I
Susan lay in bed and waited for sleep to come. It had been a long day and she was tired. She had been quite sure that she would go to sleep at once. She never had any difficulty in going to sleep. And yet here she lay, hour after hour, wide awake, her mind racing.
She had said she did not mind sleeping in this room, in this bed. This bed where Cora Abernethie—
No, no she must put all that out of her mind. She had always prided herself on having no nerves. Why think of that afternoon less than a week ago? Think ahead—the future. Her future and Greg’s. Those premises in Cardigan Street—just what they wanted. The business on the ground floor and a charming flat upstairs. The room out at the back a laboratory for Greg. For purposes of income tax it would be an excellent setup. Greg would get calm and well again. There would be no more of those alarming brainstorms. The times when he looked at her without seeming to know who she was. Once or twice she’d been quite frightened… And old Mr. Cole—he’d hinted—threatened: “If this happens again…” And it might have happened again—it would have happened again. If Uncle Richard hadn’t died just when he did….
Uncle Richard—but really why look at it like that? He’d nothing to live for. Old and tired and ill. His son dead. It was a mercy really. To die in his sleep quietly like that. Quietly…in his sleep… If only she could sleep. It was so stupid lying awake hour after hour…hearing the furniture creak, and the rustling of trees and bushes outside the window and the occasional queer melancholy hoot—an owl, she supposed. How sinister the country was, somehow. So different from the big noisy indifferent town. One felt so safe there—surrounded by people—never alone. Whereas here….
Houses where a murder had been committed were sometimes haunted. Perhaps this cottage would come to be known as the haunted cottage. Haunted by the spirit of Cora Lansquenet… Aunt Cora. Odd, really, how ever since she had arrived she had felt as though Aunt Cora were quite close to her…within reach. All nerves and fancy. Cora Lansquenet was dead, tomorrow she would be buried. There was no one in the cottage except Susan herself and Miss Gilchrist. Then why did she feel that there was someone in this room, someone close beside her….
She had lain on this bed when the hatchet fell… Lying there trustingly asleep… Knowing nothing till the hatchet fell… And now she wouldn’t let Susan sleep….
The furniture creaked again…was that a stealthy step? Susan switched on the light. Nothing. Nerves, nothing but nerves. Relax…close your eyes….
Surely that was a groan—a groan or a faint moan… Someone in pain—someone dying….
“I mustn’t imagine things, I mustn’t, I mustn’t,” Susan whispered to herself.
Death was the end—there was no existence after death. Under no circumstances could anyone come back. Or was she reliving a scene from the past—a dying woman groaning….
There it was again…stronger…someone groaning in acute pain….
But—this was real. Once again Susan switched on the light, sat up in bed and listened. The groans were real groans and she was hearing them through the wall. They came from the room next door.
Susan jumped out of bed, flung on a dressing gown and crossed to the door. She went out on to the landing, tapped for a moment on Miss Gilchrist’s door and then went in. Miss Gilchrist’s light was on. She was sitting up in bed. She looked ghastly. Her face was distorted with pain.
“Miss Gilchrist, what’s the matter? Are you ill?”
“Yes. I don’t know what—I—” she tried to get out of bed, was seized with a fit of vomiting and then collapsed back on the pillows.
She murmured: “Please—ring up doctor. Must have eaten something….”
“I’ll get you some bicarbonate. We can get the doctor in the morning if you’re no better.”
Miss Gilchrist shook her head.
“No, get the doctor now. I— I feel dreadful.”
“Do you know his number? Or shall I look in the book?”
Miss Gilchrist gave her the number. She was interrupted by another fit of retching.
Susan’s call was answered by a sleepy male voice.
“Who? Gilchrist? In Mead’s Lane. Yes, I know. I’ll be right along.”
He was as good as his word. Ten minutes later Susan heard his car draw up outside and she went to open the door to him.
She explained the case and she took him upstairs. “I think,” she said, “she must have eaten something that disagreed with her. But she seems pretty bad.”
The doctor had had the air of one keeping his temper in leash and who has had some experience of being called out unnecessarily on more than one occasion. But as soon as he examined the moaning woman his manner changed. He gave various curt orders to Susan and presently came down and telephoned. Then he joined Susan in the sitting room.
“I’ve sent for an ambulance. Must get her into hospital.”
“She’s really bad then?”
“Yes. I’ve given her a shot of morphia to ease the pain. But it looks—” He broke off. “What’s she eaten?”
“We had macaroni au gratin for supper and a custard pudding. Coffee afterwards.”
“You have the same things?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re all right? No pain or discomfort?”
“No.”
“She’s taken nothing else? No tinned fish? Or sausages?”
“No. We had lunch at the King’s Arms—after the inquest.”
“Yes, of course. You’re Mrs. Lansquenet’s niece?”
“Yes.”
“That was a nasty business. Hope they catch the man who did it.”
“Yes, indeed.”
The ambulance came. Miss Gilchrist was taken away and the doctor went with her. He told Susan he would ring her up in the morning. When he had left she went upstairs to bed.
This time she fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.
II
The funeral was well-attended. Most of the village had turned out. Susan and Mr. Entwhistle were the only mourners, but various wreaths had been sent by the other members of the family. Mr. Entwhistle asked where Miss Gilchrist was, and Susan explained the circumstances in a hurried whisper. Mr. Entwhistle raised his eyebrows.
“Rather an odd occurrence?”
“Oh, she’s better this morning. They rang up from the hospital. People do get these bilious turns. Some make more fuss than others.”
Mr. Entwhistle said no more. He was returning to London immediately after the funeral.
Susan went back to the cottage. She found some eggs and made herself an omelette. Then she went up to Cora’s room and started to sort through the dead woman’s things.
She was interrupted by the arrival of the doctor.
The doctor was looking worried. He replied to Susan’s inquiry by saying that Miss Gilchrist was much better.
“She’ll be out and around in a couple of days,” he said. “But it was lucky I got called in so promptly. Otherwise—it might have been a near thing.”
Susan stared. “Was she really so bad?”
“Mrs. Banks, will you tell me again exactly what Miss Gilchrist had to eat and drink yesterday. Everything.”
Susan reflected and gave a meticulous account. The doctor shook his head in a dissatisfied manner.
“There must have been something she had and you didn’t?”
“I don’t think so… Cakes, scones, jam, tea—and then supper. No, I can’t remember anything.”
The doctor rubbed his nose. He walked up and down the room.
“Was it definitely something she ate? Definitely food poisoning?”
The doctor threw her a sharp glance. Then he seemed to come to a decision.
“It was arsenic,” he said.
“Arsenic?” Susan started. “You mean somebody gave her arsenic?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Could she have taken it herself? Deliberately, I mean?”
“Suicide? She says not and she should know. Besides, if she wanted to commit suicide she wouldn’t be likely to choose arsenic. There are sleeping pills in this house. She could have taken an overdose of them.”
“Could the arsenic have got into something by accident?”
“That’s what I’m wondering. It seems very unlikely, but such things have been known. But if you and she ate the same things—”
Susan nodded. She said, “It all seems impossible—” then she gave a sudden gasp. “Why, of course, the wedding cake!”
“What’s that? Wedding cake?”
Susan explained. The doctor listened with close attention.
“Odd. And you say she wasn’t sure who sent it? Any of it left? Or is the box it came in lying around?”
“I don’t know. I’ll look.”
They searched together and finally found the white cardboard box with a few crumbs of cake still in it lying on the kitchen dresser. The doctor packed it away with some care.
“I’ll take charge of this. Any idea where the wrapping paper it came in might be?”
Here they were not successful and Susan said that it had probably gone into the Ideal boiler.
“You won’t be leaving here just yet, Mrs. Banks?”
His tone was genial, but it made Susan feel a little uncomfortable.
“No, I have to go through my aunt’s things. I shall be here for a few days.”
“Good. You understand the police will probably want to ask some questions. You don’t know of anyone who—well, might have had it in for Miss Gilchrist?”
Susan shook her head.
“I don’t really know much about her. She was with my aunt for some years—that’s all I know.”
“Quite, quite. Always seemed a pleasant unassuming woman—quite ordinary. Not the kind, you’d say, to have enemies or anything melodramatic of that kind. Wedding cake through the post. Sounds like some jealous woman—but who’d be jealous of Miss Gilchrist? Doesn’t seem to fit.”
“No.”
“Well, I must be on my way. I don’t know what’s happening to us in quiet little Lytchett St. Mary. First a brutal murder and now attempted poisoning through the post. Odd, the one following the other.”
He went down the path to his car. The cottage felt stuffy and Susan left the door standing open as she went slowly upstairs to resume her task.
Cora Lansquenet had not been a tidy or methodical woman. Her drawers held a miscellaneous assortment of things. There were toilet accessories and letters and old handkerchiefs and paint brushes mixed up together in one drawer. There were a few old letters and bills thrust in amongst a bulging drawer of underclothes. In another drawer under some woollen jumpers was a cardboard box holding two false fringes. There was another drawer full of old photographs and sketching books. Susan lingered over a group taken evidently at some French place many years ago and which showed a younger, thinner Cora clinging to the arm of a tall lanky man with a straggling beard dressed in what seemed to be a velveteen coat and whom Susan took to be the late Pierre Lansquenet.
The photographs interested Susan, but she laid them aside, sorted all the papers she had found into a heap and began to go through them methodically. About a quarter way through she came to a letter. She read it through twice and was still staring at it when a voice speaking behind her caused her to give a cry of alarm.
“And what may you have got hold of there, Susan? Hallo, what’s the matter?”
Susan reddened with annoyance. Her cry of alarm had been quite involuntary and she felt ashamed and anxious to explain.
“George? How you startled me!”
Her cousin smiled lazily.
“So it seems.”
“How did you get here?”
“Well, the door downstairs was open, so I walked in. There seemed to be nobody about on the ground floor, so I came up here. If you mean how did I get to this part of the world, I started down this morning to come to the funeral.”
“I didn’t see you there?”
“The old bus played me up. The petrol feed seemed choked. I tinkered with it for some time and finally it seemed to clear itself. I was too late for the funeral by then, but I thought I might as well come on down. I knew you were here.”
He paused, and then went on:
“I rang you up, as a matter of fact, and Greg told me you’d come down to take possession, as it were. I thought I might give you a hand.”
Susan said, “Aren’t you needed in the office? Or can you take days off whenever you like?”
“A funeral has always been a recognized excuse for absenteeism. And this funeral is indubitably genuine. Besides, a murder always fascinates people. Anyway, I shan’t be going much to the office in future—not now that I’m a man of means. I shall have better things to do.”
He paused and grinned, “Same as Greg,” he said.
Susan looked at George thoughtfully. She had never seen much of this cousin of hers and when they did meet she had always found him rather difficult to make out.
She asked, “Why did you really come down here, George?”
“I’m not sure it wasn’t to do a little detective work. I’ve been thinking a good deal about the last funeral we attended. Aunt Cora certainly threw a spanner into the works that day. I’ve wondered whether it was sheer irresponsibility and auntly joie de vivre that prompted her words, or whether she really had something to go upon. What actually is in that letter that you were reading so attentively when I came in?”
Susan said slowly, “It’s a letter that Uncle Richard wrote to Cora after he’d been down here to see her.”
How very black George’s eyes were. She’d thought of them as brown but they were black, and there was something curiously impenetrable about black eyes. They concealed the thoughts that lay behind them.
George drawled slowly. “Anything interesting in it?”
“No, not exactly….”
“Can I see?”
She hesitated for a moment, then put the letter into his outstretched hand.
He read it, skimming over the contents in a low monotone.
“Glad to have seen you again after all these years…looking very well…had a good journey home and arrived back not too tired….”
His voice changed suddenly, sharpened:
“Please don’t say anything to anyone about what I told you. It may be a mistake. Your loving brother, Richard.”
He looked up at Susan. “What does that mean?”
“It might mean anything… It might be just about his health. Or it might be some gossip about a mutual friend.”
“Oh yes, it might be a lot of things. It isn’t conclusive—but it’s suggestive… What did he tell Cora? Does anyone know what he told her?”
“Miss Gilchrist might know,” said Susan thoughtfully. “I think she listened.”
“Oh, yes, the companion help. Where is she, by the way?”
“In hospital, suffering from arsenic poisoning.”
George stared.
“You don’t mean it?”
“I do. Someone sent her some poisoned wedding cake.”
George sat down on one of the bedroom chairs and whistled.
“It looks,” he said, “as though Uncle Richard was not mistaken.”
III
On the following morning Inspector Morton called at the cottage.
He was a quiet middle-aged man with a soft country burr in his voice. His manner was quiet and unhurried, but his eyes were shrewd.
“You realize what this is about, Mrs. Banks?” he said. “Dr. Proctor has already told you about Miss Gilchrist. The few crumbs of wedding cake that he took from here have been analysed to show traces of arsenic.”
“So someone deliberately wanted to poison her?”
“That’s what it looks like. Miss Gilchrist herself doesn’t seem able to help us. She keeps repeating that it’s impossible—that nobody would do such a thing. But somebody did. You can’t throw any light on the matter?”
Susan shook her head.
“I’m simply dumbfounded,” she said. “Can’t you find out anything from the postmark? Or the handwriting?”
“You’ve forgotten—the wrapping paper was presumably burnt. And there’s a little doubt whether it came through the post at all. Young Andrews, the driver of the postal van, doesn’t seem able to remember delivering it. He’s got a big round, and he can’t be sure—but there it is—there’s a doubt about it.”
“But—what’s the alternative?”
“The alternative, Mrs. Banks, is that an old piece of brown paper was used that already had Miss Gilchrist’s name and address on it and a cancelled stamp, and that the package was pushed through the letter box or deposited inside the door by hand to create the impression that it had come by post.”
He added dispassionately:
“It’s quite a clever idea, you know, to choose wedding cake. Lonely middle-aged women are sentimental about wedding cake, pleased at having been remembered. A box of sweets, or something of that kind might have awakened suspicion.”
Susan said slowly:
“Miss Gilchrist speculated a good deal about who could have sent it, but she wasn’t at all suspicious—as you say, she was pleased and yes—flattered.”
She added: “Was there enough poison in it to—kill?”
“That’s difficult to say until we get the quantitative analysis. It rather depends on whether Miss Gilchrist ate the whole of the wedge. She seems to think that she didn’t. Can you remember?”
“No—no, I’m not sure. She offered me some and I refused and then she ate some and said it was a very good cake, but I don’t remember if she finished it or not.”
“I’d like to go upstairs if you don’t mind, Mrs. Banks.”
“Of course.”
She followed him up to Miss Gilchrist’s room. She said apologetically:
“I’m afraid it’s in a rather disgusting state. But I didn’t have time to do anything about it with my aunt’s funeral and everything, and then after Dr. Proctor came I thought perhaps I ought to leave it as it was.”
“That was very intelligent of you, Mrs. Banks. It’s not everyone who would have been so intelligent.”
He went to the bed and slipping his hand under the pillow raised it carefully. A slow smile spread over his face.
“There you are,” he said.
A piece of wedding cake lay on the sheet looking somewhat the worse for wear.
“How extraordinary,” said Susan.
“Oh no, it’s not. Perhaps your generation doesn’t do it. Young ladies nowadays mayn’t set so much store on getting married. But it’s an old custom. Put a piece of wedding cake under your pillow and you’ll dream of your future husband.”
“But surely Miss Gilchrist—”
“She didn’t want to tell us about it because she felt foolish doing such a thing at her age. But I had a notion that’s what it might be.” His face sobered. “And if it hadn’t been for an old maid’s foolishness, Miss Gilchrist mightn’t be alive today.”
“But who could have possibly wanted to kill her?”
His eyes met hers, a curious speculative look in them that made Susan feel uncomfortable.
“You don’t know?” he asked.
“No—of course I don’t.”
“It seems then as though we shall have to find out,” said Inspector Morton.
Chapter Eleven