Deadly Nightshade (27 page)

“It wasn't too difficult. Her parents would be frightened, but Loring would ‘find' her early in the afternoon, and she would never be able to remember anything more than that a lady in a car gave her some berries. Little Carroll Bartram—that's his name—could spend the interval in Loring's office.

“But the affair had an unexpected and frightful ending. It was to have been a passing mystery, with nobody the worse for it; it became a
cause célèbre
, with one child dead, another presumably missing, a panic, a hue and cry, and an enigmatic little boy at the gypsy camp, who required medication three times a day. The gypsies, who knew nothing about the nightshade case, and were never to have been connected with it at all, came in for questioning; Loring couldn't be sure that they wouldn't mention his bringing the child to camp, and that they wouldn't mention Trainor.

“But things settled down pretty well. Bartram got his boy back, Sarah Beasley was safely buried, the gypsies didn't talk, and the police seemed resigned to the theory of a wandering half-wit, who probably wouldn't do it again. And I left on the ten o'clock train; Loring or Miss Ridgeman saw me go.” Gamadge reached for a cookie. “That's all.”

“All!” Cogswell almost shouted it. “We want to know how you found out about it. Mitchell says you told him you knew by lunchtime, yesterday.”

“I just got some impressions.”

“Let's hear what they were.”

“Well, if you're interested: the first ones arrived before I left New York. There was a faint flavor of coincidence about two of the facts Mitchell gave me; a gypsy child of the fatal age was ill, though perhaps not from atropine poisoning, and Trainor died violently on Tuesday evening.

“When I arrived, my first definite idea that something was odd about the Bartram household received confirmation; it was strangely understaffed. There was a scared old cook, who couldn't go upstairs; and there was a paragon of a trained nurse, who seemed to do most of the housework, besides her own job. Outside help seemed to be invoked only on great occasions, such as the unexpected arrival of relatives from Europe, who had never seen the daughter of the house.

“Next came Irma Bartram's extraordinary tale (communicated without prompting, and without words) that she had found the red bell under the pine tree. To me that meant from the first one thing, and only one; that Sarah Beasley had brought it into the Bartram grounds. Wadded up in her hand, it would have escaped notice; and she never let go of it until her hand relaxed in stupor. I was struggling with this conviction, when Annie conveyed to me
her
inalterable conviction—that magic had been at work, and very bad magic too. On top of that came the jewel scene, and on top of that George Bartram's story of the lost four hundred thousand dollars.

“The Queen Elizabeth legend lodged itself in my brain, taking the form of one of those hypothetical questions to which I am so passionately addicted: If old Mr. Bartram's missing money had somehow been added to his wife's estate, and if, therefore, a female child was required to inherit this large fortune, what would an unscrupulous parent do if his child turned out to be a son?

“I had no data as to the possibilities of such a substitution; but at least the word—‘substitution'—gave me another word: ‘changeling'; and Annie's behavior fell into the pattern. Suppose she had known, almost from the first, that the Bartram heiress was in fact an heir? She wouldn't mention her knowledge to the persons responsible for this strange deception; first, because she knew nothing of the financial end of it; secondly, because Bartram could do no wrong; thirdly, because her son in Ireland was completely dependent on Bartram generosity, and she wasn't going to offend them by asking questions that obviously would be more than unwelcome. But on Tuesday she had a frightful shock—Mrs. George Bartram came into the kitchen with the news that a little
girl
was ill upstairs!

“Somewhere, deep within, Annie knew that there had been a fraud and a swindle, and that it was now coming to its logical conclusion; but consciously, she wouldn't and couldn't face it. She took refuge in a horrible but less shattering theory—that the fairies had changed the Bartram heir into a girl, or had wafted him away and substituted a changeling in his place. She believed thoroughly in the possibility, of course—many of her race still do; and the Bartram child was peculiarly vulnerable to such an attack, since his mother had died when he was born. There was a magic herb in it, too; the Sidhe, or Little People, use such herbs in such magic. She could only be thankful that the changeling died, and even more thankful when the rightful heir inexplicably returned to his home. You're not to blame the old thing; she knows the truth now, and I swore you'd let her go to New York with George Bartram, tomorrow. Serena Turnbull is taking care of her as well as she can, for the Turnbulls are, as you know, practically comatose from shock.

“Well; Loring told us the interesting story of that tragic night, seven years ago; and I became aware that fantastic and grotesque as my theory might seem, all the known facts fitted it, and it only. I couldn't present such a welter of guesswork to Mitchell, however; the proof lay in the Bartram cemetery, and I should require something in the nature of fact to persuade him to look for it. So I telephoned to my assistant here, asking him to come up on the night train, and telephone me on his arrival. When he arrived, I had him canvass the vicinity for anyone who had ever laid eyes on Julia Bartram.

“Nobody had—tradesman, beach attendant, neighbor or occasional help—except two persons who caught a glimpse of the child in the family automobile. I conveyed this information, and my whole theory, to Mitchell. Within an hour he had that cleaner down from Bailtown, who operated not only on the Loring car, but later on the Humphrey disguise. The result you know. I am glad that you had confidence in me, and that your confidence was justified.”

The sheriff said: “You've been put to expense. That bicycle you bought for the Stanley boy—”

“Don't mention it. If you think you owe me anything at all, let poor old Annie off without questioning. You don't need her testimony, and she certainly couldn't give it coherently in court. She'd mix the fairies all up in it.”

“George Bartram's going to look out for her.”

“I knew he would. He's had a horrid time ever since he saw that bell on Irma's kitten. He drove up to the Beasleys' this morning, as I knew he'd do, to condole and to thank them, and they told him all about the red ribbon and the red bell. When he saw them on Whitey, he came to my conclusions; he had no illusions about his elder brother, you know. He was tempted to tell me all about it this afternoon—nearly pulled the bell out of his pocket; but of course he couldn't, when it came to the point. Well, his financial troubles are over; and if Irma ever comes into her property, they're all rich.”

Strong Gypsy Wish

“T
HERE IT IS.”
Mr. Albert Ormiston placed a smallish framed picture on the mantelpiece in Gamadge's library, and stepped back to get a view of it. “Nice little thing, isn't it? I must say the cleaning process makes it look less like a Vermeer than it used to do.”

“Not so much depth, and not so much mystery. There's virtue in dirt,” agreed Gamadge. Stretched out in an armchair, with the cat Martin lying at extreme length across his knees, he squinted at the painting through half-closed eyes.

“Oh, it's seventeenth century Dutch, all right; and plenty of people would be glad to give five hundred for it.”

“I would, for one.”

“You mean that? It's yours!”

“I'll write you a check.”

“Just for that, I'll tell you a secret; the old lady gave it to me.”

“No! Good for her.”

“And all the other daubs. They all were daubs, except this, but perhaps I can persuade somebody they ain't. Old man Bartram meant to leave me something, and she knew it; but being just a teeny bit close with her money, she presented me with all the things she had no use for, instead. I did hope she'd make a mistake or two, and include a little chipped Chinese lacquer, or some odd pieces of that ugly blue Doulton; but no, she didn't make any slips.”

“Wasn't this Dutch interior a slip?”

“Terrible, but I wasn't including it. That wasn't really her fault; the old man and I had joked about it so much that she thought it wasn't worth a nickel. George got his business sense from her. How're they getting on, by the way?”

“I had a nice note from Mrs. Bartram; they're coming through it all pretty well, and I actually believe we'll see them in the old house again, some day.”

“No imagination.”

“She says Irma and her cousin Carroll are very thick. Irma sent me a picture of him; at least, I thought at first that it was a picture of him, but she seems to have given him a tail, so perhaps it's a sketch of Whitey.”

“Those brothers couldn't stand each other; that was the principal reason why George pulled out for good. By the way, my wife wants to see you again; wants you to come to dinner. She thinks you're the original hound of hell, but you fascinate her.”

“Any night next week. I'm not aware of having hounded Mrs. Ormiston.”

“She thinks it was miraculous, the way you guessed Tom was Millie's boy; can't imagine how she came to give the show away.”

Theodore came in with cocktails. Gamadge said: “Oh—sorry; I forgot you don't drink. How about some tomato juice?”

Ormiston seized a cocktail with alacrity. “Matter of fact, I do,” he confessed, “but I was in such a confounded temper that morning, and I find nothing annoys people more than to say you're a teetotaller.”

“Nothing except making caricatures of them.”

“You heard about that, did you? I never could stand Bartram at school; such a Brahmin! But I didn't think he'd bust me on the nose; the others didn't mind their pictures so much. You know, I believe my caricature showed him something none of the rest of us saw in him—something he couldn't face. Have you found the Russian jewelry?”

“Bushels of it, in all their safe deposit boxes. I suppose they counted on scattering it all over Europe and America; but it wasn't the best time to liquidate, exactly. How are the Brecks?”

“Booming. Breck got himself transferred to Boston, and they're living in that flat Miss Walworth gave them, and Millie's painting away for dear life. Walworth is getting more sensible every minute; they tell me she's torn up her Great Purple literature, and gone back to her pew in the Unitarian church. I looked into her mental condition, for Millie's sake, and the doctors tell me she never was dangerous, and now that she has an interest in life, she'll probably improve steadily.”

“I thought her a touching old thing.”

Harold came into the room. “That woman's on the wire again,” he said. “She says, can't you make that Walpole letter a Walpole letter?”

“We've told her six times it was written by his secretary.” Gamadge's annoyance communicated itself to Martin, who allowed himself to drop sinuously to the floor. “Tell her again.”

“She still thinks it must be a Walpole letter.”

“Tell her this is one of the times when thinking doesn't make it so.”

Ormiston said in a commiserating tone: “Hanged if I can see how you ever do make any money; and you must be out of pocket over that Maine trip.”

“Not at all. I'm fixed for life.” Gamadge took a dirty envelope out of his pocket, and handed it to Ormiston, who read aloud:

“Mr. Henry Gamadge

Police

New York City.”

“And this reached you?” he inquired, somewhat respectfully.

“Yes; they looked me up in the telephone book.”

Ormiston unfolded a ruled sheet of paper, and stared bemusedly at a formula arranged in the shape of a vase or urn:

TO WIN AT CARDS
Make
the
STRONG GYPSY WISH
And Burn Salt
In a Silver
SPOON

Signed:
MARIA STUART
GEORGINA STANLEY
MARTHA STANLEY
WILLIAM STANLEY
X (THE BABY)

All the characters and events in this work are fictitious.

DEADLY NIGHTSHADE

A Felony & Mayhem mystery

PUBLISHING HISTORY
First print edition (Farrar & Rinehart): 1940
Felony & Mayhem print and electronic editions: 2013

Copyright © 1940 by Elizabeth Daly

Copyright renewed 1971 by Daly Harris, Virginia Taylor, Eleanor Boylan, Elizabeth T. Daly, and Wilfrid Augustin Daly Jr.

All rights reserved

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-937384-80-7

You're reading a book in the Felony & Mayhem “Vintage” category. These books were originally published prior to about 1965, and feature the kind of twisty, ingenious puzzles beloved by fans of Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr. If you enjoy this book, you may well like other “Vintage” titles from Felony & Mayhem Press.

“Vintage” titles available as e-books:

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The “Henry Gamadge” series

Ngaio Marsh
The “Roderick Alleyn” series

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Margery Allingham
The “Albert Campion” series

Edmund Crispin
The “Gervase Fen” series

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