Читать книгу The Mystery at Stowe - Vernon Loder - Страница 11

‘HAS Dr Browne gone?’ asked the superintendent, of Mr Barley.

‘Yes. He had to go to an urgent case. He will be back later.’

‘Then we must leave this question of the bruise till later. Now, Miss Gurdon, you are aware that Dr Browne believed Mrs Tollard died as the result of some alkaloid poison in which the point of a dart had been steeped. You know something of these primitive South American weapons.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you have heard of the use of curare?’

‘I have seen it used in that way.’

‘Then you will agree with Dr Browne that it was used in this case?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

Mr Barley started, looking puzzled. Even the detective gave her a glance of wonder.

‘Why not?’

She frowned slightly. ‘There are several ways of poisoning these darts. Some tribes use a poison that is unfamiliar to me. Some poison them with snake-venom injected by the snake into rotten meat. Some use woorali, which is also called urari, and curare here at home. But curare is not so deadly when it is stale.’

‘I was not aware of that,’ said Fisher thoughtfully. ‘But your answer, Miss Gurdon, brings up another point. How could you, from merely seeing the body, assert that poison other than fresh poison was used on the top of the dart?’

‘I have every ground for believing it,’ she said steadily. ‘Mr Barley has taken over some curios of mine. Among them is a blow-pipe, and a little quiver for darts. There were six darts in the quiver when the trophy was hung up in the hall. This morning, in Mr Barley’s presence, I took it down, and found only five.’

‘Is this true, sir?’ said Fisher quickly.

‘Quite. I forgot to tell you.’

‘Well, we shall go into that later. I want to hear more of these weapons, Miss Gurdon. For example, what is their range?’

Elaine looked down. ‘It varies, just as the range of a bow and arrow varies, with the user. I should say sixty yards was a very long shot, and many people would not be able to aim accurately at that distance.’

‘While the speed of the dart would not be great?’

‘That is of no moment. The darts themselves, unless received in the eyes, say, would not do much harm. The savage relies on the deadly poison with which the dart is tipped.’

‘So that a mere scratch would be fatal?’

‘If fresh poison was used in the case of curare.’

‘Then curare was not used on the darts in your possession?’

‘No.’

‘Have you any idea what it was?’

‘No, it was one of the poisons I could not analyse.’

‘So that it might be dangerous even when not quite fresh?’

‘I thing so. I have heard that is so. I remember a boy, a native servant of mine, from that tribe, killed pacas with them, three months after we had left his tribe, though he had no means of getting a fresh supply of poison.’

‘You think it possible from your experience that a man could shoot, say from the lawn outside, and kill a lady in the house?’

‘Granting three things: a man who could use the blow-pipe, who saw Mrs Tollard at the window, and had a dart tipped with this particular venom.’

‘Thank you, Miss Gurdon. That is a help to us. The window was open. You might go out, Warren, and investigate that point. And you might give out a general warning that no one in the house, servants or guests, should cross the lawn, or walk on the path under that window.’

The detective-inspector got up. ‘Very well, sir.’

‘Leave your notes with me.’

Warren handed over the note-book, and went out.

Fisher turned again to Elaine. ‘I suppose it is rare to find an English person who can use a blow-pipe?’

‘Yes. Some explorers can. Many don’t trouble to learn, or find it too difficult.’

‘Can you use one?’

‘Yes. I was showing them here lately how it was used. Of course I used harmless darts.’

‘Did anyone of your audience try a hand at it?’

Elaine bit her lip. ‘One or two,’ she said. ‘Mr Haine tried, and Mr Tollard.’

‘Is that the dead lady’s husband?’

‘He went to town before this occurred,’ interrupted Mr Barley anxiously.

Fisher frowned. ‘So he was not in the house last night?’

‘No. He went to town.’

‘Well, we shall see him later. But to return to this demonstration, Miss Gurdon, did Mr Haine or the other gentleman show any—er—proficiency?’

Elaine reddened slightly. ‘Mr Haine couldn’t get it out at all. Mr Tollard sent the dart a fair distance, but without any certainty of aim.’

‘At least he could fire it?’

‘Yes, to that extent.’

Fisher coughed.

Mr Barley looked annoyed. ‘I have told you, superintendent, that Mr Tollard left for town.’

‘I understood you to say so, sir,’ replied the other blandly. ‘Well, Miss Gurdon, I have no further questions to ask you now. You have helped us considerably. Thank you.’

‘Who do you wish to see next?’ asked Mr Barley, as Elaine bowed silently, and went out.

‘I wish to ask you a few questions,’ said Fisher. ‘In the first place, have you any reason to believe that any of your guests had reason to dislike Mrs Tollard?’

‘No,’ said Mr Barley, setting his square jaw. ‘None.’

‘She was popular then?’

‘Not perhaps exactly popular. She was a very quiet woman, retiring in a way, or dignified, one or the other. She had artistic tastes, and was perhaps too languid by temperament to mix much with my other guests.’

Fisher nodded. ‘Her face is of that type, sir. I quite see what you mean. Now, how about her husband. Had they been married long?’

‘Three years, I fancy.’

‘They got on well together? I mean to say they were, in your opinion, an average married couple?’

‘Granting a slight difference in temperament, they were. He is of a more sporting type.’

Fisher thought for a few moments. ‘With a good many others in Elterham, sir, I attended Miss Gurdon’s lecture. I had read about her in the paper before, and I think there was, the other day, some reference to a gentleman who was backing her financially in her next expedition.’

‘Mr Tollard promised to make up any deficit, but that was pure good will on his part. I proposed to do the same thing myself, but had been forestalled.’

‘They are old friends?’

‘Yes.’

Mr Barley was disturbed. He saw where this line of examination would eventually lead. He felt with Netta Gailey that it was not for him to magnify marital differences of a trifling kind, in a case where they might take on an exaggerated importance. But he was saved any further trouble at that time, by the reappearance of Elaine Gurdon with the quiver she had taken down from the wall that morning.

‘I think you ought to have these,’ she said, without apology, and handing the quiver to Fisher. ‘But be careful not to touch the points.’

Fisher thanked her, drew a dart gingerly from the thing, and studied the end. ‘What is this? Cottonwool?’

‘That is to make the dart fit the blow-pipe. It is a fluff of silk-cotton.’

‘There was none of this on the dart which killed Mrs Tollard?’

‘No, it would not remain on the dart, as a feather does on an arrow.’

‘Thank you, Miss Gurdon,’ said he, replacing the venomous thing, and laying the quiver on the table. ‘Perhaps now you would ask Mrs Tollard’s maid to come here.’

Mrs Tollard’s maid came in a few minutes later, alone. She was very nervous, and had been crying, but her evidence did not amount to anything. She had been with Mrs Tollard three months, had found her a good, if exacting, mistress. She believed her to be a healthy woman, in spite of her looks, had rarely known her even to suffer from headaches. She was sure her mistress did not take drugs. On the previous night she had left her in bed, professing violent neuralgia. She had been told not to trouble any more. That was all she knew.

‘So far as you are aware, she was happy with Mr Tollard?’

She stared. Mrs Tollard had always looked melancholy, to her mind, but she did not know it had anything to do with Mr Tollard, who was always most attentive. Ladies were different somehow. You couldn’t always tell if they were happy.

‘Quite true,’ said Mr Barley when the girl had gone. ‘That poetical, artistic type always looks to me in despair, but I believe that is only a pose.’

Fisher had been given a list of the guests, and now looked at it. He asked to see Mr Head first, and Mr Head came, with a countenance of protest, and an opening statement that he knew nothing about it. Fisher told him to sit down, and put a few questions quickly. Mr Head’s only contribution to the evidence was the remark that Mrs Tollard might not have been well. The last time she had played bridge she had seemed very distrait. He went, and Mrs Head came in. She had much the same kind of inconsequence to deliver, and was soon dismissed.

‘I think they will be of no further use to us,’ said the superintendent, privately wishing he hadn’t to waste his time on these bridge bores. ‘You may tell them so, sir. Now what about Mrs Minever?’

Barley went for his elderly relation, hoping she would not put some silly interpretation on the event. Fortunately, he found her rather frightened by the prospect of examination, and determined to say as little as possible.

‘I really don’t know anything about any of them,’ she said decidedly. ‘They are Mr Barley’s guests. I know Mrs Tollard said she had a bad headache, and didn’t come down.’

She left, and Fisher consulted the roll again. ‘Here’s a gentleman, Mr Ortho—is that right?’

‘Yes, Ortho Haine.’

‘He seems to have been the only other man on that side. We had better have him in.’

Mr Barley went out, and Fisher scribbled rapidly. Haine came in, looking white and upset, but apparently determined to help the investigation in any way he could. It was quite true that he had developed a youthful but quite harmless passion for the dead woman, and was inclined to regard her as a sort of modern martyr to matrimony, but he was sensible enough not to enlarge too much on things that might be misconstrued.

‘I heard nothing in the night, or early this morning,’ he said, in reply to a question. ‘But I am a very sound sleeper, and I was tired last night when I went to bed.’

‘Did you not even hear Miss Gurdon or Mr Barley go into the room?’

‘No. As a rule I do not wake until my tea is brought up. But there was none brought up this morning. I slept on until late. I did not hear Mrs Tollard was dead until this—until Mr Barley told us after breakfast.’

‘Do you know Mrs Tollard well?’

‘I have not met her very many times.’

‘Did she impress you as a happy woman?’

Haine glanced at Mr Barley, and frowned. He hesitated for a moment, then spoke. ‘I don’t think she did. I may be mistaken. I should say on the whole that she—’

‘Just a moment, sir,’ said Fisher grimly. ‘Could you say definitely that she was unhappy, or had any reason to be so?’

The word ‘definitely’ staggered Ortho. He was a conscientious fellow, and there was a world of difference between thinking that Mrs Tollard did not care for her husband’s association with Miss Gurdon, and declaring in so many words that she was unhappy as the result of it.

‘No, I couldn’t say so definitely,’ he remarked.

‘Very well. Speculations are not much good to us, sir,’ said the superintendent. ‘Can you tell me if any of the ladies in the house were friends of the late Mrs Tollard?’

‘They all knew her,’ was the reply. ‘Perhaps Mrs Gailey was most in sympathy with her.’

‘And Miss Sayers?’ asked Fisher, looking at his list.

‘They aren’t the same type,’ said Ortho, who was young enough to divide humanity into types.

‘Then I think I shall see Mrs Gailey next,’ said Fisher. ‘If you don’t mind, Mr Barley, I shall question this witness privately.’

Barley started. ‘I hope I have not been in your way?’

‘Not at all,’ said Fisher dryly. ‘But please ask Mrs Gailey to come in. I have done with Mr Haine.’

Ortho bolted, much relieved, but Mr Barley was thoughtful and anxious as he went in search of Netta Gailey. Was it possible that the superintendent suspected something? It was odd his asking to see Mrs Gailey alone. If that young ass Haine had only held his tongue this ridiculous nonsense about Margery Tollard’s unhappiness need never have come up.

‘The police will be sure to make a mountain of this molehill!’ he said to himself plaintively.