Виктория Холт - Snare of Serpents

I sprang out of bed and Zillah came in. She was in her nightdress, her hair loose about her shoulders, her feet bare.

“It’s your father,” she said. “He’s very ill. He’s terribly sick and in pain. I wonder whether we ought to send for Dr. Dorrington.”

“At this hour?”

I was seeking for my slippers and putting on my dressing gown.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t like the look of him.”

I went to their bedroom with her. My father was lying on the bed, his face ashen; he was breathing with difficulty and his eyes were glassy. He seemed to be in some pain.

“It’s one of his bad turns again,” I said.

“It’s worse than the others, I think. We must send for the doctor.”

“I’ll wake Kirkwell. He’s very capable. He’ll go for the doctor. We can hardly send one of the maids at this hour.”

“Will you do that?”

I went to the Kirkwells’ room, knocked and went straight in. Kirkwell was already getting out of bed.

“I’m sorry to wake you like this,” I said, “but Mr. Glentyre seems very ill.”

Kirkwell, slightly embarrassed at my seeing him in his nightshirt, was hastily reaching for his dressing gown.

As we went out Mrs. Kirkwell was hastily rising to follow us.

Kirkwell took one look at my father and said he would only stop to put on a few clothes and go for the doctor. He thought it was necessary.

Then Mrs. Kirkwell joined us. There was very little she—or any of us—could do.

It seemed a long time before we heard the sound of the brougham bringing Kirkwell with the doctor. But by that time my father was dead.

THAT WAS THE BEGINNING of the nightmare. The weeks which followed seem now to have been quite unreal. I felt I had stepped into a mad world which was full of menace. And it had begun on that night.

The doctor had stayed with my father for a long time and when he finally came out he looked very grave. He did not speak to me. He walked straight past as though he did not see me. He seemed deeply shocked.

I soon realised why.

When he had gone Zillah came to my room. She was a little incoherent, unlike herself.

She stammered: “He … he thinks it could be some sort of poison.”

“Poison?”

“Something he took … or …”

“Or what?”

“Was given to him.”

“Poison given to my father?”

“He says there will be a postmortem. Then … an inquest.”

“But … why … he’d been ill. It was not so unexpected.”

She looked at me fearfully and shook her head. Then she said: “There is nothing for us to be afraid of.” She looked at me intently and added: “Is there?”

“But,” I cried, “it’s horrible. Why … why?”

“They do when people die mysteriously.”

“It’s … horrible,” I said.

She came to my room and lay on my bed with me.

We did not sleep all through that night and spoke little. I guessed she was as preoccupied with her horrified thoughts as I was.

The next day they came and took my father’s body away.

THERE WERE the thick black headlines: “Mysterious Death of Edinburgh Banker. Postmortem on Body.”

It was discussed everywhere. The house had become an object of interest in the town. From my window I glimpsed people passing—and a great many more than did usually—and they would pause and look up at the house staring at the windows. The servants whispered together. I felt they were all watching us furtively.

“It’s horrible,” said Zillah. “I wish they’d get on with it and let us know the worst. It’s the suspense I can’t bear.”

The day of the inquest was fixed. The entire household must attend. Many of us would be called as witnesses.

They were all in a state of nervous tension, fearful yet half-revelling in the excitement of being at the centre of the drama but still dreading it.

Dr. Dorrington gave evidence first. He said he had suspected poison when he had visited Mr. Glentyre and found him dead. Then the doctors who had carried out the postmortem were questioned. Dr. Dorrington had been right. There was evidence of arsenic in Mr. Glentyre’s body. They had found definite inflammation of the stomach and bowels due to an irritant poison. The liver and content of the stomach had been placed in sealed bottles for further investigation, but there was no doubt in the minds of both doctors that doses of arsenic had been taken—or perhaps administered—probably in port wine, and this was the cause of death.

There was a hush in the court.

They had discovered a great deal. They knew that I had bought sixpennyworth of arsenic at Henniker’s. The young man who had served me was there with his red-covered book, and there was my name and the date of the purchase.

He had previously sold sixpennyworth of arsenic to another member of the household, Hamish Vosper. First they wanted to know why Hamish had bought it. There were rats in the mews and Mrs. Vosper had seen them. She had also seen Hamish using the poison. She told the court that she did not like the idea of having poison around but she disliked the rats more. One of the boys who cleaned out the stables had also seen the rats and watched Hamish putting down the poison.

It was my turn. They wanted to know why I had bought the arsenic. I told them it was because there were rats just outside the kitchen. One had been seen in the dustbin. Who else had seen the rat? I told them I had not seen it. It was Ellen Farley who had seen it and asked me to buy the poison that day because she was unable to go out herself. This Ellen Farley was no longer employed at the house. Where had she gone? I did not know and I was muddled about which day it was. I thought it was the day before … or two days before my father had died.

I could see the looks of disbelief and sensed that the coroner was suspicious.

I was asked about a quarrel with my father. I was engaged to marry a student, was I? And at the same time a gentleman of Edinburgh was courting me?

“Well, er … not exactly. We were only secretly engaged …”

“But you liked having two strings to your bow?”

“It was not like that.”

“Your father had threatened to disinherit you if you married your student?”

“Well …”

“Was that so?”

“I suppose so.”

“Did he say in no uncertain terms that the relationship with the student must cease? Was there a scene between you?”

Of course they knew it all. They only asked the questions to trap me.

Hamish Vosper gave evidence. He said he did not know about rats being near the kitchen. They had had them in the mews and he had got rid of them with sixpennyworth of arsenic. Had he used all the arsenic on the rats? Yes, he had. You didn’t get all that much for sixpence and they were quite big rats.

“And you never heard of them being near the house. Did you tell Ellen Farley to get arsenic for rats?”

He looked bewildered and shook his head.

“Did you talk about rats to Ellen Farley?”

“Not special to my recollection. I mentioned them in the kitchen once and Mrs. Kirkwell was all shook up.”

“Was Miss Glentyre there when you mentioned them?”

“Yes … come to think of it, she was.”

I felt they were all looking at me accusingly. Zillah, who was sitting next to me, took my hand and pressed it comfortingly.

She looked beautiful, rather pale and her reddish hair was plaited neatly. It was just visible under the black hat. She looked terribly sad—the tragic widow.

They asked her about the port wine. She said her husband usually took a glass after dinner. He kept some in his bedroom and if he did not feel tired he had a glass. He said it made him sleep.

“Did he take some on the night he died?”

“Not in the bedroom. He was very tired, he said. And then … he started to be ill.”

“So the glass he had was at dinner.”

“Yes.”

“Was there anything special about the wine?”

“Special? I … er … don’t understand. Oh … it was near the end of that in the decanter. I remember Mr. Kirkwell, the butler, came in with another … freshly decanted.”

Kirkwell was called. He told how he had found there was very little in the decanter and had gone down to get another. When he came back I had poured out the wine and given it to my father.

“What about the rest of the wine in the decanter?”

“I threw it away. There was a little sediment and I thought they wouldn’t want that.”

“Where is the decanter?”

“In the cupboard. They are always washed and put away when they are empty … till we want them again next time.”

The coroner’s jury agreed unanimously that my father had died from the administration of arsenic and gave a verdict of murder against some person or persons unknown.

As WE DROVE BACK to the house in the carriage, sitting well back lest we should be seen and recognised, both Zillah and I were limp with shock. We did not speak. Our thoughts were too horrifying to be put into words.

A small knot of people were gathered on the other side of the road. When the carriage stopped and we alighted they moved a little closer.

As we went to the door I heard a voice say: “Murderess.” It was terrible.

We went to our separate rooms. I lay on my bed and tried to recall all that had happened, all that had been said in that dreadful courtroom.

How had this happened? Just a sequence of events … which … when fitted together, created a suspicion of guilt. My relationship with Jamie. What was Jamie thinking now? He would not doubt me, I was sure. My quarrel with my father … that outburst which had been heard by the servants. The simple act of pouring out a glass of port wine. And then, of course, the most damning of all—buying the arsenic. It seemed as if some evil spirit were at work, determined to destroy me, turning what had seemed the most insignificant acts into those of vital importance. And where was Ellen Farley, who could have told them that she had asked me to buy the arsenic? Indeed, I could believe some malevolent fate had made her mother ill so that she was spirited away when it was so necessary that she corroborate my story.

What had they implied? That I had bought arsenic that I might kill my father? And all because he had threatened to disinherit me if I married Jamie?

I felt sick and very frightened.

That night I wrote to Lilias. I had always found comfort in writing to her and receiving her letters. She was becoming reconciled to her fate now; she had settled down to village life; one of her sisters had become a governess and Lilias had stepped into her shoes.

Now there seemed a special bond between us. We were both wrongly accused, for there was no doubt in my mind that all in the courtroom had made up their minds that I had murdered my father.

And murder was a far more serious matter than theft.

I was exaggerating, I told myself. They could not believe that of me.

I told Lilias the details, how I had quarrelled with my father, how he had threatened to cut me out of his will.

“I don’t care about the money, Lilias. I really don’t. Nor does Jamie. We just want to be together and we shall be when he is a fully fledged lawyer. We’ll set up in Edinburgh and have lots of children. That’s what I want. But in the meantime there is this thing. People were waiting for us when we came home from the court. I can’t tell you how upsetting it was. The worst thing is the matter of the arsenic. I did go to Henniker’s. I did sign my name. They’ve got it all, Lilias. And Ellen isn’t here to confirm what I tell them. If only she would come back. Perhaps she will …”

Yes, it was comforting to write to Lilias. It was like talking to her.

I sealed the letter and left it to be posted next day.

I went to bed, but sleep was impossible. Scenes from the courtroom kept flashing before my eyes. I could hear the voices droning on, the questions … the answers that seemed like betrayal.

Two days later, on the orders of the Procurator Fiscal, I was arrested on suspicion of having murdered my father.

OFTEN DURING THOSE DARK DAYS which followed, I told myself, if this had not happened I should never have met Ninian Grainger.

I was taken away by two men in a closed carriage. Several spectators saw me leave the house and I sensed the excitement among them. I wondered what the headlines in the papers would be now. I found I did not greatly care. I could not believe that I, hitherto insignificant, could be the subject of headlines in the newspapers. I could not believe that I was not only involved in a case of murder but at the heart of it. It seemed years since my mother and I had ridden out in the carriage together and taken conventional tea in the discreetly curtained rooms of neighbours as prosperous as ourselves. It even seemed a long time since Zillah had come to us. Could such things happen to ordinary people such as I was?