Not to be Taken (8 page)

‘Murder – or criminal carelessness,’ came Rona’s voice from the doorway, so bitterly that I looked round at her in surprise. ‘It’s the same thing… Are you ready Douglas? Then let’s go.’

4

‘Mrs Waterhouse can’t see you,’ said the parlourmaid with lofty contempt. ‘She’s engaged.’ The swelling importance of her information made her suddenly human. ‘It’s the p’leece,’ she added with undisguised gratification.

‘Oh, damn the police,’ said Rona, and walked in.

I followed.

‘Oh, miss,’ twittered the now alarmed parlourmaid as Rona made straight for the stairs. ‘Miss, you’re not going
up
, are you?’

‘Naturally,’ Rona answered her. ‘Is Mrs Waterhouse in her room?’

‘Yes, miss. She’s in bed.’

‘Are the police in there too?… In the bedroom, girl?’ Rona added sharply as the maid hesitated.

‘Yes, miss. Some of them. The others are still searching the house.’

‘What are they searching for?’ I asked.

‘For the rest of the arsenic, sir. We’ve all been looking for it.’

‘They haven’t found anything?’

‘Not yet they haven’t. But if she didn’t use it all they’ll find what’s left. Trust the p’leece.’

I felt myself go quite cold with anger inside my clothes. I took a step or two toward the girl.

‘You’re the woman who betrayed her trust and handed a private letter of your employer’s to another person, aren’t you?’ I said; and I know I spoke quietly, for I forced myself to do so.

The girl, a tall, handsome creature in her way, fell back a step or two. Then she looked defiant.

‘And a good thing I did, too. We don’t all want to be murdered in our beds.’

I felt at a loss in spite of my anger. I am not used to bandying words with maids (especially other people’s maids), and it was disconcerting to see the training peel away from this one like a shell from an egg, to show the spiteful, vindictive human being beneath it.

It was Rona who finished off the encounter.

Coming down the stairs she had mounted, she spoke very quietly and gently.

‘Listen… Pritchard, I think your name is. I heard you assert just now, in the presence of two witnesses, that Mrs Waterhouse poisoned her husband with arsenic. I shall report that statement to Mrs Waterhouse in accordance with my duty as her friend; and if she sues you later for criminal libel, and you spend six months in prison, you will have only yourself to blame. In a situation like this, Pritchard, we all have to be very, very careful what we say. We may think any foolish thoughts we like, but we would be advised not to speak them out loud – especially to those who may repeat them to others. I think you will be more careful in future. Very well, that will do. You need not show us up.’

The girl withdrew without another word, looking a little frightened.

‘The servants have made up their minds,’ I said, not without bitterness.

‘Oh, I think it’s only excitement,’ Rona said wearily. ‘And hope. She probably didn’t really mean it; though that kind is always the first to turn on the hand that feeds, clothes and pays it.’

We began to ascend the stairs again.

‘The police here already,’ I said uneasily. ‘Somehow I hadn’t thought of that. They don’t waste much time.’

‘From their point of view they haven’t much time to waste,’ Rona pointed out. ‘But I’m afraid there may be trouble.’

‘Trouble!’

‘I mean, we know what the police are. That silly letter – they’ll take it as a motive, of course. And with the police, motive often simply spells fact.’

‘You mean they’ll take Angela’s guilt for granted?’

‘Not if I can stop them, they won’t,’ Rona returned grimly. And with a quick ‘Wait for me here’ over her shoulder to me, she walked without knocking into Angela’s bedroom.

As the door opened I could hear the rumble of male voices. Rona left it open behind her, and what followed was clearly audible to me as I lingered, somewhat uneasily, in the passage outside.

‘Good morning, Angela,’ came Rona’s voice. ‘I’ve just come round to see if there’s anything I can do for you.’ Her voice was as calm and ordinary as ever. I judged that she had simply disregarded the presence of the two policemen.

‘Oh, Rona!’ I heard Angela exclaim with a kind of sob in her voice. ‘Thank heaven you’ve come. Awful things are happening. You
must
help me. I –’

‘Pardon me, madam,’ a male voice interrupted, respectful but firm. ‘I’m afraid I must ask you to withdraw. We are police officers, and Mrs Waterhouse is being good enough to answer a few questions which it is our duty to put to her.’

‘Police officers?’ repeated Rona thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I think I’ve seen you before. You are…?’

‘I am Superintendent Timms, from Torminster, Miss Brougham. This is Detective Inspector Carson. Your brother will know us.’ He waited evidently for Rona to withdraw.

‘And you are questioning Mrs Waterhouse?’ Rona asked coolly. ‘About her husband’s death, I take it. Have you given her an opportunity to send for her solicitor?’

‘No, they didn’t, Rona,’ Angela moaned. ‘They never even suggested it.’

‘Mrs Waterhouse could have had every opportunity, if she had expressed any wish to have her solicitor present,’ returned the superintendent austerely.

‘Then I strongly advise you to send for him, Angela, my dear,’ counselled Rona cheerfully, ‘and not answer any more questions until he’s here.’

‘But they wouldn’t let me have him. Cyril wouldn’t let me. I know he wouldn’t.’

‘I’ll settle with Cyril,’ said Rona. She appeared at the door and spoke to me. ‘Douglas, see if you can find Mr Waterhouse and ask him to come up here at once.’

I was about to do so, not without joy in the forthcoming battle, when quick steps sounded on the stairs behind me, and the next moment Glen brushed past, bestowing an irreverent wink on me as he disappeared into the bedroom. Instead of going on my errand I waited to hear what would happen.

‘Good morning, Angela. Hullo, Rona, you here already? Why, Timms, what are you doing here? And Carson?’

‘You must know what we’re doing here, Doctor,’ came the superintendent’s voice, now distinctly huffy. ‘In view of the information known, I make no doubt, to you as well as us, it’s our duty to ask Mrs Waterhouse what information she can give us that may throw any light on the matter.’

‘All right, all right, you needn’t work your set speeches off on me,’ Glen returned easily. ‘In other words, you thought you might be able to twist something damaging out of her before anyone could get in and warn her.’

‘You’ve no right to say anything of the kind, Doctor,’ retorted the superintendent angrily – and, indeed, with perfect justice. ‘The questions I’ve been putting to Mrs Waterhouse are pure matters of routine, as you know perfectly well. And you know, too, they have to be answered.’

‘Not at present, they don’t,’ replied Glen equably. ‘Because it’s
my
duty to warn you that Mrs Waterhouse, who is my patient, is in a dangerous condition and on the verge of a nervous collapse, and she’s certainly in no fit state to answer any questions of yours. If you persist in worrying her after my warning you do so on your own responsibility.’

The superintendent admitted defeat.

‘I’m obliged to you, Doctor. In that case, of course, we’ll defer our interrogation…it can wait,’ he added with bitter ominousness, ‘until after Mrs Waterhouse has had an opportunity to consult with her solicitor.’

‘Quite so, my dear chap. Then if you’ll be good enough to make yourself scarce, I’ll examine my patient.’

The sound of heavy, sulky footsteps suggested to me that it might be more tactful if I were to make myself scarce too. I hurried down the stairs and paused, not knowing quite what to do next, in the hall. It was possible that Glen or Rona might want me again, and I did not like to go home and leave them to fight alone. After a moment’s thought I turned into the library.

The next instant I regretted my choice, for as I closed the door behind me Cyril Waterhouse rose from a chair by the fire,
The Times
in his hand, and looked at me enquiringly.

‘Yes?’ he said politely. ‘Oh, it’s you, Sewell. You wanted to see me?’

5

It is difficult to tell a man to his face that he is the last person one wanted to see.

‘Actually,’ I said stiffly enough, ‘I came round to see if there was anything I could do for Angela.’

‘Ah, Angela, yes. I’m afraid she’s engaged at the moment. In fact the police are interviewing her.’

‘Not at the moment, no,’ I retorted crudely. ‘Brougham’s just turned them out of her room. Angela’s in no fit state for the police interviews, as anyone might have known.’

The man’s face flushed faintly. ‘You appear to concern yourself very closely with my sister-in-law and her affairs.’

‘Naturally. We are her friends here, as your brother was when he was alive.’ Some extraordinary impulse drove me on to add: ‘To us the idea that she could have poisoned John seems nothing short of fantastic’

‘As it would, of course, to anyone,’ replied Cyril smoothly.

‘I should have imagined,’ I told him, ‘that nothing short of a suspicion just as grave as that could possibly excuse the intercepting and opening of her private letters: a thing which in the ordinary way could only be regarded as the act of an unspeakable cad.’

Waterhouse regarded me thoughtfully. He did not appear angry. I had never met a man with more complete control over himself.

‘You speak very bluntly, Sewell,’ he said at last, in the mildest way.

‘Sometimes blunt speaking clears the air.’

‘I think it does. Well, I’ll be equally blunt. I did suspect my sister-in-law of poisoning her husband, and I do still so suspect her. And I believe that any measures which may bring her guilt home if she is guilty – or equally, establish her innocence, if she is innocent – are defensible. I’m telling you no secret, by the way. Both Angela and the police are fully acquainted with my belief.’

‘And you had formed this idea almost before you even knew your brother was dead?’ It was remarkable how calm we both were considering the extraordinary nature of the conversation. We might have been discussing the weather for all the outward show we made of it.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Why, you seem to have left London with this
idée fixe
.’

Waterhouse appeared to reflect. ‘Not exactly left London, nor arrived here. But I must admit that, as soon as I heard the circumstances, the conviction jumped into my mind that my brother’s death, so unexpected and so inexplicable, had not been a natural one. I could never have rested until I had proved or disproved my suspicions. The fact has justified me.’

‘And you’re convinced that it was murder?’

‘I’m convinced.’

‘And not only that, but that Angela is the guilty person.’

‘Candidly, I have the gravest doubts of Angela’s innocence. Let us put it that way.’

I found the forced calm slipping from me. ‘Simply because you think she had a motive. But if it’s only a question of motive…’

‘Well?’

‘Well, you must allow Angela’s friends to be equally candid. I think your family would benefit considerably under John’s will in the event of…’

‘Yes?’

‘Of anything happening to Angela.’

For the first time the chilly smile which had so annoyed me before appeared on his lips.

‘Angela’s friends are of course at liberty to draw any strange conclusions they can find. But I think candour has gone far enough now, hasn’t it? Except that…’

‘Well?’

‘You remember I mentioned a bottle of medicine to you? It is still missing. I wonder if any of Angela’s friends can suggest an explanation?’

I turned away. The truth was that a disquieting reflection had just occurred to me. Supposing that wretched bottle did contain arsenic, what was there to prevent the police and Waterhouse from saying that it had been put there by Angela and was no mistake of Glen’s at all?

As if divining something of my thoughts, Waterhouse spoke again.

‘By the way, Sewell, concerning this matter of Angela’s friends, I think if I were you I should hint to Brougham that it would look rather better if he were to advise Angela to put herself in the hands of another doctor.’

‘Why would it look better?’ I asked somewhat truculently.

‘Because I’m afraid I have no faith in him as a doctor; and it would certainly look better for him to retire from the case than be, so to speak, dismissed.’

‘Well, really,’ I began indignantly, ‘one would think that you were already in possession. I must remind you that Angela, unless or until your misguided efforts get her arrested, is still mistress of this house; and if it comes to appearances, wouldn’t it look a great deal better if you were to remove yourself to the nearest pub instead of staying here on Angela’s hospitality and working against her as hard as you can?’

‘You must allow me to be the judge of that,’ he answered stiffly. ‘The position is not a pleasant one, but I feel that justice will best be served by my remaining here – as the guardian of John’s interests, if you like to consider it that way.’

‘But not as the guardian of John’s wife,’ said a nonchalant voice from the doorway. ‘You took the words out of my mouth, Douglas; though perhaps I might not have put them so forcibly… No, my dear chap,’ Glen continued to Waterhouse in the most cheerful of tones. ‘Sorry, and all that, but you must clear out. I’m speaking as your sister-in-law’s medical man. Your presence here is having a most disturbing effect on her. She can’t expect to get right again in these conditions. Besides, you needn’t worry. The police will do all the snooping for you now.’