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Authors: Elizabeth Daly

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BOOK: Deadly Nightshade
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“I'm capable of doing that, anyhow. Let's see; the popular suspects are the gypsies, and of course they are the most obvious ones. What is the contention? That one of them decided to go on a peddling tour, taking that antediluvian bus.” Gamadge paused. “Did you say they had acquired it recently?”

“It belongs to an old lady member of the tribe; she's visiting the camp just now. Pottle says they're always going and coming, you never know where any of 'em will turn up.”

“In fact, they are nomads. Are they all at the camp now—the ones that were there on Tuesday morning?”

“Pottle says he thinks they are. He checked up on 'em Tuesday afternoon, when he went down there and warned 'em about the nightshade. None of 'em has left since. This old lady that owns the car, she's a fortuneteller down at Whitewater Pier; she's a cut above tents and caravans, now—lives under a roof. Puts on a lot of dog. Quite a character.”

“Well, she or another takes the little gypsy who is recovering from something, and starts off on a peddling trip. Along the road that leads to the Beasley farm she lets him get out and play by the wayside, or in the woods. He picks a bouquet of nightshade, which she doesn't notice among his other botanical specimens. They don't stop at the Beasley farm—why don't they, Mitchell?”

“Farmers don't buy from gypsies—don't let 'em on their land, if they can help it.”

“Of course not. Well, they see little Sarah Beasley in the barn; it's on the edge of the road?”

“Right on the edge.”

“The gypsy is in the habit of sending the little boy to offer small wares to children. He offers Sarah a bunch of nightshade, in return for which she pays him—what? Would she have money in her pocket?”

“I doubt it.”

“But somehow, she gets the nightshade. The gypsies drive on to Harper's Rocks, where all the cottages are found to be deserted. A little boy is seen, playing outside a shuttered house. He, also, gets a free present of deadly nightshade, and the lady in the car is all he remembers of the episode.”

“You'd think he'd remember the boy.”

“Hard to dogmatize, where children of that age are concerned. Her appearance may have been arresting.”

“He and Sarah might have given the little gypsy some toy for the berries.”

“Perhaps they did. Any bit of junk would tempt a seven-year-old gypsy. Well, the conveyance moves on—to the Bartram place. Is that a logical stop for it?”

“Matter of fact, it is. It's on the edge of town, before you go on out to the summer colony on the Point. It's only a little way beyond the entrance to that back road.”

“And is there much traffic on the back roads just now?”

“Practically none. No deliveries, as I said, and the summer folks gone.”

“Car mightn't have been seen by anybody. It stops at the back gate of the Bartram house, and the gypsy sees a child in the summerhouse. Could she have done so, Mitchell?”

“Not very clear, but she could.”

“She sends the little gypsy in.”

“I don't know why she should send him in. He hasn't made a sale so far, and besides, it's trespassing. They're deathly afraid of doing that.”

“Shall I be maligning them if I suggest that the little boy might have been instructed to pick up any unconsidered trifle that he liked the looks of?”

“Well, no; I guess not.”

“So in he goes. If he's seen from the house, it's only a little boy of seven. Do you know if the gypsies ever visited the place?”

“Old lady Bartram liked the gypsies—made rather a pet of one or two of 'em.”

“Familiar ground! Of course he goes in. He hands over his own particular line of goods, and retires to the car. Is that lane populous, Mitchell?”

“It's hardly used at all, except by tradesmen, and Mr. Bartram. His garage is on it, opposite the gate.”

“Then they have a line of retreat to Oakport Village. Would they be likely to get through to the short cut without being noticed?”

“Oakport goes more or less to sleep in the middle of the day, and this time of year it passes out entirely, except when the mails come in and the movies open and close. Anyhow, nobody saw any gypsies go through; we've asked, and we're going to go on asking.”

“Once out of the cut, they'd have only a quarter of a mile or so to negotiate before they got back to camp; I suppose they weren't seen on the highway.”

“Not so far as we can find out.”

“Well, sometime along the route, the small boy samples his own wares. He's pretty much all in when they get back. His friends find the nightshade, and they know what's the matter with him; it's ridiculous to suppose that they aren't familiar with every herb and berry in this vicinity. They administer drastic first aid, which saves his life, but which leaves him considerably weakened; gypsy dosage must be awful. Perhaps they called in that old grandame to help cast a few spells over him, besides suggesting ancient tribal remedies.”

“No, they didn't do that. She was here as far back as Sunday, Pottle says.”

“I shouldn't have thought she'd leave Whitewater Pier, just now, with the whole rag, tag, and bobtail from Boston coming up there on Labor Day to get its fortunes told.”

“She might have left to get away from the mob. She's pretty old, I should say, and she thinks a lot of herself. She's the rightful Queen of Scotland, or something; tells you about it first thing.”

“I'm glad you warned me of that. Well, there isn't a hitch in the theory, except Tommy Ormiston's failure to report a little boy. I assume that you've all considered it; doesn't anybody feel like adopting it?”

“Sheriff does, I can tell you. If he can lay it to the gypsies, and run them off the premises, and promise not to let 'em come back, folks will stop barricading their farms and keeping the children indoors. School starts next week; we've got to raise the siege, or we'll be in all kinds of a mess. Cogswell wants the gypsies to take the rap; he says the little gypsy certainly had some of the berries, and it's a closed case. It makes him tired, the way they won't co-operate; and he'd like to get rid of 'em.”

“Have they been camping there for long?”

“Since before my time. Half a century.”

“And never done anything worse than a spot of pilfering, now and then?”

“The children pick things up when they find 'em lying around; the older ones toe the line pretty careful.”

“Are you the only person standing out for pure reason, as against guesswork and the undistributed middle?”

“No. Bartram don't want 'em pestered. He's been used to treating 'em like human beings; old lady Bartram, as I said, used to like 'em. Had 'em up to the house, before she got so sick, to tell her fortune. Bought dozens of baskets from 'em. Some of their baskets are first-rate, you know; they cost quite a lot. Old Mrs. Bartram had a collection, and gave 'em to people for Christmas.”

“Any of her protégés still in camp?”

“I don't know. Wait, though; that Martha—the one you saw with the baby—I think I heard Mrs. Bartram was quite interested in her, when she was a little girl. Kept her in decent clothes and shoes. So she married a Yankee, as they always call us.”

“I thought they weren't allowed to marry gentiles—as they also call us.”

“They do it all the time, around here. Yes, Loring says old Mrs. Bartram was interested in Martha Stanley.”

“Good old tribal name.”

“I never knew a gypsy that wasn't called Stanley.”

“Is her husband a member of the tribe, in good standing?”

“No, he's dead. Died of pneumonia last winter. He was a friend of Pottle's, and that's why Pottle don't want the gypsies blamed unless we get evidence against 'em.”

“Have they any other influential friends?”

“Doc Loring. He's taken care of 'em for years; gives 'em a call now and then to make sure they haven't any infectious diseases in camp, and that they keep the place reasonably clean. He says they're the most harmless bunch of half-wits in the community, and don't do anywhere near as much damage as the village and farm people do. He says they get blamed for everything, from forest fires to chicken stealing, and all because they ain't Aryans. He says if he was mosquito-proof, the way they are, he'd like to be a gypsy himself. He says they're innocent but astray; something like that. He's quite a comical feller.”

“ ‘An innocent life, yet far astray'; don't tell me you have the Last Wordsworthian dispensing pills over in the village of Oakport!”

“Ormiston thinks it was the gypsies; but he talks so much, you don't hardly know what he really thinks. Mr. and Mrs. Beasley, they don't think anything.”

“Well, let's tackle the other comforting possibility: a lunatic lady in a car.”

“You think that's a comforting theory, do you?”

“Yes, because it assumes irresponsibility on the part of the agent.”

“A crazy woman may be planning to distribute some more nightshade berries, and how are we going to prevent it?”

“She won't do it again if it was just an unfortunate blunder. I assume a well-meaning half-wit, confusing nightshade berries with huckleberries.”

“Even a half-wit would come forward, if she was well-meaning.”

“Would she, indeed? If I were in her shoes I might come forward; but not in person, Mitchell—not in person! I should send you a letter from the uttermost fringes of the jungles of Central America. But as she is a mere wisp of conjecture, let's eliminate her for the moment. You know what we are now up against?”

“Oh, yes; I know,” growled Mitchell. “Premeditation, and motive; but you tell me what these families had in common, for anybody to get at 'em through their children.”

“I'll tell you two things the children had in common. First, their age. They were all approximately seven years old; but of course that may mean no more than that seven-year-olds are just old enough to be allowed to play alone, and just young enough to accept berries from strangers. The nightshade was pretty well advertised, wasn't it?”

“Advertised?”

“Deliberately or not, who can say? There were berries on Tommy Ormiston's sand pile, in the Beasley barn and on the slope behind it, in Julia Bartram's hand; which makes it even more likely that mass murder was not intended. I mean, the two children who were found got treatment for atropine poisoning almost immediately, and Julia Bartram died only because she was allergic to it. We are to suppose that if Sarah Beasley had been found she might well have recovered, too.”

“The berries were left there on purpose, so some of those children could be cured?”

“Let us charitably hope so.”

“Then we have three reasons, anyway, why nightshade was used. First, the children would like the look of the berries, and be willing to eat 'em; second, they'd advertise the atropine; third, they'd make the whole thing look like some kind of an accident, and perhaps keep us on that tack—where we still are, come to think of it.”

“There's another reason, of course—atropine confuses, and makes the wits to wander. Nobody quite knows whether Tommy Ormiston really saw a lady in a car, or merely dreamed it. There may be other reasons still.”

“You said the children had something else in common.”

“They were alone that morning by the merest chance. Sarah Beasley had no fixed time for visiting her cats, and no exclusive rights in the barn. Tommy Ormiston was abandoned on his sand pile for an hour because it was moving day; the rest of the family was engaged elsewhere; and Mr. Breck happened to have closed the shutters, so that he could not be watched or overlooked from the front windows. Julia Bartram was left alone in her summerhouse for about the same length of time, because of an unprecedented family occasion—the unexpected arrival of her uncle, aunt and cousin from Europe. Her case is also complicated by the fact that the extra help which had been engaged arrived late; otherwise, the nurse would not have stayed so long in the kitchen.

“We are confronted with coincidence, here; unless we accept the theory that the nightshade was distributed by somebody whose wits were in good working order, and who was to some extent acquainted with these households, their habits and their plans.”

Mitchell shook his head. “I tell you there ain't any motive in the world that could include the Bartrams, and the Ormistons, and the Beasleys.”

“I'm inclined to agree with you. Let us suppose then that one of these children was to be eliminated, for reasons of gain, revenge, we know not what; the others were therefore given the berries for purposes of camouflage—to distract our attention from the family under attack.”

“The Beasleys were camouflage, then. They just haven't got an enemy in the world, and nobody has anything to gain by poisoning one of their children. We know all about the Beasleys.”

“Who knows all about anyone? I'm inclined to think you're right, though; the Beasleys look very much like camouflage, poor souls.”

Mitchell sucked gloomily at his pipe. “Well,” he said, “I asked you to come up and meet the families.”

“But why should they meekly submit to meeting me?”

“Loring knows who you are, and he's told the Bartrams; they want to see you.”

“How about the distinguished Ormiston?”

“He's heard of you, too. He said I could bring you along.”

Gamadge looked at Mitchell rather wanly. “I sometimes wish,” he said, “that I did not feel myself under an obligation to you, my dear Mr. Mitchell.”

“You ain't; but if you was, you'd work it all off between now and Sunday night.”

CHAPTER FOUR

The Companion of Sirius

“W
E'LL START WITH
the gypsies.” Mitchell turned his car out of the Burnside precincts, and drove south. “Then we'll go to the Bartrams, by way of the short cut; from there to Harper's Rocks, and around to the Beasley farm.”

BOOK: Deadly Nightshade
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