Tommy jumped out of a taxi, paid the driver and leaned back into the cab to take out a rather clumsily done up parcel which was clearly a picture.
Tucking as much of it as he could under his arm, he entered the New Athenian Galleries, one of the longest established and most important picture galleries in London.
Tommy was not a great patron of the arts but he had come to the New Athenian because he had a friend who officiated there.
“Officiated” was the only word to use because the air of sympathetic interest, the hushed voice, the pleasurable smile, all seemed highly ecclesiastical.
A fair-haired young man detached himself and came forward, his face lighting up with a smile of recognition.
“Hullo, Tommy,” he said. “Haven’t seen you for a long time. What’s that you’ve got under your arm? Don’t tell me you’ve been taking to painting pictures in your old age? A lot of people do—results usually deplorable.”
“I doubt if creative art was ever my long suit,” said Tommy. “Though I must admit I found myself strongly attracted the other day by a small book telling in the simplest terms how a child of five can learn to paint in water colours.”
“God help us if you’re going to take to that. Grandma Moses in reverse.”
“To tell you the truth, Robert, I merely want to appeal to your expert knowledge of pictures. I want your opinion on this.”
Deftly Robert took the picture from Tommy and skilfully removed its clumsy wrappings with the expertise of a man accustomed to handle the parcelling up and deparcelling of all different-sized works of art. He took the picture and set it on a chair, peered into it to look at it, and then withdrew five or six steps away. He turned his gaze towards Tommy.
“Well,” he said, “what about it? What do you want to know? Do you want to sell it, is that it?”
“No,” said Tommy, “I don’t want to sell it, Robert. I want to know about it. To begin with, I want to know who painted it.”
“Actually,” said Robert, “if you had wanted to sell it, it would be quite saleable nowadays. It wouldn’t have been, ten years ago. But Boscowan’s just coming into fashion again.”
“Boscowan?” Tommy looked at him inquiringly. “Is that the name of the artist? I saw it was signed with something beginning with B but I couldn’t read the name.”
“Oh, it’s Boscowan all right. Very popular painter about twenty-five years ago. Sold well, had plenty of shows. People bought him all right. Technically a very good painter. Then, in the usual cycle of events, he went out of fashion. Finally, hardly any demand at all for his works but lately he’s had a revival. He, Stitchwort, and Fondella. They’re all coming up.”
“Boscowan,” repeated Tommy.
“B-o-s-c-o-w-a-n,” said Robert obligingly.
“Is he still painting?”
“No. He’s dead. Died some years ago. Quite an old chap by then. Sixty-five, I think, when he died. Quite a prolific painter, you know. A lot of his canvases about. Actually we’re thinking of having a show of him here in about four or five months’ time. We ought to do well over it, I think. Why are you so interested in him?”
“It’d be too long a story to tell you,” said Tommy. “One of these days I’ll ask you out to lunch and give you the doings from the beginning. It’s a long, complicated and really rather an idiotic story. All I wanted to know is all about this Boscowan and if you happen to know by any chance where this house is that’s represented here.”
“I couldn’t tell you the last for a moment. It’s the sort of thing he did paint, you know. Small country houses in rather isolated spots usually, sometimes a farmhouse, sometimes just a cow or two around. Sometimes a farm cart, but if so, in the far distance. Quiet rural scenes. Nothing sketchy or messy. Sometimes the surface looks almost like enamel. It was a peculiar technique and people liked it. A good many of the things he painted were in France, Normandy mostly. Churches. I’ve got one picture of his here now. Wait a minute and I’ll get it for you.”
He went to the head of the staircase and shouted down to someone below. Presently he came back holding a small canvas which he propped on another chair.
“There you are,” he said. “Church in Normandy.”
“Yes,” said Tommy, “I see. The same sort of thing. My wife says nobody ever lived in that house—the one I brought in. I see now what she meant. I don’t see that anybody was attending service in that church or ever will.”
“Well, perhaps your wife’s got something. Quiet, peaceful dwellings with no human occupancy. He didn’t often paint people, you know. Sometimes there’s a figure or two in the landscape, but more often not. In a way I think that gives them their special charm. A sort of isolationist feeling. It was as though he removed all the human beings, and the peace of the countryside was all the better without them. Come to think of it, that’s maybe why the general taste has swung round to him. Too many people nowadays, too many cars, too many noises on the road, too much noise and bustle. Peace, perfect peace. Leave it all to Nature.”
“Yes, I shouldn’t wonder. What sort of a man was he?”
“I didn’t know him personally. Before my time. Pleased with himself by all accounts. Thought he was a better painter than he was, probably. Put on a bit of side. Kindly, quite likeable. Eye for the girls.”
“And you’ve no idea where this particular piece of countryside exists? It is England, I suppose.”
“I should think so, yes. Do you want me to find out for you?”
“Could you?”
“Probably the best thing to do would be to ask his wife, his widow rather. He married Emma Wing, the sculptor. Well known. Not very productive. Does quite powerful work. You could go and ask her. She lives in Hampstead. I can give you the address. We’ve been corresponding with her a good deal lately over the question of this show of her husband’s work we’re doing. We’re having a few of her smaller pieces of sculpture as well. I’ll get the address for you.”
He went to the desk, turned over a ledger, scrawled something on a card and brought it back.
“There you are, Tommy,” he said. “I don’t know what the deep dark mystery is. Always been a man of mystery, haven’t you? It’s a nice representation of Boscowan’s work you’ve got there. We might like to use it for the show. I’ll send you a line to remind you nearer the time.”
“You don’t know a Mrs. Lancaster, do you?”
“Well, I can’t think of one off-hand. Is she an artist or something of the kind?”
“No, I don’t think so. She’s just an old lady living for the last few years in an old ladies’ home. She comes into it because this picture belonged to her until she gave it away to an aunt of mine.”
“Well I can’t say the name means anything to me. Better go and talk to Mrs. Boscowan.”
“What’s she like?”
“She was a good bit younger than he was, I should say. Quite a personality.” He nodded his head once or twice. “Yes, quite a personality. You’ll find that out I expect.”
He took the picture, handed it down the staircase with instructions to someone below to do it up again.
“Nice for you having so many myrmidons at your beck and call,” said Tommy.
He looked round him, noticing his surroundings for the first time.
“What’s this you’ve got here now?” he said with distaste.
“Paul Jaggerowski—Interesting young Slav. Said to produce all his works under the influence of drugs—Don’t you like him?”
Tommy concentrated his gaze on a big string bag which seemed to have enmeshed itself in a metallic green field full of distorted cows.
“Frankly, no.”
“Philistine,” said Robert. “Come out and have a bite of lunch.”
“Can’t. I’ve got a meeting with a doctor at my club.”
“Not ill, are you?”
“I’m in the best of health. My blood pressure is so good that it disappoints every doctor to whom I submit it.”
“Then what do you want to see a doctor for?”
“Oh,” said Tommy cheerfully—“I’ve just got to see a doctor about a body. Thanks for your help. Goodbye.”
II
Tommy greeted Dr. Murray with some curiosity—He presumed it was some formal matter to do with Aunt Ada’s decease, but why on earth Dr. Murray would not at least mention the subject of his visit over the telephone, Tommy couldn’t imagine.
“I’m afraid I’m a little late,” said Dr. Murray, shaking hands, “but the traffic was pretty bad and I wasn’t exactly sure of the locality. I don’t know this part of London very well.”
“Well, too bad you had to come all the way here,” said Tommy. “I could have met you somewhere more convenient, you know.”
“You’ve time on your hands then just now?”
“Just at the moment, yes. I’ve been away for the last week.”
“Yes, I believe someone told me so when I rang up.”
Tommy indicated a chair, suggested refreshment, placed cigarettes and matches by Dr. Murray’s side. When the two men had established themselves comfortably Dr. Murray opened the conversation.
“I’m sure I’ve aroused your curiosity,” he said, “but as a matter of fact we’re in a spot of trouble at Sunny Ridge. It’s a difficult and perplexing matter and in one way it’s nothing to do with you. I’ve no earthly right to trouble you with it but there’s just an off chance that you might know something which would help me.”
“Well, of course, I’ll do anything I can. Something to do with my aunt, Miss Fanshawe?”
“Not directly, no. But in a way she does come into it. I can speak to you in confidence, can’t I, Mr. Beresford?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“As a matter of fact I was talking the other day to a mutual friend of ours. He was telling me a few things about you. I gather that in the last war you had rather a delicate assignment.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t put it quite as seriously as that,” said Tommy, in his most noncommittal manner.
“Oh no, I quite realize that it’s not a thing to be talked about.”
“I don’t really think that matters nowadays. It’s a good long time since the war. My wife and I were younger then.”
“Anyway, it’s nothing to do with that, that I want to talk to you about, but at least I feel that I can speak frankly to you, that I can trust you not to repeat what I am now saying, though it’s possible that it all may have to come out later.”
“A spot of trouble at Sunny Ridge, you say?”
“Yes. Not very long ago one of our patients died. A Mrs. Moody. I don’t know if you ever met her or if your aunt ever talked about her.”
“Mrs. Moody?” Tommy reflected. “No, I don’t think so. Anyway, not so far as I remember.”
“She was not one of our older patients. She was still on the right side of seventy and she was not seriously ill in any way. It was just a case of a woman with no near relatives and no one to look after her in the domestic line. She fell into the category of what I often call to myself a flutterer. Women who more and more resemble hens as they grow older. They cluck. They forget things. They run themselves into difficulties and they worry. They get themselves wrought up about nothing at all. There is very little the matter with them. They are not strictly speaking mentally disturbed.”
“But they just cluck,” Tommy suggested.
“As you say. Mrs. Moody clucked. She caused the nurses a fair amount of trouble although they were quite fond of her. She had a habit of forgetting when she’d had her meals, making a fuss because no dinner had been served to her when as a matter of fact she had actually just eaten a very good dinner.”
“Oh,” said Tommy, enlightened, “Mrs. Cocoa.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m sorry,” said Tommy, “it’s a name my wife and I had for her. She was yelling for Nurse Jane one day when we passed along the passage and saying she hadn’t had her cocoa. Rather a nice-looking scatty little woman. But it made us both laugh, and we fell into the habit of calling her Mrs. Cocoa. And so she’s died.”
“I wasn’t particularly surprised when the death happened,” said Dr. Murray. “To be able to prophesy with any exactitude when elderly women will die is practically impossible. Women whose health is seriously affected, who, one feels as a result of physical examination, will hardly last the year out, sometimes are good for another ten years. They have a tenacious hold on life which mere physical disability will not quench. There are other people whose health is reasonably good and who may, one thinks, make old bones. They on the other hand, catch bronchitis, or ’flu, seem unable to have the stamina to recuperate from it, and die with surprising ease. So, as I say, as a medical attendant to an elderly ladies’ home, I am not surprised when what might be called a fairly unexpected death occurs. This case of Mrs. Moody, however, was somewhat different. She died in her sleep without having exhibited any sign of illness and I could not help feeling that in my opinion her death was unexpected. I will use the phrase that has always intrigued me in Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth. I have always wondered what Macbeth meant when he said of his wife, ‘She should have died hereafter.’ ”
“Yes, I remember wondering once myself what Shakespeare was getting at,” said Tommy. “I forget whose production it was and who was playing Macbeth, but there was a strong suggestion in that particular production, and Macbeth certainly played it in a way to suggest that he was hinting to the medical attendant that Lady Macbeth would be better out of the way. Presumably the medical attendant took the hint. It was then that Macbeth, feeling safe after his wife’s death, feeling that she could no longer damage him by her indiscretions or her rapidly failing mind, expresses his genuine affection and grief for her. ‘She should have died hereafter.’ ”
“Exactly,” said Dr. Murray. “It is what I felt about Mrs. Moody. I felt that she should have died hereafter. Not just three weeks ago of no apparent cause—”
Tommy did not reply. He merely looked at the doctor inquiringly.
“Medical men have certain problems. If you are puzzled over the cause of a patient’s death there is only one sure way to tell. By a postmortem. Postmortems are not appreciated by relatives of the deceased, but if a doctor demands a postmortem and the result is, as it perfectly well may be, a case of natural causes, or some disease or malady which does not always give outward signs or symptoms, then the doctor’s career can be quite seriously affected by his having made a questionable diagnosis—”
“I can see that it must have been difficult.”
“The relatives in question are distant cousins. So I took it upon myself to get their consent as it was a matter of medical interest to know the cause of death. When a patient dies in her sleep it is advisable to add to one’s medical knowledge. I wrapped it up a good bit, mind you, didn’t make it too formal. Luckily they couldn’t care less. I felt very relieved in mind. Once the autopsy had been performed and if all was well, I could give a death certificate without a qualm. Anyone can die of what is amateurishly called heart failure, from one of several different causes. Actually Mrs. Moody’s heart was in really very good shape for her age. She suffered from arthritis and rheumatism and occasional trouble with her liver, but none of these things seemed to accord with her passing away in her sleep.”
Dr. Murray came to a stop. Tommy opened his lips and then shut them again. The doctor nodded.
“Yes, Mr. Beresford. You can see where I am tending. Death has resulted from an overdose of morphine.”
“Good Lord!” Tommy stared and the ejaculation escaped him.
“Yes. It seemed quite incredible, but there was no getting away from the analysis. The question was: How was that morphia administered? She was not on morphia. She was not a patient who suffered pain. There were three possibilities, of course. She might have taken it by accident. Unlikely. She might have got hold of some other patient’s medicine by mistake but that again is not particularly likely. Patients are not entrusted with supplies of morphia, and we do not accept drug addicts who might have a supply of such things in their possession. It could have been deliberate suicide but I should be very slow to accept that. Mrs. Moody, though a worrier, was of a perfectly cheerful disposition and I am quite sure had never thought of ending her life. The third possibility is that a fatal overdose was deliberately administered to her. But by whom, and why? Naturally, there are supplies of morphia and other drugs which Miss Packard as a registered hospital nurse and matron, is perfectly entitled to have in her possession and which she keeps in a locked cupboard. In such cases as sciatica or rheumatoid arthritis there can be such severe and desperate pain that morphia is occasionally administered. We have hoped that we may come across some circumstance in which Mrs. Moody had a dangerous amount of morphia administered to her by mistake or which she herself took under the delusion that it was a cure for indigestion or insomnia. We have not been able to find any such circumstances possible. The next thing we have done, at Miss Packard’s suggestion and I agreed with her, is to look carefully into the records of such deaths as have taken place at Sunny Ridge in the last two years. There have not been many of them, I am glad to say. I think seven in all, which is a pretty fair average for people of that age group. Two deaths of bronchitis, perfectly straightforward, two of flu, always a possible killer during the winter months owing to the slight resistance offered by frail, elderly women. And three others.”
He paused and said, “Mr. Beresford, I am not satisfied about those three others, certainly not about two of them. They were perfectly probable, they were not unexpected, but I will go as far as saying that they were unlikely. They are not cases that on reflection and research I am entirely satisfied about. One has to accept the possibility that, unlikely as it seems, there is someone at Sunny Ridge who is, possibly for mental reasons, a killer. An entirely unsuspected killer.”
There was silence for some moments. Tommy gave a sigh.
“I don’t doubt what you’ve told me,” he said, “but all the same, frankly, it seems unbelievable. These things—surely, they can’t happen.”
“Oh yes,” said Dr. Murray grimly, “they happen all right. You go over some of the pathological cases. A woman who took on domestic service. She worked as a cook in various households. She was a nice, kind, pleasant-seeming woman, gave her employers faithful service, cooked well, enjoyed being with them. Yet, sooner or later, things happened. Usually a plate of sandwiches. Sometimes picnic food. For no apparent motive arsenic was added. Two or three poisoned sandwiches among the rest. Apparently sheer chance dictated who took and ate them. There seemed no personal venom. Sometimes no tragedy happened. The same woman was three or four months in a situation and there was no trace of illness. Nothing. Then she left to go to another job, and in that next job, within three weeks, two of the family died after eating bacon for breakfast. The fact that all these things happened in different parts of England and at irregular intervals made it some time before the police got on her track. She used a different name, of course, each time. But there are so many pleasant, capable, middle-aged women who can cook, it was hard to find out which particular woman it was.”
“Why did she do it?”
“I don’t think anybody has ever really known. There have been several different theories, especially of course by psychologists. She was a somewhat religious woman and it seems possible that some form of religious insanity made her feel that she had a divine command to rid the world of certain people, but it does not seem that she herself had borne them any personal animus.
“Then there was the French woman, Jeanne Gebron, who was called The Angel of Mercy. She was so upset when her neighbours had ill children, she hurried to nurse those children. Sat devotedly at their bedside. There again it was some time before people discovered that the children she nursed never recovered. Instead they all died. And why? It is true that when she was young her own child died. She appeared to be prostrated with grief. Perhaps that was the cause of her career of crime. If her child died so should the children of other women. Or it may be, as some thought, that her own child was also one of the victims.”
“You’re giving me chills down my spine,” said Tommy.
“I’m taking the most melodramatic examples,” said the doctor. “It may be something much simpler than that. You remember in the case of Armstrong, anyone who had in any way offended him or insulted him, or indeed, if he even thought anyone had insulted him, that person was quickly asked to tea and given arsenic sandwiches. A sort of intensified touchiness. His first crimes were obviously mere crimes for personal advantage. Inheriting of money. The removal of a wife so that he could marry another woman.
“Then there was Nurse Warriner who kept a Home for elderly people. They made over what means they had to her, and were guaranteed a comfortable old age until death came—But death did not delay very long. There, too, it was morphia that was administered—a very kindly woman, but with no scruples—she regarded herself, I believe, as a benefactor.”
“You’ve no idea, if your surmise about these deaths is true, who it could be?”
“No. There seems no pointer of any kind. Taking the view that the killer is probably insane, insanity is a very difficult thing to recognize in some of its manifestations. Is it somebody, shall we say, who dislikes elderly people, who had been injured or has had her life ruined or so she thinks, by somebody elderly? Or is it possibly someone who has her own ideas of mercy killing and thinks that everyone over sixty years of age should be kindly exterminated. It could be anyone, of course. A patient? Or a member of the staff—a nurse or a domestic worker?
“I have discussed this at great length with Millicent Packard who runs the place. She is a highly competent woman, shrewd, businesslike, with keen supervision both of the guests there and of her own staff. She insists that she has no suspicion and no clue whatever and I am sure that is perfectly true.”
“But why come to me? What can I do?”
“Your aunt, Miss Fanshawe, was a resident there for some years—she was a woman of very considerable mental capacity, though she often pretended otherwise. She had unconventional ways of amusing herself by putting on an appearance of senility. But she was actually very much all there—What I want you to try and do, Mr. Beresford, is to think hard—you and your wife, too—Is there anything you can remember that Miss Fanshawe ever said or hinted, that might give us a clue—Something she had seen or noticed, something that someone had told her, something that she herself had thought peculiar. Old ladies see and notice a lot, and a really shrewd one like Miss Fanshawe would know a surprising amount of what went on in a place like Sunny Ridge. These old ladies are not busy, you see, they have all the time in the world to look around them and make deductions—and even jump to conclusions—that may seem fantastic, but are sometimes, surprisingly, entirely correct.”
Tommy shook his head.
“I know what you mean—But I can’t remember anything of that kind.”
“Your wife’s away from home, I gather. You don’t think she might remember something that hadn’t struck you?”
“I’ll ask her—but I doubt it.” He hesitated, then made up his mind. “Look here, there was something that worried my wife—about one of the old ladies, a Mrs. Lancaster.”
“Mrs. Lancaster? Yes?”
“My wife’s got it into her head that Mrs. Lancaster has been taken away by some so-called relations very suddenly. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Lancaster gave a picture to my aunt as a present, and my wife felt that she ought to offer to return the picture to Mrs. Lancaster, so she tried to get in touch with her to know if Mrs. Lancaster would like the picture returned to her.”
“Well, that was very thoughtful of Mrs. Beresford, I’m sure.”
“Only she found it very hard to get in touch with her. She got the address of the hotel where they were supposed to be staying—Mrs. Lancaster and her relations—but nobody of that name had been staying there or had booked rooms there.”
“Oh? That was rather odd.”
“Yes. Tuppence thought it was rather odd, too. They had left no other forwarding address at Sunny Ridge. In fact, we have made several attempts to get in touch with Mrs. Lancaster, or with this Mrs.—Johnson I think the name was—but have been quite unable to get in touch with them. There was a solicitor who I believe paid all the bills—and made all the arrangements with Miss Packard and we got into communication with him. But he could only give me the address of a bank. Banks,” said Tommy drily, “don’t give you any information.”
“Not if they’ve been told not to by their clients, I agree.”
“My wife wrote to Mrs. Lancaster care of the bank, and also to Mrs. Johnson, but she’s never had any reply.”
“That seems a little unusual. Still, people don’t always answer letters. They may have gone abroad.”
“Quite so—it didn’t worry me. But it has worried my wife. She seems convinced that something has happened to Mrs. Lancaster. In fact, during the time I was away from home, she said she was going to investigate further—I don’t know what exactly she meant to do, perhaps see the hotel personally, or the bank, or try the solicitor. Anyway, she was going to try and get a little more information.”
Dr. Murray looked at him politely, but with a trace of patient boredom in his manner.
“What did she think exactly—?”
“She thinks that Mrs. Lancaster is in danger of some kind—even that something may have happened to her.”
The doctor raised his eyebrows.
“Oh! really, I should hardly think—”
“This may seem quite idiotic to you,” said Tommy, “but you see, my wife rang up saying she would be back yesterday evening—and—she didn’t arrive.”
“She said definitely that she was coming back?”
“Yes. She knew I was coming home, you see, from this conference business. So she rang up to let our man, Albert, know that she’d be back to dinner.”
“And that seems to you an unlikely thing for her to do?” said Murray. He was now looking at Tommy with some interest.
“Yes,” said Tommy. “It’s very unlike Tuppence. If she’d been delayed or changed her plans she would have rung up again or sent a telegram.”
“And you’re worried about her?”
“Yes, I am,” said Tommy.
“H’m! Have you consulted the police?”
“No,” said Tommy. “What’d the police think? It’s not as though I had any reason to believe that she is in trouble or danger or anything of that kind. I mean, if she’d had an accident or was in a hospital, anything like that, somebody would communicate with me soon enough, wouldn’t they?”
“I should say so—yes—if she had some means of identification on her.”
“She’d have her driving licence on her. Probably letters and various other things.”
Dr. Murray frowned.
Tommy went on in a rush:
“And now you come along—And bring up all this business of Sunny Ridge—People who’ve died when they oughtn’t to have died. Supposing this old bean got on to something—saw something, or suspected something—and began chattering about it—She’d have to be silenced in some way, so she was whisked out of it quickly, and taken off to some place or other where she wouldn’t be traced. I can’t help feeling that the whole thing ties up somehow—”
“It’s odd—it’s certainly odd—What do you propose to do next?”
“I’m going to do a bit of searching myself—Try these solicitors first—They may be quite all right, but I’d like to have a look at them, and draw my own conclusions.”
Eleven. Bond street and dr. murray