Ngaio Marsh - Final Curtain

“Caroline’s just told me,” Thomas said, “that you think somebody gave Sonia the medicine Dr. Withers prescribed for those kids. She says Sonia had tea with her. Well, it seems to me that means somebody’s got to look after Caroline, and I’m the person to do it, because I’m going to marry her. I dare say that’s a surprise to all of you, but I am, so that’s that, and nobody need bother to say anything, please.”

With his back still turned to his dumbfounded family, Thomas, looking at once astonished and determined, grasped himself by the lapels of his coat and continued. “You’ve told me you think Papa was poisoned with this stuff and I suppose you think the same person killed Sonia. Well, there’s one person who ordered the stuff for the kids and wouldn’t let Caroline touch it, and who ordered the medicine for Papa, and who is pretty well known to be in debt, and who was left quite a lot of money by Papa, and who had tea with Sonia. He’s not in the room, now,” said Thomas, “and I want to know where he is, and whether he’s a murderer. That’s all.”

Before Alleyn could answer, there was a tap on the door and Thompson came in. “A call from London, for you, sir,” he said. “Will you take it out here?”

Alleyn went out, leaving Thompson on guard, and the Ancreds still gaping. He found the small telephone-room across the hall, and, expecting a voice from the Yard, was astonished to hear Troy’s.

“I wouldn’t have done this if it mightn’t be important,” said Troy’s voice, twenty miles away. “I telephoned the Yard and they told me you were at Ancreton.”

“Nothing wrong?”

“Not here. It’s just that I’ve remembered what Sir Henry said that morning. When he’d found the writing on his looking-glass.”

“Bless you. What was it?”

“He said he was particularly angry because Panty, he insisted it was Panty, had disturbed two important documents that were on his dressing-table. He said that if she’d been able to understand them she would have realized they concerned her very closely. That’s all. Is it anything?”

“It’s almost everything.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t remember before, Rory.”

“It wouldn’t have fitted before. I’ll be home to-night. I love you very much.”

“Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

When Alleyn came out into the hall, Fox was there waiting for him.

“I’ve been having a bit of a time with the doctor,” Fox said. “Bream and our chap are with him now. I thought I’d better let you know, Mr. Alleyn.”

“What happened?”

“When I searched him I found this in his left-hand side pocket.”

Fox laid his handkerchief on the hall table and opened it out, disclosing a very small bottle with a screw top. It was almost empty. A little colourless fluid lay at the bottom.

“He swears,” said Fox, “that he’s never seen it before, but it was on him all right.”

Alleyn stood looking at the little phial for a long moment. Then he said: “I think this settles it, Fox. I think we’ll have to take a risk.”

“Ask a certain party to come up to the Yard?”

“Yes. And hold a certain party while this stuff is analysed. But there’s no doubt in my mind about it, Fox. It’ll be thallium acetate.”

“I’ll be glad to make this arrest,” said Fox heavily, “and that’s a fact.”

Alleyn did not answer, and after another pause Fox jerked his head at the drawing-room door.

“Shall I—?”

“Yes.”

Fox went away and Alleyn waited alone in the hall. Behind the great expanse of stained-glass windows there was sunlight. A patchwork of primary colours lay across the wall where Henry Ancred’s portrait was to have hung. The staircase mounted into shadows, and out of sight, on the landing, a clock ticked. Above the enormous fireplace, the fifth baronet pointed his sword complacently at a perpetual cloudburst. A smouldering log settled with a whisper on the hearth, and somewhere, away in the servants’ quarters, a voice was raised and placidly answered.

The drawing-room door opened, and with a firm step, and a faint meaningless smile on her lips, Millamant Ancred came out and crossed the hall to Alleyn.

“I believe you wanted me,” she said.

“It was the mass of detail,” Troy said slowly, “that muddled me at first. I kept trying to fit the practical jokes into the pattern and they wouldn’t go.”

“They fit,” Alleyn rejoined, “but only because she used them after the event.”

“I’d be glad if you’d sort out the essentials, Rory.”

“I’ll try. It’s a case of maternal obsession. A cold, hard woman, with a son for whom she has a morbid adoration. Miss Able would tell you all about that. The son is heavily in debt, loves luxury, and is intensely unpopular with his relations. She hates them for that. One day, in the ordinary course of her duties, she goes up to her father-in-law’s room. The drafts of two Wills are lying on the dressing-table. One of them leaves her son, who is his heir, more than generous means to support his title and property. The other cuts him down to the bare bones of the entailed estate. Across the looking-glass someone has scrawled “Grandfather is a bloody old fool.” As she stands there, and before she can rearrange the papers, her father-in-law walks in. He immediately supposes, and you may be sure she shares and encourages the belief that his small granddaughter, with a reputation for practical jokes, is responsible for the insulting legend. Millamant is a familiar figure in his room, and he has no cause to suspect her of such an idiotic prank. Still less does he suspect the real perpetrator, her son Cedric Ancred, who has since admitted that this was one of a series of stunts designed by himself and Sonia Orrincourt to set the old man against Panty, hitherto his favourite.

“Millamant Ancred leaves the room with the memory of those two drafts rankling in her extremely tortuous mind. She knows the old man changes his Will as often as he loses his temper. Already Cedric is unpopular. Some time during the next few days, perhaps gradually, perhaps in an abrupt access of resentment, an idea is born to Millamant. The Will is to be made public at the Birthday dinner. Suppose the one that is favourable to Cedric is read, how fortunate if Sir Henry should die before he changes his mind! And if the dinner is rich, and he, as is most probable, eats and drinks unwisely, what more likely than he should have one of his attacks and die that very night? If, for instance, there was tinned crayfish! She orders tinned crayfish.”

“Just — hoping?”

“Perhaps no more than that. What do you think, Fox?”

Fox, who was sitting by the fire with his hands on his knees, said: “Isabel reckons she ordered it on the previous Sunday when they talked over the dinner.”

“The day after the looking-glass incident. And on the following Monday evening, the Monday before the Birthday when Cedric and Paul and his mother were all out, Millamant Ancred went into the flower-room and found a large bottle of medicine marked ‘Poison’ for the school children, and another smaller bottle for Sir Henry. The bottles had been left on the bench by Sonia Orrincourt, who had joined Fenella Ancred there and had gone upstairs with her and had never been alone in the flower-room.”

“And I,” Troy said, “was putting the trap away and coming in by the east wing door. If… Suppose I’d let Sonia do that and taken the medicine into the school—”

“If you’ll excuse my interrupting you, Mrs. Alleyn,” Fox said, “it’s our experience that, when a woman makes up her mind to turn poisoner, nothing will stop her.”

“He’s right, Troy.”