Found Floating, page 10
Eye trouble! What was he on to now? Katherine felt instinctively that it must be something important. That forgetfulness had been well done, but not just well enough.However, she couldn’t prevaricate. Anyone in the house could tell him the answer, and probably had.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘last year I had some trouble myself.’
Kirby took a small bottle from his pocket. ‘I saw this in the medicine cupboard in the bathroom,’ he explained. ‘Is it yours?’
It was a little bottle half full of tiny pellets.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘those little tablets are called lamellae and they contain eserine. It was part of the treatment to put them inside the lid of my eye, where they dissolved.’
‘Quite. I thought they were used in that way. Well, Miss Shirley, I’m greatly obliged to you for your help,’ and with further apologies for the length of his stay, Kirby took his departure, followed by his attendant sergeant.
8
The Determination of Runciman
It was a special pleasure to Katherine when next morning Dr Jellicoe came in to pay his daily visit. She wanted to tell him of her interview with the police, and to find out if he could throw any light on what was going on. She wanted to talk to him, not only as an end in itself, but because she felt she must get some relief from the rather terrible thoughts which persisted in her mind.
So, when he had taken her temperature, felt her pulse and otherwise satisfied himself as to her continued progress, and had sat down for the little chat which he allowed himself, she plunged at once into her subject.
‘Well, I had Inspector Kirby and Sergeant Scarlett here for a couple of hours yesterday.’
‘I was thinking of you,’ he said, ‘I needn’t ask how you got on, but I do hope it wasn’t as bad as you feared?’
‘In one sense it wasn’t bad at all. The inspector was extremely polite. But in another it was dreadful. Tell me, Dr Jellicoe, exactly what it is they suspect?’
He looked more gravely at her. ‘What did they say?’ he asked.
‘They said nothing, in the sense of making statements. But their questions were terribly suggestive.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I expect I misunderstood, because what they appeared to suggest was too utterly absurd. They seemed to think that someone in the house had poisoned the rest deliberately.’
Jellicoe nodded slowly. ‘I’m dreadfully sorry,’ he declared, ‘but I’m afraid that’s what they do think. You remember, I gave you a hint of it yesterday.’
‘Yes, but it’s so ridiculous.’
‘I gathered that it doesn’t seem so to them. What exactly did they ask you?’
‘They found out, first, that every single creature in the house could have gone into the dining room for a minute or so before dinner, alone and unknown to any of the others. Then they found out that there was a tin of arsenical weed-killer in the tool shed in the garden, and that everyone of us could have known it was there, and at some time or another could have gone to the shed and taken some. Dreadful, isn’t it? And they also asked if there had been any disputes or ill feeling between the members of the family.’
‘And had there been?’
‘No, of course not.’
To say so was Katherine’s normal and immediate reaction. But as she spoke, the dreadful thought which had been so long lurking in the recesses of her mind, recurred to her more vividly than ever.
She was wrong! That look she had surprised on Jim’s face!
For a moment she felt quite overwhelmed, then her reason reasserted itself. If Jim had any such feeling it was against Mant, and Mant alone. Jim was extremely fond of his sister, Eva, and to Luke Dugdale and to herself, Katherine, he wished only well. And to William too, she believed.
She had been silent as these thoughts passed through her mind, and now she saw that Jellicoe was looking at her with a mixture of love and intense longing. In spite of herself she flushed slightly. He withdrew his eyes and moved deprecatingly.
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘you are worried about something. Is there anything I can do to help?’
The impulse to tell him everything was overwhelming. This dreadful nightmare idea would be dispelled if only it could be put into words. If she could share her trouble, she would be comforted.
But there was one thing that she must understand first: if he could explain it. Impulsively she asked her question.
‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘what the police really suspect? Surely they cannot imagine that one of us actually tried to kill all the rest, including him or herself? It seems to me too absurd. Can you explain it?’
‘Well,’ he answered, ‘I’d much rather not talk of it, but if you must know, I’ll tell you. But again it’s confidential.’
‘Never mind. Tell me. I won’t repeat it.’
‘Very well. They don’t suppose that one of the party tried to kill all the rest. What they think is that one of the party tried to kill Mr Mant.’
The blood surged from Katherine’s face, leaving it blanched and drawn. ‘Mant?’ she gasped. ‘Oh, how?’
He paused as if to choose his words. ‘Well, you see,’ he went on, apparently speaking with regret, ‘there is one fact which I must admit is suspicious. And that is this: Mr Mant has been very much more seriously ill than any of the other members of the party: very much more. While you other five had a sharp attack, extremely unpleasant and all that, none of you were really dangerously ill. But Mr Mant nearly died: it was touch and go with him.’
Katherine shook her head. ‘I don’t see what that has to do with it,’ she explained. ‘Surely that depends on what I think is called a person’s tolerance to the poison, and that could scarcely be foreseen?’
‘No, I’m afraid it means more than that. I’m dreadfully sorry, but you’ll have to know it sooner or later. While all of you received a small dose of arsenic, Mr Mant also had a second poison—a fatal dose of eserine.
Katherine stared with horror-stricken face. ‘Eserine! That explains the inspector’s question!’
‘Oh,’ said Jellicoe. ‘What did he ask?’
‘Oh, dear, isn’t it awful! He had found the bottle of lamellae I had for my iritis some months ago, and he asked whose it was.’
‘Did he ask who had access to it?’
Katherine groaned. ‘No, but it was in the bathroom cupboard. He must have known we all had.’
Katherine would not allow herself to think. The dreadful idea was hammering at her consciousness: Jim could have got it! Jim could have got it! Resolutely she tried to force it out of her mind.
‘But,’ she said tremulously, ‘I don’t understand. You say Mant had a fatal dose. Why then—did he not—die?’
‘It seems an absurd thing to say,’ Jellicoe returned gravely, ‘but it was because of the arsenic. The arsenic really saved him. I’ll tell you. This poison, eserine, is obtained from the calabar bean, and it’s the poison the African witch doctors use in their ordeals. I expect you’ve read about it. Someone is suspected of crime and they give him a dose of calabar beans. If he lives they say he’s innocent, and if he dies they say he’s guilty. Now the witch doctors can arrange beforehand which is to happen, and without suspicion falling on them. For the strange thing about this poison is that a moderate dose kills, while a large one is safe. The reason is that a large dose makes the patient sick and he gets rid of the poison. A small dose on the other hand does not, and he retains it and it kills him. Now in Mr Mant’s case the arsenic made him sick and he got rid of a lot of the eserine. So we may say the arsenic saved him.’
‘Oh!’ Katherine breathed. ‘But still I don’t understand. Suppose he had two poisons. Why should the rest of us have had any poison at all? And how could the doses have been given?’
‘Unfortunately the police have put up theories to answer both your questions. They can’t prove them of course. But here they are for what they’re worth. They think that the murderer decided to dose all round so that accidental illness should be assumed and murder not suspected. You see, assuming they’re right, it would have looked—and did look—and does look—very much like it. Only for what I may call the murderer’s extraordinarily bad luck, it would have been accepted without question. You can see that for yourself. It never occurred to you to suspect anything but accident—simply because the whole party got ill. You see, it was really a very clever move on the murderer’s part.’
The further Jellicoe went on, the lower sank Katherine’s heart. ‘What was the bad luck?’ she asked tonelessly.
‘Simply that some of everything that was eaten was left over. If one item of the meal—suppose for argument’s sake the soup—had been finished, the conclusion that the soup had contained the poison would have been irresistible. If the claret cup had been finished, the same would have been argued about it. Because the murderer evidently assumed—and correctly—that the plates and glasses would have been washed up before the symptoms appeared. If, as I say, one single dish had been finished and washed—as he had every right to expect would be the case—the murderer would have been safe.’
‘You speak as if you believed there was a murderer.’
The doctor shook his head. ‘On the contrary: I’m trying to leave my views out of it altogether and to tell you only what the police think. I know what they think because they consulted me as to its possibility from a medical point of view.’
Katherine felt almost sick with dismay. Simply she couldn’t bear to think of what his words might involve. Involuntarily she gave a little moan, then pulled herself together and repeated her question as to how the doses could have been given.
‘Katherine dear,’ Jellicoe said; ‘you must let me call you Katherine in this trouble. I would do anything to spare you this worry, but you have asked me, and indeed I think it better that you should know what is being considered. The police have a theory as to how doses of any kind could have a been given to all those at the dinner. Here again they haven’t proved their theory and I don’t see how they ever could.’
‘Tell me,’ she said again.
He nodded. ‘I’m going to. They had evolved the idea, as you guessed from their questions, that someone slipped into the dining room just before dinner and dispensed the poison. They reached that opinion by elimination—they thought there was no other time at which it could have been done. Then they tried an experiment. They had the dining room prepared exactly as it was on that night. The table was laid in the same way, the chairs arranged as before, the fire and lights just as they were. No food was prepared because their idea was that the poison had been arranged for before the food came in. Here they tried again by elimination. They removed from the room everything that couldn’t possibly have been used. And they finished—with a definite theory.’
Katherine didn’t speak, but looked her question.
‘They found that it was possible to drop as much as four drops into those goblets without the liquid being seen. Remember the shape of the goblets, deep and narrow at the bottom, and with thicker glass at this place, and particularly the bluish tinge of the glass. Then the light was dim, only four small electric candles. The police suggested that three or four drops of arsenic had been put into all the glasses, and a number of eserine lamellae into Mr Mant’s in addition.’
Katherine was stunned. It sounded not only possible, but hideously possible. And Jim—had forgotten his parcel.
But Jim couldn’t have done such a thing! He hadn’t it in him. Eagerly she clung to her knowledge of his character, known all through his life. No, if anyone was guilty of this ghastly crime, it was not Jim.
Then again the devil of doubt whispered, Would she have believed that Jim could look as he had? And she knew that if she had not seen it herself she would not.
Presently she realised that Jellicoe was speaking. ‘I can see,’ he was saying, ‘that this has worried you greatly. I don’t know if I can help you in anything, but if I can, I do beg of you to let me try.’
She glanced at him gratefully. What a relief it would be to take him at his word and tell him all that was in her mind! But she dare not. Not even to him. If it had been she who was open to suspicion, how quickly she would have done so. But a doubt of Jim must not be breathed to anyone on earth. There might be danger in the slightest whisper.
In any case, she reminded herself, there was nothing to tell and nothing to hide. It couldn’t have been Jim.
And yet …
But this morning, though it brought this terrible fear to Katherine, brought her also a thrill of unbelievable happiness. Jellicoe when leaving had taken both her hands and pressed them while he said—and she could feel how strong and how repressed was his emotion—‘Dear Katherine, do believe that there’s nothing in the world I wouldn’t do to save you this worry, if only I could.’ And then he had paused and gone on hastily: ‘When you’re well I want to put something before you. Please don’t come to any conclusion about the future till you have heard me.’ With that he stooped, kissed her hands quickly and vanished.
She knew she loved him and she knew that when he asked her to marry him she would do so. She wished only that he had asked her then and there, but she understood that his ideas of professional honour would not allow him to do so while she was still his patient. But there could be no doubt of what he meant.
Katherine lay swayed in her anticipation from ecstasy to something approaching despair. On the one hand, what unmixed joy was promised: on the other, what a ghastly fate might be hanging over them all! And if this dreadful horror really materialised, it would be the end of her happiness. Even if the doctor would marry her—and she believed he would even under such terrible circumstances—she could never marry him.
Again and again she told herself there was no use in worrying about it, as nothing she could do would affect the result. But this recommendation suffered the usual fate of good advice.
The next day marked a stage in the party’s convalescence. On it Katherine was allowed up, and on it Eva, Luke and Jim were able to return home. William was much better, though not yet up, and even Mant was beginning slowly to improve.
When she saw the others Katherine found that they had been visited in turn by the police, who had obtained from each a similar statement to that she had herself given them. Once again she saw the hopelessness of trying to prevaricate to the police. With all these separate statements to compare, the slightest individual inaccuracy would instantly stand out, shrieking for attention. Thank heaven, everything she had said had been the literal truth!
Now came for Katherine a succession of dull and monotonous days, during which she slowly regained health and strength. She must, she felt, have been more seriously ill than she had imagined, her recovery was so gradual. And the same applied to the others also. In the cases of Eva, Jim and Luke improvement was steady, though as slow as in her own. But Mant and William, though better, still remained prostrated. Mant, she now understood, had survived almost by a miracle, the result of his splendid constitution; and William’s age and low state of health at the time told heavily against him.
As she talked with the others she quickly came to the conclusion that all five were completely puzzled as to what could have happened. None, she felt sure, had guessed the theory of the police or evolved any theory of their own to account for the facts.
Nor had the police, during these days, made any further move. What they were doing, if anything, Katherine could not imagine. No information had been given the family or published in the papers as to the result of their enquiries. Katherine had one day met Inspector Kirby and had asked him how his investigation was progressing, but he had been politely non-committal in reply.
On one point she was profoundly thankful. Her terrible fears about Jim had died away. When she had met him and talked to him about the affair, he had spoken in such a way that she felt immediately satisfied as to his innocence. Jim was no actor and he could never, she felt sure, have displayed the feeling he did, had he had a guilty conscience.
Then one afternoon there came for Katherine what she believed was the most important day in her life. Runciman Jellicoe called and asked her to be his wife.
His manner was just a little cold and formal, and for a dreadful moment the suspicion leapt into her mind that he believed he had committed himself during her illness and was now only proposing from a sense of duty. But she soon saw that beneath that manner there was intense repressed feeling, and she realised that he spoke as he did in order not to embarrass her should she decide to refuse him. For this she loved him only the better, and she longed for nothing so much as to throw herself into his arms and feel them about her. Almost overwhelmingly she was tempted to accept him instantly and without condition.
But she did not do so. There was, she told him, this shadow hanging over the family, and until it was removed Ashe could not even consider such a question.
‘That,’ he said in his slightly precise way, ‘is not the question that I am immediately interested in. What I want to know, and what I do most earnestly beg you to tell me is whether you think you could put up with me? I do love you so completely; it means more than anything else in the World to me. Could you, Katherine, love me a little in return?’
‘Yes,’ she said then: she could hold herself back no longer. ‘I do love you, but I won’t marry you or allow any engagement while there is the chance of something dreadful happening.’
He looked overwhelmed, as if the shock of almost unbelievable happiness was too much for him. Then suddenly his manner changed. He dropped his cool precise manner, and, trembling with repressed excitement, he moved over to her and picked her up in his arms and kissed her as if she had been a child.
‘My dear,’ he murmured with a kind of triumph in his voice, ‘when you’ve admitted that, you can’t refuse to marry me. I couldn’t urge you before; now I can. You love me! Nothing else matters. When you love me and I love you nothing can keep us apart. You will marry me, Katherine? You will?’
