Read Ebook: The Dalehouse murder by Everton Francis

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Ebook has 1504 lines and 86852 words, and 31 pages

Kenneth sprang to his feet saying: "Why, of course, she can. It's just the weather for ices," and he went over to the buffet and fetched her the pinkest and largest he could procure. She waded through it quizzing The Tundish with every spoonful she ate, and Kenneth seemed aggressively and absurdly pleased that he had persuaded her to ignore the doctor's wishes. But in some subtle way, The Tundish, sitting with impassive face and twinkling eyes, seemed to turn his rebuff into a moral victory, and while he appeared satisfied and pleasant, they had the air of being a little ashamed of what they had done.

Why this little incident should have stuck in my memory I can't quite explain, except perhaps that it was the forerunner of so many similar little incidents between Kenneth and the doctor, but without opening his mouth he had made them both look like naughty children disobeying their nurse, and I think that it was about from this time that I began to suspect that, somehow, somewhere, there was something amiss with our party. Although we still continued to laugh and be jolly, I could not help feeling sensible that the pace was being forced, and that it was only by effort the ball was kept rolling.

I wondered whether it was due to the arrival of The Tundish, and if so why. Or whether it was due to the fact that my cold was making me feel depressed, and that while I was approaching the forties, the rest, with the exception of The Tundish himself, were all young and in their early twenties.

The Chinese Poison

That evening the four younger members of our party went to a scratch gramophone dance and The Tundish and I were left to our own devices. He had tried to persuade them not to go on account of the heat, and had been particularly emphatic so far as Margaret was concerned. Stella did look a little fagged and pale, but my partner seemed in the best of spirits, and I could not understand why he should think that she especially required rest.

Supper was late, as they dressed before they had it, but they did get away at length, and we went into the dispensary to get some medicine for my cold. While he was measuring it out I wandered aimlessly round the room glancing at the bottles on the shelves. The labels were written in so neat a hand that I asked him who had done them.

"Oh, that is one of Miss Summerson's jobs," he replied.

"And does Miss Summerson deal with the high finance in addition to her other duties?" I asked, standing in front of what looked liked a heavy safe.

"That is the poison cupboard," he laughed, and taking a small key from his waistcoat pocket he opened the door.

I was astonished at the number of bottles it contained. On the lower shelves were the larger ones which I assumed held the poisons more commonly used, but the top shelf was packed with diminutive bottles of uniform shape and size. There was one, however, that differed from the rest, and that was the most peculiar little bottle I have ever set my eyes on. It was like a miniature flagon of Burgundy in shape, but it had an exceptionally long and slender neck that was fitted with a large glass stopper of a flat irregular design, giving it the appearance of some delicate imitation toadstool rearing its head above its little neighbors.

"What an extraordinary number of poisons!" I exclaimed. "Surely all these are not the normal requirements of a country doctor's practise?" And I took up the funny flagon as I spoke to examine it more closely.

"Be careful--put it back--put it down, man," he almost shouted at me, and banging the door shut as soon as he had seen me restore the weird little bottle safely to its old position, he dragged me to the sink and made me rinse my hands in some strong disinfectant.

I should have been amused, had he not been so obviously alarmed, and I protested that I might have been handling a bomb that had the fuse alight by all the fuss he made about it.

"A bomb's a plaything for a baby in a pram compared with that dear little bottle," he laughed, and went on to explain that Hanson was by way of being a bit of a specialist in the study of poisons, and that the little flagon I had handled so carelessly contained a very deadly and almost unknown poison, that he, The Tundish, had been fortunate in securing for his collection from central China.

The tiny bottle apparently contained enough to finish off the whole of Merchester, and as yet they had not succeeded in finding any antidote to its action. A colorless fluid with a distinctive taste and smell, it was immediately narcotic, but it engendered a sleep from which no one ever woke. The body of the victim looked exactly as though it had passed out of a peaceful slumber into death, except for the eyes; and they, in addition to the usual contraction of the pupils due to a narcotic, were horribly suffused with blood. It seems that had any of the poison got on to my fingers from the side of the bottle and had I then allowed them to touch my lips, so deadly was the stuff that he might have been unable to save my life.

All this he told me as I disinfected my hands at the sink, and by the time he had finished I began to think that I had had a lucky escape and I was no longer inclined to laugh at his considerate alarm. My hands properly rinsed and dried, we went back into the drawing-room to finish our pipes before going to bed; The Tundish told some interesting tales about his life in China, where he had gone out to live with an uncle when he was twenty-four and had only returned a few years ago. Then our conversation turned to tennis and the tournament, and I was telling him of the interest Miss Palfreeman had aroused as she joined us in the tent at lunch-time, when he interrupted me.

"You know it's a most extraordinary coincidence--" he began, with something akin to excitement in his usual level voice, and then instead of telling me what the curious coincidence was, his statement dwindled into indecision and he sat thoughtfully watching the blue smoke spirals that curled to the ceiling from his pipe.

"Well?" I asked after a pause, turning to look at him in surprise.

But there he sat staring vacantly at nothing, his face an expressionless mask, his eyes introspective and dead. They regained their normal twinkle as I watched, and he continued, "Oh, nothing really--nothing at all--only something that something you said reminded me of. Now I'm sure it's time that you went off to bed."

We said good night at the bottom of the stairs, and with my foot on the bottom step I asked him what on earth had made him say that Miss Hunter in particular looked as though she needed rest. I can not think what made me ask the question, and it had no sooner crossed my lips than I realized how indiscreet it was. He looked at me quizzically. "Should a doctor tell!--eh?"

I apologized profusely.

"Well, there is no harm done, and I don't mind telling you--no, after all, I think that perhaps I had better not."

I thought how annoying his little habit of starting out on some interesting confidential statement and then breaking off in the middle of it was, but obviously I could not press him, and I said good night again and went up-stairs to bed.

To bed but not to sleep. For interminable hours I checked the quarters chimed by the great cathedral clock. And when sleep did come it was thin and dream-streaked. Once more I was in the dispensary standing in front of the poison cupboard with the murderous little bottle of poison in my hands. The Tundish--not the placid kindly man to whom I had said good night, but a man with the face of a devil enraged--came rushing at me round the table in the middle of the room. "Put it down, you damned fool," he yelled, and seizing me by the arm he twisted it back until my hand was thrust inside the safe. Then in a flash his anger was gone, The Tundish was masked and placid again, and, looking at me with a pleasant quiet smile, he said in the friendliest and silkiest of voices: "Poisoned, I fancy, my dear Jeffcock--better have it off," and he closed the heavy door with a crash, severing my hand above the wrist.

I heard a tinkle of broken glass as the baby flagon dropped among its deadly little comrades, and then a plop as my own severed hand reached the bottom of the safe and I awoke with a start to hear a door really banging in the hall below. Then giggles, and Stella's carrying, high-pitched voice: "Oh! for heaven's sake don't make me laugh any more, my sides are sore and aching as it is." Next a noisy laugh from Ralph, and Kenneth whispering--he meant it for a whisper--and urging him not to wake up Jeffcock and The Tundish.

The dancers were back home and coming up-stairs to bed. They laughed and played about on the landing, and made as much noise again in urging one another to stop. I thought how selfish and inconsiderate they were. Then I heard Stella and Ralph go up to the landing above and their doors bang shut. It was nearly three o'clock when at last I fell into a quiet and untroubled sleep.

I woke surprisingly refreshed and got down-stairs to find The Tundish seated in lonely state at the head of the breakfast table. He greeted me with his friendly smile, asking whether I had been able to sleep through the dancing party's united efforts to keep one another quiet. He told me that the thermometer had already beaten the record of yesterday at the same time, and that we were in for a frizzly time at the club.

Stella came in just as we were finishing our last cups of coffee and I noticed at once how wretchedly tired and pale she looked. The doctor remarked on it too, and she told us that she had hardly slept and had wakened almost too weary to dress. On learning that she had been sleeping badly for some nights he promised to put up a mild narcotic for her to take that night. He was kindness and tact itself in that he made no reference to the dance and his own neglected advice, but Stella almost snubbed him for his trouble, and hardly bothering to thank him turned to me with some casual remark or other.

Ethel, with Kenneth and Ralph, came in as the doctor was talking to Stella, and Margaret, pink and white and full-blown, Margaret smiling to herself, followed them a moment later. I was looking at her as she came in through the door, and whether I unconsciously stared a little I don't know, but the pleasant smile vanished, to be replaced by an unpleasant frown.

The Tundish was right. We had a very warm time at the club that day, but in spite of my cold I enjoyed the tennis and in spite of her conversation I enjoyed my partner. She and I had lunch alone together, and Stella was one of the many subjects we discussed.

"Do you think that she is very bewitching?" she asked.

"She is certainly more than ordinarily pretty," I replied, "but as to being bewitching that is another matter."

"Oh! Don't make any mistake of that sort. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it's one and the same thing. A pretty face and a good figure seem to meet the case with most men."

"I did not know we were discussing a case at all," I laughed.

But she closed the conversation by adding: "Fine feathers make fine birds," and she said it very impressively, though for the life of me I could not see the connection.

I played a number of matches during the day, and I did fairly well, but tennis has nothing to do with this story and there is only one little incident that I need describe. It was just after tea and I was in the umpire's chair. I had to keep my attention closely on the game, both of the men having a service that was difficult to follow, but as I sat perched in my lofty seat, I noticed Ethel and The Tundish conversing very earnestly together.

A few minutes later I heard Ethel say: "Well, it's spoiling everything, and I certainly wouldn't have offered to put her up for the tournament if you hadn't been so insistent."

"Wake up, umpire."

I did with a jerk, to find that they had played two unregistered points while my thoughts had wandered. It was a long, three-set match and when I took the result in to the referee's tent, although it was getting late he put me on to play, and I was the last of our party to leave the club.

I did my best to smooth things over, but if at lunch-time on the previous day I had felt that the gaiety of our party was forced and rang false, I had no doubt at all on this occasion, that the general feeling of irritation was genuine enough. The very flies seemed to have caught the disease and to be more persistent than usual in their attempts to annoy.

The Tundish was the only one of us to make the least attempt at general politeness, and he, I believe, was secretly amused at our united and childish ill-humor. Stella was positively rude when he reminded her of the medicine that he had had sent up to her room. First she refused to take it at all. Then she would take it at once, and there was another little scene before she could be persuaded to obey the doctor's wishes and wait for an hour after her meal.

The two boys had left the room while we were pacifying Stella, but when Ethel suggested that the four of us should have a quiet game of bridge while The Tundish did some work in the dispensary and she and Margaret descended to the basement to tackle some ironing, the boys were nowhere to be found.

Ethel seemed absurdly put out over so trivial a matter. She went into the dispensary with The Tundish and I overheard her say: "It's abominably rude of Kenneth to leave Francis alone with nothing to do, and I shall tell him so when he gets back," and I must admit that I was childishly gratified that she should care enough about my comfort to risk having words with Kenneth. Truly, along with the rest, I was feeling the heat.

My ears must have been in a hypersensitive condition, for I had heard Ethel in the dispensary quite plainly, and a little time later as I stood at the telephone in the hall trying to get a connection through to Brenda, I heard The Tundish talking to Stella in the drawing-room though the door was half closed. It was a moment before I realized that I was listening to a confidential conversation and then it was too late.

It was the doctor speaking in his most persuasive voice: "Look here, Stella, I am most truly sorry about it, but until I saw you at the club, I really had no idea that the Stella Palfreeman Ethel spoke of was the 'Dumps' I used to know in Shanghai."

Then I got my connection and heard no more for a short time, but Brenda was out and my conversation with the maid was brief, and they were still talking together when I put the receiver up. It was Stella speaking this time and she was not so clear. Her voice came and went in broken snatches as though some one were opening the door and closing it again; a few words clear and distinct and then a blank.

Evidently it was the end of the conversation, for as I was hurrying away from my embarrassing position, The Tundish came out of the drawing-room and met me in the hall on his way back to the dispensary. He smiled at me pleasantly, appearing quite unmoved by the words I had overheard, and I thought to myself that whatever else he may have learned by his long residence among the Chinese, he had certainly acquired their proverbial bland impassivity.

I wandered into the garden, where long evening shadows were creeping across the lawn, and sat down in one of the wicker chairs that stood beneath the cedar, my thoughts turning naturally to what I had overheard. Now I began to understand better why Stella had dropped her glass. The little scene in the luncheon tent came back to me. Stella's momentary hesitation when the doctor held out his hand; the doctor, suave and unperturbed, taking the less convenient seat.

Then I remembered what I had overheard between Ethel and The Tundish as I sat in the umpire's chair and endeavored to connect the one conversation with the other. Had Ethel referred to Stella when she said that she would not have asked her unless he had persuaded her to do it? But they had met only the week before at Camford--or was it possible that he had seen Stella's name in the paper and had written asking Ethel to invite her to Dalehouse? In that case Ethel probably knew something about the mystery--if mystery there was--and the doctor had lied when he spoke to Stella in the drawing-room. And if the reference had not been to Stella, then it must have been to Margaret, my partner, and that was equally inexplicable, for what possible reason could Ethel have for saying that Margaret was spoiling everything? True, there was her rather inane conversation, but they were old friends, and Ethel must have known all about that. No--I decided that she must have meant Stella, and no sooner had I come to the decision, than I felt equally convinced that the doctor did not look like a liar.

Miss Summerson had lied in the dispensary--the place seemed full of lies and ill temper. As I sat pondering under the cedar with its far-spread boughs black against the sky, a couple of bats went fluttering in the fading light and somehow their floppy uncertain flight seemed symbolic of deceit and lying too. The half-hour after nine came floating across the still calm air from the clock in the cathedral tower. Looming big and white over the black of the shadowed garden wall, it looked ghostly, I thought, and seemed less real than the bats and the shadows themselves. I rose and went back to the house full of a vague uneasiness and wishing that I was home.

Stella was still tucked up on the settee immersed in a book and obviously desiring neither company nor conversation, so I picked up the daily paper.

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