Deadly Nightshade (2 page)

“Yes; but there wasn't much.”

“They call it here one of those tragic accidents. Two of the children got well, one died, one's missing.”

Harold offered a fragment of his past: “I et a mushroom, once.”

“But you recovered.”

“Only just.”

“There seems to be some mystery as to how these children got hold of the berries. I'm going up there tonight, and I'll be staying at a place called Burnsides. I don't know their number; if you want me, you can probably get me through the Ford's Center exchange. I'll be back early Monday morning; my train leaves the Grand Central Station at ten tonight. You have about an hour and a half to read up on deadly nightshade for me; make me a short précis, anything you can find in the books downstairs. Try the herbal, the botany, the medical books, the encyclopedia—I don't know anything about the plant.”

“O.K.,” said Harold.

“If I want you to get me any more information, I'll call you up, probably late tomorrow afternoon. I may use the code.”

Harold's saturnine visage brightened, and was transformed by a boyish and candid expression of pleasure. He himself had imagined and constructed the code, without which he liked to think that his or Gamadge's life might someday be in danger. Gamadge affected to be amused by the code, but had sometimes found it useful.

“Don't let Martin sneak out,” he continued. “Last time I had to pay eleven dollars for advertising, and a reward to that bakery.”

“O.K.”

“If you say that again, I shall go out of my mind. Have you absolutely no vocabulary?”

Harold asked in a colorless tone: “What vocabulary would
you
use, if you had to say ‘yes' all the time?”

“Hanged if I know. Get to it, and let me put my affairs in order.”

An hour and a half later, as Gamadge stood in the front hall, hat on his head and suitcase beside him on the floor, Harold brought him a sheaf of typed papers.

“Good for you.” Gamadge ran through them. “Let's see.
Solanum Nigrum Linnaeus
. Also ‘Black, Deadly or Garden Nightshade.' Also,
Atropa Belladonna
. That's the poison, is it?”

“Yes. I put some notes about atropine later on.”

“I see you did. Plant grows practically all over the world, in shaded, woody places. I had no idea. ‘Notation on Atropine.' Fatal stuff, isn't it? One-hundredth of a grain is the normal dose, and half a grain can kill; usually does, because you absorb it so fast that you don't get the remedies in time. You start with dryness of the nose and throat; you get lightheaded, and sometimes delirious; you fall into a stupor; and then, after some hours or—good heavens—some days, you die. Death results from failure of the heart and respiratory system.”

“No pain,” said Harold.

“No. That's a comfort; and children shake off the effects better than older persons do. One of these children didn't shake off the effects, though; probably didn't get the remedies soon enough. What does the plant look like?”

“I drew a picture.”

“Good for you; here it is, and very nice too, if somewhat stylized. Where's the description? Grows quite tall—two and a half feet. Berries rather attractive: big, black, shiny, with a sweetish taste. But the plant has a disagreeable smell, and every part of it is poisonous. And some people grow it in their gardens! Ugh. Well, I'm off. Good-bye, and thanks for this, Harold. It's just what I wanted.”

He seized his coat from Theodore, picked up his bag, waved a farewell to Athalie, grinning from the kitchen door, and stumbled over Martin, who was making every effort to get out of the house before his master did.

Black Berries

S
TATE DETECTIVE MITCHELL
, a graying, stockily built man with sharp light-blue eyes, did not usually show or express emotion of any kind; but his wooden face beamed mildly when he shook hands with Gamadge on Saturday morning.

“You're a sport,” he said. “Sheriff wants me to say he thinks he can get a requisition through for your expenses. That's only fair. The trip ain't cheap, and neither is Burnsides.”

“Much obliged to you both,” said Gamadge, laughing. “But where would the subsidy come from? The Village Improvement Society?”

“I guess you'll think we need some improvement when you hear the whole of the story. But I won't say a word about it till you've had some breakfast. My car's over here.”

He wrestled Gamadge's bag away from him and led the way across the station platform to a well-worn two-seater. Gamadge sniffed the air, while Mitchell stowed the bag in the rumble.

“Don't worry about my expenses,” he said. “I'm glad to have an excuse for getting up here again. I rather wish it was for golf, though; I'd like to hear the crows cawing. Hope you'll excuse me for saying so.”

“It does seem a kind of a shame,” admitted Mitchell. “I don't know that I blame you.” They got into the car, and Mitchell started it. “You ever been up here this time of the year, Mr. Gamadge?” he asked. “We think it's the best time of all. Nothing like Maine in September.”

“When the summer people go, as you so tactfully remarked last night. Yes, I stayed up over Labor Day, once. Glorious; but pretty cold at night.”

They left Ford's Center and took the highway. It ran between stubble fields and pastures, with an occasional stretch of dark pinewoods, an apple orchard, a weather-beaten farm.

“Here's the turning down to Ford's Beach,” said Mitchell. “We're halfway to Burnsides now.”

A small, shiny coupé approached at a leisurely pace. It was driven by an elderly lady in black, who gave them a fixed, benevolent smile.

“Another early bird, and I think from her expression an addlepated one,” remarked Gamadge.

“She's staying at the Pegram House,” said Mitchell, “but I haven't the pleasure of her acquaintance.”

As they neared a grove of towering pines a state policeman came riding slowly towards them on his motorcycle. He saluted, and Gamadge leaned out to wave at him. “That's young Pottle, isn't it?” he asked, peering after the dark, solemn-looking youth.

“Yes; taking day shift on the Gypsy Patrol.”

“You're actually guarding them?”

“Thought we might as well; their men all went back to winter quarters in Boston last week, and there's nobody in camp but women and children. Feeling's running pretty high in the farms around here, and we don't want 'em molested. Besides, if they get a whiff of any kind of trouble, they disappear if they can. The ground kind of opens and swallows 'em. They can move awful quick for folks with their kind of transport; and you never know whether it's bad conscience or just gypsy. We want to keep an eye on 'em till we get this thing settled, one way or the other.”

“They're really getting the blame for these nightshade poisonings?”

“Yes, they are.”

The camp appeared, set in a ragged clearing among the tall pines. It was a dingy agglomeration of tents, rubbish heaps, and faded clothes hung out on a line. A neglected-looking horse peered out from behind a caravan, beside which stood a snub-nosed and ancient car, lopsided on its high chassis. A young woman with a baby in her arms sat on a box near the roadside, staring incuriously at the passers-by.

“Prettiest gypsy I ever saw,” declared Gamadge. “Hang it all, Mitchell, they
are
going to turn out romantic, I know they are.”

“They ain't romantic. You wait till you meet 'em.”

Half a mile farther, Burnsides came into view on the right. Named locally in the plural for its two proprietors, it was a low, rectangular building, planted starkly in its bare and treeless yard, with a line of hardly less ornamental barns and garages behind it. No money had been wasted on outward show; but a wood fire burned on the hearth of the lobby, and Mr. Burnside was ready with a welcome. He was a lank, red-faced man, whose store clothes had not been altered to fit him.

“Right upstairs, Mr. Gamadge,” he said. “You're the first of the late-season guests, and you can have your pick of rooms. I thought you'd like this back one, with bath.”

“I do,” said Gamadge.

“We don't have room service, but you can holler down the front or the rear stairs, if you want anything. Mis' Burnside says breakfast will be ready when you are.”

“Give me twenty minutes.”

Gamadge washed, shaved, changed into tweeds, and joined Mitchell in the barnlike dining room. Fat Mrs. Burnside and the hired help plied them with cereals, coffee, eggs and bacon, codfish cakes and homemade piccalilly. Gamadge, knowing her to be her own cook, praised everything, in the intervals of stuffing himself. She complimented him in return:

“You're a man worth cookin' for; you eat as good as the hunters do.”

When they were comfortably settled in front of the lobby fire, Mitchell laid an open notebook on his knee and filled his pipe.

“You know any more about this business now than you did when I talked to you last night?” he asked.

“I've read up a little on nightshade and atropine—that's all.”

“I'll start from the beginning, then, with the lay of the land. You know the two routes that take you from this vicinity to Oakport; the short cut just below here, which runs through a stretch of woods and comes out at the crossroads this side of Oakport Bridge; and the regular road, which branches off from the highway about a mile north of this, skirts the woods and marshes, and runs through the crossroads and on out to Oakport Point. State police headquarters are at the crossroads; and headquarters is probably where young Trainor was bound for when he took his skid. He was found about halfway across the short cut; it's a bad road, dark as pitch at night, soft where it isn't stony, and likely as not to have puddles between the ruts. He was in a hurry that night, and I guess he didn't use his best judgment.

“I don't have to remind you of that back road that runs up from Oakport, past Tucon, and hits the shore a little way south of Harper's Rocks. The Rocks is only a summer colony, as you know; most everybody clears out by Labor Day, because after that there are no deliveries from Oakport or the Center—you have to drive in, all of five miles, for milk and vegetables and ice. The Ormistons were the last to leave, and on Tuesday they were packed to go.

“The road turns as you pass the last cottage, and you drive due west for half a mile. Then you can turn north for Bailtown, or you can come back down past the Beasley farm, till you hit this highway, couple of miles above here. Between the east and the west road it's all thick woods, with a trail running through from Harper's Rocks—it comes out just below Beasley's. You can make it in a car, but you want to look out for snags.

“Got the layout? It's a horseshoe; five miles from Oakport to Harper's Rocks, half a mile around, five miles from the Beasley farm to the gypsy camp, say. Now, then; on Tuesday morning, at ten—”

“Just one moment,” interrupted Gamadge. “Where were all these children, when they got hold of the nightshade? And why had they converged?”

“Converged?”

“Yes. They must have been together, I suppose.”

“Together?”

“When they got hold of the berries,” repeated Gamadge, patiently.

“They didn't converge. They were home.”

“Home!”

“Unless the gypsies were on the road. You never can tell where they are; but they say they were in camp.”

“Quite a stretch of territory in between the places.”

“Quite a stretch. I'll start at Harper's Rocks, do it chronologically. At ten A.M., daylight saving time, on Tuesday, September the fifth, Tommy Ormiston was put out to play on his sand pile. The rest of the family was busy closing up the house for the winter. They have two cars and a trailer—sort of thing that looks like a grand piano; Ormiston totes his pictures and easels and things in it. The expressman was ordered for twelve noon.

“The cottage is high up on the cliff, with a front yard sloping down to the road. Halfway down the slope is a pine tree, and under the tree is the sand pile. Tommy Ormiston is the youngest child—there are two older ones. Mr. Ormiston was in his studio, packing sketches and things; the studio is on the ocean side of the cottage. Mrs. Ormiston was on that side of the house, too; or down cellar. The older children were upstairs, putting away their traps for the winter. Ormiston—you've heard of him, I think you said.”

“Yes. Distinguished artist.”

“He's a—” Mitchell consulted his notes—“a Social Perfectionist.”

“What's that?”

“He didn't say. But he said if you are one, you can't have any servants. It's degrading to them, and to the employer. Anybody that works for you has to sit down and eat at the table with the family, and play word games in the evening.”

“Word games?”

“Ormiston said word games. There must have been a lot of Social Perfection going on in Maine for a long time, but he seemed to think it was a novelty. Well, it's a good-sized cottage, so they need considerable help; and the way he gets round it is like this: he has young people come up and do the work for their keep. No wages—they're part of the family.”

“That isn't a new idea, either; not by a long shot.”

“Well, it results in some peculiar setups, as you can imagine. This summer the Ormistons' cook is—” Mitchell consulted his notes again—“a Miss Strangways; an artist. And a young feller named Breck, Davidson Breck—employed in the advertising business—he's the children's nurse.”

“Is Mr. Breck making a success of it?”

“I don't see how he can be, because he's handyman and general dishwasher besides. He's badly upset about Tommy; says he never left him alone for an hour before, and wouldn't have this time, only Ormiston kept him nailing crates and moving trunks downstairs. He'd already closed up and fastened all the front shutters.”