Not to be Taken (17 page)

‘Yes. But it’s impossible that she could have had anything to do with his death. A most inoffensive, harmless, amiable creature.’

‘Is that so? Well, you may like to know that your inoffensive, amiable creature was smuggled out of this country by German agency, and semi-official at that; and what’s more, they were in a deuce of a stew to get her out.’

‘But why?’

‘That’s what we want to know. You’ve no idea?’

‘None. But that she didn’t poison John I’m convinced.’

‘Um! This wife, now. Any chance of her having done it?’

‘None,’ I said emphatically.

‘Then who did? What’s the local theory? What’s your own idea?’

‘There is no local theory. We’re all flummoxed. My own idea is that he took the stuff himself, by accident; but don’t ask me how, because I can’t imagine.’

‘You may not be so far wrong, at that,’ said Alec drily. ‘What about this girl of his in Torminster? Know anything about her?’

‘What girl in Torminster?’

‘You didn’t know he kept a girl in Torminster? Good Lord, what’s happened to the nose for scandal in rural England? I thought everyone here would know about her. Still, I believe she’s harmless enough; or so Scotland Yard seems to think.’

‘They’d got onto her so soon?’

‘Oh yes. Smart chaps, Wentworth and Daggers. By the way, it was sporting of that old chap Ventnor not to mention the legacy to her.’

‘There’s a legacy? Yes, there would be. You could trust John to do the right thing.’

‘So I gather. In fact he did the right thing sometimes in a pretty big way.’

Something in Alec’s tone caught my attention. ‘What do you mean by that?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘Not at liberty to say. But don’t worry. You’ll hear tomorrow.’

‘It’s the resumed inquest tomorrow.’

‘It’s the inquest I’m talking about. Don’t drop a hint to anyone, Douglas,’ Alec grinned suddenly, ‘but there’s going to be a shock or two tomorrow; and the biggest shock of all is coming to…’

‘Whom?’ I asked apprehensively.

‘The Coroner,’ said Alec.

Shocks for the Coroner

I got to bed late that night. Alec kept me up talking till nearly 2 a.m. and by the time we had finished he must have obtained a fairly clear picture of Waterhouse and his household. But beyond the interesting item that John had been engaged in some kind of mild work for the Intelligence Department, I received no information in return.

When we took our seats in court again on the next morning, therefore, I was feeling distinctly heavy in the head; and it was only hearing my own name loudly repeated that brought me to my senses. Startled, I jumped to my feet.

‘Ah yes,’ the Coroner said to me. ‘Mr Sewell, will you take the stand again, please. I think there are one or two points which you may be able to clear up for us while we are waiting for the report on the contents of the medicine. Yes.’ He rapidly turned over some papers in front of him.

Not any too happily, I made my way to the stand, wondering what was in store for me now.

‘Let me see,’ said the Coroner pleasantly enough. ‘I think you told us you were a fruit farmer, Mr Sewell. You make use of a number of different kinds of spray for your trees, of course?’

‘I do.’

‘In some of these sprays, is arsenic employed?’

‘Yes,’ I agreed, outwardly (I hoped) calm but inwardly a little apprehensive.

‘You have arsenic in your possession, then?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘Well?’

‘Not solid arsenic,’ I explained. ‘I mean, I don’t make up my washes myself. I buy them ready mixed. That is to say, they contain other ingredients besides arsenic’

‘Oh, quite so. What other ingredients?’

‘Well, lime,’ I said, trying hard to remember what were the components of the ordinary arsenical washes. ‘And sulphur. And perhaps copper in some form or another.’

‘Nevertheless, these washes are highly poisonous?’

‘Oh, certainly.’

‘And the poisonous agent would be the arsenic?’

‘I suppose so. Yes.’

‘Had Mr Waterhouse been carrying out any experiments with fruit-tree washes?’

‘I believe he had. He had spoken to me about it. But…’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t know whether he had been experimenting with arsenical washes. I had gathered that it was the ordinary tar-oil distillate washes, for winter spraying.’

‘But it might have been arsenic, so far as you knew?’

‘It might have been,’ I conceded.

‘One other question, Mr Sewell. Have you checked your supply of arsenical washes lately? That is, since you learned that Mr Waterhouse had met his death from arsenical poisoning?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘I never connected the two ideas. In any case it would have been quite useless.’

‘How is that?’

‘These washes are contained in large five-gallon drums. I have a fair idea of the amount left over when the spraying is finished but certainly not to within a dozen fatal doses.’

‘You mean the fatal dose would be very small in size?’

‘I imagine so.’

‘Even the dregs left in an apparently empty drum might constitute a fatal dose?’

‘Probably.’

‘What happens to your empty drums, Mr Sewell?’

‘Various things. Sometimes the tops are cut off and they are used as containers, sometimes they are thrown on the rubbish heap and left to rust.’

‘You take no special precautions with those which have contained arsenic?’

‘No.’

The Coroner sighed, as if wondering why the whole population of Anneypenny had not got itself poisoned before now with such carelessness about, and dismissed me.

Alec, who was sitting next to me, muttered something
facetious
as I sat down, and I grinned feebly.

The evidence of two men employed by Waterhouse on his building operations followed mine. These testified to having seen him at certain times during the fatal morning, and one of them explained for me the mysterious knowledge of the Scotland Yard men by adding that he had noticed Mr Waterhouse disappearing, through the field which bordered on my pear orchard, at about a quarter past eleven.

The Coroner then put on an ultra-severe expression and announced that he believed Mrs Sewell was in possession of certain important information which she had not divulged to the court yesterday.

Frances, recalled, agreed that Mr Waterhouse had visited her on that morning, apologised for having forgotten the incident which she saw now ought to have been volunteered to the police, and recounted again what had happened. She spoke calmly and clearly, with all proper respect to the court, and gradually the Coroner’s severity diminished. I thought he had finished with her when I saw a new arrival among the notabilities clustered round his table lean forward and begin to whisper to him. Automatically I looked enquiringly at Harold, two or three places away.

Harold instantly obliged. ‘Represents the insurance company,’ he whispered. ‘They’ll be wanting a verdict of suicide, naturally. Then they wouldn’t be liable. I expect this chap wants the Coroner to bring out the possibility a bit more.’

Alec nudged me. ‘Who’s the know-all?’

I smiled at the comment on Harold’s slightly self-important air, and mentioned his name.

Alec nodded. ‘Oh yes. I’ve heard of him.’ He turned his head and looked at Harold carefully.

The whispering at the Coroner’s table ceased.

‘Mrs Sewell,’ said the Coroner impressively, ‘for all we know you may have been the last, or very nearly the last, person to have seen Mr Waterhouse before he swallowed the fatal dose of arsenic, by some agency which we are here to determine. It is necessary for us to consider the possibility, among others, that Mr Waterhouse died by his own hand; and therefore any evidence which you can give concerning his state of mind when he was with you is of great importance. Kindly tell us exactly how he seemed to you in this respect.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ Frances considered. ‘He seemed perfectly ordinary.’

‘Not dejected at all? From what you have just told us, did he not seem to you rather worried about his health?’

‘Not worried, no. Perhaps he wasn’t quite so cheerful as usual, but I certainly wouldn’t have called him dejected.’

‘Would the word “depressed” describe him?’

‘Yes, I think it would.’

‘He said nothing to you about his matrimonial – h’m – embarrassments?’

‘Not a word. I was taken completely by surprise yesterday.’

‘You had heard no hint of them from any other source?’

‘None.’

‘Would it be putting it too high to say that you were Mrs Waterhouse’s closest confidante in Anneypenny?’

‘I suppose I may have been, in Anneypenny. But certainly not outside it. Mrs Waterhouse had her circle of closest friends elsewhere.’

‘Yes, yes. Quite so. Well, Mrs Sewell, it is my duty to ask you this question: does anything in Mr Waterhouse’s manner that morning suggest itself to you now, in the light of later events, as indicating that he might have been intending to take his own life?’

‘Nothing at all,’ affirmed Frances with emphasis.

The Coroner looked enquiringly at the insurance company’s representative, who promptly jumped up.

‘But he was depressed?’

‘Oh yes, a little. Like we all get sometimes.’

‘We have already heard evidence that he was much depressed over the revelation made to him by his wife; had he seemed to you, during the last few weeks of his life, to be altogether less cheerful than formerly?’

Frances considered this. ‘Yes, I think on the whole he had been.’

She was allowed to go.

The police evidence followed, in its usual stereotyped form. That is to say, the Superintendent described how he had been called in to the case, gave a very sketchy outline of the investigations he had made, enumerated the various scent bottles, medicine bottles, jars and tins which Cyril Waterhouse had handed over to him from Angela’s bedroom and bathroom, and admitted that in spite of careful enquiries at all chemists’ in our own and surrounding counties, no purchase of arsenic by either Mr or Mrs Waterhouse had been traced. Apart from this, neither police official added anything to our knowledge.

When that had been disposed of, I saw the Coroner looking at his watch.

‘He’s wondering when the analyst is going to turn up,’ Harold told us.

There was a short consultation with the Superintendent and the Home Office representative, and then the Coroner proceeded to read out a statement which had been taken on oath from Angela.

It was in the usual stilted phraseology, and I could not detect a single sentence which Angela might have spoken spontaneously. From its guarded tone I gathered that her solicitor had been present: an impression which Rona confirmed for me.

Briefly, Angela denied all knowledge of her husband’s death, denied that she had ever purchased or obtained arsenic by any other means, and denied any knowledge of the intended alteration in the will. She knew her husband had been suffering from indigestion recently, but had not considered it serious; she knew nothing of the package which had arrived for him by post on the fatal morning. She had not urged that his body should be cremated, merely suggested it as she had understood that it was his own wish. She had informed him recently that she wished to be released from their marriage, and had told him frankly that he had cause for divorce. He had taken the information quite calmly, and she had received the impression that he would be just as pleased to end the marriage as herself: there was no longer any question of love, but both expected to remain good friends. He had made enquiries about her future financial provision, and on learning that it would not be particularly sound had offered a most generous allowance. She had gathered the idea that he too would probably marry again, though he had not definitely said this. In any case all had been most amicably arranged, and she was quite certain that it had been a relief rather than a cause for distress to her husband.

It was a good statement, from Angela’s point of view, for it showed that she had no cause at all to wish her husband out of the way; though this, of course, depended entirely on the truth of her assertion that she knew nothing of his failing finances, nor of the altered will. There was nothing to disprove her contention of ignorance; though there was equally nothing to prove it.

The Coroner read it dryly, and without comment.

The next witness was the young man, Philip Strangman.

A buzz of excitement went round the court as he took the stand. Here, we felt, was recompense for our own tribulations. The moment was undeniably dramatic.

Strangman was a black-avised young man, with what appeared to be a fixed scowl. He glowered at us and he glowered at the Coroner. One could see, in the impression he conveyed of sulky strength, how much he would have appealed to a neurotic like Angela.

The Coroner, full of the moral righteousness of his kind, glowered back.

‘I will come to the point at once, Mr Strangman. Is it correct that you and Mrs Waterhouse were contemplating marriage, in the event of her being able to free herself from her marriage to Mr Waterhouse?’

‘It is,’ replied Strangman loudly.

‘The fact that she was already married did not deter you?’

‘It did not.’

‘You have perhaps little respect for the marriage tie?’

‘When it is an unhappy one, I have none.’

‘H’m!’ The Coroner stroked his chin. ‘You had the impression that Mrs Waterhouse’s marriage was an unhappy one?’

‘I know it was.’

‘She told you so, perhaps?’

‘She had no need to tell me anything. Anyone could see her marriage was a failure.’

‘Nevertheless she did tell you so too? Come, sir, I am asking you.’

‘She told me nothing definite,’ muttered the witness angrily.

‘But you discussed her married life between you?’

‘We may have done.’

‘And you showed sympathy with her unhappiness?’

‘Naturally.’

‘You blamed Mr Waterhouse?’

‘I never met the man,’ returned the witness contemptuously.

‘Young ass, young ass,’ murmured Alec at my side.

‘I am not asking whether you ever met him,’ said the Coroner sternly. ‘I am asking if you considered Mr Waterhouse responsible for his wife’s unhappiness. Kindly answer the question.’

‘Of course he was responsible, insofar as he should never have married her. Otherwise I believe he tried to do his best.’

‘Did you feel any grudge against him for having made his wife unhappy by marrying her?’

‘I don’t know what you mean by “grudge”.’

‘I think you do, Mr Strangman; and I see you are not willing to answer the question with a plain yes or no.’

‘Then you’re wrong,’ said the witness rudely. ‘I’m quite willing to answer it, with a plain no!’

‘I see. You heard Mrs Waterhouse’s statement read out just now. Do you agree with what she says concerning your joint plans?’