The Poisonous Seed: A Frances Doughty Mystery (The Frances Doughty Mysteries) Read online

  In the December that followed Frederick’s death, William had once again assumed his duties in the shop. In truth, he was there only as the nominal qualified pharmacist. His professional knowledge was intact, but his hands were weaker than they had been, with a slight tremor. The work of preparing material for the stock of tinctures and extracts fell largely to Herbert and Frances. In the stockroom at the back of the main shop there was a workbench where the careful grinding, sifting and drying of raw materials was carried out, the mixing and filtering of syrups and assembling the layers of the conical percolator pot. Although William observed the work, he seemed unaware that by unspoken agreement, Herbert and Frances were also watching him. He had confined himself to making simple mixtures from stock and filling chip boxes with already prepared pills. The sprawling writing in the book recording Garton’s prescription had been his. Behind the counter it was usually Frances’ nimble fingers which would wrap and seal the packages so William could hand them to customers with a smile. It was the only moment when he looked like his old self.

  Gazing at her sleeping father, Frances noticed, with a tinge of concern, the small ribbed poison bottle by his bedside, which contained an ounce of chloroform. He had taken to easing himself to sleep by sprinkling a few drops on a handkerchief and draping it over his face, declaring, when Frances expressed her anxiety, that if it had benefited the Queen it could scarcely do him any harm.

  She closed the door softly and returned to the parlour. ‘Sarah, I don’t know if you have heard about Mr Garton.’

  ‘I have, Miss,’ she said grimly. ‘I had it off Dr Collin’s maid. I don’t want to upset you, but they’re saying terrible lies about Mr Doughty.’

  ‘I know,’ said Frances with a sigh.

  ‘I’ve heard that it’s Mrs Garton herself, who’s accused him. Well I’ve said that the poor lady is so beside herself she doesn’t know what to think.’

  Frances sometimes wondered if the servants of Bayswater had their own invisible telegraphy system, since it seemed that once any one of them knew something, so the rest of them instantly knew it too. ‘My father mustn’t be troubled with this,’ she said. ‘He’s too unwell.’

  ‘I know, Miss, I’ll never say a word.’

  Despite what Frances had said to soothe Herbert’s panic, she remained deeply concerned, but there was nothing she could do except write to the family solicitor Mr Rawsthorne asking him to attend the inquest, and hope that the post-mortem examination on Percival Garton would show that he had died from some identifiable disease.

  The winter season with its coughs and chills was normally a busy time in a chemist’s shop, but as the day went on it became apparent that the residents of Bayswater were taking their prescriptions elsewhere, while medicines made up the previous day and awaiting collection remained on the shelf. There were some sales of proprietary pills and mixtures, but Frances had the impression that the customers had only come in out of curiosity. Some asked pointedly after the health of William Doughty, and those ladies who were in the shop when he made a brief appearance later in the day, shrank back, made feeble excuses and left. William frowned and commented on the lack of custom, implying by his look that it was somehow the fault of Frances and Herbert. He seemed to be the only person in Bayswater who did not know of his assumed involvement in the death of Mr Garton. Herbert went out in the afternoon for a chemistry lecture, and returned in a state of some distress. A Mrs Bennett, a valued customer of many years, had stopped him in the street and explained at great length and with many blushes that she wanted to take a prescription to the shop and she did so like the way Herbert prepared her medicine and could he promise her that if she brought it in he would do it with his very own hands?

  ‘I didn’t know what to say!’ whispered Herbert, frantically as he and Frances made up some stock syrups in the back storeroom. ‘She’s one of our best customers and she’s afraid to come into the shop!’ For the sake of the ailing man, Frances and Herbert did their best to behave as if nothing was the matter, and at four o’clock William muttered that they could see to the shop for the rest of the day, and went back upstairs to read his newspaper.

  Early the following morning, Constable Brown returned, and this time he was accompanied by a large man with a bulbous nose and coarse face who he introduced as Inspector Sharrock.

  ‘Is Mr Doughty about?’ said Sharrock, glancing quickly about the shop. ‘We need to speak to him.’

  ‘He is unwell,’ said Frances. ‘He is in his bedroom, resting.’ Out of the corner of her eye she saw Herbert starting to panic again.

  ‘Can’t help that,’ said Sharrock, brusquely. He strode up to the counter and thumped it loudly with his fist directly in front of Frances. Herbert jumped and gave a little yelp. Sharrock jutted his chin forward, with an intense stare. It was meant to intimidate, but Frances, standing her ground and clenching her fingers, could feel only disgust. ‘Either he comes down here or we go up to him. You choose.’

  The last thing Frances wanted was her father waking up suddenly to find strangers in the house. ‘I’ll fetch him,’ she said, coldly. As she passed Wilfred he gave her a sympathetic look, which she ignored.

  It took several minutes to prepare her father for the interview she had hoped to avoid. He was tired and seemed confused, but she explained as best she could about Garton’s death and, amidst protests that he hardly knew how he could help, he agreed to speak to the police. She saw that his clothing was tidy and smoothed his hair, then brought him downstairs. When they entered the shop Sharrock put the ‘Closed’ sign on the door, and ushered William to the seat. ‘Is this your writing, Mr Doughty?’ said Sharrock, thrusting the open prescription book under William’s nose, and tapping the page with a large blunt finger.

  ‘I expect so,’ said William, fumbling in his pocket for his spectacles, getting them onto his nose at the third attempt and peering at the book. Sharrock pursed his lips and gave a meaningful glance at Wilfred. ‘Yes – that is my writing.’

  ‘And did you prepare the prescription for Mr Garton?’

  ‘Well – I – imagine I must have done. Yes – let me see – tinctura nucis vomicae, elixir aurantii – I believe he has been prescribed this before.’

  ‘The thing is,’ said Sharrock, ‘our enquiries show that the medicine you made for Mr Garton was the only thing he had on the night of his death that was not also consumed by another person. And the doctor who examined the body is prepared to say that the cause of death was poisoning by strychnine. What do you say to that?’

  William frowned, and his lips quivered, but he said nothing.

  ‘Come now, Mr Doughty, an answer if you please!’ Frances, trembling with anger, was about to reprimand the policeman for bullying a sick man, but realised that to plead her father’s condition would only increase the suspicion against him. She came forward and stood beside her father, laying a comforting hand on his arm.

  ‘Really, Inspector,’ said William at last, ‘I can’t say anything other than that the mixture would not contain enough strychnia to kill anyone.’

  Sharrock, towering over the seated man, leaned forward and pushed his face menacingly close. ‘Is it possible, Mr Doughty, that you made a mistake? Could you have put in more of the tincture than you thought? Or could you have put in something else instead? Something a lot stronger?’

  ‘Inspector, I must protest!’ exclaimed Herbert. ‘I myself was here when the mixture was made up, and it was exactly as prescribed.’ He drew himself to his full height – not a long journey – and as Sharrock stood upright and gazed down at him he quailed for a moment, the tips of his moustaches vibrating, then recovered. ‘I will say so under oath if required!’

  Sharrock smiled unpleasantly. ‘And that is what you will have to do, Sir. I must tell you that we are working on the theory that Mr Garton was poisoned due to an error in the making up of his prescription.’

  ‘I am sure you will find that is untrue,’ said Frances quietly.

  Sharrock glan
ced briefly at her but didn’t trouble himself to reply. Instead he tucked the prescription book firmly under one arm, strode over to the shop door and turned the sign back to ‘Open’.

  ‘Inspector,’ said Frances, following him before he could depart with the book. She held out her hand for it. ‘If you please.’

  He smiled his humourless smile. ‘I’ll hold onto this for the time being. Evidence. We’ll take our leave now. You’ll be hearing from the coroner’s court very shortly. And if you’d like to take my advice, I’d say Mr Doughty looks unwell. He ought to rest.’

  As Sharrock departed with Wilfred trailing unhappily after him, Herbert turned to Frances and mouthed ‘What shall we do?’ She shook her head in despair and returned to her father’s side, taking the cool dry hand and feeling it tremble.

  ‘He was right,’ said William, in a sudden miserable understanding of his condition, ‘I am unwell. I may never be well again. Perhaps I did poison Mr Garton.’

  ‘No, Sir, I will swear you did not!’ exclaimed Herbert.

  ‘Come with me, Father,’ urged Frances. ‘You need rest and a little breakfast.’

  He sighed, nodded, and went with her. Once he was comfortably settled, with Sarah keeping a careful eye on him, Frances returned to the shop.

  ‘What did Inspector Sharrock have to say while I was fetching my father?’ she asked.

  Herbert shuddered. ‘He wanted to see everything we have which contains strychnia. When I showed him the pot of extract of nux vomica in the storeroom he was very interested indeed. I told him that was where we always kept it, but he didn’t believe me. He tried to imply that we usually kept it on the shelf amongst the shop rounds, and only moved it into the stockroom after Mr Garton’s death to make it look less likely it could have been used in error.’

  ‘What an unpleasant man,’ said Frances.

  ‘Miss Doughty, I want you to know that I have the most perfect belief in your father!’ exclaimed Herbert. ‘He is the kindest and cleverest of men!’

  ‘Thank you Mr Munson. I value your support, and if, as you say, you observed the mixture being made, then that settles any question I might have of an error occurring here. We must wait to hear the public analyst’s report, and hope that it reaches some firm conclusions. The constable informed me that most of the medicine was spilled, which is very troubling. If the inquest was to leave the matter open, it might never be resolved in the public mind.’

  ‘What if Mrs Garton poisoned him?’ suggested Herbert. ‘Have the police thought of that? Perhaps she put poison in his medicine and then blamed it on your father! Wives do murder their husbands, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Frances dryly, casting Herbert a pointed look, ‘I am sure they do.’ She paused, thoughtfully. ‘But if the Inspector is determined to find my father at fault then he will not be looking for other explanations of Mr Garton’s death. It is easy for us to form theories, of course, but we know almost nothing of the Gartons, their household and their circle, and only a very little of what happened on the night he died.’

  ‘That is true,’ admitted Herbert, ‘But there is nothing to be done about that. It’s not as if you can turn detective.’

  ‘I think,’ said Frances, with a sudden resolve, ‘that is exactly what I may have to do.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Having decided to become a detective, Frances soon realised that she had no idea of how to go about it. She was naturally anxious that detective work might lead her into areas inappropriate for both her sex and class, but with the reputation of the business at stake, decided that considerations of propriety might have to be cast aside. She knew that there were private detectives who advertised their services in the newspapers, but recoiled from the idea of entrusting family business to a stranger. Even had she been able to find a reliable, recommended man, her father, parsimonious to a fault, would never have sanctioned the considerable expense involved.

  At the breakfast table next morning she sat deep in thought, reviewing all that she knew about Percival Garton, mainly what had been learned from the local gossips, who had flooded into the shop on the previous after noon with rumours eagerly transmitted over their teacups. A wealthy man of independent means, and in his late forties, Garton had lived in Bayswater for more than nine years. Seized with violent convulsions at about midnight on Monday 12th January, he had expired an hour afterwards, in great agony. Garton had been born in Italy where his parents and sisters still resided, but his younger brother Cedric had been visiting Paris and was travelling to London to represent the family at the funeral. Frances took out her notebook and jotted down all the facts she knew. So engrossed was she that she quite forgot to take breakfast. A looming shadow at her side was Sarah, with a disapproving look, and Frances, feeling suddenly shrunk to the size of a nine year old, hastily helped herself to a boiled egg and bread and butter.

  Frances then turned to her father’s collection of books, relying principally on the British Pharmacopoeia, Squire’s Companion to the Pharmacopoeia and Taylor’s Manual of Medical Jurisprudence. She did not believe for one moment that her father could confuse the concentrated extract of nux vomica with the more liquid tincture, and the fact that Herbert had observed the making of the mixture put any error of that kind beyond possibility. Despite Inspector Sharrock’s insinuations, the extract had always been kept in the back stockroom, and to use this instead of the tincture would have been a deliberate act, not a moment of inattention to detail. Even if by some incomprehensible mischance, the extract had been used, one or two teaspoonfuls of the resulting mixture would still not have contained a fatal amount of strychnia, but Frances knew too well that people often took additional doses of medicine in the mistaken belief that if a teaspoonful did them good, then four would be four times as beneficial.

  The timing of the attack also interested her. The symptoms of poisoning by strychnia could be apparent within minutes of it being taken, but only if it was present in its pure form. When taken as tincture or extract, onset could sometimes be delayed by an hour or two. She would have to wait for the analyst’s report to confirm what, if anything, had been found in the medicine.

  Her thoughts led her into darker waters. If the medicine had been correct when it left the shop, then poison might have been introduced into it later. This could scarcely be an accidental act. Self destruction did not appear likely in a man of Garton’s obviously contented demeanour, and even if he had possessed some terrible secret which had led him to take his own life, he would surely have chosen something like Prussic acid rather than endure the long agonies of death by strychnia. Could it be possible that Percival Garton had been murdered? Wealthy men often had enemies, or friends and relatives jealous of their wealth. Supposing Garton had had an enemy who wished to poison him, someone closely enough acquainted with his habits to know that only he drank from the medicine bottle, someone whose presence in his house would not have been remarked upon, and who was therefore able to gain access to the bottle long enough to tamper with it. Frances realised that it was vital she follow the journey of the bottle from its leaving the shop to reaching Garton’s bedside; who handled it, who knew where it was located, where and for how long it might have been left unattended, where and when it was opened; and discover, if possible, how much of the mixture he had taken.

  A policeman or a real detective would have had no difficulty in finding the answers to these questions, but Frances knew that she was not in a position even to make enquiries. Still, she felt that by addressing the situation she had made some progress, and decided to start by questioning the one person she felt able to approach – Herbert. She joined him in the shop, and found him gloomily surveying the empty premises. Frances felt suddenly chilled with anxiety. Surely the loyal customers would have returned by now.

  ‘It was one of the maidservants who brought the prescription,’ said Herbert, in answer to her question. ‘She waited, and took it away with her. I don’t know her name, but it’s always the same one they send.’
r />   Frances nodded. ‘That would be Ada. She’s been with the family for many years, and has always struck me as very sensible. I shall have to speak to her.’ Frances knew Ada to be a simple, honest young woman who had held a touching respect for William Doughty ever since he had provided a remedy for some trifling but painful ailment. She would now prove to be a valuable connection with the Garton household.

  Herbert looked astonished. ‘Do you think any person from that house will agree to an interview? It would be highly irregular.’

  ‘I think Ada would be willing to talk to me, but I don’t know any of the other servants. I have been thinking – there are some important questions that need to be asked, and I was wondering if you would consider approaching them. You could say that you are from the newspapers.’

  Herbert gaped at her in undiluted horror. ‘That is quite impossible! I flatter myself that I am well known in this neighbourhood, and I would be recognised at once. Supposing the Pharmaceutical Society was to find out that I had done such a thing? My prospects would be quite gone, and the business damaged beyond repair.’

  Frances said nothing, but had to admit that Herbert was right. It was a ridiculous and dangerous idea. Despairingly she realised that the two people whom she would most have liked to interview were, in any case, utterly beyond her reach. It would have been highly improper to approach Mrs Garton, and Dr Collin would tell her no more than she could glean from the newspapers.

  After some further thought she composed a note to Ada and sought out Tom, the errand boy, to deliver it. Tom had worked for the Doughtys for three months but in that time had made himself entirely at home. His predecessor in the post had ended a brief and undistinguished career by being arrested for thieving, and Frances had scarcely formed the resolution to find a replacement, when Tom appeared, looking as if he had been born to the job. A small boy in that indeterminate period of life between nine and eleven, he resembled Sarah sufficiently to make it obvious that he was a member of her family, though in what way he was related to her the Doughtys had never liked to enquire. They were aware that Sarah came from a substantial brood, a family whose tendrils spread across most of the East End, and found it convenient to assume that he was a nephew. Tom shared Sarah’s room and made himself generally useful at little cost, since he seemed to be able to feed himself more than adequately by scavenging. Mindful of his need to appear clean and neat in the service of a chemist, Sarah would every so often seize him by his collar, dunk him to his shoulders in a tub of water, and scrub him till his face glowed brightly enough to put Messrs Bryant and May out of business, a process that always elicited some unusual verbal expressions which Frances found both amusing and educational.