Part 9

Tulloch woke up the little horse with a sympathetic touch--they were ambling along the highroad again by this time--and permitted himself to smile.

“And how do you propose to do that, Excellency?” he asked.

“By sprinkling the ninth step with iodide of nitrogen. A warm night ... it will dry in half-an-hour.”

“Well, do you know, I never thought of that,” admitted the doctor. “Certainly that would give us the alarm if a feather brushed it. But we don’t possess a chemist’s shop, and I very much doubt if I can put my hand on any iodine.”

“I brought a couple of ounces,” said Carrados with diffidence. “Also a bottle of ·880 ammonia to be on the safe side.”

“You really are a bit of a _sine qua non_, Wynn,” declared Tulloch expressively.

“It was such an obvious thing,” apologised the blind man. “I suppose Brook Ashfield is too far for one of us to get over to this afternoon?”

“In Dorset?”

“Yes. Colonel Eustace Aynosforde is the responsible head of the family now, and he should be on the spot if possible. Then we ought to get a couple of men from the county lunatic asylum. We don’t know what may be before us.”

“If it can’t be done by train we must wire or perhaps Colonel Aynosforde is on the telephone. We can go into that as soon as we get back. We are almost at Abbot’s Farm now. I will cut it down to fifteen minutes at the outside. You don’t mind waiting here?”

“Don’t hurry,” replied Carrados. “Few cases are matters of minutes. Besides, I told Parkinson to come on here from Daneswood on the chance of our picking him up.”

“Oh, it’s Parkinson, to be sure,” said the doctor. “Thought I knew the figure crossing the field. Well, I’ll leave you to him.”

He hastened along the rutty approach to the farm-house, and Tommy, under the pretext of being driven there by certain pertinacious flies, imperceptibly edged his way towards the long grass by the roadside. In a few minutes Parkinson announced his presence at the step of the vehicle.

“I found what you described, sir,” he reported. “These are the shapes.”

Tulloch kept to his time. In less than a quarter of an hour he was back again and gathering up the reins.

“That little job is soon worked off,” he remarked with mild satisfaction. “Home now, I suppose, Wynn?”

“Yes,” assented Carrados. “And I think that the other little job is morally worked off.” He held up a small piece of note-paper, cut to a neat octagon, with two long sides and six short ones. “What familiar object would just about cover that plan, Jim?”

“If it isn’t implicating myself in any devilment, I should say that one of our four-ounce bottles would be about the ticket,” replied Tulloch.

“It very likely does implicate you to the extent of being one of your four-ounce bottles, then,” said Carrados. “The man who killed Stone’s sheep had occasion to use what we will infer to be a four-ounce bottle. It does not tax the imagination to suggest the use he put it to, nor need we wonder that he found it desirable to wash it afterwards--this small, flat bottle that goes conveniently into a waistcoat pocket. On one side of the field--the side remote from the road, Jim, but in the direct line for Dunstan’s Tower--there is a stream. There he first washed his hands, carefully placing the little bottle on the grass while he did so. That indiscretion has put us in possession of a ground plan, so to speak, of the vessel.”

“Pity it wasn’t of the man instead.”

“Of the man also. In the field the earth is baked and unimpressionable, but down by the water-side the conditions are quite favourable, and Parkinson got perfect reproductions of the footprints. Soon, perhaps, we may have an opportunity of making a comparison.”

The doctor glanced at the neat lines to which the papers Carrados held out had been cut.

“It’s a moral,” he admitted. “There’s nothing of the hobnailed about those boots, Wynn.”

* * * * *

Swarbrick had been duly warned and obedience to his instructions had been ensured by the note that conveyed them bearing the signature of Colonel Aynosforde. Between eleven and twelve o’clock a light in a certain position gave the intelligence that Dunstan Aynosforde was in his bedroom and the coast quite clear. A little group of silent men approached the Tower, and four, crossing one of the two bridges that spanned the moat, melted spectrally away in a dark angle of the walls.

Every detail had been arranged. There was no occasion for whispered colloquies about the passages, and with the exception of the butler’s sad and respectful greeting of an Aynosforde, scarcely a word was spoken. Carrados, the colonel and Parkinson took up their positions in the great dining hall, where Dr Tulloch had waited on the occasion of his vigil. A screen concealed them from the stairs and the chairs on which they sat did not creak--all the blind man asked for. The doctor, who had carried a small quantity of some damp powder wrapped in a saturated sheet of blotting-paper, occupied himself for five minutes distributing it minutely over the surface of the ninth stair. When this was accomplished he disappeared and the silence of a sleeping house settled upon the ancient Tower.

A party, however, is only as quiet as its most restless member, and the colonel soon discovered a growing inability to do nothing at all and to do it in absolute silence. After an exemplary hour he began to breathe whispered comments on the situation into his neighbour’s ear, and it required all Carrados’s tact and good humour to repress his impatience. Two o’clock passed and still nothing had happened.

“I began to feel uncommonly dubious, you know,” whispered the colonel, after listening to the third clock strike the hour. “We stand to get devilishly chaffed if this gets about. Suppose nothing happens?”

“Then your aunt will probably get up again,” replied Carrados.

“True, true. We shall have broken the continuity. But, you know, Mr Carrados, there are some things about this portent, visitation--call it what you will--that even I don’t fully understand down to this day. There is no doubt that my grandfather, Oscar Aynosforde, who died in 1817, did receive a similar omen, or summons, or whatever it may be. We have it on the authority----”

Carrados clicked an almost inaudible sound of warning and laid an admonishing hand on the colonel’s arm.

“Something going on,” he breathed.

The soldier came to the alert like a terrier at a word, but his straining ears could not distinguish a sound beyond the laboured ticking of the hall clock beyond.

“I hear nothing,” he muttered to himself.

He had not long to wait. Half-way up the stairs something snapped off like the miniature report of a toy pistol. Before the sound could translate itself to the human brain another louder discharge had swallowed it up and out of its echo a crackling fusillade again marked the dying effects of the scattered explosive.

At the first crack Carrados had swept aside the screen. “Light, Parkinson!” he cried.

An electric lantern flashed out and centred its circle of brilliance on the stairs opposite. Its radiance pierced the nebulous balloon of violet smoke that was rising to the roof and brought out every detail of the wall beyond.

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Colonel Aynosforde, “there is a stone out. I knew nothing of this.”

As he spoke the solid block of masonry slid back into its place and the wall became as blankly impenetrable as before.

“Colonel Aynosforde,” said Carrados, after a hurried word with Parkinson, “you know the house. Will you take my man and get round to Dunstan’s workroom at once? A good deal depends upon securing him immediately.”

“Am I to leave you here without any protection, sir?” inquired Parkinson in mild rebellion.

“Not without any protection, thank you, Parkinson. I shall be in the dark, remember.”

They had scarcely gone when Dr Tulloch came stumbling in from the hall and the main stairs beyond, calling on Carrados as he bumped his way past a succession of inopportune pieces of furniture.

“Are you there, Wynn?” he demanded, in high-strung irritation. “What the devil’s happening? Aynosforde hasn’t left his room, we’ll swear, but hasn’t the iodide gone off?”

“The iodide has gone off and Aynosforde has left his room, though not by the door. Possibly he is back in it by now.”

“The deuce!” exclaimed Tulloch blankly. “What am I to do?”

“Return----” began Carrados, but before he could say more there was a confused noise and a shout outside the window.

“We are saved further uncertainty,” said the blind man. “He has thrown himself down into the moat.”

“He will be drowned!”

“Not if Swarbrick put the drag-rake where he was instructed, and if those keepers are even passably expert,” replied Carrados imperturbably. “After all, drowning.... But perhaps you had better go and see, Jim.”

In a few minutes men began to return to the dining hall as though where the blind man was constituted their headquarters. Colonel Aynosforde and Parkinson were the first, and immediately afterwards Swarbrick entered from the opposite side, bringing a light.

“They’ve got him out,” exclaimed the colonel. “Upon my word, I don’t know whether it’s for the best or the worst, Mr Carrados.” He turned to the butler, who was lighting one after another of the candles of the great hanging centre-pieces. “Did you know anything of a secret passage giving access to these stairs, Swarbrick?” he inquired.

“Not personally, sir,” replied Swarbrick, “but we always understood that formerly there was a passage and hiding chamber somewhere, though the positions had been lost. We last had occasion to use it when we were defeated at Naseby, sir.”

Carrados had walked to the stairs and was examining the wall.

“This would be the principal stairway, then?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, until we removed the Elizabethan gallery when we restored in 1712.”

“It is on the same plan as the ‘Priest’s Chamber’ at Lapwood. If you investigate in the daylight, Colonel Aynosforde, you will find that you command a view of both bridges when the stone is open. Very convenient sometimes, I dare say.”

“Very, very,” assented the colonel absently. “Every moment,” he explained, “I am dreading that Aunt Eleanor will make her appearance. She must have been disturbed.”

“Oh, I took that into account,” said Tulloch, catching the remark as he put his head in at the door and looked round. “I recommended a sleeping draught when I was here last--no, this evening. We have got our man in all right now,” he continued, “and if we can have a dry suit----”

“I will accompany you, sir,” said Swarbrick.

“Is he--violent?” asked the colonel, dropping his voice.

“Violent? Well,” admitted Tulloch, holding out two dripping objects that he had been carrying, “we thought it just as well to cut his boots off.” He threw them down in a corner and followed the butler out of the room.

Carrados took two pieces of shaped white paper from his pocket and ran his fingers round the outlines. Then he picked up Dunstan Aynosforde’s boots and submitted them to a similar scrutiny.

“Very exact, Parkinson,” he remarked approvingly.

“Thank you, sir,” replied Parkinson with modest pride.

IV

The Mystery of the Poisoned Dish of Mushrooms

Some time during November of a recent year newspaper readers who are in the habit of being attracted by curious items of quite negligible importance might have followed the account of the tragedy of a St Abbots schoolboy which appeared in the Press under the headings, “Fatal Dish of Mushrooms,” “Are Toadstools Distinguishable?” or some similarly alluring title.

The facts relating to the death of Charlie Winpole were simple and straightforward and the jury sworn to the business of investigating the cause had no hesitation in bringing in a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence. The witnesses who had anything really material to contribute were only two in number, Mrs Dupreen and Robert Wilberforce Slark, M.D. A couple of hours would easily have disposed of every detail of an inquiry that was generally admitted to have been a pure formality, had not the contention of an interested person delayed the inevitable conclusion by forcing the necessity of an adjournment.

Irene Dupreen testified that she was the widow of a physician and lived at Hazlehurst, Chesset Avenue, St Abbots, with her brother. The deceased was their nephew, an only child and an orphan, and was aged twelve. He was a ward of Chancery and the Court had appointed her as guardian, with an adequate provision for the expenses of his bringing up and education. That allowance would, of course, cease with her nephew’s death.

Coming to the particulars of the case, Mrs Dupreen explained that for a few days the boy had been suffering from a rather severe cold. She had not thought it necessary to call in a doctor, recognising it as a mild form of influenza. She had kept him from school and restricted him to his bedroom. On the previous Wednesday, the day before his death, he was quite convalescent, with a good pulse and a normal temperature, but as the weather was cold she decided still to keep him in bed as a measure of precaution. He had a fair appetite, but did not care for the lunch they had, and so she had asked him, before going out in the afternoon, if there was anything that he would especially fancy for his dinner. He had thereupon expressed a partiality for mushrooms, of which he was always very fond.

“I laughed and pulled his ear,” continued the witness, much affected at her recollection, “and asked him if that was his idea of a suitable dish for an invalid. But I didn’t think that it really mattered in the least then, so I went to several shops about them. They all said that mushrooms were over, but finally I found a few at Lackington’s, the greengrocer in Park Road. I bought only half-a-pound; no one but Charlie among us cared for them and I thought that they were already very dry and rather dear.”

The connection between the mushrooms and the unfortunate boy’s death seemed inevitable. When Mrs Dupreen went upstairs after dinner she found Charlie apparently asleep and breathing soundly. She quietly removed the tray and without disturbing him turned out the gas and closed the door. In the middle of the night she was suddenly and startlingly awakened by something. For a moment she remained confused, listening. Then a curious sound coming from the direction of the boy’s bedroom drew her there. On opening the door she was horrified to see her nephew lying on the floor in a convulsed attitude. His eyes were open and widely dilated; one hand clutched some bed-clothes which he had dragged down with him, and the other still grasped the empty water-bottle that had been by his side. She called loudly for help and her brother and then the servant appeared. She sent the latter to a medicine cabinet for mustard leaves and told her brother to get in the nearest available doctor. She had already lifted Charlie on to the bed again. Before the doctor arrived, which was in about half-an-hour, the boy was dead.

In answer to a question the witness stated that she had not seen her nephew between the time she removed the tray and when she found him ill. The only other person who had seen him within a few hours of his death had been her brother, Philip Loudham, who had taken up Charlie’s dinner. When he came down again he had made the remark: “The youngster seems lively enough now.”

Dr Slark was the next witness. His evidence was to the effect that about three-fifteen on the Thursday morning he was hurriedly called to Hazlehurst by a gentleman whom he now knew to be Mr Philip Loudham. He understood that the case was one of convulsions and went provided for that contingency, but on his arrival he found the patient already dead. From his own examination and from what he was told he had no hesitation in diagnosing the case as one of agaric poisoning. He saw no reason to suspect any of the food except the mushrooms, and all the symptoms pointed to bhurine, the deadly principle of _Amanita Bhuroides_, or the Black Cap, as it was popularly called, from its fancied resemblance to the head-dress assumed by a judge in passing death sentence, coupled with its sinister and well-merited reputation. It was always fatal.

Continuing his evidence, Dr Slark explained that only after maturity did the Black Cap develop its distinctive appearance. Up to that stage it had many of the characteristics of _Agaricus campestris_, or common mushroom. It was true that the gills were paler than one would expect to find, and there were other slight differences of a technical kind, but all might easily be overlooked in the superficial glance of the gatherer. The whole subject of edible and noxious fungi was a difficult one and at present very imperfectly understood. He, personally, very much doubted if true mushrooms were ever responsible for the cases of poisoning which one occasionally saw attributed to them. Under scientific examination he was satisfied that all would resolve themselves into poisoning by one or other of the many noxious fungi that could easily be mistaken for the edible varieties. It was possible to prepare an artificial bed, plant it with proper spawn and be rewarded by a crop of mushroom-like growth of undoubted virulence. On the other hand, the injurious constituents of many poisonous fungi passed off in the process of cooking. There was no handy way of discriminating between the good and the bad except by the absolute identification of species. The salt test and the silver-spoon test were all nonsense and the sooner they were forgotten the better. Apparent mushrooms that were found in woods or growing in the vicinity of trees or hedges should always be regarded with the utmost suspicion.

Dr Slark’s evidence concluded the case so far as the subpœnaed witnesses were concerned, but before addressing the jury the coroner announced that another person had expressed a desire to be heard. There was no reason why they should not accept any evidence that was tendered, and as the applicant’s name had been mentioned in the case it was only right that he should have the opportunity of replying publicly.

Mr Lackington thereupon entered the witness-box and was sworn. He stated that he was a fruiterer and greengrocer, carrying on a business in Park Road, St Abbots. He remembered Mrs Dupreen coming to his shop two days before. The basket of mushrooms from which she was supplied consisted of a small lot of about six pounds, brought in by a farmer from a neighbouring village, with whom he had frequent dealings. All had been disposed of and in no other case had illness resulted. It was a serious matter to him as a tradesman to have his name associated with a case of this kind. That was why he had come forward. Not only with regard to mushrooms, but as a general result, people would become shy of dealing with him if it was stated that he sold unwholesome goods.

The coroner, intervening at this point, remarked that he might as well say that he would direct the jury that, in the event of their finding the deceased to have died from the effects of the mushrooms or anything contained among them, there was no evidence other than that the occurrence was one of pure mischance.

Mr Lackington expressed his thanks for the assurance, but said that a bad impression would still remain. He had been in business in St Abbots for twenty-seven years and during that time he had handled some tons of mushrooms without a single complaint before. He admitted, in answer to the interrogation, that he had not actually examined every mushroom of the half-pound sold to Mrs Dupreen, but he weighed them, and he was confident that if a toadstool had been among them he would have detected it. Might it not be a cooking utensil that was the cause?

Dr Slark shook his head and was understood to say that he could not accept the suggestion.

Continuing, Mr Lackington then asked whether it was not possible that the deceased, doubtless an inquiring, adventurous boy and as mischievous as most of his kind, feeling quite well again and being confined to the house, had got up in his aunt’s absence and taken something that would explain this sad affair? They had heard of a medicine cabinet. What about tablets of trional or veronal or something of that sort that might perhaps look like sweets?----It was all very well for Dr Slark to laugh, but this matter was a serious one for the witness.

Dr Slark apologised for smiling--he had not laughed--and gravely remarked that the matter was a serious one for all concerned in the inquiry. He admitted that the reference to trional and veronal in this connection had, for the moment, caused him to forget the surroundings. He would suggest that in the circumstances perhaps the coroner would think it desirable to order a more detailed examination of the body to be made.

After some further discussion the coroner, while remarking that in most cases an analysis was quite unnecessary, decided that in view of what had transpired it would be more satisfactory to have a complete autopsy carried out. The inquest was accordingly adjourned.

A week later most of those who had taken part in the first inquiry assembled again in the room of the St Abbots Town Hall which did duty for the Coroner’s Court. Only one witness was heard and his evidence was brief and conclusive.

Dr Herbert Ingpenny, consulting pathologist to St Martin’s Hospital, stated that he had made an examination of the contents of the stomach and viscera of the deceased. He found evidence of the presence of the poison bhurine in sufficient quantity to account for the boy’s death, and the symptoms, as described by Dr Slark and Mrs Dupreen in the course of the previous hearing, were consistent with bhurine poisoning. Bhurine did not occur naturally except as a constituent of _Amanita Bhuroides_. One-fifth of a grain would be fatal to an adult; in other words, a single fungus in the dish might poison three people. A child, especially if experiencing the effects of a weakening illness, would be even more susceptible. No other harmful substance was present.

Dr Ingpenny concluded by saying that he endorsed his colleague’s general remarks on the subject of mushrooms and other fungi, and the jury, after a plain direction from the coroner, forthwith brought in a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence.

It was a foregone conclusion with anyone who knew the facts or had followed the evidence. Yet five days later Philip Loudham was arrested suddenly and charged with the astounding crime of having murdered his nephew.

It is at this point that Max Carrados makes his first appearance in the Winpole tragedy.

A few days after the arrest, being in a particularly urbane frame of mind himself, and having several hours with no demands on them that could not be fitly transferred to his subordinates, Mr Carlyle looked round for some social entertainment and with a benevolent condescension very opportunely remembered the existence of his niece living at Groat’s Heath.

“Elsie will be delighted,” he assented to the suggestion. “She is rather out of the world up there, I imagine. Now if I get there at four, put in a couple of hours....”

Mrs Bellmark was certainly pleased, but she appeared to be still more surprised, and behind that lay an effervescence of excitement that even to Mr Carlyle’s complacent self-esteem seemed out of proportion to the occasion. The reason could not be long withheld.

“Did you meet anyone, Uncle Louis?” was almost her first inquiry.

“Did I meet anyone?” repeated Mr Carlyle with his usual precision. “Um, no, I cannot say that I met anyone particular. Of course----”

“I’ve had a visitor and he’s coming back again for tea. Guess who it is? But you never will. Mr Carrados.”