Sweet Poison (9 page)

‘He’s dead,’ said Edward unnecessarily, looking up at the frightened faces in a circle above him.

There was a horrified silence before Hermione broke it with a scream. As her mother ran to comfort her, Connie said, ‘It was all so sudden. Was it a heart attack?’

Edward looked at her strangely. ‘We must ring Dr Best and I’m afraid we must also inform the police. I’m almost certain General Craig has taken poison.’

3

Saturday Night

‘He can’t be dead!’ the Duke said, clumsily getting on his knees beside his brother.

‘I’m afraid he is,’ said Edward, trying to sound calm. He heaved himself to his feet. ‘Connie, will you take everyone into the drawing-room. We ought not to touch anything until the police get here.’

‘Oh, this is too terrible! But poison, whatever do you mean, Ned?’ Connie exclaimed. ‘He must have had a heart attack or something. How could he have been poisoned?’

‘Yes,’ said the Duke angrily. ‘What do you mean saying he was poisoned? Isn’t it enough that the General should have a heart attack here without you . . . without you saying such things?’

‘To die here, in our house,’ said Connie, her hands to her mouth, unconsciously echoing Lady Macbeth, the Bishop noticed. He suppressed an urge to laugh.

‘I mean, it can’t be anything he has eaten. We have all eaten the same food,’ Connie insisted. She looked round her at her silent guests, who seemed to be considering her words and consulting their insides. The Bishop, remembering his duty, knelt beside the dead man, made the sign of the cross over his face and murmured a prayer.

Lord Weaver, ever the man of action, had rung for Bates. ‘I’m sorry, Duke, but Lord Edward is right, we must call the police. Even if it is a heart attack it is better that the police satisfy themselves that it was . . . that it was a natural death.’ He looked at Edward. He was quite certain that the General had been poisoned as Edward had said but it was not for him to say so.

The butler came into the room. ‘Bates,’ said Lord Weaver, ‘the General has had a heart attack, we think, and I am afraid he’s dead. Could you get something to cover his face – a tablecloth or –’

‘I really don’t think we should disturb –’ began Edward.

‘I am not leaving the poor man in this condition without something over his face,’ said the Duke fiercely.

‘Is there anything else I can do for the poor gentleman?’ asked the butler, coming over to where the Duke stood beside the body.

‘I am afraid not, Bates,’ said the Duke. ‘There’s nothing anyone can do. I am going to telephone the Chief Constable from my study and I will also ring Dr Best. Connie, take everyone into the drawing-room, would you, and get John to bring brandy. I am afraid this is a terrible shock, terrible. Colonel Philips is a friend of mine and a good man. We don’t want a local bobby making a mountain of this.’ Then, seeing Celia Larmore looking alarmed, he said, ‘I mean, the last thing the General would want is for his death to be some sort of scandal. We owe it to a great soldier that his death should be dignified. What’s the time?’

‘Five past eleven,’ said Edward, consulting his watch. ‘Look, Gerald, I really don’t think we should touch the body, even to put a cloth over . . .’ He could not quite say over ‘it’ when ‘it’ had so recently been a living man.

The Duke looked thunderously at his brother. ‘Do as I say, Bates,’ was all he said, however.

‘Very good, your Grace,’ said the butler with the equanimity associated with that breed.

He bustled out and Connie started shepherding everyone after him. As they walked slowly out of the room Hermione began to weep noisily and had to be comforted by Blanche, but she too was close to tears. It had all been so sudden. One minute the General had been alive and then he was dead. If one wasn’t safe seated at a duke’s dining-table in an English castle, where could one be safe? It was this realization which was, consciously or unconsciously, going through the minds of everyone present. Death had snuffed out a man’s life without warning and without meaning as easily as one might pinch the flame of a candle. It had taken the General less than a minute to die. It could not but put normal day-to-day anxieties in perspective.

Larmore, still white with shock and holding his wife tightly by the arm, pushed his way through the door, keeping well clear of the dead man. ‘The Duke’s right,’ he almost shouted, ‘we must do all we can to keep this quiet.’

Von Friedberg, who seemed stunned by the calamity, waved the cigar which he had been smoking before the General had collapsed as though he were a schoolboy requesting permission to leave the room. ‘Yes, it is not good for me to be here when the police come. My visit was a secret – how do you say? – informal. I cannot allow it to be known I was here, Duke.’

‘I understand, of course, Baron,’ said Connie, ‘but the Chief Constable is an old friend of ours and you can count on him to be discreet. There is no reason why the newspapers will have to know who was dining with the Duke when this terrible thing happened.’

‘The newspapers!’ exclaimed Friedberg. ‘My name must not appear in the newspapers. The Führer would not be pleased.’

‘If I may say so, Baron,’ Lord Weaver interjected, ‘it might be better if you stayed until the police come so that they can take a statement from you here rather than having to bother you at the embassy.’

‘A statement?’ said the German. ‘But I know nothing. Why do I have to give a statement? In my country there would be no statements.’

‘But we have a rule of law in this country,’ interjected Verity Browne unexpectedly, ‘and –’

‘Please, Baron,’ said the Duchess. ‘If you wish to leave I shall ask Bates to tell your chauffeur to bring round your car immediately.’

‘Thank you, Duchess. I apologize if I am – what do you say? – leaving you in the lurches but you and the Duke understand that, although I am here as a private person, I have –’

‘Say no more, Baron. We quite understand. Let me see you out. I hope next time we meet, it will be on a happier occasion.’

‘No doubt, no doubt,’ said the flurried diplomat, briskly shaking hands with his fellow guests. ‘That was a very pleasant dinner . . . except . . .’

‘Connie, you stay here. I will show the Baron to his car,’ said the Duke.

‘Well!’ said Haycraft when the German had disappeared. ‘Just the sort of ally one would wish for in an emergency.’

Edward had not followed the others into the drawing-room. His shock at what had happened was giving way to puzzlement. He sat down once again beside the body. It was not a pleasant sight. The face was contorted in a dreadful snarl, the teeth bared like fangs, the upper lip with its absurd moustache pulled right up. The eyes were glassy and the expression on the face was of great pain. His skin had a bluish tinge, which Edward knew from his reading was consistent with cyanide poisoning. He was quite certain the General had taken poison and he was confident that the poison
was
cyanide. He had never seen a death by cyanide but in Africa he had been present when one of his bearers had been bitten by a snake. The poison had been sucked out of the man’s foot by the leader of the party, a white hunter who had much experience of dealing with such emergencies, but Edward had been left looking ineffective and feeling inadequate. He had been prompted by the incident to buy a medical encyclopaedia and read up about poisons and how to administer first aid. He trusted the General was now at peace but the manner of his passing had been unforgivably violent. His eye went down the body and he suddenly saw what he had not previously noticed: the General’s right hand was gripping a small silver box. He longed to prise open the dead man’s fingers and investigate the box but he knew it would be quite irresponsible to do so.

The first question the police would ask was how the General had been poisoned. It had to have been an accident. Murder was unthinkable but so was suicide. No one in their right mind – though of course, by definition, suicides were presumed not to be in their right minds – no one, surely, would choose to kill themselves at a formal dinner-party while enjoying a particularly fine port. The port: that made Edward realize he did not even understand how the General had taken the poison. As Connie had pointed out, they had all eaten the same food except Verity and himself, and all the men at least had drunk the same wine. In any case, if it were cyanide, the poison would have taken immediate effect so he had to assume that it was in the port the General had been drinking when he was convulsed. Bates and John the footman had cleared plates and wine glasses as soon as the ladies had left the dining-room so, apart from two tumblers half full of water and the Duke’s claret glass which he had retained because it was not quite empty, there were only the port glasses on the table. No, that wasn’t quite correct; there were also the two glasses containing claret which Bates had put before Verity and himself to drink with their ham. The General had certainly been drinking port, so which was his glass? There was no port glass in his hand nor on the floor. Edward scanned the table. He assumed the General must have had time to put down his glass before he was convulsed by the burning horror of the cyanide. Although Edward had been sitting opposite him, he had not been looking at him at the crucial moment; his eyes had been on Verity until he heard the General making choking noises. It had all happened so quickly but he was sure he would have noticed if the General had had a glass in his hand when he began to feel the effects of the poison. The unfortunate man had been tearing at his throat, desperate to get air in his lungs, though he must have had tight in the palm of his right hand the little silver box which Edward was itching to examine.

Given then that the General’s port glass was still on the table, it ought to have been easy enough to see which it was, but all the men had been clustered so tightly about Verity listening to her tell her story that there was a corresponding jumble of port glasses on the table within reach of the General. Edward counted nine in all. In addition to the Duke and his male guests at dinner, he and Verity had also each been given a glass to lift their spirits and he remembered that Hermione had demanded and been given a glass at the same time. She said if Verity could drink port so could she. Edward remembered the worried look he had seen on Blanche’s face, and Honoria Haycraft had pursed her lips in disapproval. Edward decided he must take his own advice and not touch any of the glasses on the table, but there was nothing to prevent him sniffing. He thought he detected a strange acidic smell as he sniffed at one of three glasses nearest to where the General had been sitting but he remembered that hydrocyanic acid is highly volatile and evaporates almost immediately it is exposed to the air.

Bates came in carrying a linen tablecloth which he laid gently over the dead man. ‘Thank you, Bates,’ Edward said, suddenly feeling very weary. Although he knew it was wrong to have spread the linen on the tortured face he was grateful that it had been done. The General’s death agony had left him too exposed. This little shroud would give him the privacy we would all surely crave in death.

‘It was poison, wasn’t it, my lord?’

‘Yes, Bates, I believe it was,’ Edward said shortly. ‘Is there a key to the dining-room door? I think it should be left locked until the police have seen everything they need. Oh,’ he said, looking towards the other end of the room, ‘we ought to lock the door into the kitchen too if there is a key to that.’

‘There is a key, my lord, which fits both doors. I will go and fetch it from the key cupboard in the pantry. The French windows are open too, my lord. Shall I close them? The key is in the lock.’

‘No, that’s all right, Bates. I will close them. You go and get the door key.’

The butler hesitated for a moment and Edward said, rather more abruptly than he had intended, ‘Out with it, man. Is there something bothering you?’

‘I wonder if I might ask you, my lord, to speak to Jeffries?’

‘Who is Jeffries?’

‘Jeffries is the General’s man, my lord – his valet,’ he added, seeing that Edward had still not understood.

‘By Jove, yes, of course, Bates. He knows what has happened then?’

‘He knows that his master has had an attack and died, my lord.’ The butler coughed. ‘I thought it better not to make any mention of the possibility that the poor gentleman might have been poisoned. He is very much upset, my lord.’

‘Of course, he must be. I should have thought of it. It was quite right of you, Bates, not to mention poison until the doctor has examined the General. It’s bad enough as it is. We don’t want to upset anyone more than they have to be. What about John, though? Have you told him to keep his mouth shut?’ said Edward, remembering the footman.

‘Yes, my lord. I have taken the liberty of informing the staff of the bare facts of the General’s sudden death and I have reminded everyone that the Duke requires complete discretion about anything which happens in this house.’

‘Very good. I will wait here until you have brought the key. Then ask Jeffries to come to me in the gunroom.’

While he waited for Bates to return, Edward went over to the French windows. They opened directly on to grass which was dry so there was no way of knowing if anyone had entered or gone out of the windows in the last hour or two. There were no signs of anyone – no suspicious cigar stub or anything like that. In any case, Edward thought, the poison could only have been introduced into the port by the General himself or one of the other guests sitting round the Duke’s table. One could not be too careful, however, so Edward closed and locked the windows using his handkerchief. Bates returned as he did so and locked the door through which he had just come and which led to the kitchen. Together, they went out into the hall, securing the dining-room door behind them. In the hall, Edward lit a cigarette; deep in thought, he strolled down the passage to the gunroom.

Jeffries was a wizened little man with a drooping moustache and watery eyes. ‘Ah, Jeffries,’ said Edward, ‘I’m afraid this is very sad. How long have you been in the General’s employment?’

‘Twenty-six years, my lord,’ said the little man, taking out a large spotted silk handkerchief and dabbing at his eyes. ‘My lord, is the General really dead?’