Not to be Taken (19 page)

The covering letter Alec had not seen. It had been of a confidential nature, but Alec had gathered that Waterhouse, while not exactly denying the truth of what he had written for the Coroner’s benefit, had hinted somewhat broadly that he himself was not altogether satisfied that the whole truth lay in the explanation as put forward to the Court; he had hinted, too, less broadly, that his poisoning might not inconceivably be a result of the activities which he had been undertaking on behalf of the department. This sounded quite incredible, but some indications had come his way that certain foreign agents regarded his work as a great deal more important than it really was. And he had added, Alec knew for a fact, a warning to the effect that Mitzi Bergmann had been meddling with his papers, and though he had no definite evidence against her, she had better be deported.

This letter, combined with the fact of Mitzi’s hurried removal from the country, had thrown the chief into something like panic. Alec had instructions to see the Scotland Yard men, call the pursuit off, somehow induce the Coroner to make sure that a verdict was returned in accordance with Waterhouse’s official explanation, and above all make sure that no breath of a whisper got about concerning Waterhouse’s connection with the department.

‘I saw the Scotland Yard fellers in Torminster yesterday,’ Alec concluded. ‘No trouble there. I told them what Waterhouse had written to the Coroner, and explained more or less how I came to know, and luckily they were ready to accept it as the truth. We couldn’t investigate till the letter had been delivered, of course, and I’d arranged with the post office to have it sent along so as to reach the Coroner in the middle of the proceedings. It looked better, and gave him time to get all his witnesses called and done with first. So we fixed to meet at the house, with the architect, at lunch-time today. The local men will be along, too, no doubt, so we ought to have a merry party.’

Not that the party was merry. On the contrary, it was somewhat tense. The local police were half disgruntled at being cheated of their mystery murder and half thrilled at being caught up into issues so far outside their own experience. The two Scotland Yard men, gentle and genial as ever, seemed totally unexcited.

The help of the architect was not needed to locate the secret cupboard, for Waterhouse’s instructions had been precise. It was, in fact, no more than a hinged piece of the skirting board in the library, which, when released by a secret bolt, operated through a small hole in the flooring a couple of feet away, lifted up to disclose a cavity in the wall some two and a half feet long by a foot or more deep.

There were bottles there, right enough. The task was to find the right one. For the little cavity was crowded with bottles, small and large, white, blue, black, brown and green. At the sight even the detective inspector was moved to exclaim, in a respectful way, that the gentleman seemed to have collected enough poisons to wipe out half Dorsetshire. This was not, however, strictly accurate, for a closer examination revealed that most of the bottles contained stuff of the type which is fairly harmless when taken in small quantities and only noxious in inordinate doses.

I took Alec aside, smitten by a sudden inspiration. ‘Do you know what all that is?’ I said to him. ‘I’d bet anything you like it’s stuff that Waterhouse has removed from his wife from time to time. She’s a fixed hypochondriac, you know, and enjoys nothing better than dosing herself with a new drug. By the look of that cupboard Waterhouse kept a stricter eye on her hobby than one would have expected, and just quietly took away from her anything he didn’t approve of. It would be like him, too.’

‘Well, well,’ said Alec. ‘What things a feller will build a secret cupboard for.’

(I may add that this inspiration of mine probably hit on the truth; for I managed to extract later from Angela the information that she had often missed bottles of medicine, tablets and the like, and could not imagine what had happened to them. It had been most mystifying and irksome, she added.)

While the examination of the bottles was in progress, with the architect wandering round and about the library, tapping the walls and plying a two-foot rule as if in hopes of discovering another hidey-hole, we had been joined by Sir Francis Harbottle himself, who in a diffident way which I found most attractive presented himself and asked if he could be of any help.

His offer was promptly accepted, and the result was speedy. In less than five minutes of sniffing and tasting he fixed upon a certain empty bottle.

‘This contained arsenic,’ he said simply. ‘There are more than a few drops still left at the bottom. Besides, you can see the deposit quite distinctly. I’ll make an official analysis, of course; but I can tell you at once, gentlemen, with complete certainty, that there has been a strong solution of arsenic in this bottle.’ He held it up to the light and gazed at it earnestly. ‘Not very much. Perhaps not more than an inch. But quite definitely arsenic.’

We all looked at each other.

‘Well,’ said Superintendent Timms somewhat heavily, ‘that seems to clinch it.’

No one contradicted him.

In point of fact no one had a chance, for a sharp yelp from our roaming architect attracted all attention to him.

‘I say,’ he exclaimed, ‘I think I’ve found another cupboard.’

We hurried over to him.

He seemed alarmed by our eagerness. ‘It may be nothing at all,’ he retracted hastily.

‘Well, what is it?’ asked Alec reasonably enough.

‘I
think
,’ said the architect cautiously, ‘there may be one here.’ He was standing by the chimney breast, which projected some way into the room, leaving a long alcove on either side. At a spot about a foot above the mantelpiece on one side of the chimney projection the architect was tapping gently.

‘The chimney would be drawn in here, you see,’ he explained. ‘There would be a hollow in any case behind this panelling, but from the sound…’ He fiddled with the beading that bordered the panels. ‘Ah!’ A whole panel swung out, and we all crowded round. Inside was a cupboard about nine inches deep and reaching to the ceiling, fitted with shelves and full of packages neatly tied up with white tape.

‘Letters!’ observed the Superintendent with satisfaction, taking out one of the packets and turning it over curiously.

With composure Alec removed it from him. ‘I think,’ he said firmly, ‘that with your permission, gentlemen, I had better take charge of these. Anything in your line will, of course, be handed over to you, but I can see at a glance that most of these concern us.’

The Superintendent looked disappointed but did not venture to oppose the proposal. The Scotland Yard men nodded gravely.

Casually Alec dropped the package which he had taken from the Superintendent into his pocket and shut the cupboard door.

‘I’ll seal this,’ he said, and did so. ‘This room had better be locked. And in view of these two discoveries, no doubt you’ll arrange to have the whole house thoroughly vetted. In fact Mr Stares could begin the job at once.’

There was a murmur of assent, and Alec nodded to me. ‘We may as well get along then,’ he said.

We made our farewells and left.

‘You expected another cupboard,’ I said as soon as we were in the drive. ‘That’s why you brought the architect.’

‘Something like that,’ he agreed.

‘And those letters didn’t concern your department at all. They were letters from women.’

He glanced at me. ‘Not so slow as you look, are you,
Douglas
?’

‘Even I could see that. Good Lord, I should never have thought that John… Did you
know
he was that way?’

‘We know a good deal about our own chaps,’ Alec replied cautiously. ‘But so far as our work was concerned, he was perfectly safe.’

‘So you forestalled the police and laid a claim to his very private correspondence. Why?’

‘Bung the lot in the fire. Much better. No need to take up unnecessary scandal. No need to let the police in on a lot of personal secrets either.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m grateful, Alec.’

‘Eh?’

‘But I think you’d better hand over to me that packet you’ve got in your pocket.’

‘Eh?’

‘I recognised the writing. Funny the Superintendent should have hit on that particular package, wasn’t it?’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Alec.

‘Oh yes, you do,’ I told him. ‘To put it plainly, I’d like to give them back to Frances. She may be worried over what’s happened to them.’

Alec handed me the package.

3

I gave the letters back to Frances after lunch. Alec had disappeared, a little precipitately. No doubt he feared a domestic upheaval; though with Frances and myself there was small danger of anything like that.

‘These were found, with other packets of letters, in a secret cupboard in John’s library,’ I told her. ‘No one has seen them, and I haven’t undone the tape. I don’t want to know anything about them.’

She looked at the package curiously. ‘Fancy his keeping these!’ She smiled. ‘How absurd of him.’

‘It’s always absurd to keep letters,’ I said.

She looked at me quickly. ‘Douglas…you didn’t think there was anything
wrong
, did you?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘They’re just friendly notes, and…’ She ruffled hastily through the bundle. ‘Yes, here’s one postmarked Kirby Moorside. And one from Venice. And…oh, I remember writing this one, at a café in Territet. Darling old idiot he was to keep them. You know, I was always sorry for John.’

‘Were you?’

‘Yes. I suppose it wasn’t really Angela’s fault, but…well, what is the perfect wife? Thirty per cent companion, thirty per cent housewife, thirty per cent mistress, and – what’s that make? – oh yes, ten per cent charming individual, I suppose. And Angela wasn’t any of them. As a wife Angela was a hundred per cent failure. I knew John went with other women.’

‘Did you?’

‘He told me. In fact he asked if I thought it was a rotten trick on Angela. I said it wasn’t: if Angela couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do her proper job, she could have no complaints. Poor old John! He took things a bit heavily, you know. We used to discuss ethics for hours. In fact I believe I deputised for the thirty per cent companion part of Angela. Mitzi did most of the housewifery. As for these, poor old darling,’ Frances added, holding out the package to me, ‘you can read every word of them.’

‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘Naturally I believe you, absolutely.’

In any case Frances might have known that I would not read the letters.

We never referred to them again.

4

It is strange, almost terrifying, how different each one of us is from our friends’ conception of us. What is one to make of the charming stranger one has just met? Of one thing we may be certain: he is totally unlike the idea we formed of him – ludicrously unlike. Under that genial exterior is he a mean-spirited, vicious brute? What is his secret weakness? For, depend upon it, he has one, if not a dozen. What is his private hell?

I was beginning to learn more about John after his death than I had ever known during his life. Who would have imagined that bluff, paternal old dabbler in concrete and mortar was a shrewd agent of the Military Intelligence, a secret womaniser who kept a paid girl in Torminster? What extraordinary episodes might not lurk in the past of such a man? And had the past ever risen up to take its revenge in the present?

It was the thought of that girl in Torminster that worried me. Heaven knows I am no Puritan, and it was not with the moral aspect that I was concerned. I just could not see John with a girl at all, let alone a paid one. What manner of woman was she? Was there real affection between them? Did she make up in some way for Angela’s deficiencies? Normally I am not a curious man, but these questions irked me, for I had been fond of John myself once. In any case, excuse it or not, before Alec left Anneypenny that day I had got from him the girl’s name and address, and the next time I was in Torminster, two days later, I called upon her.

What I hoped to gain I do not know. It was really no more than a rather impertinent inquisitiveness that took me to her door. But I have been glad since that I yielded to it.

Torminster is not a modern town, but already it has been invaded by a few tall, red brick blocks of flats. It was in one of these, on the Anneypenny side of the town, that Miss Lily Upcott lived. I rang the bell, noted the well-polished brass of the letter box and handle, and waited. The door was opened almost at once.

‘Miss Upcott?’ I said.

‘That’s right,’ was the cheerful response. ‘Want to see me? Come inside.’

I followed her into the little sitting-room, made even smaller than it need have been by a superfluity of furniture but undeniably cosy. We sat down, and I had a good look at my hostess.

She was a large, tall, bonnily built woman, with one of those broad faces with prominent cheekbones that betoken at the same time a lowly origin and a good nature. She was older than I had expected: I put her age at twenty-nine or thirty.

‘Well?’ she said with an easy smile. ‘Is it business or a friendly call?’ I must not give a false impression of her. There was no invitation in her smile. It was one of frank friendliness and nothing more.

‘The latter,’ I said. ‘I’ve come really about – John.’

The smile was wiped off her face. Her look became definitely hostile.

‘What’s that got to do with you?’ she demanded. ‘If you’re one of them Nosy Parkers of reporters, you can clear out now.’ She looked quite capable of throwing me out, too.