A Death by Any Other Name Page 21

  Chapter Eighteen

  Mrs. Jackson was silent as she and Lady Montfort walked back to the orangery to meet Mr. Stafford. In the peaceful serenity of this exquisite late-summer afternoon it was unimaginable that their country might be on the brink of war. The solid stone castle standing squarely in its grounds presided over a world lit by that particularly golden luminosity peculiar to the northern European hour before sunset in late summer. As evening approached, the air began to cool, accentuating the scent of flowers that filled the tranquil gardens. It is what Mr. Stafford calls the golden hour, Mrs. Jackson thought; there is something so enchanting about this time of day.

  They turned at the bottom of the herbaceous border and rounded a tall yew hedge that enclosed the entrance to the herb garden surrounding the orangery. The garden was alive with butterflies: Red Admirals and Purple Emperors fluttered like live jewels among the rosy red flowers of thyme and the deep-amethyst stalks of lavender in the slanting golden rays of the late-afternoon sun. The scent of crushed chamomile underfoot and the pungent nip of mint were balm to the troubled heart, and Mrs. Jackson slowed her pace and thought how beautiful the English countryside was, with its narrow country lanes flanked by hedges of flowering hawthorn with wildflowers crowding their verges and ditches. We can’t go to war, we can’t involve ourselves in Europe’s madness, she said to herself as they crossed the chamomile lawn and walked up the steps to the entrance of the orangery, where Mr. Stafford was waiting for them.

  Looking up from the herb garden to see him standing there, his hat in his hands as he watched them cross the lawn to meet him, she wondered how on earth she could have been so foolish as to imagine that he would arrange a covert meeting with someone like Mrs. Wickham. She remembered how suspicious she had been of him yesterday and felt awkward and embarrassed. I practically accused him, she said to herself. What was I thinking? And immediately she gave herself some advice: You have your life and he has his, and they are quite separate. So don’t go and get all fanciful and make a complete fool of yourself.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Stafford, so sorry to drag you up here again, but we need to consult with you.” Lady Montfort practically ran up the steps to him.

  “Good afternoon, m’lady, Mrs. Jackson.” The sun shone down on his bared head, lighting up the clean lines of his face and making his clear eyes shine with what Mrs. Jackson took for amusement as he nodded to her, an inquiring expression on his face as if he were saying, What will she come up with this afternoon? But the warmth of his expression assured her that whatever she had in mind he was game for, and she found herself smiling back as she looked up at him standing there on the top step.

  “We have found, or rather Mrs. Jackson has found, something very interesting and we need your horticulturalist’s opinion.” How resilient she is, thought Mrs. Jackson in admiration that her ladyship had quite recovered from her panic about war and her determination less than an hour ago that they pack up and go home.

  “Let’s go inside,” Mr. Stafford said as he opened the door, and they walked into the silent and still world of the orangery with its solemn procession of trees smelling so deliciously of blossom and that particularly stringent odor of potting soil, common in all buildings that house plants.

  Lady Montfort handed the book and its attendant list over and then stood, hands at her sides, face expectant, and waited. And Mrs. Jackson stood equally as hopeful, but could not help but notice what a nice shape Mr. Stafford’s head was as he bent it to look down at the list.

  “Ah yes, I see. It is certainly a list of poisonous plants. And a very interesting one because it seems to fall into several categories: the British hedgerow and garden variety and then the temperate, tropic, or subtropic variety, and all by itself this reference to the tobacco plant. Do you believe it might have a bearing on Mr. Bartholomew’s death, Lady Montfort?”

  “I do hope so, Mr. Stafford. Actually Mrs. Jackson was talking to Mr. Urquhart in the conservatory when she found this little volume among some books there … and inside it was…” Lady Montfort glanced about for Mrs. Jackson to chime in with her account, but she had wandered off into the far corner of the orangery and, having slipped behind the lime tree at the end, was poking about among the coiled hoses and the dried-up leaves in the recess of the wall.

  “What was it Mr. Urquhart said to you about the book, Mrs. Jackson … Jackson?”

  “If you would excuse me, m’lady, for just a moment.” Mrs. Jackson stepped to one side of a coiled hose so she was no longer blocking her light from the windows on the south side of the building. She lifted an arm and pulled back a thickly leafed lime branch and a beam of sunlight shone at her feet as she gently stirred a cobwebby pile of dead leaves trapped behind the hose with the toe of her shoe. And there among the brown and gray pile of plant debris came a flash of brilliant cobalt blue. With an exclamation of satisfaction Mrs. Jackson crouched down on the floor, pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and, using the utmost care, lifted something out of the pile of leaves, and even though she wanted to cry out, Would you believe what I have just found? she made herself walk out from behind the screen of trees at a sedate pace to her two companions standing on the tiled floor, waiting for her to join them.

  Lady Montfort took one look at her face and said, “Have you found what you were looking for?” and then laughed. “Of course you have. Look at her, Mr. Stafford, she looks quite triumphant. Please don’t keep us in suspense, Jackson.”

  Mrs. Jackson opened her hand and there, lying in the clean folds of her handkerchief, was a narrow, blue-glass bottle, the kind used in chemist’s shops all over England. It was three inches tall with ridged sides and a grubby printed label, slightly lifting at the corners, stuck on its flat front. On it were the words “An Aid to Digestion” written in a fine copperplate hand in fading ink. The stopper of the bottle, was missing. Lady Montfort carefully lifted the bottle, still wrapped in the handkerchief, out of Mrs. Jackson’s hand and raised it to her nostrils. She waved it back and forth under her nose as she cautiously sniffed the air above its open mouth and then she said, “Ginger? Yes, I think I smell ginger.” She handed it to Mr. Stafford and Mrs. Jackson in turn. “Do not inhale any of the powder when you sniff,” she said, and Mrs. Jackson remembered reading in the plant toxicology that ground castor beans could be damaging to the lungs if their powder was inhaled. The two of them obediently lowered their heads as they wafted the blue bottle under their noses as if they were savoring the bouquet of a fine and delicate wine.

  “Yes, ginger.” Mrs. Jackson could hardly conceal her disappointment. She had expected to find something of great importance. For surely that was what the unidentified person hiding in the orangery last night had been searching for, before he was interrupted by the arrival of the lovelorn Mrs. Wickham? But apparently all she had found was a bottle of digestive powders that the agonized Mr. Bartholomew had taken in an attempt to soothe his burning stomach as he lay dying in this building five months ago.

  Mr. Stafford took the bottle back from her. “Yes, there is ginger,” he said, and then: “Perhaps a little peppermint, but there is something else too, something sweet and powdery like vanilla—is vanilla used as an aid to indigestion?”

  “I have no idea,” said Lady Montfort, “but I know who would: Mr. Urquhart has his own little pharmacopoeia that he refers to, to nurse his delicate system.” Lady Montfort turned to Mrs. Jackson. “I think you have found something important, Jackson, we just don’t know how it all fits together, quite just yet. But what made you look for it?”

  “There is at least half of the bottle’s contents left…” Mr. Stafford said as he held it up to the direct light. “D’you see? And the printed part of the label says ‘Fisk & Able’ and an address just off the Burlington Arcade in Cork Street in London. D’you know what I think?” His voice was almost loud in the quiet room and his face was flushed with excitement. “I think we should have the stuff in this bottle analyzed. Because even though the powders inside look and s
mell innocuous enough, they could very well have been put there to mask the taste and smell of poison. And perhaps…” He held the list up in his left hand, with his right holding the little blue bottle shining in the sunlight, which reminded Mrs. Jackson of the illustration of the apothecary in her copy of Romeo and Juliet.

  “‘Put this in any liquid thing you will, /And drink it off; and, if you had the strength/ Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight,’” she quoted.

  “Absolutely, Jackson, how right you are,” said Lady Montfort, beaming at her, and Mr. Stafford said in his forthright way, “Why, Mrs. Jackson, you never cease to astonish and amaze me.”

  “And me,” said Lady Montfort, “for it is very possible she has found out the How of it all. Oh do be careful not to get any of that stuff on your hands, Mr. Stafford. And let us be careful not to touch the bottle itself … the police might want to test it later for fingerprints.”

  Mr. Stafford took the bottle, which was still wrapped up carefully like a precious thing in Mrs. Jackson’s handkerchief. “If there is castor bean powder in this nasty little blue bottle, just one grain could be lethal—enough to kill several men—and the contents of this bottle, if they contain such a poison, could eliminate an entire village.” Mr. Stafford’s face was grim as he turned to Mrs. Jackson, who was deep in thought.

  “Perhaps no one poisoned Mr. Bartholomew’s breakfast,” she said. “Perhaps Mr. Bartholomew ate some of the kedgeree, and because he ate so much his stomach started to complain so he took out his bottle of digestive powders and sprinkled some on his breakfast. He was halfway through his second plate when the poison began to work. Feeling unwell, he got up from the dining-room table and went outside for a walk, hoping that the fresh air would restore him, which it sadly failed to do.”

  “And he was found two hours later in the orangery by Johnny,” put in Mr. Stafford, staring at Mrs. Jackson with such unmistakable awe that she had to look away.

  Lady Montfort’s voice was breathless with excitement as she conjured up Mr. Bartholomew’s last moments: “He came into the orangery perhaps to find water. He pulls out his digestive powders because now he is in considerable pain and can only think of one thing that might help him.”

  “And it is the very thing that is killing him, poor chap,” Mr. Stafford joined in. “As he falls to the floor the bottle flies out of his hand and lands up against the wall behind the hoses.”

  “And over the months, bits of debris and dust are swept carelessly over the bottle and cover it, until it is found by this clever woman.” Lady Montfort’s voice was jubilant and she looked as if she were about to embrace her housekeeper.

  “And that is what the person who attacked Mrs. Wickham was looking for when he heard that the orangery was open for the first time in months. He was looking for the bottle of poison, as it had evidently not been found on Mr. Bartholomew’s person when his body was discovered,” Mrs. Jackson finished, and all three of them stared at one another, horrified by the wicked simplicity of what might conceivably have occurred.

  “It could have happened at any time after the murderer had doctored the digestive powders,” put in Lady Montfort, and Mrs. Jackson smiled because she knew exactly what her ladyship was thinking.

  “What on earth made you think to look in the corner?”

  “I think it was finding the list in the book, m’lady. It seemed as if it was an invitation to seriously consider that Mr. Bartholomew was maliciously poisoned. Then I wondered what Mrs. Wickham’s attacker had been doing in the orangery before she interrupted him. Mrs. Wickham said she was standing in the orangery and someone came up behind her from behind the trees. As we were standing here I thought that he must have been searching for something that might incriminate him, something Mr. Bartholomew had dropped before he died. And of course it was this bottle of digestive powders. Ever since the day of the murder the orangery has been locked up—now everyone who was in the house on the day Mr. Bartholomew died is gathered here together again and the orangery is open for the first time since March. It was the murderer’s opportunity to retrieve the one thing that pointed to Mr. Bartholomew being murdered. If Mrs. Wickham had not come in here and practically bumped into the murderer he would have found his bottle, broken it up, and then scattered the pieces. If there is poison in here,” she waved the bottle, “then we know how Mr. Bartholomew was poisoned, and it only remains for us to determine who wrote that list.” She was slightly out of breath after what was for her a long speech, her face glowing with pride. Mr. Stafford could hardly take his eyes off her.

  “Very logical reasoning, Jackson.” Lady Montfort was ready for action. “Mr. Stafford, I think we need to enlist your help. If you will take this little bottle to your cottage and empty some of the contents into a container and send it with a letter to Messrs. Fisk & Able asking them for an analysis, that would be most helpful. If you can get to the post office first thing tomorrow morning it will reach London by late-afternoon post. Wait a moment—what time is the last post at Bishop’s Hever, is it half past seven, tonight? Sometimes these little village post offices only have five or six deliveries a day.”

  “Then I had better hurry. If I miss the last post I can catch the early-morning post at half past eight and it should reach London for the midday delivery.”

  “We must keep some of the contents intact in the blue bottle, Mr. Stafford,” Mrs. Jackson added her instructions. “After all, we might be damaging evidence that the police will need later.”

  “How long do you imagine it will take Fisk & Able to determine if there is poison in the bottle?” Lady Montfort asked. “If we declare on Germany, then all of us will naturally disperse to our homes.” Mrs. Jackson noticed that all the gaiety and excitement of discovery had disappeared and understood her ladyship’s concern that they were running out of time.

  “I will stress the urgency of it, Lady Montfort. It will not take them long to ascertain if the contents of a powder they have made up has been adulterated with another substance. Of course, identifying that substance might take longer.”

  “Oh dear,” said Mrs. Jackson. “How I wish I had found that list and bottle earlier.”

  “I can certainly ask them to test for a poison, Mrs. Jackson, and there is a telephone at the post office I can use to make sure they are prompt to do so when they receive the package,” said Mr. Stafford.

  “How would they test for poison?” Mrs. Jackson asked.

  “I believe a mouse is considered an adequate enough test.”

  “Well I suppose a dead mouse is a small price to pay.” Her long-held belief that rodents and small animals should restrict themselves from venturing into pantries and larders far overrode any squeamishness she might have had about this small sacrifice.

  “If they find one of the poisons on the list in that bottle, then all we have to do is identify who wrote the list and we will have our murderer.” Eyes agleam, Lady Montfort saw a triumphant conclusion within their grasp.

  She always makes it sound so simple, thought Mrs. Jackson, and then there we are wondering if we are going to be shot or poisoned or hit over the head.

  Lady Montfort’s attitude had changed considerably from the woman who had wanted to pack up and call it a day; she was in full take-charge form. “Jackson, would you be willing to help me find handwriting specimens from everyone who was staying here when Mr. Bartholomew died? I can get Mr. Urquhart to show me his scrapbook, and I already have a sample of Mrs. Haldane’s writing from her letter inviting us here, but if you would identify the handwriting of the rest of the people staying in the house when Mr. Bartholomew died, then I think our work here will be practically done.” Lady Montfort was so charged-up with what they must do next that she was pacing up and down, her mind hopping from one task to the next.

  “I have seen Mrs. Walker’s handwriting; it is of the old-fashioned, round-hand style, nothing like the beautifully formed copperplate on the list, and the butler’s handwriting is almost illegible.” She looked aga
in at the list. “Perhaps after dinner I could pop into Mr. Haldane’s study while he and Mr. Wickham are drinking port in the dining room.”

  “Thank you, Jackson; this business of identifying handwriting is not a very pleasant task, I wouldn’t want you to do something that made you feel uncomfortable.” And then, not waiting to ascertain the true level of Mrs. Jackson’s possible discomfort, she breezed on with her own tasks.

  “I will tackle Mr. Urquhart on the subject of digestive powders and suppliers and whether he did or did not advise Mr. Bartholomew on cures for stomach disorders. He probably knows who this Fisk & Able are.”

  Mrs. Jackson hesitated. Unlike her ladyship, she did not enjoy the company of the elderly Scotsman; she found him neither amusing nor diverting and thought him watchful in his quiet, covert way. And, in her opinion, his finicky and fastidious preoccupation with his health was unnatural in a man. Her expression must have communicated this because her ladyship went on: “Yes, I know, Jackson, I must tread very carefully indeed. Because even though he appears to be frail and harmless, it does not take brute strength to poison someone. And Mr. Urquhart has no alibi for last night when Mrs. Wickham was attacked.”

  “Neither does Mrs. Bartholomew,” pointed out Mr. Stafford. “And they say that poison is a woman’s weapon.” He laughed when both ladies turned offended faces toward him and held up his hands in the age-old gesture of defense.

  “In my experience, Mr. Stafford, most women are capable of doing anything a man can do, and I am sure there are many men who would have no compunction in resorting to using the cowardly weapon of poison,” said Lady Montfort, and a thoroughly chastened Mr. Stafford tucked the blue bottle in his waistcoat pocket and, putting on his hat, said he would send word to them the moment he heard from Fisk & Able.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Clementine barely had enough time to throw on her evening dress in time for dinner, and when Mrs. Jackson had put up her hair and then retired to her room to change into her best black bombazine silk dress, they both went down the stairs at the double so as not to be late.