Читать книгу The Craig Poisoning Mystery - A. Fielding - Страница 5

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LADY CRAIG drew a deep breath as she entered the morning-room. The chief constable, Colonel Godolphin, was a middle-aged man with a rather grim face.

"How good of you to've come at once!" she said fervently. "But I thought—" She looked around for the colonel's companion.

"Chief Inspector Pointer of the C.I.D. happened to be down near here last night on another matter, so I got him to come along—just in case he should be wanted. He's seeing about the car at the moment."

"Does this mean that the affair will be in the hands of Scotland Yard?" Houghton asked. "I hope you won't think it rude of me, colonel, but I should be delighted to hear as much."

"Yes, indeed!" breathed Lady Craig, casting a stony glance at the speaker. "Not that we haven't entire confidence in your men," she murmured to her guest.

"So it's true!—what was told me over the telephone. I hoped there might be some mistake. Your butler—at least the voice sounded like his—" Godolphin began briskly.

"It was my butler speaking." Lady Craig's tone conveyed the impression that Match had been merely her mouthpiece.

"—rang me up half an hour ago, and said that Craig had just died—" Again he paused. Lady Craig nodded sadly. Godolphin murmured his condolences to the two before he proceeded briskly: "Your butler went on to say that, before dying, Craig had gasped out that he was being poisoned, and would we look into the matter. So, of course, I hurried up at once."

"Dreadful, isn't it?" she said with a sigh. "And the doctors think it's true. It's very terrible that, if Dr. Lindrum had only been more, well—up in his work, poor Ronald might have been with us still. We had a man down from town for a consultation finally, but—, he only got here this morning. Too late! Dr. Lindrum thinks poor Ronald was taking some medicine of his own, which combined with Dr. Lindrum's medicine to poison him. However, that's as may be! Of course, the only thing for us to do was to insist on an autopsy, and put the whole matter immediately in your hands."

Godolphin gave her rather a curious smile. He knew the woman. He very much doubted how far she had insisted on any such disagreeable thing, but he said a few civil words of approval, and then asked for Lindrum. "He's still here, isn't he? Mr. Pointer thought he must be."

The detective-officer in question had assumed as much, since the blinds were up in the room which the colonel had told him was Craig's. He thought that only a medical examination would explain that in the otherwise discreetly darkened house.

Godolphin was told that both the medical men had gone back for another look at the body.

"But they seem to have no doubt of what caused his death," Houghton went on. "Both are certain that it was due to arsenical poisoning. Of all the terrible ideas!" He stopped himself.

"What about weedkiller?" Godolphin asked.

"We only use a non-poisonous kind. I won't have any other," Lady Craig replied.

Match opened the door.

"Detective Chief Inspector Pointer," he announced.

In came a tall, lean, bronzed young man, with a definitely efficient look about his grave face and quiet movements. His eyes were his best feature. They were large, dark gray, and well- opened, with an expression of seeming frankness which yet baffled all attempts to read them. Lady Craig decided that there were both brains and power in this man.

"Hope you won't mind my having put a constable outside Mr. Craig's room," he said, as Lady Craig offered her hand. He did not add that another was in the garden, and another in the hall.

"I'm thankful to know one's there!" she said gratefully. "Though, personally, I am certain that this dreadful affair will be soon cleared up. Dr. Lindrum's theory is—" She repeated it as still more of a certainty than before.

"Can we have a word with the butler?" Godolphin suggested, when she had done.

Houghton, without asking leave, rang the bell.

Match, when he came in, briefly ran over the events of last night. He seemed to consider them the continuation of yesterday afternoon, which, according to him, marked the beginning of, the end. He had gone into Mr. Craig's room, around four, to see whether he should take out to the post a book which Mr. Craig had been wrapping up. He found him sitting up in bed, looking terribly ill, with his face twitching. Countess Jura seemed unconscious of his state, as she stood with her back to him, looking out the window.

"I thought the tea had disagreed with him. The Countess Jura had ordered up the tray a few minutes before, and two cups were standing on it by the bed, each about half-empty. Mr. Craig couldn't speak, seemingly, or daren't, for fear of groaning aloud or crying out. That's what his face looked like, sir," Match went on, addressing Houghton. "He made me a sort of sign with his eyes, as I entered, to get her away. So I said: 'I think Mr. Craig looks very poorly, my lady, perhaps you'll be good enough to call the nurse.' She didn't take my meaning." Match was speaking very carefully and slowly. "Not at all, apparently, for, without turning round, she said that the nurse and Lady Craig had only just left the room. And I was to leave the tray, as she hadn't finished her cup yet. Well, it was no time for ceremony, so I said, hurrying to the bed: 'Please call the nurse at once, my lady!' Then she did look round, and then—well—she rushed off to Mrs. Kingsmill as fast as she could go, carrying the tray away with her.

"The nurse came in, but there didn't seem anything she could do. We tried for the doctor on the phone, but he was making his round, and there aren't many telephones here about. The nurse said something about the new medicine not suiting Mr. Craig. After a while he grew quieter, and fell into a sleep. When he woke up he seemed much better—so much better that the doctor, when he hurried in at seven, seemed to think we had been a bit exaggerating things to ourselves. I heard him tell Mr. Craig that he had been possibly taking his Vichy too cold. Mr. Craig had asked for the bottles to be set on ice," Match explained. "Mr. Craig had wanted nothing for his dinner. He, the butler, had sat with him as usual from nine to eleven, during which time the nurse was off duty."

"Craig had no night nurse, Lady Craig here put in, indeed, he resented having one during the day, but, with her small staff, it was impossible to attend to a sick person properly. In Craig's case, Match had acted as a sort of second attendant. Last night, Match resumed, the sick man had not talked to him at all, but lay, apparently reading, though he, Match, noticed that he never turned a page. But he took the open book as a signal that Mr. Craig did not want to be talked to.

"At eleven the nurse came in. Something about the sick man's appearance must have startled her afresh. She asked Match to sit on a moment longer. He heard her using the telephone—telephoning to the doctor, as she told him afterward. He himself only thought that Mr. Craig looked very sleepy. Match went to bed on being relieved, and slept until he was awakened by the groans of the sick man, whose room was below his. He heard him calling out as though in great pain. This was just after midnight, as he saw on glancing at his watch before hurrying down to help the nurse.

"Mr. Craig's eyes were open, but," Match went on, "I don't think he was rightly conscious. He asked what the time was. I said just past twelve, as near as no matter. He said: 'Twelve o'clock, and Guy hasn't come yet!' I replied that Mr. Houghton might come in the morning, and he said: 'Oh, is it night?' I told him it was, and his face cleared. He said: 'Be sure and bring him straight to me.' And on that"—Match shut his eyes with a look of sick repugnance at the memory—"he had an awful seizure. So bad that he called out to me: 'Match, I'm dying! They've poisoned me!' But, after a bit, it passed, and he seemed to grow drowsy again. The nurse went to wake her ladyship up. I don't think Mr. Craig rightly knew anyone when they came in. He seemed to be again in a sort of stupor. I thought that meant that he was better, but, around eight this morning, he had another dreadful attack and, after it, seemed to fall away as it were and died without opening his eyes again, at a quarter to nine. I telephoned to you, sir, just as Mr. Houghton was driving up in his car."

"'They've poisoned me!'" Houghton repeated. "Surely, Match, Mr. Craig must have said something more definite to you. After calling out that? Or before?"

"No, sir," Match said in a low voice, and Pointer did not believe him.

"Were you in the room when Mr. Craig actually died?" Godolphin asked.

"Yes, sir, and afterward, too. I didn't leave it till I locked the door when everyone had left. I handed the key to Mr. Houghton here, as the head of the family now."

"So you were in the room last night practically continuously from nine o'clock on, with the exception of about an hour from eleven till past twelve?..." Godolphin wanted to have the hours clear in his mind.

"Yes, sir. All the time."

"Nothing has been taken out of the room?"

"Nothing but the bed covers, sir. The nurse took them before I knew what she was about. The blankets, and pillows, and so on, sir. The sheets were left."

"And these bed covers and pillows are where?"

"In a hamper which I had taken into my pantry. Also I took the medicine bottle that had been used for Mr. Craig. It was empty but, even so, after he died as he did, I wrapped it in my handkerchief in case of fingerprints, and put it in my pocket. It's down in my pantry at this moment along with the hamper."

"And the pantry door?" Pointer asked.

"Locked, sir," Match replied with dignity. "And the key is here." He touched his breast-pocket significantly.

"Good man!" Houghton said warmly. "Keep it so."

"But I suppose you tidied up the room, put things in their proper places, and so on?" Pointer threw in casually.

"No, sir, not a thing was touched except the bed, and the bottle of medicine. As I say, before I knew what she was doing, the nurse had the pillows and blankets off, but barring that, I wouldn't let her touch anything. She wanted to stay behind and tidy up, but I was firm. Of course, when Mr. Houghton arrived, I let him have the key, and can't speak for what has happened since."

The doctors came in as he finished. Lindrum was very pale. He shook hands with the chief constable, whom he knew, and there were introductions all around.

"As I just told Lady Craig," Lindrum began, in a voice that had a suppressed tenseness in it, "we suspect that death was due to the administration of arsenic. Until the autopsy, which must be held, of course, that is as much as I care to say."

"Do you suspect a big dose?" Godolphin asked nevertheless.

"Yes, as the actual cause of his death last night. But"—Lindrum flushed and then paled again—"but certain signs make us think that the poison must have been being administered for some weeks past as well." "Four weeks past?" Godolphin asked under his breath.

"Not as long as twelve weeks is all we can say with certainty, I think." Gilchrist answered for the other.

"How the deuce can you tell that?" Godolphin almost whispered, drawing him aside. "Merely as a matter of curiosity—"

"Apparently there's none in his hair yet," was the brief but sufficient reply. Meanwhile, Lady Craig had turned to Lindrum. She took no trouble to lower her voice.

"There was a good deal of arsenic in the tonic that you were giving him, wasn't there?"

Lindrum quite scouted the idea that his medicine could have had any deleterious effect on his patient, unless the latter had been taking some other remedy or remedies, unknown to his medical attendant. As to the acute seizure of last night—having said that, he could say nothing more until the finding of the post-mortem. Lindrum seemed unable to stop talking—he had prescribed a variant of a new, but well-tried, tonic for malaria, and the solitary dose of it which had been given by the nurse at noon yesterday could not possibly have done any harm to, let alone killed, Craig.

"But I thought Match found the bottle—" Houghton began. He did not get to the word "empty," for the eye of the chief constable was on him with an expression as though Houghton were a recruit, and had dropped his rifle on parade.

Lindrum and the chief constable then discussed the arrangements to be made for the taking of the body to the nearest hospital. Gilchrist had promised to assist at the autopsy, and the house surgeon would be available as a third. The actual final analysis would be done by a Home Office expert. That settled, the two medical men would have hurried off, but Godolphin detained Lindrum.

"I should be much obliged if you would not go to your poison cupboard from now on. I have no power to enforce that request until the finding of the autopsy is actually in my hands, but it would be a prudent step on your part, Lindrum."

Lindrum's jaw muscles moved as though he set his teeth for a second. "Certainly," he said stiffly. "Here is the key." He detached it from the end of his watch-guard, and without another word left the room.

"Obviously—" Lady Craig began as soon as the door closed behind them, "it was an overdose, or a mistake in the prescribing. A new bottle was begun yesterday. Robert Lindrum puts up his own medicines, and his sister Agatha helps him. Well—there you are!" She looked around the little circle. Something in Houghton's expression made her add, reluctantly, "Apparently, it wasn't suicide—"

"No, Emily, it wasn't suicide," he said curtly. "But I want a word now with the colonel and the chief inspector, alone."

"It's thoughtful of you to spare me," she murmured, as she let him open the door for her. "I'll go up and see if Jura Ivanoff is awake. Poor child!"

Houghton, standing in the doorway, looking after her, saw her feet slow up more and more with every step of the stairs. She had forgotten him, she had forgotten the police, he felt sure, as with compressed lips she all but came to a standstill on the landing.

He closed the door and led the way to the farther end of the room.

"That idea of Lindrum's about doubled doses of medicine won't work. It wasn't only to Match that Ronald spoke of being poisoned," he began: "he wrote me to the same effect."

Houghton now handed over the letter which he had received yesterday noon. Colonel Godolphin read it through with the closest attention, and his lips shaped themselves as though he were giving an inaudible whistle.

"Well!" he said, finally passing it over to Pointer, "well!" Then, after a pause: "That certainly settles the question of suicide or a mistake in his medicine, as you say! Where's the part of a letter to which he refers?"

"Ah, where!" Houghton echoed. "I suggested to him to send it to me, inside a book, so that no one would suspect what he was doing. Match saw him wrapping one up. Yet nothing has come from here for me this morning, or I should have heard from my man. And I caught sight of the book agreed on, lying by his bed. Someone, or something, made him change his mind—most unfortunately!"

"I suppose Mr. Craig was a man whose judgment could be relied on?" Pointer asked. "This letter of his must form the very foundation of any inquiry."

"My cousin made a fortune on the stock exchanges of the world," Houghton said. "Not in one lucky sweep, but in operations extending over years. You couldn't do that without having accuracy of judgment that amounted to genius."

Godolphin said that he, too, would rely implicitly on Craig's judgment.

"If we take up the matter," Pointer went on, "the letter will, of course, be sent up for investigation by our experts. Not that I suspect it to be a forgery. On the contrary."

"It's his writing," Houghton said almost sadly, "as it was this last week or two."

"Are the people staying here in the manor house friends of yours, too, Mr. Houghton? Would any of them be by way of staying with you in town?"

Houghton shook his head. The household at the manor consisted only of Lady Craig, Countess Jura, and a children's governess, besides the servants. None of the three ladies had ever, or would in all probability ever, stop with him.

"Why?" he asked curiously.

"Well, Mr. Craig evidently thought he would be safe, if he could get off with you," Pointer explained. "That being so, it would narrow down the circle of possible suspects here by clearing any who were also great friends of yours. But, since that isn't so, since Mr. Craig would know that by going with you he would get away from everyone down here, it leaves things pretty much as they were. He may have had his suspicions of any one of them."

"That letter is damned vague," Houghton agreed. "Does it tell you anything at all?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if the guilty person were someone known to you both, Mr. Houghton," Pointer thought. "At least, that's a fair guess to start with. Evidently he was certain of the real poisoner's identity. Mr. Craig doesn't seem to feel any great amazement, either. Nor does he say that you'll be staggered to learn the name...Of course, he was tired, and very ill...but still, all omission of surprise is rather noticeable."

"Had he any enemies known to you?" Godolphin asked.

"Not a soul," Houghton said confidently. "He made a huge fortune about a year ago, or rather, he finished making it then—put all his affairs into gilt-edged securities, left everything in the hands of the Empire Insurance Company to manage for him, and has taken life easily ever since. As far as I know, he made no enemies before retiring. Certainly he couldn't have made any since, and enemies of this kind don't wait a year and more before showing themselves."

Both Godolphin and Pointer thought this argument reasonable.

"Have you any idea how his will runs?" Pointer asked next.

"Pretty well everything was left to me in the last will of which I know anything. It was made a year ago. Of course, he may have made another, but I doubt it, with his marriage so near at hand. The idea was that it was only as a pro tem arrangement—we both thought—which is why, apart from affection, I want the murderer found and hung, chief inspector. It's my plain duty," Houghton finished grimly, half under his breath.

"Any legacies?" Pointer asked.

"Several, I think."

"Can you remember them?"

Houghton thought a moment. "Five hundred a year to whoever has the Dower House. It was to be made into a sort of fund, of course, but the interest amounted to that. Varying sums to men in various parts of the world who had worked for him. Nothing striking, that I can remember..."

"Anything to any servants here?"

"I rather think that Match's wages were to be continued during his life, as an annuity, but I may be wrong. We shall soon know."

The chief constable was staring at the carpet, however, lost in thought. "That confederate," he murmured, "that confederate inside the house...Nothing to go on there...Damned vague, as you say, Houghton. But, as Craig excepts Match, the butler, it evidently lies among the women."

"One fact will help," Pointer thought. "This letter reached Mr. Houghton around two. It should be easy to find out when it was written. Was Mr. Craig's manner different, after it, to any member of the household? The answer to that question might give us a lift part of the way. Shall I keep this letter, sir, or will you? I suppose Mr. Houghton has no objection to one of us taking possession of it?"

Houghton's gesture waved away the idea of any objections on his part to anything the two officials might do.

"You keep it," Godolphin said. "I shall have to leave the case entirely to you. Last night's fire looks like arson. Together with our preparations for quarter sessions it will keep me fully occupied."

Houghton initialed the letter and watched the chief inspector put it carefully away.

"You know," he burst out, "it can't seem such an incredible nightmare to you as it does to me. To me, who know all the people in the house, and would have vouched for all of them. Yet he wasn't murdered from outside, but from inside. And, what's more, he was murdered before he could show me the proof which he had found, which was actually in his hands...I think he was killed because he had got hold of that guilty letter and had written to me to come at once. We weren't to be allowed to meet."

"By George!" muttered Godolphin, "that's a possibility! That you weren't to meet! Still, the doctors seem sure that he was being poisoned for some time, in small doses..."

"But he wasn't actually finished off until he had sent me that letter saying that he had hold of a paper, which proved what damnable thing was going on—until he wrote me to come and take him away."

"One thing is certain, if you're right in thinking that Mr. Craig was killed to prevent a meeting between you," Pointer said thoughtfully: "it would mean that someone knew of the contents of this letter. For, from the wording of it, it doesn't seem likely that he would have shown the paper he had found to anyone else, or even spoken of it." Houghton agreed.

"Unless Craig was indiscreet when he telephoned you?" suggested Godolphin.

"I don't think anyone could have guessed—no," Houghton said with certainty as he repeated the words they had exchanged along the wire, "no one could have guessed from overhearing what either of us said. Unless"—his face darkened—"unless they got it out of him afterward. Unless someone overheard enough to make them curious. Someone who suspected that Ronnie might guess what was happening, and was on the watch...In that case, they might have got it out of him afterward, about my coming down here this morning, I mean. Only that much, of course."

"Would he have been likely to speak of your arrival?"

"To only one person, he might have. To Countess Jura." Houghton's voice was studiously level; he deliberately would not meet the eyes of either man.

"How did this letter reach you, and when, exactly?" Godolphin asked him. "According to what Craig writes here, Lindrum was to drop it in your box himself. I see there's no stamp or postmark on it."

"Someone—Lindrum, evidently—did drop it in my letter-box, and my man brought it in at once."

"You heard the ring? You know that it really was brought to you instantly?" Godolphin pressed.

"I do. I was at lunch. Time would be around ten past two. I heard a ring, and Hughes, my man, left me and went to the door, bringing in the letter you have there. And, for extra certainty, I heard the letter drop into the box. Hughes certainly had no time to open the envelope, or do more than see that it was addressed to me."

"Yet the envelope's been opened." The chief constable pointed to a line of dried gum outside the flap.

"Opened while it was damp, I think," Pointer added, he was inspecting it through a glass, "and, as you say, sir, stuck down with some fresh gum."

Houghton gave an exclamation. He, too, peered in his turn, and now noticed, for the first time, the slight wrinkles and waviness.

"If done while it was wet," Pointer thought, "your cousin might have opened it himself for some last word, or postscript."

"There's no postscript," Godolphin pointed out. "Might have forgotten the date, of course, and opened it to put it in..."

He pulled at his mustache for a moment. "This very much backs up your idea, Houghton," he said finally. "We haven't any right—officially—until the finding of the post- mortem, to assume death by poisoning."

"Don't stop for red tape," Houghton urged. "Only clear up this nightmare."

"Lucky you're the head of the family," Godolphin murmured a trifle grimly, as he thought of Lady Craig, whose gushing welcome had by no means hoodwinked him.

"The house is hers," Houghton went on, "but she won't want to antagonize me just now. Supposing I'm right in thinking I'm Ronnie's executor. So ring bells; order the servants about as though they were your own; take anything away, for the time being, that you want to; open everything you see. In short, search the house from top to bottom, only find that part of a letter that Ronnie wrote of."

"Have you looked in the bedroom for it?" Godolphin asked.

Houghton explained that Lindrum had come in just as he was starting the search, and that, naturally, the two medicos had wanted the room to themselves.

"You disarranged nothing?" Pointer asked. "It may be most important to know if you altered the position of anything."

"I think I can say with certainty that I didn't lay so much as a finger on anything but a writing-cabinet which stood, locked, on a table close to the bed. I looked around the room, saw that there was no pillow under which the paper might have been tucked, thought of feeling under the sheet at the head of the bed but couldn't bring myself to do that—and decided to first look in the writing-case. I had just relocked it—my cousin's keys were on the mantel, and I put them back there- when—."

"So you did touch the keys, Houghton, as well as the cabinet?" Godolphin said with a dry chuckle.

Houghton gave a half-smile in reply. "Well—true. In the same way that I suppose I touched the door handle, the key which Match gave me—by the way, here it is; Lindrum handed it to me when they had finished—even the carpet. I trod on that too. Sorry. But now, look here, I quite understand that no one can be allowed to go into that room alone, or I shouldn't have stayed down here for a second, but will you both come up with me now, at once, and let us see if we can't find that precious paper my cousin referred to?"

Godolphin and Pointer both rose by way of assent.

"Supposing it to be still in existence I shouldn't locate it, off-hand, in the room where Mr. Craig died," Pointer said in a low tone to the chief constable, who gave him an emphatically assenting look.

Houghton led the way upstairs. Godolphin followed and waved to Pointer to come along. Strictly speaking, as yet the Scotland Yard man was only an onlooker, Indeed, still more strictly speaking, if the affair were placed in his hands, he would still be supposed to act only as an adviser to the chief constable. But even that standing was not his yet. For the moment, there were only the words of the dying man, written and spoken, and the belief of the two doctors, to show that a crime had been committed. Such, at least, was the theory. In point of fact, none of the three men had the least doubt on the matter, and the chief inspector carried with him up to the bedroom a camera which he had borrowed from his host of last night, the local superintendent.