she thinks the niece did it, because her uncle didn’t cotton to her marrying the doctor. At least, that’s the reason she gave me, but what she meant was that Miss Stella Matthews makes a lot more work in the house than little Rosebud likes. After that I had a go at the under-housemaid. Country girl, name of Stevens. She doesn’t think anything, never having been brought up to it. Ruling out a couple of gardeners and the kitchen-maid, there’s the butler. I’ve got his evidence taped for you, Chief, and it’s the best of a bad lot, which is all I’ll say for it. Main points being that when he went up to bed a few minutes after eleven he saw Miss Harriet Matthews come out of her brother’s room.’

  ‘Did he indeed?’ said Hannasyde. ‘That’s interesting. She gave me to understand that she didn’t see Matthews, after he went up to bed.’

  ‘Well, if you’re pleased, Super, it’s O.K. by me,’ said the Sergeant. ‘But if you know what motive she had for doing the old boy in, you know a sight more than I could find out.’

  ‘She’s a very eccentric kind of woman,’ said the Inspector thoughtfully. ‘Regular cough-drop.’

  ‘Well, I’m bound to say I haven’t so far come across a case of anyone doing a murder just because they were eccentric,’ said the Sergeant, ‘but that isn’t to say I won’t. Maybe you’ll like my next bit of evidence. According to Beecher, there was a brand-new bottle of some tonic or other blown over into the washbasin in Matthews’ bathroom, and consequently smashed. Miss Harriet found it, and disposed of the bits of glass by dropping them into the kitchen-stove. Seems a funny thing to do, to my way of thinking, but the servants made nothing of it. Said it was the sort of silly trick she would get up to. My last titbit is highly scandalous. They say the doctor drinks. Beecher-the-Butler has it firmly wedged in his head that Matthews had got something on the doctor, but unless it was him being over-fond of the bottle he doesn’t know what it may have been.’

  ‘The doctor gave me a perfectly straightforward account of that,’ replied Hannasyde. ‘Matthews appears to have threatened to broadcast the fact that Fielding’s father died in an Inebriates’ Home if Fielding didn’t leave his niece alone.’

  The Sergeant opened his eyes at that. ‘What things they do get up to in the suburbs!’ he remarked admiringly. ‘Now, some people might call that blackmail, Super.’

  Hannasyde nodded. ‘I do myself.’

  ‘Blackmail’s one of the most powerful motives for murder I know, Super.’

  ‘Admittedly. But I didn’t get the impression that Fielding was so desperately in love with Miss Stella that he’d commit murder on her account.’

  The Inspector, who had been listening with knit brows, said: ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if the doctor thought Miss Stella was going to inherit a tidy little fortune. I’d have gone bail myself Matthews would have left the lot to her, or most of it anyway. Very fond of her he was, judging from all I hear. Gave her a Riley Sports car only six months ago, and he wasn’t the sort to give anything to someone he didn’t like a good bit.’

  Hannasyde was silent for a moment. Then he said: ‘Why nicotine? He’s been attending Matthews, and we know that Matthews’ wasn’t a good life. If he’d wanted to murder him wouldn’t he have done it gradually, so that no one would ever have suspected?’

  ‘There’s that, of course,’ agreed Hemingway. ‘On the other hand, nicotine looks to me like the very poison you wouldn’t expect a doctor to use. How’s that, Chief ?’

  ‘Yes, I had thought of that,’ said Hannasyde.

  ‘That’s where psychology comes in,’ said the Sergeant briskly. ‘What’s our next move?’

  ‘I’ve got to see Mrs Lupto