Chapter 31
“It is my business to know what other people don’t know.”
Arthur Conan Doyle
Where was unflappable Ethyl with her scientific knowledge of poisons when Marigold needed her?
“Do you use that in your balm for carbuncles?” Marigold asked, as if she hadn’t the vaguest idea of balms or banes. “Or the tonic for sore throat?”
The old woman raised her chin. “Depends. Why do you want to know?”
Perhaps the poor woman thought Marigold would set herself up as a rival in ridding Wellesley of carbuncles.
Marigold scratched a vague detail out of her memory and mixed it with a bit of conjecture to allay any lingering mistrust. “My mother makes a watery tincture with the berries, then she distills it down before she adds it to her syrup. Don’t know what’s in the syrup—she won’t even tell me, besides black cherries, though—I know she uses those. ”
“I don’t use no water—just press the berries to get the juice.”
“Did your boarder—Mr. Valley, was it? Did he take an interest in your tonics or tonic making?”
Mrs. Otis’s eyebrows rose, considering. “Sat with me in my kitchen, a time or two, for company, he said, while I worked. Companionable fellow.”
“Did he know you were working with poisons?”
The woman was instantly taken aback. “Not making any poison of any kind, and I’ll thank you not to say otherwise. Tonic, I make.”
“My apologies. I meant that out of experienced hands, such as yours, the plant might be poisonous—in my hands certainly it would be dangerous.”
“I’ve no doubt,” the woman agreed with a caustic laugh.
“I just wondered if your boarder might have understood that—that the plant itself, handled improperly, was dangerous.”
“Reckon he was a smart enough fellow. But he didn’t make no trouble. Mostly.”
There was that “mostly” doing the devil’s work again. Marigold would bet that he had made trouble in other ways. “Sounds a charming sort of man.”
“That he was. Only wish he’d paid up before he disappeared. Do you think he’s not coming back to pay up?”
If he had done what Marigold was sure he had, he would be a fool if he did.
“I think it far more likely that Mr. Valley has absconded to Europe to escape the long arm of Massachusetts law.”
“Had enough money for a ticket across the ocean, but not enough to pay me what I was due, did he? No wonder the law’s after him.”
“You might make a report of his unpaid bill to the town watchmen or to Detective Pratt of the District Police, ma’am.” They needed all the evidence they could get. “Mr. Valley, or whatever he was calling himself here, seems to be accumulating quite the record against himself.”
“I’ll be,” the old crone mused. “Seemed such a gentleman, even though he was down on his luck.”
“Did he say that?”
“Not directly, though he did say his luck was changing.” Mrs. Otis sucked in a resentful breath. “Well, for him maybe, hying off to Europe, but not for me.”
“Nor I, ma’am,” Marigold said with sympathy. “Mr. Valley seems to have taken advantage of many.”
“That why you want to know about the nightshade? Want your revenge on the man?”
“No, ma’am,” Marigold answered. “It’s because Mr. Valley might have tried to use it to get his own version of revenge.”
Mrs. Otis finally looked surprised. “Well, I’ll be.”
“I need to be getting on.” Marigold was anxious to do something meaningful with this new information. “Thank you for your information—and your promise. Good afternoon.”
Marigold made as if she was walking her bicycle down the lane to mount it, but as soon as the woman disappeared into the house, she doubled back, wrapped her hand in her handkerchief, snatched up a branch of the plant, blossoms, berries and all, and made directly for Ethyl’s bench in the Student Laboratory and Apparatus Room.
She rode one-handed the entire ride, and upon arrival at College Hall, ran all the way up to the fifth floor, appearing far blousier than she cared to be seen.
“Well, as I live and breathe, it’s the Inimitable Miss Marigold Manners, looking like—” Ethyl took one look at the specimen in Marigold’s hand and promptly snatched it out of her fist and tossed it onto the bench. “Lordy. What are you doing with that? Where’d you get it?”
“From the kitchen garden where Wilkie Valentine—who I’m pretty damn sure is also James Wilkerson but was also going by the name Valley where I found this—was letting a room. It’s poisonous, isn’t it? The landlady said it was nightshade, which is belladonna, isn’t it?”
“No, thank the Lord.” Ethyl put on her spectacles to examine it closely.
“This is black nightshade—Solanum nigrum. It’s similar to Atropa bella-donna, deadly nightshade, but belongs to a different genus, Solanaceae.
But what you really need to know is that black nightshade is less poisonous than deadly nightshade. ”
“You’re sure?”
“Sure as I can be,” Ethyl swore. “Firstly, the flower isn’t tubular and pinkish colored. You can see these are white and star shaped, and they have this mustard-colored anther.”
“I wouldn’t know an anther from an antler,” Marigold sighed, “but I’ll take your word for it. You’re sure it’s not belladonna?”
“Absolutely! But it’s the berries that are the absolute giveaway,” Ethyl went on. “They’re spherical and they have this dull luster. Belladonna berries are much glossier and twice as large.”
“So it’s less poisonous than deadly nightshade, but it’s still poisonous?”
“Lordy, yes. Just not as bad.”
“So someone could still make a preparation—say a tonic? Or even just use the straight berry juice to poison something—like a glass of water?”
“I suppose.” Ethyl made a face. “I reckon it’d be dang bitter, but I don’t know anyone willing to taste test that sort of thing.”
“But what if someone was already taking a bitter medicine, like—”
Ethyl’s face paled in recognition. “Atropine? Do you mean you think this is how Professor Currier got poisoned even though she said she only took her prescribed dose?”
“That is exactly what I mean. I think Wilkie Valentine was at her boardinghouse yesterday, tampering with the blue water pitcher in her room there—which was turned over and broken, with all the water spilling out, destroying the evidence, after Lucy left to bring the professor here to us. My guess is he simply squeezed the berry juice into the water she used to take her atropine granules.”
“Lordy! That sounds just about what probably happened. If it had been from an actual belladonna berry …” Ethyl made an exaggerated shiver. “Thank goodness he didn’t have the smarts God gave a goose to get it right.”
“So, your antidote—even though it was properly for belladonna—it won’t have done her any harm?”
“Lordy, no.” Ethyl let out a decided sigh of relief. “What we gave her is still an effective antidote, especially as the smaller amount of atropine in black nightshade would be counteracted even more effectively by the physostigmine I isolated from the manchineel.”
“Thank you.” Marigold felt herself exhale with relief. “But I think we ought to tell Dr. Barker.”
Ethyl gave her what could only be described as a grim smile. “It will be the first good news in days. I just pray that it’s going to catch on and last.”
When they reached the Hospital Wing, Dr. Barker was in concurrence with Ethyl—they had done the very right thing. “And in tracking down this information,” the doctor added. “It sets my mind at ease to know exactly what happened.”
Marigold’s conscience objected. “It’s only a very educated guess.”
“It’s a very logical guess,” Ethyl said staunchly. “I don’t know how you sleuthed that plant out, but you did it.”
“Thank you.” One didn’t want to make too much of oneself, especially when one had made so many dangerous mistakes. She had suspected the wrong people right from the start, wasting precious time that had nearly run out.
And even now, she might be too late.
She had heard nothing from either Cab or Detective Pratt about either a warrant or the whereabouts of Wilkie Valentine.
“Miss Burke,” Marigold approached the reception desk with something that felt bitterly like humility. “Is there any chance that I might impose upon you to use your telephone to consult with Mr. Cox today?”
“I am sorry, Miss Manners.” Miss Burke was all concerned solicitude. “The dean is currently speaking on the machine, but if you’d care to wait a few minutes?”
“Certainly, ma’am. I would be most appreciative.”
“All right then.” Miss Burke turned away before she changed her mind. “I know it’s none of my business, but you look like you need a good rest.”
“Thank you, Miss Burke. But I’ll rest once this murder is solved and the murderer brought to justice.”
The older woman looked genuinely concerned. “But my dear girl, that might not be for months.”
Not if Marigold had anything to say about it.
But time was slipping away just as surely as Valenine had.
She sat, though each moment that ticked by was a torture spent in trying to fix the time difference between Boston and Liverpool in her head, wondering if Valentine had even finally got on a ship, and if Detective Pratt’s evidence and Cab’s connections in legal circles would be able to extend the long arm of the law to cover all of these possibilities.
“Miss Manners? Marigold?” Miss Burke hovered in front of her. “The dean has finished. If you—”
Her query was cut off by the sound of the telephone ringing off the wall, whereupon Miss Burke immediately went in answer.
“Wellesley College, Reception, Miss Burke speaking.” She listened to the squawk on the other end for only a moment before she turned and waved to Marigold.
“I’ll expect him directly.” Miss Burke rang off.
And told Marigold with a smile, “Your Mr. Cox has eliminated the need for your call. That was Mr. Breyer at East Lodge telephoning to say that Mr. Cox had arrived, and that he—Mr. Breyer—was sending Mr. Cox on to College Hall, and he should be here in—”
Marigold did not wait to hear the rest. “Thank you, Miss Burke!” She was out the door and onto the circular drive before she could think better of greeting Cab without taking time to at least make sure her hair wasn’t a blousy mess. At least she still had her hat on.
But some things were more important than vanity.
Everything was more important than vanity.
Until the moment when Cab came striding up the drive, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his tweed jacket and his collar turned up against the rising damp of the afternoon, looking as dapper as if he were walking off a golf course and not helping her to solve a murder.
“Marigold,” he called as if there were no one there but the two of them, and her fellow collegians weren’t likely hanging out their windows to get a glimpse of him. “I thought I would surprise you, but as usual you’re two steps ahead of me.”
“You might have safely saved yourself the trouble of the trip—for I think I know, or at least suspect, a great deal of what you are going to tell me.” She clasped his hand anyway, reveling in the strange comfort of his physical presence.
“I doubt that.” He squeezed her hand. “You look tired.”
“La, Mr. Cox, you know just how to flatter.” She turned them away from the drive and onto the walk that led toward the west lawn and the golf course. “What news has brought you all this way?”
“I’ve consulted with the British Consulate in Boston, and they were prepared to detain Wilkie Valentine when he disembarked—”
“But it wasn’t him, was it?” Marigold closed her eyes against the feeling of failure.
“Yes!” Cab said. “They cabled Liverpool and were ready to meet the Ultonia. But when they went aboard to arrest Wilkie Valentine, it turned out that the man bearing Valentine’s ticket—and his wife—had turned themselves in to the captain and shipboard authorities as soon as they had left United States territorial waters. ”
“They turned themselves in?” Marigold was astonished back into confusion. “For the murder? Had they been working together to defraud Olivia and the Thayers?”
“No.” Cab put a hand to her elbow in that way he had of assuring without pawing at her. “For impersonating Wilkie Valentine and his wife. Their real names were Mr. and Mrs. William Wilson of South Boston, who were paid by Valentine to take his place on the ship.”
“Impostors. The porter was right about the accent.”
“Stand-ins,” Cab amended, “but yes.”
“Which means Wilkie Valentine is still at large.” Marigold only just refrained from groaning in frustration. Their entire focus on the ocean liner tickets had been a time-wasting dead end. “What a complete and utter disaster.”
A disaster of her own making. Her vanity, her own sense of being right, while everyone else was in the wrong, had led her to this moment.
The moment when Wilkie Valentine was going to get away with murder.