The Thirteen Problems (Miss Marple 2)

‘No rat in that hole, Clithering,’ said Colonel Bantry, and laughed.

‘It’s the doctor’s turn to ask a question,’ said Sir Henry. ‘I stand down.’

‘My curiosity is mainly professional,’ said Dr Lloyd. ‘I should like to know what medical evidence was given at the inquest—that is, if our hostess remembers, or, indeed, if she knows.’

‘I know roughly,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘It was poisoning by digitalin—is that right?’

Dr Lloyd nodded.

‘The active principle of the foxglove—digitalis—acts on the heart. Indeed, it is a very valuable drug in some forms of heart trouble. A very curious case altogther. I would never have believed that eating a preparation of foxglove leaves could possibly result fatally. These ideas of eating poisonous leaves and berries are very much exaggerated. Very few people realize that the vital principle, or alkaloid, has to be extracted with much care and preparation.’

‘Mrs MacArthur sent some special bulbs round to Mrs Toomie the other day,’ said Miss Marple. ‘And Mrs Toomie’s cook mistook them for onions, and all the Toomies were very ill indeed.’

‘But they didn’t die of it,’ said Dr Lloyd.

‘No. They didn’t die of it,’ admitted Miss Marple.

‘A girl I knew died of ptomaine poisoning,’ said Jane Helier.

‘We must get on with investigating the crime,’ said Sir Henry.

‘Crime?’ said Jane, startled. ‘I thought it was an accident.’

‘If it were an accident,’ said Sir Henry gently, ‘I do not think Mrs Bantry would have told us this story. No, as I read it, this was an accident only in appearance—behind it is something more sinister. I remember a case—various guests in a house party were chatting after dinner. The walls were adorned with all kinds of old-fashioned weapons. Entirely as a joke one of the party seized an ancient horse pistol and pointed it at another man, pretending to fire it. The pistol was loaded and went off, killing the man. We had to ascertain in that case, first, who had secretly prepared and loaded that pistol, and secondly who had so led and directed the conversation that that final bit of horseplay resulted—for the man who had fired the pistol was entirely innocent!

‘It seems to me we have much the same problem here. Those digitalin leaves were deliberately mixed with the sage, knowing what the result would be. Since we exonerate the cook—we do exonerate the cook, don’t we?—the question arises: Who picked the leaves and delivered them to the kitchen?’

‘That’s easily answered,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘At least the last part of it is. It was Sylvia herself who took the leaves to the kitchen. It was part of her daily job to gather things like salad or herbs, bunches of young carrots—all the sort of things that gardeners never pick right. They hate giving you anything young and tender—they wait for them to be fine specimens. Sylvia and Mrs Carpenter used to see to a lot of these things themselves. And there was foxglove actually growing all amongst the sage in one corner, so the mistake was quite natural.’

‘But did Sylvia actually pick them herself?’

‘That, nobody ever knew. It was assumed so.’

‘Assumptions,’ said Sir Henry, ‘are dangerous things.’

‘But I do know that Mrs Carpenter didn’t pick them,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘Because, as it happened, she was walking with me on the terrace that morning. We went out there after breakfast. It was unusually nice and warm for early spring. Sylvia went alone down into the garden, but later I saw her walking arm-in-arm with Maud Wye.’

‘So they were great friends, were they?’ asked Miss Marple.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Bantry. She seemed as though about to say something, but did not do so.

‘Had she been staying there long?’ asked Miss Marple.

‘About a fortnight,’ said Mrs Bantry.

There was a note of trouble in her voice.

‘You didn’t like Miss Wye?’ suggested Sir Henry.

‘I did. That’s just it. I did.’

The trouble in her voice had grown to distress.

‘You’re keeping something back, Mrs Bantry,’ said Sir Henry accusingly.

‘I wondered just now,’ said Miss Marple, ‘but I didn’t like to go on.’

‘When did you wonder?’

‘When you said that the young people were engaged. You said that that was what made it so sad. But, if you know what I mean, your voice didn’t sound right when you said it—not convincing, you know.’

‘What a dreadful person you are,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘You always seem to know. Yes, I was thinking of something. But I don’t really know whether I ought to say it or not.’

‘You must say it,’ said Sir Henry. ‘Whatever your scruples, it mustn’t be kept back.’

‘Well, it was just this,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘One evening—in fact the very evening before the tragedy—I happened to go out on the terrace before dinner. The window in the drawing-room was open. And as it chanced I saw Jerry Lorimer and Maud Wye. He was—well—kissing her. Of course I didn’t know whether it was just a sort of chance affair, or whether—well, I mean, one can’t tell. I knew Sir Ambrose never had really liked Jerry Lorimer—so perhaps he knew he was that kind of young man. But one thing I am sure of: that girl, Maud Wye, was really fond of him. You’d only to see her looking at him when she was off guard. And I think, too, they were really better suited than he and Sylvia were.’

‘I am going to ask a question quickly, before Miss Marple can,’ said Sir Henry. ‘I want to know whether, after the tragedy, Jerry Lorimer married Maud Wye?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘He did. Six months afterwards.’

‘Oh! Scheherezade, Scheherezade,’ said Sir Henry. ‘To think of the way you told us this story at first! Bare bones indeed—and to think of the amount of flesh we’re finding on them now.’

‘Don’t speak so ghoulishly,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘And don’t use the word flesh. Vegetarians always do. They say, “I never eat flesh” in a way that puts you right off your little beefsteak. Mr Curle was a vegetarian. He used to eat some peculiar stuff that looked like bran for breakfast. Those elderly stooping men with beards are often faddy. They have patent kinds of underwear, too.’

‘What on earth, Dolly,’ said her husband, ‘do you know about Mr Curle’s underwear?’

‘Nothing,’ said Mrs Bantry with dignity. ‘I was just making a guess.’

‘I’ll amend my former statement,’ said Sir Henry. ‘I’ll say instead that the dramatis personae in your problem are very interesting. I’m beginning to see them all—eh, Miss Marple?’

‘Human nature is always interesting, Sir Henry. And it’s curious to see how certain types always tend to act in exactly the same way.’

‘Two women and a man,’ said Sir Henry. ‘The old eternal human triangle. Is that the base of our problem here? I rather fancy it is.’

Dr Lloyd cleared his throat.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said rather diffidently. ‘Do you say, Mrs Bantry, that you yourself were ill?’

‘Was I not! So was Arthur! So was everyone!’

‘That’s just it—everyone,’ said the doctor. ‘You see what I mean? In Sir Henry’s story which he told us just now, one man shot another—he didn’t have to shoot the whole room full.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Jane. ‘Who shot who?’

‘I’m saying that whoever planned this thing went about it very curiously, either with a blind belief in chance, or else with an absolutely reckless disregard for human life. I can hardly believe there is a man capabl

e of deliberately poisoning eight people with the object of removing one amongst them.’

‘I see your point,’ said Sir Henry, thoughtfully. ‘I confess I ought to have thought of that.’

‘And mightn’t he have poisoned himself too?’ asked Jane.

‘Was anyone absent from dinner that night?’ asked Miss Marple.

Mrs Bantry shook her head.

‘Everyone was there.’

‘Except Mr Lorimer, I suppose, my dear. He wasn’t staying in the house, was he?’

‘No; but he was dining there that evening,’ said Mrs Bantry.

‘Oh!’ said Miss Marple in a changed voice. ‘That makes all the difference in the world.’

She frowned vexedly to herself.

‘I’ve been very stupid,’ she murmured. ‘Very stupid indeed.’

‘I confess your point worries me, Lloyd,’ said Sir Henry.

‘How ensure that the girl, and the girl only, should get a fatal dose?’

‘You can’t,’ said the doctor. ‘That brings me to the point I’m going to make. Supposing the girl was not the intended victim after all?’

‘What?’

‘In all cases of food poisoning, the result is very uncertain. Several people share a dish. What happens? One or two are slightly ill, two more, say, are seriously indisposed, one dies. That’s the way of it—there’s no certainty anywhere. But there are cases where another factor might enter in. Digitalin is a drug that acts directly on the heart—as I’ve told you it’s prescribed in certain cases. Now, there was one person in that house who suffered from a heart complaint. Suppose he was the victim selected? What would not be fatal to the rest would be fatal to him—or so the murderer might reasonably suppose. That the thing turned out differently is only a proof of what I was saying just now—the uncertainty and unreliability of the effects of drugs on human beings.’

‘Sir Ambrose,’ said Sir Henry, ‘you think he was the person aimed at? Yes, yes—and the girl’s death was a mistake.’

‘Who got his money after he was dead?’ asked Jane.

‘A very sound question, Miss Helier. One of the first we always ask in my late profession,’ said Sir Henry.

‘Sir Ambrose had a son,’ said Mrs Bantry slowly. ‘He had quarrelled with him many years previously. The boy was wild, I believe. Still, it was not in Sir Ambrose’s power to disinherit him—Clodderham Court was entailed. Martin Bercy succeeded to the title and estate. There was, however, a good deal of other property that Sir Ambrose could leave as he chose, and that he left to his ward Sylvia. I know this because Sir Ambrose died less than a year after the events I am telling you of, and he had not troubled to make a new will after Sylvia’s death. I think the money went to the Crown—or perhaps it was to his son as next of kin—I don’t really remember.’