Not to be Taken (22 page)

‘But that puzzled me yesterday. You see, as soon as I realised that it was the antidote to arsenic that you had told the maid to bring round, I knew it must have been you who poisoned John – deliberately or by mistake. At first I thought you must have done it somehow by mistake, though I couldn’t see how that could have happened. Then I wondered if you had done it deliberately. Did you consider John had become one of the world’s drones and so ought to be eliminated? But that seemed fantastic. Besides, I couldn’t get over the fact that you were in love with him. People do kill when they’re in love, but there seemed no possible motive here. You weren’t the kind to say, “If I can’t have him, no one shall.” So I came back to the idea that though you must have been responsible for John’s death in some way or other, it must have been an accident. But how? And what sort of accident could make you responsible? Only one thing was clear: that you couldn’t have deliberately intended to kill John. If there was anyone who needed killing from your point of view, it was surely Angela.

‘And then, Rona, I remembered a remark you made to me once when I said something about a possibility that someone had aimed at Angela and hit John. I forget the details, but you looked at me and said: “That was a very shrewd remark, my friend.” As soon as I remembered that, and the significance of your tone, I wondered if that was what had really happened. It would have been like you, too, to salute the truth as it came, irrespective of the circumstances. And I saw at once that this theory accounted for everything.

‘Let’s go back to that evening at the Waterhouses’. You had said that in your opinion the drones ought to be eliminated. And what’s more, you meant it. Other people may say that kind of thing for effect, but you never speak for effect, Rona. It’s one of the things I’ve always admired about you. You didn’t actually say that you were prepared to eliminate them with your own hands, but you sincerely believed that the useless members of the community ought to be put quietly out of the way. Even John believed you meant it. “You Communists are so ruthless,” he said, and added that he wasn’t ruthless himself. It’s true that he wasn’t so ruthless as you, Rona. Anyhow, the point is: who could be a more useless member of the community than Angela?

‘So we have your head as well as your heart approving of Angela’s extermination.

‘I think probably you’ve been in love with John for some years, Rona. That may be why you’ve never married. (I’m sorry to have to mention this sort of thing, but it’s all part of the case against you.) And just as you disapproved of Angela with your heart as well as your head, so you loved John with your head as well as your heart. Your head, for instance, must have told you that here was a man you could respect as well as love. A man with a big past behind him and a still bigger future in front – if he cared to make it. You’re an intelligent woman, Rona. You knew well enough that if John was to play the part in the world that was possible for him, he needed a woman like you behind him: someone to share his enthusiasms and egg him on to bigger and bigger things. What couldn’t he have achieved, with you? And what couldn’t you have achieved through him? That would justify a good deal.

‘Angela, on the other hand, was exactly the wrong wife for him. Not only was she useless to him, but she was a positive drag. He was stifled by her; she had sucked him of all enterprise and vitality; it was her influence that kept him wasting himself in a place like Anneypenny. You remember he told us that evening that he had settled down for good? And later he mentioned some big job he had just turned down, near Angkor. We all cried out on him, and no wonder. A job like that was just what his soul needed. Like all of us, you must have put his refusal down to Angela’s account. I wonder if it was that very evening that you decided to rid the world, and John, of Angela? I shouldn’t be surprised, because some of the conversation afterwards may have suggested to you a way.

‘That kept me awake most of last night, Rona, trying to puzzle out how the devil you did it.

‘You see, so far as we know (and we must take it as the fact), barring the meals of breakfast and lunch, there were only those three possible vehicles for the arsenic: the cider, the sherry and the medicine. And, unless either John or Angela was planning to poison the other, all the three seem equally innocent. Well, there may be two conclusions to be drawn. Either the arsenic was contained in some other vehicle of which we know nothing, or else one of those three wasn’t so innocent as it seemed.

‘What do we need, to fit the theory of your guilt? A, some vehicle, obviously, to which you had access; and B, one which was never intended for John at all but for Angela. Well, the medicine was the only one of the three to which you had access. Could that have been the vehicle after all, in spite of its having been analysed and found innocent, and in spite of its having been medicine for John and not for Angela?

‘I puzzled a lot over that medicine, Rona. And in the end I found the answer.

‘It was that same conversation at the Waterhouses’ that put me on the track. You remember how we discussed John’s indigestion. It was getting worse, but John’s attitude to medicine and doctors seemed unchanged. He was an obstinate old devil, was John; and when he swore he wouldn’t swallow a drop of Glen’s medicine, we all took it for granted he meant what he said. There was some mention of Christian Science, too, I think; John was supposed to have leanings toward it, and you encouraged them. So much for John. But Angela! Now there was someone who wouldn’t let a bottle of medicine lie idle. Angela could surely be relied on to dose herself with any therapeutic drug that came into the house. And no doubt you noticed that as soon as John produced indigestion of his own, Angela’s indigestion became instantly worse. If John refused to take his medicine, Angela would simply grab it. And from John’s attitude it was a pretty safe bet that any medicine which went into that house, no matter to whom it was addressed, would be eventually swallowed by Angela, and by Angela alone. That was the bet, and you went banco on it.

‘Glen probably confirmed your conviction that it couldn’t go wrong. After he’d examined John did he tell you that John had said he’d pour any medicine that was sent round for him down the sink?’

Rona nodded.

‘Did he add that John afterwards gave a sort of half-hearted hint that he might take a dose or two after all?’

‘No,’ Rona said curtly. ‘Glen never expected John to drink the medicine. He only sent it round as a matter of form.’

‘Exactly. And that’s how I reached the conclusion that the medicine was the vehicle for the poison. But it was a long time before I saw how it was done. Apart from the analysis, you didn’t even dispense it. Glen made it up. And I’m quite sure Glen wasn’t in league with you; it’s quite out of character for one thing, and in any case there’s no evidence. So somehow or other you must have induced Glen to make up a bottle of medicine containing arsenic. That was infernally clever of you, Rona.

‘I saw in the end how you managed it. Two little facts, each a tiny bit out of keeping with your nature, gave me the clues. In the first place you went to Torminster that day and left Glen to make up the medicines. Now that isn’t like you, Rona. I was a little surprised when I heard it. Because if you wanted to take a day off in Torminster, one would expect you of all people to make sure that it was not at the expense of extra work for anyone else. You would have got up twenty minutes earlier and made up those three or four bottles. Or you’d have made them up the evening before. But you wouldn’t have left them for Glen.

‘The second item is still more unlike you – so unlike you, in fact, that Glen himself commented on it in his evidence at the inquest. The mag. pond, jar was nearly empty. “Not like my sister’s usual efficiency,” said Glen. But he was wrong. Because when you do a thing like that – or rather, leave it undone – one may be sure you have a reason. And the only possible deductions to be drawn from those two facts are that you went into Torminster that morning for the deliberate purpose of not making up the medicines, and that the almost empty mag. pond. jar was part of your plan. In other words, Torminster was your alibi.

‘Once I got as far as that, the thing began to take shape. It didn’t take me long to see the point of the mag. pond. Glen, you may remember, specifically said that John’s was the only prescription that morning requiring mag. pond. He also told us that all prescriptions were entered in a book. Add to this that “pond.” means heavy, and that arsenic, too, is a heavy powder, and the thing becomes obvious.

‘You already had the idea of substituting arsenic for some other drug of similar appearance if the prescription gave you a chance. You saw from the book that it did. You emptied the mag. pond. jar and substituted just enough arsenic for that one prescription, in case there was any further call for mag. pond. before you got home again, knowing that Glen would refill the jar: as in point of fact he did. And there was the lethal medicine, made up in all good faith by an innocent party with an unimpeachable alibi for you.

‘And so we come to the next problem: how was it that when Frances took the bottle away from John’s room, there was no arsenic in the medicine?

‘Well, that wasn’t very difficult. I thought carefully over the course of events that evening between your arrival and our departure, and it wasn’t long before I remembered that you had a good half-hour in John’s bedroom alone with him. In that half-hour you had ample opportunity to substitute for the poisoned bottle the innocent one which you had been carrying about Torminster all day with you for that purpose – having first surreptitiously poured away down one of the basins the exact amount from the innocent bottle that was missing from the poisoned bottle. Isn’t that what happened?’

‘You can hardly expect me to confirm what you’re saying,’ Rona retorted with a faint smile.

‘It doesn’t matter. I know it’s what happened, because there’s no other explanation that will fit the facts. Except for me, you see, you were the only person to be alone with John and the medicine bottle during that period; and as we’ve already
exonerated
Angela and the rest of the household, we needn’t worry over any opportunities they had.’

‘Have we already exonerated the rest of the household?’ Rona said combatively. ‘What about Mitzi?’

‘Poor Mitzi! I’m sure she was egged on, most unsuitably, to tamper with John’s papers; and I’m sure she was hurried out of the country by a nervous Embassy; but I can’t see one single iota of evidence to connect her with John’s death. Can you?’

‘No,’ said Rona.

‘And how would she have got hold of arsenic? It would be fantastic to suppose that she was supplied with it officially, to rid the German government of John. No. In the whole case, Rona, there’s only one person (in addition to Glen) with access to an
unchecked
supply of arsenic, and that’s you. Is that why you used it, by the way? Or was it because the symptoms would tally with Angela’s supposed complaints?’

‘You’re asking me leading questions, aren’t you, my friend?’

‘I’d like you to answer that one, because arsenic is a cruel weapon, and though I’m sure you’re ruthless, Rona, I shouldn’t have expected you to be cruel.’

‘Cruelty, kindness,’ Rona replied scornfully. ‘One would naturally be as humane as one could be, but there’s only one thing that dictates action, and that’s necessity.’

‘You mean you considered arsenic a necessity in this case for an undetected murder.’

‘You can put it that way, if it pleases you,’ Rona said indifferently. ‘The form of words doesn’t matter very much; words are often inadequate.’

I passed over without comment Rona’s tacit admission of guilt, pleased though I was. Not that I had not been sure of my deductions, but it was satisfactory to have them confirmed. It was like Rona, too, not to boggle once things had come to a showdown.

‘Yes,’ I said reflectively. ‘I remember your saying once, when we were discussing whether it could be murder, “Murder – or criminal carelessness.” Of course I didn’t realise then that you were speaking so bitterly of yourself. Frances nearly hit the nail on the head once, too, when she suggested that it might have been an accident but on somebody else’s part, not John’s. Queer, how near we got to the truth at times, and yet how far off we were. You must have had a dreadful time, Rona,’ I added suddenly. I suppose it was illogical, but for the moment I felt even more sorry for Rona than for John.

She waved the remark aside.

‘And how, my friend, do you account for that letter John wrote?’ she asked, for all the world as if she were testing a case I was bringing against some stranger. ‘For write it he did, I can assure you of that.’

‘Well,’ I said slowly, ‘I can only suppose that you gave him some sort of half explanation which made him anxious to shield you. I don’t imagine you found it necessary to tell him that you had been trying to poison his wife. Upset as you must have been, you would still keep your head. I should think you probably made up some tale of a disastrous mistake, for which you were responsible: something about having filled up some jar from the wrong stock. Anyhow, you certainly told him that it was arsenical poisoning he was suffering from, or he couldn’t have written as much in the letter. I remember you said to me outside his bedroom door that first evening that it
might
be damnably serious. That not only indicates that you knew more about John’s illness even then than the rest of us, but sounds as if you weren’t by any means certain that it was going to be fatal. Perhaps you expected him to recover, and made him expect the same. From what I can gather of arsenical poisoning, death always seems unlikely; the process is so long, and all the time the patient seems to be getting better. As for the letter, you and John no doubt concocted it together, but I should put the draft down to you; it reads almost like an essay, not a bit the sort of phraseology one would expect from a man not used to expressing himself on paper.’