Black Coffee (Hercule Poirot 7)

She fumbled in her handbag, found a cigarette and a lighter, and lit the cigarette. She was about to begin speaking again when Miss Amory silenced her with a gesture. ‘Oh, do stop being silly, Barbara. I’m really very worried about this poor child here, and I wish you wouldn’t make fun of me.’

Lucia suddenly broke down and began to weep. Trying to wipe the tears from her eyes, she said between sobs, ‘You are all so good to me. No one was ever kind to me until I came here, until I married Richard. It’s been wonderful to be here with you. I can’t help it, I –’

‘There, there,’ murmured Miss Amory, rising and going to Lucia. She patted her on the shoulder. ‘There, there, my dear. I know what you mean – living abroad all your life – most unsuitable for a young girl. Not a proper kind of upbringing at all, and of course the continentals have some very peculiar ideas about education. There, there.’

Lucia stood up, and looked about her, uncertainly. She allowed Miss Amory to lead her to the settee, and sat at one end while Miss Amory patted cushions around her and then sat next to her. ‘Of course you’re upset, my dear. But you must try to forget about Italy. Although, of course, the dear Italian lakes are quite delightful in the spring, I always think. Very suitable for holidays, but one wouldn’t want to live there, naturally. Now, now, don’t cry, my dear.’

‘I think she needs a good stiff drink,’ suggested Barbara, sitting on the coffee table and peering critically but not unsympathetically into Lucia’s face. ‘This is an awful house, Aunt Caroline. It’s years behind the times. You never see the ghost of a cocktail in it. Nothing but sherry or whisky before dinner, and brandy afterwards. Richard can’t make a decent Manhattan, and just try asking Edward Raynor for a Whisky Sour. Now what would really pull Lucia around in no time would be a Satan’s Whisker.’

Miss Amory turned a shocked countenance upon her niece. ‘What,’ she enquired in horrified tones, ‘might a Satan’s Whisker be?’

‘It’s quite simple to make, if you have the ingredients,’ replied Barbara. ‘It’s merely equal parts of brandy and crème de menthe, but you mustn’t forget a shake of red pepper. That’s most important. It’s absolutely super, and guaranteed to put some pep into you.’

‘Barbara, you know I disapprove of these alcoholic stimulants,’ Miss Amory exclaimed with a shudder. ‘My dear father always said –’

‘I don’t know what he said,’ replied Barbara, ‘but absolutely everyone in the family knows that dear old Great-Uncle Algernon had the reputation of being a three-bottle man.’

At first, Miss Amory looked as if she might explode, but then the slight twitch of a smile appeared on her lips, and all she said was, ‘Gentlemen are different.’

Barbara was having none of this. ‘They’re not in the least different,’ she said. ‘Or at any rate I can’t imagine why they should be allowed to be different. They simply got away with it in those days.’ She produced from her handbag a small mirror, a powder-puff and lipstick. ‘Well, how do we look?’ she asked herself. ‘Oh, my God!’ And she began vigorously to apply lipstick.

‘Really, Barbara,’ said her aunt, ‘I do wish you wouldn’t put quite so much of that red stuff on your lips. It’s such a very bright colour.’

‘I hope so,’ replied Barbara, still completing her make-up. ‘After all, it cost seven and sixpence.’

‘Seven shillings and sixpence! What a disgraceful waste of money, just for – for –’

‘For “Kissproof ”, Aunt Caroline.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The lipstick. It’s called “Kissproof ”.’

Her aunt sniffed disapprovingly. ‘I know, of course,’ she said, ‘that one’s lips are inclined to chap if one has been out in a high wind, and that a little grease is advisable. Lanoline, for instance. I always use –’

Barbara interrupted her. ‘My dear Aunt Caroline, take it from me, a girl simply can’t have too much lipstick on. After all, she never knows how much of it she’s going to lose in the taxi coming home.’ As she spoke, she replaced the mirror, powder-puff and lipstick in her handbag.

Miss Amory looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean, “in the taxi coming home”?’ she asked. ‘I don’t understand.’

Barbara rose and, moving behind the settee, leaned over to Lucia. ‘Never mind. Lucia understands, don’t you, my love?’ she asked, giving Lucia’s chin a little tickle.

Lucia Amory looked around, blankly. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said to Barbara, ‘I haven’t been listening. What did you say?’

Focusing her attention on Lucia again, Caroline Amory returned to the subject of that young lady’s health. ‘You know, my dear,’ she said, ‘I really am worried about you.’ She looked from Lucia to Barbara. ‘She ought to have something, Barbara. What have we got now? Sal volatile, of course, that would be the very thing. Unfortunately, that careless Ellen broke my bottle this morning when she was dusting in my room.’

Pursing her lips, Barbara considered for a moment. ‘I know,’ she exclaimed. ‘The hospital stores!’

‘Hospital stores? What do you mean? What hospital stores?’ Miss Amory asked.

Barbara came and sat in a chair close to her aunt. ‘You remember,’ she reminded her. ‘All of Edna’s things.’

Miss Amory’s face brightened. ‘Ah, yes, of course!’ Turning to Lucia, she said, ‘I wish you had met Edna, my elder niece, Barbara’s sister. She went to India with her husband – oh, it must have been about three months before you came here with Richard. Such a capable girl, Edna was.’

‘Most capable,’ Barbara confirmed. ‘She’s just had twins. As there are no gooseberry bushes in India, I think she must have found them under a double mango tree.’

Miss Amory allowed herself a smile. ‘Hush, Barbara,’ she said. Then, turning back to Lucia, she continued, ‘As I was saying, dear, Edna trained as a dispenser during the war. She worked at our hospital here. We turned the Town Hall into a hospital, you know, during the war. And then for some years after the war, until she was married, Edna continued to work in the dispensary at the County Hospital. She was very knowledgable about drugs and pills and that sort of thing. I dare say she still is. That knowledge must be invaluable to her in India. But what was I saying? Oh, yes – when she left. Now what did we do with all those bottles of hers?’

‘I remember perfectly well,’ said Barbara. ‘A lot of old things of Edna’s from the dispensary were bundled into a box. They were supposed to be sorted out and sent to hospitals, but everyone forgot, or at least no one did anything about it. They were put away in the attic, and they only came to light again when Edna was packing to go to India. They’re up there –’ she gestured towards the bookcase – ‘and they still haven’t been looked through and sorted out.’

She rose and, taking her chair across to the bookcase, stood on it and, reaching up, lifted the black tin box down from the top.

Ignoring Lucia’s murmured ‘Please don’t bother, darling, I really don’t need anything’, Barbara carried the box over to the table and put it down.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘at least we might as well have a look at the things now that I’ve got them down.’ She opened the box. ‘Oh dear, it’s a motley collection,’ she said, taking out various bottles as she spoke. ‘Iodine, Friar’s balsam, something called “Tinct.Card.Co”, castor oil.’ She grimaced. ‘Ah, now we’re coming to the hot stuff,’ she exclaimed, as she took out of the box some small brown glass tubes. ‘Atropine, morphine, strychnine,’ she read from the labels. ‘Be careful, Aunt Caroline. If you arouse my furious temper, I’ll poison your coffee with strychnine, and you’ll die in the most awful agony.’ Barbara made a mock-menacing gesture at her aunt, who waved her away with a snort.

‘Well, there’s nothing here we could possibly try out on Lucia as a tonic, that’s for certain,’ she laughed, as she began to pack the bottles and phials back into the tin box. She was holding a tube of morphine aloft in her right hand as the door to the hall opened, and Tredwell ushered in Edward

Raynor, Dr Carelli, and Sir Claud Amory. Sir Claud’s secretary, Edward Raynor, entered first, an unremarkable-looking young man in his late twenties. He moved across to Barbara, and stood looking at the box. ‘Hello, Mr Raynor. Interested in poisons?’ she asked him as she continued to pack up the bottles.

Dr Carelli, too, approached the table. A very dark, swarthy individual of about forty, Carelli wore perfectly fitting evening clothes. His manner was suave, and when he spoke it was with the slightest Italian accent. ‘What have we here, my dear Miss Amory?’ he queried.