Chapter 28 #2
“A couple of years? Can you give me a precise date when she started … taking the stuff?”
Harris looked helplessly at the surface of his desk, then round the room.
“Well, no, as it happens I can’t at present lay my hands on the information.
Miss Birtwhistle has been my patient for many years, you know, and one can’t be expected to keep notes forever.
I do remember that when she asked for it, she reminded me that she had taken it for a short period some thirty years ago.
It was trouble with her nerves at that time, I recollect.
A brother believed to be dead unexpectedly returned…
” He waved his hands. “Something of the sort.”
So Lorna had got the idea of sedating Humphrey from her own long-ago experience with bromide. “Have you ever prescribed any other sedative for Miss Birtwhistle, Doctor?”
“No, no, certainly not.” He glanced at the window. “The sun’s over the yardarm, I see. May I offer you…?”
“No, thank you, sir.”
“You’ll excuse me if I pour myself a drop. I usually have a little something at this hour.” He took a flask from a bottom drawer and poured an amber liquid into the cap with a liver-spotted hand that shook slightly. Age, or earlier libations, rather than nerves, Alec diagnosed.
“You haven’t, for instance, prescribed chloral hydrate for Miss Birtwhistle?”
“Certainly not. It’s most inadvisable to mix sedatives.”
“Or for anyone else in the household?”
“She’s the only Birtwhistle who’s a patient of mine. I could hardly fail to note such a name.”
“How about Olney? Or Sutherby?”
Harris shook his head, uncertainly. “No, no, if the address was … was Eagle Farm, I would have made the connection. No,” he said with sudden vigour, “I’m afraid that is all I can tell you, Mr. … Inspector.”
Alec thanked him, and they left.
“Not a good witness,” Piper said disapprovingly as they turned towards the police station. “I bet I could find Miss Birtwhistle’s records in all that mess. If he kept any.”
“I expect you could, Ernie, but not without going through a lot of other people’s confidential medical records. It’s questionable whether we could get a warrant, even if we had more reason to suspect the woman of the chloral poisoning as well.”
“You don’t, Chief?”
“I’m inclined not to. The bromide had the rationale of a mixture of spite and the money motive, making her life easier by increasing the household income. By killing him, she’d lose the financial benefit.”
“It’s going to be hard to prove she wasn’t taking the stuff herself, isn’t it. That she was feeding it to the old man.”
DC Ernest Piper, as well as his excellent memory for detail, had the ability to see the big picture, to extrapolate, and to develop tenable theories. He was due to take his sergeant’s exams soon. Alec fully expected to see him continue to climb the promotion ladder thereafter.
“It won’t be easy,” he agreed. “But we have means, and opportunity— Someone said she usually makes breakfast—”
“Miss Olney, Chief.”
“Yes, and Daisy, too, before you arrived. Early morning is when he must have been taking it, to keep him dopy during the day. And Lorna’s got a motive, always useful in persuading a jury, though we don’t have to prove it.
Add her effort to destroy the powders a few hours after obtaining them, and we can already put together a pretty convincing circumstantial case. ”
“She’ll say when he died she was afraid someone might’ve given him an overdose of the same stuff. I s’pose she knew the police had been called in?”
“You haven’t had a chance to read all the reports yet, have you?
They’re extremely spotty as yet. But Daisy did say in her written report that she and Mrs. Sutherby woke Lorna to tell her her brother was dead and the police were on their way.
Daisy happened to notice that the grate was empty at that time.
I should think Lorna did the burning as soon as they left her. ”
“That’s why you don’t think she did the chloral as well?”
“That’s part of it, yes. Well, here we are. You to the chemists’ now, and I to see what I can get out of Miss Lorna Birtwhistle.”
“Sure you don’t need me to take notes, Chief?” Piper said hopefully.
“I would like to have you to take notes, but it’s more important to find the source of that chloral. I know you can do it if anyone can. If Matlock doesn’t have a competent shorthand writer on hand, I’ll just have to manage without.”
Matlock, not having its own detective division, did not have its own shorthand writer. Superintendent Aves, cock-a-hoop over what he perceived as a victorious encounter with the press, offered to send for one from Derby.
“How long would it take, sir?”
“Shouldn’t be more than an hour or so. It depends whether he’s on duty, and which train he catches. You can have a bite to eat in the meantime.”
“Derby has a couple of girl stenographers, too,” Inspector Kennedy put in. “Maybe one of them would be better, seeing the suspect is female.”
“Women don’t belong in the police,” said Aves dogmatically.
“Mr. Kennedy has a point.” Alec tried to be diplomatic.
“I must admit, in this particular case, I should be happier with another female present. Circumstances are such that I’m going to have to try to get a confession out of Miss Birtwhistle.
Both the press and defence lawyers have been known to allege intimidation if a lone woman is confronted by two men. ”
“All right,” sighed the superintendent, “have it your way. See if one of the girls can be sent over here quickly, Kennedy.”
“Sir.” Kennedy saluted.
“Mr. Kennedy,” Alec said as the inspector turned to leave the room, “would you arrange something to eat for Miss Birtwhistle, please? Keeping her waiting is one thing, especially as with luck the pathologist will ring with results before I see her. But we don’t want her complaining of being starved. ”
Alec certainly wasn’t starved. Aves took him to the Crown, where he was evidently well known, and treated him to an excellent lunch. They were about to embark on cheese and biscuits when PC Phipps came in with a message that Alec was wanted urgently on the telephone.
Excusing himself, he hurried back to the police station. Dr. Jordan was on the line from Derby.
“You’ll be getting my written report by the end of the day, Chief Inspector, and you already know that Birtwhistle died, unmistakably, of an overdose of chloral hydrate.
But I thought you’d want to know that, after I was informed about the possibility of the overuse of potassium bromide, I went back to my notes.
I found slight but definite indications of bromism.
Let me just add, nothing I found postmortem would have been sufficiently apparent on normal examination to have aroused more than vague suspicion in Dr. Knox. ”
“Thank you, Doctor. Did you receive the substance I sent you?”
“Yes, I was just coming to that. The test is simple and quick. It’s potassium bromide, as you expected.”
Alec was pleased: much better to face Miss Birtwhistle with fact in place of assumptions.
One thing remained to be done before he tackled her. While he was out, Worrall had rung up and left a message asking to speak to him. Wondering what had been going on “meanwhile, back at the ranch,” Alec asked the operator to connect him to Eyrie Farm.