Slight Mourning (16 page)

Sloan told him about Exley's dying. “We may need you at the resumed inquest on Mr. Fent, Doctor.”

Dr. Washby gave a quick jerk of his head. “Right.”

“To give evidence as to his condition before he left the house and so forth,” went on Sloan easily. “You know the sort of thing.”

“I do.” The doctor wrung the wash-leather out and applied it to the bonnet of the car. “Sorry I can't stop doing this. I'll have to hose it all down again if it dries off before I can leather it.”

“Carry on,” said Sloan largely.

“You'll be letting me know about the inquest then, won't you?”

“We will, Doctor. We've always got the professor, of course, as the last person to see the deceased alive, but he's not young and I think your observations would carry more weight.”

“Naturally anything I can do …” Paul Washby drew the chamois leather carefully down the bonnet toward the radiator. “I wish there was something a bit more useful than just standing up at an inquest and saying that Bill seemed perfectly normal to me.”

“Were you sitting near him?” inquired Sloan casually.

“Me? No, I was up at the other end of the table. Between Helen Fent and Miss Paterson. Veronica was, though. Hang on and I'll give her a call.”

“Bill?” said Veronica Washby merging from the kitchen door in a very pretty apron, and greeting them. “Yes, I was sitting on his left. He seemed quite all right to me—not that I knew him really well or anything. Such a nice man. It's all so sad, isn't it?”

“Yes, madam,” agreed the policeman. Sad, mad, bad … perhaps it didn't matter which word you used.

“He teased the professor a lot but ever so nicely and you could see he was enjoying it.”

“The professor was near you too?”

“Oh, yes, on my other side. He's sweet, isn't he?”

“And you'd be opposite …?”

“Mrs. Renville.”

“Ah, yes.” Full marks, thought Sloan silently, to his wife, Margaret. She'd been right about the seating then. “You'd have Mr. Marchmont on your other side perhaps?” he ventured.

“Yes, I did.” She hesitated. “He didn't say a lot, though.”

There was a guffaw from her husband. “Never worry, Marjorie talked enough for two at our end of the table. You should have heard her laugh when we got on to the development and I told her that hoary old chestnut about a smell in the village. Have you heard it, Inspector?”

“No,” said Sloan firmly.

“It went like this. Old lady to countryman: ‘Can it be the drains?' Countryman to old lady: ‘Can't be the drains, mum, 'cos there ain't any.'”

An immoderate laugh escaped Constable Crosby.

“Glad you like it.” Washby grinned. “Our Miss Paterson didn't. She went a bit Queen Victoria over it. Not amused and all that. You know she was dead against the drains, don't you, because of the development?”

“Progress does bring problems,” said Sloan with meticulous fairness. “How did you find Mr. Marchmont, Mrs. Washby?”

“I think he's a bit shy,” said Veronica Washby, “though he did tell Annabel Pollock—she was opposite him—how nicely she'd done the flowers.”

Dr. Washby turned to Sloan and said sardonically, “Flower arrangements are a bit competitive in Constance Parva, Inspector. Now over in Constance Magna they go in for blood sports more.”

“And cricket,” his wife reminded him.

“And cricket,” agreed the doctor. “There's a real needle match today, Inspector. The Constances' annual battle. Constance Parva versus Constance Magna.” He drew the wash-leather over the nearside wing of his car and pointed up at the cloudless sky. “If the weather breaks they'll say I've made it rain by cleaning my car. And if I go around in a dirty car they'll say I'm a lousy doctor. Can't win, can you?”

“Not often, sir,” said Sloan, taking his leave.

Peter Miller stood on the front doorstep of Strontfield Park, his hat dangling uncertainly between his fingers. Annabel Pollock answered the door.

“Come to apologize,” he mumbled, introducing himself. “Say I'm sorry and all that.”

“What for?” Annabel collected herself rapidly and said, “I mean—do come in, Mr. Miller, and tell me what you're sorry about.”

“My Jersey cows—the whole herd must have got into the Park again. Last night, I think. We had to get them out for the morning milking.”

“Oh.” A look of relief passed over her face. “Is that all?”

“But it's not the first time it's happened,” said the farmer. “Bill said he'd get some spiles from Greg Fitch and do something about the fence, but naturally …”

“Naturally,” concurred Annabel.

“I should have done something myself, really,” he said quickly, “seeing that … in the circumstances.”

“I don't suppose they've done any harm.” The nurse's instinct to reassure was well to the fore.

“That's just it,” he said twisting his lips awkwardly. “They have.”

“In the Park? I don't see what they could …”

He hesitated. “They got round by the Folly.”

“They couldn't very well knock that down, Mr. Miller.”

“They haven't. Not the Folly.” He cleared his throat and began again. “You know the statue at the end of the walk there?”

“I do.” Annabel's lips twitched ever so slightly. “We used to call it Naughty Nigel when we were small.”

“It's a faun, I think.” Miller's face crumpled into a responding grin. “Or Eros, perhaps.”

“The god of love?” She nodded. “Could be. Old Fitch didn't approve of it, you know. Whenever he was working that way he would hang his jacket over its shoulders.” Annabel giggled. “That made it seem so much worse somehow. What have they done to it?”

“I think one of them knocked it off its pedestal.”

“Cloven hooves shouldn't have upset it, I suppose.”

“But they did,” said Miller solemnly.

“Fitch will be pleased.”

“Mrs. Fent might not be.”

“Don't worry,” said Annabel comfortingly. “Somehow I don't think she'll mind all that much now.”

“Of course,” mumbled Miller suddenly contrite. “Got other troubles now, hasn't she?”

The nurse nodded.

“Had I better see her and explain?”

“No.” Annabel shok her head decisively. “She doesn't want to see anyone. She's still very upset.”

“Quite understand,” said Miller immediately. “Not surprising, really.” He paused. “Will she stay on?”

“I don't think,” said the girl, “that she's made any plans yet.”

“It's early days, of course,” agreed the farmer. “Difficult and all that …”

They were interrupted by the crunch of car tyres on the drive outside and the sound of someone stepping up to the front door. Peter Miller began to move. “I'd better go. You've got more visitors. I always seem to call just as someone arrives …”

Annabel murmured something politely deprecating as she showed him the door. But she looked thoughtful. “So you do, Mr. Miller,” she said to herself as she showed him out, “so you do.”

The new arrival was Professor Berry, his transport an archaic taxi from Larking. He patted his chest and wheezed, “We're both a bit long in the tooth but we've made it.” He stood in the doorway and called back to the driver, “Won't be long, Wilson. Make yourself comfortable.” He turned to Annabel. “I've just come to pay my respects to Helen. How is she?”

“Better than yesterday.”

“Good.”

“Come and sit down.” She shepherded him into a chair.

“And how are you managing?” he inquired when he'd got his breath back.

“All right so far, Professor, but I have to go back to the hospital on Monday. My holiday's over.”

“Not much of a holiday for you, Annabel, I'm afraid.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Can't be helped. It's worse for Helen. In a way, you know, I'm glad that I was here for Bill's last week. I've always enjoyed my holidays at Strontfield and when I was small—when we were in India—it meant England to me. Now”—she sighed—“now I don't suppose I'll be invited any more—anyway it'll all be different.”

“But surely …”

“Quentin's no relation of mine,” she said stiffly. “It's Bill who was my cousin and not on the Fent side at all. I'm no Fent.”

“Of course.” He subsided. “I was forgetting.”

“Not even a remote connection,” she said firmly.

“I expect,” puffed the old man, “you'll still keep in touch with Helen, though.”

“I expect so,” she said perfunctorily. “At the moment, I must say, Helen doesn't seem to want to see me or talk to me or to anyone else. She's been shut up in her room since the funeral. With the door locked, too. And she won't even answer the telephone. ‘Don't put any calls through on the bedroom extension,' she said yesterday. ‘No matter who rings.' What am I to do?”

“Whatever she asks,” said the professor placidly. “It's usually the easiest thing.” He looked at her over the top of his glasses. “With women particularly.” He was a bachelor.

“But what reason could she have …”

“Probably none at all,” said the old gentleman. “There doesn't have to be, you know.” He gave her a benevolent smile. “The human race isn't rational and doesn't do what it does do for what we are pleased to call reasons. Motives, perhaps, but not always those, either.”

“Whatever it is,” she responded with some asperity, “I don't feel that I can go off tomorrow night back to St. Ninian's leaving Helen locked up in her room.”

“What about Quentin?”

“He's got another week's holiday and Helen's asked him not to go.” She waved a hand in a gesture which embraced the house and park. “There are things to be attended to and Mr. Puckle, the solicitor, wants to see him on Monday morning in his office.”

“So he's staying?”

“Oh, yes, he's staying all right, but he's no cook or nurse. I expect,” added Annabel shrewdly, “that he'll want his precious Jacqueline to see Strontfield, though.”

“Not without an invitation, I hope,” said the professor. “That would be too much.”

“Oh, no. Not even Quentin would do that. Besides,” went on Annabel fairly, “to do her justice, I don't think Jacqueline would come without one from Helen. Delicacy of feeling may not be the Battersby family's strong suit but she's not as insensitive as all that.”

“That's good,” said Berry. “Especially as I understand from Quentin that they're getting married on the strength of Strontfield.”

“The day has been named anyway,” said Annabel Pollock in such studiously neutral tones that the professor looked up at her in surprise.

Detective Inspector Sloan balanced his notebook on his knee as Crosby started up the police car for the homeward journey to Berebury.

“We're getting on, Crosby,” he remarked. “We know what they all had to eat now and—”

“Did you say ‘eat,' sir? What a good idea. My landlady doesn't know the meaning of breakfast.”

“And,” continued Sloan, unmoved, “we know whereabouts at the table everyone was sitting.”

“What we don't know,” said Crosby unhelpfully, “is which course had the poison in.”

“I wonder,” said Sloan.

“Sir?”

“Think, Crosby, think.” Teach him, they said at the station, and he'll learn. Sloan wasn't so sure.

The constable steered the car out of the village toward the open road. “It wasn't the drink for a start. Those bottles …”

“Can be forgotten. It wasn't the drink. Unless it was the coffee. The wine and the port came out of bottles shared by everyone.”

“We could test the port just to make sure.”

“We could not,” said Sloan flatly. “Not without a warrant we couldn't. Keep going.”

Crosby rightly interpreted this last to refer to his detective speculations rather than his driving. The car was travelling quite fast enough anyway. He said, “It couldn't very well have been the meat and vegetables, sir. Or the cheese, come to that.”

“Agreed,” said Sloan promptly. “I don't see that it would be possible to poison just one serving of the roast or the trimmings or the cheese.”

“That leaves the soup and the pudding, sir.” He glanced in his rear-view mirror. “Am I getting warmer?”

“You are.” Sloan sighed. He wasn't going to learn. Not this one. Not if he didn't know by now that this wasn't “Hunt the Thimble” but murder.

“The soup and the pudding, then, sir.”

“And what is it that makes them more likely, anyway?”

A prodigious frown settled on Crosby's brow. “Don't know, sir.”

“They were the only items served in individual dishes,” said Sloan patiently, “and laid out in the dining-room before the meal began.”

“Oh, I get it.” The frown cleared. “Eleven O.K. One laced with whatever it was.”

“A soluble barbiturate.” Sometimes he didn't know why he bothered.

“Soup or sweet …” Crosby negotiated the last of Constance Parva High Street and started to pick up real speed.

“There is a possibility,” said Sloan carefully, “that we could get nearer than that.”

Crosby changed gear for a hill. “Sir?”

“Cucumber is not noted for its strong flavour.”

“Hardly worth eating, if you ask me,” said the constable candidly. “Nothing to it. No taste at all.”

“Precisely,” said Sloan. “So?”

“So,” said Crosby after due pause for thought, “seeing as how the analyst said this stuff …”

“A soluble barbiturate,” said Sloan between clenched teeth.

“… tasted bad we come to the pudding.”

“We come to the pudding,” agreed Sloan. Journey's end. A pudding. A thimble hunted for and found.