Not to be Taken (11 page)

‘Very funny,’ I said, and reflected that I should be able to tell Frances that, whatever suspicions we might share, they certainly had never occurred to Glen himself. Indeed, so lightly had he taken my tentative hint that I was almost convinced myself for the moment that the medicine must be as innocent as Glen obviously believed it to be.

Glen refilled our mugs with the excellent brown ale which he always kept in cask in his cellar.

‘By the way,’ he said, ‘look out for some fun tomorrow.’

I pricked up my ears. ‘At the inquest?’

‘Yes. I understand the police have one or two things up their sleeves which are expected to cause some small stir.’

‘What things?’

‘I’ve no idea. But as the road signs say, I have been warned.’

All About Arsenic

The inquest was held in the village schoolroom. It opened at eleven o’clock, and before half-past nine a crowd had gathered round the building through which Frances and I and the other witnesses had to push our way by force. I believe not a few enterprising persons had actually run excursions from Torminster and other parts of the neighbourhood, and I heard afterwards that the trains from London had been unprecedentedly crowded.

The arrangements made inside by the police were primitive but adequate. A couple of tables and some half-dozen chairs at one end of the room were provided for the Coroner, the Chief Constable, Superintendent Timms, a certain Mr Archibald Bellew who (as we learned in feverish whispers) was to watch the proceedings on behalf of Angela, another barrister who was to watch them for the Treasury, and Angela’s solicitor. School forms along one side of the room accommodated us witnesses, and on the other side tables and more forms supplemented by some rough benches had been set out for the large numbers of journalists who were expected.

Rona, arriving just after ourselves, found a place next to Frances and informed her that she had succeeded in persuading or bullying a certificate from the doctor excusing Angela, who really was not fit to attend.

We then waited a quarter of an hour, feeling exactly like the urchins whose places we had usurped. During the interval Glen came in and dropped with a bored air into the seat next to me, and Harold took up a position beyond Rona.

Harold, of course, had gossip to whisper.

‘I suppose you know,’ he informed us, ‘that they’re going all out for a verdict against Angela?’

We intimated that we did not know.

‘Oh yes,’ he asserted. ‘Then they’d have to arrest her, you see. That’s why they didn’t press for her attendance. They don’t want her weeping in the witness-box and getting the sympathy of the jury. You see.’

‘How do you
know
all these things, Harold?’ Frances demanded sceptically.

Harold looked mysterious. ‘You’ll see,’ he said.

In due course the Coroner appeared, various conferences took place between the different officials, all looking most important, and eleven local farmers and other worthies were sworn in as a jury. I was glad to see a good friend of mine, one Thomas Cullom, of Handacott Farm, from whom I bought most of my manure, appointed foreman. Cullom was a sensible man and not likely to be too amenable to pressure – if indeed there was any truth in Harold’s suggestion.

I was, in point of fact, not too happy about the Coroner, a Torminster solicitor named Rigwell: an honest and conscientious little man, no doubt, but, like too many coroners, impressed by his own importance.

Frances suddenly nudged me.

‘Look,’ she whispered. ‘Along there, next to Mr Waterhouse. I believe that must be Maurice.’

I glanced along the bench on which we were sitting. Beyond our own little group there was a gap. Then, almost level with the Coroner’s table, was a trio of men: Cyril Waterhouse, a dapper little man in a black coat and pepper-and-salt trousers with ‘solicitor’ written all over him, and a young man, rather stout, with a pale, fleshy face and fair hair, who might have been any age between twenty and thirty. His likeness to both John and Cyril was unmistakable. I agreed with Frances that it must be Maurice.

‘What do you think of him?’ she asked.

‘Not a very pleasing specimen,’ I whispered back.

‘I think he looks a dreadful youth. A sort of caricature of John’s bulk combined with Cyril’s sharpness. No wonder John couldn’t stand him.’ She turned to Rona. ‘Rona, is that Maurice?’

Rona glanced along the bench. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s Maurice.’

‘Hush,’ I whispered.

The Coroner was beginning his address. In pleasantly informal tones he warned the jury to disregard everything they had heard outside the court and pay attention to the evidence only. Then Cyril Waterhouse was called and gave formal evidence of identification.

‘Now let me see, Mr Waterhouse,’ said the Coroner chattily. ‘I believe I am right in saying that you are primarily responsible for the fact that we are holding this enquiry at all today?’

‘That is so,’ agreed Waterhouse firmly.

‘You sent a telegram from London, immediately on learning of your brother’s death, to the sexton here instructing him not to fill in the grave?’

‘Yes. Notification of my brother’s death did not reach me till after his funeral. I then sent the telegram.’

‘And you agreed with your sister-in-law, Mrs Waterhouse, that a post-mortem was advisable?’

‘I persuaded my sister-in-law that a post-mortem was advisable,’ Waterhouse corrected grimly.

‘She did not want one?’

‘At first, no. I persuaded her.’

I groaned inwardly. Waterhouse was evidently determined to show no mercy.

‘Now, so far as anyone knew at that time, your brother’s death was a natural one. It had been certified as such, and I think no one suspected anything to the contrary. What reason had you for wishing a post-mortem?’

‘I was not satisfied,’ Cyril replied crisply. ‘I knew my brother. He was a very healthy man. His death did not strike me as a natural one.’

‘You felt that even in London, before you had so much as learned all the circumstances?’

‘I did. I also formed the suspicion that things were being hushed up in some way.’

‘Hushed up?’

‘Concealed from me.’

‘You therefore determined on an investigation?’

‘That is so.’

The Coroner then went on to bring out the circumstances in which the will had been found, the witness’ astonishment on learning the size of the sum for which his brother had been insured, and the subsequent search carried out by him that same evening and subsequently. Waterhouse deposed that certain articles found during the search had been handed over by him to the police. The Coroner, I was thankful to notice, did not ask him his reason for making the search.

Then came the first sensation of the day, with an account by Waterhouse of how the parlourmaid had handed over to him a certain letter which Mrs Waterhouse had given her to post, and how he had opened and read it, afterwards giving it to the police. The Coroner, who, after all, was quite a decent fellow, would, I think, have been glad to avoid reading out the letter in open court, but so much importance was evidently attached to it by the police that he had no option but to lay it before the jury. I watched the reporters’ pencils racing as they kept pace with the hurried tone in which the Coroner got over a plainly distasteful task.

That concluded Waterhouse’s evidence, but Mr Bellew received permission to put a question.

‘Mr Waterhouse, you have told us that you carried out an intensive search throughout the whole house for arsenic. Did you in point of fact find any arsenic?’

‘No.’

‘Nothing remotely resembling arsenic?’

‘So far as I know, no.’

‘Nor any other kind of poison?’

‘No.’

‘Thank you.’

We resettled ourselves on the hard benches, glancing at each other surreptitiously. Waterhouse’s evidence, in spite of the little cross-examination at the tail, had been about as damaging for Angela as the man had evidently wished to make it.

Rookeway, the surgeon, was the next witness, a dark, clean-shaven, self-possessed man who clearly had plenty of experience of coroners’ quests behind him.

With an occasional question from the Coroner he described the post-mortem at which he had officiated, and the appearance of the body, which he called that of ‘a healthy, well-nourished man.’ There was no disease in any of the organs sufficient to account for death, the only unusual appearances being the slight reddening of the duodenum and, in a lesser degree, the jejunum. The witness added further details and referred to the good state of preservation of the body, and he was then asked point-blank by the coroner whether the appearances which he had described would be consistent with death from epidemic diarrhoea. Mr Rookeway replied that they would be perfectly consistent. Pressed further, he stated that at the post-mortem examination there was nothing at all, except possibly the preservation of the body, to indicate that death had not occurred from epidemic diarrhoea.

‘We know in fact that death was not due to that cause,’ the Coroner remarked, ‘but in view of certain doubts which may be felt, I think we ought to clear this question up for once and for all. So far as post-mortem appearances go, then, you tell us that there is practically nothing to distinguish epidemic diarrhoea from arsenical poisoning. Now what about symptoms during life? Can they be distinguished?’

‘That depends on whether the arsenical poisoning is chronic or acute,’ Mr Rookeway replied with an air of patient helpfulness. ‘That is to say, whether the poisoning has been carried out over a long period by means of small, non-fatal doses, having a cumulatively fatal effect, or by means of one large fatal dose. But I think my distinguished colleague, Sir Frances Harbottle, is better qualified to describe these symptoms to you than I am.’

The Coroner agreed, put a few more questions to the witness as to what post-mortem appearances might have been expected in the case of death from chronic arsenical poisoning, established the fact that these were not present in this instance, and called Sir Frances Harbottle.

‘Good for the old boy,’ whispered Glen to me out of the side of his mouth. ‘He’s going to let me down lightly’

I nodded, equally relieved. I had been afraid that the Coroner might have conceived it as part of his duty to deal severely with Glen over his error in diagnosis, but was evidently going almost out of his way to exonerate him.

We leaned forward to get a good look at the famous analytical chemist who had come down to Anneypenny (as it almost seemed) to entertain us.

His evidence was short and very much to the point: he had found arsenic in all the organs and tissues submitted to him for analysis. The amount in the whole body he estimated at 1.43 grains. This meant that a much larger amount must have been swallowed. He gave it as his opinion that death had resulted from acute arsenical poisoning.

‘Yes,’ nodded the Coroner. ‘Now will you tell us, Sir Francis, taking the usual symptoms of acute arsenical poisoning, and assuming that a doctor is called in to attend a patient whom he already has reason to believe dyspeptic, and assuming, of course, that the doctor has no suspicion of arsenical poisoning, would there be anything in the symptoms to suggest to him that it was arsenical poisoning and not epidemic diarrhoea?’

‘Nothing at all,’ pronounced the witness. ‘The symptoms are practically identical. It is impossible to diagnose acute arsenical poisoning with any certainty. The only way, if suspicion has been aroused, is to send a sample from the eliminations for analysis.’

‘But in the ordinary way it is not likely suspicion would be aroused?’

‘No.’

Glen nudged me. ‘Notable example of solidarity of the medical profession,’ he whispered; but I could see that he was pleased.

The Coroner’s next questions were to ascertain the time which might be expected to elapse between the swallowing of the fatal dose and the appearance of the first symptoms. As to that, the witness would only give approximate figures. Nausea and some pain might be expected in anything between an hour or two hours, though it might be longer; vomiting would follow shortly afterwards; more pronounced symptoms would not appear for some hours after that. Death might ensue on the third day, but not earlier.

‘I see. That sounds as if it would not be easy, even by working backwards, to fix the exact time of swallowing the dose?’

‘It is impossible to fix the time exactly; the nearest one could get to it is with a half-hour’s margin either way. That is, assuming that the time of the appearance of the first symptoms is known. If the patient did not mention these and one has to work back from the major symptoms, the margin of error, of course, is greater – at least an hour either way, giving a period of two hours in all.’

The Coroner kept the great man another ten minutes, explaining the difference in symptoms between chronic and acute arsenical poisoning and such matters, and was able to establish beyond doubt that this could not have been a case of chronic poisoning and that in consequence the twinges from which John had suffered must have been due to indigestion alone and could not possibly have been caused by arsenic.

‘Let’s hope that knocks out friend Cyril’s theory once and for all,’ muttered Glen to me.

Glen himself was the next witness.

The Coroner in a friendly way proceeded to take him through John’s illness and the treatment he had prescribed. Glen admitted quite frankly that he had not at first regarded the case as a serious one; right up to the end he had not expected the patient to die, indeed had believed that his condition was improving; he had attributed death to syncope, or heart failure, following too great a strain. Epidemic diarrhoea had been fairly prevalent in the district that summer; it was sometimes ignorantly known as ‘English cholera,’ and was by no means always fatal; the witness had noticed no difference at all between the symptoms in the present case and those in the cases which he had been treating of epidemic diarrhoea. The treatment he had prescribed had been at first a combination of bismuth and morphia, the bismuth in ten-grain doses to stop the sickness and five-minim doses of morphia to soothe the pain. On the second day the violence of the symptoms had abated somewhat, and an effervescing mixture was in consequence prescribed consisting of citrate of potash and bicarbonate of soda. On the last day a bismuth-and-chalk mixture was administered. By that time the patient was in a decidedly weak state, but the witness had not considered his condition critical. On the last occasion when he saw him, the patient’s temperature was 99°. It had been once nearly up to 101° but for the most part had been only just above normal. Death had ensued quickly, after a short coma.