“A most extraordinary thing, Falkland. He went down as though he’d been poleaxed. Never a cry or a struggle. Just dropped down dead.”
Robert Falkland lighted another cigarette and put his paper down on the grass beside him. He was not particularly interested in Major Grendon’s story. Grendon was a bore and most men avoided him—and his anecdotes—if they could, but on this occasion he was obviously determined to tell his story, and the story had at least the merit of being at first hand—not one of those intolerable “so the fella told me” variety.
Falkland and Grendon were fellow patients in a clinic run by Max Brook, the osteopath—“a damned quack” Grendon called the latter practitioner but, quack or not, Brook succeeded in curing or alleviating many disorders for which orthodox practitioners were unable to find a remedy.
Falkland stretched his game knee cautiously in the sunshine and turned to old Grendon with a courteous answer. Bore he might be, but Grendon was over seventy, and frail at that, and it must have shaken him up a bit to see a fellow-being pass out so suddenly under his very eyes.
“It must have been a shock for you,” replied Falkland. “Heart failure, I suppose. Not a bad way of passing out, Grendon. He’d have known nothing about it. Hope I’m as lucky when my turn comes.”
“Umps. All nice and easy to be philosophic about it,” rumbled Grendon. “You’re a young ’un still, Falkland. Fifty, you say? What’s that? At fifty I was still on the active list. When you’re a bit nearer the other world you won’t be quite so enthusiastic. Heart failure, you say? Well, maybe. Most deaths are due to heart failure in the ultimate resort—but this particular case of heart failure, well, it struck me as odd. Damned odd. Did you ever meet poor Anderby?”
“Yes. I just met him, but only very casually. I was strolling on the links one day and I happened to talk to him. He was a keen botanist, and he was intent on grubbing up some of those little creeping plants which grow in the sand by the bunkers. Nice old chap. About seventy, wasn’t he? He was vicar of Oasthampstead at one time, he told me. Gave up on account of his health.”
“That’s right. He had a breakdown through overwork. Nerves. Not heart. He’d recently married again. Perhaps he told you. Never could talk to anyone for five minutes without bringing in his dear wife.”
“Married again at seventy, did he? Bold man. I didn’t know the marriage was a recent one, though I saw him with his wife when they were out in a car. A pleasant-looking gray-haired woman.”
“ ‘Dear Emma,’ ” grunted Grendon. “Very pleasant looking. Yes.”
He hitched his chair a little closer to Falkland’s, and glanced around to make certain that he had no other auditors before he continued in a lower voice.
“Personally I consider there’s something a spot queer about dear Emma. As it happens I’d met her before. She once lived at Oasthampstead. A cousin of mine’s got a place there, an ex-major of Pathans—know it at all? Not far from here. Nice spot.”
“Oasthampstead? I just know it in passing,” replied Falkland, wondering if the time had come when he could, with decency, pick up his Times and return to his crossword, but Grendon hurried on.
“ ‘Dear Emma,’—this Mrs. Anderby—lived in Oasthampstead some years ago, before she married Anderby. She was a nurse, you know. As a younger woman she practised midwifery, but as she grew older she gave that up and retired, more or less. She used to do odd nursing jobs—‘obliging’ so to speak, for she’d had a general hospital training as well as that of midwife.”
Falkland yawned—and didn’t bother to conceal it. Any interest he had felt in Grendon’s narrative had petered out by now. He picked up his paper and glanced at his watch, but Grendon went on persistently.
“One week when I was staying with Roger there was a lot of talk about the sudden death of an old doctor, a fellow named Chenner. Dr. William Chenner. Died in his sleep. The last person who saw him was Nurse Pewsey—she’d been nursing him through a bout of flu and pneumonia. Heart failure, of course. Always is heart failure. He was an old chap, and he’d had a bad bout of flu. Just faded out. He left a legacy to the nurse—known her for years. Nurse Pewsey became Mrs. Anderby two years later. Very much respected woman. People told Anderby he was lucky to get her. Comfort to him, and all that. He’s dead now. Heart failure, of course. Always is.”
Grendon’s rumbling voice ceased and Falkland looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“Look here, you know, I should be rather careful whom I repeated all that to. The inference is plain—and if uttered in the presence of witnesses, that inference is criminal slander.”
Grendon snorted.
“I know all that—and there aren’t any witnesses. Took care of that before I started talking—and I didn’t draw any inference. Left it to you. It’s plain enough. Hits you in the face. Wonder how much Anderby’s left her. These parsons are provident fellows. Come to think of it, she must have been left a spot earlier on by grateful patients because she’d retired in the main before the Chenner episode. Just nursed him to oblige. Dear Emma. Sweet woman. Pleasant looking, as you say.”
Falkland laughed. He couldn’t help it. Grendon’s convictions on the subject of “dear Emma” were so very obvious, and his voice held such a wealth of disgust.
“Steady on,” protested Falkland. “I think you’re prejudging the case, and without any evidence at that. It’ll be damned hard luck on Mrs. Anderby if many people take your view of the matter. There’s sure to be gossip, and a woman is defenceless against the insidious suggestions you’re making. It isn’t as though you’d a grain of evidence——”
“Not so sure,” retorted Grendon. “You listen to this. Nurse Pewsey sucked up to old Chenner, made him fond of her, silly old ass, and he put her down for a thousand in his will. That was just before he had flu. She nursed him through that. Who keeps the temperature chart and respirations and what nots? The nurse, doesn’t she? Temperature, 103 last night. Pulse, 130, maybe. ‘Normal this morning?’ ‘Oh, yes, doctor, but his temperature always goes up at night and his pulse is very erratic.’ Doctor signs the certificate cheerfully. Heart failure, of course. Old chap, arteries hardening and all that. Just died in his sleep. Dozens of ’em do. Inquest? Rubbish! Natural death. Might have happened any minute. Wreaths and obituary notices. Money for jam! Tell me it was difficult, when the woman’s a qualified nurse? Difficult, my eye!”
“Yes. I see what you mean,” replied Falkland soberly, though inwardly he was still disposed to chuckle at Grendon’s rash assumptions. (How the old chap did dislike ‘dear Emma’!) “That’s all very well, as a hypothetical case, but this business about Mr. Anderby’s a very different matter. You say he fell down and died while he was hosing the garden? You can’t suggest any indications of foul play there. Say if you tell me about it again, in detail this time, and let’s get it quite clear.”
“Delighted,” grunted Grendon. “Just what I’ve been wanting to do ever since it happened, but people won’t listen. Just say ‘Indeed, very sad—can you tell me a synonym for outrageous in ten letters,’ and go back to their damned crosswords.”
He settled himself more comfortably in his chair and began his discourse. “You’ve heard of Lee Gordon? He’s the chap who’s taken a tenancy of White Gables, Ingleby’s place, down at the end of the common, on the way to No Man’s Land. White Gables has a fine garden. Very fine. When Ingleby let it he made a point of having the garden kept up properly, and Lee Gordon’s very keen on gardens, for all that he’s a Yankee—or if he isn’t a Yank, he’s been over there for so many years that he sounds like one. Wealthy chap, of course, simply rolling. Believe he’s related to young Dowerby, who’s just come into the Merstham Bois estate—Trant’s place in the Midlands——”
“Quite—but about the Reverend Anderby,” put in Falkland, and Grendon went on—
“All right, all right—I’m coming to it. Want you to get a line on the personnel and so forth. The Anderbys have been living here in Penharden for a couple of months—they’ve been looking for a house, and ‘dear Emma’ was very particular. As soon as Lee Gordon settled in White Gables, Mrs. Anderby contrived to make his acquaintance. Said her husband doted on gardens——”
“So he does—or did,” put in Falkland reasonably. “He mentioned the White Gables gardens to me—azaleas and rhododendrons, or something in the shrubbery line. Amazing he said it was.”
“So it is. Never saw such a sight in my life as those azaleas. Got Kew beaten hollow. However, to get on with the story. Mrs. Anderby trotted her husband round to see Lee Gordon and the old parson was in his element. Knew a lot about gardens—much more than Lee Gordon does. Anyway, Lee Gordon liked Anderby and was glad to have him about and ask his advice. Anderby took to doing a bit of work in the greenhouses—seedlings or cuttings, or some rot of that kind. Can’t stand gardening myself. ‘Dear Emma’ always went to White Gables when her husband went. Never let the poor old chap out of her sight. Told people his heart was a bit shaky and he needed watching. ’Pon my soul, Falkland, can you beat it?” Major Grendon’s face was almost purple with excitement. “Think of the nerve the woman had got! Actually told people his heart was shaky and he might pop off any moment, or words to that effect!”
“Dash it all, she was quite right!” protested Falkland. “That’s just what he did do—popped off!”
“You bet he did,” replied Grendon darkly, “and no one was surprised. ‘Ah, it might have happened any moment’ they’re all saying. Well, to get on with it. Lee Gordon asked me to lunch today. He’s a hospitable chap. Told me the parson was coming, too, and ‘dear Emma.’ ‘I like the old boy,’ he confided to me, ‘but his wife’s a dame I don’t take much stock in. Come and help me out. I’ve got some nice young Aylesbury ducklings just ready for the oven.’ They were too. Prime. Never tasted better roast duck in my life, and peas from the garden, and apple sauce the Ritz couldn’t touch. We all enjoyed that lunch. It’s a pity because I shall never relish roast duck again. After lunch we sat on the terrace and had coffee and a liqueur brandy—1870, a lovely vintage. Mrs. Anderby kept on saying her bit. ‘Do you think you ought to have coffee, dear? Coffee brings on your palpitations.’ Makes me just about fed-up, that woman does.”
“But aren’t you being a bit unreasonable?” protested Falkland. “According to your own showing, the poor old chap had eaten a hearty lunch, and duck is rich enough to give any dyspeptic palpitations——”
“Dyspeptic my eye!” grunted Grendon. “Nothing dyspeptic about the padre. He enjoyed his food. Did me good to see him tucking in, and no nonsense about it. Lovely duck it was, too. Where’d I got to? I know. We were on the terrace, just had coffee. Good French coffee, a bit bitter, with that suggestion of something akin to garlic you always get in continental coffee, and Lee Gordon was chatting about his seedlings. Zinnias, or something of the kind. Said they’d wilted and the whole lot’d die, and he was fed up about it because he prized those zinnias. The padre told him he’d let the ground get too dry, and though you mustn’t water plants while the sun was on them, there was nothing to prevent you soaking the soil behind them and letting the water percolate through. Never heard such a song and dance as those two made over their blessed seedlings. The upshot was that Anderby went and got hold of the hose and started his watering, leaving Mrs. Anderby and Lee Gordon and me on the terrace. Lee Gordon says to me, ‘Come and cast an eye over my peach house. There’s a crop worth seeing.’ He winked at me and excused himself to Mrs. Anderby. ‘I know you like to keep an eye on your husband,’ he said to her. ‘Just see he doesn’t overdo it. Grendon, I want your opinion about those peaches—and take another cigar while you’re about it.’ Very good cigars, too. ‘The poor old chap thinks he’s hosing the soil scientifically, when all he’s doing is to douse the wood of those shrubs,’ chuckled Lee Gordon, ‘but he’s not doing any harm, and I’d hate to spoil his fun.’ We went along to the peach house—and mark you, we could see Anderby all the time. He wasn’t a hundred yards away across the lawn. I’d just lighted my cigar and was stepping outside the glass house—it was damned hot in there—when I saw Anderby fall. Just as though he were shot. Amazing thing. ‘Good God, he’s had a fit!’ yelled Lee Gordon—he was just inside the peach house, fiddling with the shades, and he could see Anderby through the door. We sprinted back to the lawn, but Mrs. Anderby got to him first. I knew he was dead. Felt it in my bones. Lee Gordon ran for brandy and shouted to me to phone the doctor—old Tracey. He’d been attending Anderby.”
“What for?” asked Falkland, and Grendon glared.
“What for? Heart, of course! The palpitations his dear wife always made such a fuss about. He never had palpitations before he married. Told me so himself. I told him he was an old fool to go and marry again. He didn’t like that. There you are—and there he is. Dead. Heart failure. ‘Dear Emma’s’ being wonderful. She would. Rough luck on Lee Gordon, you know. He was quite upset. Kept on saying, ‘It must have been the duck’.”
“And he’s quite probably right—a hearty meal of roast duck, coffee, liqueur brandy and cigar to follow, and then standing in the hot sun with a hose in his hand, after bending about and looking at seedlings—enough to account for a sudden seizure,” replied Falkland. “At any rate, that’s a much more likely explanation than your suspicions, Major. I can see that you dislike Mrs. Anderby, but I think you need to be very careful of what you say about her—very careful indeed.”
Grendon nodded his bald head and blew out his cheeks mournfully. He was rather a grotesque-looking old man, having been stout when in his prime. Now he had lost weight and his heavily jowled face hung in folds. He suffered from chronic sciatica and was staying at the clinic for treatment. Brook’s manipulative treatment had done him a great deal of good, but Falkland suspected that an occasional lunch, such as Grendon had indulged in at Lee Gordon’s, would not assist the treatment.
Grendon tugged at his fierce-looking little white moustache and nodded his head in melancholy agreement.
“Of course, you’re right, Falkland. I see all that clearly enough, but it’s a damnable position! How long’s the woman going to be allowed to get away with it? That’s what makes me see red! You say to me, ‘Don’t say anything. Don’t make a stink. You’ve no evidence and it’ll only land you in trouble.’ True enough. Everyone else who’s got any suspicions says the same—they did at Oasthampstead. Talk buzzed—but all in confidence. ‘Don’t mention it to anyone. Very unsafe. Slanderous and all that.’ So it is, but I’ll tell you this. By keeping quiet and being discreet we’re putting a premium on murder.”
Falkland moved uneasily in his place. Murder. The word had an extraordinarily unpleasant sound. Here in the garden the sun was shining; roses and lime trees in flower made the air fragrant: bees hummed among the blossoms and thrushes hopped about the daisied lawns. Murder. Falkland found himself repeating the word to himself.
“She’s so damnably safe,” went on Grendon’s querulous voice. “Everyone’s so occupied in sympathizing with her and saying she’s wonderful that they don’t begin to think. The doctor, old Tracey—he’s an old fool. Past his work. What did he do? Signed the certificate and bleated a few technical terms about valves and lesions and long-established thingummys. Did he investigate? Did he do a blasted thing except take it for granted? Heart failure—like old Chenner. Covers a multitude of omissions, does heart failure. You see, the woman knows she’s safe. No question of post mortems, no awkward inquiries. She’s cute enough to have her subject vetted before she brings off her coup. Chooses an old doctor and bleats at him about the patient’s heart symptoms, and just gets away with it—and mops up the legacy. I tell you, Falkland,” and here Major Grendon leant forward and wagged a finger in his earnestness, “the damned woman made eyes at me and began to sympathize over my symptoms and offer me professional advice. What do you bet she’s looking round for another subject? By gad, sir, it makes my blood boil. Don’t say anything. Slander . . . yes, yes. Let her get away with it.”
“Well, well!” Falkland moved uneasily in his chair. Grendon was so emphatic that he had succeeded in making an impression even on Falkland’s cool, balanced mind. Moreover, the situation was interesting. Could there be anything in it, he wondered?
“Look here, Grendon. You’re making out a case based almost entirely on motive——”
“Motive, opportunity, means,” growled Grendon. “That’s the police triad. Motive—you’ve passed that. Opportunity—lots of it, in both cases. Means. That’s the question.”
“Quite. Take this case alone—Anderby’s death. On your own showing, he was perfectly fit during lunch. He enjoyed his meal and seemed perfectly well after it. No symptoms of nausea, or giddiness, or pain, or any of the usual accompaniments of poisoning. I take it it’s poison you’re suggesting in this case?”
“Umps . . . well, I suppose so.”
“Very good. You say Anderby left the terrace while you and Lee Gordon were still sitting there with Mrs. Anderby. He went onto the lawn, examined the seedlings, picked up the hose and stayed on the lawn until he dropped dead. As you described it he went down as though he were shot, without a cry, without a struggle. Was Mrs. Anderby near him at the time? You say you had him in view all the time you were in the peach house.”
“No, she wasn’t near him. She was on the terrace. She ran when he fell—she reached him first and, as I told you, Lee Gordon and I rushed into the house for brandy, and to phone for a doctor. We left her with him.”
“Very good. You also said that you were certain he was dead when you saw him on the ground. Now examine the possibilities. There is no known poison—so far as I am aware—which kills in the manner you have described, without preliminary symptoms. The cyanides are the swiftest known poisons in their action, and with cyanides you get convulsions and some struggle before death, also some frothing at the mouth, and corrosion of the lips and tongue——”
“Here, damn it—I don’t fancy all these pathological details,” grumbled Grendon, who had turned pasty coloured as Falkland enumerated symptoms.
“Oh, don’t you? You’re ready enough to shout ‘murder,’ Grendon. You’ve got to be ready to think out the consequences of your suggestion,” retorted Falkland crisply. “As I see it, no poison on earth would have acted in quite the way you suggested. A man will fall dead, as you described, if he’s shot through the heart or the brain—but shooting’s obviously ruled out. Stabbing through the heart causes instantaneous death—but you say no one was near at hand to stab him, and however neatly it’s done, with a bodkin or skewer or what not, stabbing causes hemorrhage. I don’t think you’ve a leg to stand on in the case you’ve made out so far as Anderby’s concerned.”
Grendon sat with his shoulders hunched up, very thoughtful. “There are other means known to experts,” he argued. “This stuff insulin. If you inject a full dose into a normal person——”
“Yes, yes, I know. Death would result—but your subject wouldn’t drop down dead as though he’d been shot. He’d pass into a coma and die slowly. In order to follow up your suspicions, you’d have to get an autopsy ordered and, with the evidence you’ve set out, no medical man would consider such a course justified. The evidence about Anderby’s death points to one of two causes—what is known as a stroke, or lesion of the brain, or heart failure—and the latter is the more probable explanation.”
Falkland had forgotten his crossword now: he was genuinely interested in the discussion, though he regarded it as mainly academic, and not likely to result in action of any kind.
“I do find a very definite interest in your ‘motivization’ theory,” he went on. “You make out an exceedingly interesting hypothetical case. I believe that murders of the type you have suggested in Dr. Chenner’s case may be not uncommon—and are totally unsuspected. An old man, weakened by fever, needs very little assistance in his exit from the world. A pillow held over his head, an injection of morphia—or insulin—and he will die very quietly. The average general practitioner signs a death certificate pretty casually. I’ve known cases where a doctor signed the certificate without even troubling to inspect the corpse—when death was expected, of course. But this business of Anderby’s death—no, I can’t see any room for foul play.”
“Nevertheless, I’m willing to lay all I’ve got on the fact that Anderby was murdered,” said Grendon obstinately. “I don’t pretend to know how it was done, but done it was, under my very eyes, and ‘dear Emma’ is going to inherit all he had and live in clover—unless she’s so puffed up by her success that she has another shot at the same game—and then perhaps someone will sit up and take notice.”
Falkland chuckled. “If you believe that, Grendon, you’d better look out. Logically you ought to be the third—because you’re the chap who is disposed to make trouble.”
“Me? Good Gad! I tell you I shall give the woman a wide berth. Look here, Falkland. You’re a sane, well-balanced fellow. Give me your advice for what it’s worth. What ought I to do? Just leave it alone? I tell you I’m convinced, absolutely convinced, that woman’s murdered two men for her own profit—and got away with it.”
“My dear chap, you may be convinced, but with the evidence at your disposal you’ve no sort of case to put before the police. The only thing you can do—and I’m not pretending I think it an advisable course—is to write a clear detailed statement about both deaths, putting in no hearsay and no opinions—just a terse, objective statement. You can take it to a magistrate and swear to its accuracy. Then take it yourself to the chief constable of the county. See him, and ask him to regard your statement as confidential and made in the public interest. If he sees anything in it which he considers should be investigated, he’ll investigate all right. By so acting, you’ll safeguard yourself, and you’ll also be doing what you conceive to be your civic duty. But don’t go round uttering suspicions, and don’t write anonymous letters to the police. If you’ve got anything to say, say it to the proper authorities and accept the onus of it.”
Grendon nodded.
“Yes. I’d say that’s good advice. I’m not much of a hand with a pen, but I’ll do my best to make the statement you suggest. I could have another talk with Lee Gordon—he’s a better memory than I have.”
“Well then, be careful you don’t let him see what’s in your mind. The minute it begins to be said that you’ve made charges of murder against Mrs. Anderby you’ll be in trouble—and you’ll queer your pitch with the police. They’re out to protect the public from slander and libel—and quite rightly so.”
Grendon nodded like a mandarin.
“I follow you, Falkland. I follow you. Damned good advice. I’ll take it. You mark my words—there’s something in it.”