The Poisonous Seed (4 page)

‘I regret,’ said Mr Rawsthorne, ‘that very little will be achieved today. The medical reports have yet to be completed, and we cannot expect a verdict until next week. I must tell you, however, that I have heard it is very probable that the doctor will conclude that Mr Garton died of poisoning with strychnine.’

They entered the meeting room where two rows of plain chairs had been placed ready for the jury, a long table and a rather more comfortable chair for the coroner, a decidedly hard-looking chair at one end of the table for witnesses, and, in the body of the hall, rows of seating, such as might be provided for those attending a talk or a concert. Less than half the seats were filled, and Frances thought that several of the men, with well-worn suits and an air of boredom, were from the newspapers.

As Rawsthorne predicted, the proceedings took only a few minutes. Cedric, who revealed that he had no occupation other than travelling and amusing himself, stated that he had last seen Percival a year ago when visiting London, and formally identified the body as that of his brother. The enquiry was adjourned for a week.

The shop was still quiet when she returned. She reported events to Herbert, but he seemed to have something weighing powerfully on his mind, which made it impossible for him to meet her gaze. At last, he spoke.

‘Miss Doughty – I understand your emotions at this time, but I have given matters a great deal of thought and it seems to me that there is a way in which this difficulty may be resolved. I suggest that your father should retire from business. He could take a holiday in some pleasant climate. I’m sure it would do him good. We could easily find a reliable man to supervise the business until I am qualified.’

Frances was silent for a moment, but she could feel a momentary rush of anger which she tried to quell. ‘My father is not an old man, he is simply unwell. You have seen for yourself how much improved he has been in the last weeks. This business is his life, and his daily attendance here is instrumental in restoring him to health. Take him away from it, and he would fret. And have you no consideration for his reputation? Would you have him live out his life under a cloud of suspicion? Surely if he was to retire now, it would be taken as an admission of fault? You yourself have said that there was no fault.’

Herbert said nothing, but there was a point of red on each cheek, which had not been there before.

A new and uncomfortable thought occurred to Frances. It was a difficult subject but she had to have the answer before she could continue. ‘I am afraid I must ask you this, and it may give you offence, for which I apologise. I know your loyalty to the business, and it has occur red to me that your statement to the police that you saw the mixture made, while greatly to our benefit, may not be precisely – true. If not, I will not condemn you, but for my own information, I beg you to tell me the truth now.’

‘I understand why you have asked this question,’ said Herbert, stiffly, ‘and I invite you now, if you have any doubts as to my veracity, to bring me a Holy Bible this very minute, and I will place my hand upon it, and swear to you that I was indeed present when the mixture was made, that I observed it being made, and that it was entirely according to the prescription.’

‘Thank you,’ said Frances, ‘I will not trouble you further on that point.’

For the remainder of the day the atmosphere in the shop was even frostier than that in the street.

At five o’clock, Frances met Ada in the anonymity of early darkness, on the Bayswater Road, where it skirted the edge of the heavily wooded enclave of Kensington Gardens. Their dark garments and obscured faces lent them the air of conspirators. Frances was sorry to make use of the maid’s innocent regard for her father for her own purposes, but feared that it might be only the first such adventure of many.

‘I shouldn’t be talking to you, Miss Doughty,’ said Ada, glancing about her fearfully, as Frances obligingly steered her into the shadows. ‘I can’t stay long. I told them my brother was took ill and I was fetching him some medicine. “Don’t go to Doughty’s then”, they said. Sorry, Miss, but that’s what people are saying.’ She pulled a shawl about her face. Frances suddenly wondered how old Ada was. Under thirty, in all probability, but she seemed tired and her face and hands were rough and red, making her look older, and there was a wheezing in her chest that did not bode well.

‘I don’t want you to get into any trouble, Ada, but it’s all I can think of doing to help my father. The police have questioned him cruelly, and he has been very ill.’

‘He is a kind and generous man,’ said Ada. ‘I’m sure he hasn’t done anything wrong.’

Frances plunged quickly into the questioning. ‘Ada, when you collected the medicine for Mr Garton, who did you hand it to when you returned?’

‘No one, Miss,’ said Ada promptly. ‘I put it on the night table in the bedroom.’

‘Unopened?’

‘Yes.’

‘What time was that?’

Ada frowned. ‘I can’t say exactly – just before seven, I think, maybe ten minutes before.’

So, thought Frances, the bottle had been left unattended for some hours before it was opened. ‘Can you tell me about that night? Did Mr and Mrs Garton dine at home?’

‘No, Miss. They took the carriage and went out at seven. They dined at Mr and Mrs Keane’s in Craven Hill. Mr Keane and Mr Garton are great friends; they often dine at each other’s houses.’

‘I suppose they were getting ready to go out when you returned?’

‘Yes. Master was in his dressing room and Mistress was saying good-night to the children.’

‘Did Mr Garton seem his normal self?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘And were there any visitors to the house while they were out?’

‘No, Miss.’

The available time for Mrs Garton to have tampered with the bottle was hardly sufficient, thought Frances, and the risk of detection surely far too great. ‘When did they return?’

‘It was just after eleven. They looked into the children’s room to see how they were, and retired for the night.’

‘How did Mr Garton seem to you then?’

‘I thought —,’ Ada paused. ‘He looked like he’d dined a bit too well, if you know what I mean. I saw him put his hand to himself, just there.’ Ada indicated her abdomen.

‘Did he say anything about it?’

‘Mistress looked at him in a worried sort of way and he smiled at her and said he was all right, but he thought he had had too much pudding.’ She smiled, sadly. ‘Master liked his pudding.’

‘What happened after that?’

‘I raked out the kitchen fire and laid it ready for the morning, and then I washed and went to my bed. That was just before midnight, and I was asleep soon after. I woke up when all the commotion started. There was Mistress calling out for help, and Master groaning in pain. We were all in an uproar. I ran into the room and saw him —,’ she gave a little gasp at the memory. ‘Oh it was a terrible thing to see – the expression on his face – a smile like Old Nick himself, if you’ll pardon me for saying it and his body all bent back.’

Frances sighed. Ada had described the rictus and convulsions that attended poisoning with
strychnia
.

‘Do you know what time it was when you were awoken?’

‘Just after midnight, I think.’

‘And where was the bottle of medicine then?’

‘I don’t know Miss, it was all a lot of shouting and confusion and I can’t rightly say.’

‘Who else in the household saw what was happening?’ asked Frances.

‘Well, Mr Edwards – that’s Master’s manservant – he came in and Mistress told him to go and fetch Dr Collin. Then Mary, the nursemaid, looked in, but Mistress sent her to go and make sure the children weren’t disturbed. Then she sent me to get a towel to bathe Master’s face.’

‘What about the other servants? What did they do?’

Ada pulled a wry face. ‘Flora, she’s the kitchen maid, she was so frightened by the screaming, she thought there were burglars in the house, and she put the bedclothes over her head and never came out till morning. Susan, Mistress’s maid, she sleeps though any amount of noise and I had to go and wake her up. Then – Mrs Grange, the cook, and Mr Beale the coachman – they —,’ she hesitated, ‘they didn’t arrive till a bit after everyone else.’

Frances decided to gloss over this irrelevant indecency. ‘I believe you have been with the Gartons for several years.’

‘Nine and a half years, ever since they came to Bayswater.’

‘And the other servants?’

‘Flora has been with us two years but the others, like me, were engaged when Master and Mistress took the house.’

‘Ada, this is very important, did you see what happened to the medicine bottle later on? What about after you came back with the towel?’

Ada shivered, and her lower lip trembled. ‘It was an accident, Miss.’

‘I am sure it was,’ said Frances, gently. She said no more but waited until Ada felt able to go on.

‘When I went in, Mistress had the bottle and was holding it to her nose to smell what was in it. She was crying and saying that Master had been poisoned by his medicine. Then Master went into another fit and she ran to him, and gave me the bottle saying I had to cork it up tight – but I was that alarmed – I dropped it.’

‘Do you know how much medicine was in the bottle then?’

‘No, Miss, I’m sorry.’

‘And what happened to the bottle?’

‘I picked it up and put the cork in and put it back on the nightstand. Later on Mistress gave it to Dr Collin and told him to take it to the police.’

‘Can you guess how much was spilled?’

‘I’m not sure, Miss. When I cleaned it up it was a mark on the carpet about the size of my hand.’

‘I don’t suppose you know when Mr Garton took his medicine or how much he took?’

‘I did hear Mrs Garton tell the doctor that he took it at about a quarter to twelve. I don’t know how much he took, but she said he told her it had a bitter taste and was different from the other bottle he had.’

Frances felt her heart sink. Could her father’s trembling hands have put more than the usual amount of tincture into the mixture? But even if he had, it would still have been far from lethal.

Ada looked around again. ‘I must go, Miss, I’m sorry.’

‘Ada, please, just one more moment, I need to know – did Mr Garton have any enemies? Were there people he argued with, and who might have wanted to do him harm?’

Ada stared at her in astonishment. ‘Oh, no, no one like that! Master was a very kind man with the nicest manners you could imagine. He was very well liked by everyone who met him.’

‘And Mr and Mrs Garton; they were on good terms?’

‘Oh yes, Miss, they were very affectionate. The poor lady is quite distraught. Goodbye, Miss.’

‘Goodbye, Ada, and thank you for speaking to me. If there is anything else you remember —,’ but Ada had disappeared into the darkness.

When Frances returned to the shop, Herbert was busy preparing an ointment, working a greasy yellow mass on a marble slab with a spatula. Presumably, thought Frances wryly, customers were still happy to purchase items for external use. She wanted to talk to Herbert about what she had learned but was reluctant to reveal that she had made an appointment with Ada and instead told him that they had met in the street by accident. She was not used to telling untruths and the words fell from her lips awkwardly, but he seemed not to notice. Perhaps, she consoled herself, it was all part of being a detective, a small sin committed to achieve a far greater good.

‘I don’t believe there was enough time for Mrs Garton, supposing she is our suspect, to have put poison in the medicine without leaving obvious signs of tampering in the time between the bottle being brought in and their going out,’ said Frances. ‘If poison was put in the bottle it must have happened while they were out.’

‘Such a thing is not beyond what an intelligent servant might do, but for what reason?’ observed Herbert.

‘There is another possibility,’ said Frances. ‘Mr Garton might have had something at the house of Mr and Mrs Keane. Not at dinner, which everyone ate, but a drink, perhaps, just before he got into the carriage?’

‘Then he would have suffered an attack on the way home or shortly afterwards.’

‘Not necessarily. If the
strychnia
is present as nux vomica, sometimes the onset is delayed.’ Herbert frowned thoughtfully, and conceded the point. ‘Now, as we seem to have no customers at present, I shall go to the police station and see what more I can find out from Constable Brown.’ Herbert opened his mouth to protest, but she had already departed.

By the time Frances arrived at Paddington Green Police Station, it was dark and the glow of the tall gas lamp that stood outside was curiously comforting. The building was square and heavy, a four-storey fortress with a deep basement, and a series of pointed crenellations on the roof. As a child she had imagined it to be a castle like those in Frederick’s history books, and wondered if a king lived there. Frances had never entered the station, or imagined she would ever do so, but any concern at encountering the criminal classes of Paddington was necessarily thrust aside. She took a deep breath and ascended the steps to the front door. Inside she found what she assumed to be a waiting area. There was a tall deep counter, manned by a sergeant, with shelves of books and ledgers behind it. In front, there were wooden benches, where a few individuals were seated, some slumped over and dozing, others holding an animated conversation as to which of two persons had struck the other first. Voices dropped as she entered, and she realised that she was the only woman there, and the only person apart from the sergeant with any claim to neatness and cleanliness of dress. Ignoring the stares, Frances marched straight to the counter and asked the sergeant if she might see Constable Brown.

Eyebrows were raised. ‘Not a personal matter, is it?’

‘No, of course not!’ she exclaimed, blushing. Really, what had he taken her for? ‘It is a police matter.’

The sergeant looked dubious, and went through a door at the back, and a few moments later, Wilfred appeared. Without his helmet, the constable looked younger than Frances had at first supposed, no more than twenty-five, with deep chestnut hair and whiskers that needed no pomade. ‘Good evening, Miss Doughty. Inspector Sharrock is out, we can talk in his office.’ He conducted her to a small and dingy room, with a greatly worn desk and chairs, and shelves reaching up to the ceiling stuffed higgledy-piggledy with papers, parcels and boxes of every size and description. Frances saw with some dismay that Sharrock’s desk was piled high with assorted papers in no particular order, and wondered if his mind was in similar disarray.