“I didn’t say so, madam.”
“Of course it’s murder. Plenty of people have wanted to murder Rex in their time. A very unscrupulous man. And old sins have long shadows, as the saying goes.”
“Have you anyone in particular in mind?”
Miss Ramsbottom swept up the cards and rose to her feet. She was a tall woman.
“I think you’d better go now,” she said.
She spoke without anger but with a kind of cold finality.
“If you want my opinion,” she went on, “it was probably one of the servants. The butler looks to me a bit of a rascal, and that parlourmaid is definitely subnormal. Good evening.”
Inspector Neele found himself meekly walking out. Certainly a remarkable old lady. Nothing to be got out of her.
He came down the stairs into the square hall to find himself suddenly face to face with a tall dark girl. She was wearing a damp mackintosh and she stared into his face with a curious blankness.
“I’ve just come back,” she said. “And they told me—about Father—that he’s dead.”
“I’m afraid that’s true.”
She pushed out a hand behind her as though blindly seeking for support. She touched an oak chest and slowly, stiffly, she sat down on it.
“Oh no,” she said. “No. . . .”
Slowly two tears ran down her cheeks.
“It’s awful,” she said. “I didn’t think that I even liked him . . . I thought I hated him . . . But that can’t be so, or I wouldn’t mind. I do mind.”
She sat there, staring in front of her, and again tears forced themselves from her eyes and down her cheeks.
Presently she spoke again, rather breathlessly:
“The awful thing is that it makes everything come right. I mean, Gerald and I can get married now. I can do everything that I want to do. But I hate it happening this way. I don’t want Father to be dead . . . Oh I don’t. Oh Daddy—Daddy. . . .”
For the first time since he had come to Yewtree Lodge, Inspector Neele was startled by what seemed to be genuine grief for the dead man.
Chapter Nine
“Sounds like the wife to me,” said the assistant commissioner. He had been listening attentively to Inspector Neele’s report.
It had been an admirable précis of the case. Short, but with no relevant detail left out.
“Yes,” said the AC. “It looks like the wife. What do you think yourself, Neele, eh?”
Inspector Neele said that it looked like the wife to him too. He reflected cynically that it usually was the wife—or the husband as the case might be.
“She had the opportunity all right. And motive?” The AC paused. “There is motive?”
“Oh, I think so, sir. This Mr. Dubois, you know.”
“Think he was in it, too?”
“No, I shouldn’t say that, sir.” Inspector Neele weighed the idea. “A bit too fond of his own skin for that. He may have guessed what was in her mind, but I shouldn’t imagine that he instigated it.”
“No, too careful.”
“Much too careful.”
“Well, we mustn’t jump to conclusions, but it seems a good working hypothesis. What about the other two who had opportunity?”
“That’s the daughter and the daughter-in-law. The daughter was mixed-up with a young man whom her father didn’t want her to marry. And he definitely wasn’t marrying her unless she had the money. That gives her a motive. As to the daughter-in-law, I wouldn’t like to say. Don’t know enough about her yet. But any of the three of them could have poisoned him, and I don’t see how anyone else could have done so. The parlourmaid, the butler, the cook, they all handled the breakfast or brought it in, but I don’t see how any of them could have been sure of Fortescue himself getting the taxine and nobody else. That is, if it was taxine.”
The AC said: “It was taxine all right. I’ve just got the preliminary report.”
“That settles that, then,” said Inspector Neele. “We can go ahead.”
“Servants seem all right?”
“The butler and the parlourmaid both seem nervous. There’s nothing uncommon about that. Often happens. The cook’s fighting mad and the housemaid was grimly pleased. In fact all quite natural and normal.”
“There’s nobody else whom you consider suspicious in any way?”
“No, I don’t think so, sir.” Involuntarily, Inspector Neele’s mind went back to Mary Dove and her enigmatic smile. There had surely been a faint yet definite look of antagonism. Aloud he said, “Now that we know it’s taxine, there ought to be some evidence to be got as to how it was obtained or prepared.”
“Just so. Well, go ahead, Neele. By the way, Mr. Percival Fortescue is here now. I’ve had a word or two with him and he’s waiting to see you. We’ve located the other son, too. He’s in Paris at the Bristol, leaving today. You’ll have him met at the airport, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir. That was my idea. . . .”
“Well, you’d better see Percival Fortescue now.” The AC chuckled. “Percy Prim, that’s what he is.”
Mr. Percival Fortescue was a neat fair man of thirty odd, with pale hair and eyelashes and a slightly pedantic way of speech.
“This has been a terrible shock to me, Inspector Neele, as you can well imagine.”
“It must have been, Mr. Fortescue,” said Inspector Neele.
“I can only say that my father was perfectly well when I left home the day before yesterday. This food poisoning, or whatever it was, must have been very sudden?”
“It was very sudden, yes. But it wasn’t food poisoning, Mr. Fortescue.”
Percival stared and frowned.
“No? So that’s why—” he broke off.
“Your father,” said Inspector Neele, “was poisoned by the administration of taxine.”
“Taxine? I’ve never heard of it.”
“Very few people have, I should imagine. It is a poison that takes effect very suddenly and drastically.”
The frown deepened.
“Are you telling me, Inspector, that my father was deliberately poisoned by someone?”
“It would seem so, yes, sir.”
“That’s terrible!”
“Yes indeed, Mr. Fortescue.”
Percival murmured: “I understand now their attitude in the hospital—their referring me here.” He broke off. After a pause he went on, “The funeral?” He spoke interrogatively.
“The inquest is fixed for tomorrow after the postmortem. The proceedings at the inquest will be purely formal and the inquest will be adjourned.”
“I understand. That is usually the case?”
“Yes, sir. Nowadays.”
“May I ask, have you formed any ideas, any suspicions of who could—Really, I—” again he broke off.
“It’s rather early days for that, Mr. Fortescue,” murmured Neele.
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“All the same it would be helpful to us, Mr. Fortescue, if you could give us some idea of your father’s testamentary dispositions. Or perhaps you could put me in touch with his solicitor.”
“His solicitors are Billingsby, Horsethorpe & Walters of Bedford Square. As far as his will goes, I think I can more or less tell you its main dispositions.”
“If you will be kind enough to do so, Mr. Fortescue. It’s a routine that has to be gone through, I’m afraid.”
“My father made a new will on the occasion of his marriage two years ago,” said Percival precisely. “My father left the sum of £100,000 to his wife absolutely and £50,000 to my sister, Elaine. I am his residuary legatee. I am already, of course, a partner in the firm.”
“There was no bequest to your brother, Lancelot Fortescue?”
“No, there is an estrangement of long standing between my father and my brother.”
Neele threw a sharp glance at him—but Percival seemed quite sure of his statement.
“So as the will stands,” said Inspector Neele, “the three people who stand to gain are Mrs. Fort
escue, Miss Elaine Fortescue and yourself?”
“I don’t think I shall be much of a gainer.” Percival sighed. “There are death duties, you know, Inspector. And of late my father has been—well, all I can say is, highly injudicious in some of his financial dealings.”
“You and your father have not seen eye to eye lately about the conduct of the business?” Inspector Neele threw out the question in a genial manner.
“I put my point of view to him, but alas—” Percival shrugged his shoulders.
“Put it rather forcibly, didn’t you?” Neele inquired. “In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, there was quite a row about it, wasn’t there?”
“I should hardly say that, Inspector.” A red flush of annoyance mounted to Percival’s forehead.
“Perhaps the dispute you had was about some other matter then, Mr. Fortescue?”
“There was no dispute, Inspector.”
“Quite sure of that, Mr. Fortescue? Well, no matter. Did I understand that your father and brother are still estranged?”
“That is so.”
“Then perhaps you can tell me what this means?”
Neele handed him the telephone message Mary Dove had jotted down.