Death of a Mystery Writer (9 page)

Inspector Meredith was a chunky man of middle height, who could once have been a rugby scrum-half, but had not acquired the bruiser's face that sometimes goes with the game. He was in his early forties, his light brown hair still untouched by gray, his face mobile and candid, and his eyes dancing with pleasure and mischief and joy in life. Whatever effects a policeman's lot had on other members of the force, it did not seem to have robbed Inspector Meredith of a boyish zest for experience. Even when the rest of his face was trying on other expressions for size, his eyes said he was enjoying himself hugely, rippling like a lake in a spring breeze. At the moment he looked more as if he had just solved a difficult case instead of being just about to begin one.

The eyes, darting lithely, took in Bella and Terence, both apparently relaxed in their chairs, but looking at him tensely; took in Mark, indefinably crumpled, but managing a certain dignity as he sat comforting his mother; took in Miss Cozzens and the odd mixture of respectability, disapproval, efficiency, and covert enjoyment somehow mingled in her face and stance; took in Lady Fairleigh-Stubbs, struggling to wipe away the tears from her long, mobile, distinguished face. It was she in the end who reacted to his arrival. She dabbed determinedly at her face, assumed with an effort a brave front, got to her feet, and advanced toward him, hand outstretched. It seemed like a heroic triumph of breeding over inclination.

“Good morning, Inspector,” she said, shaking him by the
hand. “I'm afraid we are a little upset here, as you can imagine. Perhaps you had better sit down.”

“Thank you, Lady Fairleigh.” Chief Inspector Meredith, his face set more than ever in a mask of sobriety, darted over to a chair, sat himself neatly in it, and looked around once more at the family of Oliver Fairleigh. Mark was standing now, and trying to coax his mother back to her seat. Bella and Terence had not acknowledged his presence—had, in fact, hardly moved a muscle, except to turn their heads slightly so as to follow him with their eyes. A very chilly pair indeed, Meredith decided.

“You won't thank me for beating about the bush, I'm sure of that,” he said, putting his open palms squarely on his knees. “I'm here because we're afraid that your husband's heart attack, ma'am, was in some way or other induced. Of course we are not sure of anything yet, but we suspect that it may have been brought on by some poison that acts on the heart—nicotine, for example.”

“Nicotine?” said Lady Fairleigh, who for all her efforts still seemed to be in a state of shell shock. “Well, of course, Oliver had lit up a cigar.”

“It would have to be nicotine administered in some other way, say in a liquid solution,” explained Meredith patiently. “Of course, whether this was taken accidentally, or deliberately, or was administered to him by another person we have no means of knowing as yet. That's what we are here for.”

“You mean,” said Mark, “that his death was either suicide, or accident, or murder.”

“That's correct, sir.”

Meredith looked round at the five faces, all trying to digest the implications of what he had just said.

“I'm sure there's no question of suicide,” said Lady Fairleigh at last, apparently with reluctance. “As we were just saying, Oliver loved life, in his own way.”

“How could a poison like that get into anything accidentally?” asked Miss Cozzens. “It doesn't seem possible. Especially as only Sir Oliver was affected.”

“It is rather difficult to imagine,” said Inspector Meredith. He paused, and let the third alternative hang for a moment in the room, like a bat in the rafters.

 • • • 

Half an hour later the sequences of events of the previous evening was becoming a little plainer to Meredith.

“So if we assume—a big assumption, I'm perfectly aware—if we assume that the cause of death was the lakka, then it seems to me that the likeliest thing is that the poison was introduced into the glass. Otherwise, any number of people could have been poisoned.” The Fairleigh family considered this thoughtfully. “And the glasses—?” continued Meredith.

“They've been washed up, Inspector,” said Barbara Cozzens, feeling less than usually irreproachable at the thought that it was she who had encouraged Surtees to be so officiously efficient the night before. The inspector looked at her, but if he was annoyed he didn't let it show on his face. His habitual airy good humor was undisturbed.

“Ah well, that's a pity. Never mind. My men can get the glasses that were used. There's no telling what tiny traces may still be clinging to them.”

“But you know, Inspector,” said Terence, who had dropped his passive hostility, “I don't remember too clearly—we'd all had quite a lot to drink at dinner—but I
think
Dad poured out his lakka and took it up in his hand immediately. Then we toasted him, and he drank it down. Isn't that right?” He looked round inquiringly at his mother and sister.

“Yes, it is, dear, I remember it distinctly,” said his mother. “He drank it almost immediately. So you see, it's quite impossible, Inspector.” She said it with an eager satisfaction, as if having proved this one hypothesis to be impossible, the whole nightmare would go away. Inspector Meredith felt that she was not doing justice to her intelligence.

“Was there an interval between his pouring the glass before his own and his pouring his own?” asked Meredith. “If there was,
the—poison might have been introduced into the glass before the liqueur was poured into it.”

They all furrowed their brows. “I think there may have been,” said Bella finally. “Was it your glass he poured before his own, Terry?”

Terence shrugged. “Search me. It's not the kind of thing you would remember, is it?”

“I think it was,” said Eleanor Fairleigh. “But I couldn't be sure.”

“In any case,” said Meredith, “we'll soon know, because my boys will be examining the decanter of lakka.”

“If the poison—if there
was
poison—was put in the decanter, there wouldn't have been any great risk,” said Terence. “None of us would have touched the stuff. Only Dad drank it.”

“But you had guests,” said Meredith.

“Of course,” said Terence carelessly. “I'd forgotten the Woodstocks. They are rather the sort of people one tends to overlook.”

Meredith noted a glance pass from Bella to Terence, of what meaning he could not guess. Lady Eleanor was thoughtfully continuing on the same track: “Of course, I remember now, Oliver did press little Mrs. Woodstock to try the lakka. How lucky she refused.”

“And of course,” said Meredith, “if the poison was put into the decanter, it could have been put there at any time since the last occasion anybody drank the stuff. So whoever it was did it may not have known that there would be guests to dinner next time it was used. Or of course,” Meredith added, “he may not have cared.”

“The cupboard where the decanter was, was always kept locked,” said Miss Cozzens. “And Sir Oliver kept the key himself. Whoever it was would have had to break into the cupboard.”

“Oh, he always kept the keys, did he? Why was that?”

“One of his little ways,” said his widow hurriedly. She did not look at her children. Meredith sat in thought for a few seconds.

“Let's forget that possibility for a moment,” he said at last.
“Now, while the presents were being opened, you were all crowding round the desk—is that right?”

“Except Mark,” said Eleanor, quickly again.

“Oh, yes? And why was that, sir?”

“I was drunk,” said Mark, without embarrassment. “You'll have to ask the others what I did. I don't remember anything after dinner. When I woke I was in the chair by the door, that I do recall. But by then he was dead.” Mark looked round, wide-eyed and inquiring at his brother and sister. Inspector Meredith sensed in them a certain reluctance to offer testimony on this point. Terence looked as if his thoughts were elsewhere, while Bella looked at her glass.

“We brought Mark from the dinner table to the study,” said Bella at last. “Terence and I. We put him in the chair.”

“Did he leave it at all during the festivities?”

“I don't think so.”

“Bella, you know perfectly well he didn't,” said her mother, her voice rising.

“I didn't
see
him leave it,” said Bella, with an edge to her voice too. “I wasn't paying any attention to him. Why should I? I was looking at Daddy and the presents.”

“He didn't get up,” said Eleanor, in a forceful, landed-gentry voice. “I was watching him.”

“The whole time?” said Meredith suavely, not taking his eyes off her. “Why was that?”

“Because he was drunk. Any mother would be worried.”

“I see.” It occurred to Eleanor in a flash that the inspector knew that her son was a habitual drinker. It occurred to her too that he had heard of the incident at the Prince Albert at Hadley. She groaned inwardly. But then, he was bound to hear before long. If the servants didn't tell him, Terence or Bella would.

“Well,” said Meredith, getting up, “I must go and see how my men are doing, and ring the hospital. I think that will be all for the moment, but I presume you will all be staying in the house?” He looked, raising his eloquent eyebrows, particularly at the three children of Oliver Fairleigh. They all nodded. “That's all
right, then. Because I shall probably need to see you later in the day.”

“If they do find poison,” said Eleanor, shakily defiant.

“If, as you say, my lady, they do find poison.”

“Excuse me, Lady Fairleigh,” said the voice of Surtees from the doorway. “Mr. Widdicomb is here.”

The family exchanged glances, then, conscious of Meredith's eyes on them, wished they had kept them to themselves.

“Will you show him in, Surtees?” said Eleanor Fairleigh.

Mr. Widdicomb, it was clear to Meredith at first glance, could only be a lawyer. Meager of form, pinstriped as if by nature, his face cautious, unemotional, noncommittal. He looked like a dyspeptic bird with whom life had not on the whole agreed. He acknowledged Meredith's presence without surprise: clearly Surtees had told him of the state of affairs, or else he had heard of it before setting out, by some mysterious lawyer's channel.

“Perhaps I could see you afterward?” murmured Meredith at the door. Mr. Widdicomb assented by a sharp little bow of the head, and Meredith slipped out of the room.

All Mr. Widdicomb's movements were precise and unobtrusive: he advanced toward the family group in a manner almost mechanical. “A sad occasion, Lady Fairleigh,” he said, in a voice devoid of all passion and grief, high and desiccated. “We shall all be the poorer for his going.”

This last remark—so patently untrue as far as the dead man's family were concerned—caused a smile of cool amusement to waft briefly over the face of Terence Fairleigh. The phrase was one Mr. Widdicomb was accustomed to use of dead clergymen and other putatively indigent worthies, and his use of it now suggested that the news of the police investigation had marginally upset him, for it was very unlike him to put a foot wrong on these occasions. He compressed his lips, and looked with some annoyance at Terence Fairleigh. Lady Eleanor acknowledged his professional sympathy by a droop of the eyes, and gestured him to a seat.

“Thank you, thank you.” He perched rather than sat, clutching his briefcase to his abdomen and darting looks around him
with bright, unsympathetic eyes. “I need not say I am anxious to spare you all the worry I possibly can, Lady Fairleigh. Though as far as the police are concerned, there are, of course, limits to what one can accomplish.”

“I'm sure they will realize their mistake very quickly,” said Eleanor. “It will all be cleared up in no time.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” said Mr. Widdicomb, not bothering to put any conviction into his voice. In his experience the police did not begin investigations into cases of suspected murder without being fairly sure of their ground first.

“If you'll excuse me, Lady Fairleigh,” said Miss Cozzens, glancing tactfully toward the door.

“Oh, yes, Barbara, of course,” said Lady Fairleigh distractedly. Mr. Widdicomb's stainless-steel eyes registered her going and the punctilious closing of the door. Miss Cozzens was a type of which Mr. Widdicomb, in his bloodless way, approved.

“Ah, yes, now, as I was saying, should you need me in the next few days, regard me as absolutely at your disposal. Absolutely. The police can be unduly high-handed in such matters, though I intend no judgment on the inspector in question, who is unknown to me. But it is as well to be prepared—upset as you already are.” He looked around him, as if to assure himself that they were upset to just the decorous degree, then opened his briefcase and began taking papers out of it. Mark quietly got up and moved a side table next to his chair. “Ah, thank you, Sir Mark,” said Mr. Widdicomb.

Unnoticed by him, or at least not obviously noticed by him, a glance passed between Terence and Bella at the bestowal of the title, a glance not of the most pleasant.

“Now,” said Mr. Widdicomb, placing his briefcase meticulously down by the chair and laying out the abstracted papers on the side table, “I take it that in general terms you are all familiar with the contents of Sir Oliver's will?”

“No,” said Terence.

“My husband usually kept such things to himself,” said his
mother. “It was not the sort of thing that he felt should be discussed in the family.”

“Ah? Is that so?” said Mr. Widdicomb. “Well, well, it's a perfectly straightforward document, perfectly straightforward. Drawn up by himself, I may say. He merely sent it to me to remove ambiguities and suchlike. I mention this because the phraseology is hardly as I would have liked it myself. I have noticed that in his charming books Sir Oliver was—however,
de mortuis,
eh? Let me see, the will is dated September 10, 1976—nine months ago, in fact.”