Читать книгу The Craig Poisoning Mystery - A. Fielding - Страница 4

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GUY HOUGHTON received his cousin's letter as he was finishing lunch. He opened and read it at once.

He was a short, slender, rather ugly young man of around thirty, with a pleasant smile and merry blue eyes. Just now they stared at the letter before him in stupefaction.

Ronald thought he was being poisoned! Ronald thought that that was why he was ill. Wanted to be fetched tomorrow around nine...without fuss...Lindrum and Match were all right...Good heavens t what' on earth was happening at Woodthorp?

He jumped up so suddenly that the terrier, snoozing against his knee, gave a bark and then dived after him. Dogs adored Houghton. The master made for the telephone. A moment more, and he was speaking to his cousin, for Craig had an extension beside his bed.

"That you, Ronnie?" Houghton asked. "I've just got your letter." His voice betrayed an effort to sound ordinary. "Look here, can't I run down to see you this afternoon? No? You don't feel up to it?" There was a moment's silence on his part as Craig replied, "Stick to the plan, Guy. Glad you got my letter."

But Houghton had more to say. "I wish you'd post me at once that volume of Hakluyt's 'Voyages' you wrote about last week. One of an early edition, you remember? If you wrap it up well it won't get damaged, and I'll take the greatest care of it, and oh," he managed to make his voice sound really casual now, "why not slip into it that print you mentioned in the letter that I've just received. That—eh—first impression you found. Or, at any rate, a replica of it. Just in case it might get lost. As it's very interesting, quite amazingly so, I'd very much like to see it. Now, don't put off sending it, there's a good chap. Post it as soon as possible, will you? Without fail?"

There was a second's silence, then Craig's answer reached him.

"All right. Perhaps it might be as well. I'll post the book to you this afternoon. Come and see me sometime, Guy."

"I may be passing quite soon," Houghton mentioned carelessly, and Craig's voice replied with a contented:

"Good! Look in on me any time you're near here. By-by."

Just before the receiver was hung up, Houghton's ear caught the sound of a door opening in Craig's room. He thought he heard a young, rather hard little voice saying:

"Don't stop telephoning, Ronald. Or am I interrupting you? Is it anything very private?"

Houghton frowned. He disliked the Russian girl intensely. Well, at any rate, Ronald now knew that the letter had arrived safely, and that he could count on him, Houghton, turning up to the minute tomorrow morning.

And, meanwhile, that "part of a letter" which Craig wrote proved his suspicions, or at least a copy of it, would be safely on its way to town in a volume of the "Voyages." He ought to get it by tonight. What in the world could it be? Written by whom, and to whom? Houghton felt as though his head were whirling.

First of all, he rang for his man and gave directions as to getting a room ready for Mr. Craig tomorrow morning. Mr. Craig would probably keep to his bed, he added, as he had got a slight chill in the country. Then he reached for the telephone directory. Ronald wanted no fuss. No, of course not—in the house of a relative, with his fiancée as the only other guest! But Houghton was determined to take down some authority on toxicology with him in the morning. Just whom? He sat awhile reflecting. He wanted a first-class man. But a discreet man...and not a man whose mere name would inform all Woodthorp what was feared. Then he had an inspiration.

Houghton, who was a first-class bat, and played for his county, had met a Dr. Gilchrist more than once when the latter played for London University or the Hospitals. Gilchrist was a brilliant research worker in disease-antidotes, and Houghton remembered hearing that, by reason of his field of work, poisons were also his specialty. Houghton felt sure that if there were anything to be found out down at Woodthorp Manor, Gilchrist would find it. And yet his name would mean nothing sinister, not even to Lindrum.

He rang Gilchrist up. The doctor was in his Richmond rooms. Would he be free, Houghton asked, to go down into the country tomorrow, Saturday, morning, on a very special case? As a consultant. He was free? Good. So that, supposing he were properly asked by the medical man in charge of the case, Gilchrist would do Houghton the great favor of coming down to look at a cousin whose illness seemed to be dragging on a bit long? Houghton went on to say that a very early consultation would be wanted, so perhaps Gilchrist would let him, Houghton, call for him around seven tomorrow morning. It was a fearful hour, but he would be most grateful.

Gilchrist, who had intended spending the week-end in the country in any case, said that he had no objection to the idea, supposing, of course, that the usual formalities were complied with...and that he liked to get up early.

Houghton thanked him and assured him he would be called up shortly by a Dr. Lindrum who had charge of the case. After ringing off, Houghton tackled that young man next.

Lindrum seemed delighted at the suggestion of getting Dr. Gilchrist of the Imperial Research Laboratory down to see Craig, but doubted if Craig would welcome the idea of another doctor overhauling him. Houghton assured him that he would overcome any objections of his cousin's, and again Bob Lindrum seemed delighted to hear it.

At his very unusually early breakfast next morning, Houghton told his man to take particular care of a book which would probably arrive by the morning post, and to telephone to him at Woodthorp Manor, when it came.

In the car, Gilchrist asked for the first time for general particulars of the man whom they were going to see.

Houghton explained that his cousin, Ronald Craig, had come down to spend a week-end with a relative's widow living at Woodthorp Manor, and had caught a chill on arriving. As he had had malaria several times, he and the local medical man, Dr. Lindrum, thought that he had got another bout of his old enemy, but that was nearly a month ago now, and Ronald Craig was still in bed.

"He's getting very anxious about himself," he added, "and I'm very fond of him. He was a good pal to me once when I was in a hole. From a letter I got from him yesterday, he seems to think that he is going to die."

"Well, so he is," was the uncompromising retort. "We all are!"

"Ah, but not yet! Not at only forty. And just about to be married." Houghton spoke with energy. "Not if I can help it!"

A thrush burst into song as they turned in the main street of the little village. Gilchrist commented on the pleasure of hearing such music.

"My cousin's fiancée says that thrushes are the guardian angels of Woodthorp Manor, there are so many. That's the place over there!" Houghton waved a hand to a small, unpretentious house with a good deal of ivy doing its best to pry the bricks apart. As they turned in at the gates—there seemed to be no lodge-keeper—another thrush stopped its rippling song to stare down at them. Gilchrist had no idea that thrushes looked so fierce. Its eyes were the cruellest that the analyst had ever encountered. Not the eyes of a guardian angel. Who was it who said, Ubi aves, ibi—?"

A half-strangled cry came from Houghton.

"The blinds, man. Look at the blinds!"

Gilchrist looked. As they swept up to the front door, the blinds were being pulled down consecutively in room after room. Houghton was out and onto the steps in a flash, Gilchrist with him. Before Houghton could touch the door, it opened, and a man, obviously a superior servant of some kind, stood there. He looked very pale. It was Match, the butler.

"Oh, sir—I'm very glad to see you!" He hardly needed to say more. His face told what had happened before he went on, "Mr. Craig has just died, sir."

"Just died!" Houghton looked stunned.

Match drew out his watch. "Just a quarter of an hour ago, sir."

It was not yet nine o'clock.

"Dr. Lindrum upstairs?"

"No, sir. He was kept away all night by a maternity case. But he's started for here at last. He'll arrive any minute now. We tried for Dr. Williams, but he was away too. There's been a bad fire over at Chesham Millwall. Poor Mr. Craig." Match shook his head with a look of retrospective pity. "It was awful, sir. Till just at the end. The end was peaceful."

Gilchrist turned to go back to his car. There would be no consultation now.

"Don't go!" Houghton said brokenly. "Lindrum won't be long. And we shall want you."

It was irregular, but Gilchrist asked Match a few questions, at first almost automatically, then with alert interest. At one of the replies he shot a sudden swift glance at Houghton, who was listening closely. Houghton's eyes were on the doctor's face, but they could read nothing there.

Match explained that the nurse had just gone to lie down, utterly worn out with trying to cope with the hours of agony that had preceded her patient's death. The ladies had also gone back to their bedrooms. When Gilchrist finally stood silent, looking at a hunting print on the wall as though it very much puzzled him, Houghton touched his arm and motioned to the stairs. Gilchrist followed him. Match would have preceded them, but Houghton made him a sign to stay where he was. The butler, however, came on up.

"Here's the key to the room, sir," he said, handing it over. One of Gilchrist's swift glances ran over him, but Match stepped down again with his eyes on the ground.

Houghton took the key without comment, and going on up, unlocked the door.

The bed was covered with a sheet. Beneath it, as they turned it back, lay Ronald Craig's dead body. Houghton stood for a long moment looking down at his cousin with the grieved and horrified expression of a man who does not want to believe the evidence of his eyes, then he turned away.

"There's a letter, or part of a letter, rather, which he meant to send me yesterday, I think. It hadn't come before we left town. I wonder if it's lying about anywhere..."

Gilchrist had only eyes for the body before him. Bending down, he studied it with the same kind of attention, though in a heightened degree, that he had paid to the final answers of the butler.

Houghton meanwhile found a bunch of keys on the corner of the mantel, and unlocking the writing cabinet went systematically through it. There was no "part of a letter" inside. He had just relocked it, when Lindrum hurried in. He, too, went to the bed for a second, before he shook hands with Houghton, who introduced the doctor from London.

"It's too late for a consultation," Lindrum said, shaking his head sorrowfully. "Terribly sorry I couldn't get here last night," he went on to Houghton, speaking in a voice that sounded genuinely pained. "But it was touch and go all night long with a confinement case, and Dr. Williams couldn't come either, most unfortunately. He was kept at the hospital owing to a fire that injured a lot of people." Lindrum turned to the bed again. "Not that we could have done anything. Though it was so frightfully sudden...malaria and dysentery are tricky things apart, let alone combined...Well, I have the death certificate with me and—"

"I want a word with you, Dr. Lindrum," Gilchrist interrupted. "I'm too late for a consultation, as you say, but I should like to talk the illness over with you." There was an undercurrent of command in Gilchrist's tone.

Houghton said that he would wait in the library to hear their conclusions, and would they kindly lock the door and bring him the key when they had done? He particularly requested that no one was to be allowed to enter on any pretext whatever.

The two doctors assured him that they would do as he wished, but, in point of fact, they scarcely heard him. As soon as the door had closed, Gilchrist wheeled on the other man.

"Look here, were you giving him arsenic, and was it an overdose? Do you do your own dispensing?"

Lindrum stared at the speaker with dropped jaw.

"Speak, man!" Gilchrist said impatiently. "He died of arsenic poisoning." He jerked his head toward the bed. "As clear a case as could be. The symptoms of the final attack as detailed by the butler—besides, look at his gums, his lids. Now, if it was an honest accident, one of your own prescribing or dispensing, God forbid that I should ruin you. But I must be sure. What were you giving him?"

"I deny it!" Lindrum said, his voice shaking. "Your guess, I mean. Absolutely. The case was possibly gastric influenza—"

Gilchrist interrupted, and in a quiet, level voice ran over the symptoms as told him, and as evident in the dead man before them, which, to his thinking, stood for poison, and arsenic poison at that.

"Each one is compatible with my reading of the case." Lindrum spoke stoutly enough, but there was a look of suppressed terror in his eyes.

"No, they're not!" Gilchrist said bluntly. Then, in a gentler tone: "You see, poisons are my specialty. Whereas, I don't suppose you've ever had a case before." He was sorry for the other chap. "There's no shadow of doubt," he went on inexorably, "but that he was poisoned, and, to account for certain things"—he mentioned them in detail—"he must have had the poison administered to him in small doses—very small indeed, I think—for some weeks, and then, yesterday, he got a heavy dose that finished him off."

There was a long pause. Lindrum's face had grown whiter and whiter as the other proceeded.

"If you're right—" he said now shakily, "you may be—I don't say you are, but you may be—it's my ruin!"

"Not necessarily—" Gilchrist spoke under his breath, though they were both talking very low. "Think well! Could it have been some blunder? Grammes for grains? Anything of that sort?"

"He had a tonic of his own"—Lindrum's voice was as gray as his lips, it was the voice of a man facing horrible things—"an arsenic tonic. Some quack stuff. I warned him to discontinue it. But he was an obstinate man. It's possible he was still taking it..."

"That might account for the small doses, but his end was due to a definite largish dose taken, according to the butler's account, in the afternoon. I'll stake my reputation that I'm not out in saying so much. How can you explain the final dose? By the way, I don't see any medicine at all in the room."

Lindrum did not look around. He made no reply. He was evidently overwhelmed, either by what had happened, or by Houghton's having brought this man down at once to the deathbed.

Gilchrist's face hardened. Then, as the other stammered, "I—I—" and seemed to be choked by emotion, it softened again.

"The truth!" he urged. "If it's a blunder, and you can prove it to me—I must be sure on that point, of course—there need be no autopsy. Houghton may suspect—"

"He will!" muttered Lindrum, biting his lips.

"He may. But there's no one so vindictive that they would want to pillory a man for an honest blunder, let alone a friend. He said you were a friend of the dead man as well as of himself?"

Lindrum nodded. He looked as though he could not speak. Sinking into a chair, he sat with a hand pressed against his eyeballs, almost, a keen observer might have said, as though shutting out some sight, some remembered sight that had now grown unbearable to recall.

Suddenly Gilchrist caught sight of the door handle turning. Very cautiously, very tentatively. Apparently the person on the other side was not sure if the door was locked or not. A second later it opened, also very gently, and Gilchrist saw a white, haggard woman's face staring in at them. On the instant, noiselessly, silently, the door closed again. Gilchrist went to the door and locked it.

"He's a white man," he went on in his rapid, low tones, coming back to the other. "Besides, no one wants the rumor of death by poison spread about one of his own family, unless it's due to a criminal act. No, Houghton may guess, but, if I stand by you, he'll let things lie, or I'm much mistaken."

Gilchrist did not add that, even so, the manor house would probably change its medical attendant.

"I must have the facts, however," he urged again, as the other said nothing. "The full facts."

Lindrum made a great effort and pulled himself together. Haltingly, but sufficiently dearly, he indicated the course of Craig's illness of now nearly four weeks, and the remedies given.

Gilchrist listened attentively, now nodded, now looked dubious and asked a question or two.

"Of course, I blame myself—now—" Lindrum broke out at the end, "for not having been more suspicious, but there's no one in the house but women. His own family! How could I suspect—" he almost implored.

"Granted your diagnosis, I don't think anyone can blame you for your treatment," Gilchrist said now. "Evidently, however, there's been foul play. You will, of course, as matters are, insist on an autopsy, and communicate the results, which will most certainly bear out what I've just said, to the police. You should come out all right if you carry things with a bold hand, and tackle them immediately. As you say, no one expects, or wants, their family doctor to be a suspicious criminologist."

Lindrum drew a paper from his pocket, it was the death certificate, and tore it across. "I had already signed it!" he murmured under his breath. "Well—I wonder where this will lead—how far—" He pulled up, and began to talk of the arrangements for the post mortem.

Meanwhile, Houghton had been joined in the library by Lady Craig.

"Guy"—she gave him a cool, beautifully manicured hand—"I'm thankful for this chance of seeing you alone. An awful thing has happened! Oh, not Ronald's death, that is only sad, but this is awful. Last night—before he died—he called out loud that he was dying of poison. Those were his words. Match was in the room and heard them. So did the nurse. Now, you know what that means—unless the doctor squashes it at once. But Bob Lindrum couldn't even squash a caterpillar!"

"Did Ronnie say anything about a paper he wanted to show me?" Houghton interrupted her without any ceremony.

"Paper? Do you mean a newspaper?" Lady Craig spoke after a second's pause, and after a rather startled glance.

"No. Not a newspaper," was Houghton's only answer.

"All sorts of letters of his are upstairs"—she spoke with seeming carelessness—"if it was a letter? Whom was it from?" Then, as he said nothing, she went on hurriedly. "But we can talk of papers later. The point now is this awful remark of Ronald's. He was rambling, of course. Quite out of his mind. But, with Match in the room as well as the nurse, how are we to deal with it?"

"I brought down a doctor with me from town for a consultation with Lindrum. As it happens, he's not only a specialist in tropical diseases, but an expert on poisons. Suppose we wait and hear what he has to say."

"You brought him down!" Lady Craig evidently bit back some remarks with difficulty. Houghton was now the owner of the manor house, and there were certain debatable points about some of the charges which she expected the estate to settle for her annually, that enjoined anyone of an economical nature to go warily—, and Emily Craig was very economical.

"I think that most uncalled for, Guy," she said finally. "What happened was that Ronald was wandering at the last. We know that, but it must be stated by the kind of person other people will have to believe. I don't know why on earth you brought an unknown medical man along. He's no good, socially. What we need—"

The door opened. The two doctors came into the room together. Lindrum was very pale, but seemed quite collected.

"Well, Bobby?" Lady Craig said, rising and going over to him, her whole face and manner friendly to the point of being maternal.

Houghton, too, took a step forward.

"I'm sorry to say I can't give a certificate," Lindrum said, glancing a little nervously from one to the other. "I—I—there must be an autopsy."

"Oh, surely not!" she said beseechingly, while Houghton turned and gave Gilchrist a long, inquiring look.

"It's unavoidable." Lindrum spoke with more assurance now. "I needn't tell you how frightfully sorry I am, Lady Craig. How I wish it could be avoided."

"You need not," she assured him coldly.

"But there's no other course open to me, as his medical man," he protested. "Dr. Gilchrist here—"

At this stage the man from London was introduced to the lady of the house, who welcomed him graciously, with a few words of regret that he had not been summoned earlier. Then she turned to Lindrum again.

"Why won't you give a death certificate?" she asked.

The young man hesitated. Then he said baldly: "I'm sorry to shock you both, but it looks now as if Craig had died of poison—of arsenic poison."

"How long has this been going on?" Houghton asked with a quiver in his voice. "This poisoning of Ronnie, I mean, Bob?"

Lindrum looked at him very unhappily. "Dr. Gilchrist and I think it must have been for some weeks. I can't tell you how sorry I am that I didn't guess what the matter was, but I didn't! I think it's possible that he was dosing himself with some patent medicine, or some old tonic, all the time without letting me know, and that the arsenic in it—supposing I'm right in my guess, of course—may have done the harm. Arsenic is cumulative, you know."

Houghton started to speak, but checked himself. The matter was too grave for hasty words. Nor were words of much account now.

The doctors excused themselves. They wanted to return to the bedroom for some further examinations and tests. Lindrum had the key in his pocket and now led the way upstairs again.

Once alone with him, Lady Craig turned on Houghton with fear- distended eyes.

"I can't believe it.. It isn't true!" She was not on guard now. Her face showed suddenly all its lines.

"Would to God I had got here sooner with Gilchrist," Houghton said bitterly. "I had a feeling last night that something was wrong. I half thought of rushing down here yesterday evening—"

"All the more need for us to get hold at once of some clever man who will be of use," she interrupted hastily. "The secretary of the Crime Revelers might be able to put us on to the right person—"

"We must get hold of the police at once," Houghton retorted, looking around for the telephone.

"Not first!" she urged. "Of course, if the doctors are right, it may have to come to that, though it's some mistake on Bob's or Agatha's part. But first of all we need—"

"The police," he finished firmly. "You see, I happen to be concerned with finding out the truth about Ronnie, not merely with having some smart amateur give your household a clean bill of health. I want the person who killed Ronnie to swing for the killing. I'll find out who did it, if it takes every penny of my own, as well as of his, money."

"For goodness' sake, don't tell that to whomever we decide to bring in!" Lady Craig said irritably. "Though, of course, it's nothing to do with me—financially, I mean. But that kind of man charges quite appallingly enough, as it is."

Houghton was not listening. He had got the number of the local police station, and now reached again for the instrument.

The door opened. It was Match.

"The chief constable is just coming up to the house, my lady. I know his car."

"Chief constable?" Houghton repeated. Lady Craig started.

"Yes, sir. I telephoned to him last night, or rather this morning, when Mr. Craig died. Just before you came."

"What do you mean?" Houghton asked bluntly.

"Mr. Craig told me, in between his horrible spasms of pain, sir, that he had been poisoned. I felt it my duty to let the police know, yet I didn't quite like to call the police in from the station near here, so I passed the matter on to Colonel Godolphin."

"Match!" came in almost a shriek from Lady Craig.

"As you know, my lady, I am leaving service next week," he went on suavely. "Ah, there is the ring now! Shall I show him in here, my lady?"

"Certainly not! Into the morning-room."

"Very good, my lady."

Houghton could not repress a smile as the butler left them.

"Well, my dear Emily, the question is taken out of our hands." He looked well pleased that it was so.

"Anything but!" she said under her breath. "But it disposes of my intention of giving Match a handsome present when he leaves." She stopped. They could hear the front door open.

"Now, every word in this house will be weighed, and all sorts of questions put which needn't have been gone into." It struck Houghton that, deep down, the woman facing him was horribly uneasy. She was ageing before his very eyes.

"As long as they get the criminal, who cares!" he said half- comfortingly, half-menacingly.

"Ah, my dear Guy," she retorted sweetly, "we are not all in the same fortunate position as yourself. I have not ample means of my own, nor shall I step into a vast fortune owing to poor Ronnie's death."

Before Houghton could speak, the butler came in to announce Colonel Godolphin and another gentleman.