Читать книгу To Love and Perish - Ernest Dudley - Страница 8

CHAPTER FOUR

Superintendent Larrabee and Detective-Sergeant Pitt left the hotel at Conway in a police car Inspector Owen had sent, and a little while later they were in his office at Castlebay police station. Sergeant Pitt stood by the corner of the desk. Inspector Owen and Sergeant Parry sat facing the others.

‘I have asked Dr. Griffiths and Mr. Stone to come in, in case you would like to see them,’ Inspector Owen said. ‘They are outside, now. Dr. Griffiths will probably want to get away.’

Dr. Griffiths came in and sat down in front of Superintendent Larrabee, as Inspector Owen introduced them.

‘I see you attended the Merrills from about the time they first came to Castlebay,’ the Scotland Yard man said, glancing up from the papers before him.

‘I attended Mrs. Merrill. They came here about three years ago. Nothing ever seriously wrong with her, until she had her last illness. In January, six months ago.’

‘And you also attended her husband, Mr. Merrill?’

‘I think the first time would be about three or four months back. He was suffering from fibrositis, nothing serious. But, of course, I had got to know him well through my visits to his wife.’

‘Mrs. Merrill was ill for how long?’

‘She was ill for about a month.’

‘You saw her husband during this last illness?’

Dr. Griffiths nodded. ‘He was always inquiring how she was, and seemed very concerned that the illness was proving so obstinate to cure.’

‘Did you find his attitude during her illness the least suspicious?’

‘Naturally I didn’t, otherwise I certainly should not have given the death certificate.’

Larrabee flashed him a bleak smile. Dr. Griffiths wondered if he was sounding pompous. ‘It showed she died from Bright’s Disease,’ the detective said. ‘You know anything about their private lives?’

‘Nothing very much,’ Dr. Griffiths smiled back. ‘And if I did I shouldn’t think it was my duty to tell you.’

‘I understand. So far as you know they were living happily together?’

‘So far as I know.’

‘About how old was Mrs. Merrill?’

‘She was thirty-seven when she died.’

‘Her husband was younger, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes, he’d be about thirty-three.’

‘It comes to this, then, Doctor. You felt no suspicion whatever about Mrs. Merrill’s death until you attended Mr. Stone the other night. Is that right?’

‘Yes; frankly, I don’t quite know why, but I thought he might be suffering from some form of poisoning, that’s why I took a specimen. I told Inspector Owen here, I don’t quite know what made me do that. Then while I was out the night before last, fishing, it suddenly flashed across my mind, this resemblance between his attack and Mrs. Merrill’s illness. Perhaps it was just imagination, but I became uneasy about the whole matter. That was why I came to see Inspector Owen for advice. There may, of course, be no grounds whatever for my suspicions concerning Mrs. Merrill.’

Superintendent Larrabee was watching Inspector Owen filling his pipe. He let a little silence hang on the air before he turned back to Dr. Griffiths. ‘Arsenic got into Mr. Stone’s food,’ he said, ‘and it didn’t get into his wife’s, though they and Merrill ate the same meal. What’s the fatal dose of arsenic?’

‘I would say about two grains.’

‘They found about seven-tenths of a grain in that specimen you took, which means that Stone must have had considerably more. We propose to see Merrill; you know, invite him to assist us in our inquiries. It may be, I wouldn’t like to say at this stage, that we may have to go further than that. You understand, Dr. Griffiths? We may have to charge him with the attempted murder of Stone.’

‘I fully understand the seriousness of what I’ve suggested about Merrill, if that’s what you mean,’ Dr. Griffiths said quietly.

‘I am sure you do.’

Superintendent Larrabee didn’t think it necessary to add that if the situation was as dicey as that, he would have to decide about taking steps to obtain an exhumation of Mrs. Merrill.

‘There still may be a very reasonable explanation for the arsenic getting into Mr. Stone’s food,’ Dr. Griffiths said, his face clouding over.

If there did turn out to be a reasonable explanation how arsenic got into Stone’s food, Superintendent Larrabee thought, it would mean they might have to wait before asking for the exhumation. He realized Dr. Griffiths was speaking to him.

‘I find it very hard to believe Merrill would poison his wife and attempt to poison a friend,’ Dr. Griffiths was saying. ‘I mean, for what motive?’

The other raised an eyebrow. Then his expression was bland and innocent. ‘What indeed?’ he said.

Dr. Griffiths found himself thinking about Dick Merrill and Mrs. Stone. His lips thinned and he gave a tiny sigh.

‘Anyway,’ the Scotland Yard man was saying, ‘we’re straying from purely medical considerations. You can leave motives to us. May I say that you did your duty by coming to Inspector Owen, and he will keep in touch with you.’

Dr. Griffiths went out and was quickly followed by a man of about fifty, tall and spectacled, with a moustache; he looked pale as though he had been through an exhausting illness. He appeared to be the unemotional type, and he just nodded to Superintendent Larrabee when Inspector Owen introduced them, indicating the chair Dr. Griffiths had sat in.

‘I see you and your wife came to Castlebay about three years ago,’ Superintendent Larrabee said.

Edward Stone nodded. ‘I was employed in the Indian Civil Service, and I came home early in 1948. After India got her independence, that is. I met my wife about four years ago, and we decided to settle in Castlebay.’

‘Your wife is younger than you?’

The eyes behind the horn-rims flickered over the detective. ‘Considerably younger; she is only thirty.’

‘And you have been living happily together?’

‘We were very happy at first. Very happy, that is to say, until Merrill started his game.’ The other eyed him questioningly. ‘We met him and his wife at a party soon after we came to Castlebay. There wasn’t anything definite until a few months ago, after Merrill lost his wife. Then I began to hear gossip that my wife had been seen with him in his car at one or two places; Llandudno, Conway was another. I spoke to Margot about it and she said he had just taken her for drives when I was away in London. That he was just a friend and nothing more.’

He broke off and took out a handkerchief and dabbed his forehead at the hairline, where spots of perspiration had formed. He folded the handkerchief carefully and put it back in his breastpocket so that only a little of it showed.

The others looked at him patiently. Edward Stone was not enjoying this very much.

‘But the rumours that they had been seen about together persisted,’ he said, ‘and I decided to confront him. I called at his office, and told him of the rumours I had heard. He appeared to take what I had said in the right spirit, and said he would not see my wife again.’

He paused once more, as if waiting for someone to say something.

‘Go on, Mr. Stone,’ Superintendent Larrabee said, ‘was there any further trouble?’

‘I discovered that he and my wife had again been meeting clandestinely. She admitted that she was attracted to him; she said he persuaded her to meet him and she could not resist. It was at this time that Merrill had invited my wife and me to dinner. We had accepted and were due to go to his house in a few days’ time. I realized that I could not have a row with him at dinner, and had better see him immediately. I went along to his office.’

He brushed a finger and thumb along his moustache. ‘Merrill admitted that he had met my wife again, but said the meeting was purely by accident. He may have flirted with her in a harmless way, but he assured me I should have no further ground for complaint. He sounded sincere, and so I saw no reason to doubt what he said. I told him we would still dine with him as arranged. He seemed very pleased at this, and then offered me some tea, but I refused. He pressed me to have it, but I still refused. I can’t tell you why. Perhaps it is a good thing that I did.’

‘And three nights ago, you went to Merrill’s house with your wife for dinner?’

‘I said I would go and I kept my word, and my wife went with me. It was a pleasant evening. Merrill was, of course, as charming as he well knows how to be. He is a woman’s man, you know.’

‘There was nothing out of the way about the dinner, nothing to attract your attention?’

‘Nothing, but of course, I was not looking out for anything.’

Superintendent Larrabee glanced up from some notes on the desk. ‘I see you had wine, and coffee afterwards. And still you saw nothing unusual or experienced nothing unusual?’

‘When I began to talk about going, he said I must have a brandy for the road. At first I declined, and then I had some. Having had the brandy, my wife and I went shortly afterwards.’

‘Did your wife not have any brandy?’

‘No.’

Larrabee nodded as if to encourage the other to continue.

‘I drove my wife home,’ Stone went on. The journey was only about a couple of miles, and I felt nothing on the way. But soon after we got indoors I felt terribly ill in the stomach, and then I started to be sick. I was so ill all night that in the morning my wife decided to call Dr. Griffiths.’

‘And he came to see you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And took a specimen?’

‘I believe so, though I was too ill to note what he was doing at the time.’

‘Have you heard from Merrill since?’

‘Yes, he phoned the next morning after the dinner party, and my wife told him I was ill. He phoned again next day, that was yesterday, and asked me to come and have tea at his office. I put him off. I told him I had been sick, and he said he couldn’t understand it. Last night he phoned again to ask me to tea. By that time Inspector Owen had told me on no account should I accept any invitations from him. I again put him off.’

‘So far as you know he kept away from your wife?’

‘So far as I know.’

Superintendent Larrabee and Detective-Sergeant Pitt, accompanied by Inspector Owen, went to Dick Merrill’s office in the High Street. Sergeant Parry drove them in a police car. They stopped outside the office, and Parry went in and told a clerk in the outer office that he had two visitors from London who would like to see Mr. Merrill.

Dick Merrill was smiling as Inspector Owen came in with the two plainclothes men and began to introduce them; Parry stood by the desk. Merrill stopped smiling when Inspector Owen said: ‘Superintendent Larrabee and Detective-Sergeant Pitt are both from New Scotland Yard.’

‘What in hell brings you to this part of the world?’ Merrill’s smile came back again as Sergeant Parry opened the door as if he’d heard someone outside, then he closed it and stood with his back to it.

‘We have come to invite you to assist us in the inquiries we are making about Mr. Stone’s illness,’ Superintendent Larrabee said. He made it sound reasonably conversational.

Merrill frowned. ‘I know he’s been sick, but he’s all right again now; I spoke to him on the phone yesterday. Anyway, I should have thought Dr. Griffiths was the person you want. He’s Stone’s doctor and all that.’

‘You see,’ Superintendent Larrabee said, ‘Mr. Stone was all right when he came to dinner at your house. But he was taken ill soon after he arrived home. I believe you were not taken ill?’ He made it sound halfway between a statement of fact and a question.

‘No, I was all right.’

‘And his wife was not taken ill?’

‘Mrs. Stone was all right; yes.’

‘Can you explain why Mr. Stone alone should have been taken ill?’

Merrill shot him a look, his eyebrows drew together; his pale blue eyes glittered. ‘What the devil is this? Why should I know any more than anyone else why he was ill?’

‘You can’t imagine why he should have been found to have been suffering from arsenical poisoning?’

‘Arsenical poisoning? Good God, was that what it was? But look here, Inspector Owen,’ and he turned to the uniformed figure. ‘You’re not suggesting I gave him arsenic, are you?’

‘At the moment, sir,’ Superintendent Larrabee said quietly, and Merrill’s gaze came back to him, ‘we’re not suggesting anything. I’m merely trying to ascertain the facts. Would you care to make a statement?’

‘I don’t mind making a statement,’ Merrill said briskly. ‘But I don’t see what the matter has got to do with me. What do you want to know?’

The detective didn’t answer him. He sat there for a moment, pinching his thin nose with a bony finger and thumb. He spoke very softly. ‘And then there’s your late wife; we may have to make some inquiries about her.’

Merrill scowled at him incredulously. ‘My late wife?’

‘She died suddenly, didn’t she?’

‘Hardly, poor darling, she was ill some few weeks, but again I suggest you’d better ask Dr. Griffiths about that. He knows all about it.’ He stared at them, his look searching their faces, one after the other; then he shrugged as if he had suddenly been transported to another plane of thought. ‘But if you want a statement from me, about her or Stone, you can have it. I’ve nothing to hide.’

‘You understand you are not obliged to say anything.’ The other’s tone was extremely warm and sympathetic. ‘But anything you do say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence.’

‘What does all that twaddle mean?’ Merrill’s voice was suddenly irritable.

‘It’s the usual caution to make quite clear that the statement you make is a purely voluntary one, and that it may be used in evidence if there should be any proceedings.’

‘Any proceedings?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘All right,’ Dick Merrill said, with a glance round as if humouring his visitors. ‘I’m quite willing to make a statement.’

‘To assist us in our inquiries?’

‘If I can help you, I will.’

What he said was carefully written down by Sergeant Parry; and when the statement was completed Inspector Owen read it over to Merrill, who sat back listening.

‘I have never had any arsenic in my possession,’ his statement said. ‘I have never had any need for it. I recall now that my wife may have had some arsenic for use in the garden. We had a fairly large garden at the back of our house, known as Fancy. I remember now the lawn at the back became infested with weeds, and my impression is that my wife purchased some arsenic to kill them.

‘I think I may have suggested that she could get some arsenic from a local chemist for use in killing weeds. I’m almost sure it was Ivor Pryce. I think Ellen, my wife, always went to Pryce. She would be well-known there. So far as I know she used the arsenic for killing weeds.

‘If any was left over it must have been thrown away, because I haven’t seen any since. I certainly have not ever had any either at home or at my office. I think my wife got the arsenic two or three months before she died. She died last January.’

Dealing with her death, Inspector Owen read out what Merrill had said: ‘My wife and I lived fairly happily together. I married her nine years ago. She was five years older than I. She had been left quite a bit of money by her father, and quite frankly I suspected that people thought I married her simply for that. But although I was not deeply in love with her, I was very fond of her.

‘Mrs. Stone and I were no more than friends. My wife was ill for about a month, and then she died. She had been getting very depressed at times, and I used to wonder whether she had taken anything to end her life. But she plainly hadn’t, because I understood from Dr. Griffiths that she had died from Bright’s Disease and acute gastritis.’

Dealing with Stone’s illness: ‘It is a complete mystery to me. If Mr. Stone suffered from arsenical poisoning, I’ve no idea where the poison came from. It certainly did not come from me. I have no motive whatever for seeking to put an end to his life.’

Merrill put his signature to each page of the statement, and Inspector Owen folded it and put the sheets of paper in his inside pocket. Superintendent Larrabee said the police would pursue their inquiries, and that if they needed any further information he had no doubt that Merrill would give them what assistance he could.

‘Any time,’ Merrill said.

Superintendent Larrabee said he would like to know who looked after Mrs. Merrill during her illness. Merrill said they had a housemaid named Gwladys Williams.

Sergeant Parry dropped the others back at the police station, and went over in the police car to interview Gwladys Williams in a nearby village, where she lived with her widowed mother. What she told him led him to ask her to come along to the police station and meet Inspector Owen and the men from Scotland Yard.

‘I did not like the way Mr. Merrill was carrying on,’ she said bluntly to Superintendent Larrabee. ‘I never liked him very much. I’m sure he was already deceiving her with Mrs. Stone before his wife died. Anyway, you know Mrs. Stone used to come to Fancy after Mrs. Merrill died.’

Inspector Owen looked surprised. Gossip had not got hold of this titbit.

‘I saw her there with him kissing one night. I heard him say: ‘Why don’t you leave him?’ And Mrs. Stone said: ‘I can’t do that, Dick, much as I love you.’ ‘

The conference at the Castlebay police station late that same afternoon reviewed the way things looked. And it did not look too simple to handle.

‘He’s a cool customer,’ Superintendent Larrabee said, as he sat in Inspector Owen’s office with the latter and Sergeant Pitt over a cup of tea. ‘Got his wits about him. He knew perfectly well that his wife had bought arsenic and that we shouldn’t have much difficulty in tracing it. So he slips in that she was buying it for killing weeds. You’ll call on Pryce and all other chemists in the district, Serg.’

Sergeant Pitt nodded, while Larrabee turned to Inspector Owen. ‘You remember he even went so far as to say that he may have suggested to his wife that she should buy arsenic for spraying and killing weeds. Very frank of him. Or could be he’s relying on the fact that we’ve got no evidence that he was recently in possession of arsenic. Different kettle of fish if we had.’

Inspector Owen fiddled with his pipe glumly. ‘We certainly can’t charge him with attempted murder on the evidence as it stands,’ he said. ‘But if it turned out that his late wife and Stone suffered from the same kind of illness—’

‘Only one died and the other didn’t,’ Superintendent Larrabee finished for him. ‘But did Mrs. Merrill die from arsenical poisoning? That’s the crux of this matter. Looks like there’s nothing for it but to get Mrs. Merrill up.’ He said it as if his mind had been made up some time. ‘If you’d get me his nibs,’ he said to Inspector Owen, ‘I’ll have a word with him.’

Inspector Owen had a call put through to the A.C.