The Poisonous Seed: A Frances Doughty Mystery (The Frances Doughty Mysteries) Page 10

  ‘Does the report mention any dyestuffs?’ asked Herbert. ‘Vermin killers may be freely purchased by almost anyone at sixpence apiece, each of which contains sufficient strychnia to kill a man. To protect the unwary they are dyed with Prussian blue or mixed with soot, yet despite that one often hears of them causing death, either by accident or intent.’

  ‘I see no mention in the report of those substances, but I will enquire,’ said Rawsthorne. He paused, and surveyed the anxious faces that surrounded him. ‘There is, of course, one other possible source of strychnine, the pure article, but I assume that you do not carry this as a rule.’

  Frances shook her head, and Herbert said, ‘It is not something we keep or use.’

  Rawsthorne was bundling his notes when William said. ‘Pure strychnia! Yes. We do have some, but – oh – it was a long time ago – a very long time …’ All eyes turned to William as he ran his hands though his hair, trying to remember.

  ‘Surely, Sir, we can have it no longer,’ said Herbert. ‘I have never been aware of such a thing here.’

  ‘But there was – is, I think.’ William began to search the shelves and behind a range of bottles found a small metal box. Frances recalled that the box contained samples of items that were never used medicinally but had been produced when her father had been training Frederick. As a precaution it was always kept locked and neither she nor Herbert had access to it. William rummaged in his pockets for what seemed for the anxious watchers to be a great length of time, before he found a bunch of keys. There was a further delay as the right key was identified, and the lid opened. The box contained a number of small glass phials and paper packets. ‘Long ago, now,’ he muttered, ‘instructional demonstration of methods. No reason to destroy the materials – one never knows when they could be required.’ Frances made a mental note to go though the box at the earliest opportunity. ‘It was not a large amount, about thirty grains, it was in a small phial with a label, well corked and sealed, of course.’

  ‘When did you last see it?’ asked Rawsthorne.

  ‘Oh – I really couldn’t say.’ After a minute or two William stopped searching and sighed. ‘I am certain it was there!’ Herbert took the box and conducted a more methodical search but eventually looked up at the others and shook his head.

  ‘Well, this is interesting,’ said Rawsthorne, solemnly, ‘and unexpected. Assuming that Mr Doughty is correct about the presence of pure strychnine in the box, then we must wonder why it is no longer there. Was it employed for some valid purpose or destroyed long ago, in which case it is no longer our concern? Or has it only recently disappeared? Miss Doughty, some more arithmetic if you please. Based on thirty grains of pure strychnine in Mr Garton’s bottle and his taking four teaspoons of mixture, how much strychnine would he have consumed?’

  Frances made the calculations carefully and then checked them again before she spoke. ‘Two and a half grains.’

  ‘Dear me,’ said Mr Rawsthorne.

  There followed several moments of silence.

  ‘Mr Rawsthorne, I would appreciate your observations on our present position,’ said Frances.

  ‘Well, Miss Doughty, we were trotting along very merrily until now,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘We agreed that any medicine containing enough nux vomica to account for what was found in the body would have been too unpleasant to take by accident in any dangerous quantity. We established that, however constituted, there could not have been a fatal amount of strychnine in Mr Garton’s usual dose or even double that. It was my intention to suggest to the court that Mr Garton died of poison administered to him either in some article other than his medicine, or added to his medicine by a malevolent hand after it left here. That would have raised sufficient doubts to clear Mr Doughty of any suspicion. However, the presence of pure strychnine in the shop does add something of a complication.’

  ‘A court might well be persuaded that a mistake is possible between the tincture and the extract, or in the amount used of either,’ said Frances, ‘but surely you are not suggesting for a moment that my father went to this box, unlocked it and added a deadly amount of pure strychnia to Mr Garton’s medicine! That is not an error one might make.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Rawsthorne.

  The clerk looked up from his writing and took the pens from his mouth. ‘That’s murder, that is’, he said, then quickly thrust the pens back into his mouth and went on writing.

  ‘How dare you, Sir!’ exclaimed Herbert, his moustaches vibrating. ‘If it was not beneath my dignity I would strike you for such an insult!’ The clerk, assessing correctly the probability of Herbert becoming dangerously violent, simply bared his teeth in a sneering smile.

  ‘But it is murder,’ said Frances earnestly. ‘Not by any person here present, but Mr Rawsthorne, I do believe that Mr Garton was murdered. How and why and by whom I cannot tell you.’

  Rawsthorne rolled up his papers. ‘You may be correct, but my concern now is solely for Mr Doughty.’ He turned to William and Herbert. ‘I would advise you this, gentlemen, be scrupulously truthful in court but answer only those questions which you are asked. I am sure that the missing phial of strychnine has no relevance to Mr Garton’s death, therefore it would do no harm if it was not to be mentioned. It never does to confuse a jury with too many facts.’

  Rawsthorne took his departure, the clerk pausing in the doorway for an impudent look before he hurried into the waiting carriage after his employer. Herbert was almost speechless with agitation.

  ‘Mr Munson,’ said Frances softly, ‘we need to discuss this further, I believe, but not just at present. Let me see that my father has some tea and I will return shortly.’

  ‘I wish I had struck that – that —,’ fumed Herbert.

  ‘It would not have assisted us if you had.’ Frances turned to her father, who required little persuasion that a hot cup of tea and some bread and jam would be just the thing to improve his sprits. It was tempting as they climbed the stairs to the parlour to try and press him about the missing phial, but Frances knew that such a course could only drive the memory deeper.

  Herbert had calmed a little by the time she returned. ‘It is my observation,’ said Frances, ‘that my father is only afflicted by a difficulty in recalling things that have happened in recent months. His memory for more distant events is as good as ever it was. That would suggest that the phial of which he spoke was placed in the box some while ago, possibly even years, but has gone from there more recently. It may not even be missing. He may have moved it to a new place.’

  ‘Then I suggest,’ said Herbert, ‘that I attend to the shop while you search everywhere possible. After all, you know his mind better than I.’

  Frances assented, and Herbert took his place behind the counter, no doubt congratulating himself on having avoided a difficult and tedious task. Frances, who had been about to suggest that she do the search herself was well satisfied with the position and had already borrowed her father’s keys. She took the view that it was best to alter nothing and so did not destroy anything in the box, but wrote out a list of the contents. She then carefully inspected every shelf in the stockroom, lifting out bottles and jars and peering behind them, passing her fingers over the darkest corners so as not to miss even a tiny hidden item. The sacks of raw materials were inspected, either to check that they were unopened, or if opened that nothing lay concealed within. She then turned her attention to the shop, and examined every shelf and display. An hour later she had to confess that if the phial had been moved it was no longer on the shop premises. When she told Herbert that she would search the private apartments he raised no objection and she went upstairs, but she knew it would be useless. Sarah was exceedingly diligent about cleaning and would at once have seen and brought to her attention any unusual item she found. Nevertheless, Frances told Sarah of what had occurred and Sarah promised that she would leave no tiny nook unsearched.

  During her fruitless task, Frances had thought deeply about what Mr Rawsthorne had said. Had the r
eport shown that Garton had died from an unusually small amount of strychnine, she might have been forced to consider that his death could have been due to her father’s error, compounded by Garton’s tendency to overdose himself, but the sheer size of the dose put that beyond possibility. In less than three days the inquest jury would convene to consider the facts, and could change both her and her father’s lives forever. She had learned a great deal but nothing that pointed unerringly to a possible suspect. With no suggestion that Garton was the victim of romantic jealousy, she wondered how best she might discover more about his business interests. She picked up her notebook again and read it through. The only business anyone had mentioned Garton undertaking since his arrival in London was connected with the encouragement of art. The Queen’s Road Gallery, where his protégé was said to exhibit, was just around the corner. Frances put on her bonnet and coat and went out.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The cold had intensified and Frances was obliged to walk briskly as she made her way up Queen’s Road, where despite the freezing temperatures and darkening skies, work continued apace on Mr Whiteley’s new buildings. A constant din of loud hammering resounded through the street, much, she knew, to the annoyance of the residents, whose protests had as yet fallen on deaf ears. Cynically, she felt sure that as Mr Whiteley was a substantial ratepayer, the members of the Paddington Vestry, which carried out public works and whose coffers he helped to fill, would drag their heels over the nuisance, in the hope that by the time they were obliged to attend to it, the buildings would be completed. Number 123 was the chemist’s shop of Mr Lynn, an enterprising man some twenty years her father’s junior. As she passed, she could not resist taking a look inside, and saw to her dismay that the premises was crowded with customers, not a few of whom she recognised as those who had previously been loyal to the Doughtys. She could not blame Mr Lynn for his success. The two shops had always maintained friendly relations and had even assisted each other on occasions when one had run out of stock of something the other required, or had directed customers to the other shop if necessary. It was not the downturn in trade that had sent people to Mr Lynn, and it was not for him to refuse them.

  She found the gallery tucked away unobtrusively between some small private houses. It had clearly once been a two-storey private house itself, but the ground floor had been converted from a front parlour to a shop, and in the window was displayed a reproduction of one of the excellent works of Mr Frith. The conversion should have been an opportunity to give miniature charm to the location, so the painful lack of ornamentation, the complete absence of gilding, or Italianate scrollwork, gave the frontage a half-finished look, as if the proprietor had lost interest or run out of funds part way through the work. It was a sombre little shop, with only a small painted wooden board outside to convey its purpose. ‘Bayswater Gallery. Paintings and drawings bought and sold’.

  Frances was not a student of art, but she felt confident in her ability to detect whether or not a portrait was an accurate depiction of its subject. It was with no trepidation therefore that she pushed open the door and went in.

  The display room of the gallery was, she thought, unusually dim, considering that patrons required the opportunity to examine the items on show. A small fireplace of feebly glowing coals was unequal to the task of supplying adequate warmth. The walls were of plain-varnished wood, and were hung with a small assortment of framed paintings. Other unframed pictures were on the floor, leaning against the wall like tiles waiting to be laid. There were only two customers, a lady and a gentleman, who were staring at a gloomy landscape, discussing in whispers not its artistic merit but whether it would match their furniture. At the back of the gallery was a desk and a high stool, where there reposed a sleepy-looking young man wrapped in a large overcoat against the chill. His hair was long, lank and unkempt, and the muffler wound about his neck up to the level of his ears was an alarming shade of purple. From time to time, he reached into his pocket and refreshed himself from a small flask he kept there. Frances thought he might have been one of the artistic men she had seen in the Redan public house, but since they had hardly glimpsed her she hoped that she would not, dressed as a woman, be recognised.

  The gallery manager, if that was his position, was taking scant interest in the activities of the customers, and paid no attention at all to Frances, as she walked slowly about the room looking at the paintings. Eventually the couple departed, the young man marking the event by taking another sip from his flask. Frances decided to approach him.

  ‘Sir, I would welcome your advice,’ she said.

  He rubbed his eyes and yawned. ‘Buying or selling?’ he asked.

  ‘I may wish to commission a piece,’ she said boldly. ‘I have been advised by an acquaintance who has excellent taste in art, that there is a new artist I should consider employing for a portrait, whose works are exhibited here. However, and I must apologise for my stupidly muddled head, I have quite forgotten the name of the artist, and my acquaintance has gone abroad and will not return for some weeks. I think it may have been either Fields or Meadows.’

  He nodded. ‘Meadows. Don’t know the Christian name.’ Slowly, he unfolded himself from his seat. ‘I can show you some drawings over here.’

  He extracted three unframed drawings from the group stacked against the wall, and placed them in a row, then stood back with folded arms. All were in pen and ink and were of local scenes; beggars on the Grove, a summertime study of girls in flowered bonnets and muslins, and a fashionable lady riding by in an open-topped victoria. The first two pictures looked to have been done in recent months but the last clearly had not, as it depicted Queen’s Road before some of the demolition, conversions and building of the last few years, which suggested to Frances that Mr Meadows was well acquainted with the area and had probably lived and worked there for some time. The penmanship was well done, and the style was oddly familiar. It took a moment or two before she realised why.

  ‘Has the artist ever drawn a portrait of Mr and Mrs James Keane?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the man. ‘It’s very possible, I suppose, as his associate Mr Garton was the artist’s agent.’

  Frances pressed a gloved hand to parted lips in the mock alarm used by purveyors of gossip to conceal delight at a choice morsel of news. ‘Dear me!’ she exclaimed. ‘Not the same Mr Garton who died so tragically last week!’

  ‘The very same,’ said the young man, shaking his head regretfully. ‘Tragic, as you say.’

  ‘I was not acquainted with him myself,’ said Frances confidingly, ‘but I have heard say that he was a gentleman of very pleasing manners, and a great connoisseur of art. You must have known him very well. I expect he came here often on business.’

  The manager yawned again, and she had to control herself so as not to recoil from the reek of cheap liquor on his breath. ‘Hardly at all, as it so happens.’

  ‘Really? I find that very surprising. Did he not call to see if Mr Meadows’ pictures were a success with the public?’

  ‘He called about once a month. He didn’t say much to me. He mainly came to see Mr Keane.’ He pulled his coat more closely about him and went to warm his hands in front of the fire.

  Frances wondered if these meetings at the gallery related to mutual business interests. There was a door in the shadows at the back of the display area, which she had noted earlier but had not seemed to be of any importance, but which she now realised could well lead to a room where business was conducted. She decided not to be too prying, in case it aroused suspicions, and returned to her original enquiry. ‘And what of Mr Meadows? I am most anxious to meet him to arrange a commission. Does he come here?’

  ‘He has never been here, as far as I am aware,’ said the manager indifferently, ‘I have not met the fellow.’

  ‘This must be a very difficult time for him with the loss of his patron,’ persisted Frances, in a tone suggesting deep sympathy. ‘One hopes that he will not be long in that position. Perhaps i
f he is fortunate, Mr Keane may be pleased to encourage him.’

  ‘Possibly. Mr Keane is now managing some of Mr Garton’s affairs. Perhaps Mr Meadows was bequeathed to him.’ He sighed, ruefully. ‘Which is more than I was.’

  Frances was surprised by this comment, then suddenly saw the implication behind his words. Did Garton’s death mean the end of the manager’s employment? In which case Percival Garton had been more than just a patron of art, and an interested spectator. Either solely or in partnership with James Keane, he had been the owner of the gallery.

  ‘Has Mr Keane decided to sell the gallery?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s as good as done already. There are some items waiting to be collected and we close in two days. And there’s an end to my wages and my rooms all at once,’ he added gloomily. ‘I live in the apartments above,’ he explained.

  ‘I am very sorry to hear it,’ she said. ‘It is as well that I came here today. I would like to make an appointment to see Mr Meadows to discuss the commissioning of a portrait. Would you favour me with his address?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t have his address. But if you were to leave a note here for Mr Keane, I will hand it to him, and I am sure he would oblige.’

  ‘I think Mr Meadows must be a Bayswater resident,’ said Frances, ‘judging by these pictures.’

  ‘I expect so.’ The man tucked his hands under his arms to retain any warmth they may have absorbed from the fire, and went back to his seat. She took out her notebook to write a message but without any great anticipation of success. With the closure of the gallery imminent, this was probably her last chance to find out more. She wondered if there was anything of interest in the other room.

  Frances began to shiver. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘it is so very cold in here.’